The rush to race

 In just the last couple of months I have seen a surge of races and the desire to race, no doubt an expression of a year’s worth of frustration. As vaccination rates move past 50% racing becomes viable, aided by the fact that we do it all outdoors and without bleachers packed with drunk, cheering fans.

This is having a direct impact on Hawaii. Specifically, Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, a.k.a. Honu. Registration for the 2022 race opened even before this year’s race. For some reason the Ironman organization thought people needed encouragement so they threw in a free hat. I don’t think the hat was necessary, as Tier I closed soon after this year’s race ended and Tier II is almost full. 

In the past I would wait until late in the year to make plans for the following year. The last time I did Honu in 2019 (see pic above) I must have waited until maybe March to decide. When I saw a note a few days ago that Tier II was almost full I decided I had better act now, so I fought my way through the complex sign-up process and got a spot. But no hat.

If you have any thought of doing Honu next year, act now or you may not get the chance. If you think you could do better with a coach, drop me a line at windsofhawi@gmail.com. I specialize in senior athletes and am happy to provide whatever level of support you need.

Polishing up my first IM training plan

Or is it my second?

Ok, to be fair, this is my second Ironman distance training plan. I got through -- as in doing -- most of the base portion of my first attempt when my back went out. I was not very pleased with it anyway -- too much activity for a senior athlete -- so I chucked it and started over. This one covers twenty-four weeks. Twelve base, nine build, two peak, and race.

I find much in common with writing training plans and composing music for ensembles. There are myriad details to keep track of. I have to use my imagination a lot, holding a bunch of stuff in my head as I imagine how it will progress, aided by scribbled notes and cross-checks. I feel like this one is almost done. Will it ever be done? I think not. Like a score, it is the starting point for a new round of exploration.

This plan follows advice from Joe Friel in his book Fast After 50. For example, a typical week is built around this framework:

Monday - Strength Training

Tuesday - Aerobic Capacity Intervals

Thursday - Lactate Threshold Intervals

Sunday - Aerobic Threshold (long, slow, distance)

Throughout the plan the relative strength of these workout types varies. For example, at the start of the plan strength training is maximal while aerobic capacity work is minimal. By around nine weeks in these are reversed. The framework stays the same, but the relative intensity changes.

Everything else is low intensity, and when in doubt, rest. As we age our bodies require more recovery time. There will be times when you can recover on the bike or in the water, but if you feel bushed, take a break. Listen to your body, and when you do, park your ego.

I made it a point to include regular, short flexibility workouts. For these I use a YouTube video channel called Yoga by Adriene, who happens to be the most popular yogi on YouTube. A weekly yoga class is great, but not enough to offset twelve hours of triathlon work. Better to spread a little bit out over multiple sessions per week.

Another important piece missing from most training plans is core flexibility work. Strength training can cover some of this, and so can yoga. What works best is a simple daily routine that takes no more than thirty minutes, done first thing in the morning, every morning. I see no point in adding it to this plan as it will just clutter up the calendar. Every day is every day. If is isn't short and simple it won't get done.

Friel's book feels like it was written for cyclists. He does mention triathlon, but leaves it to the reader to work out how to distribute the three activities -- swim, bike, and run -- across that framework. My solution is to alternate focus between run and bike in the first two weeks of each three week mesocycle, and to alternate the testing the same way. Swimming gets treated mostly as recovery time, with one lactate threshold swim per week. Let's be real, for age group athletes the goal is to swim efficiently, and what is needed most is time in the water with a focus on technique.

In my first plan I tried inserting race-like activities on some of the weekends during the build phase. I think I'll do a version of this new plan that uses that format. Should be fun.

Striving for balance

There is a training concept so fundamentally true it deserves to be a law, which is this: There is a limit to how much stress a human body can absorb. When that limit is exceeded, breakdown increases to the point of damage. There are also these corollaries: 1) The breakdown limit varies significantly between individuals. 2) The limit is not a sharply defined point.

