Each year at this time, my door is covered with racing bibs, documenting my competitive efforts since the previous Thanksgiving.
I’m quite fastidious in my record keeping. These races represent a total of 55 hours of focused, high intensity effort, out of over 700 hours of training/exercise/working out for the year. Thirteen hours of preparation for every hour of racing. Of course, neither the 55 nor the 703 include all the *other* preparation time. Driving, to a swimming pool, or bike ride, or a race venue. Putting on and taking off clothes. Packing for training trips, or racing trips. Washing clothes every week. Putting clothes away every week. Documenting the time in my log; reading and planing for my next week’s or next day’s training session. Reading online, or in magazines or books about swimming, biking, running, nutrition, resting – resting is very important to the athlete. No one ever gets stronger or faster *while* exercising – it’s only when *not* exercising (recovery, recuperation) that one improves.
So this door represents a big part of my life over the past year. I’ve been putting the bibs up on the door for ten years now. I started running Jan 1, 1999, and am still going, even stronger now, ten years on. Usually, I just unceremoniously take all the numbers off and start a new batch about this time of year, and file them together with a paper clip in a magazine rack here in my room. But this year, I’m hesitating. I want to remember a bit more, as I think I’m finally getting somewhere with all this work – finally *beginning* to see what the limits of my potential are, although I don’t think I’m there yet.
Maybe a quick review of all these races would teach me something, or at least let others know what it’s all about. The top of the door is reserved for the most important races of the year. I usually mentally reserve space for 2-4 “A” races up there, with 2-4 pictures of me racing or finishing, which I slowly change over time. Right now, the pictures include my two Ironman finishes from this year, my finish from the Pacific Northwest Regional Championships at the Olympic distance (which I won), and my race at Maui in Oct 2006, completing the Hawaiian Double of Hawaii Ironman World Championships and Xterra World Championship. Since that was a miserable race for me, I’m not sure why I’ve left it up, maybe just for nostalgia over being there.
Below the A races are the B and C races. B races are ones I maybe have 2 or 3 days of reduced effort before, and then try my best. C races are ones that might as well be another training day. I don’t do any special preparation, and don’t expect much from them. This year, I had three general goals: try to set a personal record in a 5K running race; get serious about going faster on the bike in my triathlons; and improve my Ironman performance at Coeur d’Alene and Arizona. What’s amazing about this year, is that, for once, I exceeded all my goals.
First part of the season: running and bike preparation. I did the Gig Harbor Turkey Trot (on Thanksgiving) with Cheryl, and got 20:25. New Year’s day, did the Resolution Run series 5K in 20:12. Then two weeks later, did a little flat 5K in Kent, in 20:07. That might be the fastest I’ll ever go. Two weeks later, the Res. Run 10K: not so good in 42:42. I felt flat. I think I was past my running peak. Ski season ( no bibs), and Big Island training camp (riding on the Ironman course, and swimming in Anaeho’omalu Bay) took up February and March.
April sees the first multi-sport race of the season here in the Northwest: Mt. Rainier Duathlon. This was to be my first test of the new bike ethic – GO FASTER. I did, and found I could build my effort from start to finish, and could run well after such an increased effort. Great confidence going forward. The following week, the Tacoma City 1/2 Marathon. This race further increased my confidence, as I built my effort perfectly. There is a guy in my age group (he’s actually 3 or 4 years younger) who is strictly a runner. We’re probably about the same speed; I’d beat him once or twice before, and he’d finished ahead of me more often. I only enter running races sporadically, and really don’t focus on other competitors. But this time, I marked him at the start of the race, and saw him taking off a bit ahead of me. I went at the pace which felt right for me that day, and he started to gain maybe 10-15 seconds a mile over the first half, which featured some gradual uphill – I’m much better going down then up, compared to other runners. I mentally discarded any notion of trying to beat him, and ran my own pace. About half way through, we do a turn around, and get to see where we are relative to others. I was behind him by maybe 45 seconds. I could see him ahead of me for the next 5 miles, and saw I was gradually getting closer. I caught him just before a little uphill (an overpass, really), where I slowed down – maintained the same effort level, and thus ran slower. He, like most Northwest runners, tried harder on the hill, to maintain a constant speed. He pulled ahead by about 5 yards. On the downhill, I caught him, and never looked back. With about 2 miles to go, I just motored into the land of oxygen debt – went to the First National Bank of Anaerobia, and zoomed by all the faltering finishers. Each time I finish a run hard like this, I begin to believe more in my ability to do it. Great way to go into the mid season – building to my first Ironman.
My tune up race was the PNW region champs. This is an odd course. The bike course is a straight out and back – out uphill and into the wind, back going down with the wind. I went out in 40 minutes, and came back in 25. This was my first swim of the year, and I went 24:35, which is two minutes faster then I’ve ever done before. I figured that was just a short course. I won my AG, and of course qualified for the National Champs, which would be in Portland in Sept. Hmm, maybe I’ll try that one too?
