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Three years later at college, I joined the Freshman swim team. The coach, John Edgar, was actually the head of the football team. He sent aspiring team members a mimeographed set of exercises in September, urging us to consider going on our own (organized team practices were forbidden by the NCAA until Nov.1) into the weight room and started pumping iron.
So Fall and Spring, I would spend 20-30 minutes or so in the cramped quarters under the eaves of the field house. My roommate, Rich, joined me. Rich was squat, about 5’8”, weighed 200-220 pounds, more fat than muscle. But he didn’t want to be that way. Slowly, we both started struggling with the bars and plates, aiming towards different goals: I wanted to get bigger; he, smaller.
Those first two years, I gained no weight, only definition. I had hopes of looking like a half-back, but should have learned then than I was no mesomorph. Instead of my father’s bulky build, I had my mother’s sleek physique, more geared to running around brick walls rather than through them. Rich, however, managed to get his weight down to 150-160 lbs. In addition to all the weight work, he radically reduced his food intake, at one point eating only four meals a week for months on end. It didn’t seem to affect his brain development one bit; we went on to become a successful internist in Fairfield, CT.
Throughout my twenties, I had the good luck to first learn, than train for a medical career at the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center. This sprawling complex, with multiple separate hospitals, was so large it required its own precinct of the LA County Sheriff. In order to keep their officers fit, they had requisitioned and installed a state-of-the-art weight room, filled with free weights and machines set on padded floors, lined by mirrors. It was on the first floor of the “Interns’ Dorm”, easily accessible in the center of campus.
My whole time going there, I never saw a deputy, except for Sid, who was ensconced as the facility manager. Sid had suffered an on-the-job injury to his hip and lower back. But he didn’t want to leave the force, so he was assigned to keep the place running for the benefit of all those other officers who were supposed to be keeping themselves in shape.
Sid was a perfect amalgam of hardened law officer and dedicated power lifter. Probably in his late forties, he had that unshakable self-assurance that comes after forty years of not only carrying a gun everywhere, but also seeing generations of soft medical students and resident physicians come and go, trying to build themselves up through weight training. He believed that pumping iron was the solution to any physical ailment. Cold got you sniffling? Do a few reps. Aching lower back from 24 hours on call? Skip rope 100 times. Can’t get a date? Try some bench presses. He knew every exercise, and, because he’d had to adjust to his cranky back and core, he knew just the proper technique to both get the most benefit and the least risk out of every one of them.
He was full of gym lore and aphorisms. “Always do your cardio before your weights.” “Work your legs on Monday, your back and abs on Tuesday, your upper on Wednesday, repeat on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. rest on Sunday.” “Spot with your legs, not your back.” Lunch time in the gym was story time for me and a few other doctors-to-be as we soaked up Sid’s take on things.
After eight years at LAC-USC MC, I took the winter off to go skiing at Snowbird, outside of Salt Lake City while my wife-to-be, Cheryl, learned midwifery at the University of Utah. We bought a house in the Avenues, just above downtown, and every day (making sure to take a day off every week!) I drove my VW camper van 45 minutes to the slopes, skiing the deep and steep. While this was great for my legs and lungs, I felt a little puny in my arms and shoulders.
Across the street from us lived Cheryl’s classmate, Lynn Sibley, with her one-year old, Gabe. Her husband, Paul, a part-time carpenter and full time mountain climber, was anchored back in Boulder, but spent a fair amount of time in SLC. So much, that one day, he drove his truck up, loaded with boxes in the flat bed.
“I thought I was spending so much time here, I should bring some of my stuff. And this summer, maybe I’ll try some routes up the canyons, so I’ve some climbing equipment in here.” He was hoping to get some help moving in.
“You said you needed some upper body work, Al. This would be just what you need!” he said through a Tom Sawyer-esque grin.
On to the Pacific Northwest, where it can ran almost anytime, almost any month of the year. Or at least that’s what the salesman said to Cheryl and I as we were touring the “Health Club” down the street from our temporary apartment in Federal Way.
“So the indoor track gets used quite a lot,” he went on. But we were more interested in the 25 yard six lane pool (another habit of ours) and fully equipped weight room. There, gleaming machines from Nautilus almost overshadowed the bars and plates where the grunters and squatters flexed and groaned. The age of yuppie body sculpting had begun.
Thus began a series of gyms on either side of the Narrows Bridge. Each had its own accessories, ranging across tennis courts, sauna, hot tub, pools of various lengths between 15 yds and 25 meters, but each and every one had a weight room. No matter what sport was attracting my attention, I used the iron and pulleys to prepare and maintain my meagre frame for the rigors involved. Backpacking, skiing, mountain biking, swimming, running, triathlon … they all required, in the end, some measure of musclular strength.
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Christmas, 1961. Looking back, I’m wondering if my parents thought I might turn into an effete intellectual. Age 12, I was a poster child for pre-pubescent awkwardness. Baby fat pudgy cheeks hiding any facial definition, lips too large for my mouth, muscles still hidden and soft, topped by those clear-bottomed plastic spectacle frames for my severe myopia. I was book-smart, a heavy reader, smart-alecky clever, but seemingly uninterested in more manly pursuits.
Previous gifts had included football pads and helmet, an outdoor regulation (10 foot high) basketball hoop, baseball catcher’s gear (shin guards, mask, glove and chest protector), as well as the infamous transistor radio which at least got me to join the swim team. My dad had been a triple-letterman at the Naval Academy, after his Rough-Rider upbringing in the outback desolation of eastern Montana’s range country. But in the eighth grade, a year younger than my classmates, I was not attracted to any of the traditional team sports. Swimming, yes, and the debate team, but otherwise, I was in grave danger of falling into the vortex of the pointy-headed thinkers who made up the majority of my college-prep six year high school.
I still lacked any independent drive towards a singular life, maybe the last time I would be pliable to direction from my parents. The next-to-last present I opened revealed an air-driven pellet gun. Several yanks on the lever to build up internal pressure, load in small leaden cylinders, and this pistol-shaped cousin of the BB gun would fire at a target or small mammal without much fear of harming a human.
I had in my small collection of trinkets an award from my Iowa farm-girl mother, given by the NRA for her prowess as a “Sharpshooter – Prone Position”. Naturally competitive, I took that as a license to at least try out the gun, and see if I had an eye for it.
“Why don’t you take that downstairs, and set up the target where there’s more room,” my father instructed. I was still trying to figure out the priming and loading procedures as he waved a batch of paper bull’s-eyes at me. So down we went, through the kitchen and dinette, down the stairs, and turned right into the Rec room my father had been constructing.
