One year to go

As I write this a bunch of friends are out riding the road to Hawi, doing the Ironman 70.3 I plan to do next year. In Honolulu dawn came clear and hot. I did my morning run at the track and finished drenched in sweat. Assuming the same conditions on Hawaii the good news is no winds to worry about on the bike. The bad news, the heat. Not only does it dry you out, it sucks the energy out of you no matter how much you drink. They say that on the run, where the course goes out into a lava field, the soles of the running shoes start to melt.

The first thought that pops into my mind when I consider all this is that I will never be ready by next year. The bike, fine. The run, sort of. The swim at Hapuna Beach is beautiful, but getting it done under race conditions seems impossible. I have never been that far from shore, and my pace is so slow I will barely make the cutoff time.

Then I think about my friends who have done this event, including the folks still out on the course today. I am quite sure every one of them has had the same feelings, if not about the swim then one of the other legs. It is natural, an instinctive survival response.

Again, the two big stoppers for me, today, are swimming so far from shore and my swim pace. The solution to the first one is easy. Find a friend willing to take me out into the ocean, say along the Waikiki Rough Water Swim course. Get one of these cool floatation things to assuage the fear of something going wrong. The point is, this obstacle can be overcome, and rather easily. As for pace, all I have to do is look back at last year and see how much better I am at swimming now, and expect improvement in the coming year. Maybe the rate of improvement will decline, but there is much that could be done to smooth me out and make me more streamlined and efficient.

More than anything I need to remind myself of the courage and determination demonstrated by the women of Try Fitness, as well as all my triathlon friends. If they can take on the challenge, so can I.

It sounds crazy, but I know it is true.

I can't wait to hear all the race stories.

Honolulu Triathlon Race Report

I want to take a moment this morning to reflect on yesterday's race. I plan on adding to this as time permits. The Honolulu Triathlon includes many event opportunities. This year I did the Olympic Triathlon.

The most significant thing about this race was the weather. It was a picture postcard perfect day. The bay was at mid-tide, flat as a lake, the water warm. So warm I was surprised it was ITU wetsuit legal, and that anyone would bother to wear one. Many did, mostly out of towners. There was some wind, but nothing like what Honolulu had been hit with all week. Air temp finally warmed up for the run, but then we were mostly in the shade so it hardly mattered.

My goal was to have a good time, and I did. To be more specific, I wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment after working so hard for so long. For me, that means getting close to my estimated times and not having to be carried off in a stretcher. Yes, there were swimmers in my heat who did not even make it to the turn around buoy and were hauled out on a jet ski, and Pattie saw a runner collapse at the finish line. I don't call that having a good time. Flatting on a bike segment is no fun either, but not so much a personal failure. I passed several folks with mechanicals, fortunately I was not one of them.

One thing that makes a race enjoyable is having friends there. Really great to hear people calling my name, and while running I could see faces well enough to recognize them. The only thing to top that is great sherpa service from your spouse, and my wife Pattie went above and beyond in that role. I can't imagine doing an event like this without her, but then I also want to do it together next year.

Now for the numbers. My estimates, as reported in my previous blog, were

Swim:  0:50
Bike:  1:45
Run:   1:30
Total: 4:05 (not including transitions)

My results:

Swim:  0:54
Bike:  1:12
Run:   1:36
Total: 3:52 (including transitions)

So, yeah, I am pleased.

I finished in 780th place. 820 started, 802 finished so I assume that is 780/820. The slowest finisher did 4:16. How did I do in my age group (65-69)? 10th place out of 12. About what I expected and better than I feared.

Yes, I had those thoughts we all have before the race. I did not want to be the last one out of the water, or the last one to finish, or the slowest in my AG. I forgive myself for worrying about such stupid, trivial things. It's normal. Thankfully I managed to avoid all of those, although I was one of the last out of the water -- I did not turn around to see how many were left.

