2014 - Aging Up and Going Big!

Next September I turn 40.  According to the triathlon, running and cycling world, though, I'll be 40 on January 1st which means I leave behind the whippersnappers in the 35-39 age group and compete with the 40-44 year old studs.  So I've decided to get a little crazy in 2014...here's my race schedule for the big year:

May 17 - Ironman Texas

June 27 - ITU Chicago (olympic-distance)

July 20 – Ironman 70.3 Racine

August 9 – USAT Age Group National Championships

September 7 – Ironman Wisconsin

October 11 – Ironman World Championships (pending qualification)

Because of this milestone year and now that I feel that I've finally kicked the injury bug that has interrupted my training each of the last 3 seasons I've decided to set some aggressive goals for myself:

1. Place top 5 in age group (run sub-3:30 marathon) at Ironman Texas and qualify for the 2014 Ironman World Championships
2. Qualify for the 2015 olympic-distance age group world championships representing Team USA
3. Place top 3 in age group (run sub-3:20 marathon) at Ironman Wisconsin and qualify for the 2015 Ironman World Championships
4. Compete in the 2014 Ironman World Championships in October

Hitting these goals and getting through a year like this injury-free and mentally fresh is going to require some tweaks to the way I've been doing things...

Strengthening and Correcting Muscle Imbalances
My history of injury since starting long-course triathlon is at the top of my list of concerns.  So I've been spending significant time this Fall doing things I haven't traditionally done, namely strength training and working with a physio to identify and fix imbalances in the way my muscles are firing (actually NOT firing).  I've been consistent since October 1st and so far I'm feeling the benefits.  Mostly it's the sensation of actually feeling my posterior chain (glutes and hamstrings) activating when it's supposed to.  I'm hopeful this will pay off and will keep me bulletproof.  I've read study after study that confirms the importance of strength training for aging athletes, especially those above 40.  The benefits of increased bone density, increased muscle mass/reduced fat tissue and optimizing hormonal production are especially appealing.  I'm not sure all of this is happening to me right now but I'm certainly "feeling" better than ever both in training and everyday life.  I can't remember the last time I didn't groan like an 80 year old man when I pick up one of my kids or run after one of their errant football throws - normal body movements are easier now!

Body Composition
While I'm naturally lean I do want to shed a few pounds off my race weight from last year to reduce the impact forces that running has on my bones and joints.  It's obviously a fine line to walk because there is such thing as being too lean and losing power in the muscles which especially affects cycling performance.  Additionally, being too lean can fry your adrenal system among other things and with such a long season I've got to be especially mindful of not falling over that cliff.  I'm not going to get too concerned with it for Ironman Texas where the flat course rewards those with power, but I will geek out a bit going into Ironman Wisconsin to ensure I'm carrying as little excess weight up those hills as possible.

Recovery
This will be my biggest focal point in 2014.  Recovery is obviously critically important pre- and post-Ironman; but with 2 (potentially 3, fingers crossed) Iron-distance races within 5 months it will take heightened awareness and discipline to follow my own advice.  Luckily I have a coach whom I trust and has been down this road many times.  While it's great to have someone pushing you harder to achieve more from your body, in this case, I'll be looking to him to perform the more important role of seeing through my bullshit and pulling back the reins when needed.

Support Network
One of the things I've learned in this sport and in life in general is that if you want to be successful you have to build relationships and surround yourself with successful people that have a vested interest in seeing you succeed.  Family, friends, work colleagues, training partners, medical professionals, coaches and sponsors are part of my "team" that will play an important role to help me meet my goals.

Slowing down with age is, of course, inevitable but I'm not willing to accept it yet - bring on 2014 and the big 4-0!

That's a wrap!

My 2013 triathlon season is in the books.  I did decide to do one final sprint (North Shore Tri) 1 week after finishing the Ironman 70.3 World Championships to blow the rust off before a nice little break.  Here's a quick rap on how it went:

North Shore Tri Race Report

Another tri, another rainy day!  I'm getting used to this.  After nonchalantly getting myself to transition I realized I forgot my googles.  No worries, I'll just ask around...someone always has an extra pair.  This being a local sprint tri there were a lot of first-timers hence an extra pair of googles was hard to come by.  Finally I found an older dude that had some as old as he was.  With 5 minutes to race time I took 'em.

The 400m swim was in Lake Michigan from point to point.  My rib injury was top of mind but my thought was I can make it through 6ish minutes of pain one last time.  But the focus on my ribs immediately went away after the first few strokes because of the damn antique goggles I was wearing.  I ended up flipping on my back 3 times to drain the leaking bastards, then finally halfway through I ripped them off my face and went old school.  400m didn't come quickly enough!

