Lanier Sprint: race report

This was my last triathlon of the year, and it took place right in my back yard. I live near the race site and ride up to the islands about twice a week. I rode the bike course twice this week during training just to give myself every advantage. It was a massive field for a sprint – over 1,100 competitors. This being my last race of the year I made a decision going in to just race it like my hair was on fire. I figured if I blew up it couldn’t be that bad with only a 5k at the end.

I started off in the 3rd wave and had swim over, under, around, and through the racers in the waves in front of me. The 400m swim was over before it started and was followed by a 200 yard steep uphill sprint to T1.

The cool temps made for a bit of a chilly bike ride but it kept my HR uber low, I wasn’t anywhere near my normal sprint HR so I just let it all hang out. I rode the entire bike leg on the left side of the lane as I was constantly passing. It was good motivation to keep me red lining it for the ride. Hit T2 with a 31:25 split for the rolling 13 miles – 24.8mph. Fastest split on the day. Got off the bike just hoping I could still run after that!


Took off on the run with a high tempo and numb feet from the cold concrete in T1 and T2. Felt like balloons on the bottom of my feet but I just hammered on. That cool crisp fall air was treating me right today and felt strong to the end. Hit the line in 58:45 and an 18:45 run split. Good enough for 2nd overall on the day. The trophies for top 3 were these amazing blown glass sail boats made by Thom Lillie from Lillie Glassblowers – coolest Tri trophy I’ve ever seen! Great race by GA Multisports and props to Roswell Bicycles for the excellent bike support. SF had a good showing and I was pumped to end my year on a high note! See you in 2011 :)

Ride the Divide

Last night I stumbled upon something that was very entertaining - at least for me, and the best part was that it is free. It is a documentary that is currently showing free on you tube through midnight today.

"Ride the Divide" follows 15 cyclists as they attempt to finish the Continental Divide Trail race that runs from Bannf, Canada to the Mexican border. If you have any sense of adventure it will make you want to plan something big. If you have 80 minutes to spare today I highly suggest you check this out!

end of a long road

My triathlon season is drawing to a close. This weekend is my last Tri for the year - the Lake Lanier Islands Triathlon. It's just a little sprint that is about as close to home as a race can be. I ride the roads that this race takes place on at least twice a week.

I have never raced as much as I have this year, and it didn't all go down without it's challenges. I've had a pretty big year in the sport and a lot of good surprises along the way. I picked up a sponsorship and a coach. I also managed to check off all of my major goals for the year. Which included:

1. Finish my first full Ironman


2. Lower my half-Iron PR by 15 minutes


3. Break into the top 3 over-all in some local races



Towards the end of this run I've stumbled a bit and became unmotivated. I took a step back in training load and seriousness and made sure I was having fun doing this - and this seemed to make the biggest difference. This adjustment allowed to to relax and coincidentally I turned in some of my best results of the year. This also has really gotten me very excited for next year!

Back to the Lanier Islands race - I actually got to pre-ride the bike course yesterday. I'm psyched that I know it so well and will feel so comfortable on it during the race. I actually did this race 3 years ago and rode the bike course in 36 minutes. Yesterday I rode at a moderate pace about 15-18 BPM (talking HR here) under my race pace and it only took me around 33 minutes. There's something that puts me at ease about know exactly what is coming on a race course that also allows me to push myself very hard.

I'm hoping to close the year out with another over-all podium finish - and wouldn't it be nice to do it in my own backyard? While it is a sprint, it's a HUGE sprint with about 800 competitors - so you never know who is going to show up. Guess we'll find out on Sunday!

cankle and RICE

I'm talking about how yesterday I had a cankle. What is a cankle you might ask? It's when you don't have ankles. Your calf just goes right into your foot.

Urban dictionary definition:
The absence of a defined ankle on a person - whereby the calf of the leg merges directly into the foot. The calf appears to replace the ankle - hence the term "cankle".




I achieved this by running on a trail on Tuesday and rolling my right ankle. Around 9.5 miles into a planned 12 mile run I came down on a root or rock. This is always unsettling and is pretty painful. At first I tried to run it out but it became apparent after about 50 feet more of running that this wasn't going to be the case. Sometimes depending on the severity you can just run it out and it feels better. This was a bonefide ankle sprain I believe so I was forced to walk it back to the car a little more than a mile.

