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A pretty quick summery of last week which was dominated by tired legs from the Century ride. Back to around 8.5 hours of training because our bike ride on the weekend was cut short by a broken spoke so we went for a run instead. Nothing beats bike riding for adding lots of volume.

Above is a picture of running at Lake Chabot.

Swim

1hr 50min (4600yds)

Tuesday’s swim was supposed to be 8×100 then 8×50 but I completely skipped the 50s. I didn’t even realize that until I was recording my lap splits. The 100s were messed up by other swimmers too as the lanes were packed. Oh well, I was still tired from the weekend so was good to get some swimming in. First 100 was 1:33, but most of them were 1:45 or so. Didn’t really care about pace, just wanted to get them done. Did these with a pull buoy.

Thursday’s swim wasn’t too much better motivation-wise, but at least the pool has some room and my main set was interruption free. 75 and 50s. Averaged 1:41/100yards for the 75s, but sadly was kind of dragging for the 50s.

Bike

3hr 30min (51 miles)

Just the M2 class and a rather short ride on the weekend for biking last week. Strangely the M2 session was really good.

Threshold set: 2x3min at 90%, 3x2min, 4x1min, 2x30sec. Started around 235 for the 3mins, 240-245 for the 2 min. Not sure after that…
Strength mini-set: 3 x 1:30 @ 75rpm climbing cadence. Did around 280-285 for these. Not too bad.
Activation set: 4 x :15, very high watts (those were the instructions, not what actually happened), very high cadence. 400-500watts.

Normalized power for the hour: 198 watts.

Our ride on Saturday was going to be around 40 miles, perhaps more if we felt okay. We never had to decide that because Patty’s back wheel broke a spoke at around 20 miles in. She waited at a gas station while I rode the 10 miles or so back to the car. That did enable me to get a 30 min harder effort in while heading back up Hwy 1 which was kind of fun. Average for this section: 21.6 miles/hr. Too bad that a) I can’t ride that fast for longer, and b) there was a bit of a tail wind. Fun while it lasted though.

Back in town after I rescued Patty we went to the bakery and ate bear claws and then went out to see the goats (and eat their cheese) at a local farm. Yum. Next time we’re just going to skip the ride and start eating.

Sunday we went to see the start of the Tour of California. We’ve become quite the followers of professional bike racing.

Run

3hrs 44min (18.1 mi les)

Above is our weekend run after we returned to Oakland from the failed bike ride. Three hours, 14 mile trail run around Lake Chabot in the evening. This was probably way too long, but we took it easy and walked the steep parts. In the end it took us about how long it usually takes us when we’re in trail running shape. Legs felt strong and my HR stayed down the whole way so I felt pretty good about this run and the state of my fitness in general. Also, nothing beats a long trail run.

Other than that we just did a jog up Strawberry Canyon on Thursday, nothing too stressful.

So that’s it. Not the biggest week, but it’s progress.

Sport, Triathlon bear claws, Biking, broken spoke, goats, m2, Running, swimming, tour of california, trial running

This past week saw us complete our second century ride. Since I’ve attempted 4 organized rides I’m now at a 50% completion rate. Previous two DNFs were a broken off rear derailer and the whole Death Valley wind storm last year. More below on this event. The rest of the week was pretty solid. My body seems to be ok so far with this level of weekly effort since I got through all my planned workouts and was still generally functional.

Swim

1hr 48min (5000yds)

Tuesday

Tuesday’s swim was better than it has been in the previous few weeks. Maybe backing off biking and running a little the previous weekend was better. My arms felt stronger and my legs less heavy. Tuesdays are still a little transitional in that I’m really still just recovering from the weekend.

The set was a ladder, 25 up to 175 and then back to 25 (in 25 yard increments). My first 75 was my fastest ever pace: 1:31/100 yards. It’s nice to see a little ray of hope in each swim. The paces general ranged through from 1:40 to 1:50 depending on the length of the interval.

Thursday

The dreaded 2500 yard straight swim rolls around again. Well at least all I have to do is swim and press my watch lap button each lap. Once I’ve done 50 laps I’m out of there. No drills. No rest intervals. Simple. For the first time I was under a minute per lap for this length swim. 2500 yards took me 49 minutes. That’s the same time as I swam 2112 yards at Boise last year. Of course that was mostly because open water swimming is a whole other thing, a thing I can’t really do. Hopefully at Vineman the river setting won’t test my sighting skills like swimming 3/4 a mile out into a choppy freezing expanse of a lake, but I still should go work on that someday.

Bike

8hr 6min (125 miles)

Wednesday

Another session at M2 and another downward spiral. It’s good to get an hour or so of training in mid-week when I apparently am having trouble getting out on my bike, but I’m a little tried of these spirals. Here’s hoping there’s something new this week. Perhaps something a little sub-threshold.

Still, the workout went well. I got there early so I got some extra time spinning. Here’s the HR graph for the workout.

Saturday – Wine Country Century – 100 Miles. 4600ft gain. 7 hours

Saturday we drove up to Santa Rosa in glorious weather to take part in the Wine Country Century. There was apparently 2500 people in this thing, so we never felt very alone. Not all of them were doing the century.

The first section headed out through some farm land and typically awfully surfaced roads. As we’d started right at 7am we were periodically passed by stronger group riders. Not too stressful though, they were friendly and didn’t really swarm around us like in the first part of the Davis ride. We started to get into some rolling country after a while and then worked our way up the Grafton Rd grade which was actually the highest hill on the course. The road is never very steep though and we kept it pretty easy because 100 miles is still a long ride and this was early days.

At the top of that hill the 200km riders headed towards the coast while we descended towards Monte Rio on the Bohemian Hwy though the redwood trees. Nice descent. I thought we’d probably be overtaken a lot along here but it was okay. Either our down hilling was up to par (unlikely) or we just got lucky not to have to deal with much overtaking on the twisting road.

In Monte Rio we pulled in at the first rest area which was filled with people. It was really hard to imagine where all those people came from, I couldn’t even find a rack spot for my bike. Awesome aid stations on the whole ride though, this one featured hot tortillas that there were fillings for, as well as the usual array of cookies and fruit. I ate two cookies, breakfast of champions, as well as one of the tortillas with nothing inside it. And maybe a strawberry.

We left and headed briefly back along River Rd to Guernville and then turned back into the Redwoods. It was cold in this section after the stop and I wondered if leaving my arm warmers behind was such a good idea. Of course later in the day it was baking hot, so I didn’t really need them but it was chilly and I couldn’t really stop from tensing up from being cold. We took some pretty untraveled back roads and climbed a couple of short but much steeper hills, the second of which actually set a new (in the wild, I’ve done better than that at M2) 1 min power record (330 watts) as I sat in behind a strong looking rider and let him pace me up the steep final pitch. We passed people left and right as people wobbled all over the place. The whole climb was only 5 minutes fortunately and took about 250 watts average. The worst part was actually the descent, the road was in bad shape and at one point Patty was braking so hard I didn’t think I was going to stop myself from skidding into her as I couldn’t really get a lot of stopping power on the rough surface.

After these steep guys the terrain started to calm as we left the coastal hills back east and then north up towards River Road and on to the second rest area.

(Just after the 2nd aid station – Natural Light Photograph)

Soon after the second aid station, more than 4 hours into the ride and the major hills behind me, I decided it was time to get down on my aerobars and put in an hour or so of medium-hard effort to see what would happen. The results were mixed. It was excellent fun and only two people passed me in almost 30 minutes: one guy going fast on a tri bike who I was never going to keep up with, and another guy on a road bike who I followed along behind most of the way to lunch. The bad was the section didn’t end up being all that fast, about 16 miles/hr, because the trip up west side road was into a head wind and actually sloped uphill, although it rolls up and down. My power was around 175 for the first 30 minutes (NP 190, heart rate 160-165bpm), about where I wanted it, but then started to drop off. Eventually I started to get passed which at this stage of the ride (around 60 miles in), means either everyone else sped up or I’d slowed down. Obviously the latter is the correct answer. I took a Gu and then things picked up again and I put in a little more solid effort to get to lunch. My feeling is that the first 30 minutes was still too high an intensity for me 4 hours into the ride. I’ll have to see how things go the next month or so and try again. I need to find a workable intensity which enables me to eat and drink okay, avoids any cramping (my left quad had the beginnings of some cramping right before the lunch stop — dehydration might have been a factor there), but lets me progress through the course in a reasonable time. Also looking at the power graph, I think I hit the early hills too hard. I should have kept my power under 200-210 and not spiked my power do much going into them.

The lunch stop was pretty welcome. My shoulders and some spot between my shoulder blades were crying out for a break. I hung out on a tarp until Patty turned up then we sat around at a picnic table eating and drinking. They had little roast beef sandwiches between two pieces of flat bread that were really good. I may have had another cookie too.

For the last 30 miles Patty and I rode together. With the light downwind conditions it was easy enough to move along, but weren’t really flying either. 16 miles along was the final rest stop which had coke. Is there anything better than cold coke 86 miles into a century (in 85 degrees)?

From that aid station we headed south down though the Chalk Hill area towards the finish in Santa Rosa. The hill itself didn’t seem so bad, I passed a bunch of people on it and thought, like the writing on the road near the top: “What hill?”. Anyway, over the top of it and down the other side.

