Perspective

I just wanted to post something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. It's something that I seem to always come back to but get easily off track. It's perspective. Just the mere fact that I and my fellow triathletes can participate in this great sport is a gift all on it's own. Just the fact that our basic needs are being met to the point that we can actually focus on somthing as luxurious as getting fit and fast. This is something I am truly thankful for. How the hell am I so lucky that I can do this stuff? There are people who don't know how they will get their next meal or where they are going to sleep tonight or that just lost a loved one. I admit that I often go down a road of laser focus with blinders on while I train like crazy. When I'm in this mode it's easy to lose site of the big picture and get hung up on small challenges and hurdles. I would like to get better at balancing the laser focus with the above perspective which yields a ton of gratitude.

I also want to give thanks to-

My family for being awesome and working through challenges together
My wife for putting up with me when I get that laser focus and don't hold up my end of the deal (i.e., being a dead beat husband)
The people around me who try to act from the heart in a world of bureacracy
The people that are trying to help our planet even at the smallest act of just trying to drive less.
This could go on all day.


Stream of consciousness over now

IM Florida 70.3 Race Report

The week leading into this race was totally crazy with Lindsay not sure if she was going to race because her sister hadn’t had her baby yet. Well all the stars aligned and the timing was perfect. Meghan had the baby which is now no longer called “Spawn” but Bridget and Lindsay was able to see Bridget and still do the race. We flew out together on Friday and crashed with some GMM tri friends from Vermont while down there which made it a lot more fun.

Race morning

I had my QT2 systems breakfast at around 4:20 for the 7:20 start. Applesauce, banana, bottle sport drink, and scoop of whey protein and some Starbucks. I was ready to rock. This race was huge with a transition area that seemed to be about a half mile long …crazy. My wave was second to last ---I wasn’t too happy about that as I hate going late like that mostly because you don’t really know where your competitors are. This was a non wetsuit swim as well. The gun goes off and I quickly found a nice set of feet to sit on. I was moving pretty good and tried to pass but I couldn’t get past him so I just stayed on his feet. I actually felt very comfortable probably too comfortable but I kept trying to see if I could get past him and I couldn’t so I knew I was moving at a good pace. I got out of the water in around 33 minutes which is way slower than my PR but I had anticipated this and knew the swim times would be slower on the day with out the wetsuit. I later realized that it really was a solid swim relative to my competitors. I used the new Xterra velocity speed suit----thanks Xterra!!!

I went as fast as I could through transition and saw lots of bikes still on my rack (all people who started in my wave or ahead of me) which is a good sign.

Bike

I was absolutely hammering the bike and feeling great, I’d look down and be going 26 mph and feeling super comfortable. I was flying. It was a constant stream of bikers out on the road and I was passing people for the whole 56. There was only one guy that I yo yo’d with for a lot of the bike who started in my wave and went on to be second in my age group and one of the top amateurs. I hit the 25 mile mark in 59:xx. Booyah!!!! I was cranking. I held a little over 25 mph avg speed until around 50 miles or so when I started getting a cramp in my left quad. The only mistake I made on the day was not drinking the 4.5 bottles recommended and only drank 3. Even though felt like I was drinking constantly –I just need to drink more (majority of my electrolytes come through my sport drink). The last 5-6 miles I had to back off because of my quad so I lost a bit of time the last few miles. I got off the bike in around 2:19 and my bike was the only one on the rack---that’s really cool.