Note that I said stress, and not training stress. I am focused here on training, but stress is stress. When we train we aim to create manageable amounts of tissue damage, which gets repaired when we rest. Our body overbuilds the repair, which makes us stronger. It is our immune system that responds to the damage by creating chemical markers that signal cell building factories to repair the damage. The same immune system that fights off viruses and other nasty stuff. Emotional stress also places demands on our immune system. Stress is stress, and when our immune system become overloaded, bad things happen.

That first corollary includes a twist. We often compare ourselves with other athletes and admire those who can train more without breaking down, but we also compete with our younger selves.

The second corollary should appear self-evident, as it applies to everything about our bodies. If we exercise lightly we do not create enough stress to trigger tissue improvement. As we increase the training load, by increasing intensity or duration, we gradually enter a dark zone in which the repairs are never complete – we are not fully recovered. Eventually we reach a point at which the inflammation is noticeably painful. This is not acute injury, like a bike crash or stepping in a rabbit hole on a run. The unchecked buildup of damage typically occurs over weeks, yet the pain comes on suddenly. We want to avoid getting anywhere near that point. The way to avoid it is to get enough recovery.

Getting the stress/recovery cycle correct is a good example of how tricky the balance thing is. Too much recovery and we lose the improvements we are working for. Too much stress and we end up with an overuse injury, and very likely lose much of what we gained. We can choose to do a little something every day, or one massive workout on the weekend that requires a week of recovery. Somewhere in there is a sweet spot. To complicate matters further, the older we are, the more recovery we require.

If you are a triathlete you are undoubtedly pressed for time. You may want your day to be all about training, but there is work time, family time, house cleaning time, marketing time. You get the idea. It is all about balance.

Even if you hit the training/recovery sweet spot and do a great job balancing your schedule, there is more that can go out of balance. As a triathlete you prefer to spend the limited training time available working in one of the sport’s three disciplines, swimming, biking, and running. Oh, and getting those balanced is another thing – I’ll skip that for now. The danger inherent in this approach is that we train primarily in the sagittal plane, which is to say our principle muscle movements are fore and aft. This results in some muscles getting strong, and others, not so much. Why is that a problem? Because when we are called upon to move in ways other than how we train, our powerful, agile muscles will overpower our weak, untrained muscles and pull joints out of alignment, straining the connecting tendons and ligaments. The places most at risk are the lower back, the knees, and the shoulders. Some would include the upper back in this list.

Like all overuse injuries, the onset will build slowly, over days or weeks. The resulting pain can start as a nagging ache, or come on all at once. In any case, the solution will take time and should include working with experts.

The best approach is to ensure these muscle imbalances never happen. How? By exercising the muscles that are not getting enough attention.

Remember what I said about the time crunched triathlete? We want to fill every available workout opportunity with a swim, bike, or run. How do we find the time to do core and flexibility work? You say you do yoga? Like, one night a week? Ok, that’s ninety minutes a week of core and flexibility, going up against maybe twelve to fifteen hours a week of sagittal plane work. Does that sound balanced to you?

The good news is we do not need to spend as much time on flexibility work as we do developing our major movers. What we should aim for is a little bit every day.

My turn to struggle with injury

As part of my coaching education I have been reading books on a variety of subjects that I believe are important for a coach to know something about. One of my favorites is The Brave Athlete, by Simon Marshall, PhD and Lesley Paterson, a must read for every athlete. Another is Roar, by Dr. Stacy Sims, PhD, a book every female athlete should read and highly recommended to anyone coaching women. And of course there is my bible, Joe Friel’s Fast After 50.

There is one book I struggled with, Rebound, by Carrie Jackson Cheadle and Cindy Kuzma. It is full of useful and informed information, but it is all about recovering from injury. It begins, “We’re sorry you’re here, but we’re glad you’re with us.” I was not injured and I found this second person voice (you can do this, you should watch out for that) hard to relate to.

Not anymore. 

I have been training as if my year consisted of Ironman 70.3 Hawaii (“Honu”) in June, and The full Ironman in October, planning to do both virtually like I did last year. For me the primary goal is staying active and healthy. Racing is fun, but the logistics and expense are challenges I don’t need right now. 