A picture of Patty coming down from Chalk Hill, pretty happy to have no hills ahead of her, I suspect:

From there it was basically a roll back into Santa Rosa and the finish.

A fun time was had by all.

Run

2hrs 42min (15.2 miles)

Tuesday and Thursday

Ran both days after work, but we kept it really easy and just ran around 3 miles easy each day. Thursday is usually a hill run but decided against that to save the legs for the bike ride.

Sunday
9 miles (1.5 hours)

I was a little uncertain how this run would go after the Wine Country Century the day before, but it went great. Ran along the trails: Sequoia Bayview and West and East ridge trails out and back. Stopped for a few minutes at a bench overlooking the hills, illuminated by the early morning sun and had my Gu. A cute dog came up to me, looked up at me, then his ball at my feet, then up at me again. Charades: 3 words, third word. I’m looking at it. Um… “Ball?” “Throw the ball”. I threw the ball. The dog was happy and so was I.

Anyway, I needed to run back and I worried whether I’d come crashing down, but instead the legs felt good with little sign of the day before and I ran back without taking any walk breaks. Good way to wrap up a great training week.

Total: 12hrs 36min.

Biking, Race reports, Sport, Swimming, Triathlon century, m2, santa rosa, wine country century

Total about 9 hours.

A slightly lighter week of training this week as we backed off the bike distance in preparation for this coming weekend’s century ride in the wine country. We probably don’t need to taper for a ride next week exactly, but it felt good to reduce the distance a bit and actually get something done with the rest of our day.

Swim

2hr 01min (5000yds)

Tuesday

It was swarming at the pool. The swim team was taking up 3 lanes and were themselves dealing with 4 a lane at least. There was craziness in the slow lane. In the end I moved lane twice and didn’t really manage to put together the best swim session. Plus, my arms felt tired. Still, I got in the distance and my main set (more or less), before joining a 4 a lane circle swim to see out the rest of the yards and blowing off my drills.

300yd Warmup
400yd 3-5-7-3 drill
10x75yds on 20sec RI (swimming about 1:45 pace)
10x50yds on 15sec RI (though the RI was really variable)
600yds easy/cool down/circle swim hell.

Thursday

Main set:
2x200yd; 4x100yd; 2x200yd

I usually don’t like 200s. Too long to really push, too short to cruise. But today I had a pretty good swim. The first two 200s in 1:47/100yd and 1:49/100yd. The second two in more like 1:53/100yd pace. The hundreds were not as good as last week, 1:44-1:48.

The good news was I didn’t feel too smashed afterwards which is a really good sign because more than speed, that’s the goal. Also, not so many people in the pool for a refreshing change, I even had a lane to myself for a while. I still hugged the lane marker because it feels weird to swim down the black line. In addition to a generally better swim I had a slight break though with bi-lateral breathing today, in that it was actually pretty workable today. I’m going to keep practicing this for some of every session in the hopes it will improve my stroke overall. On the dark side, I still have too much of a pull buoy dependence though. My legs like that. I give my legs what they want.

Bike

4hr 35min (73 miles)

Wednesday

M2 class was another downward spiral. Actually, I was pretty confused at one point so the specifics are a little lost, but the general idea was a decreasing length of over 100% effort like last week but instead followed by recovery at 90% for 2 minutes. Still pretty hard. It was an interesting exercise because you’re screaming for a recovery after the hard effort, then have to deal with the lactate buildup while still pedaling a pretty concentrated effort. Amazingly that works and the recovery gets easier as you go on. If you get the power right you can do this in the real world, for example at the top of a climb, say 110-120% effort for 5 mins of a climb, then 90% effort across the top, then fully recover on the descent.

Saturday

Kelly had her science fair in the morning so our long ride had to wait until midday. It was hot already, were hungry, and when our pump decided to just let air out of Patty’s tires, not in, we were almost ready to just pack the bikes back on the roof of the car and go home for a run. Using a hand pump we got her back in business and headed out towards Livermore for a 50 mile round trip.

Not a bad ride, but warm and we were were kind of glad to be done. Feeling generally faster and more powerful.

Run

2hr 15min (13 miles)

Tuesday

Quick run at Clark Kerr including running up the hill. More of a recovery run than anything.

Friday

Thursday’s run didn’t happen because I was at work until late. So Friday at dawn I ran 3 miles on my hill loop. This was pretty much as good as running feels, which makes me think I’m probably about to be injured. I took it nice and steady but still arrived home in the best time I’ve run in years. I feel like I’m finally getting over the injury last fall and getting some running speed back.

Sunday

The good, the bad and the ugly with this run. My legs didn’t feel so good after the bike ride, it was warmer than I’m used to running in (which we call “good training”), and we ran on pavement which we almost never do. But the good was we ran all over the place in Oakland, from the lake where people were actually out in bikinis, to people buying tamales out of the back of a pickup truck near the swap meet, to a weird street we ran down on the water front filled with artists and fences made out of bike pieces and UFO sculptures (5th ave marina **), to Jack London square, through China town and a temple swarming with Buddhists and filled with good smelling food and incense, to the Oakland Museum were we ran up the steps like Rocky, and back to the lake.

** The reviews on Yelp of 5th Ave Marina, which I’d never heard of before are awesome:
“Avast, ye mateys. This here be th’ most rickety, barnacle crusted haven in all o’ Dead Man’s Estuary. ”
“Great place for a bonfire.”
“Beware, zombie dogs from the sea.”
“this place is unsafe…”

Sport, Triathlon Biking, danville, explorations, lake merritt, livermore, peets, Running, swimming, zombie dogs

Training last week has finally settled down after the week in Utah and the week before that which, missing it’s weekend training, was pretty minimal. Last week I managed to get in all my planned workouts, plus an extra run. I’m still pondering how to get another bike ride in, but for now this is sort of working with the rest of my life.

Swim

1hr 53min (5000yds)

Back in the pool twice last week. Tuesday’s session was kind of a regression. My arms seemed tired, perhaps from the Sunday bike ride or just general fatigue from the trip and all the driving. It was time for another straight swim of 2500 yards. This one didn’t go as well as last time, I spent more time at the wall because I felt out of sorts, or because I needed to change lane or other people were entering my lane etc. And then the pool spa started to smoke out the pool with some horrid electrical burning smell which did nothing for my swimming either. So in the end I got in the distance, but it was kind of a mess.

Thursday’s swim went better, at least at the beginning. I swam a 100yd in 1:37, which is a good 5 secs than I’ve swum one before. The other 7 100s were all under 1:45, so this was exciting. About 5 seconds faster for each 100 than a few weeks ago. Hopefully this will translate up to longer straight swims. I’d really like to be able to continuous swim closer to 1:55/100yds.

Bike

6hrs 51min (96 miles)

Monday
Sports Basement trip #1. Took bikes in to get serviced and have them install my new crank and pedals. Running Ultegra throughout now, and hopefully the end of my click noise on each down pedal.

Tuesday
Sports Basement trip #2. Picked up the bikes. Patty’s bike needed a new chain and her front brakes are almost done. Mine needed a new chain as well and they replaced the BB too though I’m not sure if it was damaged or if they just did it for compatibility with the new crank. I’m kind of glad they did anyway.

Wednesday
Back to M2 and did a Downward Spiral. No M2 himself, but still a good class. A downward spiral in this case is: 2min at 100% watts (CP10), 1:45, 1:30… down to 15sec, each with better watts, each with equal time easy spin rest. Then repeat the whole thing a second time after 5min recovery. I was a little skeptical I was going to make it, but the second time through was actually better than the first. Some M2 people have been posting their workouts on Strava and it’s frightening how high their power is for this set. Ouch. Oh well, I can only train at my level, knowing that they are riding 400 watts while I’m doing 250 isn’t really that helpful to me, other than knowing why they are competitive in their age groups or Cat 1 racing, while I’m just hoping to get through a 112 mile ride unscathed.

Saturday
For our long ride we headed back up to Healdsburg to ride some of the roads of our upcoming century ride (in 2 weeks). Here’s the details:
– Miles ridden: 75
– Elevation gain according to Strava for 75 miles: 3756ft
– Elevation gain of the full 100 miles according to website: 3300ft.
– Time left home: 6:05am
– Hours gone from home: 11
– Hours moving: 5:40
– Number of bottles ejected and lost: 1 (Chalk Hill descent)
– Times I completely ran out of water: 2
– Temperature at the end of ride: 89 degrees.
– Number of cracked aerobar arm rests: 1
– Condition of the roads: not good
– Length of snake on Graton climb: 5ft (alive)

Sunday
Sports Basement trip #3. Had them adjust my derailers and brakes a little. Replaced the bike bottle. More carbo-pro. And Patty and I got new bike shorts which we hope will help us with the 100 mile ride. Apparently bike shorts are supposed to last 6 month to a year and be good for about the number of miles = $$ you spend. e.g. $30 bike shorts good up to 30 miles. So I should be good for 135 miles. Biking is expensive.

Running

3hrs 53min (20.4 miles)

Lots of running this week, relatively. Felt good. I miss running.

Tuesday
We met after work and ran around the track a bit before chatting with the LMJS Tuesday track group for a bit. It was their first time at Clark Kerr where we are every Tuesday and Thursdays. It was nice to see them again. We declined their invitation to do quarters with them, instead we ran up the street hill nearby and looped about the bottom the campus. A pretty easy run. Felt good to run the legs a bit after the Sunday bike ride and all the time driving.

