The Big Dance

I'm sitting on a plane somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, headed to the Big Island – Kona. I've been to Kona before, run down Ali'i Drive, put my feet in the sand at Dig Me Beach, and walked the asphalt on the Kona Pier. It was a sleepy time of year in the little town and nothing like what I'm about to experience this week. Kona becomes a circus for one week in October each year. Thousands of athletes, family and friends, and industry professionals converge for the Ironman World Championships. With a few exceptions you have to earn the right to subject yourself to the heat and winds of the lava fields for anywhere from 8 to 17 hours. It's a grueling day for sure but the suffering is something many triathletes dream of and few actually get to experience. And that's what this first trip to Kona on race week is all about for me – the experience.

If you've followed my blog this past year you've caught glimpses of my journey. I've worked hard and invested a lot of time, energy, and money with the goal of some day earning myself the right to swim, bike, and run 140.6 miles with 2000 of the best long course triathletes in the world. I qualified less than 60 days ago at the one-and-done Ironman US Championships in New York City. I knew I had a good shot at qualifying but wasn't prepared for the reality of it happening. The excitement of a podium finish and Kona slot was quickly replaced with the stress and anxiety of having to do it all over again in two months. Not just the training and racing but the expense of a week-long vacation to HI (which conveniently became a one-year anniversary present for my wife) and time away from work that I didn't have saved up. 2 weeks after IMNYC I forced myself back into some training but had ZERO motivation. I honestly dreaded getting out of bed every morning. On top of that I needed to work 50hr weeks to stockpile enough comp time to cover the week I'd be taking off. It was the toughest month or so I can remember having to deal with in a long time but I managed to pull through it with the support of my wife.

Eventually I was enjoying training again, although definitely on a minimalist schedule. I only needed to do enough to maintain basic endurance so I focused on a weekly long ride and long run. If I felt like getting anything else in that was a bonus. I had a couple of good long runs and a really strong 70 mile ride in Pensacola Beach during a road trip to DeLuna Fest a couple of weeks back. I also had a blast running 38 miles over 6 legs of the Colonial 200 Ultra Relay with Team 2 Boobs, 5 Dudes Sept 28-29. I averaged about 6:40/mile and we crushed the previous course record. I haven't run a step in the 10+ days since. Otherwise, I've done a couple of 25 mile group rides and had a couple ~30min open water swims in the past 2 weeks. That's the extent of my training and I feel completely at ease with it.

So if you are going to follow my progress online (I'm bib #1383) Oct 13 don't worry if I'm a little slow out of the water and my bike/run splits seem a bit off. I'm doing just fine – sitting back and enjoying the day. It's going to be a really nice cap to a great season and a fun week in that sleepy little town on the big Island. We're planning to take in the whole experience. We're staying in a condo apartment right on Ali'i behind the famous Lava Java within 5 blocks of the pier and all of the race week action. I'll be swimming out to the Coffees of Hawaii floating espresso bar, partaking in the infamous underpants run, attending both the welcome dinner and awards banquet, looking for glimpses of Macca and Crowie, meeting up with friends, and visiting the Kona Brewery on several occasions – need to stay hydrated. I don't have any specific race goals except to enjoy the day but I'm thinking a 10:30-11hr finish is reasonable – 1:15-1:20 swim, 5:30-5:45 ride, 3:30ish run.

Stay tuned through the week for a daily photo blog update.

View from below - Ironman World Championships

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.