So... if you read the last post, it had a twist at the end. Turns out, I've been overtrained. But, a few weeks of easy workouts, and all of a sudden my energy has returned like the Apollo 11 spacecraft crashing through the atmosphere down into the Pacific. Fast, fiery, and wondering if I should be quarantined for others safety, lest I release too much of it at once.
In comparison to how I felt before, it's as though lightning is coarsing back and forth through my veins looking for a way out. But it can't. It's trapped. And no matter how much I release, it comes right back. Oh, the incredible feeling of being healthy again!
Fitness is coming back as well. Much quicker than I thought. In fact, based off my power data, RPE, and heart rate, it's likely I'm every bit as strong on the bike as when I was fully tapered. I suspect I might have been training this discipline a bit too hard and the forced rest has done me very well.
Along with the prep phase beginning for my first Ironman build, I have also returned to work in another sense. I recently took a contract position in the aerospace industry in Tulsa. I am not sure how long it will last, but it couldn't have come at a better time. I will, of course, now have to fit the large majority of my riding into the weekends now, but what better way to spend a weekend than a solid 8-10 hours of good riding?
The major benefit to this will of course be the replenishing of funds. No longer will I have to cash out stocks on a monthly basis and wonder about how I will be able to afford to go to Kona if I am able to qualify or live and train in the mountains of Boulder again this summer. But the more hidden benefit includes not having the time to train so much that I send myself right back to an overtrained state as well as fully rehabbing a stubborn Achilles. Done right, I should be able to build much more smoothly this time around and be ready and waiting to hit it hard full-time again once I am no longer needed.
So, though I will have to suffer through the cold and wind once again for the time being, I couldn't be more excited about what winter has in store. Ironman Texas will be here soon enough and I will be ready!
Stay tuned for a next installment detailing the training mistakes I made that led to this dark and frustrating period of my athletic career.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Battling with Anemia
The last couple of months since Redman have been rough. So many ups and downs. So much struggling. Too much rest. No desire to write. No desire to read. Or do anything, at all.
The week after Redman was a struggle, mentally, to move. At this point, I think I simply needed rest. Racing the Sprint and Half back to back took a lot more out of me than even I thought it would. For awhile though, I couldn't understand why I couldn't get myself off the couch. Motivation was non-existant.
I tried after a couple days, but literally failed. Two workouts had my legs feeling fatigued to the bone and I was back on the couch for another couple days.
This time I started slow and tried to build even slower. By day 3 of easy workouts, I was struggling just to finish a slow, 4 mile run. Something was very wrong.
My first guess? Anemia. Since easy training was not making things better, but instead worse, I popped an iron supplement to see what it would do. The next day I had the best run interval workout I've ever had. I thought for sure I had things figured out. I mean, problem solved, right?
Well what happened is I listened to everyone else tell me that I was simply overtrained and that it was a coincidence and taking iron supplements was risky. So I stopped. I figured if it was iron deficiency, I would just cut out the enormous amount of fine Japanese green tea that I brew and drink every day and focus on a high iron and vitamin C diet to help it absorb.
Well it didn't exactly work, as I had a terrible race at the US Open, and then proceeded to run my body into the ground for the next couple of weeks with a lot of hard run training. Though I was able to do quite a bit more work on the high iron absorption diet, I still wasn't close to right. By the time, I was getting prepped for my next race, the Fall Classic Duathlon, I knew something was very wrong. This time I ascribed it to overtraining.
Surprisingly, I still raced fairly well at the duathlon, taking 3rd for the state championship event. However, I felt like I had been racing for 5 hours afterwards, and not the hour and a half that it took. I decided to try a week off and see what happens.
After struggling to keep myself indoors for a solid week of good weather, I couldn't wait to get back to training. But when I did, it felt like my fitness had completely deserted me. I felt very fresh, but I was very slow. My watts were down about 10% on the bike and my run pace had slowed by more than a minute per mile. And I simply wasn't really recovering from the easy workouts I was doing. How could I expect to qualify for Kona, much less Vegas again, like this!?
By the next week, I wasn't just back where I was a month ago, struggling with slow, easy 4 mile runs, I was even starting to get sick. I never get sick. Not without so much training stress, work stress, and lack of sleep that my entire body breaks down and finally succumbs to illness. No way I could get sick while resting and sleeping all the time without something being very very wrong.
The illness also did not go away in a day like normal. So for three days I suffered along, until, finally I decided I had to revisit the anemia hypothesis and go get my blood tested. Well I decided not to wait on those test results. There were just too many signs. My systolic blood pressure had magically dropped 10-15 points consistently. I got a slight headache. I never get headaches. I felt tired during and after recovery workouts. My body was even starting to ache in a way that was dull, but constant and uncomfortable enough to make getting to sleep difficult.
It was time. I was ready to try anything. I again popped an iron supplement, and the very next day I was miraculously not sick anymore and running 20 seconds per mile faster for the same heart rate while actually feeling good during and after the run. The next day I rode half-Ironman watts at the same heart rate and effort as I did while in taper and racing at Redman! A few days of iron supplements later and another 20 seconds per mile had dropped off my run pace!
It was unbelievable. The energy started flowing back. In a matter of days. I'm now even writing again! Turns out that my fitness hadn't completely deserted me after all.
Now here's the kicker. The blood tests show that my iron levels are good, and that my hematocrit is actually 2% higher than when I was tested last year. I'm not anemic. Am I now completely and utterly confused? Absolutely. But as long as I'm on track to getting my training back to normal, I'm at least happy.
The week after Redman was a struggle, mentally, to move. At this point, I think I simply needed rest. Racing the Sprint and Half back to back took a lot more out of me than even I thought it would. For awhile though, I couldn't understand why I couldn't get myself off the couch. Motivation was non-existant.
I tried after a couple days, but literally failed. Two workouts had my legs feeling fatigued to the bone and I was back on the couch for another couple days.
This time I started slow and tried to build even slower. By day 3 of easy workouts, I was struggling just to finish a slow, 4 mile run. Something was very wrong.
My first guess? Anemia. Since easy training was not making things better, but instead worse, I popped an iron supplement to see what it would do. The next day I had the best run interval workout I've ever had. I thought for sure I had things figured out. I mean, problem solved, right?
Well what happened is I listened to everyone else tell me that I was simply overtrained and that it was a coincidence and taking iron supplements was risky. So I stopped. I figured if it was iron deficiency, I would just cut out the enormous amount of fine Japanese green tea that I brew and drink every day and focus on a high iron and vitamin C diet to help it absorb.
Well it didn't exactly work, as I had a terrible race at the US Open, and then proceeded to run my body into the ground for the next couple of weeks with a lot of hard run training. Though I was able to do quite a bit more work on the high iron absorption diet, I still wasn't close to right. By the time, I was getting prepped for my next race, the Fall Classic Duathlon, I knew something was very wrong. This time I ascribed it to overtraining.
Surprisingly, I still raced fairly well at the duathlon, taking 3rd for the state championship event. However, I felt like I had been racing for 5 hours afterwards, and not the hour and a half that it took. I decided to try a week off and see what happens.
After struggling to keep myself indoors for a solid week of good weather, I couldn't wait to get back to training. But when I did, it felt like my fitness had completely deserted me. I felt very fresh, but I was very slow. My watts were down about 10% on the bike and my run pace had slowed by more than a minute per mile. And I simply wasn't really recovering from the easy workouts I was doing. How could I expect to qualify for Kona, much less Vegas again, like this!?
By the next week, I wasn't just back where I was a month ago, struggling with slow, easy 4 mile runs, I was even starting to get sick. I never get sick. Not without so much training stress, work stress, and lack of sleep that my entire body breaks down and finally succumbs to illness. No way I could get sick while resting and sleeping all the time without something being very very wrong.
The illness also did not go away in a day like normal. So for three days I suffered along, until, finally I decided I had to revisit the anemia hypothesis and go get my blood tested. Well I decided not to wait on those test results. There were just too many signs. My systolic blood pressure had magically dropped 10-15 points consistently. I got a slight headache. I never get headaches. I felt tired during and after recovery workouts. My body was even starting to ache in a way that was dull, but constant and uncomfortable enough to make getting to sleep difficult.
It was time. I was ready to try anything. I again popped an iron supplement, and the very next day I was miraculously not sick anymore and running 20 seconds per mile faster for the same heart rate while actually feeling good during and after the run. The next day I rode half-Ironman watts at the same heart rate and effort as I did while in taper and racing at Redman! A few days of iron supplements later and another 20 seconds per mile had dropped off my run pace!
It was unbelievable. The energy started flowing back. In a matter of days. I'm now even writing again! Turns out that my fitness hadn't completely deserted me after all.
Now here's the kicker. The blood tests show that my iron levels are good, and that my hematocrit is actually 2% higher than when I was tested last year. I'm not anemic. Am I now completely and utterly confused? Absolutely. But as long as I'm on track to getting my training back to normal, I'm at least happy.
My First Win!
After the Redman Halfmax National Championship was done and over, I immediately got to eating and drinking as much as I could stand in the hopes that I could get my weight and glucose stores back up enough that I might be able to race the Redman Sprint the next day.
Possibly, it was a good thing that I felt tired, sluggish and like my legs could seize at any moment, becuase, I had no expectations on race day morning. During the pre-race meeting at the swim start, I realized I didn't have my chip. No worries, I simply jogged the half mile to transition and back to get it. If I missed the start, oh well. No expectations. Just start the race and enjoy it.
As soon as the gun went off though, my body was moving. I was off to a great start by lining up on the shallower end and next thing I know I'm sitting in a small front group with only a few off the front. It gets shallow again in the middle and I dolphin dive for a bit, but realize I have nowhere to go as the guys off the front are way off and not remotely catchable, so I settle back in and let myself get pulled to the swim finish. Without my heart exploding through my chest.
Transition goes well and fast as usual despite struggling with coordination quite a bit more than normal. That is until I jumped on my bike and somehow managed to slip off the top of my shoe and have to come to a complete stop for a second before getting to speed again. At the time though, I wasn't worried, I could feel it in my legs and they just were not there. For the first two miles, the half-Ironman watts I had easily put out yesterday were a struggle.
But then, instantaneously, everything changed. My legs woke up. I mean really really woke up. All of a sudden, I was putting out more power with ease than I ever had. I caught a first guy and then a second and looked to the next, so far ahead I could barely see him. Within a mile he was mine. And then another one bit the dust. And another one, until finally, the last one was in sight.
But he was moving. I had been barely gaining the whole time. I made the pass, but we were too close to transition, there was going to be no time to gain additional ground on the bike, I was going to have to do it on the run.
I flew through transition as fast as I ever have and immediately surged out onto the run course at a pace I knew I couldn't keep for long. After a few minutes, I chanced a look back. No one in sight. I stepped it down to threshold and held on as I blazed through the run course with my first lead in a race ever.
The whole time my legs were threatening to seize up and stop me from moving, but I couldn't risk slowing up, I had no idea who might be behind me. At the turnaround, I saw the gap I had on the others and knew I had it, as long as I could hold this pace. I kept the pressure on and held it all the way with a determination I'd never felt before. The legs held up, and I flew into the finish with a big lead. That feeling, of running into the finisher's area past all the triathlon clubs and spectators, is one I will never forget. My first win in an outdoor triathlon!
Possibly, it was a good thing that I felt tired, sluggish and like my legs could seize at any moment, becuase, I had no expectations on race day morning. During the pre-race meeting at the swim start, I realized I didn't have my chip. No worries, I simply jogged the half mile to transition and back to get it. If I missed the start, oh well. No expectations. Just start the race and enjoy it.
As soon as the gun went off though, my body was moving. I was off to a great start by lining up on the shallower end and next thing I know I'm sitting in a small front group with only a few off the front. It gets shallow again in the middle and I dolphin dive for a bit, but realize I have nowhere to go as the guys off the front are way off and not remotely catchable, so I settle back in and let myself get pulled to the swim finish. Without my heart exploding through my chest.
Transition goes well and fast as usual despite struggling with coordination quite a bit more than normal. That is until I jumped on my bike and somehow managed to slip off the top of my shoe and have to come to a complete stop for a second before getting to speed again. At the time though, I wasn't worried, I could feel it in my legs and they just were not there. For the first two miles, the half-Ironman watts I had easily put out yesterday were a struggle.
But then, instantaneously, everything changed. My legs woke up. I mean really really woke up. All of a sudden, I was putting out more power with ease than I ever had. I caught a first guy and then a second and looked to the next, so far ahead I could barely see him. Within a mile he was mine. And then another one bit the dust. And another one, until finally, the last one was in sight.
But he was moving. I had been barely gaining the whole time. I made the pass, but we were too close to transition, there was going to be no time to gain additional ground on the bike, I was going to have to do it on the run.
I flew through transition as fast as I ever have and immediately surged out onto the run course at a pace I knew I couldn't keep for long. After a few minutes, I chanced a look back. No one in sight. I stepped it down to threshold and held on as I blazed through the run course with my first lead in a race ever.
The whole time my legs were threatening to seize up and stop me from moving, but I couldn't risk slowing up, I had no idea who might be behind me. At the turnaround, I saw the gap I had on the others and knew I had it, as long as I could hold this pace. I kept the pressure on and held it all the way with a determination I'd never felt before. The legs held up, and I flew into the finish with a big lead. That feeling, of running into the finisher's area past all the triathlon clubs and spectators, is one I will never forget. My first win in an outdoor triathlon!
Redman Halfmax National Championship
After dehydrating and struggling just to run at the World Championship in Vegas, I was determined that this race would be different. Well it was. I made the opposite mistake. Two miles into this run, my legs were fresh, I was well-hydrated, I was running relatively fast, but I was already battling horrendous side stitches from running with a stomach too full of fluid.
Two weeks ago, I had recovered surprisingly well from my disastrous and tough race in Vegas. But as soon as I arrived in Oklahoma, I was immediately battling allergies worse than any I'd ever had. Which, once again, put a hamper on the intense, finishing workouts I wanted to get in before race day. However, on race day, it didn't matter all that much, the fitness was once again there.
After a long (literally, it was a long course), but solid swim, I was again on the bike and feeling very strong. Surprisingly though, this was a much faster national championship than I had thought, and I had to hold myself back as I was passed by several riders at the start. For most of the first half of the ride, I was mostly alone, riding at my specific power output. However, at the turnaround, I was caught and passed by a paceline of riders. At first I thought it to be a draft pack, but closer inspection showed that they were mostly riding legal, if maybe taking a bit long to pass each other at times. It was perfect. I picked the power up a bit to latch on and make sure I wasn't going to be left behind.
This is when I realized exactly how much a benefit a paceline can have. Sitting around 5 or 6 bikes back, each bike at a legal distance apart, my power went way down. However, when passing, I was often having to put out over 50% more power than my target at times just to make sure I could pass everyone in the required amount of time (to stay legal). After awhile, I started to realize it was probably a good idea just to sit in somewhere if I could.
Unfortunately, it was at this time that I could no longer hold it in. I had been overcompensating for underhydrating two weeks ago, and now I had reached a point where I could no longer stand it. I had to go. So for the first time, I stopped pedaling, and watched as a stream gushed out of my shorts and down my leg and all over my bike. And the paceline disappeared in the distance.
I was now in the last hour of racing though, and still felt very fresh. Heart rate was very low this time, and I felt it was time to bump the power up and see what happens. It took miles to catch the paceline, but once I did I soon left them behind as they started to drop off. In no time, I was back on the edge of the lake, racing around it in anticipation of a blazing fast run.
