Back to work

A lot of people have been asking how training is going. Here is a quick look into how I structure my season and how I will prepare for the Olympics next summer.

First, I took a long needed break from pentathlon. In the last two years, I have taken less than two weeks off. While I love to train and find practice and competition fun and rewarding, eventually it takes a toll on your mind and body. After finding out that I would not go to Beijing for the World Cup Final, I immediately put up my equipment and started my first real break of this Olympic cycle.

The term "break" can be a bit misleading though. During my break, my coaches had me stay in shape with biking and strength training. While it is important to get away from your sport during a break, it is also important to not let yourself get too out of shape.

So faced with the choice of sitting around playing on Niul's X-Box or doing something productive, I decided to go with the more responsible rout. A realtor approached me with a great deal on a fixer upper house and my dad teamed up to buy it. That gave me something to do with my time that was both productive and rewarding. I hired a couple of my teammates to come over and help and we knocked out a complete rehab of a 1700 sqft house within 3 weeks.

So now it's back to work to get ready for the World Cup season. Though still 5 months out, training starts now to be ready for those competitions. To begin, I am doing a lot of work on technique. For instance, today Alan and Genadijus (both of whom have PhDs in sports science) will be working with me in the pool. We are using cameras and some high tech testing devices to find out where I am losing speed in the water due to increased drag or decreased power. We have a 60 inch TV set up on the side of the pool so that I can immediately see the test results, watch my stroke, and make instantaneous corrections. This is a bit of an iterative process as we work to determine the optimal body position and stroke for my swimming. The reason you do this at the beginning of the season is that I have a few hundred thousands strokes between now and the Olympics so any change will feel natural by next summer. We think we can shave a couple seconds off my 200 time without much effort by doing this sort of high tech feedback.

I am starting up running also. Last season I was plagued with a strained abdominal muscle for most of the season. Through some outstanding medical care by Dr. Gary Wood and some cross training, we think that this problem will be a distant memory shortly. Taking a break has helped, but we wont know how effective the treatment has been until I get back into running. Alan Arata will probably also work on my running stride technique using video analysis on a treadmill to determine how efficient my stride is. Again, you make your changes early so that by the time of the competition it seems very natural.

Shooting will start up next week. I was finally able to procure a computerized training aid that I can use at my house to supplement my training. This program gives immediate feedback to how much pressure is on the trigger, how much the gun moves, and how steady the gun is at the point the shot breaks. All this information is displayed in real time on my laptop and helps identify problems and train correct habits.

The Egyptian pentathlon team will arrive on Monday and I expect we will have great fencing with them. Also, the New York Athletic Club recently extended me an invitation to join their team which gives me access to some of the best fencers in the country. My coaches want me to do a lot of fencing this fall when my run/swim volumes are low so that I can lay off a bit later on.

And that leaves riding. I intend to head out to Michael Cintas' place in California for an elite riding clinic in December. I have discovered that it is better for me to train riding in spurts, riding twice a day for about a week, then to train once or twice a week. I will probably visit Michael's place a couple times a year to make sure that my riding is set for Beijing next year.

So that is what my training looks like. Sorry for those of you who have been checking for an update on my blog. I'll try to do a little better now that I am back into a training regiment.