Case Study: Sub-9 Ironman on low-volume, high-quality training with Carl Brümmer | EP#145

​Case Study: Sub-9 Ironman on low-volume, high-quality training with Carl Brümmer | EP#145

In this Episode you'll learn about:

Sponsored by:

Shownotes

About Carl Brümmer

Carl's background

• I've got a wife and two daughters. We have been married for 25 years next year. 
• I work as a consultant and have my own business. I work with people, team development and organisational culture to help individuals and teams to perform better. 
• I'm 50 in a couple of weeks.
• I got into triathlon in the beginning of the 80's. 
• I grew up in a little fishing village in Southern Sweden - it has a little harbour and 50 houses. 
• One of the dads had heard of Ironman Hawaii, and he came up with the idea that we should make our own triathlon in the village - a micro Ironman. 
  • We got together and ran around the village, biked to the next village and back and then jumped in the harbour and swam around it.
  • This was in about 1983. 
  • The swim was around 200m, the run was 3-4km and the bike was around 8km.
• I enjoyed it! We did it once every summer.
• In the late 80's, a couple of other guys came with fancy bikes, and when I beat them they asked if I wanted to join them as they were starting a triathlon club.
• I started more structured training then. 
• My sports background is more boy scouts and wind surfing oriented before that.
• I stayed with shorter triathlon distances during the 90's. I raced the Olympic distance primarily. 
• In 1997 we became parents, so my last race in part 1 of my triathlon career was August 1997.
  • I did the Swedish championships at the Olympic distance and finished 6th in the elite category. 
  • The year before I was 6th in the Swedish Cup in the elite category.  
• To be honest I don't know how much I was training at this time. 
  • We had pool sessions twice a week.
  • We'd go for a longer bike ride at the weekends and maybe run twice a week. 
• My Olympic distance time was about 2 hours. 
• I then quit triathlon - I decided I couldn't handle being a parent, having a career and trying to develop myself as a triathlete. 
• I got back into triathlon when I turned 40 in 2008.
  • My wife gave me a slot for Ironman Kalmar because she knew I nurtured the dream of completing the Ironman distance. 
  • The slot was for 2009 so I got my bike out and started training again. 
• When I put the bike on the trainer, I had become so stiff I couldn't reach the handlebars. 
  • I had to mount Cinelli pins on top of the ordinary handlebars to be able to hold onto something when I started riding again! 
• After a couple of weeks I could reach the handlebars, and after about two months I could reach the aerobars. 
• Then I got a slipped disc! 
• I had retained a healthy lifestyle during my break, and my brother and I had done some trial runs together, but no structured training. 
  • We completed a famous cross country skiing race (Vasaloppet) as well. 
• I didn't train for several months after quitting, but had stress from other sources such as work and fatherhood. 
• Ironman Kalmar went well - I remember several times during the race I was asking myself 'why am I doing this, and how am I supposed to finish?'
  • I had never done a marathon before, let alone after biking 180km as a warm up. 
• Afterwards I understood it was a good finish time for a first timer - 9:38. 
• After finishing, instead of asking myself 'how can I finish it', I started asking myself 'how fast can I finish this'.
• Then I started to raise my goals. 

Triathlon highlights 

2018 triathlon target

• Since I'm turning 50, I was looking for something inspiring to aim for. 
• I came up with the 'Podium Tour' as I call it. 
• I don't want to focus on one race because things can go wrong, so this year I came up with 5 championships I wanted to race:
  • Ironman South Africa in April.
  • The European Championships in Elsinore.
  • ITU Long Distance World Championships.
  • Ironman 70.3 Word Championships in South Africa
  • Kona 2018. 
• The results so far have been really good. 
  • I managed to win my age group in South Africa with a good margin, and broke the course record for my age group. 
  • I won my age group in Elsinore.
  • At the ITU Long Distance Champs I had a bad day but a good performance - I was very happy and finished 2nd. 
    
    • I'm satisfied that I pushed through because I didn't feel strong that day. 

Carl's training approach

• I've never been a big volume guy when it comes to training. 
  • I believe more in being consistent and having a clear purpose for every session.
• When I did Roth in 2016, I averaged between 6-8 hours a week of training and I did 9:16. 
• Last year when I did a new PB in Kalmar, I trained between 8-10 hours a week.
• This year I've got a coach for the first time, to try and challenge my way of training and get some new inspiration.
  • We have decided to raise the volume a little so now I average 10-12 hours usually. 

Typical training week

22:01  - 

• The baseline is if I could do each discipline 3 times a week, that's good. 
• I need strength training 2-3 times a week.
• When life gets in the way, I have to adjust. 
  • I'm careful not to always select the same sessions to miss each week (e.g. if I miss a swim session one week I'll try and miss a different session the next week if needed).
• What we have added is long slow distance training.
  • Zone 2 trail runs or bike rides. 
• I have increased my swimming too. 
  • A long swim session for me up to November last year was 2.5-3km. 
  • I usually wanted to have one 4km swim before an Ironman to prove to myself I am capable of it. 
• Now I have much longer sessions - this week I have 3 swim sessions that are longer than 3km.
• Since I'm not young, the biggest success factor has been adding strength training. 
  • I do basic squats, deadlifts, leg press and core.
  • I do 4-6 reps and heavy weight. 
  • In the winter I could really see how my strength built up, which makes me a better runner and biker. 
• For swimming I have a coach who has been an Olympic swimmer for Sweden and is a SwimSmooth coach. 
  • She helped me develop into a swimmer for triathlon, not just a swimmer.
  • We do the Red Mist session, and she haunts us with our homework of doing the sessions on our own. 
  • This has built up my ability. 
  • I'm not getting faster but I can sustain the same speed.
• When I swam in South Africa in April I swam 54 or 55 minutes. 
  • I've done this before but the big difference was that I knew this was going to be fairly easy. 
  • I knew I would feel fresh when I got out of the water. 
• My swim sessions are usually technique, drills and hard Red Mist endurance sessions. 
  • This is the key for me, and I think it translates for many age groupers. 