And there it was again. Except way worse since I was running. My stomach was not only too full of fluids, but my bladder as well. As I blazed out of transition, I started to realize the mistake I had made. There was no bathroom anywhere in sight. I had just left it behind. I was going to have to run quite a ways before I was going to find one.
I did, of course, but I barely made it another mile before the side stitches started to get really bad. At this time, I made the decision to stop taking in fluids, except for a few sips at each aid station. Since I was also getting my nutrition from aid stations I knew it was going to be dicey if I could make it to the end before I bonked. However, the side stitches were keeping me from dropping under a 6:30/mi run pace, and I did not want them getting worse.
It turned out to be another mistake. The last several miles I slowed considerably from the lack of nutrition, and of course, still had to battle side stitches. Still though, at least I wasn't hot and extremely dehydrated. In fact, with temps under 90 and plenty of ice and cold spongues it felt almost cool at times. I was likely still very dehydrated at the finish, but it was nothing like my experience two weeks ago. Overall, it was a solid race that taught me yet another lesson about race nutrition and ended with a very positive 2nd in age group placement and a PR of 4:36:01 (not bad considering the long swim and rough roads).
Still though, like always, for more than an hour after the race was over, the pain was almost as bad as it had been during the last few miles of the race. Fairly normal for me after a race of this distance. But, how the heck was I going to get up and race again tomorrow!?
Two weeks ago, I had recovered surprisingly well from my disastrous and tough race in Vegas. But as soon as I arrived in Oklahoma, I was immediately battling allergies worse than any I'd ever had. Which, once again, put a hamper on the intense, finishing workouts I wanted to get in before race day. However, on race day, it didn't matter all that much, the fitness was once again there.
After a long (literally, it was a long course), but solid swim, I was again on the bike and feeling very strong. Surprisingly though, this was a much faster national championship than I had thought, and I had to hold myself back as I was passed by several riders at the start. For most of the first half of the ride, I was mostly alone, riding at my specific power output. However, at the turnaround, I was caught and passed by a paceline of riders. At first I thought it to be a draft pack, but closer inspection showed that they were mostly riding legal, if maybe taking a bit long to pass each other at times. It was perfect. I picked the power up a bit to latch on and make sure I wasn't going to be left behind.
This is when I realized exactly how much a benefit a paceline can have. Sitting around 5 or 6 bikes back, each bike at a legal distance apart, my power went way down. However, when passing, I was often having to put out over 50% more power than my target at times just to make sure I could pass everyone in the required amount of time (to stay legal). After awhile, I started to realize it was probably a good idea just to sit in somewhere if I could.
Unfortunately, it was at this time that I could no longer hold it in. I had been overcompensating for underhydrating two weeks ago, and now I had reached a point where I could no longer stand it. I had to go. So for the first time, I stopped pedaling, and watched as a stream gushed out of my shorts and down my leg and all over my bike. And the paceline disappeared in the distance.
I was now in the last hour of racing though, and still felt very fresh. Heart rate was very low this time, and I felt it was time to bump the power up and see what happens. It took miles to catch the paceline, but once I did I soon left them behind as they started to drop off. In no time, I was back on the edge of the lake, racing around it in anticipation of a blazing fast run.
And there it was again. Except way worse since I was running. My stomach was not only too full of fluids, but my bladder as well. As I blazed out of transition, I started to realize the mistake I had made. There was no bathroom anywhere in sight. I had just left it behind. I was going to have to run quite a ways before I was going to find one.
I did, of course, but I barely made it another mile before the side stitches started to get really bad. At this time, I made the decision to stop taking in fluids, except for a few sips at each aid station. Since I was also getting my nutrition from aid stations I knew it was going to be dicey if I could make it to the end before I bonked. However, the side stitches were keeping me from dropping under a 6:30/mi run pace, and I did not want them getting worse.
It turned out to be another mistake. The last several miles I slowed considerably from the lack of nutrition, and of course, still had to battle side stitches. Still though, at least I wasn't hot and extremely dehydrated. In fact, with temps under 90 and plenty of ice and cold spongues it felt almost cool at times. I was likely still very dehydrated at the finish, but it was nothing like my experience two weeks ago. Overall, it was a solid race that taught me yet another lesson about race nutrition and ended with a very positive 2nd in age group placement and a PR of 4:36:01 (not bad considering the long swim and rough roads).
Still though, like always, for more than an hour after the race was over, the pain was almost as bad as it had been during the last few miles of the race. Fairly normal for me after a race of this distance. But, how the heck was I going to get up and race again tomorrow!?
Thursday, September 27, 2012
World Championship 70.3
After more than 9 months of training full-time, the day was finally here. The day I would race the best from all over the world at the half-Ironman distance. A day I would learn something more about the importance of not quitting. Never giving up.
Two miles into the run course I knew I had messed up. I had severely underestimated the heat. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to run through every aid station. I knew that soon I might not be running much at all. I had tried to go to the bathroom. Nothing could come out. I was already past the point of no return on the hydration scale. It was going to be a long day.
A week earlier, when I first arrived in Las Vegas, it was hot. Though it had gotten over 100 degrees Farenheit several times over the summer in Boulder, it had cooled off some recently and I had forgotten how hot it could be. But more than that, the heat felt more intense here. The air felt much warmer. And I couldn't just wait for cool morning or night temperatures to run in it. Particularly if I was to be racing in it right in the middle of the day.
The good news is my fitness was good. Very good. I had overdone things quite a bit three weeks ago with my last big training week, but now I was finally recovering and feeling strong. Very strong. After each workout, and throughout each day, I was meticulously loading up on fluids and a full spectrum of electrolytes. The heat had started to feel not so bad again. I was ready to race.
Race morning was hot. As soon as the sun could be seen, I was sweating. After setting up transition, I went to my car and hit the A/C to stay cool while I waited for my 8:00 AM start time. The last wave to go. An hour and a half behind the pros.
Waiting around to enter the water, I was sipping water. I should have been sipping more. I was already losing hydration and the race hadn't started yet.
After entering the water, it was a solid 5-10 minutes of floating around at the starting line, trying not to get kicked too hard by others as we bunched up for the last few minutes. When the gun finally went off, it was almost a relief to be in the grinder of a couple hundred elite swimmers, all vying to be out front. At most races, I end up in the chase pack of swimmers that get left behind by the much stronger lead pack. Here, it was a simply constant stream of fast swimmers with no gaps for much of the first part of the race. I was somewhere at the back.
In most races this size, you can expect to get jammed up after a few minutes with all the slower swimmers from the waves in front. This was not a problem here. Almost noone was a slow swimmer. I exited the water a couple minutes slower than expected, but everyone else in the wave seemed to be a couple minutes slow as well.
On the bike, I immediately felt good. And strong. The legs were there. But I had to do what I could to contain myself and not put out too much power in the first part of the race. Especially with it being a 20 minute climb out of the transition area before heading into the monstrous hills of Lake Mead. For the first 30 minutes, it was a struggle not to go harder. I was being constantly passed, yet I was riding around threshold or higher. I had to remind myself that this was a world championship. These guys could ride.
Once into Lake Mead, I started to get a feel for exactly how tough this course was going to be. The elevation profile is quite misleading. I was often putting out 250 watts or more in my smallest gears and spinning out on the way back down. Luckily I had done a lot of riding in the mountains over the summer and was very comfortable with climbing, particularly in the aero position.
After the turnaround, it was a tailwind most of the way back, past Lake Las Vegas and the swim start, and up into the town of Henderson for the run, close to 1000ft above the bike start. If the wind had been blowing the opposite direction, it would have been a much slower day. Around this time, it was starting to get really hot. Most of my water was going on my head in an attempt to stay cool. I was hydrating by feel like I normally do for training and racing. For this heat, it wasn't enough. Not even close. Though I went thru 4 bottles of fluids, I calculated later that only around 2 had been drunk, since each bottle had been thrown out with fluid left and a lot of it had gone on my head. My normal fluid intake for 80 degree temps is around 3-4. For this race, I probably needed at least 6.
Still, I felt good getting off the bike. It was a struggle to keep the power up around my target watts for the last hour of the bike, but only a small one. My heart rate had been relatively high all day as well so when it moved to 7-10 beats below max for that last hour, I didn't think much of it. It was only after that I realized this was a huge warning sign of my increasingly severe dehydration.
The first mile of the run felt normal for getting off of such a long, hard bike. I thought for sure that after another mile or two, I would come alive and be blazing the run course. Instead, things got bad. Very bad. And the temperature continued to increase.
With aid stations running out of ice everywhere, spongues that were barely cool, and no shade in sight, the run course became a walk course for those that hadn't properly hydrated or paced the bike. And from the looks of things, very few had.
I have never seen so many people walking on a run course of any race I've ever done. And I was right there with them on the dehydration scale. Any other race, and I might have decided the damage I was about to do to my body by continuing to run would not be worth it, and I would stop at an aid station until I could properly rehydrate to jog in or quit. But this was the world championship. There was no question, I was pushing on.
And on I went. Running from aid station to aid station, getting just enough hydration in to make it to one more aid station, until finally, I had made it thru all 13.1 miserable miles to the finish. But though it was one of my slowest runs ever, and I wasn't able to showcase the particularly good run fitness I had developed over the summer, I still moved up almost 20 spots in my age group to hit my goal of finishing in the top half. Simply, by not quitting.
Two miles into the run course I knew I had messed up. I had severely underestimated the heat. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to run through every aid station. I knew that soon I might not be running much at all. I had tried to go to the bathroom. Nothing could come out. I was already past the point of no return on the hydration scale. It was going to be a long day.
A week earlier, when I first arrived in Las Vegas, it was hot. Though it had gotten over 100 degrees Farenheit several times over the summer in Boulder, it had cooled off some recently and I had forgotten how hot it could be. But more than that, the heat felt more intense here. The air felt much warmer. And I couldn't just wait for cool morning or night temperatures to run in it. Particularly if I was to be racing in it right in the middle of the day.
The good news is my fitness was good. Very good. I had overdone things quite a bit three weeks ago with my last big training week, but now I was finally recovering and feeling strong. Very strong. After each workout, and throughout each day, I was meticulously loading up on fluids and a full spectrum of electrolytes. The heat had started to feel not so bad again. I was ready to race.
Race morning was hot. As soon as the sun could be seen, I was sweating. After setting up transition, I went to my car and hit the A/C to stay cool while I waited for my 8:00 AM start time. The last wave to go. An hour and a half behind the pros.
The sunrise over Lake Las Vegas on race morning.
Waiting around to enter the water, I was sipping water. I should have been sipping more. I was already losing hydration and the race hadn't started yet.
After entering the water, it was a solid 5-10 minutes of floating around at the starting line, trying not to get kicked too hard by others as we bunched up for the last few minutes. When the gun finally went off, it was almost a relief to be in the grinder of a couple hundred elite swimmers, all vying to be out front. At most races, I end up in the chase pack of swimmers that get left behind by the much stronger lead pack. Here, it was a simply constant stream of fast swimmers with no gaps for much of the first part of the race. I was somewhere at the back.
In most races this size, you can expect to get jammed up after a few minutes with all the slower swimmers from the waves in front. This was not a problem here. Almost noone was a slow swimmer. I exited the water a couple minutes slower than expected, but everyone else in the wave seemed to be a couple minutes slow as well.
On the bike, I immediately felt good. And strong. The legs were there. But I had to do what I could to contain myself and not put out too much power in the first part of the race. Especially with it being a 20 minute climb out of the transition area before heading into the monstrous hills of Lake Mead. For the first 30 minutes, it was a struggle not to go harder. I was being constantly passed, yet I was riding around threshold or higher. I had to remind myself that this was a world championship. These guys could ride.
Once into Lake Mead, I started to get a feel for exactly how tough this course was going to be. The elevation profile is quite misleading. I was often putting out 250 watts or more in my smallest gears and spinning out on the way back down. Luckily I had done a lot of riding in the mountains over the summer and was very comfortable with climbing, particularly in the aero position.
After the turnaround, it was a tailwind most of the way back, past Lake Las Vegas and the swim start, and up into the town of Henderson for the run, close to 1000ft above the bike start. If the wind had been blowing the opposite direction, it would have been a much slower day. Around this time, it was starting to get really hot. Most of my water was going on my head in an attempt to stay cool. I was hydrating by feel like I normally do for training and racing. For this heat, it wasn't enough. Not even close. Though I went thru 4 bottles of fluids, I calculated later that only around 2 had been drunk, since each bottle had been thrown out with fluid left and a lot of it had gone on my head. My normal fluid intake for 80 degree temps is around 3-4. For this race, I probably needed at least 6.
Still, I felt good getting off the bike. It was a struggle to keep the power up around my target watts for the last hour of the bike, but only a small one. My heart rate had been relatively high all day as well so when it moved to 7-10 beats below max for that last hour, I didn't think much of it. It was only after that I realized this was a huge warning sign of my increasingly severe dehydration.
The first mile of the run felt normal for getting off of such a long, hard bike. I thought for sure that after another mile or two, I would come alive and be blazing the run course. Instead, things got bad. Very bad. And the temperature continued to increase.
With aid stations running out of ice everywhere, spongues that were barely cool, and no shade in sight, the run course became a walk course for those that hadn't properly hydrated or paced the bike. And from the looks of things, very few had.
I have never seen so many people walking on a run course of any race I've ever done. And I was right there with them on the dehydration scale. Any other race, and I might have decided the damage I was about to do to my body by continuing to run would not be worth it, and I would stop at an aid station until I could properly rehydrate to jog in or quit. But this was the world championship. There was no question, I was pushing on.
As slow as I was running, I was glad to see that my form never broke.
And on I went. Running from aid station to aid station, getting just enough hydration in to make it to one more aid station, until finally, I had made it thru all 13.1 miserable miles to the finish. But though it was one of my slowest runs ever, and I wasn't able to showcase the particularly good run fitness I had developed over the summer, I still moved up almost 20 spots in my age group to hit my goal of finishing in the top half. Simply, by not quitting.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Mid Season Race Report: Getting My Butt Kicked in Boulder!
Coming up to race in Boulder from Oklahoma has been quite the experience! The average person here is way faster and the level of competition is extremely deep. This is where all the athletes are that bridge the enormous gap between a top Oklahoma age group athlete and the professional ranks.
6/17 Boulder 5430 Sprint Triathlon: 39th OA, 10th AG
This is the race where I first experienced what a 1000+ people at a sprint is like. I had only been at altitude for a day, and so heeded the caution I got from other athletes in making certain to be careful not too go too hard on the swim. I had been working a lot on fast starts and settling in to a comfortable pace and getting very good at it, but for this race, I went easy from the start. It worked brilliantly. It seems people here can swim much straighter (probably from many more chances to practice open water swimming), and I got a great draft all the way back in and straight as an arrow for a very solid swim split.
Next was the bike, which is a nice incline for the first several miles and then downhill after that. Not used to riding any kind of prolonged climbs, even at a low gradient, I struggled a bit to keep the pace up as high as I should have here. But once we hit the rollers, I made up time. Big time. Coming from Oklahoma, I know how to ride rolling hills well. Very well. A guy in my age group that had caught and passed me was left in my dust. Only to catch up again on the last steady incline though of course. But I hung on after that. Until the run started and he ran away. Overall, it was my fastest bike split to date though at 24.5mph for 17.2 miles. Not bad, but it needs to be much faster.