Run

It was already crazy hot and humid. My quad was locking up/cramping pretty bad, I kneeled down to try and get it to release. I took 2 salt tabs (thermotabs) and kept saying “release” while I was running through the locked up quad---definitely some pain going on here. HTFU was repeated several times. In fact the whole run needed a pretty constant stream of HTFU’s because it was just brutal. No shade, 90 degrees, humid, lots of people were walking. After the first mile my quad released and I tried to get the tempo up. I hit the first few miles in 6:30-6:40 then struggled to hold 7s. The heat and the grass just made it hard to really stay light and fast. Half the course was on grass in kind of open field area that we did an out and back part of 3 loops. It was brutal. I got into bike racer mentality and decided that most people were suffering the most on the grass section so this was the section I would work the hardest. I really really suffered through those sections and then cruised the pavement section and went back to pushing the grass section each lap. Apparently I caught more people overall and in my age group on the run---that’s very cool as I usually lose a few spots on the run. Run times were slow with the heat and grass. I was around 1:34.

Finish was super satisfying, there really is nothing like finishing a long race after putting in your best effort. It was the kind of effort that I felt like if someone went faster than me on the day then my hat goes off to them because I was hammering and racing strong. I came in at 4:31. It wasn’t the time I was hoping for or near my PR but relative to my competitors it was solid.

I ended up 4th in my age group out of 254 and 30th overall out of around 2000. I was also 16th amateur. I am definitely happy with this result. I’ve never finished this far up at a big M-dot race. I want to thank my coach Jesse at QT2 systems for helping get this strong.

Lindsay also had a solid day in her second half ironman ever. She was 12th in her age group out of 86.

Green Mountain Triathlon Race Report

I raced the Green Mtn triathlon yesterday (5/4/08)in the Rutland area and got my first victory of the season! This was a low key pool triathlon put on at Green Mtn College by the adventure program students. It was very well organized and had great volunteers as well---thanks guys. Lindsay and I did this race back in 2002 but the course was different this year. Lindsay by the way decided to train this weekend instead of race as her masters program had dug into some of her training time over the last couple of weeks. The weather this past weekend had been pretty bad---cold and rainy. I almost didn't do the race. I was at the end of a recovery week so the timing was perfect to get in a race specific workout. I'm about 2 weeks out from the Florida 70.3 (half ironman). 2 weeks out from a half iron is excellent timing to get in some sharpening from a high intensity effort. When I got to the race site and checked in I saw a friend/competitor Paul Fronhofer from Ney York. Paul and I have raced together several times and we duke it out pretty closely on the bike. He is a very strong cyclist posting one of the fastest bike splits last year at Ironman Lake Placid. I think he went around 5:10 or so. Anyhow I greeted him and said "so we're gonna duke it today eh?" He said he was only doing the swim and bike because he had a fracture in his foot and can't run right now. I hope he heals up well. He mentioned a guy named Pat O'keefe would be here who won Lake George triathlon last year. Paul said Pat would swim about a 5 min 500 yard swim, wow that is crazy fast. Pat apparently was a division I swimmer in college. He was second out the water last year Ironman Lake Placid with a 47 min swim!!! Sick! I was actually relieved though that there were some strong guys here to really race it with. The head to head compettion is one of the things I love about this sport and I was going to get a chance as Paul, Pat and I would start near each other on the swim. The faster swimmers went last and each person had their own lane and there was maybe 50 or so people total and only 5 lanes. We were able to start the race around 10:40 or so. Paul ended up starting a few minutes ahead of me but Pat and I got to start at the same time which I was psyched about as he was my key competition on the day (but I was also competing with Paul on the swim and bike). We start and Pat is absolutely flying 2 lanes down from me. I think he lapped me once. I knew the lap counters were off when I hit the 250yard point and they didn't put in the half way card, they did on the next 50. I wasn't too happy about this but just shook it off. I hit 500 per my count at 6:20 but did the extra 50 anyway. I got out in 7:00. I knew this was off because all winter I was hitting 6:30 and 6:40s for 500 splits in my 800 time trials. Pat had gone around 5:10 or so and I needed to chase hard. Once on the bike my legs felt amazing---Jesse those BST sets on the bike are incredible. I have never felt so powerful on the bike. Mentally I was trying to keep it together as I let an additional 40 seconds go on Pat by doing that extra 50. I was going so hard on the bike but still not seeing anyone ahead of me. I just kept telling myself to recognize how good my legs feel and keep pushing as hard as I can. Finally I saw some people in the distance. I kept pulling them back and eventually passing them it was Pat and one other person. Awesome but then I realized Pat's twin brother was here racing too(no kidding) and I was hoping it was acutally Pat (it was). I caught him around mile 12 or so and had another 6 miles to keep putting time into him. Once on the run I couldn't belieive how good my run legs felt---I felt like a gazelle. I was absolutely flying faster than I've ever run off the bike. I hit the first mile in about 5:30!! I felt great. My coach is a genius!!! Once we got the results I had figured that Paul Fronhofer had beaten my bike split but it turned out that I outsplit him by 20 seconds!!! I couldn't believe it. The race was very well organized for this type of event. Nice job to everyone who raced!!! There were lots of people doing their first triathlon. I love seeing this and feel so humbled by their courage to take on a new challenge.


