Now, you have to figure out how to look good outside of your tri shorts and wetsuit.  T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops are comfortable, but not at all flattering.  This is not vanity, but sensible–how we present ourselves sends a message about us to everyone we meet, and we ought to control what that message is.

Here are some tips for how you, a fit endurance athlete, can make fashion choices to help others see you in a positive light:

(Note: I will speak mostly about mens fashion.  With apologies to the lovely triathlete ladies, I don’t know enough about womens fashion to comment authoritatively on that issue.  However, some points below apply to men and women.)

• Be conscious of when and where you wear your race jerseys. Wearing a race jersey is a signal that (a) you’re a racer, (b) you’re proud of this and (c) you’re willing to talk about it, and possibly be judged for it.  If you’re cool with sending those signals in a social situation, then by all means wear your race shirt (seriously)!  Just be aware of these signals when you consider donning your race shirt.  (I recommend choosing race shirts that have personal significance, such as your first triathlon or your first Ironman.)
• Choose “slim fit” and “modern fit” shirts and pants. Normal fit shirts and pants tend to be too baggy on fit men.  Slim fit shirts have higher armholes and more of a taper at the waist, and slim fit pants have a higher inseam and are smaller through the leg.
• If you lose more than about 20 pounds, it’s time to get some new clothes. As your body changes shape, your old clothes won’t look as good.  It’s 100% okay to splurge on some new clothes when you hit a weight loss milestone!
• Don’t wear athletic socks when doing something not athletic. Short white socks are not appropriate casual attire.  If you’re wearing slacks, wear long socks that cover the calf.  For shorts, wear no socks or socks that are not visible above the shoe line.  For jeans or casual pants, it depends on the type of shoe you’re wearing.
• Don’t wear athletic shoes when doing something not athletic. There’s such a thing as a comfortable casual shoe that’s (gasp) *NOT* an old running shoe!  Go find a pair or two that goes well with jeans or your chinos and call it a day.
• Athletic sunglasses are rarely fashionable. Get a pair that looks good for an afternoon out on the town.  Leave the Oakley Half Jackets at home.
• Get to know your local tailor. Most off-the-rack clothes are not made to fit your body type.  A good tailor can make an off-the-rack suit look almost like a bespoke item.  They can even take in the sides of your (probably too baggy) dress shirts!  And they can certainly hem your pants, which are probably too short or too long.
• Shoes match the socks match the belt! Men, this is the most important thing you’ll read all day.  Brown shoes, brown socks, brown belt.  Black shoes, black socks, black belt.  No exceptions (not even for Tim Gunn). Got it?

Here are some tips to help you get through the swim calmly and quickly:

• Get in the water at least 5-10 minutes before you start and warm up a bit. If the water is cold, warm, choppy, etc, you want to be prepared for it before you start racing.
• Seed yourself according to your swim ability. If you’re a newer or a weak swimmer, seed yourself toward the back and/or outside of your wave.  Stronger swimmers should take the “prime” spots at the front and/or inside.
• If you’re at all nervous, wait 10-20 seconds before you start swimming! Let the rest of the swimmers get a bit of a head start, and then start your race.  The few seconds won’t make a difference in your time, and will give you a lot of peace of mind as you swim.
• If the water is cold, make sure you put your face in the water before the race starts. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to warm up, but sometimes this is not possible.  Flinging yourself headfirst into 65 degree water can take your breath away, so find a way to get your face wet before you start!
• Look for a draft. While swimming in a triathlon, drafting is legal.  It gives you anywhere from a 5-20% increase in speed.  Swim immediately behind another swimmer to maximize your draft–get your hands as close to their toes as you can (but don’t touch)!
• If you get kicked or swatted, do NOT retaliate. They didn’t do it on purpose.  Getting pissed will only screw up *your* race.  Contact during the swim is par for the course.  Keep moving forward!
• Breathe away from any surf or harsh sunlight you encounter. This is where your bilateral breathing in training gets put to good use!  If surf is coming from your left side, breathe on your right (and vice versa).
• Sight every 6-12 strokes. Don’t lift your head out of the water more than is necessary to get a quick glimpse of the next buoy.  Don’t sight too often (sighting slows you down) but don’t delay your sighting more than every 12 strokes or so, as you may end up swimming off course.
• Know how to do a “dolphin dive,” and execute it in shallow water. Dolphin diving, or performing a shallow dive in thigh-deep water, is faster than swimming or walking.  Do several dolphin dives as you start (if it’s a beach start) and exit the water.
• Get out of the water SLOWLY. The transition from swimming (in a horizontal position) to running to your bike (in a vertical position) is very stressful.  Even though you’re racing, it’s worth an extra second to shed the dizziness and disorientation that comes from this switch in body position.

