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...
Friday, July 27, 2012
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.
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