Danielle Santucci - 2017 Season - Elite EN
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Age Group, Height and Weight. |
F40-44, 5'9, 135lbs |
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140.6 Best Time in Last Five Years |
11:30:43 Ironman Louisville 2015 |
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70.3 Best Time in Last Five Years |
5:20:19 Raleigh 2014 |
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Oly Best Time in Last Five Years |
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26.2 Best Time in Last Five Years |
4:00 Shamrock Marathon 2012 |
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13.1 Best Time in Last Five Years |
1:46 Loudoun County Half 2015 |
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Your Strongest Discipline * |
Bike |
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Your Weakest Discipline * |
Run |
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Your Weakest Discipline: Tell Us More... * |
Everytime I begin to get stronger and faster, I end up with an injury that sets me back and I have to build again. Its a bit of a paradox because of all the disciplines I love running the most. |
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Your Injury / Difficulty History * |
All running injuries. Seems like Ive had them all…planter, achilles, foot stress fractures and most recently a femur stress fracture. So frustrating! |
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Top Three Lessons Learned in your triathlon career. * |
The three things that have been successful for me are 1. consistency (not going hard all the time but staying at it), 2. diet(sugar and processed foods are not an option for me if I want to compete) and 3. yoga(Im starting to realize the older I get the strength, flexibility and recovery of my 20s is no longer. Yoga addresses all of these weaknesses). What doesn't work for me is pushing too hard too early. Im also not very good at listening to my body and taking the days of rest that I need when its needed. |
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Your Top Three Races / Events this Season (with dates): |
IM PR70.3 March 19, 2017 |
Comments
Wow, it was great talking with you last week; thanks for being so patient with my timeframe here...I wanted to get this right!
So here are my high-level takeaways:
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Training Specifics:Be more confident in your performance. You are fit, and bad ass and in charge. There is no freaking out or worry on race day due to issues. They are things to be solved so you can get back to your primary mission of kicking ass. I humble suggest you identify your inner bad ass self and give her a name. I look forward to seeing her race.
Stay healthy longer, especially on the run. It's your limiter on race day, but your body has said "more isn't the answer." That doesn't mean there isn't an answer, just that the most obvious solution won't work in your case. So we adjust.
Jack of all trades, but master of none. It's a great place to be as a triathlete, baseline wise. But I'd like you to challenge yourself in a discipline. I recommend the bike for 2017...let's take it and own it and make it your secret weapon. Good but not great only gets you so far; the outcome of your journey depends on you being great...and knowing you are great.
- The Run: Here is where we need to get creative. I know you are already running 30mpw right now vs last year's 22mpw avg; that's okay with 70.3® PR looming. But we'll need to be cautious once through race day as those miles will start to add up quickly if we aren't careful. I'd like to get a bit creative with your training in two specific ways.
- Strength Run Sets to Replace "a" Run: The should be done at the gym, once per week. You can do it on the Stairmaster, or actual steps...the point is it's more strength than cardio...I want bigger steps / lower cadence....to be safe, call it 50% of your normal running turn over. So if you run at 180 per minute, or 90 per leg, then here on the SM you'll be doing 90 (aka 45).
- Time at Race Pace: I know that goal time is sub-4, let's call it 8:46/mile. I want to get you to spend time each week running at that pace. Not your long run in it's entirety, but a % of that run. I just want you to get used to that split on your watch. I think the easiest way to do this is to make your warm up be 1 mile easy, and then 1 mile at 8:46 pace...and then you can go on with the rest of your workout. My current math tells me this will be 5 miles a week, or 15% of your total run time...not too shabby. Every two weeks we can bump this up by 1/4 mile until 5/1...and we can revisit. So that is:
Future Questions:These should be done as 10' warm up of walk + jog on Tmill (or short run outside), then the workout. Do 1' of big steps, with 30" of recovery...we'll do 10 repeats for 10 x 1' (30"). Each week in your six weeks after IMPR, you should increase the interval repeat time by 15"...so week 2 = 1:15 (37.5"), and week 6 would be 2:30 (1:15).