What was I going to do now? "I have a race this weekend" was my first thought. I received some great advice from my friend Daniel who's had more than his fair share of traumatic rolls and cankles, and also from my brother-in-law, Leo. They both said to "RICE the hell out of that thing." RICE stands for rest, ice, compression, elevation. An old remedy for well, anything that you injure - but amazingly this works particularly well for my cankle situation.

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/rehab/a/rice.htm

I woke up Wednesday and my cankle was as big as a softball. I gave it an ice bath every so often, wrapped it up in between, and sat on the couch with my ankle 4 feet up. Toward the end of the day the swelling was about half of what it was and I was in a lot less pain. I'm not one who usually does a good job of taking care of myself recovery wise, but I guess the idea of not racing this Sunday was enough to get me motivated this time. I've got a lot less Cankle now and more ankle. Going to give it some more rice today and now I'm thinking I'll be good to go by Sunday.

Triathletes are gear heads.

So the Ironman World Championships are coming up in less than two weeks, so I've been all over the web checking out the media and race material on my favorite tri websites. One of my favorite things to do is take a look at the old results. One thing that always fascinates me is how more than 20 years ago, the winning times for Ironman are as fast as they have been in recent years.

Bike manufacturers would say "oh the conditions weren't as harsh on the big island back then". I say this is hogwash. Could it be that the athletes from the 80's and early 90's were just forced to be stronger due to equipment that was not as technologically advanced as what we have today - so therefor the current crop of athletes aren't as strong? With more technological advances in equipment, do we now have less physical resistance to overcome?

If you go to any triathlon, particularly of the half-iron distance or greater, you'll see thousands of bikes worth well in excess of $5,000. Not to mention all the fancy wetsuits ($600), aero helmets ($200), pricey tri clothes, shoes, etc. Below is a picture of Dave Scott from the 1989 "Budlite" Ironman World Championships. He's riding a basic tri bike. Note the lack of $2,500 set of Zipp wheels, $3000 SRM power meter, HRM (does he even have a computer on that thing?) and aero helmet. I'm not even sure if there's any carbon fiber in this picture anywhere? Do you see any compression socks on him? He took 2nd to Mark Allen who was riding an almost identical set up. Notice the downtube shifters as well. They went 8:09 and 8:10 respectively. Fast forward to 2009 and Craig Alexander won with an 8:20.


My guess is that we've all been duped. Tricked by the industry into thinking that you need all the aero carbon 11 speed $9,000 self floating wetsuit compression gear we can get. Notice that I say we - I'm guilty as charged! Do I think that all the new stuff is actually helpful - yes, I do. With that being said I do think the advantages in speed are marginal. If Scott and Allen can rip off times like that with the most basic equipment - maybe we just need to train harder!

Learning Process

Being self coached seems to be a constant learning process. You constantly are discovering new and more effective ways to train and race - and all the details in between that get you from one workout to the next, and from the start line to the finish line. Of late I've had a few epiphany's that I arrived at through trial and error and research.

The first had to do with my bike that I had planned to ride at the Ironman. As I started logging some heavier and heavier mileage on my tri bike, I started feeling like there was no way I could ride the bike for 112 miles in the aero position as it was set up. So I sought some advice and scheduled a bike fitting at The Sport Factory in Roswell. As it turns out, my bike was to small a frame to achieve a comfortable fit that would allow me to stay in the aero position for 112 miles. The drop (distance from the saddle down the aero bar pads) was so aggressive that it cause me to have to arch my neck up at a strenuous angle to see the road. You can be the most aero and agressive rider at the start of the day at Ironman, but if your not comfortable you are not going to be able to hold that position all day. You will end up sitting up and that aero position is aero no more. What I needed was the right combination of aero and comfort. So I scoured the internet for resources on bike fit - Ironman bike fit specifically. I researched frame sets and visited bike shops. I had Naomi measure every possible measurement off my body that could be put into finding the right fit. I contacted dealers and talked to fit experts. I discussed it on forums and finally reached a decision, found the best deal on the best frame for an Ironman distance I felt we could afford (in my correct size of course). When it arrived I built it up and transferred all my research into how I set it up. I rode it, tweaked the fit, rode it some more, then tweaked it again, and again, and again. I made another appointment at the Sport Factory and had them look at me and make the final adjustments. The final product is exactly was I was striving for. I'm comfortable yet still aero and am in a very powerful position. Best of all, thanks to a very understanding wife and a sweet employee discount - I end up on my dream bike. While at times it was a frustrating and nerve racking process, it worked out perfectly in the end. Here is the result of nearly a month of research and trial and error.

