Author Archives: dshen

Off Season into Base Training: Like Pulling My Legs Out of Sludge

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Well I’m finally on the edge of being completely out of off season and about mid-way through my base training. The reason I say I’m not completely out of off season is because of some injury which has forced a reversal back to pre-base to allow for healing.
My off season this year was the longest yet. It was about 3 months total before beginning the base training ramp. And wow that extra month made a huge difference in a negative way.
Since I only have one major race this year, IM Florida, and it’s way late in the year on Nov. 1, I thought I would give my body some extra rest and healing before ramping again this year. I think the extra rest and healing did happen but it also had some detrimental effects.
I do not have an athlete’s base. I never did athletics when younger and so my body is still trying to adapt to the stresses of being an Iroman athlete. So I react differently than other more conditioned athletes in that I may get injured when others don’t, or I need more rest than others in the same situation. Or at least I reach some higher conditioned state.
The extra month of off season seemed to have pulled my fitness so far back that when I tried to ramp, albeit gently, I still got injured on both feet, right foot having a plantar fascia issue which caused the ball of my foot to swell, and my left ankle’s tendons getting strained. I think this would have not happened with other more conditioned athletes.
This caused me to interrupt my run bulid and finally just stop running altogether to let it heal completely, as running in between just aggravated both and never let the pain go away. I stopped for 3 weeks of running, but I was able to build swimming and cycling.
As for cycling, this was also interesting. Throughout off season, I used my Powercranks to do strength workouts on my bike and gained a lot. But extending that strength into my core Computrainer workouts has been tough; I had to take the strategy of doing a workout 2-3 times in succession, starting with conservative wattage and increasing it on the same interval workout. My wattage seems to have increased a bit, but it feels that I did not gain as much as I would have liked. Still, it’s early and I have not done long outdoor bikes yet.
That extra month of off season really made it tough to come back, more so than in previous years of only two months of off season. It’s been like pulling my legs out of sludge; it feels SOOOOOO slow to build back the strength and endurance that I had last year. At last, as I come up on May, I feel I am almost there. Another 2 weeks of gentle run building with the addition of fartleks to prepare for track workouts and speed, and I hope to be ready to get on the build to Ironman Florida this November.
Next year, only 2 months of off season and that’s it! And after watching online my buddies race at a murderously hot/humid Ironman China yesterday, I’m psyched to get into some serious training…

On Nutrition: Email to Buddy, Going For His First Half IM

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Sent to my buddy, who was concerned about his nutrition. My half IM (and some full IM) nutrition plan:

First, congratulations and great job in reaching this point to undertake your first half IM!
Second, here my views on nutrition:
Although I also have tried to add up calories over time at one point, I have found that it is something that is super hard to quantify like that, and I’m not sure it’s useful. Race conditions change and so does your body over time.
For instance, I tried to follow similar nutrition plans at Half Vineman and Honu Half but at the Honu Half, it was a lot hotter and my stomach shut down at one point whereby fluid was sloshing around in there. So I had to stop taking in fluid until my stomach calmed down, and also I walked a lot too. A short while later, magically the fluid in my stomach just got absorbed all of a sudden and then I ran to the finish. This has never happened to me at Half Vineman where the temps are different.
As for my body, I have found that over time, I don’t need to dump so much nutrition down as my body’s natural strength, endurance, and fitness have risen. At one time I would fill up my water bottles with 1.5 scoops of Accelerade and then an extra scoop of Carbo Pro just to top it off. I found out that doing this meant that after a long ride, I would get diarrhea from too many calories going in and my body just not being able to process it, causing stomach problems. So I backed off on this and only use 1 scoop Accelerade for even a tall water bottle and I don’t have any problems, AND I’m getting faster AND I’m not bonking either. So overloading on calories obviously wasn’t going to make me faster.
Fine tuning your nutrition is something you should be doing during training, so hopefully you’ve found your plan. DO NOT DEVIATE from your plan no matter what! Everyone says this but we often don’t follow our own advice. You could really mess yourself up if you don’t. I’ve seen people throw up on the course and you ask them afterwards what happened and some of the time they deviated from plan! If you don’t throw up during training, you’ll probably be ok for the race.
I have many more problems with cramping, so I dump in 3 scoops of Endurolyte powder into each tall water bottle, and one scoop into each 10oz Fuel Belt bottle. I also take 3 Saltstick tabs per hour (1 every 20 min), in addition to the electrolytes in my fluids. This I have tested and have shown no negative effects on this, and it seems to help me control my cramping since I sweat a lot AND I’m a weak piece of shit so cramping comes naturally to me.
Here’s my nutrition plan for a half IM (note full IM is slightly different):
3 hours before the race start, I eat a hard boiled egg, and 1/4 plain bagel. Then I sit on the toilet and crap out whatever I can (believe me you don’t want to take a crap on the course if you can avoid it; plus I’ve seen racers with brown streaks out their butts on their race shorts because they had to crap and it just started coming out yuck!). I drink down a cup of First Endurance Pre-Race with a carbo drink, usually I just use Endurox recovery drink before the race (as well as after). I also dump a packet of Emergen-C in there too.
Before the swim starts, I take a Powergel (w/ extra sodium).
After the swim before the bike, I put down another Powergel. I get on my bike and ride. For half IM on the bike, I usually use 2 large water bottles with one scoop Accelerade and 3 scoops Endurolyte powder each.
Usually I don’t start taking any more down for a while until my body gets accustomed to riding. I find that I really don’t need my first nutrition until 45-1 hr in. But i do start taking salt tabs on my 20 min schedule immediately (it’s important to not get into an electrolyte deficit early), and sipping fluids about every 15 min. I take a Powergel every 45 min, a Saltstick tab every 20 min, and sip my water bottle to wash down everything. Depending on the air temp, I may sip more or less than every 20 min.
Generally, I go through 2 large water bottles in a half IM. After I finish one, I immediately toss it to increase my aerodynamics.
If my stomach feels too full, I may wait a bit before my next sip or nutrition.
Hopping off the bike, I go into T2. I keep my eye on my watch and keep fueling my Powergels every 45 min, continuing from when I was on the bike. I may grab a cup of gatorade on the way out, as usually there is a nutrition station at T2 exit.
For half IM, I carry 2 10oz Fuel Belt bottles of Accelerade. But I mix it in another small water bottle so I fill the bottle up, and put one scoop in there, and then dump 2 scoops Endurolyte powder in there. Then I squirt it into 2 10oz bottles.
At some point, I may try to do the race without carrying my own fluids, but now I am too paranoid about my electrolyte problems and cramping to trust only what is out there on the course. Also, sometimes even half ironman aid stations will run out and it’s nice to have something to sip if you can’t get something on the course.
But inevitably, I am supplementing my Fuel Belt fluids with whatever is on the course. If I reach an aid station and I’m about to take a gel, I’ll just drink a Gatorade there instead of sipping from my bottles. I am a huge fan of cola so I will definitely drink that over my own fluids, but at most half IMs you won’t find cola, only at full IMs.
Still i gel every 45 min, and take Saltstick tabs every 20 min.
This has seemed to work well for me but it was developed very organically and not very scientifically. Still, I have not bonked ever on a race so thats a plus. I have had other problems but never bonked thankfully.
Check out this article:
Feed the Machine, Triathlete Magazine
In looking at what you’re doing, the only thing I might change is to eat the powerbar earlier. Digestive systems start working not as well as time goes on, and your body is more able to deal with solid foods earlier in the race than later.
But note that I only eat energy bars during full IM where I usually put down at least 2, sometimes 3 bars in the first 3 hours. My bar of choice is the Balance Bar Yogurt Honey Peanut. It is very plain tasting and easy to chew. I hate Powerbars because they are so chewy and require more water for me to get down. But i have found that half IMs are short enough that you don’t need to have solid food and can do well on gels alone. Besides, eating a bar is harder than gels. You have to unwrap them, take a bite, and then put them back somewhere. If you’re going to eat an energy bar, I would time it out. I usually take a 1/4 bar bite every 15 min, so by the end of 1 hour it’s gone. Sometimes I take smaller bites, so it’s gone after 1.25 or 1.5 hours. But i stop when my stomach feels too full.
Important: do not forget to take nutrition down! Keep focused on the race and keep to your schedule of putting down nutrition. The only time to stop a bit is if your stomach starts to hurt, feel too full, or if you feel like throwing up. Back off on the nutrition then and slow down too, until your system returns.
At each aid station on the run, I take from a mouthful of fluid to a full small cup. Then I wash my mouth out with some water because i hate that sticky feeling. Try not to over drink at an aid station. Just take the drink and move on.
One note: slowing down at an aid station means extra time on the race. At IM WA, for the first half, I didn’t stop at all and only took fluid from my Fuel Belt. that strategy fell apart later….ha. But I did reach the half way point faster than I ever have on an IM.
Another point about your plan below. If you are going to bike about 3 hours, then if you gel every 45 min, you should take down 4 gels approximately. If you take one every hour, you’re going to need 3.
Always take with you one more gel than you think you’ll need, both on the bike and run. I’ve fumbled gels before on the bike due to cold fingers and always glad i had an extra. Plus you may take longer than you think on the bike, or more likely on the run. You definitely don’t want to run out of nutrition on the run. That has happened to me before where I thought I would run a certain time but took a lot longer!