The floor consisted of twelve-inch vinyl tiles, inlaid with not only a life-sized checkerboard in the middle, but also shuffle-board triangles at each end. Propped against the unused fireplace on the far wall were the still-to be assembled pieces for my father’s dream – a home-made pool table. We took a few of the stanchions meant to hold the felt-covered rolling surface, laid a 4’ x 4’ plywood flat across them, and propped the first target against some old books.
In the midst of all this activity, I stumbled across my final present. On the floor was a pile of black discs of varying size, one long rod and two smaller ones, and a book by Joe Weider, describing how to use these “barbells” and “dumbbells”.
Weider, though I did not know it, was probably more influential than Charles Atlas, the guy who graced the inside back covers of comic books, in creating our modern culture of body-building. Weight lifting at that time was still a niche sport, practiced by a few eccentrics who were most interested in how they looked, not how strong they were. Weider’s book tried to inculcate weight-lifting as a means to over-all health, not just out-sized muscles. He and his brother sponsored “Mr. Canada” contests as early as 1946, culminating in Mr. Olympia by 1965, fueling the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a result).
But in 1961, I knew nothing of either this past or future. I played with the airgun for a few weeks, but I never took it outside to shoot at squirrels or rabbits or graduated to heavier firearms. The weights, however, must have appealed to something deep within. The set totaled 100 pounds, and required slipping the weights on and off the various bars, then securing them with a collar and wrench. But I faithfully worked myself on simple exercises like curls and standing presses, until I joined the high school swim team as a sophomore. Our coach, Whitey Davis, thought weight-lifting would make us muscle-bound, and forbade it. Since it was hard work anyway, I was glad for the excuse to quit.
The ’62 Dodge Lancer was red, the color of a sports car, with a thin strip of white beneath the side windows. A single line from roof to rear bumper (no stolid trunk for this car) signified speed, and like a sports car, it had bucket seats. These were not entirely new to me, as my father had come home earlier that year with a Buick LeSabre station wagon, also sporting individual front seats. Apparently, the start of the ‘60s meant even suburban families with station wagons, meant for hauling groceries and groups of kids to baseball practice and Christmas festivals, could indulge in the fantasy they weren’t really tethered to a boring life, but could live in a dream of speed and European sophistication.
This red Dodge Lancer was bought new, from a dealer miles away, and was ready for delivery the night of parent-teacher conferences, just before Halloween. Somehow, I had convinced my parents to bring me along to pick up the car, and I waited for hours it seemed, parked out on the street, playing with the radio, while they heard whatever nostrums my teachers chose to share about my wisdom, intelligence, and general readiness for academic success.
I rubbed the faux leather vinyl, also red, smooth and supple. I marveled at the small space between the seats, completely empty, carpeted in red above the drive train. Instantly, I knew what my project in Shop would be.
Eighth grade, all the boys took shop, the girls, Home Ec. One girl in homeroom, Shelby Cooper, somehow ended up in shop – her name, inherited from a Kentucky uncle, must have seemed male-ish to the administrative secretary who made up the “elective” class lists. Now, we think nothing of the on-going appropriation of boys’ names for girls: Madison, Alex, Aubrey, Avery, Ryan, Robin, Jesse, Jordan, Stacy, Leslie; and now, there is no segregation into Shop and Home Ec. Shelby, bless her, was not flustered at all. She went to the shop class as instructed, and seemed miffed when Mr. Raterman, very flustered and embarrassed – an odd affect for the junior high football coach – said, “We’ll work this out, uh, Shelby, and get you into Home Economics, where you belong.” Shelby, it seemed, wanted to be the only girl in Shop, and learn the secrets of sawing, gluing, electrical wiring, and whatever else they were hiding from the girls.
I was not yet a feminist, though, and made no effort to stand up for Shelby. All I wanted was fit in with the other males sitting around the hard-edged metal legged tables. I just wanted to produce something a bit more useful than my first project, a brass ashtray, embellished with multiple small symmetrically placed craters, diligently pounded with a mallet and rounded chisel-like punch. I would make a console for the Lancer, an auxiliary glove box, custom-sized and covered with a padded, vinyl lid snugly fitted.
Easy enough to do, out of malleable aluminum. First brush and buff it smooth. Next, cut out four squares, one from each corner, based on precise measurements taken from the space itself. Then, carefully fold the remaining cross into a box. Cut from plywood a perfectly sized lid, and hold the vinyl cover in place with thin strips of wood which precisely slotted over the front, back and sides. Finally, place it into the space, and start filling it with the odds and ends of car travel: Small fuse boxes, little packets of Kleenex, random change, and paper clips.
It would end up being my crowning creation. It was my fate to be the son of an engineer, who was endlessly tinkering and designing practical home-made gadgets for the family. I simply could not compete with that relentless inventive persistence and attention to detail and novelty.
Life-size Tinker-toys made from plywood and wooden rods. A water heater using the discharge from the air conditioner in the basement. A clam-shell folding hamburger patty-maker; this one was extremely clever in its simplicity. Just two squares of wood, 1” by 4”, each with a 3” x 1/4” circle routed out, joined together with two hinges. Roll the ground beef into a ball, prop it into the bottom depression, press together firmly, and out came a neat circular patty, ready for grilling.
And he had a penchant for ingenious folding boxes. One fit into the back of the Buick, designed for camping. Imagine a doll house, but instead of little rooms and furniture, it had shelves and drawers to hold utensils and essential food items. Then, leather hinges and a fold-down front door, which served as a work space after it was placed on the camp site picnic table. It had a sturdy clasping mechanism, which survived an attack by a ravenous brown bear one late summer night in Yellowstone Park.
But the most precious device was the Debate Box he built for his son. When folded up, it looked like a fat wooden attaché case. Oak veneer covered the sides and top. Inside, the bottom compartment had two pullout drawers, separated by an interior wall, for the essential 4×6” cards, each of which held a sourced quote, ready to be used in the rebuttals to counter any conceivable argument the other side could produce. Above those was a shelf for the 8 x 11” papers which held the notes of canned speeches, as well as blank paper for taking notes during the debate.
But the crowning achievement was the top, which hid all the treasures within. The back wall hinged outwards, the front wall folded down, held in place by a screw-on handle, secured to that central interior wall. And, most ingenious, a 1’‘x1/2” strip along the bottom of the front. Carry the thing up to the front of the debate room. Place it confidently on the inevitable desk or table. Spin the handle counter-clockwise. Unfold the front, top, and back, and it turned into a a lectern! Pull out any papers or cards needed, then go to town.
It was in this box that, along the top shelf, that I placed the girls’ timing cards. They seemed more precious than all the notes and arguments; instantly, they became our secret super power.