My Cervelo P2. Chrissie Wellington won the Ironman World Championships on this exact frame in 2007 and 2008. Amazingly it's not even close to being the most expensive bike out there - it's not even Cervelo's most expensive bike. It's their "3rd best" tri frame. For some reason though - this thing is built for Ironman!

My other epiphany has to do with the way I approach the idea of recovery. Through a lot of reading I've finally got it through my head that I will never get stronger unless I take my rest days and recovery weeks seriously. That mean's not trying to make up missed workouts on off days and recovery weeks. Sticking to my routine of 6 days on, 1 day off helps me get stronger from week to week. In the long haul, making sure I stick to 3 weeks hard work to 1 week recovery will get me the most benefit from one phase to the next. Also not trying to cram to many long or intense efforts into a short period of time get's me the most gain from those efforts. In other words if I space my long efforts that are my key workouts apart through out the week I recover from one to the next instead of being in a state of perpetual exhaustion. Lastly - making sure I stick to a training load that I can consistently handle and recover from will yield the most improvement.

As I near the end of the first 8 weeks of my training plan, I feel like I've built a lot of momentum as I leave the "base phase" and enter the "build phase". I had two very good races at the Tundra Time Trial and the Thrills in the Hills Half Marathon Trail Race. I improved on my results in these events from last year with less specific speed preparation than I put in before them last year. This year my winter training has been geared more towards pure mileage. I'm most excited about the fact that my results in these two races were very even. Typically I see myself as a much stronger cyclist than a runner. The more balanced training plan I have this year seems to be paying off.

doldrums of winter training

I've got the winter training blues. The weather the past couple months has been rather uninspiring as far logging the mileage is concerned. 15 degree mornings a few weeks back forced me onto the trainer of a lot of riding, recently it's the incessant cold rains that keep me from deriving any kind of enjoyment from my training. These first four weeks have been painful. Not that the workout load has been all that strenuous, but the conditions tempting to stay in bed each morning have made it extra challenging to gear up and go for it. I admit I've missed a couple of workouts - so I'll be about 34 out of 36 for the first 4 weeks, which I guess isn't to bad considering what I've been facing.

One workout in particular really sent me over the edge. Yesterday I took off for a short ride before work and go caught in the rain, not to mention it was 35 degrees or so. I was soaked and freezing by the end. As I neared home I had a van pull up behind me and lay on his horn a few times. Not the friendly toot toot I'm going to pass you honk, but a loud obnoxious 'what the hell are you doing?' in my road honk. I turned around and waved at him, and motioned him to pass. He pulled up and rolled down his window. He yelled at me "You should be in the bike lane idiot!" as he pointed at the SIDEWALK. He sped off before I could really get a word in. Riding your bike on the sidewalk is not only dangerous as hell but illegal in Georgia (car's making rights can turn right into you, and cars pulling out never see you). I was fuming - but I would get he last word in as he got held up at the next stop light. I did what I probably shouldn't have done but was so aggravated by his ignorance and this was compounded by the crappy weather. I pulled my left glove off just to give him the bird - and yelled "jack ass!". The light turned green and I sped off. This wasn't the right thing to do - nothing was the best action. But given the ride I was having it sure made me feel better.

My friend Daniel said that one easy thing to increase respect for cyclists from motorists would be to include it in the curriculum and tests for obtaining a drivers license. This wouldn't really cost anything and would maybe just make motorists aware that we are out here and we're allowed to be out here.