Best time in my AG: 2:46
Worst time in my AG: 3:57

The swim was my most worrisome segment. Last year I did the sprint distance, 750M, and finished in 46min for a pace of 5:30/100yds. This year I did 1,500M in 54min for a pace of 3:36/100yds. Obviously I have improved. My sense is that much of that improvement has come in the last couple of months. In fact it was only two weeks ago that I found my two beat kick. Until then my right leg was doing all the work and my left just twitched to no effect. Until recently I had trouble swimming continuously at the start, running out of air and having to roll onto my back to recover. It was so common that on Thursday's pre-race swim I was surprised I did not need to resort to this tactic. Yesterday I took off fine and swam continuously for several hundred yards. Breathing not a problem. The only reason I stopped a few times later on was to get my head up to check my sight lines and see where other swimmers were. For the first 500 yards there was a guy beside me, where I could see him while I turned to breath, who swam all out like a sprinter then rolled onto his back, over and over. He looked genuinely unhappy. I felt fabulous.

I have reason to be concerned about my swim time. I was slowest in my AG. (My wave was the last Olympic distance group, so whoever finished the swim after me must have been struggling.) The next best swim time in my AG was 0:48. The result data does not sort by segment, but I did poke around the elderly age groups and spotted swim times longer than mine, so I was not dead last in the swim. But almost.

The reason this matters is that my goal is to do the Honu Ironman 70.3 next year, and Ironman events have cutoff times. I do not want to be greeted at the shoreline by the grim reaper (IM jargon for the official who informs participants their day is done).

At the 2014 Honu the cutoff time for the swim was 1:15 after the last wave. At that time there was much grumbling about the "last wave" part. Ironman events originally started all together, but recent changes to the rules were implemented to improve safety. A wave start such as is common in ITU events reduces the frenzy in the swim and spreads out the bikes, important because riding in a peloton and drafting are not allowed. Setting the cutoff time relative to the first wave seems unfair because 1) older agegroupers start later and are slower, and 2) women start after men, so they get less time than their male counterparts. The way Honu was run last year it would be possible for someone in an early wave with a swim time of 1:20 to be allowed to continue while someone in a later wave with the same time would be eliminated.

For now I will go with 1:15. Yesterday I did 1500M in 0:54. (Actually I went more than 1500 but they do not give credit for zig-zagging!) According to this on-line calculator that gives a pace of 3:36/100yds. That agrees with my recent swim test data which at my best puts me at or just under 3:00/100yds. The Ironman 70.3 swim is 1.2 miles (2112yds). To make the cutoff time my pace would have to be better than 3:53/100yds. Coming at it another way, if I did Honu today like I swam on Sunday, my time would be 1:16; too slow. Not sure why the two calculations don't reconcile, but the point is that I am too close to the cutoff time.

I have a year to get faster. It is hard to express numerically how much I have improved this year. I could argue that from last year I have improved my swim speed by 60% and if I do the same this year my pace should be around 2:06/100yds. That feels crazy fast to me, but I know that is a reasonable, achievable number for triathlon swimming.

For me the swim is the most critical segment, but I need to work hard on the run, too. Yesterday my run off the bike went exactly as expected and I was hitting and exceeding my plan. I really had to force myself to slow down. As it turned out, the last 3K were really hard. I had to slow down, and as much as I wanted to pick up the pace along the last half click my legs refused to go faster. I see lots more fast, short intervals in my future. On the positive side I had the endurance to finish. At no point did I feel cooked, no thought of quitting or walking it in. The endurance is there. All I need is speed.

I cannot finish without expressing my gratitude to all the coaches and trainers and friends who helped me achieve this.  At the risk of singling anyone out, I will mention Sonya, Dorian, and Suzanne, three wonderful people without whom I know I would not have made it to the starting line.

Honolulu Triathlon Race Plan

Chapter 10 of Joe Friel's "The Triathlete's Training Bible" describes how to create a race day plan. With nine days until the Honolulu Triathlon, my first A race -- my first race of the season, in fact -- I think the time has come for me to make one. Bottom line up front: Don't worry about time, focus on finishing and having a good day. It would be nice to be close to Honu 70.3 times, but not a high priority at this point. Stay focused on form, speed will follow.

