Race Report - Auburn Triathlon (a.k.a. World's Toughest Half)

One of the best things about working with other people on their triathlon adventures is that for a local race, you can not only be nervous for your own day (OK, I wasn’t that nervous), but you can live vicariously through your athletes! This past Sunday was the Auburn Triathlon; the half-iron distance event is known as the “World’s Toughest Half.” I don’t know if that claim is true as there are plenty of tough half-iron races out there, but this one is definitely not a race for somebody looking for a PR as there is close to 6K feet of climbing in the bike ride. The run is not easy either – with several substantial hills. It is, however, a really great race on a great course, so I decided to partake and race along with several other athletes I work with. Racing with everyone was a ton of fun but the downside was that I didn’t get many pictures at all. Regardless, there were numerous impressive performances!

Highlights of the day included:

Rich Bach: 3rd overall in the long-course duathlon and that was in his first attempt at any multi-sport race of this distance! Talk about a doozy for your first race!

Rebecca Reichardt: 4th AG and another impressive half-IM finish on one of the hardest courses around in 6:35!

Sheila Leard: 1st AG and a new PR for the course, even though the swim was ultra long. She took 9 minutes off her bike time on this course and 10 minutes off her previous run time. Not too shabby for deciding to do the race somewhat last minute. I don't have pictures of everybody, but I did get this one of Sheila from a friend. She will kill me for putting it up, but what the heck?

Bernhard Sturm: Bernhard blazed to a 5:26 and 10th OA / 2nd AG finish on a very, very tough course. In spite of having to swim 9 additional minutes compared to last year, he still beat his previous time by 5 minutes with big chunks coming off his bike and run splits!

Justin Waller: He turned in the most impressive performance of the day. He has been dealing with a lingering hip/knee issue and so our plan was to do the swim and bike portion of the race, run one lap, and then call it a day. Justin, being the guy he is, refused to DNF and we decided he would walk the last 2 laps. For a motivated triathlete, this takes serious discipline and self-control, but Justin stuck to the plan and not only that, carried a cow-bell and cheered on all the other athletes while he finished his half-marathon. In spite of walking 2/3rd of the half-marathon, he finished in 6:49… awesome performance!

-----------

And with respect to my race, overall I had a good day. I can honestly say I didn’t really have any time expectations. My only hope was to beat my previous time from 2 years ago and see if I could move a step closer to the top of the age group. Plus the run course was a little different as they changed it last year to a 3-looper. I hadn’t run a 3-loop half-IM before and was looking forward to it.

At the beginning of the swim, I ran into Tom Murphy, a friend/acquaintance and we tried to figure out exactly where the swim buoys were and what to do for the 2nd loop of the swim. In a few more minutes the horn blew and we were off. As I made it out into the main portion of the lake I realized the 1st buoy was not where they had it 2 years ago and tried to follow the group. It was not all that crowded – nothing like an IM start, so I felt like I was swimming fairly well right away and focusing on not dropping my left elbow. Rounded the 1st buoy and headed toward the 2nd turn buoy. Again I think I was a little off course, but plodded along, trying to keep focus on my own rhythm and breathing to both sides about every 3-4 strokes at a time.

Once around the 2nd buoy I headed back towards the start for the 2nd loop. I looked at my watch briefly and saw a 23:xx – wow, that is incredibly slow! I immediately had many frustrating thoughts in my head, but then worked to “change the channel” and just worry about sticking to my plan for the day. In some ways, I think seeing such a slow swim time helped because I really let go of any expectation whatsoever and just worked on working hard. The 2nd loop was much the same – started getting a little fatigue towards the end, but nothing too bad. I also felt a slight twinge in the calf right before I got out of the water and was glad I didn’t cramp up, which has been a problem for me in long swims in the past.