The run was where I really started to feel the altitude. Even at only 5300ft, I could tell my race pace had slowed drastically. With the tough and slow run course going over the rocky trails around the reservoir, I wasn't even able to break 20 minutes for the 5k run on this day. A solid race though for my second day at altitude.
7/8 Boulder Peak 5150 Triathlon: 90th OA, 11th AG
Now if I thought the last race was fast and competitive, this one was on even another level! When I first biked the course, I couldn't believe it. I had heard it had a good little climb in it, but I was totally unprepared for what I was about to experience. By the time I finally made it up, I thought I was going to puke! The crazy thing about this area is how many old ladies I see going up it on a routine basis! If this were in Oklahoma, no one except the more competitive road racers would ever be seen going up it by bike. And certainly no race director would ever dream of sending a triathlon up it! I was seriously daunted. No way was I going to race up this thing.
But I kept climbing it in training every chance I got. And each time it got easier and I got faster. Then the pressure came with all the guys I was training with. They were all doing it. Why not me? Ok, fine, I'm signing up!
By the time race day came, and I, once again, missed the front pack on the swim and settled in around the lead of the chase pack, I actually felt ready for it. And I was. For the first time, I got all the way up the section where it turns to 15% grade for about 2/3 of a mile WITHOUT getting out of the saddle. I was stoked! And a good thing too, because I accidentally put my dry, smooth road tire pressure in and the road where the climb was on hadn't dried out yet, which meant my tire slipped like crazy if I did try to get out of the saddle. From there on, it was all downhill, with more rollers. My specialty. And I crushed it. Enough to get a nice lead on, the same guy from the last race, who caught up big time on me on the climb and grabbed a nice gap before the rollers started. This time though, I had enough of an advantage to hold him off on the last gradual uphill section and start the run with a bit of a cushion.
However, it wasn't enough. And my running wasn't quite up to his level. He blew by me about a mile in and I couldn't hang. I stuck to my pace though, and at the turnaround, kicked it into gear to finish with my first sub-40 10k at altitude! For that slow and slightly hilly off-road run course, I was extremely pleased! With the way my run fitness is developing, I hope to soon be able to drop a 37 minute run split on a course like that and be able to hang with the likes of my new found local nemesis!
Overall, the main objective of this race was to compare myself to the top pros on a very difficult course. My goal at this point was to be within 20 minutes, and well, if you exclude the first place guy (Cameron Dye) who absolutely tore it up with an ITU level swim and by beating the old bike course record by a minute or more, I was within 21 minutes of the 2nd place pro behind him, who is also a former Olympian (Matty Reed). Close enough.
7/15 Evergreen Sprint Tri: 10th OA, 3rd AG
Finally, a smaller race like I'm used to. Only a couple hundred here, so maybe I even have a shot at the modest prize purse, right? Ha! Not in this area!
The swim was supposed to be cold. Luckily, for my sake, it wasn't. Though the race was located up in the mountains at 7000+ft, the general warm temperatures had the water temp up enough that while swimming I felt fine in my sleeveless wetsuit (coming from Oklahoma, I never thought I'd have use for a full!). Again, I hung with the front group for the first couple hundred meters or so, and then fell off the pace to lead the chase. Some guy came up on my heals on the way back so I moved over and let him through so I could jump on his instead and he led me all the way back in. Coming out of the water though, we got stuck in mud that almost felt like quick sand. There was no way to walk through it. So as he struggled I got the bright idea to try a few dolphin dives and hope I didn't hit any rocks. It worked. I flew through transition as normal and got a nice cushion to start the bike.
It wasn't enough. He caught me within a few miles, and proceeded to drop me on even the relatively flat sections. On a road bike no less! However, I was riding with power now, and from pre-riding the course a couple times the day before knew that I needed to be a bit conservative at the start.
If I thought the previous race up Olde Stage Hill in Boulder was crazy, then this was legitimately insane! 1200+ft of climbing for a 12 mile bike course! The first 7 miles climbed up into the mountains and the next 5 descended back down to the lake. It was brilliant! By far the most beautiful triathlon bike course I've ever experienced, and at close to 8000ft, by far the highest!
I paced myself well, and kept my new nemesis, who was again in my age group as well, in sight. When we hit the really steep sections towards the top, I tapped into a couple reserve bursts of power to get as much momentum as possible to start the next downhill as we got closer and closer. Finally on the last big climb, I got enough momentum started, along with my TT position to fly pass him on a sharp, blind corner that, because of my pre-ride I knew I could take flat out if I just trusted myself and stayed in it. It worked and I continued to develop a nice gap on the descent, flying past another rider along the way.
I started the run feeling a few of those power bursts, however, my legs came around quick enough. Considering that the run, like the bike, climbed like crazy for the first part. I seriously thought I should stop and start walking at the pace I was going, but my heart rate was as high as if I was sprinting! I could see my nemesis behind me, and knew if he had caught up this much already, he was bound to come flying past me any second now.
He didn't. But he did catch me and we ran side by side on the descent as I struggled to get my breathing under control. I eventually did. But when we hit a flat section again, I was left in the dust, as I again could not hold a faster run pace. I kept at it though hoping he had gone too hard to leave me behind and that I could catch him at the end as he burst, but it was not to be. We came in 2nd and 3rd in AG and with no long straights or turnarounds, never even saw another athlete on the course.
I was very pleased with my performance though, as I hit 20 flat on what was by far the toughest and slowest 5k course I've done, after the hardest bike, and at the highest altitude I've ever raced! An incredible experience along an incredible course. And even a great AG prize to boot, as I received a hand-held water bottle from Ultimate Directions to carry on long runs or trail runs with no water spots. No longer do I have to stumble through a trailer park like a zombie with an unquenchable thirst when I mistime how long I can run in extreme heat without water...
6/17 Boulder 5430 Sprint Triathlon: 39th OA, 10th AG
This is the race where I first experienced what a 1000+ people at a sprint is like. I had only been at altitude for a day, and so heeded the caution I got from other athletes in making certain to be careful not too go too hard on the swim. I had been working a lot on fast starts and settling in to a comfortable pace and getting very good at it, but for this race, I went easy from the start. It worked brilliantly. It seems people here can swim much straighter (probably from many more chances to practice open water swimming), and I got a great draft all the way back in and straight as an arrow for a very solid swim split.
Next was the bike, which is a nice incline for the first several miles and then downhill after that. Not used to riding any kind of prolonged climbs, even at a low gradient, I struggled a bit to keep the pace up as high as I should have here. But once we hit the rollers, I made up time. Big time. Coming from Oklahoma, I know how to ride rolling hills well. Very well. A guy in my age group that had caught and passed me was left in my dust. Only to catch up again on the last steady incline though of course. But I hung on after that. Until the run started and he ran away. Overall, it was my fastest bike split to date though at 24.5mph for 17.2 miles. Not bad, but it needs to be much faster.
The run was where I really started to feel the altitude. Even at only 5300ft, I could tell my race pace had slowed drastically. With the tough and slow run course going over the rocky trails around the reservoir, I wasn't even able to break 20 minutes for the 5k run on this day. A solid race though for my second day at altitude.
7/8 Boulder Peak 5150 Triathlon: 90th OA, 11th AG
Now if I thought the last race was fast and competitive, this one was on even another level! When I first biked the course, I couldn't believe it. I had heard it had a good little climb in it, but I was totally unprepared for what I was about to experience. By the time I finally made it up, I thought I was going to puke! The crazy thing about this area is how many old ladies I see going up it on a routine basis! If this were in Oklahoma, no one except the more competitive road racers would ever be seen going up it by bike. And certainly no race director would ever dream of sending a triathlon up it! I was seriously daunted. No way was I going to race up this thing.
But I kept climbing it in training every chance I got. And each time it got easier and I got faster. Then the pressure came with all the guys I was training with. They were all doing it. Why not me? Ok, fine, I'm signing up!
By the time race day came, and I, once again, missed the front pack on the swim and settled in around the lead of the chase pack, I actually felt ready for it. And I was. For the first time, I got all the way up the section where it turns to 15% grade for about 2/3 of a mile WITHOUT getting out of the saddle. I was stoked! And a good thing too, because I accidentally put my dry, smooth road tire pressure in and the road where the climb was on hadn't dried out yet, which meant my tire slipped like crazy if I did try to get out of the saddle. From there on, it was all downhill, with more rollers. My specialty. And I crushed it. Enough to get a nice lead on, the same guy from the last race, who caught up big time on me on the climb and grabbed a nice gap before the rollers started. This time though, I had enough of an advantage to hold him off on the last gradual uphill section and start the run with a bit of a cushion.
However, it wasn't enough. And my running wasn't quite up to his level. He blew by me about a mile in and I couldn't hang. I stuck to my pace though, and at the turnaround, kicked it into gear to finish with my first sub-40 10k at altitude! For that slow and slightly hilly off-road run course, I was extremely pleased! With the way my run fitness is developing, I hope to soon be able to drop a 37 minute run split on a course like that and be able to hang with the likes of my new found local nemesis!
Overall, the main objective of this race was to compare myself to the top pros on a very difficult course. My goal at this point was to be within 20 minutes, and well, if you exclude the first place guy (Cameron Dye) who absolutely tore it up with an ITU level swim and by beating the old bike course record by a minute or more, I was within 21 minutes of the 2nd place pro behind him, who is also a former Olympian (Matty Reed). Close enough.
7/15 Evergreen Sprint Tri: 10th OA, 3rd AG
Finally, a smaller race like I'm used to. Only a couple hundred here, so maybe I even have a shot at the modest prize purse, right? Ha! Not in this area!
The swim was supposed to be cold. Luckily, for my sake, it wasn't. Though the race was located up in the mountains at 7000+ft, the general warm temperatures had the water temp up enough that while swimming I felt fine in my sleeveless wetsuit (coming from Oklahoma, I never thought I'd have use for a full!). Again, I hung with the front group for the first couple hundred meters or so, and then fell off the pace to lead the chase. Some guy came up on my heals on the way back so I moved over and let him through so I could jump on his instead and he led me all the way back in. Coming out of the water though, we got stuck in mud that almost felt like quick sand. There was no way to walk through it. So as he struggled I got the bright idea to try a few dolphin dives and hope I didn't hit any rocks. It worked. I flew through transition as normal and got a nice cushion to start the bike.
It wasn't enough. He caught me within a few miles, and proceeded to drop me on even the relatively flat sections. On a road bike no less! However, I was riding with power now, and from pre-riding the course a couple times the day before knew that I needed to be a bit conservative at the start.
If I thought the previous race up Olde Stage Hill in Boulder was crazy, then this was legitimately insane! 1200+ft of climbing for a 12 mile bike course! The first 7 miles climbed up into the mountains and the next 5 descended back down to the lake. It was brilliant! By far the most beautiful triathlon bike course I've ever experienced, and at close to 8000ft, by far the highest!
I paced myself well, and kept my new nemesis, who was again in my age group as well, in sight. When we hit the really steep sections towards the top, I tapped into a couple reserve bursts of power to get as much momentum as possible to start the next downhill as we got closer and closer. Finally on the last big climb, I got enough momentum started, along with my TT position to fly pass him on a sharp, blind corner that, because of my pre-ride I knew I could take flat out if I just trusted myself and stayed in it. It worked and I continued to develop a nice gap on the descent, flying past another rider along the way.
I started the run feeling a few of those power bursts, however, my legs came around quick enough. Considering that the run, like the bike, climbed like crazy for the first part. I seriously thought I should stop and start walking at the pace I was going, but my heart rate was as high as if I was sprinting! I could see my nemesis behind me, and knew if he had caught up this much already, he was bound to come flying past me any second now.
He didn't. But he did catch me and we ran side by side on the descent as I struggled to get my breathing under control. I eventually did. But when we hit a flat section again, I was left in the dust, as I again could not hold a faster run pace. I kept at it though hoping he had gone too hard to leave me behind and that I could catch him at the end as he burst, but it was not to be. We came in 2nd and 3rd in AG and with no long straights or turnarounds, never even saw another athlete on the course.
I was very pleased with my performance though, as I hit 20 flat on what was by far the toughest and slowest 5k course I've done, after the hardest bike, and at the highest altitude I've ever raced! An incredible experience along an incredible course. And even a great AG prize to boot, as I received a hand-held water bottle from Ultimate Directions to carry on long runs or trail runs with no water spots. No longer do I have to stumble through a trailer park like a zombie with an unquenchable thirst when I mistime how long I can run in extreme heat without water...
Altitude Adjustment
I get a lot of questions about adjusting to altitude. And the answer, as answers usually are, is it depends. Typically though, it takes around 2 weeks to make the majority of the adjustments necessary and a full 4-6 weeks to completely adjust at 7500ft. Add a week for every 2000ft or so. But what does that mean for training or racing at altitude? What if I'm only there for a week?
Well if you plan on going to altitude to race, and do not have a week or two to adjust beforehand, try to do it within 24 hours is possible, and 48 at the maximum. Be prepared to maybe even feel a little sick when warming up for the race, and know that if you keep youself calm, it will pass and you will be fine.
From what I've found the 3rd day at altitude is always the worst, but for me, I feel fully adjusted by the 4th or 5th day (which doesn't necessarily mean that I am). If you have big training planned, start out relatively easy, and plan to rest on the 3rd day if possible. Save the big, hard stuff for the tail end of the trip if you can, and try to build into it.
Coming down from altitude is another concern that is often overlooked. Most people will do just fine here, but I've found I have some of the same adjustment problems coming down when I try to race very soon (feeling sick for a few minutes right before the race, for instance). Also, if you are moving down to a hot and humid climate from a dry and cool one, expect to be slower. Heat and humidity will require just as much adjustment as altitude and from my experience, can slow you down even more.
For some more technical information about adjusting and adapting to altitude, good information can be found here: http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/acclimatization-to-altitude.html
Well if you plan on going to altitude to race, and do not have a week or two to adjust beforehand, try to do it within 24 hours is possible, and 48 at the maximum. Be prepared to maybe even feel a little sick when warming up for the race, and know that if you keep youself calm, it will pass and you will be fine.
From what I've found the 3rd day at altitude is always the worst, but for me, I feel fully adjusted by the 4th or 5th day (which doesn't necessarily mean that I am). If you have big training planned, start out relatively easy, and plan to rest on the 3rd day if possible. Save the big, hard stuff for the tail end of the trip if you can, and try to build into it.
Coming down from altitude is another concern that is often overlooked. Most people will do just fine here, but I've found I have some of the same adjustment problems coming down when I try to race very soon (feeling sick for a few minutes right before the race, for instance). Also, if you are moving down to a hot and humid climate from a dry and cool one, expect to be slower. Heat and humidity will require just as much adjustment as altitude and from my experience, can slow you down even more.
For some more technical information about adjusting and adapting to altitude, good information can be found here: http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/acclimatization-to-altitude.html
Early Season Race Reports
I've done quite a bit of racing recently, so here's a recap of the highlights from my racing in Oklahoma.
4/21 Spring Fever Sprint Triathlon: 5th OA, 1st AG
Swam well with a 6:10 for a 400m snake swim, didn't have it on the bike, but ran my first sub 12 minute 2 mile off the bike. Not a bad showing for what is typically the most competitive sprint race in Oklahoma. Though local pro Jessica Meyers smoked me...
5/20 Texasman X-50 Triathlon: 28th OA, 3rd AG
First open water swim race of the year and it went terribly wrong. Went out too fast I think. Started hyperventilating and had to slow down for a bit to get things under control. From there, I had lost the front pack by a large margin, so I swam in relaxed at the front of the chase pack. Felt very strong on the bike, and was possibly putting a great race together (this is the one I had tapered for), but got a flat at mile 30. After waiting 15-20 minutes for the SAG car, I finally got my flat fixed and rode like a madman back in, where I paced my buddy, 51 year old Lee Walther in for the overall win and then jogged the second lap to a very surprising 3rd in AG finish.