Pacing

The first order of business is pacing, and already I find it hard going. Of all the data I have collected since the start of the year, very little represents race effort. I will just have to make the best of what I have.

Months ago I was curios how I might compare with last year's Olympic distance age group. This year I will be in the 65-69 group, so I used that group from last year's Olympic race. It was a small group with a bit of spread in the data, so I used median rather than average times.

2014 Olympic men 65-69 median times
Swim:  0:33
Bike:  1:20
Run:   1:00
Total: 3:00(including transitions)

Next, I took my last year's sprint distance times, doubled them, then subtracted a goal performance improvement.

My early season estimates for 2015
Swim:  1:15 (20%)
Bike:  1:20 (5%)
Run:   1:15 (5%)
Total: 3:55

This showed me that my bike and run times were competitive, and my swim time was not. No surprise there.

Swim

My recent swim data shows a much bigger performance increase. I routinely swim at a 3:00/100 yd pace. Slow by any standard, but much improved over last year. If I can maintain that pace over 1,500M my swim leg will take about 50 min. A lot better than my estimate! Yes, that is a lot slower than the median time but about the same as last year's slowest in my age group. Overall there were over twenty swimmers with times slower than that; three took more than an hour.

Bike

I used April's metric century ride as a test time trial. I used the start to Sunset Beach as a warm-up and to get past the only hill on the course, then non-stop to Swanzy Beach Park, a distance of 20 miles. My goal was not to go all out, for two reasons. In the race I still have to run after the bike. As for that day, it came during the build period when a hard effort would leave me sidelined for several days. I knew I had to accept some of that, and as it turned out I came down with a cold that evening that curtailed most of my training during the following week anyway. But, my plan was to have two recovery days and be back in full swing by Wednesday. So much for planning.

My average speed over that 20 miles was 14 m.p.h. with my heart rate at zone 2.7. At that pace my 40K bike leg will take about 2 hours. That seems slow. To do it in 1:20 I will need to average 22 m.p.h. I am quite certain I cannot do that. Last year my average speed at this event was 17 m.p.h. and I think I can match that. This puts the estimated time for the bike at around 1:45 and heart rate in low zone 4.

I did a bunch of bricks around Diamond Head earlier in the season, and that should help smooth out the run off the bike. The best place to go fast will be on the first half, where I might catch a little tailwind, and of course the first half of the Lagoon Drive piece. I need to be aware of those tricky headwinds and get down and aero as much as possible without fighting too hard to maintain speed.

Some of the Training Peaks geeks have come up with a new service called Best Bike Split. A couple months ago I fiddled around with it to see what it predicted for this race. (The public view does now show the map I see logged in. I can move my mouse over the graph and the corresponding point is shown on the map.) As it stands the results are inconclusive for two reasons. First, the site works best with power data and I still have not shelled out for power meters -- #1 on my wish list. Second, the output requires wind speed and direction as input. I used a best guess estimate for Functional Threshold Power (252) and trade winds averaging 10 m.p.h. from the northeast (45 deg.).  The site uses elevation and direction relative to the wind to estimate speed and power levels throughout the race. It tells me I should average 20 m.p.h. and complete the course in 1:12. It uses a map someone else uploaded and it gives the distance as 23.93 miles. I have been using 28.85 for my estimates. You know what they say about a man who wears two watches. Last but not least, the model assumes you will leave it all out on the road, when in fact for a triathlon this would result in disaster. That may explain why a bike-only time trial could average 20 m.p.h. while my triathlon bike leg on the same course needs to be 17.

Run

The run presents another set of mysteries. Every time I run off the bike my heart rate pegs even though I am not going fast and my breathing is more like zone 2. It takes my body at least five minutes to settle down. My plan is to hold back, but go by feel and pace more than heart rate. As with the bike, none of my recent workouts have been at race pace. If I am not doing all out intervals I am running way below race pace. The best estimate I can come up with is an average pace of 14 min/mi, for a run leg time of 1:30.