Now, there appears to be a study that supports this notion of drinking more water to lose weight.  I am trying to find the text to the study itself, but I’m not having any luck.  In the mean time, here are some articles describing the study.

It seems to have a reliable methodology.  All subjects were instructed to restrict their caloric intake, while the test group drank 0.5L of water before each meal and the control did not receive any special drinking instructions.

The only flaw I can detect is the relatively small sample size.  Additionally, the particular samples chosen for this study (55-75 year olds who are not physically active) causes this study to be slightly less relevant for triathletes and other endurance sport athletes, as well as younger people.

However, it’s nice to get scientific confirmation for a “hunch” that many of us have had for a while–drinking lots of water can help you lose weight!

Here’s a general guide as to which sources you can probably trust, and which sources you should take with a grain of salt.  The least trustworthy sources are at the top (with higher numbers), and the most trustworthy are at the bottom.

10.  Product reviews from a website that is also selling the product. Obviously they want to frame the product in a positive light so more people will buy it.  Get your information elsewhere.

9.  A triathlon magazine. Even if the advice is from a columnist, magazines are in the business of making money as well.  It’s rare that you see a negative product review in a triathlon magazine.

8.  A source that claims it’s a scientific “study,” without providing a link to the study, a description of the study protocols or any other documentation about the study. It’s easy to manipulate data to “prove” something about a product, especially if they don’t provide any information about how the study was created.  Look for documentation before buying into any claims of “scientific improvement,” and beware of the placebo effect!

7.  Internet forums. Many knowledgeable people frequent the popular triathlon internet forums.  Many MORE idiots post on the same forums, offering misinformation, personal anecdotes and trolling that is not at all helpful.  If you’re looking for information on internet forums, be ready to identify and wade through huge steaming piles of bullshit to get accurate information.

6.  Testimony from a famous superstar athlete. This athlete may be getting paid to say what s/he’s saying.  Besides, how relevant are the training habits of a pro triathlete (who can run 6 minute miles in his sleep) to you (who ran a 6 minute mile once, like 17 years ago in college)?

5.  Traditional wisdom in the sport. Though certain fundamentals have withstood the test of time, as our knowledge of sports science improves, others are not.  Take anything to which the “traditional” or “fundamental” label is applied with a grain of salt.

4.  Your training partners. The plural of anecdote is not data.  Though they may have some relevant information on local training, race strategy and where best to pick up the hot runner babes, their knowledge of triathlon is necessarily incomplete.  Take heed of their advice, but don’t act on their advice alone.

3 (T).  Your personal experience. In the end, you do know your body best.  You’re learning more every day about the types of stress you can apply in training, what equipment choices work best for you, what foods you respond to, and more.  However, still keep an open mind–you may find out you’ve been doing something wrong all along, or a new scientific development may come along and suggest a change of habit.

3 (T).  Your coach. Depending on your coach’s knowledge and the intimacy of the relationship you have with him or her, you may consider this a better or worse source than your personal experience.  So I’ll call it a tie.  A knowledgeable coach not only knows what you best respond to, but is also on top of the latest scientific developments in the sport.  S/he is a great source of information, second only to (and you may have guessed this)…

1.  A double blind, controlled, peer-reviewed, published, well-documented scientific study conducted over a large sample size and funded by independent sources who do not have a conflict of interest. These are the primary sources upon which all accurate sports knowledge is based.  The only flaw–there are so few studies that fit this bill that we’re left making up stuff as we go along and calling it “sports science!”

10-9.  Pack the following items in your saddle bag: $20 cash, credit card, health insurance info, flat repair kit, extra gel, allen wrenches (4,5,6mm), emergency blanket if it’s cold.

8.  Double check where you’re going. Getting lost 50 miles into a 90 mile ride can easily turn your day into a 120 mile suffer-fest, or a 3 hour round trip for your Sag Wagon.

