On My Way!

Well, it's getting very real. I'm at the airport, waiting to take off for the land down under. Fortunately, there was so much to do to prepare for being away from work, doing a race abroad (with lots of equipment!), and traveling afterwards that I haven't been worrying about the 140.6 miles I'm going to have to cover - under my own power - in one week. There's not much to do about it now anyway. I can't improve my fitness any further before race day. All I can do is mess things up!

Of major importance for the next few days is that I eat, stay hydrated, and get plenty of sleep. All three of those will be tough on the upcoming 15 hour flight, but I hope to avoid too much temptation in Sydney and will try to make up for it there. After a couple of days in Sydney, we will fly to Perth, drive south to Busselton, and the final race preparations will begin.

Our first task will be reassembling our bikes. They can't travel in one piece. The machine that will roll me along for 112 miles is broken down to fit inside a 47 x 30.5 x 10.5 inch box. The wheels are off. The handlebars and seatpost too. All of that needs to go back together solidly, with gearing reconnected to the wheels, chain lubed, and sizing adjustments made so that the bike feels just as good as it did before I broke out the allen wrenches. Of course, this is all assuming the airline doesn't lose that bike box somewhere along the 7500 mile trip!

One of the big mistakes a racer can make is to fail to gain course knowledge. If you don't know where you're going, you race tentatively and risk going the wrong way, wasting precious time and energy. So, one of the next steps for us will be riding or driving the course. Ironman Western Australia has repeating bike and run loops that are far from perfect ovals. Looking at the map of the routes, you'd think it was some sort of roller coaster path. We'll make sure we know where we're going.

I'm looking forward to testing the calm, clear waters of Geographe Bay (race site) too. Busselton has a jetty that sticks out perpendicularly to the shore for a full mile. Our swim route starts on one side of that jetty, goes around the tip, and then comes back to the beach on the other side. They even have an underwater observation deck at the end of that mile so that we can get a look at the sea creatures we'll be swimming alongside. Let's hope none of them have big teeth.

With the swim/bike/run courses evaluations done, I need to learn how these Ironman transitions (switching between disciplines) work. They're quite different from the shorter races I've done in the past. Usually, we try to minimize changes between the swim and bike or bike and run, just to keep our overall race time down. But with Ironman, you're covering too many miles. You need to be comfortable. I would normally wear the same shorts and jersey for an entire race, but here, I'll be changing clothes completely. I certainly don't know how all of this takes place, so I need a quick lesson. With the lessons complete, eat, drink, and (try to) sleep again...the pressure is building.

Time to board, next time I'll talk to you from Australia!

The Season, part 2

Did I say disaster?  OK, that’s probably taking it a little bit far.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I completely underestimated my nutritional requirements at Vineman.  While not being a true “disaster”, the bonk in the wine country was an extremely humbling event.  I’ve been a sore loser (read highly competitive) for my entire life.  And make no doubt about it, I lost on that day.  Even if they were sympathizing, you feel like all of the racers passing you know you lost too.  My message to the Vineman course: I’m looking forward to taking you down next year!

 

Fortunately, the land is beautiful in those hills around Santa Rosa.  The day after the race was a fantastic recovery day on the slow-moving Russian River.  The team spent it drifting along in kayaks and inner tubes, celebrating the victories of the majority of our group, several of whom finished their first Half Ironman and have since registered to do their first full Ironman races in 2012.

Following the trip to the north, training took a turn towards long-distance cycling.  In early August, I traveled to Massachusetts to participate in my second Pan-Massachusetts Challenge.  This amazing ride is the highest yielding athletic fundraising event in the country - $35 million this year!  Its signature route is a two-day, 192-mile trek from Sturbridge (in the middle of the state) to the tip of Cape Cod, at Provincetown.  While the support of the fans in all of the neighborhoods along the route is inspiring enough, this year we had a special friend leading the way, none other than cycling legend, Lance Armstrong.  He cruised (far) ahead of us for the first day of riding to our overnight stop in Bourne, a mere 111 miles away…just one mile shorter than I’ll have to ride at the Ironman.  Perfect.

We escaped stormy weather on our bikes, but not on the ride back to Boston, where the ferry pitched so harshly that the band and their instruments were launched across the dance floor.  Snacks and drinks at the bar?  All on the floor.  It was a rough ride to Beantown, but all of that was forgotten with a bowl of the best clam chowder ever - found at Union Oyster House near Faneuil Hall, in case you were wondering.