5/26 Will Rogers Sprint Triathlon: 2nd OA, 1st AG
After finishing only 36 seconds down to my good friend and training partner from Tulsa, Eric McCrary, at Spring Fever a month before I decided to make this race interesting and talk up as much trash as I could stand to him about how I was going to finally beat him for the first time. This race was an almost exact copy of the previous race, except this time I was going to be tapered and ready to rock. I've finished second to him more times than I care to remember, so this was finally going to be the race where I beat him.
I didn't. He did. Got my a$$ beat by around three and a half minutes. He really showed up.
6/02-6/03 Route 66 Festivus: Sprint, 7th OA, 2nd AG; Oly, 5th OA, 2nd AG
This is the weekend where my run fitness really exploded. On the sprint the first day, I had a very good relaxed swim in the front pack, with only a couple of the faster swimmers getting away. I came into transition fresh, and was rocking the bike hard early on. At one point a guy rode up next to me on a hill and was slowing down as I was speeding up. As soon as his wheel got a centimeter past mine, he started yelling at me that I've been passed and have to drop back. Whatever man, I'm riding my own race, I'll see you later. Eventually I caught up with my buddy, Sean Stevens, who was leading the AG race, as local pro Daniel Tigert was way off the front, even out of shape. When I passed him, he made the mistake of only dropping two bike lengths back before repassing me. When I attempted to repass him, he took off in a mad sprint up the hill when I had just entered his draft zone. I couldn't pass. There was a ref sitting behind us. We both got "busted". Ridiculous? I thought so, but those are the rules. No worries, I ran my best 5k ever off the bike and almost broke 19! The penalty busted us back from 1st and 2nd to 5th and 6th, but that just made the race for the overall for both days way more interesting!
To start the second day of racing, there were now three people in front of me, and a couple right on my heels, gunning for the overall combined. I was going to need a very good, very fast day. Thing is, I already knew I had it won. Historically, I've always swam the same speed and then biked and ran faster when racing an Olympic the day after a Sprint. When I woke up, I knew this day would be no different. Good luck catching me.
And I did exactly that. As the regional championship, there were some much faster people at this race than the previous day, and they soon got away from me on the swim, leaving me pretty much all alone for most of it. I got even got an odd case of vertigo on the second lap swimming in their wake, but I got it under control and came in, once again, fresh and ready to hammer the bike.
On the bike, I once again was making power immediately and started working as hard as I could. Oddly, a couple guys came flying past me, one right on the heals of the other. I thought about legally pacing off them for a second, but knowing how strict the ref was calling it, I didn't want to accidentally wander an inch into their draft zone without passing and get busted again. So I kept them in sight, but well out of range. And, sure enough, the ref came around eventually and sat on their tail for several minutes while I watched. The one guy who was drafting ended up with a 6 minute penalty, and, of course, complained like crazy about it afterwards.
After biking about as hard as I could, I was a bit concerned about how I would be able to run. I shouldn't have been worried. My run legs have never felt fresher. I paced off one of the faster bikers that passed me for the first lap as we ran around 6:10's or so, and then decided to go for it and took off for the second lap. Unbelievably, I was able to keep it up and ran my first 37 minute 10k! Off the bike no less!
With an overall time of 2:06, this was easily fast enough to win the overall title for both days by several minutes!
Though my good friend and training partner, Eric, was the next person in front of me in the race. He had swam 4 minutes into me. And beat me by that amount overall. Someday, Eric, someday!
4/21 Spring Fever Sprint Triathlon: 5th OA, 1st AG
Swam well with a 6:10 for a 400m snake swim, didn't have it on the bike, but ran my first sub 12 minute 2 mile off the bike. Not a bad showing for what is typically the most competitive sprint race in Oklahoma. Though local pro Jessica Meyers smoked me...
5/20 Texasman X-50 Triathlon: 28th OA, 3rd AG
First open water swim race of the year and it went terribly wrong. Went out too fast I think. Started hyperventilating and had to slow down for a bit to get things under control. From there, I had lost the front pack by a large margin, so I swam in relaxed at the front of the chase pack. Felt very strong on the bike, and was possibly putting a great race together (this is the one I had tapered for), but got a flat at mile 30. After waiting 15-20 minutes for the SAG car, I finally got my flat fixed and rode like a madman back in, where I paced my buddy, 51 year old Lee Walther in for the overall win and then jogged the second lap to a very surprising 3rd in AG finish.
5/26 Will Rogers Sprint Triathlon: 2nd OA, 1st AG
After finishing only 36 seconds down to my good friend and training partner from Tulsa, Eric McCrary, at Spring Fever a month before I decided to make this race interesting and talk up as much trash as I could stand to him about how I was going to finally beat him for the first time. This race was an almost exact copy of the previous race, except this time I was going to be tapered and ready to rock. I've finished second to him more times than I care to remember, so this was finally going to be the race where I beat him.
I didn't. He did. Got my a$$ beat by around three and a half minutes. He really showed up.
6/02-6/03 Route 66 Festivus: Sprint, 7th OA, 2nd AG; Oly, 5th OA, 2nd AG
This is the weekend where my run fitness really exploded. On the sprint the first day, I had a very good relaxed swim in the front pack, with only a couple of the faster swimmers getting away. I came into transition fresh, and was rocking the bike hard early on. At one point a guy rode up next to me on a hill and was slowing down as I was speeding up. As soon as his wheel got a centimeter past mine, he started yelling at me that I've been passed and have to drop back. Whatever man, I'm riding my own race, I'll see you later. Eventually I caught up with my buddy, Sean Stevens, who was leading the AG race, as local pro Daniel Tigert was way off the front, even out of shape. When I passed him, he made the mistake of only dropping two bike lengths back before repassing me. When I attempted to repass him, he took off in a mad sprint up the hill when I had just entered his draft zone. I couldn't pass. There was a ref sitting behind us. We both got "busted". Ridiculous? I thought so, but those are the rules. No worries, I ran my best 5k ever off the bike and almost broke 19! The penalty busted us back from 1st and 2nd to 5th and 6th, but that just made the race for the overall for both days way more interesting!
To start the second day of racing, there were now three people in front of me, and a couple right on my heels, gunning for the overall combined. I was going to need a very good, very fast day. Thing is, I already knew I had it won. Historically, I've always swam the same speed and then biked and ran faster when racing an Olympic the day after a Sprint. When I woke up, I knew this day would be no different. Good luck catching me.
And I did exactly that. As the regional championship, there were some much faster people at this race than the previous day, and they soon got away from me on the swim, leaving me pretty much all alone for most of it. I got even got an odd case of vertigo on the second lap swimming in their wake, but I got it under control and came in, once again, fresh and ready to hammer the bike.
On the bike, I once again was making power immediately and started working as hard as I could. Oddly, a couple guys came flying past me, one right on the heals of the other. I thought about legally pacing off them for a second, but knowing how strict the ref was calling it, I didn't want to accidentally wander an inch into their draft zone without passing and get busted again. So I kept them in sight, but well out of range. And, sure enough, the ref came around eventually and sat on their tail for several minutes while I watched. The one guy who was drafting ended up with a 6 minute penalty, and, of course, complained like crazy about it afterwards.
After biking about as hard as I could, I was a bit concerned about how I would be able to run. I shouldn't have been worried. My run legs have never felt fresher. I paced off one of the faster bikers that passed me for the first lap as we ran around 6:10's or so, and then decided to go for it and took off for the second lap. Unbelievably, I was able to keep it up and ran my first 37 minute 10k! Off the bike no less!
With an overall time of 2:06, this was easily fast enough to win the overall title for both days by several minutes!
Though my good friend and training partner, Eric, was the next person in front of me in the race. He had swam 4 minutes into me. And beat me by that amount overall. Someday, Eric, someday!
Overtraining
How does it happen? Shouldn't it be easy to avoid, since all you have to do is back off and rest whenever workouts become really tough to start or to get through, right? It's not so simple, as once you get used to a very high volume and workload in training, it becomes hard to back off. You just don't want to even take even one day easy. And what happens in the short term is that you can actually feel yourself getting faster! But you're smart, right? So eventually you do make yourself rest. A little bit. But it's not enough. You rest just enough to get rid of some short term fatigue so that you start feeling relatively good again. When you get back into it, you end up jumping right back in and going just as long, just as hard as you were before. You just can't stop. Taper is approaching. You have to get more training in. You skip a rest week, and decide to just keep building until taper. After all, you planned an extra long taper so that you could do just a little bit of functional overreaching, you should be OK, right?
Wrong. What you don't realize is that you hit functional overreaching weeks ago, and now you're really overdoing it. Skipping rest weeks and rest days, in my experience, has always, eventually led to disaster. When training gets to be at training camp levels, it is so very important to incorporate adequate rest immediately after, and to build back up again and not jump right back into the same long, hard training. Your body can very easily get used to fatigue and work through it for quite awhile, even getting faster while your fitness skyrockets. But that fatigue builds and continues to build and without frequent rest to keep it in check, it will continue to accrue. Once it reaches a certain point, you will start to slow down and the normal rest periods you incorporate will only reach short term fatigue, whereas long term fatigue will still be there. When this happens, you are overtrained, and it is going to take quite awhile to recover.
Overtraining can be very deceptive though, because it can occur in the major muscles used for one sport and with no short term fatigue from all the rest you've done recently, you might feel really good in the other two sports. This then teases you with the thought that maybe you just need more training in that sport that you are overtrained. And that is a really bad idea. What you need is rest. Particularly in that sport. But more rest in general. Weeks of it. Possibly even months.
I can't quite describe how hard it was to go from biking 250-400+ miles per week to trying not to ride more than 100 miles with no hard efforts, but it has worked. However, even now, after a couple months of having "my legs back" on the bike, I have been keeping my bike mileage under 200 miles per week as I work to slowly, and carefully build my bike fitness back up.
Lesson learned. Never skip rest periods, no matter how good you feel. Always be aware of the long-term fatigue on your body. Undertraining is an easy fix. Overtraining is not.
Wrong. What you don't realize is that you hit functional overreaching weeks ago, and now you're really overdoing it. Skipping rest weeks and rest days, in my experience, has always, eventually led to disaster. When training gets to be at training camp levels, it is so very important to incorporate adequate rest immediately after, and to build back up again and not jump right back into the same long, hard training. Your body can very easily get used to fatigue and work through it for quite awhile, even getting faster while your fitness skyrockets. But that fatigue builds and continues to build and without frequent rest to keep it in check, it will continue to accrue. Once it reaches a certain point, you will start to slow down and the normal rest periods you incorporate will only reach short term fatigue, whereas long term fatigue will still be there. When this happens, you are overtrained, and it is going to take quite awhile to recover.
Overtraining can be very deceptive though, because it can occur in the major muscles used for one sport and with no short term fatigue from all the rest you've done recently, you might feel really good in the other two sports. This then teases you with the thought that maybe you just need more training in that sport that you are overtrained. And that is a really bad idea. What you need is rest. Particularly in that sport. But more rest in general. Weeks of it. Possibly even months.
I can't quite describe how hard it was to go from biking 250-400+ miles per week to trying not to ride more than 100 miles with no hard efforts, but it has worked. However, even now, after a couple months of having "my legs back" on the bike, I have been keeping my bike mileage under 200 miles per week as I work to slowly, and carefully build my bike fitness back up.
Lesson learned. Never skip rest periods, no matter how good you feel. Always be aware of the long-term fatigue on your body. Undertraining is an easy fix. Overtraining is not.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Taper Worries
Every year, without fail, I have periods of poor, slow racing and training, where I just can't get my legs to go. And always, without fail, it is followed with huge fitness gains and very fast racing.
Yet, every time, I worry. What if this time I've just slowed down? What if it doesn't come together quickly enough? What if I did all that work for nothing and I didn't actually get faster?
And that's when I have to stop myself from fretting and have confidence. Trust. Know. That what my body needs is more rest. Lots of it. And that it will respond. In a big way. A very big way. All that time and work has not been wasted. Peak fitness is nowhere near. The fitness gains will come.
However trust is something I have a hard time with. So the worries are still there. But I am working on that. And putting things in perspective helps. What's the worst that could happen if they don't come? If I don't get any faster?
Well in that case I have more than plenty fitness to be content and proud of and I was able to spend more time doing what I love to do than ever before. And I keep going. Because this is one thing I am extremely passionate about. It is part of me. Part of who I am. Getting faster is just the cherry on top. Being able to work hard day in and day out is the whole cake.
Yet, every time, I worry. What if this time I've just slowed down? What if it doesn't come together quickly enough? What if I did all that work for nothing and I didn't actually get faster?
And that's when I have to stop myself from fretting and have confidence. Trust. Know. That what my body needs is more rest. Lots of it. And that it will respond. In a big way. A very big way. All that time and work has not been wasted. Peak fitness is nowhere near. The fitness gains will come.
However trust is something I have a hard time with. So the worries are still there. But I am working on that. And putting things in perspective helps. What's the worst that could happen if they don't come? If I don't get any faster?
Well in that case I have more than plenty fitness to be content and proud of and I was able to spend more time doing what I love to do than ever before. And I keep going. Because this is one thing I am extremely passionate about. It is part of me. Part of who I am. Getting faster is just the cherry on top. Being able to work hard day in and day out is the whole cake.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Daily Diet
I see a lot of articles in triathlon magazine's detailing this pro or that pro's typical diet as they go through a day. Interestingly, I've noticed quite a few similarities in many of the foods that pros often eat, and thought it might be a good idea to give insight into what I've found to work quite well for me for not just nutrition but cost and convenience as well. So here is what a day will usually look like for me.
Breakfast 1- Oatmeal with fruit and usually some milk or peanut butter for protein. Cup of Japanese green tea.
Workout 1- Water if swimming, gatorade if running, gatorade plus Clifbars, EFS, and powerbars if biking 3 hours or more. Tea or caffeinated gels on longer, harder rides or when needed.
Post workout smoothie after the main workout of the day, whether it is morning or afternoon.
Lunch- Two eggs with cheddar cheese, spinach and mushrooms. Usually a side of toast with jam and fresh fruit and/or a thin slice of red meat depending on caloric needs for the day. An apple or pear is typically eaten as well. Sometimes, fried rice is made with the eggs instead by pan-searing the rice and egg with meat, carrots and soy sauce. More green tea.
Snack- Fresh fruit and yogurt with chopped nuts
Workout 2- If the morning was a bike ride, this might be swimming and running. The order is changed constantly based upon the focus of the day. If the afternoon swim session is longer, liquid calories such as gatorade will be taken.
Post workout (or late night snack depending on timing of workout 2)- Cereal with fresh fruit.
Dinner- Steak and mushrooms with asparagus and a baked potato or pan-seared fish with available vegetables.
Late night snack- nuts or other available proteins or fats. Carbs, especially sugars are typically avoided to a degree at this time.
Now the foods here aren't so important as the nutrional profile that is trying to be achieved. Early in the morning, my goal is to load up on as many carbs as possible for the day's workouts with a little bit of protein to support carbohydrate uptake.
As the day goes on, the amount of protein increases in order to give the body the nutrients it needs for muscle repair. Eggs are quite important here, as even if the day happens to be a vegetarian one (which happens occasionally), they provide a complete amino acid profile. After the days' last workout and the proper post workout carbs have been taken in, a higher protein dinner is usually preferred.