Food for thought. Pun intended.

Is it worth $40,000 to abuse my body in Kona?

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Seen in the latest Ironman email newsletter:

For a sixth consecutive year, Ironman will conduct its annual auction with eBay, designed to benefit a variety of charitable organizations worldwide. The Ironman Foundation has raised more than $2,000,000 through the auction since its inception in 2003.
This year’s auction will include six slots to the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championship taking place on October 11 in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The auction will begin on Sunday, April 13 and will incorporate six phases with one slot available per week. The minimum bid for slots to the event will begin at $10,000. The average selling price for slots to the world’s most challenging endurance event is approximately $40,000.
In 2007, Ironman made grants and donations to deserving charities on Hawaii’s Big Island including: the American Cancer Society, Boy Scouts of America, Daughters of Hawaii, Habitat for Humanity and the Special Olympics. Additionally, more than $100,000 in cash and/or supplies went to St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, The Hospice of Kona and the Hawaii Fire Department, in conjunction with the Daniel Robert Sayre Memorial Foundation.

Should I bid? Is it worth $40K to beat up my body amongst the lava rocks of the Big Island?

Fun with Discs

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Friday was a beautiful day in the Bay area, and I quickly ran home for a late afternoon ride to try out my new Zipp 900 Disc wheel.
I went out on Foothill Blvd and did some non-scientific time tests. From my house to a known traffic light, I usually take about 10 minutes during my warmup. But that day, it took me 9 minutes. Hmmm, maybe there is something here. On the flats of Foothill Blvd, I felt that maybe I was going 1-2 MPH faster than I normally would on those roads. Or I could have been just dreaming. Certainly I didn’t try to put more effort into my cycling. But it did seem like I was going a bit faster than normal on the same roads without a disc wheel.
And then there was that awesome sound like that of a jet plane flying overhead, but it was my wheel vibrating against the wind. In fact, the wheel magnified my gear shifts as well and it sounded like big ka-chunks every time I shifted.
All this talk about disc wheels is particularly interesting, especially the research on negative drag and aerodynamics. A buddy of mine remarked that at IM WA in certain parts of the course where the wind would hit the disc wheel just right, that he felt that he was shooting forward with the wind just a bit. I went out on the net looking for some literature about it.
Among the references I found, they talked about “tacking against the wind” as like in sailing. The technique is described as basically just leaning into the wind slightly, in whichever direction it’s coming from. Apparently, when the wind is hitting it from the side, it creates lift on the wheel which shoots the wheel and bike forward, similar to how a wing works where if air is accelerated off a surface, it creates force to push the wing forward. Aerodynamics is improved by smoothing out the airflow off the back of the wheel. But disc wheels will create instability problems in high winds and you need to compensate by forcing the bike to stay on course.
The other references I found were that disc wheels, due to their mass, have higher rotational inertia since it is solid versus a spoked wheel which is not. That means it takes longer to get up to speed, but then when you get up to speed, it tends to help you maintain that speed. Thus, you can maintain a higher speed easier, especially on flatter courses.
I can’t wait to try this disc wheel out at Ironman Florida at the end of the year.
If you want to read some of the stuff I read, here are some links:
Help! what’s the aerodynamic difference of the two wheels?
Spokes or Discs?
Aerodynamics – The Wheel Story
Duathlon.com Crosswind Tacking

