Getting (the) back on track

6-4-09

Getting (the) back on Track

I’ve been way off the blogosphere over the last month +. Lots of things happening. First off I decided to pull the plug on Ironman racing for this season. I’ve have had a chronic back injury (since my mogul skiing days circa late 1990s) that has progressively got worse on the bike over the last 5-6 months especially. It really affects my ability to ride at race effort over about an hour. At that point I get excruciating lower back pain that I was trying to just “deal with”. It was kind of like hitting my head against a wall. Once the pain sets in I just can’t access my fitness which was frustrating to no end. I have to sit up stretch and sometimes stop if it’s really bad. It happened at Cali 70.3 this year and also at Jerseyman (dropped out because of it). Jerseyman was really the final test to determine whether I would psuh through for Ironman Cour d alene. So anyhow after Jersey my focus has changed completely. The focus now is going to be on short course and get healthy. The short hard rides don’t aggravate and running also feels great. Long periods of being hunched over is where I need to be careful.
I’m also going to stay local and try to save some $ (we just went to contract on a house!!!!!). My work with QT2 systems continues to grow and I am just so happy to be learning from the one of the best coaches in the sport (Jesse Kropelnicki). Also my mentor and pro triathlete Tim Snow with QT2 has taught me a great deal. So here’s my plan forward—

June 9th catamount 5k (tentative)

June 11th Elmore practice tri (tentative)

June 20 Shelburne Sprint tri

June 28th VT Sun Tri

July 4th Clarence demar 5k – GMAA or shelburne sprint (tentative)

July 12th Vt Sun sprinr or black fly tri

Aug 9th VT sun Oly


http://www.qt2systems.com/Coaches/coaches.htm

Motivation

A lot of people ask me how I stay motivated to train the way I do. I thought I’d share some thoughts on this. I think there are a few layers to this for me. There are a few things that are like the internal fire for the motivation and then there are layers that feed themselves.

For this first layer of what motivates it goes pretty deep into what my overall goals and dreams are. It comes down to some pretty core concepts for me which serve to feed the fire to keep me going day in and day out. Here they are:

1. I want to qualify for Ironman Hawaii.
2. I want to win races, whether it’s an age group win at a big M-dot race or overall wins at smaller New England races.
3. I want to be the fastest athlete I can be at the Ironman distance.
4. I want to execute races like a pro.
5. I want to be at a pro level for Ironman distance.

In order to get to Hawaii in my age group (30-34) I need to be at a very elite level. Most Kona bound guys in my age group are well under 10 hours for ironman. This basically means I need to train as close as I can to what is typical of a pro. With my work schedule my sustainable volume is only around 20 hours a week whereas many pros are hitting 35 + hours a week. My training plan is designed to get me as close to critical volumes as possible in a safe manner.

So back to motivation- how do I get myself to get out of bed for 5am workouts? Or figure out a way to get my workout in during times of really crazy logistics with work or family. The above principles are the internal part and then there are other layers—

I have found that simply turning off emotions (very hard for me) and thinking clearly with a focus on simply “getting the work done” is very helpful. If I want to meet my goals I need to get the work done plain and simple. I also have a very very supportive wife and family who understand and support “getting the work done.” Yes I am extremely lucky and not a day goes by that I do not give thanks for this.

So then there are other things that serve to feed the motivation and it falls into this concept of “training is testing, testing is training” that Dr. Andrew Coggan made famous.

Basically every workout I do I know where my fitness is. I always know whether I’m improving or not and this is hugely motivating for me. For example my zone 1 pace (aerobic threshold) was 7:45 in Dec and it’s now 7:06. Same exact HR but much faster paces with zero tempo or speed. I hit the 7:06 level the week that my base phase ended and am now in a build phase so I am doing some tempo and hill bounding. Just seeing the fruits of my hard work translate to faster paces or power is really motivating.

Overall training update-

Threshold swim pace is around 1:20 / 100yds
20 min power on the bike is 330 watts
FTP is 315 which puts me at 4.5 watts/kg
Run zone 1 pace top (aerobic threshold) is 7:06 (this is roughly 20 beats below Lactate threshold)

Hyannis Half marathon 2-22-09

This was the first real race of my season. One of my goals this year is to come into every race injury free. Well I’m happy to report that the nagging issues that have bugged me over the last year were non-existent on race day!! This is in large part from the great work of Dr Travis Hart over at VT Chiropractic and Sports Therapy. Thanks Travis!!! Today I'm a little tender but things are looking good on the injury front (knock on wood).

I drove down with Lindsay and my training partner Justin Ryea. Man the weather down on the Cape was beautiful. Sat was dry, sunny and 40+ degrees. Race morning was around 40 degrees and dry. Perfect. I couldn’t believe how big this race was. Much bigger than I thought. There were 4000+ runners between a full marathon, half and 10k.

Overall I’m happy with my performance. The fitness is obviously there but I did make some significant pacing mistakes that slowed me down 1- 2 minutes overall. This is an area for me that I have really struggled with, for most of my endurance sports career. If I‘m going to be good at Ironman as an athlete and as a coach I need to tame this pacing beast. As Lindsay said, I have too much heart on race day and not enough brain. I get so competitive that I don’t use my head and stick to my plan.

My plan was to run 6-6:05 first and second miles and then just hold that as long as possible and lift it in the last 3 miles if I felt good. Well I ended up running the first mile in 5:47. Deep down I knew I was not doing the right thing but I didn’t listen to it—big mistake. This season—I’m going to focus 100% on race day execution (nutrition, pacing, sticking to the plan, trusting it). The pacing part is really the missing link for me as I’ve made a lot of gains with fueling. My QT2 team mates / fellow coaches totally killed it today. They were all perfect examples of how proper pacing equates to running very fast. Tim Snow ended up winning the whole thing in 1:15, Jesse was 4th in 1:16, Cait Snow won for the women in 1:19 and Pat Wheeler went 1:19 as well. My buddy Justin also had a great day coming in 7th with a 1:17.

I cracked the top 20 with a 1:21:04 (2044 athletes in the half).

Here are my mile splits-

Mile 1 – 5:47
Mile 2- 5:45
Mile 3- 6:00
Mile 4- 6:07
Mile 5- 6:07
Mile 6- 6:05
Mile 7- 6:10
Mile 8- 6:20
Mile 9- 6:20
Mile 10- 6:20
Mile 11- 6:22
Mile 12- 6:20
Mile 13- 6:20

Link to results-

Results

2009 races (Updated)

2009 races

Team Psycho indoor TT, Boston 2/1/09

Hyannis Half Marathon, Mass 2-22-09

Ironman California 70.3 (near San Diego) 4-4-09

The Jerseyman half iron (New Jersey Multisport) 5-9-09

King Pine Tri (sprint) NH 5-31-09

Ironman Cour D’ Alene, Idaho 6-21-09 (Ironman Hawaii qualifier)

Marlborough triathlon (sprint) or Massachusetts state triathlon (sprint or Olympic) 7-26-09

VT Sun Olympic distance August 9th

Pumpkinman half iron 9-13-09

2009 Team QT2 on Xtri.om

QT2 on Xtri.com

Skiing Trapps

My friend and pro triathlete John Hirsch was up this weekend from NYC. I took him for his first nordic skate skiing endeavor at Trapps. Check out his recollection of the experience. Great read!!!

http://www.johnhirsch.org/?p=1354

2009 QT2 Systems Elite Team

Check it out!!

http://www.qt2systems.com/Team_Elite/team_elite.html


QT2 Coach in training