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MY PERSPECTIVE—BY MIKE PIGG
Mike Pigg dominated the short-course triathlon scene from the late eighties to the mid nineties, with an astonishing thirty wins in the USA Triathlon Series. Considered one of the hardest-working athletes in the sport, Pigg’s multisport racing career lasted for a productive seventeen years. Now retired, he is a real estate broker and lives in Northern California with his wife and twins. Still physically active, Mike is the race director for Tri Kids, a triathlon designed for children ages seven to eighteen.
Train slower to go faster? Is this guy a crazy or what? Phil Maffetone is not crazy, and I feel very fortunate to have met him when I did. I have been a professional triathlete since 1984. When I started my career, I just picked up a triathlon magazine to see what the top pros were doing and then tried to emulate them. The one guy who was a star at the time was Scott Molina. He was doing mega miles in all three sports, plus doing speed workouts for each of the disciplines as if he was just a runner, cyclist, or swimmer only. It looked like a good way to be the best, especially if you had the time to just eat, sleep, swim, bike, and run. Things went well for me during the first three years. In 1988, I was able to work my way up to the top rank. I thought I was invincible. That is when the bumpy road started. I had no control over my progression. I was also starting to lose my love for the sport. It got so bad that I was about to quit and move on. The training became too hard and my results weren’t there to justify the pain. That’s about the time I ran into Phil.
We sat down and had a long talk. At first it was hard for me to swallow what Phil had to say. What helped me is that I had spent a lot of time training with Mark Allen. What I learned from Mark is that during long bike rides his heart rate was always lower than mine by ten to fifteen beats. During our long rides together, our pace would be even for the first sixty-five miles; then I would start a slow death out on the windy plains of Boulder, Colorado. I was like the hummingbird that needed fuel all the time, and Mark was like a steam engine with an always-ready supply of coals for the fire. He could cruise for hours and hours. Also, I was impressed by how consistent Mark’s triathlon career was, with very few flaws year after year. The topper of it all was that Mark had been following Phil’s plan for many years.
So I listened to Phil with both ears wide open. After our conversation, Phil gave me one of his books. It was an easy-reading book that had a lot of common sense about how to train and eat properly.
On the nutritional side, I began to reach for whole foods rather than processed ones, especially refined carbohydrates. I increased my protein intake by including more meat and eggs. I seriously took stock of my carbohydrate intake, relying mainly on fruit, fresh or steamed vegetables, and small amounts of whole grains. I also increased my consumption of healthy fats by adding more avocados, butter, nuts, and seeds to my diet. My increased fat and protein intake gave me much more energy.
On the training front, I decided to follow Phil’s advice on heart-rate monitoring, using the “180 Formula.” It took some time to see the results kick into gear, but once they did, I became a firm believer in his aerobic heart rate training program.
The training seemed slow at first at my designated heart rate of 155. There were times when I had to walk up hills during the run and zigzag on steep bike sections just to stay in my aerobic range. In a little time, however, things started to change and I became stronger at the same heart rate, which became quite exciting. After five months of loyal, consistent training, I saw that the program was working.
Before going on Phil’s program, I would sometimes ride to my parents’ summer place, which was sixty-five miles away and involved three good climbs. My previous record was set with a good friend of mine. We had this total grudge match all the way to find out who was king of the bike. He would attack on the hills, and I was holding a heart rate between 165 and 182 to establish a record of three hours and fifteen minutes. When we arrived at the cabin, I achieved a total bonk. The best I could do for the rest of the day was eat, sleep, and eat some more, and even that was difficult. Three years later and five months on the aerobic program, I attempted the same course again—this time solo and never going above 155 even on the long climb. The results were interesting—I went 3:09 and felt good enough to go for a ten mile run straight after. Slowly, I was becoming convinced that the theory was working.
My other story comes from the first race of the season while following Phil’s plan. It is amazing how I was seeing good aerobic results in my workouts, but I still had doubts about my performance level. You see, I still needed my hammer sessions to build my self-confidence that I was ready to race at a professional level. The season opener was in Australia at the Surfers Paradise International Triathlon. My confidence was so low that I didn’t even want to get on the plane. But a swift kick from my wife Marci and I was off. The whole week prior to the race, I was fighting with myself, saying that I wasn’t going to do well because of a lack of speed training. Finally, I told myself to shut up and go have a good time. To my surprise I did have a good time, and I won. For some reason the speed and endurance were definitely there. As a bonus, I was able to beat Mark Allen at his own game.
This win marked the start of my total love affair with triathlon—and with staying healthy at the same time. Dr. Maffetone’s guidelines are easy. All you need is a heart-rate monitor to listen to your ticker and a little patience. And yes, you can do it just by slowing down and letting your body catch up with your mind.
This doesn’t mean that endurance athletes can’t train anaerobically, performing faster workouts, such as intervals and fartlek. (Fartlek is a Swedish word meaning “speed play.” It’s similar to a race simulation, where the athlete speeds up and slows down as he or she intuitively feels the body working hard, then needing a brief rest of slower activity. This allows your brain to participate in the workout, so to speak, feeling your body’s response to the workout and knowing when to ease up.) But this approach to developing speed is not a priority. Instead, developing aerobic speed, where an athlete can run much faster with the same effort compared to weeks and months earlier, is an important priority. This not only provides significant speed during training and racing, but it’s accomplished with much less stress, so the risk of injury and overtraining is greatly reduced.
Despite this, many endurance athletes expend significant time and energy on intensely hard anaerobic workouts, often neglecting or impairing the aerobic system in the process. This is counterproductive. In a one-hour event, 98 percent of your endurance energy is derived from the aerobic system; in a two-hour event, 99 percent is. Does it make sense to spend so many hours a week on anaerobic work when 99 percent of your race energy comes from the aerobic system? Instead, it’s best to first derive your endurance speed from aerobic training, then, as time and energy permits, to add anaerobic training.