A big part of what I have been doing is refining how to put together a training plan for senior athletes, which I consider my specialty. For Honu I decided to give reverse polarization a try. I followed the example from Friel’s Triathlete’s Training Bible with an eye to the advice he gives in Fast After 50. The hardest part is getting in enough work in three disciplines while allowing adequate recovery time.

I was doing fine until the transition into the build period. Normally that would be where the focus shifts from long and slow to short and high intensity. With reverse polarization it is the other way around. I was starting to go long on the run and bike when along came the virtual Hapalua Half Marathon. No problem, I ran it the same way I did this kind of thing last year, a one hour out and back from my car as a refill station. A long training day. I gave myself the rest of that week off and aimed to settle back into my training plan with a two hour run on Sunday.

Here comes the monkey wrench. Pattie and I have enjoyed playing in the University of Hawaii Gamelan for over forty years. The group meets for several hours every Saturday afternoon, which pushed my long runs and bikes to Sunday. To play gamelan we sit cross-legged on the floor.

About a year ago rehearsals came to a sudden stop as Covid-19 restrictions took hold. We returned to greatly modified rehearsals on February 27. After every session Pattie and I hobbled around like old folks. I even felt the effects through Sundays. 

On April 11 I ran the half marathon. The following week was a regular R&R week, very short, easy efforts. On Saturday when I sat down to play my right hip flexor was stuck. I could not get my knee down to the floor, and it hurt. I waited, I coaxed, I said nice things about my muscles, and eventually it got down, but it was never happy. The next day I returned to normal training with a two hour run. As I sat down to eat my pre-workout snack I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. A spasm. Hmm. When I got to the start of my run I told myself to warm up extra and if it hurt to run, stop. I was fine. That afternoon I was less than fine. On Monday morning I crawled out of bed and could not stand up straight. My back was, as they say in aspirin commercials, killing me. That was April 19.

I have used Mike Zanoni before. He is a master at acupuncture and many of his clients are athletes. I called him right away and got an appointment on the 22nd. The next day, a Friday, I felt so good I wrote in my log “return to training.” Actually what I meant was I would abandon my training plan and follow a simple rehab routine, a short, easy bike ride every morning and a swim every afternoon. The only problems were getting there. Once I was on the bike or in the water I was fine.

One nice consequence of this plan was that Pattie decided to accompany me on the afternoon swims. It was great to finish up the day’s work, drive down to Ala Moana, swim for thirty minutes, and make it back for dinner before the sun went down. Mike even pitched in, doing some of the meal prep, and he joined us on Fridays for a gourmet picnic.

I thought I was doing great and was looking forward to returning to my full schedule, up until Sunday, May 2nd when things came undone. I did my planned hour and a half ride, but only managed it after taking a couple of Advil. After that, it was a repeat of April 19. I already had a Monday morning follow up appointment with Mike, but when I walked in all bent he looked at me like ‘Oh man, what did you do?’ 

Mike did some deeper work and ordered two days rest and only light exercise after that for the remainder of the week. He also agreed with my decision to bring in Sonya Weiser-Souza, my old masseuse now living in Reno. We did a Zoom session Tuesday morning where she gave me a set of exercises aimed at relieving the immediate stress and developing new movement patterns to allow the range of motion I need to do all the things I want to do, without injury.

To summarize, for anyone acclimated to chairs to suddenly start sitting cross-legged on the floor for two or three hours at a time, there are going to be problems. Painful problems. The older we get, the harder it is for our bodies to accommodate such changes. In my case, add to that a set of leg muscles developed to work in a single fore and aft motion (the sagittal plane for those taking notes). Asking them to move into a very different position, and stay there, is bound to cause trouble. I appear to have some tears in my right gluteus minimus and the locked up muscles along the right side of my lumbar spine have displaced my sacrum. The good news is that this should be repaired rather quickly, as long as I do not go back to long sessions of sitting on the floor. That remains something to train for, and Sonya’s daily routine is designed to do just that.