Made my way through transition and started focusing on the bike. Took me a little long to get my wetsuit off (need to keep working on that) and get things arranged in the transition bag for pickup, but otherwise uneventful transition. Headed out on the bike and started working right away – the first 6-7 miles of this course are uphill into Auburn. I just focused on working the climbs and getting into a good rhythm and shooting for the power numbers I had planned prior to the race. As far as I could tell, I think only 1 person passed me on the bike and I’m not sure I didn’t pass them back. I tried to get my HR under control in spite of the climbs and kept it in the high 150s up the climbs as best I could while keeping the pedal stroke as smooth and strong as possible. Early on in the bike, I knew I felt good and the legs were there. A very nice thing after the ultra-long swim, which ironically, helped me to focus more on my race process and less on what time I would finish in. After I made my way back up to town, I took my first gel and kept rolling out towards the foothills. I continued to pass people and found Justin around Bowman… had a nice chat and kept rolling. Next I caught up with Tom Murphy, which surprised me a bit because he is an incredibly strong biker. This was at Applegate and so I still had to make my way out to the campground. Around this time, I started trading back and forth with a 27-year-old guy which was kind of nice. We kept each other moving and played a little cat-and-mouse. Heading up the climb toward the roller-coaster section I saw the leaders, which was the same place I saw them in ’09. Then one more little steep climb and on down to the campground… this was the place in ’09 where I started having some bike trouble, so I took mental note and appreciated the fact that those fork problems are now a distant memory. Brand new frame and fork took care of that ;-) I started back up the climb out of the campground and started passing people. It wasn’t a crowded race, but I think I passed 5-6 guys heading up this climb and when I looked at the numbers afterward, I averaged 300+ watts, which was nice. I knew I was putting out a steady effort, but I still felt really good, so I pushed onward. The ride back towards town is pretty fast. There are a few short climbs but generally you are heading back downhill. It’s pretty fast, so I just put my head down and stayed down out of the wind as much as possible, still trying to keep putting power into the pedals when possible. The spur section was next and is, quite possibly, the worst part of the whole race. You are on your way back to town and you have to turn back towards the other direction for an out-and-back section. It’s demoralizing because you have to head back away from the finish; plus the road is gnarly with those little bumps every few meters or so. And it’s uphill. It was here where I caught Bernhard who, it turns out, had 8 minutes on me coming out of the water. Ouch. (need some work in the water) I told him I was going to keep pushing hard and to come with me if he wanted. I kept going, hit the spur turnaround, and headed back towards town. I thought I may have a shot at breaking 3 hours for the ride, so I kept going hard. Made it through town again and pulled into transition in 2:57 and change. I did have a bit of a loss of focus, though, and forgot to take my feet out of my shoes. Not the most graceful dismount. Need to work on staying on top of that. Saw my wife at this point, who conveniently was in a relatively empty transition waiting for me. (It’s a small race, so pretty laid back). Turns out she had a good race so that was a BIG relief after the last fiasco and I had a clear mind heading out onto the run.

My plan for the run was to run off HR for the most part. I was going to break it down to 3 laps, which matched well with the fact that it was an actual 3 lap run, and shoot for an average HR of ~155 for the first one and then let it get a little higher for each, if possible. My goal for the last lap was around 160 or a touch over that. It worked perfectly. I felt a little sluggish at first (that normal feeling coming off the bike), but after a mile or so, I felt pretty darn good. That 27-year old who I had been riding with before came off the bike just behind me, so we ran together for the first few miles. The first part of the run is through the woods on a small trail so we rolled along and finally found somebody to pass before we turned onto the park road. We ran together a bit more, but then he apparently decided to move ahead. Nonetheless, I caught him and passed him for good about a mile or two later. The new course wasn’t bad… after the section through the woods, you turned on the park road for some nice downhill and then another spur down further to a little loop around a makeshift trail. It was tough to pass people on this small loop, so I just used it to recover a bit before heading back uphill for the next mile or so to the end of the lap. I stayed pretty steady throughout and felt great most of the way. I continued to monitor HR and tried to focus on staying smooth and quick with the turnover, using my mantras to keep me going. I also got to see my family each lap and on the 2nd time around, I gave my son a kiss for an extra boost! I had no idea where I was in my AG at this point, but I knew I was a good way up the field. I also knew Bernhard was not really gaining much on me based on when I saw him during the lap. I just kept with my plan and kept working. I tried to push it a bit up the last long hill towards the end, but the legs were finally starting to fatigue. I made it to the field to finish and crossed the line in 6th overall and 2nd AG. The one guy that beat me in my AG was a pro who finished like a half-an-hour before me! I gave up 15 minutes to him in the swim alone! Anyway, I was very happy with the effort and then got to enjoy seeing every one else come in for the finish… a great race!

From a number standpoint, I hit my power target almost exactly and had a norm power of 270 for the ride. Based on my current FTP estimate, this is about an intensity factor of 0.86 – just about right for a half-IM. I was even hoping for something closer to 0.9, but I think 0.86 was pretty good and got me back to transition in less than 3 hours on one of the hardest bike courses around. And on the run, my avg pace, HR and time for each lap were:

7:07, 155, 29:59

7:15, 157, 30:19

7:30, 159, 31:16

I thought that was pretty good pacing overall and it yielded the 4th fastest bike split in the field and the 5th fastest run in the field. And oh the swim… well, that was 103rd out of 161 finishers of the half. Yeah, not so good. In Ironman, I had worked my way up to like the top 30-40% overall, but this was not a good swim. Nonetheless, I had a great bike and run combination and ended the day on a very positive note. Now I know my fitness is pretty good for the next couple of races which are quickly approaching. Tri season is now in full swing! Happy training and racing!