Thursday
Did the full Strawberry Canyon loop, although not running too hard. It was pretty warm out and the legs generally felt good.

Sunday
Then Sunday I got up early and ran 1hr 30min on Sequoia Bayview though to Skyline gate, then on another 10 minutes to make it 45 min out. Stopped an had a Gu and a drink then ran back. Again it was warm and people were already on the trail. Lots of dogs and the mountain bikers were just getting going. Legs were tired but it got better as I went.

Patty had stalled on her run all day so by evening she wanted some company so we dropped Kelly off with her grandparents and went up to Redwood park Steam trail and ran out and back for an hour. It was stunning up there. Warm like summer, lush green like winter. Forget me nots out everywhere. By then my legs were quite a bit stiffer than earlier in the day so I took it super easy. Also, my inside heel was letting me know it was there, a problem I had a couple of years ago. I wonder if my new pedals need the cleat loosened up? Anyway, it went away so something to keep an eye on. 2.5 hours for the day, 8 hours of running/biking for the weekend.

Totals for the week: 12hrs 41min

Sport, Triathlon Biking, m2, Running, sports basement, swimming, vineman, wine country century

Another week and my build continues. We’re out of town next week so I added in a little longer bike this past weekend figuring there’ll be a bit of a fallback next week to recover. I’ve been on the bike each weekend pretty consistently for the past 3 months so it was time to put in a harder longer effort and see what my legs will do about it.

Swim

2hrs (5000yds )

I made it back into the pool two times last week. Every time that happens I feel like I’m making real progress towards my training. I’ve started to see actual progress in the numbers too. For one, I can swim 2500 yards twice a week and my arms only feel a little like falling off. Secondly, my 100 yard splits have improved in both speed and steadiness. I used to be able to swim 1:52 or so early in my set, but after 4 or 5 100s it was back to 2:00+. I’m now down around 1:45-1:47 for the whole set.

Tuesday: 2500yard in the pool

Tuesday I did 8x100s then 8x50s for my main set. The 100s were clearly a lot better than last year so I was pretty excited. Interestingly my 50s weren’t too much faster than the 100s, even perhaps slower. I think this points to a couple of things. The first is that when I try to swim faster, I often go slower because I’m less smooth. Yet another counter-intuitive element to swimming like how my kick makes me go slower. The other thing is I really don’t like 50s, they are more anaerobic than I particularly enjoy while having my head under water most of the time so I fall back to my 100s pace/effort too easily.

For drills I’ve been working on 3-5-7-3 breaths to work on my underwater breath out and general lung capacity while swimming. It’s also good to try to breath on my bad side. These are both fairly clear limiters so I might as well chip away at them during drill time.

Thursday: 2500yard in the pool

Thursday I was running late so swam at 8am instead. The pool was pretty much empty but at 9am just as I was getting out it was being cleared for some group class, so I guess 9am is a hard limit on lap swimming. Good to know.

The set of 10×75 followed by 10×50. The pace was pretty similar to Tuesday, but my arms were tired by the time I was done. I don’t think I should increase my swim distances for a while.

Bike

5hrs 37min (84 miles)

Wednesday: M2 Cycling Class (1hr 10min)

On Wednesday it was back to M2 with a pretty similar workout as last week. I think I went a little hard early on and was generally a mess by then end.

Sunday: 60 miles (4hrs 30)

Sunday we headed out to Clayton to do a loop of Mt Diablo, starting off with the Morgan Territory road climb. Since we’ve ridden this loop a few times before it was good to try an calibrate our fitness against the past couple of years.

The ride ended up being pretty hard. My normalized power was 180ish so that’s quite a bit higher than previous trips around the mountain and pretty solid for a 4 hour ride for me. Part of that was that Livermore valley was fairly windy and so there was some good hard pushes in there that kept the power up. I also pushed up Collier Canyon pretty hard into a head wind and had some fun riding by some people (it took a few minutes of 300+ watts to take out two cyclists but it was worth it, I’m usually the one being overtaken).

By the time we reached Danville, about 40 miles in, Patty had more or less had enough. Her new saddle is not breaking in quick enough and she was tired of fighting the wind. I decided to go ahead and get the car while she rode to Sports Basement. She ended up riding about 54 miles, so probably could have just ridden it in anyway.

In the end I had a pretty good ride. Power agent reports it was a new 30min and 1hr power record, plus I think it was probably a NP record too, so I’m hoping this means my cycling legs are on their way back.

Run

1hr 56min (10 miles)

The week was dominated by extremely wet running opportunities.

Tuesday: missed

Tuesday’s run was aborted because a few miles in Berkeley simply wasn’t worth going out in the middle of a storm. We instead sat in Peets across from the Claremont Hotel and watched a river of water pour off the tennis courts.

Thursday: 3.2 miles hill

Kelly didn’t go to gymnastics as she has her parent’s ability to get injured. Plus, I think she’s tired of it and isn’t really making much progress despite 6 hours a week there. I know I look for improvements continuously so I can imagine it’s probably getting to her a bit. She seems to generally enjoy it though and doesn’t want to give up on it, so we’ll see how it goes between now and the summer.

Anyway, that left us scrambling for a run, so we met at home and did a quick run up Park Blvd and back down the canyon.

Saturday: 1.5 hours (about 7 miles)

On Saturday we headed out in another storm to Redwood Regional Park. Driving there we could see the storm front moving across the Bay towards us — a wall of blackness. It started to rain as soon as we got out of the car and by the time we returned we had run an hour and a half in pouring rain, shin deep puddles and lots of mud, plus the temperature had dropped down 10 degrees. It was a run to remember.

In other running news I have a new running watch. Two years after killing my Garmin I have the FR70. The main aim is to get a HR reading off my Garmin HR strap which I use with my Powertap. That way in a race I can get a HR value on my watch when I get off my bike and start running. It also has a foot pod so I get some measure of pace and distance. It is supposed to be as accurate as GPS, though uncalibrated it was about .2 of a mile different from the cell phone GPS track I made. I’m inclined to think the watch may be more accurate because running in a canyon under redwood trees in a storm is possibly the worst case senario for a GPS device. Anyway, I hope to calibrate it at the track to improve it’s accuracy and then will do some more comparisons.

Total

9hrs 33min

Biking, Running, Sport, Swimming, Triathlon 100s, Biking, m2, morgan territory rd, mt diablo, rain, redwood park, Running, swimming, vineman

It’s been awhile since I updated training, so here goes.

First, there’s really too much to update, so I’m skipping over most of the details. In the Fall I was injured for all of October with a calf injury but recovered and ran my first 50k trail race in Marin at the North Face Endurance Challenge. It was a great experience and made me want to run a 50k every weekend. Now four months later I have yet to run another one and have moved back to Triathlon training. Hopefully we’ll be back at that in the late summer and fall.

In January I ran the Epiphany run, which for me turned out to be just over a marathon distance from Skyline Gate to the Lake Chabot marina and back on the trails. Patty had knee (IT) trouble which has plagued her ultra running so turned back. I ended up running part of the outward journey was a guy we know from the Endurables. After that our next goal race, a Coastal Trail Runs race in Marin sold out on us, so after flailing around on our plans for a while we returned to cycling and to begin getting ready for our spring and summer goals:

1) May 5th – Wine Country Century- 100 bike ride in Sonoma County
2) July 28th – Full Vineman – 2.4 mile swm, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run.

Yes. I’m signed up for my first Ironman.

Kelly says “You’re going to end up in hospital daddy”. I hope not, but it’s certainly got me back training and especially got me back in the pool.

Swim

1hr 47min (4700 yards)

Tuesday: 2200 yards

Warmup, drill work, and a main set ladder: 25yd up to 175yd and back to 25yd on 30sec

I’ve been back in the pool and have a new routine of getting out of the house early to swim before work. That’s much more reliable because if I try to swim in the middle of the day something usually comes up and I push it and push it until there’s no more lap swimming. So far the swimming is actually going fairly well. I’ve been swimming about 2200 yards, working my way through a series of sets like this one. This is the same set I used last year so it’s interesting to compare lap times.

In the set I averaged about 3 seconds a lap faster that when I did this not far out from Boise last year (first 25yds was in 24 sec, 50-100yd in mid 1:40s/100yds, and the 175 was just under 2:00/100yds. So it’s earlier and I’m swimming faster. At least that’s not a bad sign. For Vineman I really just need to swim the distance and get out feeling like going for a bike ride.

Thursday: 2500yd straight swim.

Got into a pretty good rhythm and felt strong through this. That was super-encouraging as really the swim is my biggest worry. The woman I was sharing the lane with was knocking off laps at about the same rate as me, you know, rather than someone doing frog kick with a snorkel and pool noodles wrapped around their waist, or something, so that really helped. I wanted to tell her she was the best lane buddy ever, but that seemed excessive. Swam the 2500yards, 50 laps, in 50 minutes, which is not especially fast but felt at least sustainable.

Bike

4hr 54min

Wednesday: Cycling class

Back to the M2 bike classes. It’s still the easiest way to get in over an hour of riding mid-week while having someone push me a little harder than I like. This is my one high intensity session on the bike for the week. I’m hoping with a few years of cycling behind me now I’ll see some real improvement this year, but this first session just made me feel like I’ve got nowhere on the bike. My power levels felt about where they were 3 years ago. But that will improve, right?

