On-On Indeed

On August 11, 2012 I rolled out of my Hampton Inn bed at 3am and began a long day that included a ferry ride from New York City to New Jersey, swim in the Hudson River, bike tour of Palisades Parkway, and a jog over the George Washington Bridge back to NYC. It all totals up to 140.6 miles powered by nothing but my body and a lot of sugar and caffeine.  The cut-off to be an "official" finisher is 17hrs and some use every minute of that to reach the finish line.  The guys who make a living off doing this can make it under 8hrs.  I'm equally impressed by both extremes.  The natural talent, hard work, and dedication it takes to be an elite professional Ironman is difficult to comprehend.  Likewise, the determination it takes to show up race morning knowing that you will likely be out on the course for over two full work days is amazing. 

Back to my own personal quest, if I cover this 140.6 miles fast enough I earn the right to do it all over again in 2 months - be careful what you ask for.  The Ironman US Championships was my 3rd Ironman.  I raced IM Florida in 2007 and IM Coeur d'Alene in 2009.  Florida was a great first IM and I learned some things from my mistakes.  CdA also went fairly well and I had a particularly good run.  Still, even my 9:34 at IMFL fell short of earning me a slot to the Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawai'i.  Actually, it wasn't even close - 14th in my age group and 103 overall.  NYC is a much tougher course than IMFL and I figured it was going to take something in the 9:45 area to have a good chance at at Kona slot.  I didn't have a specific finish time goal but I felt confident that I was about as prepared as I could be.  You aren't just racing the clock in IM like qualifying for the Boston marathon.  There are limited amount of qualifying slots available at each event and you are competing against the rest of your age group to earn one.  So even the best race of your life - everything perfect - could leave you at home watching the live internet feed of the World Championships in October.

The day started decent enough with a quick swim down the Hudson.  We had a strong tidal current pulling us back to transition and just about everyone there must have had a PR swim.  I've gone 1:03-1:06 but this day it was a 44min swim - insane. Now it's time to get to work - 112 miles in the saddle.  I ran my bike out of T1, jumped on and then...disaster.  Every triathlete's worst nightmare is a flat tire in an important race and THAT - JUST - HAPPENED.  I'll never know what went wrong but somehow between setting up my gear at 6am and grabbing my bike at 8am my rear tire went mostly flat.  Long story short - I struggled through a miserably slow change while hundreds of people streamed out of transition past me but I finally go rolling and had no issues on the bike from there on.  The run was challenging and it got the best of me. I was feeling good through the first 16 miles or so but then the wheels started to fall off and I suffered through the rest of the marathon. Did I mention how challenging the course and conditions were?

My #1 athletic supporter and wife

In the end I crossed the finish line in 9:38:19.  Once everything shook out I ended up 5th out of 330 in the M35-39 age group and 45th overall, including pros.  I honestly never even dreamed of an IM podium finish and certainly didn't feel like things went well enough to be close today.  It was apparently a tough day for everyone and I managed to suffer better than most by just putting one foot in front of the other until I saw the finish line.  That run turned out to be the 33rd fastest on the day, including the pros. And guess what else that 5th place age group podium finish got me - KONA.  The next morning I was at the awards ceremony giving my AMEX a $795 workout with plenty more to come when I booked a week-long trip to Hawai'i. 

I've been working for this for years and finally pulled it off with a little bonus hardware for the trophy shelf at home. I need to thank my wife for understanding my need to be out every weekend riding my bike until noon and making dinner at 9pm most week days because I'm at the pool, or out running, or working on my bike, or logging my training online, or...shaving my legs.  It just so happens that we leave for Kona the day after our 1-year anniversary so she's getting a little reward for being such a great athletic supporter :)

If you have time and want to read the details you can check out my race report post on Slowtwitch. 

All the small things

I'm just over one week out from my single important race of the season - Ironman US Championships in New York.  I've race 2 IMs and can't complain about my preparation or performance at either but I've yet to nab the elusive IM Kona qualification slot.  It's tough because you can only control your race but the slots go based on finish position within your age group as opposed to something like qualifying for Boston Marathon where there is a set benchmark time - you hit the mark and you qualify.  So back to qualifying for Kona - you can have the race of your life, crush the course, drops PRs on swim, bike, and run - and not make the cut.  It all depends on who else shows up and how well they race.  So with so much out of your control how do you get an edge and bridge that gap from a good personal performance to a top age group performance?  For me in the M35-39 group this year we'll likely have the most slots allocated because it's one of the biggest groups - potentially 300+ of us, which means 7-10 slots.

Nailing the basic S/B/R training has never been a problem for me. Not to say that I don't have room to be more fit but the potential return within a season is relatively small and there is a limit to how much training you can fit in amongst the rest of your life.  This season I decided to make a point of doing a bunch of small things that might not have a measurable effect individually but I know collectively they have to make me a better, stronger triathlete on race day.  Over the past 2-3 months I've made a concerted effort to consistently get these "extras" into my routine.  With the exception of one, everything is small but making the time for an extra 10-15min here and there can be really challenging when you've already knocked out your primary workout or it's getting late and you're tired.  So what have I been doing?

1.  Run form drills - these are things like strides, butt kicks, skipping, and high knees.  The point is to develop neuromuscular coordination and improve efficiency with short duration quick movements.  I've been doing 2 sets of 3-4 different drills twice a week after my shorter run workouts.

Check out TrainingPeaks and Running Times for some running drill ideas.