7.  Bring front and rear lights if you will be riding before the sun rises, or after the sun sets. Around Gainesville right now, that means before 7am and after 8pm.  In some jurisdictions (Gainesville included), it’s against the law to do otherwise.

6.  Make sure your bike in functionally sound condition. The brakes should work and there should be no cracks in any critical parts–frame, fork, handlebars, stem, seatpost.  A quick check of all these things takes 10 seconds as you’re rolling out.

5.  Carry dog spray in your jersey pocket. It provides a safe and effective weapon against our furry friends who may not have the smartest owners, and provides an additional layer of protection in case you ever find yourself in an altercation with another person (though it’s not as effective as pepper spray for that purpose).

4.  Carry a cell phone in your jersey pocket.  Make sure that you have a contact labeled “Emergency” in your contact list.  Double check that you’re never more than a few miles from cell phone reception on your planned route.

3.  Make sure your health insurance is up to date. Hospital bills are ridiculous.  Make sure your insurance provides reasonable ER benefits.

2.  Make sure someone knows where you’re going and when you’ll be back. If you don’t return by when you say you’ll be back, they’ll be able to notify the authorities that something is amiss.

1.  Buy a Road ID, and wear it on every ride. This product provides first responders with critical emergency and contact information in the event of an accident.  It’s cheap and provides great peace of mind.  I highly recommend you purchase one for everyone in your family that rides.  (Note: PHC is not paid to advertise Road ID products.  We simply believe their product is important enough that we recommend it to everyone we can.)

Of course, you’re already a badass, so these tips are about highlighting the already-present inner badass inside you.  Be sure to follow all of these tips for maximum bad-assery, especially at your local triathlon where everything is at stake.

10.  Take up a lot of space in the transition area.

Transition area too compact. Not a badass athlete.

Badass athletes need more space to contain their awesomeness.  Most people will require about 2 feet of horizontal space for their area (including their racked bike, helmet, running stuff and accessories), but true badasses need 6 feet or more!

9.  Sprint the finishing chute.

Suck it, 186th place finisher!

Real badasses leave enough in reserve to run the last 50 meters at 5 minute mile pace, obliterating at least 4 racers who were foolish enough to run at a constant pace the whole way.  Plus, you’ll look super great in your finishing photo.

8.  Bring an unnecessarily tricked out bike to races.

Top speed for true triathlon badasses: 15.3mph

The only bikes you should even consider adding to your arsenal are the ones that cost over $8,000.  Even though you can get a bike that is just as fast for $3,000, and a bike that’s 98% as fast for $1,000, there’s something magical about that extra $5-7k you spend.  Not sure what that is though.

7.  Complain about the post-race food.

Where are the bagels, guys!?

You are a serious bad-ass athlete.  You deserve to be completely renourished after a long, tough sprint triathlon.  And pizza, clif bars, gatorade, water, GU gels, cookies and pretzels doesn’t cut it.

6.  Ride the bike as hard as you can (the run doesn’t matter).

Who cares about running when you look this bad-ass anyway

True bragging rights come from having the 16th fastest OVERALL (OMG!) bike split.

5.  Don’t ever acknowledge any volunteers while you’re racing.

Don't even LOOK at the volunteers! Minus 8 badass points for this "triathlete."

You’re too busy kicking ass to bother.  Besides, they get a free t-shirt out of it!

4.  Do a “flying mount” and a “flying dismount” when exiting T1 and entering T2, respectively.

Minus eleven badass points for not using a disc wheel though.

These are easy ways to save a few seconds on race day that carry no risk whatsoever.  No risk of falling on your face, dropping your bike and busting your derailleur.  It’s never happened before.

3.  Talk about your bike non-stop to whoever will listen.

Yeah, pretty awesome amirite

Before the race to the other racers in attendance (“these carbon skewers save me 2 seconds over 40k!”), during the race (“bet you can’t get much of a draft off of me on my Trek Speed Racer 9000!”) and after the race (“my Zipp 150mm wheels were so fast, but I think I would have been faster if I had gotten the ceramic spoke upgrades”).

2.  If you are a man, do not let a woman pass you.  Ever.

Pick it up, son!

On the bike, on the run.  It doesn’t matter.  No man (especially no bad-ass man) has ever been beaten by a woman at anything except billiards and cake decorating, and you’re not about to be the first.  Pass her right back, and if she passes you for good after that, she’s doping.