Anyway, this week’s workout was something like this:

4x(2:30@90%watts on 30sec rest) (~200watts)
3:00@110%watts (~225watts)

4x(2:00@90%watts on 30sec rest) (~200watts)
2:30@110%watts (~235watts)

4x(1:30@90%watts on 30sec rest) (~200watts)
2:00@110%watts (~238watts)

Saturday: 43 mile bike ride out of Danville.

The usual route, out towards Livermore and back. This week added bonus fun of dodging a winter storm coming though the Bay Area instead of the usual pelletons of team cyclists. In the end we probably picked one of the only semi-dry areas around that morning and only got misted on a bit in the first hour. Turned out to be a nice ride.

Run

2hr 16min (12 miles)

Tuesday – skipped.

Missed run because Patty had to go out and I felt too tired to come home and run.

Thursday – 40min hill run (700ft gain)

Ran up Strawberry Canyon in Berkeley to The Hill. We hiked to the top of that, and then returned along the lower firetrail back to the Cal stadium and then along the streets back to Clark Kerr. Since Patty and I now meet in Berkeley on Tuesdays and Thursdays to pick up Kelly from gymnastics, those days are now locked in to running either the hills behind campus (Strawberry Canyon or Claremont Canyon or both) or running on the track.

Sunday – Watched and cheered at the Oakland Marathon as it came by near our house, then did a fairly easy 1.5 hour trail run (about 1000ft gain) in Lake Chabot, pictured above. Wet and muddy fun.

So that’s it. Another week done.

Biking, Trail Running, Triathlon danville, lake chabot, m2, swimming, Triathlon, vineman

A few weeks ago I took part in my second Half Ironman distance race in Boise, ID. I thought I should at least post some photos and write down some thoughts. So, here it is:

Most people seem surprised by why I would go to Idaho for a race but Boise is a cool town with good crowd support, and it’s not that far a drive from the Bay Area. It’s a place we love to visit, race or no race. As a bonus we like to camp in the mountains around Idaho that it seems the rest of the world has yet to discover. Many parts of Idaho could be National Parks, but fortunately they are not. Boise is kind of like our Hawaii. The place we go to relax, eat good food, and not do anything in particular.

PRE-RACE

I was the usual disaster of nerves before this race. Actually for weeks leading up to it. Somehow running doesn’t get me stressed like a big triathlon. Still, I knew where I was going this year and what needed to be done. The line to register was insanely long but it went smoothly. I got my bike ready and took it out to Luck Peak Friday afternoon to check in. The wind was blowing and it looked like a thunderstorm could soak us any minute. A guy I talked to in transition was from Boise and said every training ride but one that year had been in the wind no matter what time he tried to work it. Ah, the Boise wind. I’m thinking that will always be a factor here.

The next morning I got up and had plenty of time to get ready since the race started at noon. We headed downtown and to drop off my run bag. This is how the transition looked:

Of course when I got there that afternoon during the race it was completely filled with bikes and I had a hard time finding my bike spot. After that we went back to the hotel for half an hour or so and I got all my things together, all packed into multiple bags to try and stay organized, then headed up to the reservoir. We parked below the dam easily and had a picnic on the lawn. At 11am we made our way up to transition which gave me about 30 min to get ready. All I had to do was add my computer, get my tires pumped up and fill my aero bottle. This time I didn’t lose anything!

SWIM (1.2 miles)
Time: 49:10

When it was our wave’s turn, we leaped off the dock and into the freezing water to await the start. At something between 51 and 53 degrees (depending on who you asked) it was colder than anything I’d swum in before. My hands froze and ached so I lifted them above the water. Looking around, everyone else was doing the same thing like we were all doing a tread water test. I tried to dip my face in the water to get used to it, but it was hopeless. It turns out low-50 degree water is much more unpleasant that high-50s water.

When our wave finally got to start I started to swim, but had to stop almost instantly. I’d breath, put my head back into the water and feel like I’d taken no breath at all. I looked up and started to breast stroke and realized about a dozen people around me were also breast stroking to regain their composure. It was like a panic attack but I didn’t actually panic. I was just so cold and it was taking my breath away. On top of that, water seemed to be getting in my goggles, water was getting up my nose, and I was trying to swallow half the lake. Clearly this was not going too well. I was less than one buoy down the course and I started to look around for a boat. Maybe if I bailed out we could spend the day doing something more fun that drowning in a freezing cold Idaho lake. How was I going to swim the whole course like this?

After alternating between drowning and breast stroke for a bit I finally started to breath again and make some progress on the swim course. My sighting was a total failure in the chop and seemed to be using much more energy than I was used to. I noticed the sun was right in my eyes too when I breathed on the right. It had a halo around it which I contemplated for a bit and decided it was my goggles though I’d never noticed that about my goggles before. Oh well, a mystery, but I could use it to sight. So each breath I’d make sure the sun was in the same place and then about every 20 breathes I’d make sure I was still in good shape as far as moving up the line of buoys. That seemed to work fairly well.

On the return stretch I got into an ok rhythm. I was actually swimming pretty straight but would stop occasionally to check where I was going. Out there was a pretty confusing mess of buoys and waves and people. Even when you could see where you were going it didn’t always make sense. At one point the course cut in close to the rock sides of the reservoir and I instinctively put my food down on it. It kind of stung and I wondered if I’d cut my foot on it. Also, had I gone so far off course? No, I was swimming a line about 20 yards off the shortest line and still headed for the second turn buoy so I was ok. Back to swimming.

The final turn was the so-called short leg back to the boat ramp. My stroke was going ok by now, but I still decided to stop occasionally and make sure I was swimming the best path. There was a lot of people stopped in the water around here or holding onto boats so navigating through all that was a challenge. At one point I restarted my swim with a frog kick and my calf cramped up painfully. So painful I thought I’d torn it or something. I wondered how I was going to bike or run with a torn calf. What a weird way to end my day. But it subsided and I didn’t feel anything more from it the rest of the day. Something new I guess. Turns out lots of others had calf cramps too.

I made it to the boat ramp and was pretty glad to get out. The people around me didn’t look too good so I imagined neither did I. 49 minutes was only 2 minutes faster than last year when I swam with one arm! That was a little disappointing. I needed to work on my open water skills because that is a clear limiter with my swimming now. Maybe ice breaking skills too.

T1
Time: 6:36

Transition was mostly uneventful except I tore my bib and took maybe 30 seconds trying to make a new hole for it. In the end I just tucked it into my shorts and got out of there. This is probably my favorite photo from the day. I look like I’m racing a triathlon:

BIKE (56 miles)
3:13:09

It was a relief to get on the bike. Time to have some fun. I’m more of a land person than a water person so as long as the bike kept working (please, please, no more flats!) I was pretty comfortable with this. We spent a lot of time since Boise last year biking, keeping it as our dominate long workout each weekend. In October we rode our first century. In February we trained for the Death Valley Spring century and suffered it out in 30 mile/hr head winds all day.

I divided the course up mentally and had a plan for each section. My strategy was based mostly on what I’d learned from last year and what I’d worked on the previous 12 months.

Last year the wind tore everyone up and being new to the biking world really struggled into the wind. Instead of pushing the pace I fixated on my power. Some people went by me, sure, but I was doing the right thing by watching my power and hoping for a break back into town. My pre-race plan was to ride 150 watts for the first hour and then increase from there. In fact, I did that (I rode 149 watts avg the first hour), so that was right on even though I hardly used my big ring the whole way out. So far so good, but at about an hour and a half I climbed a hill and after that my watts went down the tube. My average watts by the time I was done with the bike leg was around 110. I coasted it home and really it was all I had.

This year I’ve concentrated on endurance. I decided I wasn’t using the power I had so we went through two cycles training for 100 mile rides. By the winter I rode for 7 hours with over 160 watts average (mostly into a headwind). I’d shown I could do it and that if I could translate that into a 3 hours of HIM level effort I would be much improved.

So my plan was to go harder earlier on than what I’d think of as even pacing. My reasoning was the last year the course had significant headwinds on the way out of town so I’d try and get through those sections the fastest before the afternoon winds picked up. I wondered if this was wise. This year I felt like if I kept to 170 watts on the way out I’d be able to hold it together for the return journey with my better endurance. Or, I’d at least see what happened and learn something to take to my training to come.

But enough plans and power meters and hopes and dreams.

Out on the bike this time was seriously fun and the P2C was pretty much awesome. A big difference was I never felt uncomfortable on the bike this year, my position is so much better and feels powerful. At the time (and especially compared to last year), I really felt like I could ride a HIM bike leg and race a bike in general. I passed probably around 100 people on the bike, but unfortunately I was only catching the age group ahead of us, the twenty-something woman, not the rest of my age group. If I was a 20-something woman I’d have been pleased with my increased position but I knew it was a bad sign. At the time wondered how much faster I needed to go. About a mile/hr it turned out. Most of my age group rides shockingly fast. Sigh.

