My Triathlon Adventure

A while back ago I posted about a training log that I have been using to track my workouts.  I have tweaked and modified a google spread sheet that was created by Ray Suarez.  I don’t know Ray, in fact I just emailed him today to tell him about the changes, but I do know that he put a ton of work into the original google docs conversion, and I have just added a few tweaks using the new scripting abilities of google spreadsheets that weren’t available when Ray made his conversion.

I have added a few things, like training outside of bike, run and swim, a way to interactively add entries, and a way to automatically reset the spreadsheet at the end of the new year while maintaining lifetime totals.  There is an instruction tab in the spreadsheet so take a look at that before you get started.

There are some caveats.  The graphs need work.  I haven’t touched them, but I think they need to be redone or at least tested.  Other than that, I’m not aware of any bugs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  Use the spreadsheet at your own risk, and keep in mind that you should keep copies of this info elsewhere.  I have never had issues with losing data, but there is always the possibility that a rouge script, or a google oops could wipe out your data.

You can find the spreadsheet here.  You’ll need to have, or create, a free google account to make a copy of the spreadsheet and start using it.

If you find any bugs, have suggestions for new features, or make improvements of your own please let me know.

Enjoy!

Last evening I was tired and actually somewhat disoriented.  I was scheduled to go spin and do a swim, but I really just wanted to lay down.  I ended up going anyway.  I needed to get a good swim in so I figured, if I’m going out, I should just go for it.  By the time I started on the spin bike I felt much better.  We had a substitute instructor, and I would qualify this class as an easy recovery ride.  It hit the spot because I’m not sure I had an all out ride left in the tank.

At any rate, when I finished the spin, I moved to the pool and tried one more time to have a good swim.  I was a bit more organized in my swim.  Ok what I mean to say is that I didn’t feel like I was floundering, but I didn’t follow through with the proper breathing.  As the swim got longer I feel back on my old habits.  The result is that I swam solidly, but slowly, really slowly.  It took 13 minutes and change to swim 11 laps.  That is without a break.  I feel like I’m going backwards in terms of performance.

In hindsight I realize that there were a number of factors that contributed to the slow speed.  The first was that I was deliberately moving more slowly than usual, at least at first, so there’s that.  In addition, my stroke is a mess, I am using energy to push myself up instead of forward.  I need to work on that.  I’m hoping to get one more swim in before this weekend’s YMCA triathlon.  We’ll see how it goes.

I have been continuing to work on my swim breathing.  I can do fairly well with breathing when I am just focusing on that.  Unfortunately, when I do that I can’t get my swim stroke going.  Once I start working on my swim stroke the breathing breaks down.  It’s a vicious cycle and I don’t know what to do about it other than continue working hard at one of them until I get it down.

Last night I did some swimming after spin class, and I have to say, things felt much better.  It didn’t feel like controlled drowning, but it wasn’t my most graceful effort to date.  I knocked out 7 laps in no time.  I wasn’t planning on doing laps, it kind of just happened, so I didn’t bother timing it when I started.  By the time I got 4 laps in I regretted it not timing myself.  I felt like I was really moving.  I was able to complete the laps without stopping to catch my breath, and I think it all relates to me slowing the strokes down, and to the new breathing.

Having said that, I do still hold my breath at times, especially when I something goes wrong, like I take in a little water, or I don’t get much air.  But I manage to recover while swimming, and then spend some time focused on breathing.  All in all I do have to say I feel like last night’s swim was a good start in the right direction.

My next goal is to start swimming for distance.  I’d like to get to the point where I can swim for 30 minutes straight with no stopping and see how many laps that works out to.  I am also considering buying a lap counter just because it gets hard to figure out where you are after a while.  Next swim is probably going to be Sunday.  I also have my first ever cross counter skiing adventure this Saturday, I’m looking forward to that!

I have slowly begun the training process.  It hasn’t been easy, I was getting used to slacking off.  The last couple of weeks I have mange to get some spin classes and swimming in.

In terms of swimming I am working on my breathing technique by doing superman style drills.  I lay on my stomach floating in the water with my hands out over my head and overlapping.  The whole time my face is in the water I am exhaling with my nose and mouth.  When I need to breath I take a stroke and take a breath.  I do this a length at a time, and it works well.

Last night I tried to incorporate the breathing into my new swim stroke.  It was awkward to say the least.  If I had to sum up the event, I would say that it resembled controlled drowning.  It is really hard to get everything synced up, and there was more than one time where I got a mouth full of water instead of air.  The good news is that I was able to recover and get a good breath on the next stroke.  So it seems that as long as I don’t panic I should be ok even if I get a little water in my mouth when I go for air.