Spectator Report - Parkway Half Marathon

This past weekend was the Parkway Half Marathon and I was out there as a spectator, coach, and spouse. Spectator because my Mom decided to raise money for the Heart Association and run a half-marathon!!! Coach because Richard Hunter was looking for a new PR. Spouse because my wife was guiding a visually impaired runner.

I am more nervous at these things as a spectator than I am when running myself. It’s fun, but is a different experience when you are not in control yourself of what’s going on. Anyway, it was an early morning for me and the kids. We got to the parking lot to catch the shuttle and made it to the start in enough time to see everyone off. Here’s my Mom at the start.

She had been a walker for years, but recently taken up running a few miles at a time. Then a few months ago, she told me she wanted to run a half-marathon and I was stoked! She has worked very hard, been very diligent and it paid off on Saturday. Not only that, she was the (I think) 3rd highest fund-raiser in the group at over $3000. Needless to say, I am very proud of her.

I also caught up with Richard at the start. He has run several half-marathons and marathons and also done triathlon. He is an excellent runner, but has never been able to go under 1:30 for the half marathon and was eyeing a new PR. His guide (Richard is visually impaired) was an elite runner named Austin Weaver, who I knew would have no trouble “keeping up”! Here’s a shot of Richard through the crowd just before the start (red shirt, white hat).

My wife was also running, but not for herself. Another visually impaired athlete was running and needed a guide for the occasion. He was hoping to do it in roughly 2 hours, so I knew Emily would not have any trouble with that. Here’s a shot of Emily and her partner, Arther.

The race was very well organized and they even had some bagpipes and the National Anthem at the start, very cool. After that, the runners were off! And for me, it was 2-3 hours playing with my kids ;-) It was fun, we read, played in the bounce house, climbed trees, etc. Here’s Luci in the tree and Luci and Lance together.

At about 1:10 into the race, we wandered over to the finish to see the winners. The winning guy did it in 1:15 and change. But there were only a few guys who broke 1:20, so it wasn’t a particularly fast field. At about 1:25, I started watching for Richard. He’s a bigger guy and it was fairly windy, but I was still confident he was going to have a good day. He was fit and ready and had a good plan. And sure enough, around 1:29, I saw him coming. Crossed in 1:29:22 for a 2nd AG finish... very nice effort for a Clydesdale ;-)

Then it was over to the bounce house, which was a little crowded for my kids’ taste. So we played some more prior to Emily finishing with her athlete. Then, we found a good spot near the finish and I sat at the edge of the path with the kids. And my Mom made it in 2:45! I was really happy for her and quite proud.

It was a great day out at the races with my Mom finishing a half-marathon, my Wife guiding a visually-impaired runner, and a friend/client knocking substantial time off his PR and cracking the 1:30 barrier!

Degrees of Freedom

Triathlon is a single sport consisting of 3 components: swim, bike, and run. (Some would say long course triathlon has a 4th component - nutrition; and some might say transitions are even another component; anyway, you get the idea...)

Getting better means continually assessing where you are in those 3 components and working on your weaknesses. In my case, my weakness is swimming. I come out of the water mid-pack (I'm slowly moving up) and then start passing people on the bike and then more and more people on the run, which is my relative strength. Sure, I was a lifeguard as a kid, but I quit swim team after like 1 year because I didn't really enjoy it and I wasn't that good at it. However, I continued to play land-based sports because I loved them and was good at them. Now, in my 30s, and wanting to continue some form of sport and competition, I find myself working on getting faster in the pool.

So what is it about swimming that makes it harder to get better, at least for me. There are several reasons:

1) Water is orders of magnitude more resistant than air - Slicing through the air at 20+ mph requires a certain amount of energy applied to forward motion (in our case, it's the power we put into the pedals that is transferred to the road). But moving through water is WAY more difficult.

2) Human beings are not fish - We are simply not designed to be fast swimmers. Almost nothing about our shape and dynamics as human beings lends itself to moving quickly through water.

3) Too many degrees of freedom - When we are running, there are 2 fixed points, i.e., when each foot hits the ground. When cycling, there are 5 fixed points on the bike that restrict the motion our bodies and limbs can have - 2 pedals, 2 hands (or arms), and 1 seat. However, when swimming, we have nearly unlimited degrees of freedom, i.e. our arms and legs can move and articulate any direction, untethered in the water.

4) That brings me to #4 - it takes A LONG time to develop the muscle memory and patterning to create the optimal motions to move us through the water. This is why a 100 lb female can swim circles around a big strong guy if the girl has been swimming since she could walk and the guy is a relative newbie. It's not about shear power or strength; it is about the correct motions with our arms, legs, shoulders, and hips in a concerted, finely tuned way that minimizes resistance and maximizes forward propulsion. This is why HS and college swimmers have a huge advantage - there simply is not enough time for an average AG'er to invest in "catching up" to the folks that have been swimming all their lives.