• On the bike it's strength sessions during winter, and easy long sessions.
• I will never be a power biker, but to be able to sustain a solid effort during a race is my goal. 
  • The long, easy sessions would be 2-3 hours.
• As a race approaches, we add on race pace turbo sessions onto the long sessions. 
  • For example, 1-2 hours easy, then 4x20 minutes race pace.
• My weekend bike sessions would be better 2-4 hours.
• During the week it would be 20 minutes up to 90 minutes.
• For strength sessions on the bike I work with lower cadence.
  • I could go down to 40-60 rpm on a steady effort, just to push and hold the power. 
  • It's specific strength training on the bike.
  • Where I live I do it on the trainer because there are no sustained hills. 
  • It also helps me match the climate of a race. 
  • I also find it mentally good training.
• I get back to my podium tour mantra mentally when I'm on the trainer. 
  • I make sure I know why I'm doing the session in the long term. 
  • I also think about the why in the short term - the purpose of this particular training session. 
• You can tolerate sitting indoors on the trainer for hours when you know the reason you're doing it. 
  • I want to race in South Africa and have a good performance so I better sit here. 
• It sounds simple but it helps me a lot. 
• For the run each week I have at least one longer session. 
  • I try as often as possible to do this on trails. 
  • I have achilles problems so doing trails helps me avoid this returning. 
  • My long run would be up to 2 hours.
• One session would be intervals, or shorter with a bit of speed.
  • In winter I would do VO2max: e.g. 30 second intervals at 3:00-pace, or some at 2:50 pace. 
  • As the race season approaches the intensity would go down and the time would be prolonged - 3-5 minute intervals. 
  • These would be more threshold and sub-threshold - closer to race pace.
• One session is usually a brick session. 
  • I would do 20 minutes threshold biking, and then 10 minutes threshold running. I'd take a short break and do this 2-3 times. 
  • I would usually do this inside. 
• I try to join my coach Oscar at his indoor bike session once a week because I do 90% of my training alone. 

Why does low volume work for Carl? 

33:46 - 

Adaptations for age

General tips for age groupers

39:34 - 

• Keep it simple.
  • My schedule now is more advanced but that's because I've asked Oscar to do it who is an educated coach. 
  • When I was self-coached I kept it very simple.
    • E.g. 10x100m swim sessions starting at 1:30 or 1:40 was a great session. I'd do this 3 out of 4 sessions previously. 
• As an athlete, the marginal gains you get from very in depth scientific knowledge is lost if you can't transfer it into your training.
  • Try to keep it simple and remind yourself what the purpose for each session is. 
  • The three legged stool on which you base your training: scientific knowledge, coach's experience, athlete's experience.
• Consistency is key, and by keeping it simple it's easier to be consistent. 
• Find the balance between training, recovery and nutrition. 
  • Ask yourself 'am I aware of the balance?' 
  • You need to increase or decrease all three parts. 

Common mistakes age groupers make

43:49 - 

• Making things too complex. 
• There are some that think they have decided on their goal/objective, but they haven't made a true decision so they aren't prepared to make the choices that are needed to reach their goal.
  • They may have very inspiring and ambitious plans but they haven't thought it through in terms of time or effort. 
  • Then they get disappointed and lag behind. 
• It's better to have a plan over 8-10 hours a week and be able to pull it through, than to have 12-15 hours a week and always being behind.
  • This creates a mental stress.
  • I'd rather be on top or a little ahead of my training schedule. 
  • The amount of training is likely to be the same in both cases but the mental side will be very different. 
• If you have too many sessions planned you can't always know which will be missed, and the key sessions may then get missed. 
  • If you have a slightly lower volume you can be sure you'll make the key training sessions. 
• It would be great if I could inspire some of these athletes - I did 8:52 last year with a training volume of between 8-10 hours.
  • It's anecdotal but it proves that it is possible. 
• Look for your way of training, it doesn't always have to be 15 hour training weeks. 
  • I'm impressed because I don't know how people cope with this volume, at this age, with work and family on top. 
• You will improve if you're consistent over a long time period.

Time management tips

48:02 - 

• Get a good indoor trainer (Wahoo Kickr or something similar) because it makes it so easy to get in a good bike session. 
  • You can do a great session even in 20 minutes. 
• Be very clear, 'am I actually prepared or willing to choose to train to the level I have set?'
  • It means you have to choose not to do a lot of nice things (e.g. watch TV, spend more time with family). 
• Managing time is about being aware of what you choose to do and be content with those choices. 

Rapid fire questions

56:04 - 

• What is your favourite book, blog or resource related to triathlon?
  • Fad Free Management by Richard Hamermesh.
  • This has taught me a lot in terms of leading myself and others. 
• What is a personal habit that has helped you achieve success?
  • Power naps and protein! 
• What is a productivity or time management tip you could give?
  • Always have a swim, bike, run, weight lifting bag ready in your car. 

Links, resources and contact

Links and resources mentioned

• Carl's website