Finishing up the bike ride the guy next to me coming into transition described the course as the bike ride from hell. I couldn’t have agreed less, he must live somewhere flat. I felt my bike ride rocked. I’ve been learning how to ride a bike fast for only 18 months and I think it’s starting to come together. It’s no flat course, nor was it without wind, but I rode the flat parts over 20 miles/hr, the down hills 30+ and with the climbs and the no-pass zone etc averaged about 17.5 miles/hr. I’ve never really ridden a bike that fast for so long, so in that way it’s progress and I’m now in sight of where I need to be. After taking 4 hours last year, I hoped to get my bike down the 3:30, and in the end rode under 3:15.

Still, I have mixed feelings about my bike ride because of my age group position, which was bottom 25%. That was a lot of training for a mediocre result. Fortunately most people just think it’s awesome I finished, but I would really like to do a little better than that and feel like I was racing with my age group pack. So what to do…

1) Looking at the power graph I think I can already ride faster, with no more training, just some more experience. I was suckered into feeling at the time that my speed was good enough. I’m going fast, right? Why go faster? Save it for the run. When I’m doing 20 miles and hour but my power is dipping, I should be going faster. Everyone else is.

2) My power graph reveals holes, the places where I backed off. In one long section I rode behind a woman on a cool looking bike. It was a gradual uphill section. Why did I ride 130 watts the whole way along this section? I think I was feeling relatively fine and was kind of over passing people. I think the reason was that in my head the woman in front of me looked like she was moving along strong at a time when I was starting to feel the fatigue appear and I was content to follow her. 15 mins later I got wise and passed her and never saw her again. It’s important not to get suckered into too slow a pace.

3) My power is wavy when the course rolls. I should be on the power more going downhill or when the terrain eases up. It might be just a few moments but it creates real dips in my power and I could be going faster. Working to smooth out the power on the rollers should be a focus for the next year. I know how to keep my power down but have a harder time keeping it up when the going gets easier.

4) Maybe more endurance.

T2
4:12

Last year someone grabbed my bike and took it to its spot and handed me my transition bag. This year I was totally on my own and for the life of me couldn’t find my bag. There was thousands of bikes in transition by the time I arrived, and I knew the lamp post it was across from, but I still couldn’t find it. Eventually a volunteer came over and helped me.

After that it went smooth. Changed shoes, took an expresso Gu, put on my hat and headed out of there.

RUN (13.1 miles)
Time: 2:25:23

I was pretty excited with my bike split, especially since it was 47 minutes faster than last year. My legs didn’t feel so bad though they were certainly heavy for the first couple of miles. I was ready to finish this up strong. But then something happened, slowly, and my splits got longer and longer. My first two miles went by in 19 minutes, which wasn’t too bad and then I started to feel ok running. After that: 10:00s, then 11:00s, a 13 min/mile or so…

So what happened? Why did I run 25 minutes slower than my open half marathon time? Aid stations, and my paranoia about getting down food and water so that something bad didn’t happen further into the run. Perhaps I should have swallowed what I could and kept running. Instead I would take forever to get what I needed and basically try to look after myself at each stop. Standing by the last drop trash cans trying to down the last of a cup of water is probably a waste of time. And with an aid station every mile this really added up.

While this problem is perplexing, here are a few thoughts for reference next time:

1) I suspect I came off the bike dehydrated. That always seems to be a downward spiral that causes my stomach’s lack of interest in taking in food or liquid. The solution to that is fairly easy: drink more on the bike. As it was I drank almost 60oz in 3 hours.

2) I should consider only water and getting as much of it as possible down, but if its not down by the last drop, keep running. Maybe one cup for a swallow and one cup for cooling if needed. Stay away from the Powerbar stuff they have now. Then replace calories with Gu (or blow it off if needed — I could probably get by with 2 Gus but this time tried to take in 4 to see if that would help). I should also practice taking cold water while under stress.

3) The expresso Gu followed by multiple caffeine Gus maybe isn’t a good idea under race stress. Try non-caffeine next time.

Anyway, the run was cooler this year and Patty reported I looked pretty good this time. I caught a few people in my age group (and lots that weren’t of course). Again plenty of people were walking so I went by them. At the end, in what was maybe fitting, my finish was overshadowed by someone in my age group flying past me to take another spot away. Sigh.

TOTAL TIME: 6 hours 38 min.

Race reports, Triathlon

As we drove to Death Valley down the central valley an incoming email buzzed my iPhone. It was from AdventureCORPs. Prediction for the weekend was for near freezing conditions and possibly rain and snow. The email began with “I’m not trying to scare anyone…” But we were scared. We signed up for this ride as a way to motivate us to continue riding though the winter, but still we struggled with the weather. It remains somewhat a mystery how you ride and stay warm, dry and comfortable. But we had overcoming things which previously scared us though: we could now set out in the rain and not be totally in fear. While we’d come a ways, a bad weather century ride was something we weren’t fully prepared for, mentally or physically.

My fitness on the bike seemed to have come around so I was looking forward to a fast ride. We did a couple of 70+ mile rides and a collection of 50 mile rides. In our last ride we threw in a climb at the half way mark that set a new 30 min power record for me (one not on a trainer at least), and that was after hours of riding. That’s not to say I’ve suddenly become a great cyclist, but signs we there that we’d improved. I felt ready for anything. Well anything except bad weather.

Death Valley is one of our favorite places. It’s also the scene of most of our great outdoor disasters. The place has a way to take a toll on man and his equipment. There was the time when we ripped two 4WD tires apart up some jeep trail and ended up dragging the backend of the car miles, followed by hitchhiking through the night. I still think of that trip fondly, especially the part where it also started to snow. Another time a storm came though so hard it broke a pole on our 4 season tent and launched it way up a canyon, completely destroying it. That was fun too.

Thursday night we camped up Echo Canyon, the same place as the tent disaster. It’s a beautiful place when it’s not destroying things. Behind you is a slot canyon that you can drive up to reach a set of mine ruins to explore. In front of you the scene drops 1600ft to the Death Valley floor and then rises 11,000 ft up into the snow covered Panamint range.

Friday morning started still. The sun rise hit the mountains cycling them through a range of pinks and purples and oranges. Even Kelly enjoyed the view. Later in the morning, with Kelly’s Grandfather (Patty’s father) in tow, we headed up the canyon to check out the mines.

In the afternoon we drove the course to check out the climb and by evening the wind had really picked up, especially at Furnace Creek. By the time we headed over for the AdventureCORPs Yoga the wind was blowing so hard it was difficult to even walk in the RV park. All you could do was laugh it was blowing so hard. We knew they’d run the ride regardless, but we couldn’t imagine riding in that kind of wind. The Yoga turned out to be fun though as we huddled in the shelter behind the buildings there and the event organizer led us through a yoga routine yelling above the wind.

Instead of camping we cleared out the back of the car and slept in there parked in the same site as Patty’s parents. It wasn’t the best nights sleep listening to the wind and feeling the car being buffeted around. Hope for even going for a ride was fading but the morning brought workable weather, it seemed. It wasn’t too cold, it wasn’t raining or snowing and the wind was nothing like the night before. The ride was a go and optimism filled the air.

Furnace Creek to Badwater

Distance: 17.3 miles
Time: 1hrs 52min
Power: 156 avg, 169 NP (graph)

The second wave was ready to head off as we circled behind the group so we decided to head off with them. The pace was easy as we headed uphill from Furnace Creek towards the intersection with Badwater Rd. I was feeling the pace was a little too easy and went by a few people with Patty following behind me.

As we reached the top we turned towards Badwater, about 17 miles away. I instinctively changed up to my big ring and thought we’d be off but I then noticed a problem. We’d just turned into a stiff headwind. The usual still mornings in Death Valley were not working that way this morning. The wind was blowing strong from the South and the next 40 or so miles of the course were directly down the valley, south, with no shelter. Just one big wind tunnel. Of course it took a while to think in those terms, for the moment I changed back down gears and started to slog it out.

We were averaging about 10 miles per hour. Long gradual climbs became 6 mile/hr 200+ watts. It was equivalent in effort to real climbing but yet they looked almost flat. Wind is the unseen enemy. Finally a top would appear and I’d barely change out of my lowest gear as I pushed on down the hill at maybe 11 or 12 miles/hr.

At 1 hour in Patty and I stopped and ate a Gu each. Patty was having trouble drinking because she needed both hands on her handlebars in order to not be thrown off into the desert as the wind shifted around. She took in a little fluid and I was glad for my aero bottle although I was having trouble being on the aerobars in the wind as well. Here we ran into Patty’s father and Kelly for the first time. They asked if we were ok, beginning a trend of theirs of turning up while we were stopped somewhere. We handed off our warm gloves since the cold wasn’t going to be our problem today at least.

Occasionally we’d be overtaken by some riders from the third wave. One group went by in a pace line and while I couldn’t catch the back of them the trailing riders seemed to be getting a good break. I had nobody ahead of me to break the wind and it was brutal. One guy who went by chatted for a bit. We agreed how demoralizing making such slow progress was. Moving forward like that, with vast distances ahead in the wide open desert floor and making 10 miles/hr progress was hard to weigh against how far we had to ride. It seemed hard to imaging pushing into the wind for more than 40 miles, then doing the climb, and then riding back. Even the thought of the returning tailwind didn’t make it seem possible, we wouldn’t even make the cutoffs. How many hours till the turnaround? Five? Six? Instead of that I found comfort in my power meter. I settled on trying to ride around 150 watts, keeping under 200 for the tough bits, figuring I had a long way ahead of me. The most important thing was that I could see I was doing something as the miles came so slow.