Here's the stats

1st overall
swim 6:20 / 500 yards
bike 48:31 / 18.5 or so miles
run 18:05 (on my watch)

Running out of my head

So I haven't posted in a while and am going to get things rolling here again. I will post a race report soon from the Run Vermont Half marathon (5th overall with a 1:20 personal best on a course with a mile of snow). Anyhow I am extremely happy with where my fitness is right now. I have worked harder and smarter than ever before. My coach is a genius and I should have started working with him earlier. My run is where I think I've made the most noticeable improvements although my swim TTs show I'm ahead as well. My bike fitness feels great but I don't have a powermeter to really gauge things and haven't done a bike TT yet. I know I'm averaging around 21 mph at aerobic threshold (Ironman race pace) so that is good. On the the run--- people have been asking me what have I done differently and I want to summarize that in this post. Basically Jesse got my heart rate zones dialed in correctly. I had previously thought my lactate threshold on the run was around 175-178 but this was way too high and not correct. My run LT is actually 161-164. So once that got fixed my aerobic threshold (AeT) was calibrated correctly. Once I had this number (141 on the run), pretty much every single run for 16+ weeks was run right at that HR. I was not allowed to go over it unless I was racing (once a month). What happened was jaw dropping, makes me speechless kind of stuff. Every single run was focused on running as fast as I can without going over 141. I had to keep perfect form and restraint to not go over that number. I had to walk up hils early on. My pace at 141 kept improving and is still getting quicker (although at this point I'm wondering if some of it is from a fried peripheral system). Anyway here are the avg paces I ran at 141 since Dec. This heart rate point is about 20 beats below my lactate threshold. As my pace at AeT lifts, so does my pace at LT without even doing speed work!!


Dec 7:45
Jan 7:30
Feb 7:05
March 6:50
April 6:34

With a 6:34 avg pace at aerobic threshold that predicts some scary fast times. It predicts 15:59 for 5k!!, 1:14 for half marathon and 2:36 for the marathon. This is out of hand and too good to be true. I will need to race to prove it to myself.

I also want to add that in addition I have had a much bigger focus on nutrition this year (way more fruits and veggies) and different timing of my carbs. I am following what Jesse calls the "core diet". Check it out on his site www.qt2systems.com

Limits and Learning

I’m going to just ramble on about a few things here so bare with me. One of the fundamental things that I love about triathlon is related to the quote by Lance above. I am totally driven by the fact that when you put the training time in, your body adapts to the stress and gets stronger. I have been able to see firsthand that when I work hard I am rewarded by my body being able to go faster and farther. This is one of the most satisfying experiences. I am constantly (or at least at certain times of the year) realizing that the limits I thought I had are actually higher than I thought. This inspires me to push into new territory and explore whether or not I can handle that level of training or push that fast at a race that’s maybe 4 + hours long. When I first started racing long distance triathlons in 2005 I was very tentative and did not push very hard. I now go about as hard in a half ironman as I do in an Olympic distance race. I am constantly wondering where that cap is of reaching the highest point of fitness I can reach. I feel like physiologically I haven’t even scratched the surface.

