Ugh. My legs have just been dead tired since Sunday. I was going to bike (~30 miles) and run (~7 miles) on Monday but had tired legs so skipped the run. I did a nice light hour long ride on the CompuTrainer yesterday followed by an hour run which normally shouldn’t wipe me out, but today my legs are just extremely fatigued. I guess maybe that sprint tri took more out of my legs than I thought it would have?

So, I’m giving myself the afternoon off. I have a long run scheduled for tomorrow and I definitely can’t have tired legs going into that. I’m still a ways out from my harder training for Moo. No point in killing myself… yet.

It looks like Zipp has developed a new, deeper dish rim to be used by Tyler Hamilton at the tour this year. It’s only a 2 mm increase in rim size over their 404, but the shape of the rim is supposed to be in such a fashion that there is better airflow over the wheel. The full article can be found here.

Pre-Race

I should have known that it was going to be one of those days as soon as I woke up. I got up three hours early for the race to try and get some breakfast down and adequately digested. The menu consisted of a bagel wth peanut butter. As I was slicing through my bagel, my knife went through my ring finger on my right hand - blood was going everywhere O.J. style. It looked pretty bad.

After cursing a lot, I contemplated whether or not I’d be able to go to the triathlon that morning. The cut was pretty deep and I couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. I thought stupid stuff like maybe I could drive by the ER really quick, they could stitch me up and I could go onto do the race! I was just pissed at myself for being so careless. Ultimately, I ended up consulting the almightest of trained professionals - the Internet. One site said that if I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop in 10 minutes with pressure on the wound, that I should go get it stitched up. I sought a second opinion. “Most cuts can generally be closed as long as 24 hours after the accident. Some cuts should be closed sooner, but it is very safe to wait at least 8 hours to have a cut closed.” I liked that answer! I kept eating my bagel with one hand with my other hand elevated above my head. I strapped on a bandage keeping it fairly tight to help try and stop the bleeding and I set off for the race.

It was only a few days before the race that I learned that Lake Waconia is on the other side of the planet. It took me about an hour to get to the race. For some reason, I thought it was just 20-30 minutes away when I first signed up. As I was driving, I started to get lightly rained on. It was only 57 degrees outside and the rain wasn’t going to make it feel any warmer. Wonderful. I arrived at the race site, got all checked in, and claimed my spot in the racks.

I’d be going in wave 10 out of 12. For what reason, I have no idea. My age group is probably the largest and fastest age group out there, so I know I’d have to fight through a good number of people who were in waves before me. I didn’t really feel like warming up considering how cold it was outside. I didn’t have anything but a long sleeve t-shirt and shorts to wear, so after I was “warm” I wouldn’t be able to stay warm anyway. Nonetheless, I went for a quick one mile jog.

When I got back, I decided to put on my wetsuit early - about 45 minutes before I’d even be swimming. I figured this would keep me as warm as anything until it was my turn to go. One by one, the waves of folks went off and soon I was on deck.

I did some arm swings to try and loosen up my shoulders before the swim. I go to place my goggles on my head. PING! The nose strap of my goggles breaks in two. Wonderful! Everyone around me, almost in synchrony, said “That sucks, man!” It did suck. I tried piecing together a quick fix for my goggles, but it was to no avail. I didn’t have enough time and my hands were too cold to be working right anyway. “10 seconds!” the announcer shouted. I turned around, chucked my broken goggles onto the beach, and prepared to swim. Did I mention that I wear contacts?

The Swim

The swim was 1/2 mile. I tried swimming with my eyes closed and to open them only while sighting, but I found myself way off course in the beginning with this method so I decided against it. I just opened my eyes while in the lake and did the best I could. I didn’t have too much trouble staying on course. As usual, there was a group of us that took off and would be our age group leaders for our heat. I found a pair of feet to sit on and soon, and soon enough we caught up with the wave that left three minutes ahead of us. Once there were more people around, it was even easier to keep track of where to go. I just followed the masses around the course and back to the beach. I didn’t go too hard on the swim. I think I swam too hard at my last sprint tri and came out of the water too tired. This time, I held back a little, gave up 40 seconds, but felt much less tired coming out of the water. Results - Time: 13:45 - Pace: 1:34/100 meters - Place: 4/50.

