As the competitive season hits its stride and you find yourself prepping for races rather than another training session, it’s important to remember that success in off-road triathlons isn’t completely about fitness. You’ve got to have the skills to pay the bills, and the competitor who produces the most power at lactate threshold doesn’t always reach the finish line first. In off-road triathlons, dexterity, skill, balance, and experience combine with fitness and endurance to produce a much different set of challenges than you experience during a classic road triathlon. It’s often the competitors who run and ride smarter races that end up standing on the podium.
Fortunately for you, you can still learn how to race intelligently and limit wasted time and effort. And the biggest gains in your racing IQ come from the skills you can develop for the mountain bike leg. Take some time to practice the following tips and then execute them on the mountain-bike leg of the race. Done right, these small tips could shave minutes off your bike split time and deliver you to the run with fresher legs.
Don’t kill the momentum.Use the brakes sparingly and efficiently in order to maintain your forward motion. Control your speed into turns rather than pedaling hard right up to them and then braking hard. You want to conserve as much of your momentum as possible, but when you brake hard into a turn you often come to something close to a complete stop. This means you’ll have to use a tremendous amount of power to get back up to speed as you exit. And try to keep your wheels rolling through the turn; power-sliding is not only bad for the trail, but it burns off more speed than you think.
Pick a quick line.There are usually more tight turns during the bike section of an off-road race than your typical road triathlon. Poor lines are slow lines, and seconds add up to several minutes when you make bad choices on a technical course. For downhill switchbacks, you’ll want to enter the turn wide, cut to inside of the turn at its apex, and exit wide. On uphill switchbacks, start wide and steer your front wheel through the outside of the turn. And on bends that are 90-degrees or shallower, keep a light grip on the brakes and be nimble over the bike; you’ll be surprised how much speed you can carry through these turns.
Increase your cadence.Because of our focus on three disciplines, triathletes have a limited capacity for power production on the bike. The power available can be produced in two ways: through pedaling at high cadence and low resistance, or in low cadence and high resistance. High-resistance pedaling means that your body recruits more fast-twitch muscle fibers to do the work. You generate a lot of power, but these muscle fibers fatigue quickly. As endurance athletes, you mostly rely on slow-twitch muscle fibers that can fire repetitively and nonstop for hours, but only at lower resistance levels that come from pedaling at a higher cadences (90–100 rpm). By pedaling faster you’re actually holding the fast-twitch muscle fibers — necessary for explosive power — in reserve for use on steep hills, fast transitions, and the sprint to the finish.
Practice your balancing act.Keeping the rubber side down seems to be a fairly easy and obvious way to improve your bike split time, but the gnarly trails featured in some off-road triathlons make it easier said than done. Improving your balance on the bike is a function of being comfortable moving around the cockpit of your bike. Sliding up to the nose of the saddle and putting your weight over the handlebars (great for steep climbing), sliding off the back of the saddle to keep your weight back on descents, and leaning the bike to the right or the left while keeping your body vertical are all skills that you’ll need to maneuver your bike while out on a technical race course. To practice, simply go to a grassy field and ride around at super slow speeds, holding a line through a turn, and eventually riding in a tight circle as slow as you possibly can to mimic a narrow switchback turn. The slower you can ride without falling, the better your bike balance and the faster you can ride over rough terrain.
Get on a road bike.Technique on the mountain bike is a huge component in maintaining speed during an off-road triathlon, but you still have to be a strong rider. Due to the very nature of mountain biking with its uneven terrain, it’s hard to produce the long and steady efforts necessary to boost your aerobic capacity. For that, it’s best to hop on your road bike when your training schedule calls for intervals lasting several minutes or more.
Nick White is a Pro Coach for Carmichael Training Systems, Inc. (CTS). He coaches Ironman 70.3 World Champion Craig Alexander and he’s an experienced on- and off-road triathlete himself.
Disclaimer:The scientific information found on the powerbar.com website is derived from the following sources unless otherwise stated:
American College of Sports Medicine, Sawka MN, Burke LM, Eichner ER, Maughan RJ, Montain SJ, Stachenfeld NS. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Exercise and fluid replacement. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2007;39:377–390.
American College of Sports Medicine; American Dietetic Association; Dietitians of Canada. Joint Position Statement: nutrition and athletic performance. American College of Sports Medicine, American Dietetic Association, and Dietitians of Canada. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2000;32:2130–2145.
Burke L, Dean V, eds. Clinical sports nutrition. McGraw-Hill Companies, Australia, 2006; 415–453.
Currell K, Jeukendrup A. Superior endurance performance with ingestion of multiple transportable carbohydrates. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2008;40:275-281.
Jeukendrup AE, Moseley L, Mainwaring GI, Samuels S, Perry S, Mann. CH. Exogenous carbohydrate oxidation during ultraendurance exercise. J Appl Physiol 2006;100:1134-1141.
Asker Jeukendrup, Michael Gleeson: Sport Nutrition, An Introduction to Energy Production and Performance, Human Kinetics 2004
Expert Panel:Trent Stellingwerff PhD, BSc, Senior Research Scientist – Performance Nutrition, Nestlé Research Center
Christopher D. Jensen PhD, MPH, RD Nutrition & Epidemiology Researcher
Tricia L. Griffin RD, CSSD, POWERBAR Sports Nutritionist