Later on I tried to slow everything down.  Slow my arms, slow my pace, and then things seemed to feel much better.  Look at that, slow down to go faster, it almost makes sense.  At any rate, now that I am getting better at breathing, I don’t have to breath every other stroke, so I can be a bit more efficient.  The next step is to get my stroke straightened out.  Lots of work to do there, but I’m optimistic.

Incidentally, I had the first triathlon of the year a couple of weeks ago.  It went ok, and I’ll dedicate a post to it when I get a little time.

Tonight I attended a running clinic put on by the Farmington Valley Runner’s Group with Coach Al Lyman.  I just wanted to jot down a few notes from what he said for future reference.  Just a brain dump really.

• One big issue that he identified was similar to what my physical therapist mentioned previously about muscles firing in the correct order.  He mentioned that the glutes often aren’t firing during the run which leads to compensation by other muscles and eventually to injury.
  • One thing he mentioned was doing proper bridges to get your glutes to fire more effectively.
  • Doing these exercises 3 times a week or more will help get the glutes going, focus on keeping your core steady and not curling your hips when you lift.
• He also mentioned training purposefully.  Don’t just slog out the miles, understand what the goal is for the run and attack it, could be speed training or endurance training, it doesn’t matter focus on that
• Slow down the endurance runs, should have maybe a couple miles at the end at a faster pace, the rest really easy
• Train for the race, match the conditions, i.e. same hills in the same places, in order to prepare for the race
• A hard training run will make your normal pace seem easier, it is all about managing perception
• Your glutes should work the hardest when running, and the downward and backward pressure, i.e. the pushoff on the back of your run stride is the key to increasing propulsion.
  • As an aside, this makes sense, use your arms to swim, your quads to bike, and your glutes to run
• I need to focus on keeping the cadence up 100+ steps per minute, while keeping my feet under my body for higher propulsion

That’s it for now.

I’m in the process of transitioning computers, so I haven’t been able to edit the video clips I got from Coach Al into bite sized pieces.  But I will do that over the coming weeks.

Today I tried some new techniques based on that video and Coach Al’s suggestions.  It involves making some pretty wholesale changes to how I move my arms.  I have to say, it feels quite awkward to change the way my arms move, even with only a few months of swim training under my belt.  I showed my wife the new technique, and she took to it quite well.  I, on the other hand, felt like a newly born giraffe.  All arms and joints.  The issue, I believe, is that my arms are moving too rapidly.  I specifically tried to slow them down.  Focus on the catch, focus on a slow and controlled pull.  We were circle swimming in the same lane with someone else.  She was swimming at a decent clip.  I gave her about a quarter length and started my slow controlled, drill-like stroke.   I focused only on moving my arms properly but slowly.  It was effortless and relaxed.  Pretty soon I felt my fingers hit the wall, well, I thought it was the wall.  It turns out that my “slow and controlled” was propelling me through the water more quickly than my old fast and messy.  I had caught up to her and hit her feet.

I was shocked, and the beauty is that it was totally effortless.  I wasn’t out of breath in the least.  This is the winning stroke for sure.  I just have to get out of this awkward learning stage so that I can focus on breathing which is my real nemesis.

I had my first spin of the year today. OK, so it was actually the first spin in a very long time. At any rate, at first I thought I was going to die. It took a good 10 or 15 minutes before I settled into a groove. I didn’t slow down, or ease off on the tension even when I was hurting, so I’m proud of myself for that. By the end, however, I was beat. I couldn’t keep the cadence up and I was honestly glad when it was over. It was just about the right amount of pain for the day. Heidi, the spin instructor, is almost uncannily good at taking you right to the edge of exhaustion and then bringing you back. It felt good to get the lungs going again.

After spin I met the wife and kids at the family pool, and got to play with the little ones while my wife got in a few laps in the big boy pool. I had a lot of fun with my little guys, and my oldest son is starting to really hold his own in the pool. The months of swim lessons are really paying off.

After play time we had a quick lunch, and I headed into a swim lecture with triathlon super coach Al Lyman. He is a great guy and had a lot of really good advice for swim training. After the lecture he video taped us and will be doing a swim analysis with video and sending it to us along with some specific drills. I’m looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I have decided to dedicate the next few swim sessions to drilling on breathing. I need to get that down. I think that is the single biggest limiting factor for me. I hold my breath, and Coach Al was very clear that holding your breath is going to make you tired for no good reason. I will scour the web for breathing drills, but I think I have an idea on how to drill on my own. I’ll give that a try and report on my progress.

This weekend officially kicked off the training season for me. I have new running shoes which I hope help me kick my IT Band issue in the butt. I plan to run on the dreadmill at work when I can.