Two weeks later, on to Coeur d’Alene for my sixth time at the Ironman course there. The swim was COLD – 57F. My time was SLOW – 1 hr, 12 min, Cause/effect? I don’t know. The bike course changed last year, going from pretty easy to fairly hard. I brought my time down 19 minutes, and felt pretty strong at the end, and going into the run. Then the run. My run times (this is a marathon, remember, after swimming 2.4 miles and biking 112), have been dropping the last 5 IMs I’ve done: 4:48, 4:38; 4:22; 4:15. I’ve been suspecting I’d reached my limit. Again, I’d let a competitor in my age group go on ahead on the bike, holding the pace I thought I should have, not trying to race within the race. At the final turn around on the run (like, 6 hours since he’d gone by me), I saw I was gaining a bit of ground on him. At mile 23, I started running in tandem with a younger guy, who wanted to pace off of me. Every five minutes or so, we would remind each other our current pace, and encourage the other to finish as best we could. Rounding a corner about mile 24.5, I came on this guy who’d passed me. He was running, but slowly, like he had cramps in his calves. I turned to look at his number (the bibs are in the front on the run), and sure enough, he was in my age group. We came up to the last aid station. We’d been walking for about 20-30 seconds thru each one, but here I said, “There’s somebody in my age group back there, so I’m going to have to kill myself from here until the end.” My running buddy said “Go for it!” As I pulled away, he added, “When I grow up, I want to be like you, Al!”
Once again, I spent every last nickel I’d stored up in the Anaerobic Bank. I sprinted home, and came in at 11 hours, 29 minutes – a new Personal Record by 12 minutes. The run? 4:05:xx. I had no idea I could run that fast in an Ironman – it was jaw-dropping to me, and a little scary. But fun. Two years earlier, on a much hotter day on the same course, I’d passed an AG competitor at mile 22.5, who was laboring. Turns out, he was LEADING our AG at the time, and I’d moved into 1st place! At the awards ceremony, he told me he stopped and went to sleep at mile 23, getting up 30 minutes later to finish. Went from 1st to 5th, and missed Kona by one place. My joy this year was tempered by a similar feeling. Although I had exceeded my personal expectations, I had finished 3rd – one spot out of a Kona slot.
So, I’m beginning to see a pattern here, not one that I really believe in, but have to acknowledge nonetheless. I am able to pace myself in these long, long races, so that I have sufficient reserves at the end to catch and pass my peers in age and ability. Like I said, it’s a little scary, because, having never thought of myself as a runner, I’m not quite sure why I can do this, or if I’ll be able to pull it off every time. One thing I’ve learned about racing: the more successful I am, the higher I set my standards, and thus the more suspicious I am that I’m pushing past my limits. Haven’t found them yet, though. Finishing like this threatens to make me greedy – go harder on the bike and the beginning of the run, and assume I’ll still be able to finish just as strong. There is a limit to that strategy, and you never know where it is until after you pass it – until the moment when you BLOW UP at the end of the race, like the guys I’m passing. Next year, I intend to find out just where that limit is, without actually breaking down.
I’m going to save the second half of the year for my next entry. But before I quit this evening, I’m going to try and describe just what it feels like to be running into the red zone at the end of a race. I suspect if you’ve never participated in a competitive endurance event – if you’ve never tried to go as fast as you can for an extended period of time, like more than half an hour, you might not really get this, but I’ll try anyway.
What we’re talking about is running yourself to exhaustion. There is a speed/effort level for each person, which they are able to hold for 20-60 minutes, at which point, their body will stop working. This level has lots of names in exercise physiology: anaerobic threshold, lactate threshold, V02 max, etc. Think of going on an easy 2 hour bike ride, or a very brisk 20 minute walk. That’s what is feels like at the start. At this point, I’m usually taking 6 steps for every breath. Gradually, I recognize that I’m working kind of hard, and my breathing shifts to once every 4 steps. At some point, I make a commitment to supreme effort, and breath once every two steps. After years of repetition, I’ve learned just what effort level I can hold for just what length of time.
The difference between racing and training is this: that effort level at the end, the one I can hold for maybe ten minutes – when I’m training, I will run at that level maybe 4-8 times for 6-7 minutes, with 2 minutes walking/jogging in between. I’ll do that after a 20-30 minute warm up, with no other real work that day. In a race, I’ll do that effort level for 10-12 minutes, with no rest or slowing down, at the end of not a warm up but a slowly building intensity level. It takes a leap of faith, a supreme trust in the value of the training I’ve down, to convince myself that I can do that work.
Here’s what it feels like. To begin with, there are nasty messages coming into my brain from my legs, saying there is soreness, incipient cramping, blister formation, heavy sludge in the thighs – anything to try and convince the motor cortex to just SHUT DOWN, for crying out loud. The trick, of course, is to ignore those messages. They have NO VALUE in helping me go faster. The best way to ignore them is – get this! – to run HARDER! If I’m working harder, my brain decides it’s more important to BREATH than almost anything else, so, as long as I don’t go so hard I stop breathing, everything else begins to fade from my brain. I’m serious. Not only do I not notice what’s happening to my legs and toes, but I also stop hearing things and noticing individual faces around me. Talking, or rational thought – that stopped long ago. To work myself into that state of being, I have to have one of two things going on, preferably both. Either I’m just plain MAD at something, like a person behind me who might be gaining, or in front of me whom I should be catching. Or, I have a supreme, seemingly unreachable goal tantalizingly in my grasp, like a time I want to get, or a level of success I want to achieve (set a record, qualify to go to World Championship, win the race, etc.) I have to convince myself that my self esteem depends on beating that person, or that time, or getting the win, or getting to the World Championship. Or whatever.
So that’s why I put those bibs on my door – to remind myself of how important this stuff is to me, because, in any rational scheme of things, what I’m doing on the race course is of NO importance. I’m in this to find out who I am, to find out just where the upper limit of what I am capable of is. And thank God, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. When I stop doing this, you’ll know I think I found it.