So, what CAN we do to get better in the pool? Well, you hear about people talking about the "feel for the water" ... but to those of us that are just not natural or experienced swimmers, we don't really understand that. What is a good catch supposed to feel like? What should good body roll feel like? Well, the best way to understand this and your own swim form is by getting some direct visual feedback. Having a coach tell you is one thing, but SEEING it for yourself is something different.

At the risk of large amounts of embarrassment and ridicule, here's a video I made recently of my swim stroke.

Though I'm not a super-fast swimmer, I do have a good understanding of what a good stroke should look like and mine has some significant flaws. Can you say dropped elbow? Holy cow. Check out my left arm in the side-view. And I really didn't think I had much, if any crossover either, but in the front-on view, you can see my left arm crossing over the center line. Not good. Now that I've seen these things, I can work on them in the pool and start to make corrections. Then, in a few months, I can make another video and see the improvements. I will also see improvements in my times (in the pool and in races) throughout this process. The other great thing is that you can find any number of great swimmers and video of their strokes on the web. You can get an idea of what good swimmers look like and compare your stroke to theirs and work to improve.

This is what I love about triathlon, there is always something to work on and a way to get better, stronger, faster and beat our previous selves.

Early Season Results

Vitality Multisport athletes are off to a great start of the 2011 season with some very strong performances:

On 3/27, Justin Waller took more than 33 minutes off his marathon PR with a 3:23 and change at the River City marathon. He overcame some adversity during training and still delivered on race day with a 3rd place in his age group. Being a triathlete from a swimming background, this definitely bodes well for his impending race season! I will definitely be looking for some strong results from him this season…

On the same day, Bernhard Sturm took to the road biking scene and raced in the Bariani road race, a 30 mile jaunt with 40+ of his closest friends. Turns out it was quite windy (quite the norm for the Central Valley in CA) and there was some confusion early on in the 1st lap when he attached for the KOM (there is one small hill). He ended up in a breakaway with one other guy and they stayed away for the entire race!!! I knew he was strong, but what a result! He ended up 2nd on the day, but not bad for a triathlete.

Then, on 4/2, Rebecca Reichardt raced the extremely competitive IM 70.3 in Oceanside, CA. This race always draws a stacked pro field and since it’s one of the few half-iron distance races left that has spots for Kona, it is always VERY competitive from an AG-stand-point, too. Rebecca faced some tough wind on the challenging bike course, but still clocked a fantastic 3:05 bike split and then proceeded to take almost 20 minutes off her previous half-IM run split to demolish her PR and come in at 5:56 and change. A great result on a tough course! She will have ample opportunity to improve on that as she is planning several other half-IMs throughout the year.

Race season is upon us and everyone is off to a great start!!!

Race Report - River City Marathon

(Disclaimer: this post is a bit wordy and I only have 2 pictures, sort of)

This marathon was my first key event for the year. After 2 IMs last year, I had a few lingering knee/Achilles issues to sort out and was not able to run CIM as planned so I wanted to find another marathon to see where my run fitness is nowadays. One of my athletes found the River City Marathon – a small event in April on the bike trail. The timing worked and he was OK with it, so I jumped in to run it also. In January we learned that they moved the race back to 3/27 because of an issue with the number of events on the American River Parkway. That didn’t really bother me because early Winter running had been going well. The course was supposed to go from Negro Bar down to Discovery Park, with the whole thing on the bike path, which I thought would be quite fun. I’ve run many miles on the bike path and running almost the whole thing for a marathon is pretty cool. However, with the weather the way it’s been and the fact that Discovery Park is completely under water, they had to change the route to an out-and-back from Negro Bar to William Pond (or close) and then back. It would make the run harder and generally uphill in the 2nd half, but it’s a route I’ve run a lot and I was still confident in having a good, solid run.

I hadn’t run an open marathon (hard) since 2005. Training had been going well and I formulated a good race plan: 4x30 minute laps with a gel at the end of each “lap.” Then I would switch to 15 minute laps and evaluate my pace at the 2:15 mark. With respect to pacing, I was going to shoot for a steady 6:48 per mile the whole first 2 hours and the 15 minutes past that to get me to about 20 miles. Then, I was going to give it what I had for the last 10K and add another gel at the 2:30 mark. I had 6 gels ready to go at the beginning and ate one of them about 15 minutes before the start. I had also decided to carry a bottle of water with me to make sure I had water when I needed it. The aid stations were about 2.5 miles apart and I didn’t want to be dependent on them and wanted to make sure I had enough water to get the gel to digest. I also knew (based on my metabolic efficiency testing with Sheila – see previous post), that I would burn about 18 Kcal/minute at that pace and 12 of those would be from CHO. Therefore, I would go through about 2160 calories of carbs over 3 hours. 2000 calories is a conservative estimate of the glycogen available for fuel in the muscles and liver. However, knowing that I had been able to get gel down at that pace in training gave me confidence that fueling would not be an issue – I would have plenty to go on and it would go down well.