By this time, I had been driving that Lancer myself for a year. No longer dependent on the bus or my sister to get to school – she was gone to college my senior year – all I had to do was drive my mother to her class or work at the University where she was finishing up her ten-year odyssey to get her Ph.D. in Psychology. I was at last a Cool Kid who could motor where he liked, when he liked. But I really had no where special to go, just swimming practice, then debate practice. I couldn’t figure out how to get to parties, much less to a one-on-one date with a girl.
“There’s a couple of girls who want to come to our next meeting,” Miss Flory announced one night. Our Walnut Hills High School team was in full prep mode. Harriette Flory, English teacher and debate coach, had worked us weekly at her apartment, hoping we could build from our regional championship the past year into a State tournament contender. I was now a senior, having joined the team in eighth grade at the insistence of my parents. I forget what inducement they used, but I discovered it was a great channel for three of my innate characteristics: analysis, argument, and competitive aggression.
During my junior and senior years, I was paired with Bobby Reckman, the BMOC of our public college prep school. Kids from every grade school in Cincinnati took a test in the sixth grade; those in the upper 20% of their school were offered the chance to go to Walnut Hills, where everyone who graduated ended up at some college or other. This made our high school unique in several ways. First, our student body reflected the city as a whole; 20% of the kids from the poorest, or blackest, or richest parts of town were all there. Second, academic achievement and “smarts” were as respected as athletics or social status.
Bobby easily moved among all the categories. He was co-captain of the swimming team. He was President of the student council. He was a National Merit Finalist. And, with me, he was co-captain of the debate team. He knew everyone, and everyone, it seemed, loved him. Me, while I was also a National Merit Finalist, and on the swimming team, I seemed to be drifting somewhere outside the orbit of who’s who at the school. I don’t remember feeling left out, just not a part of it at all.
But I knew where I was going. I was already accepted into Wesleyan University, one of the “Little Three”, as distinct from the “Big Seven” of the Ivy League, in Middletown, CT. I would be studying biology, preparing for medical school. And I would become a psychiatrist.
Bobby, while he also went to a Little Three school (Williams), ended up drifting a bit after that, becoming a carpenter, rather than the law profession he seemed destined for. But during that winter and spring of 1966, our debate duo did the work, researched the topics, and honed our skills, winning every dual meet contest with other public schools, coming in first at the league, then the regional competition, sending us on to Columbus as one of the favorite squads.
Our school paper, The Chatterbox, documented these exploits as closely as if we were playing hoops; we were almost heroes. The paper had assigned one of the girls on the sports staff to cover us. Coming to some of our meets, she found the rapid paced arguments enthralling. She thought that we needed cheerleaders, just like the football and basketball teams. Then, she asked Miss Flory if she could come to one of our practices.
Miss Flory, while a stickler in class, had a very informal attitude with the debate team. She half-smiled as she went on. “Is that OK? They’ve got something they want to ask you.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Let’s see, I think it was Carol Downs and Susie Wise,” she responded.
They were both juniors, so I knew very little about them. I was basically a shy mess when it came to girls at that age. I had been asked out earlier that year to some school event by another junior, Liz Schneider, who was a cheerleader. While I wished I could have made something happen with that – who knew I would be attractive to anyone, much less a cheerleader? – I had such minimal social skills when it came to dealing with girls that all I could do afterwards was pine for her.
Carol and Susie showed up next week. Carol lived in my neighborhood, just up the street from the Episcopal church where I had sung in the choir, and been an acolyte in my early teen years. She had a friendly, but quiet smile, a small mouth, dirty blond straight long hair, and a pronounced but gently rounded chin.
I stood slack-jawed, or maybe my face was totally blank. While I could become quite animated when I got going, I was a very slow starter when it came to anything or anyone new. I don’t remember who spoke first; these two seemed joined at the hip in their little project.
“We noticed you guys have been doing so well at the regional and state meets last year and now. But nobody pays any attention. So we think you need cheerleaders. This is Walnut Hills; we shouldn’t just be paying attention to the football team.”
“So we want to be your cheerleaders.”
“What, like pom-poms and chants? That won’t go over very well during a debate,” Bobby noted, somewhat sardonically. He actually knew Susie pretty well; they lived in the same neighborhood, on back-to-back streets, While Carol and I were in the very aptly named Pleasant Ridge, which was about as white bread and boring a suburb as Cincinnati had, Bobby and Susie lived in Clifton. This was an inner-city enclave near the University, close to the art museum, filled with churches, cemeteries, and forested parks. The upper crust lived there. Bobby’s father was a lawyer, also the Speaker of the Ohio State House (or maybe it was the Senate.) Suave, sophisticated, knowledgeable, he always had a smile for everyone, always knew what to say.
“No, we’ve got another idea. We’ve seen a couple of debates…You guys have to hold up those time cards for each other, when you should be thinking about what you’re going to say next round.” It was true. Each speaker had 10 minutes to first present arguments; then, 5 minutes for rebuttal. Going over the limit incurred a severe penalty from the judges, so instead of just letting the time creep up, we had cards which we flipped over, counting the minutes down by 1, until the final 30 seconds, when another card flashed up.
“We could be your timekeepers,” Susie said. Susie had luxuriant black hair, cut in bangs above her eyes, but flowing down past her shoulders, held back with a paisley headband. Her head seemed a bit large for her body, and she used every bit of that face in her smile. Dark eyes, dark brows, with a voice and diction beyond her years. While Carol still kept a fair amount of little girl in her, Susie seemed so sure of herself.
“We made time cards to use.” She brought them out, fanning from 9 to zero. They were white thick paperboard, numbers hand cut with pinking shears from paisley fabric.
Bobby and I were proud of our appearance on the debate stage. Pressed slacks, white shirts, and ties. Paisley was considered cool and hip that year, so our ties were filled with amoeba-like ovals and assorted squiggles. Carol and Susie had noticed, and made the time cards to match.
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It’s March, 2000. I have just signed up for my first Ironman – first weekend in November, in Florida’s panhandle, Panama City Beach. Ironman – the one in Hawaii – had been going on for a bit over 20 years now, sustained primarily by the TV specials, first on ABC, then NBC. For some reason, viewers were hooked on the tales of suffering and adversity. Sometimes racers collapsed; sometimes they only had use of their arms; sometimes, their lives had been reborn through getting to their dream on the Big Island. The producers packaged these stories, added sultry scenes of palms waving, surf crashing, and heat shimmering from lava-black roads, and sold a lifestyle which spawned other races, in Penticton, Canada; Taupo, New Zealand; Roth, Germany; and Sonoma, California, feeding the race in Kona with an endless stream of endurance junkies. “The World’s Hardest One-Day Sports Event”, and anyone can come, once they qualified.