3/6: 5 x 1 mile, 1/2 mile recovery.
3/13: 5 x 1 mile, 1/2 mile recovery.
3/20: 5 x 1.25 mile, 1/2 mile recovery.
3/27: 5 x 1.25 mile, 1/2 mile recovery.
4/3: 5 x 1.5 mile, 1/2 mile recovery.
4/10: 5 x 1.5 mile, 1/2 mile recovery.
4/17: 5 x 2 mile, 1/2 mile recovery.
4/24: 5 x 2 mile, 1/2 mile recovery.
- Can you please post a bike and run picture of you from race day?
- What are your goals for 70.3® PR and how can I help you out?
- Anything else???
Looking forward to hearing from you...ps schedule your march call when you can! https://calendly.com/pmccrann/30min~ Coach P
My goal for PR is to podium in the 40-44AG (swim:34, bike:2:40-5, run:<1:50...5:10ish). I'm fairly confident in the swim and bike, the run will be the wild card. If temps are hot and humid, I could have a long day
I will try and set up another call with you this week or early next to talk a bit more about PR.
Pictures below are from LP2016
Here is what I have coming up:
BRC in April 26-30
Al's Camp/CO (biking and Ragnar Race) from June 3-11
IMLP in July 21-25
70.3WC in Choo (Sept 9-10).
A very full calendar the next few months. Just typing it out is overwhelming
Legs are a bit sore and tight still from Sunday, so I don't want to push any running too soon. Thought about a swim today, maybe a bike tomorrow. Very unstructured week this week. Beginning next week is where I need more guidance. Thanks for your help!
As of March 27 you'll have 17 weeks to go until Wednesday. We're the race prep plan taking about 12 weeks, this means you have about five weeks to play with right now.
The Swim: I would recommend one or two sessions a week, but not a priority. I would honestly rather you did core and bands for strength then hit the pool if there had to be a choice.
The Bike: now is the time for us to move into that ABP work that I was talking about ^above^. more on that shortly.
The Run: I would like to keep you in that 30 to 35 miles per week zone, but nothing really flashy. If you want the run to be harder, find a hillier course... But I don't want you doing any massive track repeats.
Recommended Plan: Get Faster Plan to end on 4/30.
Modifications:
- Swim - Just pick 2. I recommend dropping MONDAY and keeping it simple, but up to you.
- Bike - I want back to back ABP days. So always ride 2.5 hours both days, but build the amount of ABP each week. As long as you can sustain it, you can move the ABP numbers up a bit.
- Run - Only one flash run a week (looks like Tuesday here with your 2 x 1 mile)...rest is for your Goal Race Pace for IMLP, and enjoy some rolling terrain.
The it's BRP week, recovery, and into the 12 Weeks of Race Prep.3/27: 90' Zone 1-2, 60' ABP as 10' ABP / 5' Zone 2.
4/03: 75' Zone 1-2, 75' ABP as 12' ABP / 5' Zone 2.
4/10: 60' Zone 1-2, 90' ABP as 14' ABP / 6' Zone 2.
4/17: 30' Zone 1-2, 120' ABP as 15' ABP / 5' Zone 2.
Note for camp week that you will be hard-pressed to run and swim over the weekend. As such I recommend you get in some good running on Monday through Wednesday and some swims as well because the weekend is really bike only, maybe a few bricks.
I hope this helps!!!
~ Coach P
Thanks Coach for the guidance. I will load up the GF plan on Monday and incorporate your recommedations below. Just to clarify, would you still like me to replace a run with a stairmill session or wait until I get into the 12 week build?
I also wanted to forward an email (below) that I received from Mike Roberts post race. I've never had anyone critique my running form so this was really an eye opener. Any additional thoughts/suggestions? I want to begin working on fixing this immediately.