I pulled into Badwater a few minutes ahead of Patty. Nobody there seemed to know what the deal was with the cutoffs. We were already an hour late and the day was young. We ate a little food but forgot to fill our water bottles. In my mind I’d not recalibrated the next aid station distance to take into account the slow speed we were moving at.

Badwater to Ashford Mills

Distance: 27.4 miles
Time: 3hrs 50min
Power: 136 avg, 148 NP (graph)

Back on the road and it was more of the same. I slowly pushed myself past a guy and said “are we having fun yet?” “Oh God Yes!” he replied. Patty told me she’d decided to make it a metric century and turn back at 30 miles, or the mile 29 mile marker along the road. I told her to sit behind me and I’d pull her, but it didn’t help, she fell off my back wheel and was gone again. The people on the course were now quite spread out, but usually I could see someone a ways ahead. The vastness was a little overwhelming, such a small bike in such a big place, in such awful conditions. I saw little choice but to keep pushing forward. The road through this section was more or less flat, but would wander out towards the center of the valley and back following the coast line of the ancient lake. The wind grew worse out the further towards the center of the valley you got, or was plagued with cross winds, and at times I was barely moving. For a moment I actually longed to be closer to the valley’s side walls for the ‘relief’ of a steady 20 miles/hr straight-into-the-face wind to deal with.

I stopped a couple of times to wait for Patty, once a little before the mile 29 marker and then again at the marker. Eventually she came into view and looked broken. She was ready to go back but I decided I would keep going at least until the Ashford Mills aid station. The assumption was, of course, that the ride back wouldn’t be so bad. I’d come a long way to ride and complete this century, and trained all winter. That’s a lot of traffic lights on the road out of Danville, freezing mornings where we hardly saw another cyclist all day, my awesome run of flat tires… We’d convinced Patty’s parents to drive down there and look after our daughter so we could do this. I wasn’t feeling like giving up even though I knew deep down all my energy was blowing away in the wind and I may not have it in me to get back. This was uncharted territory for my endurance.

We said good bye with a hug and we headed in different directions. Back to my 150-160 watts, back to very slow progress. I started to pass some people, clearly anyone around me was starting to fade. I ran out of water too as hours went by. And running out of liquid also meant I was not getting the calories I was counting on but I wasn’t thinking too clearly either because I could have compensated with the Gus I was carrying. My heart rate was also up though this section as the terrain became more hilly and my vision was vaguely blurry.

Eventually I rode into Ashford Mills, almost 4 hours after leaving Badwater, and was seriously close to being done.

Expensive bikes and people lay on the ground not moving anywhere. Nobody’s race wheels were helping them too much today but there sure was some good looking bikes lying in the sand. Patty’s father and Kelly turned up just after I arrived. They said Patty had ‘flown’ back to Badwater on the tail wind. That sounded good, perhaps I could do this. My spirits lifted. Then again I was beat and still had a 1300ft climb to do before even the turnaround. Kelly said I should do it. After they left I decided to give it a try.

Climb to Jubilee Pass and back to Ashford Mills

Distance: 12.6 miles
Time: 1hr 15min
Power: 120 avg, 159 NP (the climb was 168 avg, 177 NP) (graph)

As I headed out the wind was actually still for the first time as the 6% climb ran perpendicular to the valley. It wasn’t as bad as I imagined it, averaging about 180 watts in my lowest gear. Unlike the wind I could see my goal and measure my energy against the visible obstacle. Interestingly, it really didn’t feel too much worse on my legs than the previous 5 hours and it was quite easy to settle in. I stopped a couple of times because I thought it seemed like a good idea to take it a little conservatively, but before long I reached the top. I felt a moment of victory. I’d been on the bike so long, but was only at the 52 mile turnaround. It was 1:30pm, over 6.5 hours after the start and over 5.5 hours of ride time.

The organizer took my bib number and a photo of me. He thanked me for coming so far out on the course. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, probably that I should have given up long ago. I took a moment, clipped in, and headed back down the hill. There was a certain amount of head wind on the descent but I mostly coasted to save energy and regretted giving my Jacket to Patty’s parents. It was cold, but the scenery was was worth the climb as I looked down into the valley and the clouds and light moving in across the mountains. I still wasn’t sure I had another 50 miles in me, 40 by the time I got back down to Ashford Mills, but if the weather cooperated I might make it back before the 10 hour cutoff.

Back at Ashford Mills I grabbed food, some water and used the port-a-potty, but didn’t stay long this time, I needed to get moving. As I clipped in the aid station people were talking over the radio, asking if it was raining at furnace creek. No, they said, it was dust, and the wind was coming from the north. THE NORTH??!! A grown went though the aid station. I was looking a 40 miles of riding north to get back to Furnace Creek. My response? Denial. I peddled off.

Ashford Mills to the end

Distance: 13.2 miles
Time: 1hr 03min
Power: 124 avg, 143 NP (graph)

For the next six miles I flew, carried along by a glorious tailwind. I sat at 20-24 miles/hr on the flats, 30+ mile/hr on the downhills without even pushing hard. I remembered for a moment that biking could be fun. I started to think I’d be back in a couple of hours at this rate and that my decision to continue to the turn around point was the right one. Life was good. But that was crazy thinking and altogether short lived. Up the valley the salt flats and sky ominously merged into a dark wall that looked a like a mix of rain and dust, maybe. Still, I hoped I could get somewhere near to Furnace Creek before I hit that or any wind change.

It was not to be. Within a moment my tail wind turned to head wind. It was like hitting a wall. I was still 35 miles out and my speed was down to 6 miles/hr and power back over 160 watts. I was a little surprised that my trashed legs were still cooperating, but it didn’t make it any easier. All that energy going into the pedals and 6 miles/hr coming out. I had my head down watching the white line, I watched little pebbles come by so slowly, one painful pedal stroke after another. Then I’d look up at the vast expanse ahead and feel crushed. It was a mental game and in this section I was losing.

My carbopro mix was also a little messed up so I stopped for a moment and poured some of it out and mixed it down with water. It gave me a moment to stand there and contemplate what I was going to do. Make it to Badwater, then hope I could get a headlamp from someone? Hope Patty came looking for me? Sit down right here and cry? All valid options. Shortly after that a strong looking rider came by me, slowly. I said hi but he didn’t say anything back. I though he might be just unfriendly but I now think he was just too deep in his own misery. In my mind I imagined every one else doing so well, cutting though the wind with effortless ease, success being the only option. Most of them were already back at Furnace creek celebrating a fine day out.

When Badwater seemed too far away I refocused on getting to the 29 mile marker (30 miles from the finish) where Patty and I had said goodbye. Some part of me expected she’d still be there and the idea gave me a little comfort.

I neither made it to Badwater nor even the mile 29 marker. In the end some riders ahead of me waved down the Timing company’s pickup truck and started to load their bikes in the back. I rode towards them but didn’t hurry. I wasn’t sure what to do and was hoping it would drive away so I didn’t have to think about it. The strong looking guy also pulled over and started to load his bike on too. I guess a way home had just handed itself to me and it seemed the obvious thing to take the ride too. I was 71 miles into my ride and my day was done.

The scene back to Furnace Creek was devastation. The organizers were sending out SAG vehicles to collect people and random cars were also bringing riders back home. We were full but riders tried to wave us down. Those still moving were all over the road, not caring. People had stopped in the middle of nowhere and just sat down with their bikes unable to go on. Others were slumped over their handlebars. Many riders had already left the course. Many had called an end to it at Badwater, the scene there was littered with riders who couldn’t make it back the final 18 miles.

In the end the majority of the 400 who signed up DNFd (or DNS.) The results show about 100 finishers in all the distances out of the 400 entrants. What I didn’t know was that the organizers extended the cutoffs so people who finished into the night got an official time. My assumption was that I wouldn’t get a time and be recognized as a finisher even if I made it back and that certainly weighed into my decision to take a ride. If the original 5pm time had still applied only about 20 riders of the century would have finished.

Hats off to anyone who made it back though and the amazing ultra-century and double century riders who finished on such a rough day.

Patty and I eventually reunited after she failed to find me on the course. She had not made it back to the finish line either having hit the wind direction change earlier in the day just past Badwater. After struggling for a while her parents came by and she called it a day and took the ride back with them. She was 50 miles into her ride.

Overall stats

Distance: 71.14 miles
Time: 6hrs 59min (8hrs 13 min total)
Power: 136 watts avg, 354 watts max, 156 watts NP
Graph: HR, Power, Speed vs Time
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We didn’t hang out long, just enough time to get some pizza. The weather had become drizzly and night was coming. We left and drove out of the park and through to Ridgecrest for the night then home the next day. All in all it was sort of a disaster and an adventure at the same time. I’ve clearly arrived at a better level of endurance but still, after training all winter we were disappointed at how the day played out and that we couldn’t have made it through the whole course together.

Biking, Death Valley camping, century, cycling, Death Valley, Wind

Leading up to this race there was only one thing on my mind: my arm that I injured by falling off my bike two weeks earlier. I made the decision to drive out to Boise anyway, get myself in the water and see how it went. The goal was to just make it to the finish now, the swim was going to be a one arm affair, the bike would be about staying out of trouble and hope that something didn’t happen that I couldn’t manage. Then the run would be completed with whatever I had left. All the while the goal was to enjoy it as much as possible.