My own dreams weren’t yet formed. I could barely envision running 26.2 miles, much less fast enough to get a ticket to the Big Dance. But my triathlon life had quickly taken on an inescapable momentum, pulling me relentlessly towards a yet-to-be revealed goal. For now, I just wanted to see what was possible.
The next step apparently involved getting a real triathlon bike. Initially, I had just attached aerobars to my only road bike, a touring model designed for carrying panniers on multi-day trips, and commuting daily in any weather. Slots for fenders, mountain-bike-style brakes, steel frame. Certainly not built for speed. I heard that Quintana Roo, the company which had first developed the triathlon wetsuit and then created the frame geometry specific for a time-trial bike to be used in triathlon, was coming to Bellevue, Washington to custom-fit bikes for Seattle-area athletes. I made an appointment, and six weeks later, I had a titanium TT bike with all the latest components; it even had couplers inserted into the top and down tubes, allowing it to be transported, broken down, into a 26” aluminum suitcase to avoid airline fees.
That June, I did my first half ironman races, finishing third at the Pacific Crest in Bend, OR, and the next week, first at a small local race near Montesano, WA. I spent the summer doing longer and longer bike rides and runs. I completed the RAMROD (Ride Around Mt. Rainier in One Day, 154 miles and 10,000’ of climbing.) I arrived in Panama City ready to roll. The swim was two loops in the Gulf; the second loop, I found myself on the feet of a female pro (we all started at the same time back then), and let her pull me the final mile to a 1:06 split. Out on the bike course, I had a flat tire about half-way through, but still managed a 5:45 split for the 112 miles. I had no heart rate monitor, much less a power meter, and certainly no idea about how much I should eat or drink during the ride. And pacing – the very concept was opaque to me. It was just, “Work as hard as you can, for as long as you can, and hope for the best.”
The run was pancake-flat along the Gulf shore, two loops of 13.1 miles each. I started to feel sore in my hips by about mile 11; I hoped that the coming night with its cooler temperature, and a second trip around the course would revive me. I increasingly gave in to the urge to walk, and finished the marathon after about 5 and a third hours. A bit humiliating, but edifying.
Results back then were posted the next morning, on paper, not online. It took some doing, but I found I had finished about 15th out of 150 or so in my age-group. Respectable, but not elite. Over the next few weeks, I pondered the race, and realised that if I went a bit easier on the bike leg, I might be able to run the whole way. That became my goal for May, 2001, at Ironman California.
The race, was its second and final edition; 9/11 bollixed the idea of letting 2000 triathletes from all over the world ride around the Marine base of Camp Pendleton just north of Oceanside, CA. Since my sister lived a half hour away, and her photo store was about five minutes from race central, I had the luxury not only of showing up 12 days before, but also sleeping in a familiar bed, then driving to the venue early Sunday morning. A cold swim in the harbor, running to our bikes past rows of tanks, then leaving the base to run down the strand and back. I went 20 minutes slower cycling, and 55 minutes faster on the marathon. Mission accomplished. I watched the award ceremony, and discovered that 5th place in my age group was nearly an hour faster. But at 13th out of 68, with the run now mastered, I felt it was just a matter of improving my fitness slowly over the next few years, and I would be knocking on the door to Kona.
I began thinking of a five year plan; each year, knock off another 10 minutes or so. Just a logical progression – keep training every day, get stronger, fitter, and faster. After spending four years in college, another four in medical school and then four more in residency, the idea of taking things one step at a time was ingrained; success would come with persistence, I assumed.
But it wouldn’t be so easy. Despite proving that taking it little easier on the bike allowed a much faster run, it would be another three years before that lesson sank in and I was able to run the whole way again at the end of an Ironman.
Canada, August 2001. Pretty much a repeat of Florida: 1:06, 5:45, then walk home to a 12:20 finish. I began to think that maybe upping my run game might help. So I entered my first running race, the Seattle half-marathon right after Thanksgiving 2001.
Twenty Years, thirty-seven races…it’s time for a look back at my experience with racing the 140.3 distance triathlon.
WHY DID I START?
It all began in the Spring of 1979. Or maybe in the summer of 1956, I’m not sure. When I was 7, the Cincinnati Reds had a powerhouse team, featuring Frank Robinson, who would become the Rookie of the Year and Ted Kluzewski, who had hit 49 homers in 1949. Girded by Gus Bell, the patriarch of 3 generations of Bells who played MLB, Wally Post, and Ed Bailey, they would set a record with 221 homes runs that season. Sports Illustrated, just a few years old then, featured them on the cover, grinning in their sleeveless uniforms, menacingly aiming their bats skyward. My grandmother knew I had become hooked on their exploits, so she sent me a copy. My mother, wanting to encourage my already voracious reading habit, got me a subscription, which I continued for the next 3 or 4 decades.
The May 13, 1979 issue featured an article by Barry McDermott, covering the second Hawaiian Ironman, held in January of that year on Oahu. I had just finished my second year as a ski bum, heading up every day from The Avenues above downtown Salt Lake City to Little Cottonwood canyon, where I learned how to navigate the steep and deep at Snowbird. Downhill skiing is not usually considered an endurance sport, but hitting the slopes every day, no matter what, especially on the difficult terrain there, uncovered an athletic persistence and commitment which tapped into the stick-to-itiveness I had honed for the past 15 years or so as I wound my way through high school, college, medical school and residency. Ready for some time off, I moved to Utah to be with my soon-to-be life partner, Cheryl, bought a house, and daily drove my yellow VW camper van 45 minutes to the powder heavens in the Wasatch.
McDermott’s dramatization of the participants who shared “an addiction to inordinate amounts of exercise”, coming two weeks after I’d ended my season among the dirt bags who daily rode the tram to satisfy their own addiction to floating downhill, often in blinding snow fall, entangled me. I had been a mediocre scholastic swimmer, always the worst on my high school and collegiate teams (but still good enough to earn a letter in each), a bicyclist all my life (every year, I would buy a new one at a police auction for use on campus), and now an addicted powder hound. When I had the chance, I would backpack the Sierra and Rockies wilderness. The life style he simultaneously romanticized and questioned, of people who would do 400 sit ups in a sauna to win a bottle of beer, both attracted and scared me. Over the next twenty years, as we grew our family and I hit the prime of my career as a physician manager, that story stayed with me, waiting to bubble to the surface of my thoughts when given the proper trigger.