A major theme of Cheadle and Kuzma is expressed in the title, Rebound. Look upon injury as a way to improve, to bounce back and end up better than you were. With a little help from Mike and Sonya I have set my goal to enjoy freedom of motion in all directions so that I can do everything that comes along without limits.

My run warmup routine

The other day a Facebook group I follow exploded with a discussion about what to do before a run workout. I was not surprised at the variety of what people shared, or that much of what was described does little to help and could even be harmful. I have witnessed the same kind of thing where runners gather. The two most egregious mistakes I see amateur runners make are to just start running cold, or a warmup consisting of a series of quad stretches, grabbing their shoe and yanking it up to their buttocks. No wonder their knees hurt!

There is an opposite extreme, warmup routines that take as much time as the run itself. Maybe you have all the time in the world, but I don’t. I need time to warm up, but it needs to be quick. One more dislike: I do not like laying on the ground, especially before a run.

The goal of a run warmup is to activate the nerve and energy systems that will be used during the exercise. There are a number of chemical processes that take place to fuel the muscles. Some work in parallel, some in series. There are nerve synapses that need to fire with precisely controlled timing, thousands if not millions of signals set off by your thought “Let’s go!” It takes time to get all this working smoothly. Running places extremely high loads on our bodies, notably the knees, ankles, and metatarsal bones. When we take off running without waking up the associated energy systems and nerve pathways we run the risk of injury. Pun intended.

Here is how I warm up for a run. Exercise descriptions follow. I begin before I push the start button on my watch, but the much of the routine happens during the workout's warmup period. That way I feel like I am saving time.

Before start

1. Leg Swings
2. Ankle Lifts and Heel Drops

After start, during first five minutes on the clock

1. March Drill
2. March Drill with Ankle Lifts
3. Sky Reach
4. Side Bend
5. Brisk 1Z walk for balance of 5 minutes

For long runs I use a 9/1 run/walk (creates ten minute blocks). I complete the above exercises during the first five minutes, then run for the balance of first nine minute minute interval (roughly walk 5 run 4). No strides here, the goal is to focus on fat burning for long duration fuel efficiency. We want to avoid activating the high energy systems.

For quality workouts (LTHR intervals, hill repeats, etc.) five minutes as above followed by ten minutes 2Z with two or three strides near the end to kick start high energy systems.

Exercise descriptions

Begin by finding a spot on the sidewalk with a pole you can hold. Avoid mud, broken glass, etc.

Leg Swings

1. Stand facing and to the right of the pole.
2. Grasp pole lightly with left hand.
3. Lift left (inside) knee so that foot 6-12 inches off ground.
4. Gently lift the knee a little, then push the leg back behind you.
5. Continue for 6-12 reps gradually increasing force and speed. Use more energy to throw your leg back, just enough to recover forward.
6. Repeat on the opposite side.

Do not lock your knees. Do not think about swinging your foot. Muscle activation is above the knee, primarily hamstrings and glutes. Do not go for maximum range of motion.

Ankle Lifts and Heel Drops

1. Walk around to the curb side of the pole.
2. Place balls of both feet on the curb so that both heels are hanging over the edge. Grasp the pole lightly to steady yourself.
3. Slowly lift with feet (calves) as high as you can go, hold, then down slowly and hold.
4. Repeat 6-12 reps.

Watch out that shoes do not suddenly slip off the curb, stop and adjust as required.

March Drill

1. Set left foot on ground.
2. Lift the right knee so that the thigh is parallel to ground.
3. Pause for one second (balance!).
4. Step out with your right foot and repeat on the opposite side.

It helps to hold the opposite arm straight out in front.

March Drill with Ankle Lifts

Same as plain March Drill except lift heel of planted foot as lifting knees rises. Pause one second (freeze) standing on the ball of the foot. Balance is tricky. Exaggerated arm swings help.

Sky Reach

While walking, reach one arm up and stretch as if to touch the sky. Alternate arms. No special coordination with feet.

Side Bend

While walking, reach both arms up then slowly rock from side to side. Focus on lengthening rather than compressing.