T1

I ran up to my station and notice that everything is a little blurry. Sure enough, both of my contacts fell out during the swim. Luckily, my vision isn’t that bad and I felt comfortable doing the race without them in. I did my best to get changed and onto my bike as quickly as possible. As I’m running off with my bike, I wasn’t paying enough attention to how I was holding it and the whole thing slipped out from under me. As I’m picking it back up, my bike computer falls off and goes bouncing along the grass. I get my bike computer and quickly slide it back on its mount. I proceed out to the mount area and try to hop on my bike, but my foot slips off the pedals and I almost drop my bike again. I manage to grab it before it hit the ground and finally get underway. It was one of those days, I tell you. T1 time: 1:27.

The Bike

I finally get on course and begin mashing away. My goal for the bike was to not sit behind anyone for too long and to ride strong the whole way through. As I’m riding I notice a couple of things. First, my bandage on my finger isn’t really on very well anymore after getting soaked from the swim and there’s blood trickling down my finger and on my hand. Two, between the dropping of my bike and the almost dropping of my bike, my saddle is now crooked and pointed about 15 degrees to the left - just enough to be an annoyance in my pedal stroke. Lovely! Despite my mishaps, I rode what I thought was a pretty strong ride. I passed a lot of people, many like they were standing still. It started to rain a little harder about half way back. The little cold, stinging kind of drops that was just bad enough to be annoying. The course was supposed to be 17 or 17.5 miles, but my computer (well, my Forerunner 201 anyway) said it was 16.5. And looking at the times and paces that other folks posted, I think the course was a little short that day. Results - Time: 46:42 - Pace: 22.9 MPH - Place: 9/50.

T2

Rack bike, take off shoes, put on shoes, hat, race belt. Start running. Time: 1:22.

The Run

I wasn’t looking forward to the run. I had a disappointing run in my last race where I ran much slower than I wanted to. I also had been having a lot of trouble with side stitches on my training runs, so I figured I was in for some pain. I ran fairly strong, for me, anyway. I just asked myself several times throughout the course, “Do you run harder than this when you’re training?” When I could safely answer yes each time, I knew I wasn’t totally whimping out. I pushed at a moderate pace. I didn’t want to go out too hard and blow up half way through the run. In hindsight, I probably should have run a little harder. It seemed plenty hard on the course, but when I was close to the finish line, I knew I had too much left. Run results - Time: 30:42 - Pace: 7:41/mi - Place: 20/50.

Total time: 1:33:55. I’m pretty happy with that. I finished 11th out of 50 in my AG, 36 out of 256 total men, and 64 out of 422 total athletes. I’m much further along this season that I would have dreamed to be when I started triathlons last fall.

Here are some pictures of my new cockpit. The shot from the front didn’t turn out as well as I wanted it to (it was too dark and hard to see), so I didn’t include it. But it does look pretty nice from the front. I like the look of a nice, flat base bar. The setup is the VisionTech aluminum base bar with carbon clip-ons and their own knife edge brake levers. It’s pretty sharp looking, if you ask me. It goes nicely with the bike. Now if only its rider looked as good… :wink:

I did my long ride today instead of tomorrow to give me a day to try and freshen up those legs for Sunday’s race. It’s a “C” race for me, so I’m ok with however I do on Sunday - I have zero expectations being in the middle of a normal week of Ironman base training. I just wanted to do something to break up the monotony.

Anyway, my ride today took me through some backroads of the northwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities. Total distance - 80 miles. It was pretty windy out there today with average wind speeds of about 16 mph according to Weather Underground. It was the exactly same course that I rode last week.

There were differences in the two rides although I don’t know that they can be attributed to the changes in the front end of my bike? I averaged 0.3 mph faster than I did the previous week and I saved 1 heart beat per minute doing it. It could be due to my more aggressive and aerodynamic position, but also could also just be due to increased levels of fitness or just common variations from day to day - it’s impossible to tell. But the good thing is that I am comfortable in my new position. I know that it has me lower to the ground which has to make me a little more aerodynamic. I don’t have any back pain to speak of which is good, but my neck is a little stiff from having to tilt it up that little bit more. I imagine that’ll get better over the course of my next few rides. I think I may end up paying a visit to my local bike shop to have them verify that I’m setup correctly on my bike and that my new aerobars didn’t totally throw my body out of whack. I feel comfortable and my ride went well, but an outside view from a trained professional probably isn’t a bad idea.

