Jared Milam - Page 3

Ten Things to Check on Triathlon Race Weekend

Preparing for a single disciplined sport is challenging enough. In triathlon, you’re tasked with the daunting expectation to compete in three sports in one day. Consequently, this ups the ante on how much goes into the preparation for your triathlon race weekend. When it comes to the big events like IRONMAN, there are a lot of things to check and be prepared for the day before and the morning of triathlon race day. Here are the ten things to check on triathlon race weekend. 1. Weather The weather on race day is perhaps the most integral check in order to effectively prepare for your race. Temperature and wind conditions will and should heavily dictate your mental expectations. If it’s…

Jared Milam

3 Key Insights About the Triathlon Run

“To run is to be free,” said the hippie who had never done a triathlon. The third leg of any triathlon is often dreaded for succinct albeit legitimate reasons. This is the moment upon whence we fully grasp the notion that gravity is not a habit easily broken. For potentially hours you had been relying on either water or a bicycle to mitigate the weight of your own body, but now no longer. This moment allows for no breaststroke, no coasting, and no excuses. It’s you versus the road. This is why the triathlon run is not to be trifled with. It is not uncommon for one to experience a dramatic sense of mental fatigue and forsakenness upon entering T2.…

Run / Triathlon

Jared Milam

What's the Perfect Triathlon Racing Weight?

Throughout my years in triathlon I’ve heard a lot of athletes ask about a particular physiological subject of which I’ve never placed much stock in myself. A simple topic that we as a nation are obsessed with: body weight. Macca’s Story The general consensus among endurance athletes, many of which are triathletes, is that “the lighter I am, the faster I will go.” Chris McCormack (affectionately known at Macca) directly challenged this line of thinking in an article for Triathlete from June 2015. Chris began by noting, “I’d say 99 percent of people I talk to in this sport believe weight’s relationship to performance is as simple as ‘less is better.’ This is a half-truth – the weight puzzle…

Body Weight / Race Strategy / Training

Jared Milam

How to Train for a Triathlon During an Injury

If you’re a triathlete and you’ve never been injured – congratulations on being in the minority. For the rest of us, however, we’ve been down this frustrating path before. The worst situation to be in, of course, is waist deep in triathlon training for a very expensive race and that nagging injury-groundhog rears his head up to announce six more weeks of depression. You can crawl back down your hole and wallow in self-pity – or you can fight back. While this isn’t the rule of certainty, it often times is possible to train through an injury and still arrive on the other side ready for your triathlon. Here’s how: 1. Identify the Injury Triathlon training injuries come in…

Triathlon Training

Jared Milam

Why Technical Cycling Matters in Triathlon - Part II

In my last post, I introduced why technical cycling matters to triathletes. The first reason I gave was that bike proficiency parallels power/speed consistency and greater overall energy conservation. The second reason, however, is even more important. And that’s because experience in technical riding makes you a safer athlete. Safety First Yes, it’s true that Tour Riders are daredevils. They burn down mountains and zip around cut-throat turns in ways us mere mortals would never dream of – mostly because it’d be a nightmare. And while we do witness some pretty horrific crashes from time to time amidst the pro circuit, that’s usually only due to the fact these guys are in such close proximity to each other. The…

Bike / Triathlon Training

Jared Milam

Why Technical Cycling Matters in Triathlon – Part I

As triathletes, we prefer long, flat straightaways. That’s what our bikes were made for after all. Unfortunately, the real world isn’t always as conducive to how we’d prefer to ride. There are a multitude of race courses out there in the triathlon wilderness amok with sharp turns and wild descents. If you don’t know how to handle them you’ll be hindering your overall race performance and, even worse, potentially putting yourself in harm’s way. Technical cycling matters in triathlon and here’s why: AP = NP The less technical your cycling is, the harder it’s going to be to keep pace. For any event lasting over an hour (which last time I checked is virtually every triathlon in existence), it’s crucial…

Bike / Triathlon Technique / Triathlon Training

Jared Milam

Why a Nutrition Plan for a Half IRONMAN Triathlon Can’t Just be Doubled for the Full

Allow me to take the opportunity to spoil the plot of this article from the very beginning. Your nutrition plan for a full iron distance triathlon will be less than double what it would be for the half. There, you can leave now. However, for the inquisitive at heart let me digress as to why this is the case. Disclaimer: I will only be focusing on calorie consumption (and to a lesser degree carbohydrates) in discussing this topic. Your “triathlon nutrition plan” is a term painted by a broad brush. Glucose, liquid intake, sodium intake, protein, and so on could all have articles devoted to each topic separately. So for the sake of simplicity we will only concentrate on pure…

Nutrition / Triathlon / Triathlon Training

Jared Milam

3 Key Benefits of “Smart” Bike Trainers

Nowadays it seems everyone has a “smart” something. From smart phones to smart TVs to now even smart cars, our world is becoming all the more tech savvy as time goes on. Naturally, the triathlon and cycling nations have taken a privy to this smart revolution. And smart bike trainers are increasingly becoming all the rage. But what benefits can a smart bike trainer provide over the traditional trainer? 1. Playing with Power One of the more obvious reasons smart bike trainers have an advantage is the fact that they provide a power meter within—even if your bike doesn’t have one. And not only that, the higher end smart trainers output real power, not simulated numbers. Therefore, if you…

Bike / Triathlon Training

Jared Milam

The Top 3 Distractions in Triathlon Training

If there’s ever been a time to be distracted it’s here and now in the 21st century. Between smart phones, Twitter, and Netflix, our senses have been bombarded more than the dinosaurs in an asteroid shower. But even if you can manage enough focus to start your triathlon training, there are still distractions aplenty dedicated to veering you off course. These are the top 3 distractions in triathlon training to avoid. 1. Your Pace Typically pace is a positive thing, but every so often it can turn its back on you. In this case I’m using the term loosely. Here pace can mean average speed, minutes per mile, minutes per 100 yards, or power in watts. Now don’t get…

Race Strategy / Triathlon Training

Jared Milam

3 Key Points to Remember About Triathlon Swim Technique

I often relate swimming to the sport of tennis. To be truly great at tennis, it requires an elegant combination of incredible fitness and superior technique. However, one of these elements has much more value than the other. Guess which one? I’ll describe a tennis analogy to help explain why technique takes precedence. Say I had a one-on-one match with John McEnroe later today. If the match were to be decided by the more physically fit competitor, I would win hands down. I could run up and down the court all over bad boy McEnroe. He’s 57 years old, retired, and out of shape. I, on the other hand, am in my prime. But who do you think is going…

Swim / Triathlon Technique / Triathlon Training

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