Conclusion

I learned these drills from Bobby McGee. It can take a little time to get comfortable with these. No problem, just start with leg swings and add the next exercise when you are ready. Follow the order presented here. Eventually this will be such a habit that you won’t have to think about it.

The biggest obstacle to doing these is when you run with a group. See if you can lead the rest of the group into doing them together. 

Say goodbye to 2020

Here we are, the last day of a year to forget. This time last year Pattie and I were celebrating the new year just as we have been for nearly forty years, at our friend Dr. Ric Trimillos’s condo in Waikiki watching the fireworks light up the sky. This year we will be doing the exact same thing, except we will be the only guests. The usual crowd will tune in on Zoom. That pretty much defines 2020.

This year began with what felt like an endless decent into chaos. I hope you join me in wanting to make 2021 the climb out of the abyss. Notice I said "to make" and not "will be." We each have a role to play in creating happiness.

I consider myself very fortunate in how little the pandemic has affected me. I’m still alive (yea!). I never got sick. I still have a job, although I sometimes work from home. Many people have not been so fortunate.

There is one thing I miss a lot. Playing in the U.H. Gamelan Ensemble. The music, and the social life. But it will still be there next year, or the one after that, just as if I had spent a couple of years studying abroad.

As for my athletic pursuits, after a precipitous nose dive during winter I managed to pull out and achieve some worthwhile goals. In July I started to participate in Ironman VR races, culminating in completing an Ironman 70.3 in August. I had been training as if I were doing Kona, and was delighted when the Ironman organization decided to honor what is known as Kona week -- the week leading up to the World Championship -- with a full Ironman virtual race. The fact that I did it just goes to show what can happen when we don’t act our age.

While all that was going on I decided to become a coach. I set up my website, I got my state excise tax licence, and I completed USA Triathlon Level 1 certification. I am putting off ordering a custom kit until I have a few paying customers. All in good time.

This was a year to deal with a couple of health issues. I got my heart fixed up so it does not freak out on long runs, and I got special glasses that fixed my double vision problem. My active side is so much happier. If only I could do something about my skin.

So far my 2021 plan looks exactly like how 2020 ended up. Training for Ironman 70.3 Hawaii in June, and Kona in October. I predict both will be virtual, if anything. I keep getting this romantic notion (call it a crazy idea) to reproduce the original Ironman course. (The first three Ironman races were held on Oahu before moving to Hawaii Island.) There are a lot of reasons not to do that, but it is fun not to act our age.

I have been and will continue to use my training as an experiment in how to train as a senior athlete. I rely heavily on the work of Joe Friel, in particular his groundbreaking book Fast After 50, but recently have uncovered a small but energetic women’s movement devoted to the same topic. Dr. Stacy Sims in particular is doing really useful work in this area. The way I look at it, I plan to coach senior men and women, so the more I know about women the better. As Stacy puts it, women are not small men.

What else happened in 2020? Oh yeah, I grew a beard. If we call it a COVID beard I will have to shave it off someday, so let’s just call it what it is, hair that still grows.

2021 - Normal, or Not?

 The winter surge in COVID-19 cases predicted by experts is here. The statistics are mind numbing. On the bright side we have one vaccine shipping and more on the way. But having a vaccine is not the same as ending the pandemic. For things to return to anything approaching normal will require 75-80% of the population to be vaccinated.

What exactly does "population" mean? For most Americans it means the people in their community. The places they visit as they go about their daily routine. If a community reaches 80% immunity the virus has little chance of survival. If, say, a stranger came to town who was infected (apologies to Tolstoy), the odds of coming into contact with someone who was not immune are reasonably low. Sad to say, if that did happen it would be someone who chose not to get the vaccine, and justice will be served, one way or another. The point is, with 80% immunity the infection is unlikely to spread. Compare this to building a fire in a backyard barbecue. Done right, the fire is unlikely to spread. What we have now, as I write this, is an out of control wildfire, and it is going to remain a raging inferno for quite some time.

If having a vaccine makes you optimistic, I have some bad news. Every year thousands of Americans die from the common flu. Most of them could have avoided death by getting a flu shot. Many more would never even get sick. Why does this happen? Because only about 40% of Americans get a flu shot.