I also find endless satisfaction in helping others succeed in this sport. Many people have helped me greatly over the years and I have a learned a lot and am still learning (something else I enjoy---learning more). I coach a masters swim group at First in Fitness in Berlin, VT. Right now we have about 10-12 people who regularly swim on Thursday nights. We have a wide range in abilities from folks who are new to distance swimming up to a guy who used to swim with Sheila Taormina and can hold 1:10 pace per 100. This guys swims about half a length underwater each push off. At any rate it’s a really fun group and I give folks an individualized look at their technique and point things out to them, give them appropriate drills that will address their limiters. When people say how much something helped or they had a moment where something I said clicked for them---these are some of the times that I feel rewarded 10 fold and it only motivates me more.

I also am still learning and I find a lot of enjoyment in it. Some of the people I have learned a great deal from (either personally or via reading)particularly around training protocols are: My coach- Jesse Kropelnicki, Kurt Perham, Paulo Sousa (via his blog and long time as a slowtwitcher; www.thetriathlonbook.blogspot.com , Gordo Byrn, Joe Friel, the teachings of Arthur Lydiard, Matt Fitzgerald, Greg McMillan, Dr Romanov of pose running, Mark Allen, Mike Llerandi, Tim Snow, Tim Watson, Dan Empfield, Kyle Bujnicki of vitamin connection, Jonathan Caron (via slowtwitch). These are just a few I have learned from. I am constantly reading everything I can on this topic and also love discussing it. My take is that there will always be a reason to learn more.

2008 Race Schedule - Through July

2008 Races

December 31, 2007 First Run 5k (Montpelier)
Jan 26 FASTSPLITS Winter Triathlon, Boston
Feb 24 Hyannis Half marathon
March 9th Spring Fling 10k
April 5th Vermont City Half marathon
May 5th GMAA Partners race 5 miler
May 18th Ironman Florida 70.3
June 8th Mooseman Half iron
June 29th Shelburne Sprint tri
July 20th Ironman Lake Placid

What's with all the Rocky stuff?

The people who know me well know that for me, Rocky is more than the cliche workout BS but at the same time I play it out because it's funny. I'm almost half mocking Rocky in the same breath that I'm secretly right there with him in Rocky 3 while he goes through a transformation to deliver a beat down on Clubber Lang (Mr T). I relate to how Rocky came to be. He was a nobody and made himself somebody. I am kind of in the middle somewhere along that continuum. I'm not nobody but I'm not somebody but I have big goals----you following me?

I believe that I have earned enough street cred to play the Rocky card and have it not be too cheesy, but I don't care if it is.

Here's the dues that I've paid that may give me some street cred to not be linked with all the cliche BS that people use with eye of the tiger and associating themselves with Rocky.

At 9 yrs old and no music system other than one of those old tape recorders that lawyers probably used back in the day, I would hold it up to the TV and record eye of the tiger so I could listen to it and listen to it and listen to it.

I had a car named Rocky that wasn't named Rocky right away but actually earned the name. After making 2 cross country trips in it with no problems at all my 1994 Nissan Sentra became Rocky because it was just tough as hell and could take a beating.

At my wedding as a joke we played eye of the tiger when Lindsay and I walked in. We all had a really good laugh but at the same time we were secretly totally into it and ready to go workout or spar with each other... OK maybe I was the only one who felt that way.

At my last ironman, my brother who used to watch all the Rocky's with me would say "aint so bad" "aint so bad" when I would run by referring to when Rocky was mocking Clubber Lang and tiring him out prior to handing out a major can of whoopass...my brother might as well as have given me speed because this pumped me up so much that next thing I knew I was seriously Hardening the F*** up.

Yeah it is pretty cheesy I admit it.