My first active training session was Sunday. I hit the pool and did about a dozen or so laps. Man am I out of shape. It was a struggle to do 9 laps and my form broke down almost immediately. But, if I put it into perspective, last year at this time I couldn’t even finish a single length without struggling. So, I think I’m going to be ok.

This weekend I will be attending a swim clinic put on by a local triathlete coach Al Lyman. He will video tape us and provide feedback and drills to help us improve. I’m looking forward to it. I’m also thinking about hiring him to do a gate analysis to see if there is something I can improve in terms of my running form.

I still have some work to do to put together a training plan, and a race schedule, but that should come over the next couple of weeks.

Summary:
Well, I came in with a goal of just finishing before the clock ran down to 0. I succeeded! My calves and shins behaved surprisingly well, but it wasn’t a cake walk by any stretch. My finish time was 2:19 with a pace of 10:25. Not bad all things considered.

The long version

Pre-Race
I woke up at 5:45. All of my gear was setup the night before, so it was just a matter of going through the motions. My wife, sister-in-law, and I had our breakfasts. Mine was a ham omelet, a banana, and coffee. My mom arrived at around 6:20 to watch the kids while we raced. All the ruckus of getting ready to go and last minute instructions for my mom was enough to wake the two oldest boys up. They came staggering out of the bedroom. It was actually great to be able to give them hugs and kisses before we left. We arrived in Hartford by 7:10 or so. Stopped at my office to use the facilities, and jogged over to Bushnell park to prep for the race. One of the cool amenities of the race was that UPS left trucks out to store the athlete’s gear. We were able to check a bag at the truck and have our gear right there when the race was over. Every race should be like this. By 7:50 or so we were in line and ready to go. I didn’t feel that nervous, but my heart rate monitor told me otherwise. Just standing there my heart rate was at 130. Yikes. The national anthem was sung, the gun went off, and we were off. I kissed my wife, wished her luck, and ran my race.

The First Half
As I started out I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the mass of humanity in front of me. 13,000 people filling the road, all with different goals but all moving in the same direction. I glanced up and saw a man doing the half marathon on crutches, he was missing a leg, it was incredible and made me realize how insignificant my little pains were.

My plan was to continue my run 4 walk 1 process. It worked well in training, so I wanted to continue it to help my IT bands and my shins. Unfortunately, with so many people all around, stopping was not an option. I continued my run for about 30 minutes before stopping. My pace was slow, a little less than 11 minute miles, but I was plugging along. I took a little of my homemade energy gel and I walked the minute. Then I continued my run.

I hadn’t made out where the mile markers were so I was running blind for a while. After running what I was sure was 5 miles I came across a DJ at Parkville School on Park Street and he was yelling out, “OK you’ve already done 3.5 miles, keep going.” I looked at the guy next to me and said “that’s it?” I wasn’t hurting at all, but it sure felt like I had made more progress than that. The one bright note was that I had no shin or calf pain, I think the rest and the calf sleeves really helped. I knew that if I hadn’t gotten any tightness by now, I was probably going to be ok.

After one of my walks, I looked up and saw my wife just ahead, I ran up to her and said hi. She was surprised to be in front of me, but I wasn’t. She was doing great. She later said she was struggling with her heart rate, but I couldn’t tell.

The race continued more or less uneventfully until mile 5. Just as I approached the mile marker, I finally figured out where they were, I felt a twinge in my left knee. When I run for long distances I get two kinds of pains. A small twinge below my knee cap, and a light burning on the outside of my knee. The twinge usually goes away in no time, the burning usually turns into horrible IT band pain. After another quarter mile or so I came to the awful realization that the twinge was a burn, and that I was starting to get that IT band pain once more. Eight miles left, how on earth was I going to make it?

The Second Half
I had a huge range of emotions at this point. I was mad that I was hurting already. I was confused since I have never had IT band pains while wearing knee braces, and I was concerned, I have never been able to run more than a mile or two after my IT bands start to hurt. Right then and there I started to doubt the finish. I decided to just tough it out and see how it went.

I crossed the half way point at about 1:06. I told myself I just had to get to mile 10, then, if I had to, I could walk it the rest of the way. I broke the race into 4 minute chunks. I would tell myself, ok, just run for 4 minutes and you can have a walk break. The walks were thankfully pain free so they were a bit of a welcome relief and when I started running again it didn’t hurt right away.

I used the pain as a barometer of how I was doing. I looked at the watch during the run when the pain started up to see if things were getting better or worse. Sometimes I could run 3 minutes before the pain got bad. Sometimes I would be limp running within 2 minutes of starting to run. It wasn’t consistent, so I really couldn’t tell if things were getting better or worse. Downhills hurt a lot, uphills hurt a little, and flats were bearable.