2.  Plyometrics - these are similar in concept to the form drills but are more focused on maximizing muscle fiber recruitment and developing explosive power.  Research has shown that explosive plyometric movements benefit endurance athletes even though we rely predominantly on aerobic slow twitch fibers.  At some point in an endurance race those slow twitch fibers fatigue and fast twitch fibers begin to get recruited. So even though there may not be an explosive component to running a marathon, optimizing your entire suite of fiber types definitely has benefits. I focus on things like squat jumps, box jumps, single leg hops, bounding, and depth jumps - typically 2 sets of 3-4 different moves once a week.


Check out Plyos to Boost Your Bricks and Ultimate Plyo to learn more.

3. A coach for the coach - sure, I coach endurance athletes and even do swim stroke assessments but I still need some feedback on my swim stroke.  I know what I'm supposed to be doing and what it feels like I'm doing but unless you can watch yourself swim you don't know for sure if you have it right.  So I invested in a couple of sessions with a local coach who gave me some good feedback and some drills to work on. It took about 6 weeks but I got to the point where the changes are more or less natural - and hopefully will pay dividends when I race.

4.  Dryland stretch cord work - Swimming is so much about moving efficiently through the water and minimizing drag by being balanced and streamlined.  You simply can't power your way through the water with poor form without quickly becoming exhausted.  With that said, swimming still requires fitness and conditioning, particularly in the shoulders, lats, and arms. Basic strength work for swimming is pretty simple with a set of stretch cords.  A couple sets of 30-50 reps twice a week is a nice supplement to your regular pool workouts.

5. Recovery - Training creates muscle damage that is repaired when you sleep.  More sleep = better recovery.  I've never been good at getting to bed early or getting enough sleep.  My typical evening might be training until 7:30ish, dinner between 8 and 9, then somehow I find myself still up and wasting time on the computer or doing something else unnecessary for 2-3 hours before I finally get to bed.  Then of course I need to decompress for a while with the TV.  I'll usually get to sleep around midnight or later.  So for the past 2 months I've made a point of trying to get to bed even just 30min earlier.  I even managed to mostly stick to it through the Tour de France.  Unfortunately the Olympics have kept me up past midnight more often than not the past week.  I'm looking forward to a couple days of sleeping later this weekend.

6. Last but not least, I've invested heavily in optimizing my bike and position.  Aerodynamics make a huge difference in triathlon and your position on the bike and gear you choose can easily mean 10-15min difference in your bike split for the exact same effort.  I'll cover the details in another blog post but the quick version is that I took my bike out to FASTER in Scottsdale, AZ a couple months ago for a position assessment and to spend some time in their wind tunnel optimizing my gear.  It wasn't cheap but I'm completely satisfied with what I got out of it - I'm way more comfortable on the bike and found out that I can save about 8min over a 112 mile Ironman bike by switching to a different aero helmet.  I ended up with new shoes, insole inserts, new saddle, tweaked cockpit, new helmet, and I learned how adjusting my head position slightly makes a significant aero drag difference.  The pic below is the final product.

A trip to Scottsdale, AZ to visit the guys at FASTER and optimize my fit and position.

DNS vs DNF

I've never DNF'd a race and I don't enter races just to go through the motions.  I'm either testing my current fitness, have a specific training purpose, or I'm racing to push my limits and compete.  That's why I've only run a few marathons total and why I decided to DNS IM Arizona in 2010.  With few exceptions, simply covering the distance doesn't motivate me.

Boston Marathon 2006 with dad.

In early 2010 my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and I spend a lot of time traveling back and forth to CO spending as much time with him as possible.  He passed away in late July that year and I just couldn't focus on the quantity and quality of training that's necessary to race IM well.  I certainly could have trained enough to finish without a problem but it still would have been a big investment for a marginal outcome.  So I decided to eat the $500 entry and change gears to something that I thought I could actually accomplish something with what was left of the 2010 season.  I found a regional half iroman race in late October, cut my training back to something I could stay focused on and actually enjoy, and ended up winning the race and setting a new PR.  From the moment I decided to pass on IMAZ I immediately knew it was the right decision and don't regret it for a second.  I still went out to Tempe and got to watch Chrissy Wellington set a new world record - smiling the entire time.

That brings me to April 2012 and my ultimate goal this season to race well at the inaugural IM US Championship in Aug.  I started he year running a lot, had a blast doing the Ragnar FLK relay, and set a World Record for a tethered team marathon at Shamrock - fun start to the season.  I also put the Virginia 24hr Run for Cancer on my schedule as both a challenge and something unique.  It happens to be a quick drive from VA Beach and a friendly format for ultra running - 3.75 mile loop on a flat dirt and gravel trail.  I ran JFK50 back in 2009 and did fairly well (34th overall) despite my pace bombing the last 10 miles or so.  I set my goal for the 24hr event at 100 miles but I've been training as a triathlete, not a runner.  That means only 2-3 runs for roughly 30-35 miles per week.  I fully realize that isn't optimal to run 100 miles but I still felt confident that I could do it - 24hrs gives a lot of buffer.  But the problem is that I basically consider anything less than 100 miles a DNF.  For whatever reason I don't see anything short of 100 miles as being any sort of milestone past the 50 I've already done.  So I had 2 options for the 24hr run - go for it and run myself into the ground to hit my goal, or DNS and spend my weekend training to be the best triathlete I can be this season. 

As I'm finishing this post I have several friends 15 hours into the run - I'm at home with sore legs from running 18 miles yesterday and riding 65 miles today.  I'm bummed that I'm not out there with them.  I wasn't raising money for a charity or anything but I was looking forward to "running for cancer" for my dad.  But I'm happy that I made the right decision - Ironman is 111 days away and it's time to get serious.  I wouldn't have been able to give my best at either event if I ran the 24hr this weekend.  Instead I'll swim/bike/run my ass off for the next 4 months and dedicate this IM to my dad.