This was a pretty low-key event and the start was somewhat anti-climactic to say the least. I lined up at the front with my friend and we chatted for a minute. Next thing I know the race director is counting down and just says “Go!” No gun. No bull horn. No nothing. I doubt people near the back even heard him. Anyway, we were off and running – a quick left turn onto the path and then almost immediately downhill. I eased into my pace and just tried to get into a rhythm. A couple people blazed past me… one of them took off like a rocket. I figured he either knew what he was doing or I would be seeing him later. Turns out it was the former. A couple more people passed me, one dressed in all pink and wearing Vibram Five Fingers. Very noticeable so I figured I’d track behind him for a while. Another guy chatted with me for a minute about Ironman… turns out he had done Vineman and Cozumel. He wanted to stay around the 3-hour pace, but only like another mile up the path and he was falling behind. Oh well, there goes my running buddy. Shortly after that another guy passed me. He was running strong and we were in 5th and 6th position as we approached the Hazel bridge. I stuck with him for quite a while, all the way past Sunrise and well into my “2nd 30-minute lap.” In the mean time, I saw Bart Z. at Hazel – don’t know how he got down there that fast after being at the start!!

I got to the end of the first hour and started my 3rd lap and ate another gel. At this point, my bottle was getting low. However, conveniently there was an aid station coming up and I made a split decision to ask them to fill my bottle and keep it for me to grab for the return trip. I figured I’d need to go about 50 minutes without my own water supply, but then I’d have a full bottle for the run back! I chucked my bottle to them and kept motoring, hoping they would remember. It was about this point when we started running through the half-marathoners. They started at William Pond an hour later and were heading the other direction on the path. Only a few at first, but then it was several hundred. It was never really an issue, but some of them could’ve paid a little more attention… regardless, it was kind of a good pick-me-up to go through the crowd, plus, we’d get to chase down a lot of them on the way back. Around this point, I had already passed the guy running in 6th and had moved up a spot. Shortly after that, I passed the guy in the pink with the Vibrams and kept motoring. I was now running in 5th approaching the turnaround. The first place guy was in another zip code already (as I mentioned, he knew what he was doing when he took off at the beginning). #2 was quite a ways back from him, but still a ways up from me. Numbers 3 and 4 we also well-ahead, so I just kept focused on my own race. I approached the turnaround and grabbed some water and ate a gel since I knew this was the only aid station until I got back to my bottle. Fortunately, the volunteers told me to turn around since the only sign was a small orange cone with a cardboard box that said “turn-around” on it. I seriously almost didn’t see it.

I think I had 29:20 something on my watch at this point at the end of my 3rd lap, so right on pace. I hit lap a few seconds later and moved on. The 4th chunk of 30 minutes at ~6:48 pace was starting to get a little harder, but I was still in complete control and my HR was the same. From the beginning, my HR was a touch high. I was expecting it to be in the 155 range for that pace, but it was about 160 most of the way. It always seems to be a little high for me during races. I decided early on not to worry about it and just focus on pace and RPE, which were both right on. Very comfortable. I also had been using some mental exercises in the first hour to get into a rhythm. I repeated “easy, light, smooth” over and over in my head through the first half. I threw in a “save it for the end” every now and again to remind myself that the race really hadn’t begun yet. Some say the half-way point of a marathon is at mile 20. Once I hit the turn-around, I switched over to my “relaxed, calm, focused, strong” rhythm and it worked really well. I stuck with that for the whole return trip. I started letting myself feel like I was working a little bit at this point and my legs were starting to fatigue some, but it was still a very comfortable pace and I motored on. In the next several miles over my last block of 30 minutes, I passed a LOT of half-marathoners and walkers. It kept it interesting as I rolled along. I tried not to focus on anything but my mental focus, my mantra, and keeping good form. Short, pendulum arms and controlled breathing in rhythm. I approached the aid station where my bottle was and they had been saving it for me!!! It worked out GREAT – I now had a full bottle of water for the last 10-ish miles. Spurred on by the help of the volunteers, I kept it rolling and got through the first 2 hours and then hit lap again and at my 4th gel (this time Raspberry Hammer Gel). My plan from there was to do another 15 minutes at the same pace and then see how I felt. It was fairly uneventful. I was running in 5th place still with nobody that close behind me and continued to pass half-marathoners. When I got to 2:15 in (not sure what mile it was, somewhere around 20), I tried to start working a little harder. My HR was in the 160-162 range and I still felt OK. My legs were tired and I was now officially working hard, but I was still in control.