So, as best as I can tell, my times should be

Swim:  0:50
Bike:  1:45
Run:   1:30
Total: 4:05

This time is about the slowest time of anybody in last year's race, so if you plan on meeting me at the finish line, be patient.

Nutrition

I will carry two bottles of Cytomax on the bike along with some shot blocks in my bento box. I will start eating by downtown and stop around Lagoon Drive to give my stomach time to empty. I will taper drinking around downtown for the same reason.

On my century ride time trial I carried Cytomax and some Bonk Breaker bars. As much as I like Bonk Breakers, I find anything as dry as that too hard to swallow. They did not upset my stomach. I may just stash one in my bento box, but I will have to be careful about when I eat it, if at all.

For the run will do something like last year's Tinman (same distance run). For that race I carried two flasks in my jersey pocket. GU gels diluted 50/50, three per flask. That must have been too much because that is the same amount I carried for the Honolulu Marathon. One should be plenty.

Race Day Prep

After setting up transition I will do a warm-up swim. At this time I will prepare my goggles with anti-fog. Pattie will carry my jacket and spare glasses. My regular glasses will stay at transition; I might choose to wear them for the run. After the warm-up swim I will jog enough to keep my heart rate up, in order to minimize the CO2 shock at the start of the swim. When my wave is called I will leave my glasses and jacket with Pattie.

Conclusion

Like last year, my primary goal for this race is to finish and have fun. I do hope that my swim improves enough over the next year so that I can feel confident about doing a Half Ironman in 2016. If that does not happen, well, I will have had fun trying, and that is all that really matters.

2015 Haleiwa Metric Century Ride

My goal for this years Haleiwa Metric Century Ride was to treat it as a training ride for my upcoming triathlons. My plan was to do an easy ride until past Waimea Bay, then do a non-stop time trial to the turn-around at Swanzy Beach Park, then after a nice break ride back at an easy, aerobic threshold pace. This meant riding alone, and skipping our customary stop at Ted's Bakery.

I waited until the last minute to decide where to start. I enjoy the excitement and camaraderie of the official starting point, but this time I was afraid traffic would interfere with my plan. Since Pattie was leading a slower, short distance group and we were to meet friends for lunch at Haleiwa Joe's, leaving early from Ali'i Beach Park would mean less waiting for me to finish. This is why my actual distance is short.

The Honolulu Triathlon course is flat when compared to the Tinman, and I had no idea what pace I could expect to hold for 40K. I figured that if I started my time trial after Waimea Bay the only hills on the course would be behind me. By my calculations Waimea Bay to Swanzy Beach Park was a bit short of 40K but I used 40K (24.86 miles) in my plan anyway, because I was really looking for a pace estimate.

Since my first A race is only a few weeks away I did not want this to be an all-out effort. My plan was to cut short the 40K and keep the pace lower than what I hoped would be race pace. I decided my goal pace for the time trial portion should be mid-high zone 2, just above aerobic threshold. The warm-up and return should be slower, well within aerobic threshold (1.8Z - 2.4Z). Another consideration I had was that for the century ride I had nothing before or after, whereas in a triathlon the bike comes after what will be for me a challenging swim and is followed by a 10K run. I need to find a pace that was just fast enough without requiring all my energy.

Before digging into the numbers let me say that my feeling, during and after the ride, was that I got the pace spot on. Once during the time trial I took the pace well up into zone 3 and still felt strong. I doubt that I could hold that pace for 40K and still be able to run, so I will stick to the pace I used today. Maybe a little higher; we'll see. As I approached Haleiwa my legs felt good so I decided to let them run. I am still no speed daemon, but it felt good.

I had one glitch with speed data dropping out around Kahuku on the way out. I fought off the temptation to stop and fix it as I was supposed to ride non-stop to Swanzy. A little further down the road it came on by itself. I'll blame it on the high powered radio transmitter at the fire station.