Next on the schedule was the big team battle at Zuma Beach, the Nautica Malibu Triathlon.  I had spent the last few months doing long-distance training, but now it was time to get fast!  I have done the full triathlon at Malibu several times, but this year, we needed a fast all-male relay team to compete against Disney, Sony, and NBC Universal in the Entertainment Industry Challenge.  So, I registered to do the run leg of a team.  It was nice that I could just focus on the run, but I needed to make it a very quick four miles to keep the team in contention.  Getting fast means doing intervals.  Although a balky calf muscle kept me from doing too much sprinting, the race time was pretty good.  Unfortunately for us, it was the year of the ridiculous relay teams and we couldn’t do better than 7^th place – still very respectable.

The rest of the WB Tri Team also raced very well.  Our overall team time (top 3 male finishers + top 3 female finishers + top male relay + top female relay + top co-ed relay) was eight minutes faster than our championship winning time of 2010.  However, NBC Universal was faster and the Warner Bros. finished second.  Individuals on our team continue to amaze me.  Every year, there are impressive performances from podium-achievers to first-time racers.  This year was no different.

With another successful year at Malibu complete, all that was left for me was a return to long-distance training.  For two months, the coach and I would need to mix lengthy weekend swims/bikes/runs with shorter weekday interval workouts.  Before I went back to the extended distances, I wanted to check my movement patterns to ensure that I wasn’t going to cause an injury with repetitive inefficiencies.  We do a test at the Fitness Center called the Functional Movement Screen.  It’s available to all of our members and is an essential part of our fitness assessment offering.  The quick FMS highlights improper functional form, whether caused by weakness, instability, or immobility, which can then be targeted for improvement through corrective exercises.  As an example, tightness of the hip flexors could cause a forward-tilting pelvis, which would place undue stress on the spine and inhibit the activation of the gluteal muscles while running.  Over the course of training for a marathon, that could cause a multitude of injuries or at the very least, a very inefficient run and sub par speed.  With a positive test result and a couple of corrective exercises to do, I was ready for training.

As you can imagine, there aren’t a great number of sites in the city that allow for continuous extended-distance training.  We regularly use places like the San Gabriel Bike Trail which runs from Irwindale to Seal Beach and Pacific Coast Highway from Santa Monica to Port Hueneme.  Each of these sites allows us to complete combination workouts, typically called bricks.  We use these bricks to train our bodies to transition from one event to another.  Usually emphasized is the bike/run transition as your legs are the movement generators for both.  It’s not unusual to feel a little wobbly for the run after climbing off of your bike!

Top of the hill! (near Mammoth)

Our bricks varied over the two months we had to focus on Ironman training.  We ran the Long Beach Half Marathon then followed it with a 70-mile ride up and back on the San Gabriel Trail.  We swam two miles in the COLD Pacific Ocean at Zuma Beach before riding 80 miles up and down the coast.  To get some variation, we made the fantastic decision to travel to Mammoth Mountain and do some altitude training.  Over that weekend, we did a 2-hr bike/1-hr run/2-hr bike session on Saturday and a 2-hr bike/2-hr run at higher altitude on Sunday.  While extremely challenging, the new atmosphere and beautiful surroundings kept us motivated.  I already mentioned the 100-mile ride/1.5-hr run day from Santa Barbara to Malibu.  And this past weekend, the coach and I rode 70 miles from Irvine to San Diego.

There are only a few interval days left, otherwise, I hope this stuff got me ready!  The race happens in fewer than 12 days!!!!

The Season, part 1

So, it’s all downhill from here.  This past Sunday, I completed the longest day of training I’ll have until race day on December 4^th.  Together with my training buddies, I bicycled from Goleta Beach, just north of Santa Barbara, to downtown Malibu.  And just for fun, we mixed in a 1 hour, 15 minute run at the mid point.  I am in pain and completely exhausted.  It didn’t help that I flew in from Dallas on Saturday night.  Although I learned some great new stuff in the functional fitness world while in Texas, that trip certainly didn’t set me up for a great ride yesterday.  With three weeks until race day, though, it had to be done!  Of course, this “downhill slope” doesn’t mean that my training intensity will go down too.  The mileage will be dropping, but the interval training will pick up.  Of paramount importance is that I’m healthy on December 4^th, so flexibility and elasticity will be as important as the power gained from the intervals.