As I approached the end of that next 15 minutes, I saw a guy up ahead that had taken his shirt off. I remembered from the turn-around that the guy in 4th place was bald with no shirt and thought, “hey, I may actually have caught this guy!” I continued to run up behind him and when I was about to pass, he saw me coming and said “wow, you caught me.” I asked him what he was shooting for and told him to hang with me to try to get to 3 hours. He tried for a little bit, but when we came around under the Hazel Bridge, he told me to have a good race. I actually felt OK going up the Hazel bridge and let myself work fairly hard. No point in saving anything now, it was the last ~30-35 minutes! Time to give it what I had left! Once down off the bridge and rolling down the hill towards the dam, I saw the guy that had been in 3rd place!!! I seriously did not think I was going to catch him, but I rolled right on past and kept going, now running in 3rd overall with ~30 minutes to go. I had no idea how far up the road #2 and #1 were, but just kept working hard trying to maintain pace. I ate another gel and went into my 2nd to last 15 minutes. It’s a gradual uphill all the way back out to Negro bar, so my same pace required a little more effort, but I hung on well. I knew if I could make it to the little downhill by the lake, I’d roll down that and would be home free! There would only be one more flat section and then the small hill to the finish. My legs were really fatigued by this point and I knew I’d put forth a hard effort, but was hanging on really well. My HR was also very steady and didn’t come up much at all. I got to 2:45, hit lap on my watch and kept going, staying on pace as best I could. I wasn’t able to up it much at all, but did at least maintain it in spite of the rolling hills. After a couple more minutes, I switched my watch over to the overall time and figured I’d be finishing soon anyway, before the next “lap” expired. I was still running ~6:45 and felt OK. I focused on my mantra – “relaxed, calm, focused, strong” and tried not to think about the finish yet. A few more minutes and the end would be here!

I approached the small hill near the end and my watch read 2:57… I gave it what I had in the hopes of getting under 2:58. I rolled up the hill and rounded the corner to the finish and saw the clock ticking towards 2:58. I finished hard and came across in what I found out later to be 2:57:59 - almost exactly right on my 6:48 pace and just a hair under. My legs were completely cooked, but I was very satisfied with the hard effort. Plus, I had run my way from 6th to 3rd in the last 15 miles and from 5th to 3rd in the last 10K. My race plan worked great and I executed it well - can’t ask for more than that.

Above is a plot of my pace (blue), HR (red), and the elevation (yellow) of the course. Very even pace and HR, which I was quite happy with.

I ran the first 20 miles in 2:15:54 at an average pace of 6:48 and change and average HR of 161. I ran the last ~10K in 42:29 at an average pace of 6:48 and average HR of 164. My run fitness is coming along nicely. About 75 runs of 30 minutes or more and 500+ miles since 12/15/2010. The frequency has worked well and the key long runs built my confidence. I had been running big chunks of those long runs a few seconds slower than race pace and heart rates in the low 150s – a solid zone 2 effort for most of them.

Lots of things went well in this race:

1) Race plan – breaking it up mentally was great. I really had no idea what mile I was at most of the time.

2) Fueling plan – gel every 30 minutes at that pace kept me going.

3) Negative split (first 13.1 in 1:29:12 and 2nd 13.1 in 1:28:47)

I seriously can’t think of much I would have done differently. Had I gone out much faster, I don’t think I would’ve finished as well (duh). All of this bodes well for the tri-season ahead. Now it’s time to go swim and bike.

Race Report - Davis Stampede

I did my first “race” of the year and boy was it a nice day to run! Love early spring in Northern California. After a season last year of two Ironman distance races and no events less than 4-5 hours, a race where you are pushing your limits for about an hour and 20 minutes is somewhat painful (but in a good way). I hadn’t been running much after last season and then started ramping it up recently again around mid-December and then even more when I added a March marathon to my 2011 schedule. In addition, I hadn’t done an open half-marathon for two years and didn’t really know what to expect. My PR for the distance was 1:22:15 and I did that on a flat, fast course (Shamrock'n) in West Sacramento in 2009. This course in Davis was also supposed to be flat and fast, so I figured I could come close to that. The X-factor was how I would respond after a couple of heavier weeks of running and a very short taper / recovery leading into the race.

Warmup consisted of a few dynamic stretches and a light jog with my friend Bernhard, who was also running. My strategy for the day was to go out at about 6:20 per mile and then try to bring it into the 6:10-6:15 range for the last 7-8 miles and see how that felt. Then in the last 2, I was hoping to really push. I really wanted to focus on learning how to run with discomfort, stay inside my own head, not focus on how long till I can stop, and not let any negative thoughts take over. The power of positive thinking can go a long way and I wanted to make sure I stayed on top of the mental game this time around. Push myself into discomfort and then hold it there and learn to deal with it. From a nutrition standpoint, my intention was to have a gel about 20-30 minutes before start and then have another gel about half way. At each aid station, I would attempt to get a swig or two of water or Gatorade down. For a race that’s less than an hour and a half, you can get away with less. Plus, I had recently had some metabolic testing done and know that at this approximate pace I burn 18-20 calories per minute with about 5 of those calories being from fat and ~15 of those calories being from CHO. At 15 calories per minute and 80 minutes, I knew I would burn through about 1200 calories of CHO. I should have plenty of “juice” for that effort, especially with a gel 20 minutes before hand and a good breakfast 2-3 hours before the race.