1.  Make fun of the 1st time athletes at the race.

What a noob.

It’s part of the “initiation” into the sport of triathlon to get “hazed” at your first event.  Just do silly little stuff, like tell them about the 20% hill on the bike (that doesn’t exist), ask them about their training (and then tell them how you doubled their weekly mileage), regale them with stories of how you “won” your first triathlon, and if all else fails, let just a little bit of air out of their tires.  They’ll laugh it off after the race and they’ll be even more exited to try another one!

So, what to do?

Your options depend on how far you have to go to your event. If you can drive to the event (easier for some folks than others), you have several car-related options:

1. Put your bike inside your car. This is the ideal option, as it offers your bike maximum protection from the elements.  SUV and van drivers can often roll the bike straight into the car, while for most sedans and coupes, this will mean you have to remove one or both wheels.  Be sure you know how to remove your wheels, and have practiced it before your travel day!  Also, remember to cover the floor of your car with towels or a tarp–bikes are dirty and get dirt and grease everywhere.
2. Purchase a trunk rack. This gives you more space inside your car (and is sometimes the only option for tiny cars or multiple-bicycle travel adventures), but leaves your bikes a bit vulnerable to rain, snow and rear-end collisions.
3. Purchase a roof rack. Similar in advantages and disadvantages to the trunk rack, but instead of being vulnerable to rear-end collisions, you’re now vulnerable to “momentary acts of forgetfulness” as you pull into your garage!

Things get tricky when you have to fly to your event.  Airlines are notoriously unaccommodating to triathletes and their bicycles. Fees are outrageous, baggage handlers are tired and underpaid, and bike boxes and cases are ridiculously expensive.

Here are some basic things to keep in mind when you travel with your bike on a plane:

1. Choose an airline that has low (or no) bike fees. Check out the thread over at the Slowtwitch forum for information on how much flying with your bike will cost.
2. Pack your bike carefully, particularly if your bike has any carbon fiber components.  Wrap every tube in bubble wrap, remove the pedals, protect the wheels and make sure nothing is jostling around.  Document your packing job so you can re-create it on the return trip.
3. Most airlines have a strict 50 pound weight limit per bag. With many bike cases weighing around 30 pounds *alone*, that doesn’t give you a lot of wiggle room for putting more stuff (besides your bike) in there!
4. Most airlines have even stricter dimensional requirements for bags! Your bike will almost certainly have to travel as oversized luggage, which means more dollars in the pocket of the airlines.

In terms of the packaging you choose for your bike’s plane ride, you have the following options:

1. No packaging at all. You can actually roll your bike up to the counter and they’ll give you a flimsy box to put it in for the journey.  Some people have noted that choosing this option sometimes elicits better care from the baggage handlers (as they see a relatively vulnerable bike coming down the baggage ramp, and they handle it with a bit more care than they otherwise would), but I would not recommend this to anyone with a bike of any significant value.
2. A bike box, packaged by your local bike shop (or someone knowledgeable on how to pack a bike).  Bikes get shipped from the manufacturers in boxes all the time.  Properly packaged and protected, a bike can withstand travel in a bike box.  The drawbacks to this option are convenience (having to take the bike to the shop twice–before and after your event–as well as the inconvenience of having to lug a cardboard box around the airport) and price (bike shops charge $ for this service).
3. Soft bicycle case. These types of cases range from minimally padded “sling” type cases (meant for protecting your bike inside your car), to maximally padded rugged travel cases. These cases are an excellent balance of price (cheaper than hard cases), convenience (lightweight) and protection (packed correctly, a maximally padded rugged soft case protects just as well as a hard case).  Additionally, some bags don’t contain any visible markings that indicate a bicycle is inside, so a soft case owner can routinely get out of paying the bike fee on some airlines!  This is my personal choice for airline travel, I highly recommend this option.
4. Hard bicycle case. These hardshell cases can withstand almost anything the airlines throw at them.  They’re relatively straightforward to pack, and there are a lot of different options on the market.  However, they tend to be expensive, heavy and unwieldy–be prepared to incur lots of fees (oversize, overweight AND bike fees) when traveling with a hard case!