Value	Plan	Actual
Overall
Duration	5:00:00	3:50:47
Distance (mi)	62	51.9
Avg. Speed	12.4	13.5
Time Trial
Duration	2:00:00	1:25:24
Distance (mi)	28.8	19.9
Avg. Speed	13.0	14.0
Avg. HR Zone	2.8	2.7

Below is the breakdown of my time in heart rate zones. The time in zone 3 was mostly outbound, while all of the 4 and 5 was at the finishing sprint. What stands out is that I spent most of my time approximately where I wanted to be.

1Z 6%

2Z 83%

3Z 9%

4Z 2%

5Z <1%

Too bad the data is not finer grained; I would like to know how much of that 2Z was below 2.5. What the data can tell me is that my average HR for the TT was 126, for the return 124, and overall 124. This suggests that I did the return faster than I intended. Perhaps I was inspired by lunch to follow at Haleiwa Joe's. The pulled pork sliders were delicious, washed down with Kona Wailua Wheat Ale.

Handy hand cues

There are many times when we need to get our body into an unfamiliar position. The lack of familiarity could be due to novelty, or it could be a correction to an old, "bad" habit. A cue in this case is a trick to help achieve the new position.

I learned from Bobby McGee that a good arm position for endurance running is with the hands above the waist line, forearms roughly parallel and straight fore and aft. At no time should the elbows stick out.

My trainer, Sonya, taught me a neat trick to coax those elbows into position. Turn your hands palm up and gently tuck your thumb between your pinky and ring finger. Like magic your elbows will move it where they belong. I assume that after running this way for a time the thumb tuck will be unnecessary.

The other day at the pool I leveraged this tip to discover a cue for getting the correct catch position. Coach Susan Atkinson calls this 3D swimming -- "Drape, Define, Drive." Terry Laughlin describes it in this video. I was having trouble with the define step, where the elbow is lifted a bit as if gently squeezing a beach ball. A further opening of the armpit is another result of getting this step right. I was plunging my arm in after recovery, angled down as it should be, but trying to establish the hand position without lifting the elbow. My arm looked like a "Z." For the life of me I could not figure out how to lift my elbow. Suddenly I recalled Sonya's tip and focused on my hand rotation. It took a lap or two to work out that lowering the thumb and raising the pinky did the trick. For the right arm that would be twisting the wrist counter-clockwise. Not too much. At first, go ahead and start the pull with the hand twisted past the perpendicular, but once this starts to take hold in muscle memory lighten up so that the palm is perpendicular and pulling straight back.

I guess this works because our brain is habituated to paying close attention to what our hands are doing, more so than what our elbows are doing.

Keep in mind the kinetic chain. If you want to correct an action in one body part, look for a cause in a different but related body part. I know that my kicking leg action is entirely different -- my right leg stays straight and moves from the hip while my left leg bends at the knee -- so I expect to find imbalances between my left side and right side arm motion. Eventually I will need to sort out which is the cause and which is the effect. Maybe I will find a cue to help with that. Let me guess; it will have something to do with head position.

Plans and weather do not get along

In a recent Training Peaks webinar, "Developing Mental Toughness," the presenter Carrie Cheadle recommended planning for many different eventualities that might occur during a race. Planning in advance how you will react to events you have little if any control over accomplishes two things; it reduces stress as the race approaches, and it reduces the emotional impact of the event should it occur.

One simple example is a flat tire. While the odds of getting a flat on race day are low, they are never zero. If you never really consider getting a flat and have a friend who always helps you out on your training rides, a flat on race day will likely produce a maelstrom of panic and may well end your day. If you do consider it but have no idea how to fix a flat, your nights leading up to race day will be filled with dreams of exploding tubes and long walks to T2. The solution is simple. Ensure you carry the tools and supplies required, and practice using them. Practice enough times so that getting a flat is no big deal. Your goal should be a flat recovery in under three minutes.

Last Sunday's Hapalua Half Marathon provided us with a valuable lesson in how to plan for the weather. Reports all week called for rain. Lots of rain. Guy Hagi specifically called out the half marathon, warning runners to expect squishy shoes and blisters. I coached Pattie on wet weather run preparation, specifically to wear a hat with a brim to keep the rain out of her eyes and to apply lots of Body Glide to her feet. At last year's marathon I was cold until the turn-around in Hawaii-Kai, but even so would not recommend a jacket then (December) and certainly not now (April).