What did I do to get to this point?  Well let’s see…

Triathlon training is nearly a year-long cycle for some of us on the WB Tri Team.  We participate in several key events through the year and focus our training to be in optimal condition for each of those “A” events.  There may be some other races mixed in, but they’re considered to be more of an organized workout.  As a team, we generally prepare for two A+ races, the Wildflower Triathlon in May and the Malibu Triathlon in September.  The experienced core of our team will also add the Vineman 70.3 Half Ironman to the A+ group.

Home for the Solvang weekend

Although it’s not a race, the fourth A event is the Solvang Century Ride.  It’s the official start of our year and a beautiful weekend.  The team shares the rent of a fantastic house for the weekend, allowing for the building of great camaraderie – and minimizing costs, of course.  The significance of this early March ride is that it sets a nice aerobic fitness base and prepares us for the year ahead – it’s the launching point for the season.  At this point we’ve put in several strong weekends of riding, beginning at around 25 miles and growing up to about 80 miles.  We mix flat, long rides with shorter mountain climbs to prepare for the very up and down Solvang course.  This is only a bike ride, so you can cycle in a pack or “peloton” and draft off of other riders.  This diminishes the work done by everyone but the front rider(s).  When we get to the triathlon season, there is no drafting – everybody has to do the work!  It does take a bit of practice to be comfortable riding in a pack, particularly since we don’t regularly do so throughout the year.  You can’t just decide to ride at 20 mph, six inches behind another rider’s tire, so several weekends of practice are required.  After spending the long day in the bike saddle, speeding through wine country, we spend the night eating!  Riding 100 miles, each of us burned at least 4500 calories, so a nice big meal is in order.

Wildflower Transition

Next on the calendar is the Wildflower Triathlon which happens during the first weekend of May.  As soon as the team leaves Solvang, it’s time to get into triathlon shape.  Swimming and running need to be mixed in with the bike work and speed matters for each discipline.  There’s no more “riding”, it’s “racing” now!  Wildflower is known as the “Woodstock of Triathlon”…as well as one of the more difficult races you can do.  This race has been a staple for the WB Tri Team since 2006.  It takes place near Lake San Antonio, just to the northwest of Paso Robles.  It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so you can forget about the luxuries of home life – you’re camping!  You’ve never seen so many tents!  They are everywhere!  Again, this is a great opportunity to really get to know your teammates, sharing stories and experiences.  There are two major race options, either the Long Course Distance on Saturday or the Olympic Distance on Sunday.  The race courses are beautiful, but quite hilly.  Most triathlons are generally flat, but not at Wildflower.  Your legs are going to take a beating!  It’s all worth it, however, as this race is so well supported.  There are fans cheering you on for much of the race.  Just when you think you can push any more, there’s someone to motivate you (more cowbell!!).  And as you can guess, you have earned another good meal after your efforts at Wildflower.

After Wildflower this year, I needed to try something new.  I had never done a marathon – remember I was a shorter-distance guy.  Having already signed up for the Ironman, however, I figured I had better do a marathon by itself since I was going to have to do one after a 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike.  I chose the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon: 1) love San Diego, 2) had heard great things about the race, 3) it fit nicely into my schedule…well kind of nicely.  More accurately, it fell in an empty spot in my schedule.  The tough part was that I only had one month to ramp my mileage up from 6.2 miles (Wildflower) to 26.2 miles.  It’s hardly safe for your body to jump up that quickly, so I only got to 13 miles in my longest practice before doing the race.  This could have been a total disaster, but I was careful not to run too hard and paced quite well.  If you’ve never done a marathon, you’ve probably never seen the pacers.  They have signs on their backs showing their predicted time of finish.  So, you can guess as to the pace that will feel good to you (determined by your practices) and just follow the pacers for as long as you want.  If you feel like they’re too fast or too slow for you, make an adjustment and move to the next group to the front or back of you.  Awesome!  There was no need to keep staring at a watch to stress about pace, you could enjoy the surroundings and hang out with some similarly speedy friends.  I could use these people in my other races!  For much of the run, I felt good, but my legs started to really hate me at around mile 20.  Knowing the finish was less than a 10K away, however, I fought through and completed the distance in just over 3 ½ hours.  Success!

The month after the marathon came the Vineman 70.3 Half Ironman, where disaster struck…

(stay tuned for the 2^nd half of the year, coming later this week!)

