For many of us, the commitment necessary to train for and race Ironman events is not easy to sustain year after year; however, rather than quit the sport when life forces you to, at least temporarily, curtail your long-distance training, you can shift your focus to a rewarding short-course season and give your body and mind a break from going long. Or, if you still have the hunger for competition after your season’s long-course race, it is possible to switch gears to short course in a matter of weeks and translate your endurance into speed.

Make a mental shift
If you are a hard-core Ironman junkie, you might view shorter races as a step backward, and you may have difficulty getting motivated and finding your edge. But take heart -- there is life after the Ironman.

Both types of training and racing are equally challenging if you are striving to maximize personal performance -- and the mental toughness developed through Ironman training will help you in your preparation for short course. To increase your motivation, set goals for yourself. These could be as simple as “Complete three Olympic-distance races this season” or as specific as “Drop two minutes from my 10km run split.”

Changing gears
If you plan to tack a few short-course races on to the end of your long-course season, be sure that you take a minimum of two weeks’ active rest immediately following your last Ironman of the year. Depending on your fitness, ability to recover and effort level on race day, you might need eight to 10 weeks to fully recuperate. Regardless, avoid any type of athletic competition within four weeks of receiving your Ironman finisher’s medal. Your body will need this time to heal, and racing during this period will only add stress that could lead to injury or mental burnout.

Ideally, you should plan to start racing again no sooner than six to eight weeks after your Ironman, with a peak effort planned for three to six months later. This will allow enough time to add some speed to your long-course foundation and will give you focus through the winter months and early season of 2004.

Rapid response
When you do begin your short-course training in earnest, you will likely have to change the focus of your workouts from longer, endurance-oriented sessions to shorter precision strikes that develop speed.

Many athletes do little high-intensity work while training for an Ironman, as these sessions interfere with the time needed for long, slow miles. Speed work, by contrast, will be the key component of your post-Ironman training.

Begin by slowly rebuilding your volume to approximately 50 percent of your Ironman peak volume over a period of six to eight weeks. At this point, your focus should shift to increasing the amount of work you perform at or just below your lactic threshold -- an intensity level often referred to as pace or tempo work. Your workouts in this period emphasize speed and intervals; that is, the ability to repeat high-speed efforts on little recovery.

As you move into the peak period, during which you begin your final preparation for a specific short-course race, you should reduce your weekly training volume and increase the intensity of your workouts. Many of the workouts should be race-specific, i.e. reflect the same demands you will experience in your race. Workouts in the peak period are either speed work, at 90 percent or higher of race pace, or easy recovery sessions.

During this intense peak phase you should avoid excessive trips to the gym to lift weights. Speed work creates muscle-tissue damage, and weights can inhibit recovery. If you do continue to go to the gym, lift only once or twice a week -- and just to maintain. You should not be trying to make strength gains at this time.

Quick-change artist
A typical short-course brick workout (doing two disciplines back to back in one workout) consists of 10-15 minutes of riding at an 80- to 90-percent effort followed by five to 10 minutes of hard running. Complete this ride-run brick two to four times, taking about 10 minutes of active rest in between each set.

Developing quick leg speed off the bike is critical, and in shorter races transitions take on added significance. Brick workouts allow you to practice quick transitions, but specific transition workouts --where you practice going from the swim to the bike and the bike to the run, repeatedly -- are important leading into races and should feature regularly in your training.