It was a good ride today. Windy… really windy, but good. Looks like I only have six more long rides scheduled until IM Moo. It’s getting close…

I finally have my new VisionTech cockpit installed on my bike. My local bike shop had the base bars stocked, but I had to go online to find the clip-ons because they said VisionTech was having problems keeping up with demand and they couldn’t get their hands on any. I ordered my clip-ons from all3sports.com on Friday and they arrived at my doorstep yesterday. I went today to get them put on.

I walked in the door and the owner of the store smiled and said he finally did manage to get his hands on some. That kind of sucked. I try to give them business whenever I can and would have preferred to buy from them. Oh well. I was paying them for the installation when they would have installed them for free if I bought them there, so they made their money either way.

The bars themselves look sweet. They sit a little further forward and a little lower than my previous bars did, so I’m in a more aggressive position than I’ve been used to riding in. That’s actually a good thing, since I was looking to get more aggressive anyway. We’ll see if my lower back agrees with me tomorrow though. I’ve got a long ride to do so my back will have a good long time to let me know what it thinks.

I’ll try and get some pictures of the whole setup on here sometime soon. The flat base bar, the carbon clip-ons, and the internal cable routing are all so secksay! Stay tuned…

I’m finding it hard to eat well when I choose to eat out. There are usually plenty of healthy choices that are available to me almost anywhere I go. But if I’m out someplace and there is better tasting food to be had, it’s rare that I’ll make the healthy choice. And it’s strange because I know while I’m eating my unhealthy meal that I’m going to feel guilty about it later and be upset that I didn’t eat better, but I do it anyway.

Really, I find that I’m happiest when I eat in and eat well. At home, I can stuff myself with lots and lots of vegetables and feel good knowing that I’m satiated and that I did it in a non-caloric, nutrient rich manner. At the very least if I don’t have fresh produce, I can grab some pieces of fruit and a bowl of cereal and have a meal that’s under 500 calories and do it on the cheap. I can never seem to get that satiated feeling when eating out though. Not unless I want to have tons of calories to go with it. And where does one go to get a heaping plate of fresh vegetables anyway? I can only think of one place like that to go to around here, and I’ve already been there three times this week. :P

This information is from an article over at TNO. It’s by Rich Strauss and comes from his speaking notes from many of the pre-race talks that he gives at IMNA events. Very good information to remembered come race day.

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Key Thoughts:

• When the gun goes off, the race doesn’t care how fit you are. Your fitness is a vehicle you drive to the finish line. Execution is everything.
• It’s not about who goes the fastest, but who slows down the least.
• For the first 130 miles, your job is to create the conditions for success in the last 10 miles.

Four Elements of Ironman Racing:

• Emotional State
• Task Focused Decision-Making and Problem Solving
• Pacing
• Nutrition

I. Emotional State:

• “Smooth is fast.”
  When presented with a problem or issue, slow down, think about what you are going to do. Then execute smoothly, quickly and decisively.
• Control what you can control, let go of the rest.
  Only expend energy and thoughts on events you can control.
• Emotion = valuable energy
  The “IM experience” can be very emotional. Before the race think of everything you and your family have sacrificed for this day. Then put those feelings and emotions in your back pocket and save them for the last 8-10 miles of the run.
• Ride the crests and manage the troughs
  Most athletes will experience the race in waves of good and bad. Once minute you’re on top of the world. The next you’re in the dumps. Expect this and roll with it. Remember you can only control so much of your day. Do your best and let the bad stuff work itself out.
• The “One Thing”
  What is your One Thing, your reason for being out there in the first place? Solidify a clear purpose for the day and then expect your body to question your mind’s commitment to that purpose. Expect this internal debate and prepare/rehearse your rebuttal. I remind myself that the pain and discomfort I feel is only temporary. Pain can’t stop the clock and no matter how bad it gets, it has to end sometime. My job is to keep running in a straight line until they tell me to stop.