Sunday morning, no rain. As the race got underway it became obvious that the challenge had shifted to heat and hydration. Clear sky, light winds, temperature in the mid 70's. Not overly threatening but nothing like what I image most runners anticipated.

Fortunately Pattie had not altered her original food and hydration plan for running in the rain other than to expect consuming less water. She stuck to her plan and drank some extra water at every aid station. The plan worked, because she made it through four and half hours of hard work and arrived at the finish line is reasonably good shape. (I have done much worse.)

In case it isn't obvious there is a huge difference from an endurance point of view between what an elite runner feels running the course in under two hours and what the slower age groupers experience. Keeping a fit body moving for two hours is all about strength and efficiency, plus a little hydration. The nutritional focus is on preparation. Contrast this with a four hour effort which demands taking on fuel during the event. The course may be the same, but the impact on the athlete is altogether different.

The trick is to find a fuel source that your body can tolerate while running, and the rate at which it can be ingested. The only way to do this is trial and error. Even then, race day can throw you a curve ball. Weather -- heat in particular -- can contribute to the challenge. Once your stomach is unhappy with what you put in it, you cannot even keep down water and your day will soon be over. Taken to the extreme, heat stroke can be deadly.

Happily the weather on Sunday was not that hot, but for runners who prepared for rain and failed to consider a sunny day their race must have been an overwhelming and unnecessary challenge.

Head games

Talk to any athlete and they will tell you that the most difficult challenge to overcome is our own sense of inadequacy. Usually this advice is targeted at the days and weeks preceding a race. That is the time when our mind keeps telling us we are not prepared. We have not trained enough. We are not strong enough, or fast enough. We will be the last person to finish. I have come to realize that the demon of self-doubt haunts us in other ways. Specifically, at different time intervals. The pre-race jitters are the most talked about, but I propose that the successful athlete should be aware of other forms of the same demon.

One common and often overlooked version is the "I could never do that" excuse. This is what the couch potato says when contemplating getting out and running every day for exercise. It is what the devoted two mile morning runner says when someone suggests they run a marathon. Believe it or not, it even attacks the experienced mid-distance triathlete thinking about doing an Ironman race. I call this the long duration demon, because it prevents people from even starting.

At the other extreme is the short duration demon. This one pops up in every race and every good workout. I can't go any faster. I can't go any further. My legs hurt, so I should slow down, maybe take a rest for a minute. That one.

I had an experience of the short duration demon on this morning's Tantalus ride. I had been keeping up with the ride leader and a couple of other riders until we came to a place where the rate of climb kicks up to around 10 percent, at which point I got dropped. I felt my respiration increase, double checked that my heart rate had indeed risen a little. I hung on, doing my own thing like I always do, watching the group ride away. Then along comes this younger, wiry guy who blew past me and hardly breathing at all. For some crazy reason I jumped onto his wheel and in no time was back with the group.

We often hear about this watching professional bike races. On a flat stage there is aerodynamic drafting to explain the benefit of one rider leading another, but what is the advantage on a climb? It is all in the head. I thought I was maxed out and unable to ride any harder. Then along came this faster guy and I decided to hang with him. And I did. Same old bones. Same struggling muscles. Same weathered lungs. At one point I could not, and then I could. It feels like magic. All it really is, is not listening to that demon in my head telling me I cannot climb that fast.

One way to conquer our demon is to live in the moment. Our demon tells us stories about the future. Stay in the present and deal with what is so. The future will take care of itself. Just after a race -- even a challenging workout -- our demon will tell us stories about the past. We wish we had done better. We wish we could have gone faster, or farther. In time those demon grows weary and moves on. What remains is what we should have known all along, our success.

This TrainingPeaks webinar will be of interest to anyone doing long distance events. "Developing Mental Toughness" featuring Carrie Cheadle, Thursday, April 9, 2015, 11:00AM MDT (7:00AM HST). It will be recorded, so if you can't make the live broadcast you can always get a re-play.