In addition to the above options concerning packaging, you have a few other options when you have to fly to a race:

1. Travel with a bike that has couplers. These couplers allow you to disassemble the frame of your bike before travel and reassemble at your destination, without any loss of frame integrity.  The disassembled bike fits neatly into a suitcase the size of normal checked luggage!  The obvious drawback is the price of the couplers (and they can’t be retrofitted onto most modern bikes).
2. Rent a bike at your destination. For casual racers and tourists, this is a tempting option, both in terms of price and convenience.  Simply pack your saddle, pedals and bike measurements in your luggage and make a stop at a LBS at your destination!  However, this is more difficult for triathletes, who require a precise fit on their bikes, particularly for an important race.
3. Use a triathlon bike transportation service. There are a few of these companies that do business in the USA.  They’ll pick up your bike at a LBS in your area, transport your bike to the race, and return it to your LBS after the race.  These services are often very convenient, and reasonably priced.  The drawbacks for this service are that, occasionally, the LBS at which the service picks up bikes is an hour or more away from where you live, and that you’ll be without your bike for up to a week before your race.

If you have any other bike travel tips, let us know in the comments!

Here’s what happens if you do your long bike on Saturday and your long run on Sunday:

• Your Sunday run consists of poor quality, slow, painful miles.  You’re too tired to maintain form or run at anything above “easy” pace.
• Your Sunday afternoon is wasted.  You’re too tired to be of any use to your family. You lie on the couch all day making grumpy Twitter posts.
• You can’t do any training on Monday (and your Tuesday, and even Wednesday training, is probably affected). We don’t train in a 7-day “vacuum”–fitness and fatigue carries over from day to day, and week to week.
• You lose fitness and your quality of life decreases. You cannot accumulate as much Training Stress (TSS) due to the slow weekend running and the days off early in the week.

On the other hand, if you do your long run on Wednesday or Thursday (Tuesday is OK too I guess), and your long bike on Saturday or Sunday:

• You can do your long run with better form at a faster pace. You gain fitness and skill.
• You have *both* weekend days for riding, or the ability to take one weekend day away from training and spend time with your family.
• You can train on Monday and Tuesday with minimal recovery concerns. You can set yourself up for a quality mid-week long run, while elegantly recovering your training load numbers after your well-executed (but relatively low impact) weekend.
• You gain fitness and your quality of life increases. You accumulate more TSS, are not imbalanced heading into the next week, and have the flexibility to take care of your More Important Commitments on the weekend as well.

A lot of athletes are very attached to the idea of smushing their huge workouts all on the same weekend.  They even take issue with the above points I made:

• “Well, doing the long ride on Saturday and the long run on Sunday is useful preparation for ‘running on tired legs.’” They always say that–”running on tired legs.”  First of all, this statement implies that it’s necessary to practice running on tired legs.  I’m not sure if this is true.  Just as practicing poor technique while swimming is a waste of time, practicing crappy running only leads to more crappy running on race day. At any rate, especially for Ironman training, there’s no preparation for the fatigue felt in the legs after 130 miles of racing.  Unless, of course, you do an Ironman in your training.  (Which is Another Bad Idea.)
• “I don’t have time during the week to do a long run.  I can only train for an hour in the mornings!” Putting aside the fact that even a 90 minute long run is more than adequate for most triathletes racing most distances (and many athletes can find an extra 30 minutes on a single weekday morning), the long run is not more important than regular run frequency and accumulating run time at race speed (5-10k pace).  An athlete will gain *more* fitness with four quality 1 hour runs during the week, including perhaps 60 minutes of good speed work, along with a mid-length weekend run, than doing 2 or 3 runs of less than an hour during the week, and then a long, slow, sloppy run on Sunday. If finding 90 consecutive minutes to run during the week is simply not possible, I would still think twice before cramming a 3+ hour bike and a 90+ minute run on two consecutive days.

A smart “key workout” weekly schedule might be as follows:

• Monday: key swim
• Tuesday:
• Wednesday: long run
• Thursday:
• Friday:
• Saturday: long bike, 2-5 mile “brick” or transition run
• Sunday: 2nd longest (or just a tempo) bike, 2nd longest (or just a tempo) run

Of course, there are always exceptions.  Athletes training specifically for a multi-day event, such as Triple T or Ultraman, need to build race simulation weekends into their schedule.  Athletes for whom the long bike and run isn’t actually that long (for example, coming off an injury) can do both the long bike and run on the weekend.  Athletes for whom weekday workouts come at an unjustifiable life cost (for example, working a double shift during the week, or those for whom they simply can’t find more than 45-60 minutes to train on weekdays) can overbook their weekends if they want, because that’s their only option.

the true value of toning shoes (according to SCIENCE)

Let me preface by saying that any product that gets people off the couch and moving around is a good thing. Physical fitness, which has been proven over and over again to lead to a longer, happier, more healthy life, is worth almost any cost.