My first retirement came in June, 1997, from an all-consuming job as President, CEO, and Board chair of a 1000 member physician group in Washington State. Going back, at age 48, to being a full-time physician, seemed to leave me with too much time on my hands. The very first thing I did was haul my family in an RV to the East Coast, and then bicycle back home while our 16 year old son drove. I got deeper into mountain biking and shorter multi-day bike trips. I started bike commuting 3 times a week, whatever the weather or hour. The next year, while shopping in the local Performance Bike shop, I saw a flyer for the “Triple Threat”, a series of three triathlons held on the local military base. I picked it up, expecting to find the insane distances of 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles biking, 26 miles running. Instead: a half mile swim, 15 mile bike, and 3 mile run. I remembered instantly the drama of that all day event on Oahu. Then I remembered: I hate running. When I was twelve, and a Boy Scout, I earned to Running merit badge, which required me to cover three laps of a track. I did it, but vowed never to run again, a feeling reinforced as the jogging craze hit the country in the late 60s and 70s. Friends who picked this up became gaunt, asthenic, constantly complaining of back, knee and foot pain. Besides, they always came back from a run exhausted and sweaty.
But…3 miles. I could do that! On January 1, 1999, Cheryl and I went up the hill to the local middle school track, around which I ran 3 times. I had six months from that point to June 26 to build up to 3 miles. I bought a sleeveless wet suit that spring, and slapped some aerobars on my commuting/touring bike. I ran 3 or 4 times a week, on the seriously steep hills surrounding my home. I arrived ready to go.
I remember two things about that first race day. Number one, I worked hard from the start of the swim. Number two, I finished second in my age group, out of about 8 other 50-54 year olds. I got a MEDAL! I was hooked, just as I had been the very first time I slid down a hill on skis. I entered the next two events at the base, earning another 2nd, and a 3rd. I searched the nascent internet for other races. I even went to San Diego in October, ostensibly to see my mother and sister, but actually to do a late season triathlon starting in the breakers at the Oceanside pier. Another medal in that race as well. A friend, who was both a runner and cyclist herself, said, “I see an Ironman in your future, Al.” I scoffed. A medical colleague who had done Hawaii himself in the 80s, before qualification was needed, told me I should think about that as a goal. I laughed and told him, “No way I’m ever going to run that far, Charlie.”
By March of 2000, I found myself doing longer and longer runs on Sundays: 90, 100, 110 minutes. As I finished my first 13 miles run in under 2 hours, I said to myself, “I think I might actually be able to run twice this far.” That was the fateful moment. Why I ever said that to myself, I can not fathom. I still hate running longer than 2 hours to this day, but that inner pronouncement set in motion a two-decade long journey that has led to so much more than I could have imagined. When I got home, I went online and tried to sign up for the first Ironman California, to be held that May. SOLD OUT!!! What??? Before, I had been able to just show up and race. Likewise the next Ironman, Lake Placid in July – sold out. But not Florida, November 2000. I scrolled and clicked, paid my $450, and began to think about where to stay, how to get there, and whether I should have a real triathlon bike.
Posted inTriathlon Central|Comments Off on Ironman: A Look Back, Part I
Exit self-interview after a prolonged bout of high-end racing….
On January 7, 2018, I was near the end of a 4-5 month stretch of lacking any specific athletic focus, after competing at the ITU LC WC end of August ’17. That was the earliest I had ever ended a season; usually, my final big races were in mid-late Oct or November (Kona, Xterra, IM FL, IM AZ, ). I added daily running (got up to 115 days) during this time along with the beginnings of heavy rotation on Zwift rides and races. I was planning for a two-year assault on my age-up year. I have a little game I occasionally play, which is to check out y body’s fatigue, aches, pains, and assign a %-age score. The best I usually could get to would be maybe 95-8%, always a little something in some joint or other. On Jan &, I gave myself 100% for the first and only time in my life. On Jan 8, I put 450# on the leg press machine instead of the 360 I had built up to, trying to get ready for the next ski trip which was less than two weeks away. The next day, my right knee hurt, so much that I ended the daily run streak, and only ran two days the erst of the month. I ran 10/15 days before the next ski trip in Feb/Mar. On Mar 5th, a stellar powder day, I went 50% more time than usual, and ended up really hurting as I tried to climb stairs to a lunch break. But I kept skiing. Luckily, I had a sports MD appt scheduled for my return. Got an MRI which showed a lot of bone swelling and cartilege erosion in that right knee. More down time and efforts to find out just what I could handle running, after being told I could “run as long as it didn’t hurt”.
This chart tells the story. Far right column is my average pace for all runs in a given month. After my return to running following the dual insults to my knee from weight lifting and skiing, the only time I got below 9 min/mile was Oct ’18, when I did three half marathons all at about 8:20.
In Nov ’18, I had a fairly good race @ IM AZ, with a sub 6 hour bike (from all the Zwifting and time in the mountains and at camps) and a marathon with minimal walking. It had been preceded the week before by a half iron in Miami, where I qualified 2019’s ITU LC WC. But I also learned there that the timing of the race had been moved from early Sept to early May, same weekend as Santa Rosa, I think. My plan had been to try a KQ in Santa Rosa, race in Spain in early Sept, then Kona/AZ in Oct.Nov. But all that got blown up, and I switched to Boulder which was only 5 weeks after Spain. The end result is from April-Nov, I felt like I was on a treadmill of peak/taper/rest/peak/taper/rest. As I went from ITU WC to IMB to USAT SC NC (Aug), Kona, then AZ. I was satisfied with my races in Spain, Cleveland, and Tempe, but came up short in Boulder and Kona.
I’m not quite sure what I’ve learned from all this, other than that my right knee does not like to run more than 2 hours at a time. It will put up with 3 hours if managed carefully, but longer than that, I’ve gotta do some walking to survive. IM races are no longer “fun” like they used to be – they seem too much like work, with the pressure to perform (win) exceeding the inner rewards I feel purely for myself during and after. So I’m looking at the new challenge of ITU races as an opportunity to stay invigorated and race without feeling like there’s an impossible standard I have to meet.
My plans for the next year go something like this right now:
Dec: Ski for a week or two, mix in Zwifting and return to running
Jan/Feb: ski from Jan 18-Feb 14, return to Zwifting and running frequency
Mar: Road trip to Arizona to support Cronk UM and partially participate in EN Tucson camp.
Apr: Build-up to May/June activities
May: Start with Belgian Wafer Ride, two week Grand Canyon rafting trip, then get to CO for 2-3 weeks
June: another week or two hosting campers in Snowmass, end with June Alps camp
July: Maybe do Calgary 70.3 to qualify for WC in St George 2021
August: Local races, then ITU SC WC in Edmonton
Sept; Back to CO for serious Kona preparation
Oct: Kona.
Nov/Dec: consider a 70.3 if needed for St George Qualification.
I’d appreciate scheduling a phone call to review my past two years and process it a bit.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a celebrity with us!” The gate agent was begining the boarding process. She had finished with the “pre-boarding” speech for “travelers needing assistance and families with small children”, and should have been moving on to “First Class and Active Duty Military”.
