Marc Evans 1-to-1 Camp

Sunday, I (martin)spend 4 hours with a professional triathlon coach Marc Evans (check out his two book here & here). It was a quite eye-opening experience. During these sessions Marc goes through your flexibility, core strength, running technique, bicycle setting, peddling technique, and swimming technique. All of which gets recorded on tape prior and after his technique adjustments (in my case it was very painful to watch :-) ).

The session started good, he checked my flexibility, which was without any problems, and we moved on. Core strength was surprisingly very good and again we moved on. (Note, every time we moved on it saved me about $100 ;-) )

Running - my weakest discipline. The biggest surprise. Marc discovered that together with my overall flat feet my left food collapses inward with every step, which creates additional stress on my knees and pelvis. After viewing a video of my run I could see my pelvis and shoulders tilting to left side. Marc recommended getting an orthopedic evaluation and inserts for my shoes to avoid any future injuries and further deterioration of my posture. It turns out that this mechanical disorder was the main cause of my knee injury one month after I started running and it causes the shin splints pain in my left leg after every longer run I do. Other than that my stride is a problem. I run with approx. 65 steps per minute compared with 90-95, which is optimal. Marc showed me a series of exercises to do with every run to improve it. With higher stride I feel that my running is smoother and I don’t waist lot of energy going up and down. The trade off is higher HR. Will see how quickly I can adjust to it.

Bicycle. Since I’ve purchased my bicycle I did not feel comfortable on it. I had to replace my seat and I spend lot of time playing with seat post and handlebars to improve it. Needless to say I had very little success. Marc spent some time running around me with different measuring gadgets while looking on computer showing the torque powers of my peddling. The result was adjustments to my seat post (1-2 in up), handlebars (2in lower), and few minor changes to my aerobars. Seems to work as I feel more comfortable and the torque powers improved. Cadence was also a focus of the session. I’m comfortable in around 85 rpm, when I should really be around 95-100 rpm. Marc showed some exercises to work on it and create the necessary muscle memory.

Swimming. We went to a flume (how fun is that !!) where Marc made a video of my technique. Per Marc I don’t really need to concentrate on swimming (I would hope so after years of competitive swimming :-) ) and we moved on.

Last hour and half we spent talking about nutrition, training, periodisation, intensity zones, and all the other stuff. We did not talk about specific training plan since that would different session and different fee :-). When I sort all of the information in my head I’ll blog little bit more. For now, I have couple sentences in my memory – base building, base building, base building, and one more base building. Also, “technique before intensity”; "higher frequency and lower intesity for base building"; perceived exhaustion is better indicator of intensity zones than HR, and the most important “always have fun with it”.

I’ll definitely return to Marc after another 4-6 months to make additional correction to my technique and sing up for his training program. Right now, I have plenty of stuff to work on, loose more weight, and build more base.

--Martin