I lined up with my friend about 3-4 people back from the front line and we waited for just a few minutes to the start. At the start, I took it out fairly hard to try to get around some people and then tried to find a groove. The first time I looked at my watch, I was around a 6 minute pace – a touch fast, so I needed to settle in to a steadier effort. I started early on with my internal dialogue (“relaxed, calm, focused, strong”) and tried to focus on that for a while and just run at a “comfortably uncomfortable” pace. It was a bit windy, but the course has a lot of turns so sometimes you were going with a nice tail wind and sometimes you were right into a stiff headwind. For the hard sections into the wind, I was trying to get behind people as best as possible. But the 10k’ers turned off pretty early and the race thinned out. There wasn’t really anywhere to hide, so I just rolled along. I didn’t get passed in the 2nd half of the race, which was nice, and I gradually creeped up on and passed about 3-4 more guys in the 2nd half.

Mile splits are below. I'm pretty frustrated with the HR data from my Garmin – I thought I had that fixed, but I still get junk HR data, even after changing the battery. I think my HR was in the high 160s through most of it and then raised into the 172-175 range by the end. From a pacing standpoint, mile 2 was my slowest, and miles 3, 4, 5, and 6 I tried to remain steady in my 6:20-ish pace. According to my watch, I was a little fast, but the mile markers didn’t match my watch exactly, there seemed to be about a 5 second discrepancy. Mile 8 was slower mostly because it was windy and I was on my own and it was getting hard to maintain that pace.

1 00:06:06
2 00:06:21
3 00:06:16
4 00:06:12
5 00:06:16
6 00:06:11
7 00:06:09
8 00:06:18
9 00:06:12
10 00:06:11
11 00:06:05
12 00:06:14
13 00:06:11
14 00:01:22

Around miles 7 and 8, I was working pretty hard to NOT think about the finish and how long I had left… staying focused on the internal self-talk and staying positive about being “relaxed, calm, focused, and strong.” It worked pretty well and I maintained a steady pace. Around mile 10 and 11, I started heading back towards town and passed 1 or 2 more people. The last two miles were tough; I was breathing harder (although still mostly in an every two step pattern), my legs were starting to really fatigue, but I still hung onto a <6:15 pace. Last time I ran a hard half-marathon, I was doing about 6:20-6:25 at the end so I really wanted to hang tough those last 2 miles. I rolled back into town and a guy told me he thought I was about 9th or 10th overall (it turned out he missed a few people). I made the last two turns, continued to push hard, and rolled to the finish in what I thought was a little under 1:22. Turns out they had me at 1:22:05 for a 10 second PR (3rd AG and 13th OA). My watch had me at 6:10/mile and a 13.22 mile run so it is either a little off or the course was a touch long. Regardless, I was satisfied with how the race went – I think I dealt with the discomfort better than I had before and next time around I can build on this... In summary, a good experience racing on a beautiful day with a good result.

Metabolic efficiency - are we sugar burners?

Disclaimer: I am not a sports nutritionist.

I first heard about the concept of metabolic efficiency when I went to the USAT coaching certification clinic. One of the speakers there was a sports nutritionist named Bob Seebohar who talked about this concept of how we can potentially manipulate our bodies into burning more fat during exercise. Why would you want to do this? Well, for anyone who has done a long (3+ hours) event, like a long-course triathlon or a century ride or something else where you are exercising for a long time, you may be familiar with the idea that your digestive system gets to the point where it decides it’s not happy with anything you ingest. When we exercise, our body shunts blood to our active muscles so they have the nutrients and fuel they need to keep working. However, this means we are getting less blood to our digestive system and our digestive system cannot process what we take in (very well, unless we stay at a low-enough intensity). So as our long event goes on and we take in more and more sports nutrition products, gel, sports drink, etc., the concentration of stuff in our gut just keeps going up and up while our body continues to shunt blood to our other muscles to keep powering our bodies forward. This is when things start to go south. For anybody who has done a long event, you’ve probably seen somebody doubled over along the course (particularly rampant at Ironman events) and unfortunately their nutrition is now coming back up (literally) because their body has decided to shut down. It goes like this: no fuel getting absorbed because we are exercising and taking in too much too fast resulting in a high concentration in our gut -> we feel worse and worse because no fuel is getting absorbed -> we take in more and more gel, etc. thinking that will solve the problem -> body shuts down and eventually forces contents of gut back up. Not pretty. What’s the answer? Burn more fat during exercise. Even a well-trained athlete only has maybe 2,000 calories of glycogen in their muscles and liver ready to act as fuel for exercise. However, even the leanest person has 80,000+ calories of fat to use to fuel exercise. You can see how 2K calories won’t last long if you are burning only sugar.