Most importanly though, before bed time, carbs are restricted somewhat, particularly high glycemic ones, in order to ensure maximum HGH release during the first hours of sleep. Since HGH release is inhibited by insulin response (to high glycemic carbs), it has been theorized that a low carb intake immediately before bed can aid in recovery.
Hopefully, some of this information can help you in designing your own convenient and inexpensive balanced diet!
Breakfast 1- Oatmeal with fruit and usually some milk or peanut butter for protein. Cup of Japanese green tea.
Workout 1- Water if swimming, gatorade if running, gatorade plus Clifbars, EFS, and powerbars if biking 3 hours or more. Tea or caffeinated gels on longer, harder rides or when needed.
Post workout smoothie after the main workout of the day, whether it is morning or afternoon.
Lunch- Two eggs with cheddar cheese, spinach and mushrooms. Usually a side of toast with jam and fresh fruit and/or a thin slice of red meat depending on caloric needs for the day. An apple or pear is typically eaten as well. Sometimes, fried rice is made with the eggs instead by pan-searing the rice and egg with meat, carrots and soy sauce. More green tea.
Snack- Fresh fruit and yogurt with chopped nuts
Workout 2- If the morning was a bike ride, this might be swimming and running. The order is changed constantly based upon the focus of the day. If the afternoon swim session is longer, liquid calories such as gatorade will be taken.
Post workout (or late night snack depending on timing of workout 2)- Cereal with fresh fruit.
Dinner- Steak and mushrooms with asparagus and a baked potato or pan-seared fish with available vegetables.
Late night snack- nuts or other available proteins or fats. Carbs, especially sugars are typically avoided to a degree at this time.
Now the foods here aren't so important as the nutrional profile that is trying to be achieved. Early in the morning, my goal is to load up on as many carbs as possible for the day's workouts with a little bit of protein to support carbohydrate uptake.
As the day goes on, the amount of protein increases in order to give the body the nutrients it needs for muscle repair. Eggs are quite important here, as even if the day happens to be a vegetarian one (which happens occasionally), they provide a complete amino acid profile. After the days' last workout and the proper post workout carbs have been taken in, a higher protein dinner is usually preferred.
Most importanly though, before bed time, carbs are restricted somewhat, particularly high glycemic ones, in order to ensure maximum HGH release during the first hours of sleep. Since HGH release is inhibited by insulin response (to high glycemic carbs), it has been theorized that a low carb intake immediately before bed can aid in recovery.
Hopefully, some of this information can help you in designing your own convenient and inexpensive balanced diet!
Functional Overreaching
As I sit here getting ready to leave Clermont, I can't help but feel good about all that I have accomplished over the last several weeks. Building off the big bike and swim mileage I had started in Gainesville, I progressively increased the volume and intensity with one purpose in mind. Not to get faster, but to get stronger. Transforming my body into the efficient machine it needs to be in order to handle the massive training loads that will be required to reach that professional level.
And for the majority of it, I was not getting any faster. I was steadily doing more and more than I ever had, yet my swimming was at times slowing down. And on the bike my legs always felt worn down, like they wouldn't have any power. Yet, they always did. And though I didn't know it, my swimming stroke was getting better and better each day.
Though since I didn't know it, I just had to trust that if I kept at it, I would see results in the form of speed increases. Even though I was already seeing the only results that really mattered for the moment in the increased ability to do work. And, on less and less calories and fluids. After awhile I noticed my body seemingly start to adapt to the training load. I got comfortable with the routine of working hard all day, (almost) every day. My overall food intake seemed to be back to a relatively normal level, and had even developed into a routine, designed to get as varied and complete a diet as possible each day.
I started to get a bit faster. If only just a bit. Then a slight change in my swim stroke from a Master's swim drill that kept me from overrating my hips. Big increase in speed! And with that the motivation that led to even faster swim workouts and more increases in speed.
On the bike I was starting to feel invincible. I was keeping up a lot better with the pro triathletes when I went riding with them, even doing an interval workout where I was able to stay on their wheels throughout each interval!
But as the training block was coming to a close, it was time for something big. It was time to keep pushing and see what was possible. It was time to attempt to bring my body into what some call "functional overreaching". Which is just a fancy name for being slightly overtrained. Just enough that a quick recovery will yield huge fitness gains, while avoiding accumulating too much long-term fatigue.
So for my last week, I simply continued to go as long and as hard as I could on the bike. Except there were no days off. Just a couple moderate days, just soft enough to allow me to keep going hard. The other 5 days were all extremely hard. The intent was to blow my legs up. The day before the last hard day I thought I had done just that.
Instead, my body responded. Adapted. Took up my challenge and one-upped me. It got stronger. Faster. Before I even gave it the recovery it needed. On the last day I was not only riding faster than I was at the beginning of the week, I was riding faster than ever before. For much longer too.
The week's totals hit 418 miles on the bike at an astounding average of around 20 miles per hour! Incredible! Considering how much of it was done alone and pulling, I couldn't believe it! Physically, I felt like I always did. Hurting like hell after each bike ride and always like my legs wouldn't be able to work. But they always did and now I knew that they would.
I even thought maybe I could keep going. That's when I realized how so many professional endurance athletes end up severely overtrained. Gradually, over time, your body can adapt and get used to anything and the symptoms of overtraining just become part of everyday life. Luckily though for my body, my mind was done.
Mentally, I couldn't take any more. I had hurt myself too much that week. Seemingly, my mind was more ready for that planned rest period than my body. And so as I leave Clermont for a quick stint at the beach and some downtime in the Tennessee country I will rest. Big time rest.
And for the majority of it, I was not getting any faster. I was steadily doing more and more than I ever had, yet my swimming was at times slowing down. And on the bike my legs always felt worn down, like they wouldn't have any power. Yet, they always did. And though I didn't know it, my swimming stroke was getting better and better each day.
Though since I didn't know it, I just had to trust that if I kept at it, I would see results in the form of speed increases. Even though I was already seeing the only results that really mattered for the moment in the increased ability to do work. And, on less and less calories and fluids. After awhile I noticed my body seemingly start to adapt to the training load. I got comfortable with the routine of working hard all day, (almost) every day. My overall food intake seemed to be back to a relatively normal level, and had even developed into a routine, designed to get as varied and complete a diet as possible each day.
I started to get a bit faster. If only just a bit. Then a slight change in my swim stroke from a Master's swim drill that kept me from overrating my hips. Big increase in speed! And with that the motivation that led to even faster swim workouts and more increases in speed.
On the bike I was starting to feel invincible. I was keeping up a lot better with the pro triathletes when I went riding with them, even doing an interval workout where I was able to stay on their wheels throughout each interval!
But as the training block was coming to a close, it was time for something big. It was time to keep pushing and see what was possible. It was time to attempt to bring my body into what some call "functional overreaching". Which is just a fancy name for being slightly overtrained. Just enough that a quick recovery will yield huge fitness gains, while avoiding accumulating too much long-term fatigue.
So for my last week, I simply continued to go as long and as hard as I could on the bike. Except there were no days off. Just a couple moderate days, just soft enough to allow me to keep going hard. The other 5 days were all extremely hard. The intent was to blow my legs up. The day before the last hard day I thought I had done just that.
Instead, my body responded. Adapted. Took up my challenge and one-upped me. It got stronger. Faster. Before I even gave it the recovery it needed. On the last day I was not only riding faster than I was at the beginning of the week, I was riding faster than ever before. For much longer too.
The week's totals hit 418 miles on the bike at an astounding average of around 20 miles per hour! Incredible! Considering how much of it was done alone and pulling, I couldn't believe it! Physically, I felt like I always did. Hurting like hell after each bike ride and always like my legs wouldn't be able to work. But they always did and now I knew that they would.
I even thought maybe I could keep going. That's when I realized how so many professional endurance athletes end up severely overtrained. Gradually, over time, your body can adapt and get used to anything and the symptoms of overtraining just become part of everyday life. Luckily though for my body, my mind was done.
Mentally, I couldn't take any more. I had hurt myself too much that week. Seemingly, my mind was more ready for that planned rest period than my body. And so as I leave Clermont for a quick stint at the beach and some downtime in the Tennessee country I will rest. Big time rest.
Monday, March 12, 2012
How to Train Like a Pro
There are several things I have learned and continue to learn here while training with several pro triathletes in the Clermont area. The first being how hard and how often they train. Many swim, bike, and run almost every day. The exception being the off day where it seems an easy swim or bike is the norm.
This, however, is not possible under the time constraints of the typical age group athlete. But what is quite applicable is the extremely high quality of each of these sessions. Each workout has a purpose and is completed without pause.
For example, during a swim, there is no sitting on the wall except when rest is really needed. If it is an easy swim to recover from a hard session earlier in the day or during a recovery day, it is done fairly continuous, utilizing different strokes in order to target different muscles, as the goal is active recovery. Fins are used quite often for these workouts as well in order to make it easier and yet still provide that feel for the water that they are looking to maintain.
Their main fitness building workouts are big and quite specific and of course, incorporate a proper warm-up, drills, and cool down as well. However, for the Ironman athletes who are very good swimmers and already have a front pack swim, many of their swims tend to focus on technique and strength work to simply maintain their feel for the water and ability to swim at the front with ease.
On the bike is where the professionalism really stands out. From the very start the pace is hot and fast and only gets faster as they warmup to the goal pace for the day, only slowing when traffic necessitates it. There is little to no soft-pedaling or coasting (unless it is interval day of course). There are no stops except for those quick ones for water and bathroom breaks on the longest of rides. Food is rarely eaten for rides of 3 hours or less. Their bodies are so efficient by this point that proper fueling before and after and a couple bottles full of gatorade or other carbohydrate/electrolyte drink are plenty to get through most rides. I've seen a snickers or two for the longer rides (I still take in a few more calories, but it is quite a bit less than what I needed just a couple months ago), but the calorie intake seems to be quite low unless specifically training the body to take in calories while exercising.
And the low calorie and fluid intake seems to be even more so for the run. This, however, I do not recommend. Likely you can probably stand to cut out a few calories from your rides and maybe even from your runs too, but if what you are doing is working here, don't change it. Bonking sucks.
Running, in general, the training seems to be quite similar. Endurance runs, tempo runs, interval runs, long runs, recovery runs, etc. Except for the post-run beer. There is none of that. And it's a good rule to follow if you're in the middle of big training and need maximum recovery. If you can, wait until your body has a chance to absorb and digest some post workout nutrition before imbibing that delicious mug of fire water.
In addition, they almost always ride and run from where they are (particularly the visiting athletes who do not have cars), thus cutting down on total workout time and adding to their total efficiency. A three hour ride usually takes just that, three hours, to complete. The rest of the time is spent refueling and resting up for the next workout.
So the big difference that really stands out is their efficiency in training. They get the most out of their swims, runs, and rides. And, with a few tweaks to how you complete your workouts, so can you.
This, however, is not possible under the time constraints of the typical age group athlete. But what is quite applicable is the extremely high quality of each of these sessions. Each workout has a purpose and is completed without pause.
For example, during a swim, there is no sitting on the wall except when rest is really needed. If it is an easy swim to recover from a hard session earlier in the day or during a recovery day, it is done fairly continuous, utilizing different strokes in order to target different muscles, as the goal is active recovery. Fins are used quite often for these workouts as well in order to make it easier and yet still provide that feel for the water that they are looking to maintain.
Their main fitness building workouts are big and quite specific and of course, incorporate a proper warm-up, drills, and cool down as well. However, for the Ironman athletes who are very good swimmers and already have a front pack swim, many of their swims tend to focus on technique and strength work to simply maintain their feel for the water and ability to swim at the front with ease.
On the bike is where the professionalism really stands out. From the very start the pace is hot and fast and only gets faster as they warmup to the goal pace for the day, only slowing when traffic necessitates it. There is little to no soft-pedaling or coasting (unless it is interval day of course). There are no stops except for those quick ones for water and bathroom breaks on the longest of rides. Food is rarely eaten for rides of 3 hours or less. Their bodies are so efficient by this point that proper fueling before and after and a couple bottles full of gatorade or other carbohydrate/electrolyte drink are plenty to get through most rides. I've seen a snickers or two for the longer rides (I still take in a few more calories, but it is quite a bit less than what I needed just a couple months ago), but the calorie intake seems to be quite low unless specifically training the body to take in calories while exercising.
And the low calorie and fluid intake seems to be even more so for the run. This, however, I do not recommend. Likely you can probably stand to cut out a few calories from your rides and maybe even from your runs too, but if what you are doing is working here, don't change it. Bonking sucks.
Running, in general, the training seems to be quite similar. Endurance runs, tempo runs, interval runs, long runs, recovery runs, etc. Except for the post-run beer. There is none of that. And it's a good rule to follow if you're in the middle of big training and need maximum recovery. If you can, wait until your body has a chance to absorb and digest some post workout nutrition before imbibing that delicious mug of fire water.
In addition, they almost always ride and run from where they are (particularly the visiting athletes who do not have cars), thus cutting down on total workout time and adding to their total efficiency. A three hour ride usually takes just that, three hours, to complete. The rest of the time is spent refueling and resting up for the next workout.
So the big difference that really stands out is their efficiency in training. They get the most out of their swims, runs, and rides. And, with a few tweaks to how you complete your workouts, so can you.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Typical Training Block
My training structure at the moment is typically three days on, one off, as planned. Though I rest depending on when I need it, so sometimes I don't always make it to three days before I have a rest day. Also, of note, is that I am still not running often, so you won't see the typical aerobic runs interspersed throughout. Likely a good thing though, as they might send me over the edge if added in. Also, this kind of work is only planned to be held for three weeks max. After that, I will have a recovery week. A VERY big recovery week. As this particular training block is meant to overload my body to a much deeper fatigue than one might normally attempt.
But, here is an example of what my last three day swim/bike block looked like:
Wed AM- 39 mile bike, very hard. First 45 minutes doing all that I could to stay on Andrey's (Russian Pro) wheel.
Wed PM- 2000yd swim. Main set: 2x200, 4x100 hard.
Thurs AM- 82 mile bike, hilly and hard. With Nina Kraft and Teemo. Cracked from dehydration near the end.
Thurs PM- 2500lcm swim. Lots of fluff, too tired to swim a hard pace.
Fri AM- 40 mile bike, solo, medium hard.
Fri PM- 28 mile bike, hilly, medium hard, with 3 x 3 minute all out intervals.
Fri PM- 4 mile run, 4x800 on track at 5k pace.
Fri PM- 600lcm swim, cool down from run.
As you can see, each day has quite a bit of intensity. At the end of this, I felt surprisingly good. However, it turned out I needed two relatively, short, easy days instead of one before I could get back to a hard workout again. This is fine. Broken down to simplicity, the way to get faster is to overload your body and let it recover. Again and again and again. For most, it will likely be one or two hard days before a recovery day, but with experience and fitness, the body becomes able to handle more and more. One of the pros I train with often goes four on, one off. His off day is usually only an easy swim or bike, but for his "on" days, he is swimming, biking AND running very fast and very hard for most of it. Very little is what most would consider relaxed or easy. Though since he is an Ironman athlete coming from an ITU background, for him most of his workouts are considered "not hard".
But, here is an example of what my last three day swim/bike block looked like:
Wed AM- 39 mile bike, very hard. First 45 minutes doing all that I could to stay on Andrey's (Russian Pro) wheel.
Wed PM- 2000yd swim. Main set: 2x200, 4x100 hard.