Learning to Tri

You’ve just begun to see the story, but I didn’t just start training for this Ironman last week.  And although I committed to take on 140.6 miles last December when I registered, the training for it really began long before that – before I ever considered myself a candidate for this kind of torture!  My training actually began in 2005 when I decided that I’d take on triathlon.  With some nudging from two fellow employees, Stephanie Rubalcava and Dave Gatlin, the WB Tri Team was created and hastily “prepared” for the 2005 Nautica Malibu Triathlon.  At that point, I left my comfortable weekend warrior status behind and started down a new path – a path that would test my will more than any athletic endeavor I had ever attempted.

That first season was a rough one.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  I had taken swimming lessons and messed around in the pool like lots of other kids.  I had ridden my bike to football practice from middle school through high school.  I had run cross-country for two years in high school and casually throughout the years.  While having some of that background probably helped some, I soon discovered that I did most of it all wrong, particularly for triathlon.  Swimming in the ocean was a completely different animal – even if you weren’t thinking about the other animals that could be swimming with you!  Biking was supposed to be done with a circular stroke instead of mashing down on the pedals – and you could do it in “aero” position?  What is that?  And who knew that running would be so hard after you got off of a bike?

"Aero" position on the bike

While I tried to learn as much as I could through several weeks of practice, the early bumps showed me that you can’t just pick this stuff up.  You have to experience it.  Just when you think you’re getting it – you’re thrown a curveball.  My first lesson was that “aero” position is not the most stable position on a bike.  At 20 mph, riding down Pacific Coast Highway, I lifted my head up to find a large steel construction plate askew in the shoulder of the road.  With no way to avoid it due to passing cars, I attempted and failed to get over it.  I couldn’t stabilize my front wheel while in “aero”, so it whipped to the side, I went flying, and my brand new carbon-framed bike was broken in two places between my legs.  With one month until race day, it looked like my first season was over before it began.  However, my second lesson is that teammates are your greatest asset.  Unbeknownst to me, they raked together some funds and helped to purchase a new frame for me, allowing me to fight on.

On that first race day, I found out how ridiculous a triathlon swim start can be.  It is often called a “washing machine”.  I’m not sure if that’s the perfect description, but it’s good enough.  Triathlon swims for races shorter than Ironman distance start in age-group waves.  When the gun goes off, you and everybody else in your 5-year age-group take off for the water at the same time.  Since I was a cocky rookie thinking I would smoke this, I was near the front of the pack when we lined up.  Once we got to the water, I found out why it’s called the washing machine – legs and arms are kicking and swinging all around you.  People have very little courtesy in the water.  You can be pulled, climbed over, punched…if you’re in the way, you’re going to know it.  I panicked.  I knew I was going to drown.  My breathing accelerated and I could not get enough air.  I ended up backstroking – in anything BUT a straight line – for half of that race, just so my face was out of the water and air was getting into my lungs.  What a mess.  I now know to stay back and to the side to give myself some space.  While it may cost me a few seconds, it’s better than a kick to the jaw.  The interesting thing for the Ironman is that EVERYBODY starts the swim at the same time.  There are no age group waves, so thousands of people start at the same time.  Uh oh…

As the seasons have gone on, I’ve learned more and more about what it takes to race well.  I’ve learned how hard I can push my body.  I’ve researched equipment and training styles and nutrition.  And I steadily extended my race distances.  All of that training has taken me to the point where, last December, I thought I might actually be able to do this Ironman 140.6 thing.

The lessons still come on a regular basis, however.  Notably, I completely messed up my nutrition during the Half Ironman race I entered this summer.  You see, during a Half Ironman, one can easily burn over 5,000 calories – and that’s within just 6 hours of your 24 hour day!  While you’re racing, you need to replenish a good portion of those calories or you will hit a horrible state, commonly referred to as “bonking”.  If you bonk, your goal race time can be forgotten.  You’ll be past the point where you can get enough calories back into your system that you can recover and get back up to speed.  It happened to me this summer.  I miscalculated the formulation of my energy drink that was to be used for 56 miles on the bike and would set me up for the final 13.1 miles of running.  The drink was at about ¼ strength and half-way through the bike, I could no longer keep up.  I didn’t realize then what I had done, but as I walked most of those 13.1 miles, I knew that my body just didn’t have any fuel to use.  While it was an embarrassing day, it was a great message, and I’ll be more prepared in Australia.

After that Vineman Half Ironman, I had one more short race - Malibu.  With that one completed in September, my focus turned to long-distance training.  I’ll cover that, as well as the equipment needed to race in a triathlon, next time.  Until then, keep the messages coming!  I’ve received some great stories already.  Several of you took on a new challenge this past weekend - congrats to those who successfully ran the LA Rock ‘n” Roll half marathon on Sunday!