On the bike my legs were feeling good.  I was racing without any electronics...no power meter, no Garmin, not even a stopwatch.  It was awesome!  I just went by feel.  With a 2 loop out and back course I got some good splits on the lead guys.  I was within contention at the first turn and found my self making up time as the race went on.

I came into T2 in 4th OA.  I ended up passing 3rd within the first half mile.  It felt great to push hard and not have pace on my wrist to look at.

By the final mile I figured out that 1st and 2nd had more time on me than I thought so I backed off a little.  I held onto 3rd OA and coasted in.

This was a fun little race to end the season.  I'm looking forward to a much needed break!

WTF is wrong with my ribs?

A few days after getting back from Vegas I finally followed my doctors orders and got the MRI.  I didn't do it before since I really didn't want to know if something is seriously effed up which would detract from me racing in Vegas.  I really thought it was an intercostal strain, serratus tear or lat tear.  The results shocked me...2 fractures!  One on the 6th and one on the 7th rib.  The good news is they are non-displaced (kind of like a stress fracture).  The bad news I need at least 8 weeks to let them heal.

So I've gone through pretty much the whole season training and racing with busted ribs!  WTF?!  Apparently the little bike crash I had the end of June was more serious than I thought.  What's weird is the rib pain didn't surface until a couple weeks after the crash during a hard swim in a sprint triathlon.  Never did I think I had a fracture.

Hello off-season

The plan is to give the body and mind a good rest until October 1st at which time I'll start cranking up again for 2014.  With another early season Ironman (Ironman Texas - May 2014) and some big goals I need to get started soon.  I'm also registered for Ironman Wisconsin in September 2014 with some even bigger goals.  And if I end up qualifying for Hawaii at Texas that would mean 3 Ironman races in 2014.  So I need to go into 2014 training F.R.E.S.H.

I have a few other aches and pains that I'll be addressing in this short off-season (right big toe, right hamstring and right glute).  Lots of rest, stretching, massage, strength, etc.  The hamstring is my biggest concern right now.  I've had an annoying ache in that sucker since March.  I'm calling it hamstring tendonitis (thanks Dr. Google!).

I'll check in again once the 2014 cranks up...

Ironman 70.3 World Championships Race Report

Swim
Pre-race expectation: 31:00-34:00  /  Actual: 34:11

I walked out of the hotel at 4:45a and couldn't believe my eyes...RAIN, in Vegas??!! Apparently it rains 27 days out of the year. Oh well, everyone has to deal with it...HTFU!! The rain stayed steady until about 10:00a (with 10 miles remaining on the bike). Andrea drove me to the swim start/T1 but there was a major traffic jam going into Lake Las Vegas. At 5:45, with 15 minutes until T1 closed, I made the decision to jump out of the car and walk the remaining mile to T1 in my flip flops on a slippery sidewalk. Luckily I didn't fall flat on my ass, although I came close several times. I got to T1 with 5 minutes before when I thought they'd close transition but luckily they were pretty lenient about it. After a quick and rushed transition set-up I got in the queue for the swim start and bided my time trying not to think about how uncomfortable my ribs already felt. I knew it was going to take some mental fortitude to get through the first 1.2 miles of this race. Sure enough, I got in the water, took a stroke toward the starting buoys and felt major screaming from that area. I started on the outside edge about 2-3 rows back with the intention of taking a straight line toward the 6th or 7th buoy (the course was sort of banana-shaped).

View of the swim start from the other side of Lake Las Vegas

I didn't experience too much scrum in the first few hundred meters and really didn't have much more contact than normal the whole way around. My plan was to find some feet, swim a comfortable tempo effort and try to block out the pain. The pain was really bad in the first 500 meters, then it got a little better (maybe I just got used to it), then it escalated significantly in the final 500 meters. At that point I was putting 100%+ power into my catch and pull on the left side and about 50% power on the right side. I got through the swim in 34:11 (slowest 70.3 swim in MANY years, although it seemed like most AGers had slower swims by a couple minutes...my Garmin had the course at 1.3 miles), about 4 minutes slower than what I would expect if I was in optimal swim form and a minute or 2 slower than my pre-race expectation. It was quite a long run from swim exit, around the southern edge of the lake and into T1. The rain made T1 a freaking mess.

Dammit...still raining!

Bike
Pre-race expectation: 2:35-2:45 / Actual: 2:42:22

My plan was to ride a hair under 240 watts for the first 20-30 minutes (until I completed the first major climb), then get in some nutrition, then lock in on 250 watts. But since it wasn't as sunny and hot as expected I let some higher power efforts come. The power was coming pretty easily as I was seeing numbers well above 250 watts, especially on the many small climbs coming out of Lake Las Vegas (1st 5-10 miles). The rib pain was bad, especially when I would get out of the saddle, but not too bad when I was aero, so I had no excuse to get out of aero and mash the pedals on the climbs. The rain made the bike miserable. I was really looking forward to taking in the scenery in Lake Mead National Park but it took a lot of focus to ride cautiously on the slick roads.