Thurs AM- 82 mile bike, hilly and hard. With Nina Kraft and Teemo. Cracked from dehydration near the end.
Thurs PM- 2500lcm swim. Lots of fluff, too tired to swim a hard pace.
Fri AM- 40 mile bike, solo, medium hard.
Fri PM- 28 mile bike, hilly, medium hard, with 3 x 3 minute all out intervals.
Fri PM- 4 mile run, 4x800 on track at 5k pace.
Fri PM- 600lcm swim, cool down from run.
As you can see, each day has quite a bit of intensity. At the end of this, I felt surprisingly good. However, it turned out I needed two relatively, short, easy days instead of one before I could get back to a hard workout again. This is fine. Broken down to simplicity, the way to get faster is to overload your body and let it recover. Again and again and again. For most, it will likely be one or two hard days before a recovery day, but with experience and fitness, the body becomes able to handle more and more. One of the pros I train with often goes four on, one off. His off day is usually only an easy swim or bike, but for his "on" days, he is swimming, biking AND running very fast and very hard for most of it. Very little is what most would consider relaxed or easy. Though since he is an Ironman athlete coming from an ITU background, for him most of his workouts are considered "not hard".
Clermont Draft Legal Challenge
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to schedule a nice recovery day on the same day as the Draft Legal Challenge here in Clermont. As far as I know this is the only age group draft legal event in the US and it also includes a professional ITU race as well. I had three friends to cheer on, each in a different race, so it made for an exciting day!
The race starts with a swim in shallow Lake Louisa which made the majority of the leg dolphin diving and high stepping, particularly for the pros. One pro, in particular, Peter Cook from Australia, gained a huge advantage out of the water from utilizing his height and high stepping early on. I can only imagine how heavy his legs must have felt running up that beach. My buddy from Oklahoma, Talbot Cox, racing in the Age Group Men's race, and my new friend from Clermont, Natalie Kirchoff, racing in the Female Pro race both came out of the water with solid mid-pack positions, while Derek Oskutis, from San Diego, had a great swim coming out near the very front in the Male Pro race.
Next was the bike leg, which stayed spread out into several smaller groups for the women and age group races, but quickly formed into one big group for the pro men after just one lap. With all the U-turns on the course though, it must have been brutal to deal with the accelerations for anyone hanging around the back of a large pack. Luckily, Derek, with his strong swim, had an easier time than most at the front of the pack. Natalie and Talbot, however, seemed to be redlining the whole way in their chase packs, trying to keep from losing too much time to the front groups.
Out on the run, though only a 5k, is where most really started to feel the heat of the day. With temps in the mid to high 80's and typical Florida humidity, those who were not adjusted, were soon struggling. Despite this, I was quite pleased to see all my friends come up with great races as I cheered them on from the sidelines. Talbot got his spot to race nationals, Derek came up with a very solid finish in the top third of the pro field (while working a full-time job in the Navy with little time to train at that!), and Natalie gutting it out for a solid first showing in her first pro race of the year. I was super proud of them all and highly motivated for more big training after seeing all those pros and age groupers flying around the course at such high speeds!
The race starts with a swim in shallow Lake Louisa which made the majority of the leg dolphin diving and high stepping, particularly for the pros. One pro, in particular, Peter Cook from Australia, gained a huge advantage out of the water from utilizing his height and high stepping early on. I can only imagine how heavy his legs must have felt running up that beach. My buddy from Oklahoma, Talbot Cox, racing in the Age Group Men's race, and my new friend from Clermont, Natalie Kirchoff, racing in the Female Pro race both came out of the water with solid mid-pack positions, while Derek Oskutis, from San Diego, had a great swim coming out near the very front in the Male Pro race.
Next was the bike leg, which stayed spread out into several smaller groups for the women and age group races, but quickly formed into one big group for the pro men after just one lap. With all the U-turns on the course though, it must have been brutal to deal with the accelerations for anyone hanging around the back of a large pack. Luckily, Derek, with his strong swim, had an easier time than most at the front of the pack. Natalie and Talbot, however, seemed to be redlining the whole way in their chase packs, trying to keep from losing too much time to the front groups.
Out on the run, though only a 5k, is where most really started to feel the heat of the day. With temps in the mid to high 80's and typical Florida humidity, those who were not adjusted, were soon struggling. Despite this, I was quite pleased to see all my friends come up with great races as I cheered them on from the sidelines. Talbot got his spot to race nationals, Derek came up with a very solid finish in the top third of the pro field (while working a full-time job in the Navy with little time to train at that!), and Natalie gutting it out for a solid first showing in her first pro race of the year. I was super proud of them all and highly motivated for more big training after seeing all those pros and age groupers flying around the course at such high speeds!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
"Not Hard"
In typical thick accent, Russian professional triathlete Andrey Lyatskiy says to me, "You go wiz me? Not hard." As he says my facial expression of disbelief, he says, "not fast, it vill be eazy". I shake my head, and think to myself, "well, what do I have to lose? Let's go!"
Approximately 10 miles later, after holding somewhere between half-ironman and olympic distance race pace from the start, and much higher when climbing up a hill, I'm done. Dropped. Right in the middle of what has to be the worst winds Florida sees outside of hurricane season. With a climb looming ahead, I think to myself, "What did I get myself into?".
Reduced all the way to my smallest gear, and still struggling, I do eventually make it to the top. And after a few more miles of pedaling mindlessly, Andrey comes flying by, doubling back, signaling to turn around and follow. I do.
And I suffer. For another short eternity... before I realize we've only gone a few more miles. He shows me the way back and I take it gladly. As he leaves, he mentions "that waz warmup, time to go hard now". And THAT was a hard run day for him...
Now I could blame my lack of ability to keep up with all sorts of things, such as the hard ride I did with another pro, Zach Rubles, the previous day, where I spent most of the ride doing all I could to hold his wheel and then still getting dropped whenever he wanted to turn it up just a bit more. But the fact of the matter is, these guys are simply on another level of bike power that I'm just not at. Yet.
So you can imagine my bewilderment when today, Andrey asks me again, "You go wiz me...? Not hard." But instead of cowering in a corner and whimpering, "no more, no more..." I grabbed my bike immediately and said, "Let's do it", surprising even myself.
Luckily today was a long, "eazy" ride for him. He was going 4.5 hours. Surely, I could at least keep up for half of that, right? I was ready this time. Yesterday was an easy spin. My legs were ready to go. Well, just like last time, the pace started hot, and never relented. After a very, very long time of extreme suffering, I was certain I'd made it at least an hour and a half, maybe closer to two. I asked. We'd almost gone one hour. 55 minutes in fact.
Another 20 minutes, and I thought I was toast. Luckily the area we were riding was mostly flat. If there had been any number of big hills like the previous day, I would have been dropped long ago. But with lots of wind to slow him up, and me right on his wheel, I was hanging in there. If only by a thread.
At one point during this ride, I thought I might make it the whole way. And that's about the time we hit a nice, big hill. Immediately I was popped. I'd been at a bit faster than half-Ironman race pace for 2 hours and 20 minutes now. It was time to call it a day. So that I could survive to bike another day.
Overall, I was very pleased. It hurt like crazy to bike that hard for that long without the adrenaline of a race. In fact, I now have a new understanding of the phrase "not hard".
Approximately 10 miles later, after holding somewhere between half-ironman and olympic distance race pace from the start, and much higher when climbing up a hill, I'm done. Dropped. Right in the middle of what has to be the worst winds Florida sees outside of hurricane season. With a climb looming ahead, I think to myself, "What did I get myself into?".
Reduced all the way to my smallest gear, and still struggling, I do eventually make it to the top. And after a few more miles of pedaling mindlessly, Andrey comes flying by, doubling back, signaling to turn around and follow. I do.
And I suffer. For another short eternity... before I realize we've only gone a few more miles. He shows me the way back and I take it gladly. As he leaves, he mentions "that waz warmup, time to go hard now". And THAT was a hard run day for him...
Now I could blame my lack of ability to keep up with all sorts of things, such as the hard ride I did with another pro, Zach Rubles, the previous day, where I spent most of the ride doing all I could to hold his wheel and then still getting dropped whenever he wanted to turn it up just a bit more. But the fact of the matter is, these guys are simply on another level of bike power that I'm just not at. Yet.
So you can imagine my bewilderment when today, Andrey asks me again, "You go wiz me...? Not hard." But instead of cowering in a corner and whimpering, "no more, no more..." I grabbed my bike immediately and said, "Let's do it", surprising even myself.
Luckily today was a long, "eazy" ride for him. He was going 4.5 hours. Surely, I could at least keep up for half of that, right? I was ready this time. Yesterday was an easy spin. My legs were ready to go. Well, just like last time, the pace started hot, and never relented. After a very, very long time of extreme suffering, I was certain I'd made it at least an hour and a half, maybe closer to two. I asked. We'd almost gone one hour. 55 minutes in fact.
Another 20 minutes, and I thought I was toast. Luckily the area we were riding was mostly flat. If there had been any number of big hills like the previous day, I would have been dropped long ago. But with lots of wind to slow him up, and me right on his wheel, I was hanging in there. If only by a thread.
At one point during this ride, I thought I might make it the whole way. And that's about the time we hit a nice, big hill. Immediately I was popped. I'd been at a bit faster than half-Ironman race pace for 2 hours and 20 minutes now. It was time to call it a day. So that I could survive to bike another day.
Overall, I was very pleased. It hurt like crazy to bike that hard for that long without the adrenaline of a race. In fact, I now have a new understanding of the phrase "not hard".
Swimming Big
To make the most out of not biking or running for several days, I bumped my swim mileage through the roof. And it worked. I've slowly but steadily been getting stronger and faster in the pool, as well as more comfortable spending so much time in it.
After a few days, the knee had healed up enough to start biking again. Just in time, too, as I left Gainesville to come down to Clermont for a week homestay with some other professional athletes. When everyone else around you runs, bikes, and swims every single day, it's really hard to do nothing, much less just swim! So, at the very least, I have been able to swim, bike, swim the last several days in an attempt to keep myself almost as busy as them!
Along with rehabbing the knee with some weight training to hopefully correct any muscular imbalances that might have caused the problem in the first place, I've come to really enjoy this simple lifestyle of doing almost nothing but training and eating all day long. It's a whole different and much more enjoyable experience when you are not the only one doing it. And around here, you are definitely not the only one...
So far, while swimming at the National Training Center (NTC), the majority of people I've spoken to or swam next to have seemingly turned out to be professional triathletes of some sort or another. Some, have caused me to a be a bit starstruck, like the other day when I met Nina Kraft and she invited me on a group ride later in the week. Others, have even offered much needed stroke advice while swimming next to me.
I've gone on bike rides with pros Zach Rubles and fellow roommate Andrey Lyatskiy from Russia. Both could seemingly drop me at will (and did, several times...). But in my efforts to keep up, I've gotten some quality bike sessions in, particularly during the middle of the week where I would normally be forced to ride alone due to winter hours.
It's been like living a dream. To simply wake up and train. All day. Every day. To be surrounded by so many other driven, talented, hard working athletes. This, is a good place to be!
After a few days, the knee had healed up enough to start biking again. Just in time, too, as I left Gainesville to come down to Clermont for a week homestay with some other professional athletes. When everyone else around you runs, bikes, and swims every single day, it's really hard to do nothing, much less just swim! So, at the very least, I have been able to swim, bike, swim the last several days in an attempt to keep myself almost as busy as them!
Along with rehabbing the knee with some weight training to hopefully correct any muscular imbalances that might have caused the problem in the first place, I've come to really enjoy this simple lifestyle of doing almost nothing but training and eating all day long. It's a whole different and much more enjoyable experience when you are not the only one doing it. And around here, you are definitely not the only one...
So far, while swimming at the National Training Center (NTC), the majority of people I've spoken to or swam next to have seemingly turned out to be professional triathletes of some sort or another. Some, have caused me to a be a bit starstruck, like the other day when I met Nina Kraft and she invited me on a group ride later in the week. Others, have even offered much needed stroke advice while swimming next to me.
I've gone on bike rides with pros Zach Rubles and fellow roommate Andrey Lyatskiy from Russia. Both could seemingly drop me at will (and did, several times...). But in my efforts to keep up, I've gotten some quality bike sessions in, particularly during the middle of the week where I would normally be forced to ride alone due to winter hours.
It's been like living a dream. To simply wake up and train. All day. Every day. To be surrounded by so many other driven, talented, hard working athletes. This, is a good place to be!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Injured Again
Well, not really again. Same injury. But now it's decided it does not like cycling, if forced to do it all day, every day. The left knee, which I have self-diagnosed with some form of Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (more commonly known as Runner's Knee), had started to hurt again after the recent big bike rides. But not during.
Until yesterday. Indicating it was getting worse. Though the pain is laughably small and is easily distracted by such things as higher intensity, it is there, and it is telling me to back off, before I create a really serious problem.
Luckily though, I have found an inexpensive salt water pool here. And the weather is good. So for the next couple of days I can focus my energy on swimming (remember to kick from the hip, and not the knee...) and seeing how the knee heals. It'll be tough not doing too much and reinjuring an old, long-term, here to stay, shoulder problem. But with caution, I should be able to continue my big training, if not quite as big as I'd hoped.
This poses another problem, however. In that of what to do with all the time I was going to spend biking. Strength work to help rehab the knee will take up some of that time, as will the swimming. But that still leaves the vast majority of the day. Well, hopefully the wonderful employees of a particular Starbucks in town won't mind me moving in for awhile...
Until yesterday. Indicating it was getting worse. Though the pain is laughably small and is easily distracted by such things as higher intensity, it is there, and it is telling me to back off, before I create a really serious problem.
Luckily though, I have found an inexpensive salt water pool here. And the weather is good. So for the next couple of days I can focus my energy on swimming (remember to kick from the hip, and not the knee...) and seeing how the knee heals. It'll be tough not doing too much and reinjuring an old, long-term, here to stay, shoulder problem. But with caution, I should be able to continue my big training, if not quite as big as I'd hoped.
This poses another problem, however. In that of what to do with all the time I was going to spend biking. Strength work to help rehab the knee will take up some of that time, as will the swimming. But that still leaves the vast majority of the day. Well, hopefully the wonderful employees of a particular Starbucks in town won't mind me moving in for awhile...
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Florida Training Camp: Part Deux
Arriving in Florida a couple of nights ago was like leaving the frozen foods section of the grocery store. It was below 40 in Tennessee with the sun shining bright when I left and above 50 and relatively warm and comfortable as I stepped out into a dark, late Florida night. As I awoke to a comfortable 60 degree morning I was again, in shock of how nice some people have it in what I like to call the winter wonderlands of the world. It was time to bike. A lot.
With the temperature moving past 70 it was going to be a good day. And that it was as I headed north from Gainesville up through the Lake Butler Wildlife Conservation Area and back. All in all a good 80 mile day at a decent 18mph average. Though from mile 20 on it wasn't easy. Oddly, the previously hurt knee, responsible for my current lack of running, decided to bother and worry me throughout. Miles 40-60 were the worst. But then, with the threat of rain coming, and a tailwind showing up, I made good time from there in. However, after finishing, I knew I'd gone too fast. I was worn down. Very worn down.
The day started off as if I hadn't even ridden the day before. I felt great. Though the previous night was a bit rough, with the temperature being too hot to sleep until almost midnight, and desperately needing a shower, my legs didn't seem to be phased from the previous day like they had felt immediately after.