But she detoured from protocol. “We have joining us on Alaska Flight 691 to Seattle the winner of the Ironman yesterday, Al Truscott.” I was already near the head of the line having presciently signed up for 1st Class, assuming I would need the pampering after racing for 140.6 miles the day before. Flustered, I took off my headphones, looked up, and said, “Hey, if only. I’m 70 years old. I did win my age group, but …” She was gesturing me up to the front of the line while the boarding area erupted in applause. Cool. For my last Ironman, I get a rock star send-off.
Twenty-four hours earlier, I had jumped off my bike and hobbled barefoot downhill to start the final marathon. Four minutes later, Nike Vaporfly 4%’s on my feet, I headed under the arch to start the clock on that last, long leg. I stopped, poking at my right eye, trying to dislodge the contact so I could slap on some glasses, sun sensitive so they’d work both in the lowering desert sun and after dark. Robin Sarner suddenly loomed over me (he’s 6’6”), asking if I were OK.
Confused, I tried to re-assure him I didn’t need anything. “Just trying to….” I couldn’t finish, and ended up waving my GoBag at him, showing the race belt, Clif Shot Chews, wrist band and sun screen I still had to deal with. He smile wanly, and ambled on *into* the transition area. I didn’t register the fact that he was way off course; only that evening, when we gathered to swap war stories at the Mellow Mushroom, did I learn he was just then abandoning his race after 13.1 miles, his hamstrings and gut not cooperating one bit.
Visor on, race belt secure, glasses finally cleaned and sitting on my nose, I started a slow trot thru the first mile. Suddenly, Nam Lam pops up on my right. “Al! You look great!”
I didn’t care. All I wanted from him was, “You got the tracker? What place am I in? How much am I leading by? How far is the next guy behind?” I was totally locked into the moment, and my one task here – win my age group in an Ironman one last time. The past, future, and certainly social niceties were nowhere to be found in my brain.
Nam fumbled a bit with his iPhone. Surely he had the Tracker already loaded, and he’d been doing this for many others on our team, Patrick, Satish, Robin, Tim, already! I slowed to a walk while he jogged alongside. “Uh, I don’t have it; I’ll catch you when you come back around.” Which would be 40 minutes later.
This first mile features a rolling concrete path, winding up and down along the side of the hill between the buildings blocking the sun on our right, and the Tempe Town “Lake”, where just before sunrise, we’d started our day with the 3800 meter – 2.4 mile – swim.
The start was jam-packed with 2600 wet-suited nervous Ironman wannabes. We tried to line up by our hoped-for swim time, along the path we’d be running 7 or more hours later. Most of the athletes were crammed together shoulder-to-shoulder, while those in front were herded, five at a time, down a boat ramp into the 61F dirty brown water of the Salt River. While all those bodies created a lot of warmth – the air temp was about 50F – I punched out to the concrete ledge overlooking the water.
“Hey, Al!” I was a bit surprised to see a tightly bundled Betsy H. running up from the water, smiling and waving her hand. She was a swim spotter, walking along the edge, looking for swimmers in trouble. She lives in Phoenix, and has raced here multiple times, trying to win and get to Kona, but always ending up on the wrong side of the bubble. It was a relief to catch up with her, rather than stand glumly amongst strangers, getting more morose with thoughts of the coming 13 hour day filtering through my race day screen.
Finally, I hit the water – a cold blast only partly blocked by the extra neoprene cap and running socks I wore. The swim, as usual, seemed to take much longer than it should. There’s no one to talk with, no variation in the terrain, no watch to check for heart rate or power, just one stroke after another for 86 minutes. And you can’t stop and rest; it’s a race, after all. I kept a bit to the left of the main crowd, the spotters in kayaks continually trying to herd me to the right.
Finally, the end of the lake. Literally. We got out almost at the bladder which has been dropped across the dry river bed, creating this puddle, and then had to run a half mile along hastily laid carpet strips just to reach the transition to our bikes. Normally, T1 takes me 5-8 minutes. This took 14+ minutes, as I ran, dried off, put cycling gloves on, and stuffed a sheet of bubble wrap down the front of my race suit, all things I normally eschewed, but desparately needed this morning, with the clouds covering the rapidly rising Arizona sun, and the air temperature not reaching 60F until the middle of the second of our three loops on the 37.3 mile bike course.
The previous year, I had ridden each of those three loops in just under 2 hours, on my way to a 5:58 bike split, and third place in my age group. I was racing then. This year, moving up into the 70-74 AG, I no longer had any fear of faster competitors. When I’d woken up race morning, and stared in the mirror at 4:30 AM, I was looking at the only person who could beat me. So while I did the first loop in 1:59 again, I backed off on the second, going 4:31 for the final laps, at about 10-12% lower power.
The cooler day, and the cold water, as well as the assiduous pre-race hydration I’d been doing, all conspired to fill my bladder to capacity over and over throughout the ride. I probably pee’d ten times while rolling, and another four times when I stopped at porta-potties, about 10 minutes total. That would continue on the run, where I visited the can another three times, comparted to zero on a typical day.
The first turn around on the two loop run course comes at mile 2. Heading back up to speed there out of the aid station, I saw Tim Cronk motoring up the other way. Obviously he was on his second time around. He grinned, called out my name as we bumped fists. Good for him – he’s also doing his “last” Ironman, after winning a few, going to Kona several times, and generally playing havoc with other racers in the 50 and 55 y/o categories. This game is not long enough for him; he’s graduating to 100 mile runs and the three-day Ultraman.
Fifteen minutes later, Nam pulls up on my right as I trot along the sandy flat path at lake’s edge. He’s got the facts this time: “You’re at least 30 minutes ahead; the other guy isn’t even out of transition yet.” I look at my watch; I’ve been running for 44 minutes, so that’s a hell of a cushion. My race to lose, so I might as well run as much as I can, without letting my knee get the best of me.
My right knee. Since the previous year’s Ironman Arizona, I’ve raced an additional 3 long course triathlons in May, June, and October. In none of them could I run any further than about 13 miles, or 2.5 hours. My knee would swell up, and start to become not just sore, but actually full of rasping pain. I’ve carved away enough of the cartilage between kneecap and thigh bone to the point that, unless I’m very careful with how much I flex that leg, the joint will start swelling up as it tries desparately to cushion each of the 30,000 times I slam down on it during the race. And without that extra fluid, the bone rubbing on bone would bring me to tears.