Pre-race:

I drove into Boise Friday lunch time and headed straight for the quest arena in the middle on the downtown area. The Ironman show was obviously in town and very fit people where all over. I was hoping to grab my packet and get out of there and head for the hotel. There was a lot to get ready. Unfortunately there was a lot to get done just to get a race packet, and a long line to even get to that point.

After all that I stopped by the rock tape guys and showed them my arm. They seemed interested in doing what they could for it and 20 minutes later the guy had deep tissue massaged me (“don’t hit me if it hurts”) and cross crossed my arm in black and white rock tape. I wasn’t really sure it would do me much good but any support was probably worth trying, plus he did really ease out some sore spots.

Swim (51:15):

The race started at 2pm. As the pros headed off down course Patty helped me get into my wetsuit. In the blazing sun we were all out there baking like seals on a rock. Sweat ran down my face. The thought of getting into the water started to seem very appealing. We shuffled down the boat ramp. We were next.

Suddenly I noticed that I’d become calm. I was looking forwarded to the relative simplicity ahead. Put on cap and goggles, get in water, swim. No more worrying about if I had everything at transitions, what I should do about my arm, should I even be racing. Just swim. The final prep had been stressful. My swim bag that I needed to put my wetsuit in after the swim had gone missing, and when I’d discovered my front wheel soft from being parked at T1 all night I’d not have time to change it so I took it to the tire guys and had them put air in it. That would have to do.

We waded into the water and within a couple of minutes, right as the pros came out of the water and everyone was watching them, off went our wave. The area around me was filled with my wave for quite a while as I started to swim as best as I could. Every pull with my left arm hurt and felt weak, so I mostly swam with my right arm. Slowly I drifted off the back of the wave, although plenty of others of my wave also drifted back. I could at least move forward.

After a while I heard a kayaker yelling at us. The swimmers around me and I were headed in towards the center of the course a little. When I stopped to see what was up the scene around me was confusing. The chop had picked up further from shore and from so low to the water it difficult to decipher the buoys I was supposed to be following. For a moment I thought we were totally off course, but it wasn’t too bad. I corrected slightly and headed for where I saw the most swimmers.

I was actually surprised how far out I’d got, looking back to the shore the beach looked very small. Now would be a bad time to panic I thought. That made me panic a little.

I made the far out turn buoy as another wave come by. I imagined for a moment that might go badly but I kept my line and they swam around me mostly. At one point someone smashed into my left hand, just what I needed, and there was the occasional side body contact, feet contact, the usual. Nothing too bad. With a wave every 5 minutes I was never short of company.

Periodically I’d go back to my fallback mantra: pain is just another feeling. My wrist and arm felt bad, every pull hurt, but it wasn’t getting worse. For a while I tried swimming with a closed fist, like a drill, but then give up on that because it didn’t feel that much better.

Sometimes I’d stop to see where I was, wonder how far to go, wonder how many yards that was. Then I’d start counting my strokes again. Breath 5 times then look where I was going. Repeat. Sometimes I’d try to match pace with another swimmer but then three strokes later they were magically gone.

Heading back to shore seemed to take a lot longer. The chop was going over my head pretty frequently and I swallowed plenty of water. The good news was it was some of the best tasting water I’ve ever had the pleasure of choking on in an open water swim.

We rounded the final buoy and headed for the boat ramp. This swim was starting to drag. My right arm was getting tired and my left shoulder was starting to ache from whatever modified stroke I’d just made up. Probably one where I wasn’t rolling as far left as usual. The boat ramp finally appeared under me and I kept swimming until it got really shallow and then I was back on my feet.

T1 (6:40)

Well I was sort on my feet. Woah, sea legs. Running wasn’t a good idea so I walked up towards transition. Patty reported later that I didn’t look too good. Actually I felt good, and I was certainly excited to be out of the water and tired of swimming, and thankful my arm held up to my main request of it for the day. I was just needing a moment to adapt to being vertical.

At the top of the ramp I looked back down at the water and was surprised to see white caps (my wave had white swim caps on) still in the water. Not last out of the water!

I pulled off my wetsuit to my waist and then had the wetsuit strippers do the rest.. That was awesome, I was out of that thing in seconds and jogging into transition. Not too many bikes left in my rack.

I kept my transition simple, But everything had to come out of my transition bag. Wipe feet with towel, put on socks, put on cycling shoes. Grab helmet, everything in helmet into tri-shirt pockets, two Gus and my bonk breaker bits, etc. Race belt on. Helmet on. Grab bike and go..

Bike (4:00:51):

At the mount point I got on my bike as carefully as possible. I had to take off on my aero bars which was a little wobbly and for some reason I had trouble clipping in. Fortunately nobody hit me. I headed up to dam, tried to change down gears and found a problem. The indexing for my bottom two gears was out and they wouldn’t engage at all. Bonus! they worked fine the day before. Sigh, bikes. There’s always something out of your control!

I took it easy down the hill away from the dam. There was plenty of people and it seemed like a good place to have an accident. Fast moving younger age group athletes coming from behind, slower riders ahead. Everyone getting settled.

And so began the bike. For the first hour my plan was to take it pretty easy. I was cruising along ok, working my way past plenty of people but none of them were in my age group. I took it easy on the hills while others got out of the saddle and attacked. I watched my power meter and sipped my bottles.

All the while I was slowly realizing certain things, while other things remained a mystery until it was too late or until after the race. In no particular order:

1. Wind

It was a brutally windy day and the further out on the course we got the more exposed it was. 150-180 watts equaled 8 miles and hour. Sometimes it was like climbing a hill for 5 miles, or 10 miles. Sometimes downhill peddling got me 14 miles an hour and being sand blasted from the side in a cruel wind tunnel. Sometimes it was gusts that made me fear of being picked up and slammed into the pavement, and I didn’t want to do that again! Or gusts that would take away my speed and I’d have to accelerate back up again. And sometimes, seemingly so rarely, it was downwind and I felt too drained from the upwind effort to take enough advantage of it to make up for the slow upwind trip.

It was frustrating.  I consoled myself noticed nobody around seemed like they were  doing much better, but it didn’t matter if everyone was suffering too, time was drifting away from my goal and I wasn’t making any progress on my age group.

My lack of experience riding in wind was obviously going to cost me.

2. Power

The second thing was my power meter and gear selection. This was my first time riding outside with a power meter and the results were actually pretty surprising. And surprising is never a good idea in a race. With the bike crash it was my first time back on the bike and I knew that would be an issue. Still, better to ride with it I thought, get the data recorded and use it as a learning experience.

In the end, I don’t know. Not that I think it wont be useful going forward, indispensable even, but for this race I got some confusing messages that didn’t really help. Where it was good was the hills, until of course I couldn’t change gears down and further, and I had to stay on my aero bars because of my arm. Then my cadence went south and my power spiked. There was no choice, it was that or walk. But mostly I moderated my output into the wind and hills with the meter.

Where it was a problem was that I’d see my watts were low, 110-120, change gear and try to pick up my speed. The moment I did this my power would spike over 230-250. For most of the race I would do that, freak out at the high instantaneous power, and back down a gear again. Back to low watts and low speed. “If you have a choice between two gears pick the lower one,” was the voice of my bike coach guy in my head. I wondered about that as a peddled along, perhaps my gear ratios were the problem. Then one time I tried it, 50 miles in, waited, spun my legs up in the bigger gear and then saw the power drop back down to 150. Maybe that would have been useful earlier on! Oh well, races are a good place to learn new tricks, right? In the end I gave up plenty of time simply by listening to the meter instead of my own body.

3. Position

Thirdly, as a said, the only way I could ride a bike one armed was to be on my aero bars the whole time. Every moment be it up a hill, into the wind, or even if I just wanted a moment in a slightly different position. Always on the bars. I slowly realized that I just don’t ride enough on my bars to be able to do it for 3 turning into 4 hours of riding. I was beginning to get sore all over, and it as slowly occurring to me that I don’t have as much power in that position as I rarely ride like that in class. My hips were starting to give out too, so a problem was my power assumptions weren’t based on the same position. Who actually knows what my threshold would be on my bike. I never tested myself like that, but thanks to the accident I was riding like that. Clearly that wasn’t working out too well. I rode my the power I wanted for the first hour and then after than it collapsed. That could either mean that my endurance wasn’t there, or my power pacing was too high.

4. Flat tire, again!

I only know that one after the fact. When I picked up my bike, following my run, my front wheel was flat. Yep, I rode a soft front tire for who knows how long. Not dead flat, but soft enough to push your thumb right into it. Even if I’d known I wouldn’t have been able to change it one handed, but who knows what that did to my ride. Nothing good I suspect.

–

It seems like all that was probably a bad experience. In fact it was pretty fun out there. We love Boise and the reality was, above silly watts and flat tires and broken arms, that it’s been my dream for years to do this race, 6 months of training and I was finally out there doing it. I didn’t doubt during the bike that I’d finish, not once. I watched birds of prey fly over fields, the deep dark green of the snake river’s valley farms, the sprinklers, the sun, the big sky. The place has beauty of its own. I also love riding fast, even if it’s not fast like all the athletes ahead of me. Blowing through town, through the red lights, through wide closed off streets, people cheering. It’s a blast.