And then I flatted. The attempted patch, as usual, didn't work. Luckily, I was carrying a spare tube and had enough Co2 to get back to my car and air it up the rest of the way. From there, things got a little better for awhile. Until I realized I still had 50 miles to go. And the wind was picking up. Seemingly changing directions often. But at least the scenery got better once I headed east through the Paynes Prairie State Preserve and jumped on the Hawthorne rail trail. Here I found some others to ride with which provided a much needed mental boost for the next 20 miles.
After that though, it was 20 more miles to go but my body was already done. Though the temperature was in the 60's I soon started to get chills. My legs actually felt fine, but my body was really not feeling right. From there on it was a struggle the whole (slow) way back, and the average for the day dropped to a low 16mph. With the wind, the flat and whatever happened at the end though, I'll take it.
I finished just in time. In time to grab some food and make it over to check out the neighborhood pool I had finally found. Amazingly, it was a gem. The only one open in the winter. I can see why. I was the only one there. It was glorious. The first shower after two 80 mile days on the bike... is something so incredible as to be indescribable to anyone who has never experienced something similar. The pool not only had lap lanes but it was salt water as well. All for less than $2. My prayers had been answered.
Maybe it was the large quantity of food. Maybe it was one of the electrolytes or minerals found in the recovery shake I had after my ride. Or maybe it was simply motivation returning after one amazing shower. I was starting to worry since these initial two rides had already seemingly taken so much of a toll, physically and mentally. But once in the pool, I never even felt them.
I'm now feeling fresh and ready for the next day. The next workout. And the one after that. For the next three weeks. The hardest three week period. I will have yet to experience. The goal: 1500 miles. I will get there. If I have to fly to do it.
Literally. I will get on a plane...
With the temperature moving past 70 it was going to be a good day. And that it was as I headed north from Gainesville up through the Lake Butler Wildlife Conservation Area and back. All in all a good 80 mile day at a decent 18mph average. Though from mile 20 on it wasn't easy. Oddly, the previously hurt knee, responsible for my current lack of running, decided to bother and worry me throughout. Miles 40-60 were the worst. But then, with the threat of rain coming, and a tailwind showing up, I made good time from there in. However, after finishing, I knew I'd gone too fast. I was worn down. Very worn down.
The day started off as if I hadn't even ridden the day before. I felt great. Though the previous night was a bit rough, with the temperature being too hot to sleep until almost midnight, and desperately needing a shower, my legs didn't seem to be phased from the previous day like they had felt immediately after.
And then I flatted. The attempted patch, as usual, didn't work. Luckily, I was carrying a spare tube and had enough Co2 to get back to my car and air it up the rest of the way. From there, things got a little better for awhile. Until I realized I still had 50 miles to go. And the wind was picking up. Seemingly changing directions often. But at least the scenery got better once I headed east through the Paynes Prairie State Preserve and jumped on the Hawthorne rail trail. Here I found some others to ride with which provided a much needed mental boost for the next 20 miles.
After that though, it was 20 more miles to go but my body was already done. Though the temperature was in the 60's I soon started to get chills. My legs actually felt fine, but my body was really not feeling right. From there on it was a struggle the whole (slow) way back, and the average for the day dropped to a low 16mph. With the wind, the flat and whatever happened at the end though, I'll take it.
I finished just in time. In time to grab some food and make it over to check out the neighborhood pool I had finally found. Amazingly, it was a gem. The only one open in the winter. I can see why. I was the only one there. It was glorious. The first shower after two 80 mile days on the bike... is something so incredible as to be indescribable to anyone who has never experienced something similar. The pool not only had lap lanes but it was salt water as well. All for less than $2. My prayers had been answered.
Maybe it was the large quantity of food. Maybe it was one of the electrolytes or minerals found in the recovery shake I had after my ride. Or maybe it was simply motivation returning after one amazing shower. I was starting to worry since these initial two rides had already seemingly taken so much of a toll, physically and mentally. But once in the pool, I never even felt them.
I'm now feeling fresh and ready for the next day. The next workout. And the one after that. For the next three weeks. The hardest three week period. I will have yet to experience. The goal: 1500 miles. I will get there. If I have to fly to do it.
Literally. I will get on a plane...
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Swimming Breakthrough
After swimming over 15k yards last week, I thought for sure I would finally start to get faster in the pool. For the last couple of years, I have steadily made solid gains biking and running, but for swimming, I only got slower and not slower. No matter how more I swam, or how much harder I swam, I just couldn't actually swim faster than I did when I first started triathlon. I did, of course, gain endurance in the pool. But at no time did I ever gain speed. My fastest 400m swim to date is still the second triathlon I ever competed in. At the time, I was swimming more as a cool down to my weight lifting routine. Last winter, when I put in huge time in the pool, and was hitting bigger and faster workouts, I was still slower over 400m in a race. Though all that swimming did take my running to a new level. And such was the case. The more I seemed to swim, the faster I ran, but not swam. Of course, my longer swims did get faster, but that was more from overall increased endurance and improved ability to swim in open water, and not because I actually gained any swimming speed. Through all of this, I knew there had to be something, some part of my stroke, that was hindering me. Every time I swam with others that were at my speed, or even just faster, it seemed like their legs were sinking in the water and their overall posture terrible in comparison. Certainly, there was some major part of my swim stroke that I just wasn't getting. Well I was right. So very right.
Throughout the last couple of years, as I seemingly fixed some part of my stroke, and correspondingly felt faster in the water, I was convinced that I had finally done it. But each time, the fix was correspondingly quite small, and often, quite inconsequential. From all the time spent working on the "connection" between the lower body and upper body in the stroke, to just recently when I finally learned how to perform a full 6 beat kick with no deadspots (turns out I've always had a great 4 beat kick, but aside from the opening sprint at the beginning of a race, I need to be focusing on a 2 beat kick). Each time, from keeping my head more still in the water and letting it rotate with my body to correcting my hand entry to entering right near my head instead of throwing it out as far as I can, the actual differences in speed were quite minimal. Even one of the big ones, where I flattened my hand out and kept my fingertips from creeping up to the top of the water without my wrist going with it, didn't actually shave a large chunk of time off. So what was the tip that finally did it?
High elbows. Only I had already been working on that. High elbows in the water AND out of the water right? However, I didn't really understand fully what that meant, and that in the water was by far the most important. Sure, my elbows were "high". But not near high enough. In order to grab and "catch" as much water as possible, the hand needs to start going straight back as quickly as possible. And what this means is that elbow actually stays at the top of the water during the entire pull phase of the stroke, as the elbow bends and the hand moves as straight backward as possible. Not diving immediately deep and pushing the head up out of the water as I had previously swam, virtually my whole swimming life. Now high elbows out of the water means good rotation, which is important, but not nearly as much as how much water you can actually catch and push behind you to propel you forward. Combine this with a tip I got from local pro, Daniel Tigert, at the Tri-Okc expo, to push my stroke out, away from my body (how it feels, but not what is happening), so that my hands don't cross my centerline upon entry, and I finally gained significant speed in my swim stroke. Out of the approximate 15 seconds per 100 that I had needed to shave off my swim stroke in order to at least be at the back of the pro ranks on the swim, 10 seconds had dropped virtually overnight. Swimming with the pros is now that much closer of a reality and I now have the confidence boost my swim training needed, knowing that the big question, "when is my swimming finally going to get faster?" has now been answered.
Throughout the last couple of years, as I seemingly fixed some part of my stroke, and correspondingly felt faster in the water, I was convinced that I had finally done it. But each time, the fix was correspondingly quite small, and often, quite inconsequential. From all the time spent working on the "connection" between the lower body and upper body in the stroke, to just recently when I finally learned how to perform a full 6 beat kick with no deadspots (turns out I've always had a great 4 beat kick, but aside from the opening sprint at the beginning of a race, I need to be focusing on a 2 beat kick). Each time, from keeping my head more still in the water and letting it rotate with my body to correcting my hand entry to entering right near my head instead of throwing it out as far as I can, the actual differences in speed were quite minimal. Even one of the big ones, where I flattened my hand out and kept my fingertips from creeping up to the top of the water without my wrist going with it, didn't actually shave a large chunk of time off. So what was the tip that finally did it?
High elbows. Only I had already been working on that. High elbows in the water AND out of the water right? However, I didn't really understand fully what that meant, and that in the water was by far the most important. Sure, my elbows were "high". But not near high enough. In order to grab and "catch" as much water as possible, the hand needs to start going straight back as quickly as possible. And what this means is that elbow actually stays at the top of the water during the entire pull phase of the stroke, as the elbow bends and the hand moves as straight backward as possible. Not diving immediately deep and pushing the head up out of the water as I had previously swam, virtually my whole swimming life. Now high elbows out of the water means good rotation, which is important, but not nearly as much as how much water you can actually catch and push behind you to propel you forward. Combine this with a tip I got from local pro, Daniel Tigert, at the Tri-Okc expo, to push my stroke out, away from my body (how it feels, but not what is happening), so that my hands don't cross my centerline upon entry, and I finally gained significant speed in my swim stroke. Out of the approximate 15 seconds per 100 that I had needed to shave off my swim stroke in order to at least be at the back of the pro ranks on the swim, 10 seconds had dropped virtually overnight. Swimming with the pros is now that much closer of a reality and I now have the confidence boost my swim training needed, knowing that the big question, "when is my swimming finally going to get faster?" has now been answered.
ORU Indoor Triathlon
"You're a lap and a half down!" I hear as I sprint off the stationary bike to start the run. Up until this point, I had pretty well "screwed the pooch" at every part of the race. Starting with my swim time. 20 seconds slower than last year. 40 seconds slower than expected. I had bumped my swim mileage up 250% over the week. That probably didn't help. But I had to do something to compensate for the lack of running stemming from an injury earlier in the week. At this point, I could still only run half a mile pain free. Hopefully, that wouldn't be the case during the race.
Which, back to it, I had spent way too long setting my bike up. Last year, I had a bike pre-setup. This year that wasn't allowed. And I definitely picked the wrong bike to try and setup to my specs. There's another 20 seconds. Or more. And then the spin as fast as you can stand bike leg of the indoor race was on. The previous year, with all the spin classes and gold sprint races I had been doing, spinning fast for a long time was something I could do. This year, with all the outside biking I'd been doing, I was much, much faster on the bike. But not a faster spinner.
All of this meant that as I started the run, I was a minute and a half down in my heat with just a 2 mile run left to catch up. If I was going to have a chance to repeat as champion and win the $100 gift certificate, desperately needed for a new pair of running shoes, I was going to have to hit one heck of a good run. Luckily, with that kind of adrenaline going, I never even felt the knee.
Three laps later I had caught up the half a lap, and had a full 10 laps left to make up the rest. That's when the pain hit. Without doing any hard running in months, I was now in a situation my body was really not used to. My heart rate had been at the ceiling the whole race. Now it had busted through the roof and into my throat. And, as expected, I was not prepared to handle it at this point in the season.
I was shut down for the next couple of laps as I struggled to get myself back under control and convince myself I could still make up the time needed to win this race. The next few laps I did all I could to pick the pace back up, with the hopes that I was indeed still catching, still making up time.
And then I saw him. But with only three laps left, I was still half a lap down. I didn't think I could do it. I was already doing everything I could to keep the side stitches at bay and I was growing more and more nautious each lap. But I had to try.
The pace was kicked up again. To the max I thought I could sustain for the next lap. Instantly I was there. Closing in fast. Halfway through the next lap I was now trailing, stalking my prey, waiting for the right time to make my move, and trying to recover, just a little, before launching the final kick to the finish.
He heard me coming and sped up to prevent the pass. All the way until we were both kicking like it was the last lap. Except it wasn't. There was one more left. And if he could hold this pace, it would be his.
But there was no way. We were almost sprinting. This race was mine. He had to have misjudged. And, after finding there was still a lap left, he broke. It had been the last courageous kick to try to hold the lead for a possible win. But the race was a lap too long for him and just long enough for me to catch up and pull away for what did, turn out to be the win.
After all the times were in, we had put down the two fastest times of the day and pushed each other to the top, over some very good athletes. And I got that pair of shoes I needed.
Which, back to it, I had spent way too long setting my bike up. Last year, I had a bike pre-setup. This year that wasn't allowed. And I definitely picked the wrong bike to try and setup to my specs. There's another 20 seconds. Or more. And then the spin as fast as you can stand bike leg of the indoor race was on. The previous year, with all the spin classes and gold sprint races I had been doing, spinning fast for a long time was something I could do. This year, with all the outside biking I'd been doing, I was much, much faster on the bike. But not a faster spinner.
All of this meant that as I started the run, I was a minute and a half down in my heat with just a 2 mile run left to catch up. If I was going to have a chance to repeat as champion and win the $100 gift certificate, desperately needed for a new pair of running shoes, I was going to have to hit one heck of a good run. Luckily, with that kind of adrenaline going, I never even felt the knee.
Three laps later I had caught up the half a lap, and had a full 10 laps left to make up the rest. That's when the pain hit. Without doing any hard running in months, I was now in a situation my body was really not used to. My heart rate had been at the ceiling the whole race. Now it had busted through the roof and into my throat. And, as expected, I was not prepared to handle it at this point in the season.
I was shut down for the next couple of laps as I struggled to get myself back under control and convince myself I could still make up the time needed to win this race. The next few laps I did all I could to pick the pace back up, with the hopes that I was indeed still catching, still making up time.
And then I saw him. But with only three laps left, I was still half a lap down. I didn't think I could do it. I was already doing everything I could to keep the side stitches at bay and I was growing more and more nautious each lap. But I had to try.
The pace was kicked up again. To the max I thought I could sustain for the next lap. Instantly I was there. Closing in fast. Halfway through the next lap I was now trailing, stalking my prey, waiting for the right time to make my move, and trying to recover, just a little, before launching the final kick to the finish.
He heard me coming and sped up to prevent the pass. All the way until we were both kicking like it was the last lap. Except it wasn't. There was one more left. And if he could hold this pace, it would be his.
But there was no way. We were almost sprinting. This race was mine. He had to have misjudged. And, after finding there was still a lap left, he broke. It had been the last courageous kick to try to hold the lead for a possible win. But the race was a lap too long for him and just long enough for me to catch up and pull away for what did, turn out to be the win.
After all the times were in, we had put down the two fastest times of the day and pushed each other to the top, over some very good athletes. And I got that pair of shoes I needed.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Getting Injured
One of my biggest fears on this Journey is the dreaded overuse injury. Which is why I take extra precaution to slowly build my training volume, for running in particular. It is the reason why, though my legs easily could have handled it these last couple weeks, I am still holding in the mid 40 mile per week range instead of 50+. Everything was going wonderful, in fact. As of a couple days ago, I was completely pain free in all the areas that normally hurt during running. My legs were a bit tired from a hard bike ride into the worst wind I've seen outside of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia, but, as always, they were still moving just fine. I had a long run scheduled for the day. And, though I didn't think I would make it 5 miles at first, by mile 10 I was starting to feel revived and strong. However, at mile 13 something was hurting worse than usual in the knee and didn't quite feel right. I shrugged it off at the time. Everything hurts at mile 13. Heck, I'd been struggling through most of the day, what's slightly more joint pain than expected going to do to me? Shortly after, I picked up the pace for the finishing tempo intervals and didn't notice it again until I finished. Ok, so walking on my knee was harder than normal, I'll just ice it down and it'll be good to go tomorrow, like always. Except this time it wasn't. That little worse than normal, little different than normal knee pain, turned out to be bad. Very bad.