The course lived up to the hype with lots of rollers in the National Park.

By about mile 30-35 my focus and interest in pushing my power goal started waning. I just wanted to get out of this steady rain. It was probably an indication that my nutrition wasn't working all that well (mostly Perform, Bonk Breakers and Chomps), but I was getting it down gullet like I planned. I should note that the improved front-end hydration system that the boys from Speedfil helped me install on Saturday worked flawlessly! In the last 15 miles the rain finally relented, plus we were now on flat roads - me likey! Now the power started coming back. I could see sunny skies toward Henderson so I knew the run was going to be hot so I didn't go too crazy with the power although I felt like I could have pushed some much harder efforts. With 10 miles to go I had to pee pretty bad (at least I knew I was hydrated) and I could feel the urge to drop a deuce, too (dammit...too much food consumed the day prior and at breakfast which is a mistake I commonly make before races). I decided to wait to do both until I got to T2. I ended up with an NP of 241 watts, about 10 below my hot/sunny day goal which I attribute to the last 10-15 miles with the National Park when I was losing focus. I didn't experience too much problem with the draft packs, although there were some offenders especially with the pointy end of the AGs that started behind mine. I saw quite a few draft marshals but they seemed to be cutting people a lot of slack which sort of pissed me off. I always pride myself on racing clean so at least I kept my streak going.


Run
Pre-race expectation/goal: sub-1:45:00 / Actual: 1:37:56

I spent about 45 seconds to a minute in the porto in T2 but it was definitely a good decision. I headed out of T2 feeling pretty good physically and mentally ready to put in a solid run effort. The sun was out and it was warming up by this time...exactly what I had hoped for. I formulated a plan for my run during the last hour of the bike...my stretch goal for 2014 is to run a 3:20 Ironman marathon so I decided that given these hot/humid conditions and the difficult run course this would be a good test to see if I could run that pace or faster in this race (sub-1:40 or 7:37/mi). Given the 3 loop run course my plan was to get faster with each loop. Coming out of T2 you descend for the first mile when you're feeling good and have great spectator support which makes it tough to run a chill pace, but I stayed disciplined with a 7:15ish split. Then it was 2 miles of a steady climb before descending 1 mile to complete the first loop. Then repeat 2 more times.

On the downhill

I averaged 7:30/mi for the 1st loop, 7:23/mi for the 2nd and 7:24/mi for the 3rd loop for a run split of 1:37:56. It definitely got tough on the 3rd loop as I slowed a bit more than I would have liked on the final 2 mile climb but I finished with a solid kick in the final mile (downhill). I also had several small victories of putting time on some people I was marking throughout the run. I also outkicked some guys in the final 1/4 mile whom I was going back and forth with over the last half of the run. My hydration was spot on throughout the run...Perform and water at every aid for the first 9 miles, then Coke and water at every aid for the final 4 miles. I also took in 4 Chomps and 2 gels in the first 9 miles. Energy was good throughout the run with some expected dips in the final 2 miles.

Home stretch

I finished feeling pretty pleased with my effort, especially the fact that I stuck to my run pace plan and beat my goal. I was a little disappointed I didn't go under 5 hours (this was my slowest 70.3 time since my first one 10 years ago and it was also my slowest swim, bike AND run splits for a 70.3 in recent memory). I was really disappointed by my bike split and somewhat with my effort there, especially letting the power fade from miles 30-40. All in all it was a great experience being able to toe the line at another world championship event - such a humbling experience racing with some uber-talented athletes on a very challenging course. It's definitely not a course I want to go back to, though.

Done!

As far as the ribs...as soon as I crossed the finish line the muscles in that area went into full spasm. I couldn't take a deep breath and couldn't lift my right arm. I immediately went to the massage tent to get things loosened up. It helped a little but it's definitely worse than it's been since this issue first surfaced 2 months ago. As I write this it's now 2 days later and I still can't get in a deep breath, cough, sneeze, blow my nose or clear my throat/lungs without significant pain. An MRI is scheduled this week to find out once and for all what is up. Hello off-season!!

Many THANK YOUs are owed for all the support.  Of course, #1 being Andrea for making the trip with me and enjoying a nice vacation sans kids for the first time in a VERY long time.  Happy 14 year anniversary baby!  All the pre-race mojo and support from friends and family was SO cool!  Marty and Kristin at Amphibian Multisport - can't wait for the world to see your new shop opening up in Libertyville soon!  And the folks at Speedfil, Powertap and Gu for everything they provide to get an athlete ready to race and for their support on the course.