II. Decision-Making and Problem Solving:

• Racing a Plan vs Racing Principles
  Many people show up with a plan: race at HR x, eat 100 calories when the watch beeps every 15 minutes, etc. A plan is nothing more than a scheduled series of actions all based on some simple principles. Focus on these simple principles and adapt to changing, real time events by continually assessing the current situation and making decisions. In other words, don’t follow your plan into a brick wall.
• Focus and “The Box”
  Remember, the key is to not make mistakes and to not slow down. Your body will push itself far beyond your mind’s ability to drive it. Most often, people slow down or make mistakes because they lose focus, not because they are fatigued. Retain your focus by “racing in the now” and maintaining a Box around your race. The boundaries of this box are defined by the events within your control. Your #1 goal is to show up to mile 18 with as large a Box as possible, then use that focus to keep from slowing down.

Swim: the Box is about as large as the space your body occupies in the water. I prefer to simply count my strokes. This brings my mind back into my form and technique and away from events beyond my control.

Bike: the Box begins at your front wheel and extends 20-30 minutes down the road. Don’t worry about what just happened and don’t concern yourself with what might happen in 4 hours. Just ride and control what you can, let go of what you can not.

Run: keep your Box as big as possible for as long as possible. Start with 2-3 aid stations and try to maintain this for as long as possible. Focus on mile 18. Expect to have some “conversations” with yourself along the way and anticipate them. Prepare your rebuttal beforehand.

• OODA Loop
  Within the Box you are continually assessing the current situation, using the OODA Loop:
  Observe the situation or problem.
  Orient yourself to possible courses of action.
  Decide on one course of action.
  Act to implement the course of action.
• If you perform this loop quickly and continuously, you will stay ahead of the race. Lose your focus and you let the race get inside your loop. You are now reacting to events rather than anticipating them.

III. Pacing
An effective pacing plan enables you to enter miles 16-18 of the run focused and prepared to not slow down.

Swim = Form
Your pace is defined by your ability to maintain good form. Only swim as fast as you can maintain good form.

Bike = Patience and Discipline
Exercise patience and discipline to ride your race and ignore the athletes around you. Your goal is to ride an 82 mile bike after a 30 mile warm-up. You make or break your bike leg in the first 30 miles. Be patient.

Miles 1-30

• Overall Goals: Settle into a comfortable cycling rhythm, establish food and drink strategy.
• Effort Guidelines: Pace should feel easy.
• Heart Rate Guidelines: Once the heart rate has settled from the swim, typically upper heart rate Zone 1.
• Notes: You should be holding back through this whole segment.

Miles 31-60

• Overall Goals: A continued emphasis on nutrition and hydration, as well as an overall assessment of how the day is progressing.
• Effort Guidelines: Pace should feel easy.
• Heart Rate Guidelines: Typically, Zone 2 effort.
• Notes: The goal of this stage is to maintain a steady effort at goal Ironman-distance bike pace.

Miles 61-90

• Overall Goals: This is the meat of the ride. Here is where early ride pacing pays off or takes its toll. Goal should be to work a little harder than goal effort. Athletes that have paced properly will begin to move up the field.
• Effort Guidelines: Pace should feel steady. Hills and rollers will see efforts up to moderately hard intensity. Avoid hard intensity.
• Heart Rate Guidelines: Typically, upper Zone 2 effort with short periods of Zone 3 effort when climbing.
• Notes: This is the key stage and where you will have to concentrate to maintain your focus. Early ride pacing starts to pay off and athletes receive a mental boost as they start to move through the field.

Miles 91-112

• Overall Goals: Athletes should maintain their cycling momentum and continue to eat. Almost all athletes will have lost their appetites and continued nutrition is essential for a strong run.
• Effort Guidelines: Pace should feel steady to moderately hard. There will be fatigue and stiffness associated with the ride. However, these should be manageable.
• Heart Rate Guidelines: Zone 2 effort with periods ofZone 3 effort when climbing.
• Notes: Athletes should maintain their focus on pacing, nutrition and aero position. Race fatigue can cause the mind to wander. Athletes should maintain a task orientation. If you have paced the bike correctly you should feel like you are “racing” the bike while those around you just want to get off. Take these good feeling with you off the bike and into the run course.