How did this happen so fast? So unexpectedly? Could it have been the shoes? Poor form from running tired for so long? The uneven surfaces next to the path I often run on? A combination of these? I don't know. But to be safe, I will be retiring those shoes. Because now it's got me in a situation which could be a full blown injury. I don't know for sure yet. I won't run on it until it's completely healthy. My scale is, if it takes longer than a week, it's an injury. It's been a few days though, and it's only gradually getting better. It's still sore to touch. It still hurts to walk when it's not warmed up. And I still can't run on it. It's likely some form of Runner's Knee. Doesn't matter though. The formula is the same for almost all injuries. RICE. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. I can still swim. And I can still bike. So that is what I will do. Along with making sure that I don't get discouraged mentally. I expected something like this to happen. I figure it's almost inevitable. The key is to make sure to not let it get you down, and to make sure to fully heal it before running on it again. Easier said than done when running is the base your training revolves around and it is almost all you do. But a very important part of coaching yourself is having the self-control to rest yourself when you need it and for as long as you need it. And I will do that.
How did this happen so fast? So unexpectedly? Could it have been the shoes? Poor form from running tired for so long? The uneven surfaces next to the path I often run on? A combination of these? I don't know. But to be safe, I will be retiring those shoes. Because now it's got me in a situation which could be a full blown injury. I don't know for sure yet. I won't run on it until it's completely healthy. My scale is, if it takes longer than a week, it's an injury. It's been a few days though, and it's only gradually getting better. It's still sore to touch. It still hurts to walk when it's not warmed up. And I still can't run on it. It's likely some form of Runner's Knee. Doesn't matter though. The formula is the same for almost all injuries. RICE. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. I can still swim. And I can still bike. So that is what I will do. Along with making sure that I don't get discouraged mentally. I expected something like this to happen. I figure it's almost inevitable. The key is to make sure to not let it get you down, and to make sure to fully heal it before running on it again. Easier said than done when running is the base your training revolves around and it is almost all you do. But a very important part of coaching yourself is having the self-control to rest yourself when you need it and for as long as you need it. And I will do that.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Tulsa Weekend
Last Friday, I decided (on a whim, as usual) that the beautiful upcoming weekend would be best spent in Tulsa, where I can see old friends and revisit my favorite running and riding trails at the place where my triathlon adventures started a few years ago. Coming off a big rest week, I expected to have to struggle to reign myself in from doing too much too fast as energy simply burst out of me. I didn't. And it didn't. I didn't really feel any different. And after a good, hard, but fairly normal trail run, I actually felt like maybe I was right back to where I was before the rest week as I took to the road for some additional miles my legs felt as they nearly always did now. Tired. Slow. Slightly lethargic. But still handling 8:00 minute per mile pace with relative ease. So the next day, starting to become sore from the difficult trails, I decided on another hour long trail run. This one quite a bit slower, however, and without the second run. I figured my body had gotten plenty of rest. It was going to respond. I just needed to push through and wake it up again. And so the next day came. Martin Luther King Day. It was a beautiful one. Temps were already nice at 8AM and they looked to stay that way throughout. I had nothing to do this day. Nothing. Except train. It was time to test that theory about pushing through. Forget what I said about doing too much too fast. Today was too nice not to go big. Really, really big.
The morning started off with, again, another trail run at my favorite place in the country to run trails, Turkey Mountain in Tulsa, OK. Yes, I have ran trails all over the country, and though I might agree that some, are probably better for various and differing reasons, Turkey Mountain still holds that special place in my heart for being the place where I discovered how wonderful trail running can be. It doesn't hurt that the constant difficulty and largely varying terrain keep one focused the entire time, and that this weekend I still discovered new trails and areas that I had never before seen. With it's proximity to downtown Tulsa, it truly is a gem to be treasured.
This run, however, I cut quite a bit shorter than the last two for a nice 4 mile loop through my favorite terrain, as I struggled to get my legs warmed up from the soreness already kicking in pretty hard. The plan from there was to pick up my bike from the shop and ride it the rest of the day until I met up with my good friend and training buddy, Paul, for a good 7-8 miles on Riverside (or however much I could handle by that time). Problem was, I came to find my bike shop did not open until noon on Mondays. So how do you kill 2 beautiful winter hours on a big training day? Well I decided some more running and eating would be appropriate and hit up another 5 miles on the road to try and keep my legs loose. It wasn't particularly easy. I had to stick to an 8:30/mile pace to keep my heart rate in recovery mode and by the time I finished, I felt it very likely I would be done by the time I got halfway through my bike ride. I couldn't have been more wrong.
By the time I picked up the bike and got back to the trails, it was looking as though 50 miles was going to be a stretch to get done by the time I had scheduled for my last run of the day. But I picked out the route and stuck to it, and hit 51 miles with time to spare, riding a good pace the whole way as I cut through the wind and climbed effortlessly up the hills. I was definitely feeling the resting effects of not riding at all the previous week. Surely this would be it, though, and my run was about to be doomed, right? To my pleasant surprise, not at all. The bike ride, somehow having revitalized my legs, seemed to propel my heart rate back to where it should be as we clocked off a 7:30/mile average for an hour with surges thrown in to spice things up. I finished feeling stronger and more energized than when I started the day (though that feeling did not last long...). Not to mention much faster. This day marked my biggest single training day yet at 51 miles biked and 17 miles ran. The rest week did work. It just took some time to realize it. Pushing through was the right call.
The morning started off with, again, another trail run at my favorite place in the country to run trails, Turkey Mountain in Tulsa, OK. Yes, I have ran trails all over the country, and though I might agree that some, are probably better for various and differing reasons, Turkey Mountain still holds that special place in my heart for being the place where I discovered how wonderful trail running can be. It doesn't hurt that the constant difficulty and largely varying terrain keep one focused the entire time, and that this weekend I still discovered new trails and areas that I had never before seen. With it's proximity to downtown Tulsa, it truly is a gem to be treasured.
This run, however, I cut quite a bit shorter than the last two for a nice 4 mile loop through my favorite terrain, as I struggled to get my legs warmed up from the soreness already kicking in pretty hard. The plan from there was to pick up my bike from the shop and ride it the rest of the day until I met up with my good friend and training buddy, Paul, for a good 7-8 miles on Riverside (or however much I could handle by that time). Problem was, I came to find my bike shop did not open until noon on Mondays. So how do you kill 2 beautiful winter hours on a big training day? Well I decided some more running and eating would be appropriate and hit up another 5 miles on the road to try and keep my legs loose. It wasn't particularly easy. I had to stick to an 8:30/mile pace to keep my heart rate in recovery mode and by the time I finished, I felt it very likely I would be done by the time I got halfway through my bike ride. I couldn't have been more wrong.
By the time I picked up the bike and got back to the trails, it was looking as though 50 miles was going to be a stretch to get done by the time I had scheduled for my last run of the day. But I picked out the route and stuck to it, and hit 51 miles with time to spare, riding a good pace the whole way as I cut through the wind and climbed effortlessly up the hills. I was definitely feeling the resting effects of not riding at all the previous week. Surely this would be it, though, and my run was about to be doomed, right? To my pleasant surprise, not at all. The bike ride, somehow having revitalized my legs, seemed to propel my heart rate back to where it should be as we clocked off a 7:30/mile average for an hour with surges thrown in to spice things up. I finished feeling stronger and more energized than when I started the day (though that feeling did not last long...). Not to mention much faster. This day marked my biggest single training day yet at 51 miles biked and 17 miles ran. The rest week did work. It just took some time to realize it. Pushing through was the right call.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Recovery Today
This week has got me thinking a lot about this topic. Particularly since last Saturday when I went out for a good hard ride feeling quite good even, yet, could not seem to pick up the pace like I could with ease a couple weeks ago. And then, after the ride, my legs felt so tired that I couldn't tell if I was in pain or not. Whatever it was, it was extremely uncomfortable. Almost like a fatigue so deep it was in the bones themselves. And I almost felt nauseated when I moved around. All this did not go away when I went for my afternoon run, but it did feel somewhat better after. So I took the next day easy. And the next day as well. Yet, though that day only consisted of a relatively easy swim and an easy run, I again felt the same as Saturday. And to top it off, there were slight symptoms of an illness trying to attack me as well. So I took a good hard look at my recent nutrition to try to find if there was anything I might be missing. An electrolyte imbalance such as low sodium or potassium levels, perhaps? Low iron levels? Or simply fatigue catching up to me. All of these could possibly have been culprits. Though my diet seemed to not be missing any of the important nutrients and electrolytes, so I rested. Took the whole day off. Wasn't an easy thing to do. Even with possible illness symptoms growing, I was still brimming with pent up energy from relatively light workouts the two previous days. But now, with an easy hour long run today, I'm feeling great. And ready to rock tomorrow and build into a big weekend. But I won't. Because this week is a recovery week. And my body already has told me it needed more recovery than I wanted to give it. So I'm going to listen. And give it even more than I think it needs. Because it isn't about going big this weekend. It's about next week. And the week after that. And after that one. And the months and months of bigger and bigger training to come. To put it in perspective, I believe that taking this one day off now accompanied by a few easy and moderately easy days will allow me to go bigger over the next few weeks and keep that all too familiar period of 3 days completely off to recover from illness followed by two weeks of easy workouts to get back to business again.
Recovery
Recovery. It is likely the single most important thing for an aspiring elite endurance athlete. Without it, things get bad. Even ugly. Sometimes very ugly. Promising professional athletes often ravage their bodies in the pursuit of greatness, and seemingly for the ones whose bodies handle it, greatness is achieved. Others, however, become what many refer to as... broken. Either from some recurring injury that refuses to go away or by chronic fatigue so bad that the hard and long workouts required to maintain that elite level of fitness is no longer sustainable. Both of which can take months and even years to recover from, if at all. And at that point it is nearly back to square one, with nearly all of the previous training squandered, because it did not incoporate enough rest.
So if this is so important, how do the ones who succeed get it right? Well almost all have a coach, right there, talking to them every day. These coaches have the knowledge and experience and an outside perspective which proves invaluable in the process of taking an athlete to the elite level and beyond. Many of these coaches have complex formulas based off hundreds of the athletes training sessions with complex gizmos from heart rate monitors to power meters to determine how much and when the all important rest is needed. Some though, seem to just go extremely hard. All the time. As is the case with one particularly high profile coach, who, has produced some of the best endurance athletes the world has seen, along with several ones many consider "broken". But on the other spectrum, is another high profile coach who actually has been incorporating whole days completely off from training, once a week even! And instead of seeing athletes get slower, the results seem to consistently show them getting faster, among being generally healthier and feeling better day to day than they did on previous training with less rest.
I plan to follow the latter philosophy, and am going to try to go as far as I can go, while (almost) always listening to my body and giving it rest when I think it is needed. For many top level endurance athletes, this can sometimes be the most important contribution a coach makes to their training regimen. Simply holding them back when their drive to compete and to win, won't let them do it themselves. I, for one, do not tend to have this problem. Oftentimes, I likely back off too early to prevent injury, illness, or overtraining. Without a coach to tell me when to back off and when to go, I am forced to really listen hard to how I feel and to be able to discern when something is not right and when I'm just trying to be lazy. The result of this is that it could likely take much longer for me to achieve the fitness gains that I need for my goals. However, the goal of this journey is not to see what an elite coach can do for an ordinary athelete. It is to see what an ordinary athlete can do for himself, given adequate time and resources. So as long as I continue to steadily improve, as I have since I started endurance training over 2 years ago, I will continue to go uncoached and to err on the side of caution when it comes to possible injury, illness, or overtraining and give my body more of that all important recovery than it likely needs. At least, until that time comes when I am no longer steadily improving.
So if this is so important, how do the ones who succeed get it right? Well almost all have a coach, right there, talking to them every day. These coaches have the knowledge and experience and an outside perspective which proves invaluable in the process of taking an athlete to the elite level and beyond. Many of these coaches have complex formulas based off hundreds of the athletes training sessions with complex gizmos from heart rate monitors to power meters to determine how much and when the all important rest is needed. Some though, seem to just go extremely hard. All the time. As is the case with one particularly high profile coach, who, has produced some of the best endurance athletes the world has seen, along with several ones many consider "broken". But on the other spectrum, is another high profile coach who actually has been incorporating whole days completely off from training, once a week even! And instead of seeing athletes get slower, the results seem to consistently show them getting faster, among being generally healthier and feeling better day to day than they did on previous training with less rest.
I plan to follow the latter philosophy, and am going to try to go as far as I can go, while (almost) always listening to my body and giving it rest when I think it is needed. For many top level endurance athletes, this can sometimes be the most important contribution a coach makes to their training regimen. Simply holding them back when their drive to compete and to win, won't let them do it themselves. I, for one, do not tend to have this problem. Oftentimes, I likely back off too early to prevent injury, illness, or overtraining. Without a coach to tell me when to back off and when to go, I am forced to really listen hard to how I feel and to be able to discern when something is not right and when I'm just trying to be lazy. The result of this is that it could likely take much longer for me to achieve the fitness gains that I need for my goals. However, the goal of this journey is not to see what an elite coach can do for an ordinary athelete. It is to see what an ordinary athlete can do for himself, given adequate time and resources. So as long as I continue to steadily improve, as I have since I started endurance training over 2 years ago, I will continue to go uncoached and to err on the side of caution when it comes to possible injury, illness, or overtraining and give my body more of that all important recovery than it likely needs. At least, until that time comes when I am no longer steadily improving.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Ringing in the New Year
Staying up all night, dancing in dress shoes and then walking back to your car a few neighborhoods away isn't the best way to celebrate the New Year if you plan on letting your body recover enough for good training the next day. But it sure was a heck of a lot of fun and a rare chance to hang out with my sister and get to know her. Oddly enough, I'm pretty certain it was the dress shoes that got me. I was up early enough and running just fine New Years Day, but the left achilles wasn't having any of it. It had gone from semi-OK to bad after the long night. Bad enough that I didn't even want to bike on it. But I figured not a big deal, this will become the second rest day that I needed as I had only ran 5 miles the day before. The next day would be big and back on schedule. But as soon as I got to laying around and resting it, the mental fatigue of solo training seemed to catch up with me and I could barely get off the couch all the way through the next day as well, despite being plenty healthy and rested in actuality. Which, at this time and place in my training, is likely a good thing and will only end up helping. However, at some point and at some times, I am going to need to push through the mental and physical fatigue that, when it catches up to me at the right moment, lays me out for whole days at a time by destroying motivation even after I am physically ready to go again. And that has caused me to realize that I likely won't be able to do this alone. I am going to need to find others to train with on a consistent basis in the future. People to keep me accountable to my training and to keep the mental fatigue of solo training at bay. I am going to need to find a team. Or the closest thing to it. To see the amazing effects that a team can have on a person, one only needs to look to superstar runner Desi Davila and what the Brooks-Hanson running team has done for her (http://www.runnersworld.com/cda/microsite/article/0,8029,s6-239-569--14169-0,00.html). I am not sure yet where I will be able to find this team or group of people to train with, but for now, my goal is simply to build up my body to be strong enough to have a chance of keeping up. And in the meantime, I am allowing myself to falter, if only ever so often, if that's what it is going to take, to keep me going in the longterm. So today, with less than 15 run miles over the past four days, it's time to bring the long run back in and match that. With a nice swim to cool down. Yes, for now I will have to settle for simply being disgusted with laziness to bring my motivation back when the joys of training itself aren't doing it. But I have a good feeling that once I get through smoking today's workout, it'll be there again.
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