So I run slower than I have in the recent past. And I walk more, in an attempt to give the joint a rest, a chance to drain off some of the swelling, and a break from the twinges of pain. Ten years ago, I ran here for four hours; six years ago, 4:11. Then, last year 5:03. I’d add another half hour to that in 2019. My running speed hasn’t actually dropped that much; it’s just all the extra walking that slows me down. First, just 1 minute every mile. Then, adding about 5 more seconds each mile through the first half. On the second lap, I got up to about a 1/4th of every mile walking. My one big fear was to not finish at all, to come up lame like I had the month before in Hawaii.
Spending that much extra time put me deep into the evening. The sun had set at 5:20, before I got to mile 11. And it wasn’t all that warm during the day. So a new experience for me, spending that much time going slower, and thus not generating as much heat, and out on the course for much longer, as it got colder and colder, and I needed more and more fluid and fuel. Coach Patrick had finally gotten me to see how important adding some solid calories and a long sleeve shirt to my plan would be. For the first time, I ate three banana halves in an Ironman; previously it had all been liquid calories. I overloaded on Clif Bars during the bike, and even tried some pickle juice at mile 21, along with a whole lot of Gatorade Endurance and water the first 15 miles, switching over to Coke alternated with warm chicken broth after that.
Each time I went up a hill or through an aid station, I switched over to walking. Starting back up again so many times became brutal. I did not want to run any more. But I was reminded of a little vingette from the 2006 Boston Marathon. Coming around the final corner, I met up with a medical colleague also doing the race. He looked crippled, hobbling to the finish. I asked him how he was doing, and he said, “The only reason I’m running is so I can get done sooner.” Exactly how I felt on this day. I knew I had the fitness to run. On the other hand, I also knew I had more than an hour to “play” with. On the third hand, I have walked in a couple of Ironman marathons, and that is, in the end, less fun, and in some ways harder than just to start up running again.
Somewhere during mile 24, Stephanie came up behind me. We were in an aid station, so we both walked a bit and talked. Steph did her first IM with me in Coeur d’Alene, and we’ve raced together a number of times since. Living in Colorado, we’ve biked and skied together over the years as well; she’s become a good friend. She looked as if she were truly enjoying herself in this race. I told how good she seemed, and she agreed, as she “sped” of ahead of me onto our final crossing over the Priest Avenue bridge.
By mile 26, I was beginning to plan my finish. I would take off my extra shirt, and trot proudly down the carpet into the lights and my 30th Ironman finish. But first, there’s a little uphill in the dark before the final left turn toward the crowd. Just there, Nam and Tim burst out into the course, giving me grief and high fives for walking, and ending my IM career. That brought a smile which I wore all the way to the end.
Past the line, I see a wild blond mane flying over Kori’s beaming visage. She’s waving, calling my name, slapping a mylar blanket over my shoulders. She’s a finish line catcher here, another friend from EN since 2013. A HUGE hug, and off we go to grab medal, hat and shirt, and meet up with Steph and Dana, who both finished just ahead of me (caught also by Kori), and Patrick, who’s waiting there for me with Rich, already showered and dressed, but ready to celebrate as well. Patrick has won his age group, so we share a brotherly smile over our twin victories.
More Endurance Nation love that night as Rich helps me gather my bike and gear, and we walk to the post race meet up, with Sid, Brian, Simon, Heather, Tim, Nam, Jeff, Robin, David, and all their crew. Next morning, it’s awards, Kona slot, and a round of goodbyes. I couldn’t have had a better team to share these past four days with. I am so lucky to have a triathlon family to rely on.
After the embarassment of getting ushered to applause, I flop down in seat 3C, and settle in, listening to my iPhone set on “Shuffle”. The second song in is a live version of Bruce Springsteen doing an acoustic “Born to Run”. Bruce has been the soundtrack to my life ever since 1975, when I heard this song for the first time. We were both born in 1949, so he’s 70 now, too. He has continually found ways to keep vibrant as a songwriter and performer over 5 decades. Always seraching, always challenging himself, seeing his life as an unfolding story, to be shared with others.
I start to tear up, and realise all the other passengers will be passing by as they head down the aisle. I take off my glasses and pull my finisher’s hat down over my eyes as he sings, “Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run”, and then fades off into the seven-note wordless hum which has been his signature line all these years. I think not only of all the fun I’ve had the past four days, the camraderie I shared with my triathlon family, but also everything and everybody the sport has brought to me over the past two decades. And I know that Bruce has an answer for that as well.
I quickly search for “Wrecking Ball”. A song he initially wrote for and performed at the final concert in Meadowlands Stadium. It starts out simple, seemingly an elegy for that concrete arena, soon to be demolished. But somewhere near the end, we realise he’s veering into different territory:
“Now when all this steel and these stories, they drift away to rust
And all our youth and beauty, it’s been given to the dust
And your game has been decided, and we’re burning down the clock
And all our little victories and glories, they turned into parking lots
When your best hopes and desires are scattered to the winds….
Come on and take your best shot, let me see what you’ve got
Bring on your wrecking ball”
Then he jumps into “One, two, a-one, two, three, four” and starts humming, just three notes at first, the violin fill from this song. But quickly, in the background, those seven notes from Born to Run harmonize along.
I get lost in thoughts of all I’ve done, all the people I’ve met, during the last twenty years of my triathlon career. Even if I can’t run long anymore, I’m never going to give them up.
Another chapter in my life is ending, but the story continues…
I think your suggestion about a compression knee “brace” had some merit, but of course I didn’t want to try it out during the race without testing it in training. Ideally, that would have been on the long run a week ago. So I tried it today on a 5 mile run. Background: I have a neoprene brace which I’ve used on and off for decades – when my knee would feel sore, I would put it on intermittantly for a day or three, my theory being keeping it warm would increase local blood flow and maybe enhance healing/fluid absorption. But in this year, I have taken to wearing a strap (common brand name “Cho-Pat”, though that’s not what I use) around my leg just below the joint at the level of the patellar tendon. The theory is, it helps to keep the patella aligned as it slides along the femur, making up for weakened quad/hip muscles. While I don;t think I have that weakness, I did find that wearing it seemed to retard the sharp pain I would get on rare occasion if the kneecap deviated from its proper course even slightly.
So I did wear the neoprene brace instead today. While I was running, I did not notice any issues. But when I got home, the first time I walked downstairs, I had sharp pains under the patella, something I have not had for months now. My MD brain tried to create an explanation, which was: without the strap, even though the brace has a hole in it for the patella, there had been enough movement of the patella outside of it’s ideal groove with the femur that it had gotten more abrasion than usual. That pain did eventually go away after a session with Norma Tec.
I think I’ll take a brace with me to Tempe, and consider putting it into Run SN, to possibly put on for the second loop. But I kinbda think I’ll just go with the strap.