Mike Roberts:
Cruising through the SmugMug photos, your hip drop stood out like a sore thumb. One of the more severe cases I’ve seen in a while. Which is unbelievably awesome – because it’s a pretty easy fix that will make you run faster, on less energy and with less fatigue. Which scares the crap out of me because I’m already struggling to keep from being chicked. I’m glad I’m 500 miles away when you read this, but here goes . . . you’re weak. But just your hip muscles. Mostly abductors. I’m far from a pro or coach, but I had (and we all still have to some extent) the same issue. When your left foot strikes below, you want to be running “tall” with your stable pelvis acting like a solid steel fulcrum that will propel your body forward. Think of your pelvis like the bottom bracket of your bike. When you apply force to the pedals, you want a super stiff bottom bracket to transfer all that power straight to the drivetrain and the wheels, moving the bike forward with perfect efficiency (i.e., no power loss through the process). If the bottom bracket were made of super soft cushy rubber, most of that pedal power would be absorbed by the BB and very little would be transferred to the drive train. That may be a terrible analogy, but it’s the best I got right now.
Your pelvis is like that BB. Below, when your L foot strikes, your pelvis should have transferred that power straight to the ground and forward had you been running tall with strong parallel hips (the hypothetical blue line). But when your L foot strikes, that power is absorbed and lost as your R hip drops. Your body now has to waste energy to bring that R hip back up and into position, ready for the next cycle of foot strikes. When I run, I kind of think of foot-striking like, strike-forward, strike-forward, etc. But you’re losing power by doing, strike-drop-forward-raise, strike-drop-forward-raise.
Same thing below. You’re red; you want blue.
Honestly, I can run pretty well, with stable hips, just by focusing on running “tall,” with a fast foot strike against a stable, solid pelvis. Late in an IM, your hip muscles are going to give and you’ll drop some. But you should be able to avoid it in a 13.1. There are lots of good exercises out there, but I simply get a lot of benefit from just standing on one leg, preferably barefoot. It’s harder than it sounds and it also builds foot strength/stability. But I would definitely look into it, talk to a really smart/reliable running coach or simply ask Patrick if Roberts has a point or was just striking up a conversation that would involve constant viewing of pictures of your backside.
Here's a great article on it: http://www.runnersworld.com/injury-prevention-recovery/its-all-in-the-hips
The easy option is to focus on running tall. So before you start, stand tall, then start running. Freely stop and re-tall yourself as needed.
Second is the bowl concept...can you feel stable there? This is easier practiced on one foot as Mike mentioned as well as when doing strides (as we usually are big offenders there).
Third is hte glutes and mobility. Stretches are easy, here is our recommended dynamic warm up:
Open that in a window on your phone and do it before every run!
Let me know what you think!
~ Coach P
Moving forward, here are my thoughts for you:
- While I love that you are running faster than the goal pace, I also don't want you to get stuck there. One are the reasons why we set the target to be the 45sWhat's so that we could increase your training loadIncrementally across the season. By having you go out and overachieve 20 seconds a mile right now (and likely underachieve later because of heat, humidity, fatigue) we are not creating that same flow to your year. This really only came to me after we got off the call. So I humbly ask you to try and spend the next four weeks running at or very close to that pace versus faster.
- On the back to back rides, I am ok with one outside and one indoors. Remember your fitness is built on both days in the last third of each ride. So the work you're doing at the start on Saturday sets you up for the end. The work you did on Saturday is what sets you up to build fitness on Sunday. This is how the sessions work. So please pace yourself accordingly.
- We need to find a way for you to be confident in your numbers on race day.As I mentioned earlier,I think maybe giving you targeted goals for individual segments of your rideWill be super helpful.When you have time,Head over to the Lake Placid page and take a look at our screen casts and the resources for the course. You can even find the course online via ridewithgps.com on that page. Why don't you break down for me how you would divide that course, so we can work from there.
Otherwise I think things are good right now, let's keep it rolling.~ Coach P
When you have time I'd appreciate some feedback Elite*EN via this survey. This is a free 3-month pilot before we roll it out to select parts of the Team (Year 3+ folks) as a paid service. Thanks!
~ Coach P