Ideally, you should get off the bike feeling as if you could have gone 5-10 minutes faster. Keep this fact in mind: it takes quite a bit of sustained effort to go 5-10 minutes faster on the bike. But walk one mile of the run and you give this all back. It’s OK to feel a little cheesy when you get off the bike. A 42k run is a long time to make up for riding too slowly.

Run = Focus and not slow down.
Remember your goal: to arrive to the Mile 18 aid station in a mental and physical condition to not slow down. Until that point, run comfortably, focus on form, and get what you need from the aid stations. Then just bring it home as best you can. Expect waves of positive and negative feelings. Anticipate internal conversations questioning your commitment to the One Thing.

IV. Nutrition: The Fourth Event

Many issues in the Ironman are nutritional in nature. Keys to remember:

• Start the race with a full tank of gas: well hydrated with full glycogen stores and a good breakfast. I recommend a large liquid breakfast very early race morning. If you need to, wake up, eat, go back to sleep.
• Monitor your body in real time instead of eating according to a strict feed plan. If your bladder is empty, you need to drink more. If your stomach is full and not emptying, bring your HR down.
• Liquid calories are less risky than solids.
• If your HR is high, eat less. If it is low, eat more.
• If an issue is developing, slow down and let your body work itself out. If that doesn’t work, considering standing down for 5 minutes to save 30 minutes later in the day. If you feel good, eat. If you don’t, slow down.
• Drink water, not sports drink, when eating something high cal (gel, bar, etc)
• Don’t try anything new on race day. However, I believe you should be open to new solutions if you’ve tried everything else. You never know if the chicken broth you haven’t tried is going to make you suddenly feel better. If all else has failed, try it.

Another successful training week has been completed. There were some rough spots there last week, but those were largely mental and seem to have disappeared for the time being. I was just shy of 18 hours of training last week which is a pretty good base week for me.

This week, I’ll be trying to shift all my workouts a day or so sooner than normal. I’m racing again on Sunday and would like to take Saturday off if possible. I’d rather not have to race after doing nearly a century the day before if I can avoid it. Chances are I’ll take Friday off of work and do my long ride then (if the weather will cooperate).

I think it’s time to start watching my diet a little more closely than I have been. I’m probably up a good 5 pounds or so from GCT which maybe a month and a half ago. While I haven’t been eating pure junk, I have been eating a lot of starchy, calorie dense foods. It’s time for me to start thinking more caveman like. I think I’ll try not and watch my overall caloric intake and just try and eat well with fruits and vegetables as my staple foods. If that doesn’t work, I know that I can drop the weight quickly a month or so out from IM Moo. I have far less weight to lose and much more time to lose it this time. I just don’t want to cut things too close.

I’m happy to say that I am feeling a little bit better today. I won’t say that I’m back to normal, but it’s not so bad that I recommend that people avoid me. I promise I won’t bite… today.

I originally wanted to go see my friend race Grandma’s Marathon this weekend. It’s in Duluth which is about 2.5 hours from here. I didn’t plan in advance though and his room was already pretty full with he and his wife, mom, and brother. So I opted to stay here instead and do my long ride as I had scheduled. Nothing too much to say about that either. I rode 80 miles on the nose. I had the wind in my face the whole way out, but had a nice tailwind all the way home. My biking fitness seems to doing ok. With each long ride, I build confidence that I’ll be able to come off the bike leg at IM Moo not totally shelled. I’ll be plenty tired, but hopefully I’ll be able to run afterwards. For how long, it’s anyone’s guess.

I did a quick transition run after my ride - just two miles. Somehow between the winter and now, I’ve learned how to run (well, relatively speaking anyway). I’m not fast by any means, but my normal cruising pace is now somewhere around 8:30 where it used to be between 9-10. Today after riding 80 miles, I cruised the first mile of my transition run in about 8:20. I doubt you’ll see 26 of those back to back, but it makes me think that a 5 hour marathon split is a realistic goal come race day.