However.

Some products lead to more physical fitness than others. A working bicycle, a pair of running shoes that fits correctly, a gym membership *that gets used*–these products are well worth the money.

And now, as it turns out, one product that may not be worth the money are “toning shoes.” These are the shoes that we’ve all seen out on the streets recently, with the soles that are rounded and built up in the middle.

Some popular brands of these types of shoes include the MBT Masai, Skechers Shape-Ups and Reebok EasyTone.

These shoes supposedly firm your muscles and “give you more of a workout” (whatever that means) by altering your normal walking gait. The built-up soles reduce stability when walking, forcing you to recruit more muscles (and thus working harder) to achieve the same walking speed.

Many of these shoe companies, not surprisingly, cite studies that “prove” that their shoes work. However, even less surprisingly, these studies are not peer-reviewed (one of the most critical elements of a trustworthy scientific study) and many are of questionable design.

So, a team of scientists designed a pair of (peer-reviewed) studies to test the effectiveness of these shoes and evaluate their claims.

Their results can be viewed here.

The bottom line: the scientists found no statistically significant increase in either exercise response or muscle activation during any of the trials. The shoes did not provide any noticeable increase in fitness over traditional running shoes.

I encourage you to read the results of this study. The only flaws I can find with the study are the small sample size and the fact that they only used physically active women as their subjects. An ideal study would have used a much larger sample size, and controlled for the fitness levels of the subjects as well.

Again, any product that gets people moving is fundamentally a good thing. However, for the $ that these shoes cost, I believe that most people would be better served making an investment in some other product.

A friend of mine replied to my comment. He’s a very talented athlete, consistently placing high in his age group at triathlons, and also recently completed an Ultra run of 50 miles! The gist of his comment was as follows (I’m paraphrasing):

“Having a long run of only 2:30 doesn’t realistically simulate the demands of Ironman race day. Most athletes are on the run for far longer than that. Why not run longer in training to prepare the body for the long Ironman run, for example, by running an open marathon or by running for 3 hours continuously or more?”

My response to this excellent question is generally as follows:

1. For most athletes, running longer than about 2:30 results in increased fatigue and extended recovery time. A 3:30 run loses its value if the athlete has to take two days completely off of training as a result!  Ironman training is all about making efficient use of available training time, and if an athlete is out of commission for a few days (or a week or more, if racing an open marathon) due to an overly stressful workout, fitness levels will be lower than if the athlete had chosen a less stressful workout (such as a swim or bike of equivalent duration and intensity).
2. For the vast majority of athletes, Ironman run performance is dictated by the bike performance, not by run speed.  Most Ironman athletes work too hard on the bike, accumulating too many “Training Stress” points (known as TSS in the language of powermeters), and hit the run too shelled to run consistently at a decent pace.  Even if an athlete puts in 60+ mile run weeks (and 3:00+ long runs), it’s of little value of the athlete overcooks the bike.
3. Most athletes do not run the whole Ironman marathon.  Even many <10 hour finishers walk some aid stations!  Additionally, Ironman run splits tend to be significantly slower than their open marathon splits (0:30/mile for elite athletes, 1:30+ for most age group athletes).  Therefore, rehearsing a long, steady run has minimal value for most Ironman triathletes, as their race day “run” pace is going to be much slower than that anyway.

There are always exceptions to this.  For example, ultra-runners, whose bodies are already adapted to running long distances, can probably get away with longer training runs in the build to Ironman.  Also, elite athletes, whose bodies can handle higher doses of training stress, can build higher amounts of run volume than many age group athletes.

However, most athletes, given 4 hours to train, would do better riding for 3-3.5 hours with some intense intervals, followed by a short transition run, than to try and go out and run for 4 straight hours.  Recovery will be less, fitness levels will increase more, and  race day specificity is greater.