Even through all that, I was aware of my surroundings, and I ran over to any kid on any side of the street with their hand out for a high five. It was so nice of everyone to be out there watching us and cheering us on, the kids were great, and although my kids weren’t able to be there, the kids in the street were a small stand in that reminded me of my kids and kept me going.

As I entered Elizabeth Park I started to pep up. Joe, a friend of ours from the YMCA tri club, said he was going to be in the park to cheer us on. I scanned the sides of the street, and suddenly he was right there in front of me. It was a sight for sore eyes (ok maybe sore knees). I didn’t say a word, I was in too much pain, but I gave him a huge high five and a big grin. From that moment on, the pain was gone. I felt pep in my step, and I knew that I could do it. Before long I was at the 10 mile mark, the home stretch, I’ve got this.

The Home Stretch
As I turned onto Farmington Avenue I started to pour it on. I ran through the group and made some headway. The pain in my knees had gone numb, and I just wanted to see the finish. I saw the last mile marker, this was it, there was no way I wasn’t going to make it now.

As I made my final approach, I saw the Soldier’s and Sailor’s arch in the distance and I knew I just had to make it under there and I was done. As I turned the corner the crowd got thick and I could hear a roar from everyone as the runners streamed through the finish. As I looked out at the crowd, and the cheers washed over me, I was overcome with emotion. My eyes welled up, I did it, all this training, this moment is what it’s for. As I ran through the finish I pumped my fists in the air. I made it.

Time: 2:16:26
Pace: 10:25
Place: 3135 / 4623 A/G 267/322

Post Race
After the race I grabbed my medal and had something to eat. When I got home my IT bands were on fire. I couldn’t find a comfortable position. It took some Ibuprofen and sat with my kids. It was a perfect ending to an amazing day.

Lessons Learned
Well, there were a few. I need to seriously strengthen my knees and legs. This IT band issue will be the death of me if I can’t get it figured out. I am building a slide board, and am starting a P90X regiment next week. I’m getting back to spin and swim as well. Time to prepare to finish strong next year.

Another lesson I learned, you can push through the pain. Eventually your body will stop hurting. Of course there is a fine line there. Ignoring the wrong pain can cause serious injuries. I will listen to my body as I push, and hopefully that will let me know when I should stop.

Also, I learned that my endurance is pretty good. I came in at pretty close to my training pace, and I felt fantastic in terms of energy and endurance. In fact, other than my IT bands I wasn’t hurting at all. I’m sure I could have pushed the pace by quite a bit had I not had the IT band issues. (Yet another reason to get those IT bands under control.)

Finally, I think that my IT bands hurt so much because of all the dodging I did to get around people. I don’t do that in training at all, so doing it in this race just put me over the edge.

So, for now, a week or two off, and then back to training and planning my race card next year. Maybe even a full marathon, who knows.

Acknowledgments

I want to congratulate my wife and sister-in-law for running a great race, it was great to experience that with them.

I want to thank my mom for watching the kids so that we could do this race. It was barely more than a year ago that I sat in a hospital room for a month watching her in a medically induced coma, not knowing if she was going to survive her aneurysm, today she is recovered and doing really well. Thanks for being there for us.

I also wanted to thank Joe for helping me finish the race, it is indescribable how good it is to see a familiar face in a crowd and know that there is someone there rooting for you.

Finally, I want to thank everyone that came out to cheer us on. What an amazing feeling to have this unity and support, I’ll never forget this moment, and the great crowd made it all the better.

So the half mary is only a few days away and it is all question marks for me.

I tried a 3 mile run early last week, and it went poorly. My shins were hurting by the end of the first mile. Really painful! So what’s a guy to do? I have decided to rest. I am taking a complete work stoppage at this point. I have been focusing on stretching, including incorporating shin stretching, and my IT band PT. I bought and am wearing calf sleeves to help support my shins. I wear them every day during the day, and take them off at night. I am also taking Ibuprofen to reduce any inflammation. My goal is to just heal in time for race day.

As I approach race day I am also trying to stay positive. My shins are still pretty achy so I’m nervous about this race. My goal at this point is to finish it. Just cross the line before the time limit is up. I think I can do it…no, I know I can do it, but I’m still very nervous about this whole shin situation.

I am going to work through the pain, that is all I can do. So as the days close in on me, I will be putting out positive thoughts with the hope that they will make me successful.

I’m excited too. Excited to be taking part in the big dance.

I still plan on doing the 4 minute run/1 minute walk thing, but I know it will be tough to do with all of these people running me by. Wish me luck, I’m going to need it.