Fast After 50 by Joe Friel - Book Review

If you have been a cyclist or a triathlete for more than a day it is almost guaranteed that you know who Joe Friel is, and you probably have a book or two of his sitting on your bookshelf. Friel is the author of The Triathlete's Training Bible, The Cyclist's Training Bible, The Power Meter Handbook, and Triathlon Science, to name just a few. I personally own all these books and read his blog on a regular basis. I like to keep up on both the science behind training as well as the art of getting it right.

Yeah, he knows his stuff and, yeah, I'm a fanboy.

Fast After 50 is a little different than much of his past writing. In fact, I read a fair amount of books each year and I do not remember reading anything quite like this before. If you are looking for information on how to prepare yourself to race anything from a 5k to an Ironman triathlon you have volumes of information available on either the internet or book form. All of this information, or at least what I have ever come upon, has never been focused on the needs of the older athlete. And as a 45 year old who has been racing for almost 20 years, I can tell you that it does get different as you age up.

Fast After 50 is a result of the research Friel was doing as he approached his 70th birthday. Then, starting in mid-2013 Friel began what became a series of blog posts on  how to limit the deleterious effects of aging on athletic performance. From those posts, and the research he did in writing them, comes this book.

Review

The book is divided into two parts and eight chapters. Part 1 (three chapters) is an overview of the literature and Friel's personal experience with aging and performance. Aging happens, but it is different for the aging athlete than it is for older Joe Average. Fortunately, those differences are for the positive for athletes. He even delves into how society is, in general, really not being helpful the the majority of us who aren't athletically active.

The final five chapters (Part 2) get to the meat of how to slow the aging process and continue to race fast into your older years. These chapters are designed to help incorporate the knowledge presented in Part 1 into your training.

So what is the key to continued speed and endurance?

"... we may draw the conclusion that both training volume and intensity are important to the maintenance of fitness as we age, but intensity is more important ... (T)his conclusion holds significant implications for how you should train: Maintain your weekly volume (hours, miles, kilometers) if possible, but place a great emphasis on how hard your workouts are. Is this realistic as you age? Yes, it is ..." (p. 35)

But, and I think this is big, staying fast and fit is not as easy as just cranking up the intensity. Designing yourself a proper training regimen is about proper dosing of the intensity. Too much work will cause the body to break down and not respond the way you would like. Sometimes the older athlete will need to spread things out more than they are used to doing. This is an important concept to grasp AND implement.

Along with training Friel touches on not just training, but also rest, recovery, and diet. Fortunately, in regards to the chapter on diet, he takes a very Matt Fitzgerald approach by not directing us to one style of eating. Yes, we need to avoid weight gain the best we can, but we all need to find what works right for ourselves. If you have an interest in diving deeper into diet, I recommend Fitzgerald's book Diet Cults as a good place to start.

Who Should Read "Fast After 50"?

In my opinion, any serious athlete who plans on staying fit and fast who is 35 years or older should pick up a copy of this book. If you are a serious athlete who is 50 or over this book directly addresses the issues you currently face as you try and dial in your training and racing. For those between 35 and 50 there is a lot of value here as well. I can tell you from personal experience that how your body reacts to your training starts to change as you approach your 40th birthday. Instinctively I have made changes to my training - most notably lower volume, more intensity, more flexibility in workload - every year for the past five or six years. If Fast After 50 were around six years ago I could have limited the amount of self-experimentation I did with my training.

Bottom line: I highly recommend this book. 



Train hard. Stay smart.
Jon


Resources:

Joe Friel's Blog

You can buy the book at Amazon.com here