Last week’s work:
Mon – Swim 60′: 1000, 10 x 50, 15 x 75; Weights + Sauna session
Tue – Long Run: 3 hours, 16.55 mi
Wed – Weights + Sauna
Thurs – FTP intervals 14′, 10′, 10′ (4′) up ALpe d Zwift, followed by “easy spinning” to the top, where I FINALLY got the Meilenstein Wheels. Total of 2 hours
Fri – RR swim in the pool, 2.4 miles/1:24; Run 4.4 mi.
Sat – Though I was gonna ride for six hours, “only” did 4:18. I was feeling both quite tired, and ach-y in my knee. I felt a lot better when I looked at last year’s ride on the same day two weeks before IM AZ: I had the same time/distance/kilojoules, etc and ended up doing sub-6 hr bike split on the race. So I gave myself a pass.
Sun – Progressive run of 5.5 miles/53′, finishing with a sub 9 min mile. Confidence building.
Mon – Weights/Sauna
Tue (Today) – Swim 10 x 300 (30″). Run 5 mi/48′, again feeling strong.
Plan for the remainder of the week:
Wed – Week 19 FTP intervals 3 x 6′ (4′), Run 20′
Thurs – Run 1:20-1:30/9 mi, weights/Sauna
Fri – Swim – 600/500/400/300/200/100; Bike 1 hour recovery spin
Sat – Bike 3 hours on Zwift, try to run 3.1 miles
Sun – Swim 2.4 miles
Race week:
Mon – Swim45′, run 30′, Sauna/Weights
Tues – Bike Taper Work, Run 20-30′
Wed – Swim 30’/Weights
Thurs – Travel, maybe run down by the lake in the early evening
Friday – Register, Beeline, Team Dinner.
Saturday – Admin, Movie, Jamba Juice
I am going in with the attitude I want to win this race…
Hmm…looks like I didn’t do a weekly update this past Monday. Had I done so, here’s what my plan for this week would have looked like then:
Mon – Recovery swim, weights
Tues – 3 hour run
Wed – Red mist swim, weights
Thurs – Bike FTP 75′, Run 45′
Fri – RR Swim, Weights
Sat – RR Bike/Run 60′
Sun – Consider ABP Bike 1.5-3 hrs, run 30′
I made a specific decision to significantly separate the long run and ride this week, precisely to prevent fatigue on Race Rehearsal Day, as well as ensure I could get the entire run done without impacting downstream workouts.
While I felt “OK” the morning after the long run, I was worried that if I tried a hard swim, I would just make the fatigue hole deeper. So no swim yesterday.
I am following very closely not only feelings of fatigue and knee pain, but also length of naps and length of sleep, as well as weight and hydration status. ALL of those are on the correct side of the scale this morning. The morning of IM HI, I weighed 143#, which is not enough IMO. I am now 146, would like to hit 147 by IM AZ. I’m getting there by keeping my hydration status up, eating extra protein, and hitting the weight room 3x/week. I think I look better (I thought I was too lean in HI.) The past 3 nights, I’ve needed “only” 8 hours of sleep, with my naps dropping down into the low 20′ range.
I think it is very important that I complete the swim, bike, and run this Friday and Saturday. The gain for me will be at least 50% mental/confidence. I know my fitness is good, and I don’t think I will add much to it by doing an 80′ instead of 60-70′ swim, or a 5 hr vs a 6 hr bike. But I need to remind myself that the work is hard, and I can keep going past the point when I would really like to quit. In that last hour of the bike, the last 20′ of the run, the last 25′ of the swim, 100% of the game (and gain) at this point in the season is 100% mental, and I need some sharpening up and re-booting of confidence.
Last week on Saturday, I did 5 hours on Zwift, the first 2.5 with Brian and Sid (and a few others), first hour @ 2.0 w/kg/0.65 IF, then 75′ @ 2.5/0.8 IF, then a 90′ group ride @ race pace plus (2.3 w/kg/0.78 IF) , finishing with a 52′ race @ 2.7 w/kg/0.85 IF. No run afterwards. My total KJ were 2729. For comparison, last year’s IM AZ split was 5:58 @ 2792 KJ, 2.0 w/kg, 0.63 IF.
This Saturday, my goal will be to get in 6 hours @ race effort level with several in the EN IM AZ crew in a series of meet-ups. The advantage of the group meet-up, as you know, is we stay together even if we are working at different w/kg, just like a group workout on Zwift. That helps a lot. Then if I can get a run of 60′ after that, hitting 10:30-11 min miles, I will feel totally ready for the Big Day two weeks later. Anything I do on Sunday will be optional, depending on fatigue, etc.
I am paying a lot of attention to nutrition and hydration during my long rides and runs. I had an insight in the past week about long runs. I had been doing them on a local bike path, with water fountains 1-1.75 miles apart. After my 2 hr 15′ run a week ago, I got dehydrated. I realised that with my current speed, I am taking a lot longer between water stations than even 2 years ago. So if I drink the same amount at each stop, I’m actually getting less fluid. For the long run two days ago, I switched to a totally flat path, at a spot where I can do three different 6 mile out and backs, and carried a fresh bottle with me each hour, drinking and walking each mile. It started to hurt after 5 miles, but I found I could keep going at my new slow pace, and re-learned how to push through the physical desire to stop. Also, I took along a banana and had half after an hour, then again after the second hour. Don’t know if that helped, but I’ve never done it in races before, think I will this last time. (My rejection of bananas up to now has been to avoid solid food, and also a fear that I was still allergic to them.)
On the long rides, I have the nutrition and hydration dialed in. I’m using the same plan exactly as I have for my IM races over the past 5-6 years, so I know I can handle it and it works. Again, just doing it in training is primarily about being able to do it without thinking on race day, not that I really need that much fluid and calories on a training day. So I’ve got 5 bottles lined up with Infinit + a small amount of GE, two clif bars, and a flask of EFS gel all ready to feed my face at 15′ intervals.
My FTP interval workout this morning – 14′, 10′, 10′ (4′) going up Alpe d Zwift went well. I’ll take it as a positive omen that I finally secured the Milenstein wheels.
The Coach responds:
Thank you so much for the complete update. I agree that you were totally on track and I like to see how the workouts are stacking up. … I agree that you are in the position where strength is required for success.
really curious about your knee. Do you think some form of compression may actually help keep the swelling down and I need to keep running? Not a full rigid brace, but almost thinking of like some kind of a compression sock deal. Just curious. It came to me today during my run, I was wondering if reduce the swelling without impeding blood flow would allow you to run longer without messing up your bio mechanics.
I know that you were through the weekend, we can focus on sharpening up for Arizona. a few key bike sessions and some consistent swimming is all that’s needed as far as I’m concerned. What are your thoughts?