So how do we change all this? How can we make our bodies better “fat-burners?” In Bob Seebohar’s book, he suggests, and presents a fair amount of evidence that you can do this by:

1) Training at an aerobic intensity

2) Manipulating the macronutrients of your daily nutrition

Item number 1 is fairly straightforward – most of your training should be at an easy/moderate intensity. Do the hard stuff sparingly (for lots of reasons). Because of this, it may be easier to try improving your metabolic efficiency during a time of year when you are not racing as much and concentrating on building a big aerobic engine. Item #2 is about what you eat on a day-to-day basis MOST of the time. I say MOST of the time because I believe that if we are too black-and-white about anything, it can backfire. This is why most “diets” don’t work. If you completely cut stuff out, then it’s no good and our nature is to end up “falling off the wagon.” What you do on a consistent basis 90% of the time is key - keeping things simple and doing everything in moderation. In Bob’s book, he describes a periodized nutrition plan where the focus most of the year is on eating fruits and vegetables, low-fat protein, and healthy fats. You don’t need as much whole grain as you think. Sufficient carbs to support your training come from the fruits and vegetables (and other sources, dairy, etc.). Only when you are in a heavy period of training you supplement with some whole grains. This flies in the face of most of what has been preached to us endurance athletes for a LONG time. The entire sports-nutrition-product industry has been created to “fuel” our workouts. However, what do you think people ate prior to Gatorade and prior to Gu? Real food. Simply eat a well-balanced snack prior to your training sessions and then do the same immediately after. This is enough. During training, particularly if it’s easy/moderate intensity, we don’t need all the extra sugar. It teaches our body to be more efficient at burning sugar. And we know that burning sugar can only last so long. If we can be more metabolically efficient, we can go longer with a lot less risk of any GI distress.

Me on the treadmill (note the mask measuring RQ).

How do we know or measure any of this? Do we have to just guess? I am fortunate to have a friend who actually IS a sports nutritionist and has the equipment and capability to do metabolic efficiency testing. Sheila Leard (www. MyNutritionZone.com) is a registered sports dietician and can perform this kind of testing. By analyzing the content of what you breathe in and out, you can understand the blend of carbohydrate (CHO) and fat you are burning at different exercise intensities. This is VERY powerful information. For example, with a marathon on the horizon, using this data, I can understand EXACTLY what intensity (for running pace and HR) I can shoot for and be confident how much carbohydrate I am going to burn through the duration of the event. I now know what intensity to run for whatever duration I am interested in. I can also devise a fueling strategy based on this and practice it in training. The test is not complex or intimidating. You can do it either on the bike or on the treadmill and simply involves wearing a mask while you ride or run. Here’s a link to a video of me on the treadmill during the test: http://qik.ly/BE8pH3Nk3uESI5yqf4KsQsJ. You do an easy warm-up and then progressively increase the treadmill speed at set intervals, all the while, monitoring what’s called the Respiratory Quotient (RQ) via the mask and your heart rate via a heart rate strap/monitor. The RQ is the ratio of CO2 expired to O2 inspired and tells us how our body is handling the exercise intensity, by either burning mostly fat, some of both fat and CHO, or mostly CHO. The point where it changes to mostly CHO is called the crossover point. Ideally, you want to stay below this for much of your training, and combining that with daily dietary manipulations, you can teach your body to be more metabolically efficient.

My results, zoomed in to see the range of interest.

My results were very informative. In the plot, you can see I was burning a decent mix of fat and CHO up until we took it from 8 (~7:30 min/mile) to 8.5 mph (~7:00 minutes per mile) at which point my body transitioned to burning mostly CHO. Not only that, now I KNOW how many calories I burn per minute and what the blend is between fat/CHO at each intensity. Perfect. I can come up with training and fueling plans optimized for my upcoming races! It takes out the guesswork and makes me confident I can achieve the goals and performance targets I have set for myself! I am very excited about this concept and continue to work on the dietary changes myself. With two toddlers at home and a busy life, I will admit, it is tough, but like I said, I try to do well MOST of the time. I am also very excited about this concept and using the metabolic information with the athletes I coach. Fueling in endurance sports is definitely a trial-and-error process, but this testing helps take the guesswork out of it and the athlete and I can work together to come up with a fueling strategy more specific to their race circumstances and goals.