–

For nutrition I worked my way through my three bottles of carbopro mixed with nuun perfectly. Each hour I’d stop and fill my aero bottle and eat since I wasn’t going to take any chances while moving with one arm. Hour 1 and 2 I ate half a bonk breaker, and on the third hour I took a very warm roctane gu. Then I grabbed Gatorade from an aid station for extra fluid and put it in my aero bottle for the rest of the trip back to town since I was so far into overtime I’d run out if supplies. In a way when I think what went the best in the race, I think following my race plan nutrition.

–

Finally the 56 miles came to and end in the middle of downtown Boise. I unclipped way out from the dismount to make sure I could, pulled up and got off without even falling down.

T2 (3:45):

Transition number 2 had its own problems. When I wonder if I rode hard enough in the bike I think of this transition. My legs were not pleased to be walking. Volunteers directed me down a row of racks almost to the run start. Another volunteer grabbed my bike from me and racked it for me and asked me if I needed anything off it.

Near me another athlete was having a quick conversation with his family. Wind was the topic of the day. Another guy near me joined in with “I can’t feel my legs!”

The slowest thing about this transition was just getting myself to my rack spot. After that it was swap shoes, helmet off and hat on. I grabbed 3 Gus and headed for the exit.

Run (2:20:58):

My plan was to run between each mile marker and walk 30 seconds while I worked on my bottle. At transition I’d made the call to leave the bottle behind. It was hot from sitting in the sun all afternoon, had leaked into the transition bag, and I just felt like I didn’t need something else to hold onto after 4 hours holding onto an aerobar with my right hand.

My legs felt like lead weights as I headed out onto the run course, as I expected they would, but they loosened up over the first couple of miles. Initially the idea of running 13 miles seemed pretty unimaginable so I just started to think about running to each aid station. I gave up my mile marker walk plan within a couple of miles too and instead concentrated on the aid stations. Each aid station I grabbed a sponge to cool off (it was hot out and I was getting overheated between stations), then grabbed a cup of water and a cup of Gatorade. Before exiting the aid station last drop zone I made sure to finish both.

I was actually running pretty well I thought, but the aid stations got harder as I went. The two cups were getting harder to get down, so in that sense I got slower mostly from that. It became a balance between dehydration, and getting a stomach cramp from drinking, and time in each aid station. I didn’t really know what might happen if I stated to blow off the drinking and eating so I started to actually stop at the aid stations until I drank what I could. I think in the end that was the right thing to do.

Around mile 10 I started to feel some cramping in my left quad, which started to make my left knee hurt a little. A couple of miles later my right quad was also signaling it was done for the day. Oddly I kept running while a lot of people around me were now walking. Destroyed quads was the common theme out there after the windy bike ride.

On and off through most of the run I’d been behind the same woman. We’d go through aid stations at different rates but somehow I ended up right behind her again. I thought of passing her, but wasn’t sure I’d be much faster anyway. Perhaps that was a mistake, she was like the easy pacing option, but she wasn’t exactly moving fast. The last mile we chatted for a bit. She was from orange county and said she’d started to fade.

I pulled ahead of her and headed for the finish. By that point I was just glad to be done. About 50 yards from the finish the orange county woman ran by sprinting for the finish. I picked up speed and caught her by the line. I think I heard my name called but it was a big blur.

Across the line a volunteer grabbed me to make sure I was ok. I really was, apart from my quads and my arm I was totally fine. He pulled off my timing chip and I was done.

Conclusion

In the end I had a pretty good time. There’s no doubt that WTC puts on an amazing race, they do everything they can to make sure it’s a good experience. Physically was a long tough day, but once I made it through the swim I wasn’t in any doubt I’d make it.

I’m still a little sad about the bike split, but if I’d gone harder then I don’t know what would have happened later. Maybe I should gone harder to find out, but It’s easy to try and guess afterwards of course and I’ve yet to look at my power data. I tried to pace the bike at the time, but in the end I neither caught much of my age group, nor ran very fast off the bike. To figure out exactly why that was and what to do about it will clearly take a lot more contemplation, followed by much more work on the bike.

Going forward we’re away camping and hiking for three weeks and my legs have mostly recovered and my arm seems to getting better. After that we hope to do more biking, perhaps a fall century and return to Bizz Johnson for a half marathon. I’d like to do another Half Ironman race, maybe even later in the summer, but we’ll have to see.

Race reports, Triathlon Boise, Half Ironman, race, Triathlon, Wind

A slightly late recap of week 3 of my 4 week build phase. The total hours are a little down partly because of the missed pool swim and partly because I’ve changed accounting of my ride time. I now only count time moving, which on Saturday was actually 25 min or so less than time we were out on our bikes.

Swim: 1hr 56 min

Three swims this week. I think overall my mood was discouraged with swimming.

Monday and Wednesday I did my pool swims as scheduled. Monday’s main set was 4x200yds which I thought went well. Between 3:40 and 3:50 for each of the 200s. I was actually kind of excited about that pace. On Wednesday I came back down to earth with a 2700 yard session at the Oakland YMCA crammed in before I had to be at Kelly’s school for an event. This time my 200 meter swims were at more like 2:00/100 yards, though mixed into a lot more yards. My endurance felt better than the previous couple of week, but obviously it effects my pace quite a bit.

I felt by Friday like it was too late to get faster so I bailed on my so-called quality set. Instead I went open water swimming on the weekend for the first time this year. It felt suddenly great to be out swimming. No chlorine. No black line. No locker room full of fat ugly naked people. It’s like trail running after running on the treadmill all year. Plus, wetsuit buoyancy is always fun. I think this will be the pattern from now on, open water experience will be more useful to me than a third pool workout.

Bike: 6hrs 13min

Another two M2 sessions on Tuesday and Thursday. At Tuesday’s class there was hardly anyone there as the class was riding to Santa Cruz for the tour of California stage finish. On Thursday they all turned up smashed for racing 120 miles with 3 trips to skyline and back to coast, or something like that. It was all super grande burritos this and tacos that. Um, what? Anyway, it serves them right. Maybe next year!!

Our weekend didn’t lend itself very well to a biking. Three birthday parties to take our daughter to! However at 3pm on Saturday we dropped her off at a party and set out towards Davis hoping for a little central valley flat and fast. Patty was pleading for a break from the hills, and I was trying to get a little race specific. As we got out that way the sky filled with dark thunderstorms and the wind started to blow.

It could be like that in Boise. Maybe it would be good experience. Or maybe we’d be hit by lightning or blown off our bikes into the path of a truck. Or maybe we’d just be plowing into wind and rain for hours. We bailed on mental toughness and turned and headed back towards home. Our ride was around the Three Bears loop again. We made about 42 miles or so out of it, with lots of climbing.

This ride was a little discouraging. I felt slow over the hills, as usual, but quick on the flats and rolling terrain. On the hills I worked hard to get up each climb only to look back and see Patty 40 meters back. Three months of bike training over her and I’m just 40 meters ahead of her? On top of that my GPS data would suggest that on the flats I wasn’t exactly going too fast either. I should be able to sit in at 18+ miles/hr given the watts I do these days in class, but instead I average more like 15-16 miles/hr. Perhaps the fatigue runs deep and a taper and race excitement will do me some good.

I’m contemplating getting a Powertap. That would answer a lot of questions. And REI has 20% off right now. There’s only one reason not to get one: money.

Run: 1 hour 55 min

While I’m still not running that much we hit the trails twice this week and loved it. It was great to run in some beautiful places again. The first run was an evening one out in the water district near Moraga, slotted in before an LMJS Race Committee meeting. It was mostly just the horses, the wood peckers, the bunnies, the turkey vultures and us. Running over hills seemed hard but I also felt strangely strong. It was a good run.

On Sunday, again following the theme of squeezing in workouts where they will fit, we dropped Kelly at the third of her parties and went running in Tilden Regional Park until it was time to pick her up. I felt like I wanted to run for hours, but I also felt tired from the bike ride the day before. Not so much that it really got in the way of running, but still it took the edge off the fun. Patty declared that she hated to run after biking and that she wasn’t cut out to be a triathlete. She does seem to have taken a general liking to biking however and we’re hoping to do a century this summer.

Nutritional experiments

I’ve also been experimenting with what to drink/eat on the bike for the race. It’s still a work in progress but I tried just carbo-pro in water (3 scoops) and while it has a slight flour-like taste to it, it’s still easy to drink and I didn’t get sick of it like the Gatorade. This week I’m going to mix in some Nuun for flavor and electrolytes, and if that is vaguely successful then at this point I’ll go with that mixed with pieces of bonk breaker. Unfortunately that leaves me a little short of sodium especially if it’s hot and I have no heat training at all. I tried adding salt directly to the drink mix but the taste took a big dive in the direction of sea water, so I don’t think that’s a good option unless it can be covered up with more flavor.

For the run I’m going to do what I always do, do the Gu. I might up my planned intake to every 3 miles instead of every 45 min. Then I’ll take liquid at the aid stations. Actually I really haven’t decided that, I might run with a bottle.

Anyway, that’s it. In just over two weeks I’ll be loaded up and driving to Boise!

Biking, Running, Swimming, Triathlon