When the polio vaccine was created people went all out to get themselves and their children vaccinated. Due to this remarkable effort we have virtually eliminated polio, not just in America but around the world. The same is true of smallpox. 

That's great, but what about measles? We were just at the point where it was gone when some ill-informed people began spreading erroneous information about the side effects of the measles vaccine. Frightened mothers decided not to vaccinate their children, and what happened? The virus took off again. It is still running around.

With COVID we have a new challenge. Politics. Even setting aside the crazy hyperbole surrounding the pandemic and subsequent vaccine -- created by radical left-wing technologists to insert microchips to control the world, etc. -- it is clear that to many people, getting the vaccine conflicts with their conservative position. A Texas doctor interviewed on NPR recently reported doing an informal interview at his hospital and found that only half of the nurses planned on getting vaccinated. 

My point in all this is that I do not anticipate a return to racing in 2021. I see where some IM races have already been held, even as the fall surge was underway. I consider that reckless. Now that the virus is totally out of control I cannot imagine any municipality allowing a race to go on. Maybe, with a lot of luck, things will improve enough by summer to allow groups going out to dinner and family vacations. Even small, local races might -- and I stress might -- go off much like they used to. But a big race, like an Ironman or a major marathon, where thousands of people descend upon a small community. I just do not see how that would be safe.

So where does that leave us? I see two paths. Remain on a marking time routine, or train for races that will not happen. And, for the second option, doing the race yourself. 2020 was the year of virtual racing, and we should expect no less in 2021.

TrainingPeaks has many articles on coping with the pandemic (here is a list). Philip Hatzis and others make the point that this is not the time to train hard, because there is evidence that hard training weakens the immune system and increases the risk of upper respiratory tract infection. Another way of looking at it is to take advantage of the lack of racing to focus more on aerobic threshold development, the long, low intensity stuff.

When I take into account what Joe Friel recommends in Fast After 50 I see good balance between high and low intensity. He argues that masters athletes too often fall into a routine of only doing LSD (Long, Slow, Distance) work, with the result of a steadily declining capacity. Why is that? I cannot repeat everything he writes about here, but to summarize, as we age our hormone levels drop -- testosterone for men and estrogen for women. That leads to a loss of muscle mass and a tendency to convert more of what we eat into fat. The skinny legs fat belly syndrome. Including some high intensity interval work will slow the decline in the efficiency of our energy systems, and lifting weights -- we are talking low rep high load efforts here -- will maintain bone health and trigger hormone production. We may not be able to perform as well as we did when we were twenty, but we do not need to sit and watch the world pass by, either.

To me it sounds like we have two choices. Throttle back and hold in place to protect our immune system, or keep going with a balanced approach to slow the aging process. Being an old guy specializing in coaching old guys and gals, I like the second option.

By the way, if you prefer plan A, hold in place, Joe Friel put out a terrific training plan for just this purpose. Available on TrainingPeaks and very reasonably priced ($10), it is a four week plan designed to be repeated indefinitely. It won't get you to the podium at your next Ironman, but it will keep you going until things return to normal. If you are under 50 (40 for women) I recommend this plan.

Since I am just getting started as a coach I am using this opportunity to hone my training plan writing skills. I mostly have the basics down. What messes me up are the little details. I tend to prescribe too much work and not enough recovery time. 

I have given myself two A race goals, corresponding to Ironman 70.3 Hawaii (Honu), usually held on the first Saturday in June, and Ironman Kona in October. Pretty much the same thing I did last year. We were so shut down last spring that I did not do a Honu race simulation. Later on I started to do some of the Ironman VR series. I did do the full Ironman VR Kona in October, but, as allowed by the rules, I did the events on separate dates with one or two rest days in between. My goal for 2021 is to do both races as single day solo efforts. Let's save the debate on which is harder, all in one day or spread out over multiple days. What I can say for sure is that route planning and support will be a big challenge.

More about that in future posts. My Honu training plan starts in three weeks.