Free Speed

Grant Hackett, above, probably the fastest freestyle swimmer in the world. Grant swims 1500m in well under 15 minutes, using flawless technique.

There are a number of ways you can go faster without expending any extra effort. It’s all about efficiency, and efficiency is one of the reasons you can get faster (relative to your age group) despite getting older. Spend enough time doing something, with a focus on doing it better, and you will develop efficiency. Efficiency translates into Free Speed.

I’m going to address efficiency with regard to a principle common to all three triathlon sports: Turnover. In swimming, strokes per length. In cycling, pedal RPM/cadence. In running, foot strikes/turnover. High turnover is a bad thing in swimming, but a good thing in cycling and running.

Swim

"Technique sets the upper limit to where your fitness will take you." Haydn Woolley, swim coach.

The key to swim efficiency is to get the most out of each stroke. This is very easy to quantify in the pool: Simply count the number of strokes it takes to go a full length. For a 25m pool, a good stroke count is 16-18, while top swimmers can do the distance in as little as 12 strokes. The beauty of stroke counting, is that you are actually doing less to achieve a low count, in other words, you maximize glide. This reduces your stroke rate, and allows you to swim fast but conserve energy.

I use the warmup at the beginning of each swim session to establish my goal stroke count. If it is consistently at 17-18 per 25m, then I know my technique is clean, and I am ready to proceed with speed work. You can’t paste speed onto poor technique. That’s the point of Haydn’s quote above.

Bike

"The shortest distance between two points is a whole bunch of round circles." Marla Streb, downhill dirt diva.

Marla is referring to spinning the pedals. Efficient cyclists (“spinners”) transfer power evenly throughout the revolution of the pedal stroke, at an ideal cadence of around 90 RPM or better. A fast cadence allows you to carry momentum better, and is less fatiguing to the legs. This is especially important when you have a marathon to run after riding 112 miles. Riders who stomp the pedals at a low cadence, (“Mashers”), are typically only transferring power during the downstroke of every revolution.

For proof of this, look no further than the last seven Tours de France, when Lance the spinner, renowned for his high cadence, won them all; while Jan the masher finished no better than second.

Another way to get free speed on the bike, is to lay off the brakes on the downhills. Chances are that you did some climbing to get to that downhill, so you need to make up the time lost. Tuck in and enjoy the leg rest. Crashing at 40km/h hurts just as much as at 70km/h, but with any luck, at 70 clicks you will get knocked unconscious and miss the whole thing.

Run

"Learn to run without the brakes on!" Joe Friel, triathlon coach/author.

Many people falsely believe that running with a long stride makes you faster. While it’s true that you are covering more ground with every stride, it is inefficient in terms of energy expenditure. The main reason is long strides result in heel striking, which is effectively the same as breaking your momentum with each foot plant. Your center of mass is behind your lead foot, with your foot going forward at the point of impact.

The most efficient runners have a short stride but high turnover. It has been proven that this style of running causes less fatigue to the legs, due to reduced dynamic loading. A couple of current running styles introduce posture to the equation, using a slight lean forward to promote better propulsion and keep from overstriding. The Pose Method and the Natural Posture Running are examples.

Learning to run downhill is also a good way to enjoy some free speed. The proper stance for running down a hill is to be perpendicular to the slope of the hill. Most runners lean away from the hill, effectively heel-striking all the way down.

Efficency: It doesn't matter how old or young you are; it helps you go faster, while using less energy. Energy you can use, to celebrate your Ironman finish!