Anatomy Trains

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My physical therapist turned me on to Anatomy Trains. In their own words, Anatomy Trains are:
“Anatomy Trains provides a precise map of the ‘anatomy of connection’ – the whole-body fascial and myofascial linkages, leading to holistic strategies for health professionals, movement teachers, and athletes to resolve complex postural and movement patterns.”
What all that means is that just because you are sore in one place, that treating that location may not help you in the long run. Local treatment may relieve the symptoms, but it turns out that problems in one area are often the chaining effect of muscles, structures, and posture running all around your body.
I have a classic Anatomy Train issue. When you look at the muscles where I tend to have problems, they all run up and down my body in one of the Anatomy Trains. So when my physical therapist treats me, he doesn’t just work on the areas where my tightness/soreness are, he works the whole chain up and around my body to make sure they are all relieved of tension and back into functional mode.
The effectiveness is really amazing. My physical therapist related to me a patient who has this nagging problem and it would not go away, but once he started treating the Anatomy Train in which the problem resided, it turned out that the nagging problem finally went away and the patient’s performance also increased!
I find this myofascial stuff fascinating. Years ago, they knew nothing about this and the science and medicine has advanced greatly. Given that I am trying to achieve some sort of athletic excellence relative to myself, and I push my body quite hard given my age and ability to recover, treating my body as a system of Anatomy Trains has worked wonders in keeping me going through the season and injury free.

Compression Part I

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I arrived home after Ironman Western Australia thinking about compression. Compression socks and tights both for during competition and recovery. It was something that seemed to be gaining in popularity now.
This year’s Ironman World Championships in Kona saw Torbjorn Sindballe wearing an all white outfit. It looked rather funky but apparently was a product of research that showed the white outfit would reflect heat and keep him extra cool in Kona. He had on one white glove, into which he puts ice cubes, and knee high white compression socks. He sure looked unusual, but he did get second place so there must be something to that outfit. To hell with fashion!
At Ironman WA, there were people also wearing compression socks. Afterwards, a number of competitors wore compression tights for recovery, as I saw them lounging around in them. I vowed to get some as soon as I got home.
My first order was for some traditional compression socks at Magellans. These socks are made for more mature people, who potentially have the danger of deep vein thrombosis (clotting in deep blood vessels which can lead to stroke) and developing varicose veins. Research has shown that compression socks can help prevent these very serious conditions from happening, especially while sitting for a long time in these awful plane seats on extended trips.
I wore these for a while and they worked pretty darn good at keeping the blood from pooling in my legs and making them swell. Plane seats are notoriously bad for me. They are often too high and put extra pressure on the back of my legs, causing numbness and the swelling as circulation is prevented. Wearing compression socks really helped this and virtually eliminated the swollen feeling in my lower legs and feet. What bothered me a bit about these socks were that they were full socks, and that I had to wash them every time I wore them so that they wouldn’t become smelly.
I switched to Zensah compression socks, which allowed me to wear a pair of normal socks while wearing these socks. Zensah socks aren’t really full socks; they only cover your lower leg from your ankle up to your knee. I find that I don’t have to wash these every time because they aren’t covering my feet. Since I fly so much, I wear these every time and have fallen in love with them! (By the way, getting up in a plane and walking around every hour works wonders as well.)
You might think that wearing knee-high socks could work just as well. Apparently, they don’t have the same effect. Compression socks are made to have a graduated compression effect upwards from the ankle to the knee. Regular knee high socks aren’t made for that. Sorry, you can’t go to Target and just buy some athletic tube socks!
Will they help performance or recovery? The jury is still out but promising in the areas of formal research. Informally, it seems that their popularity does say something about their effectiveness. So I find this post is really Part I in my own experiences with compression. I now know that Zensah compression socks are required equipment for flying and keeping my legs fresh on both short and long flights. I bought a pair of 2XU compression tights to see what happens when I wear them after a long, hard workout. I will test this later on this year as I build for Ironman Florida. Also, I am considering wearing my Zensah compression socks during the run of Ironman Florida. Silly looking? Potentially. Gain a few minutes or more…not bad! Avoiding cramps during the run…priceless!
Both the Zensah socks and 2XU tights I bought at my favorite online tri-shop, Trisports.com.
If you want to find out more at this stage, Joe Friel has a great post on compression and tried to find some current research on the topic. I expect there will be more formal research released as the year goes on.

Neuromuscular Run Training

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About 3 weeks ago I had a small epiphany. I thought about neuromuscular training for the bike and the workouts I do to make my cycling better. I thought to myself, “isn’t there neuromuscular run training?”
I suppose there are things we have done on the track, like strides, skipping, high knee running and the such. But one thing I really wanted to work on was speed this year and felt that there was one area which I hadn’t done much of, which was leg turnover and getting used to running fast.
So I hopped on the treadmill and did a warmup, and then proceeded to do 30 seconds run/30 seconds rest while increasing the MPH to 12 MPH. Man that was hard! The first time I reached 12 MPH (the max of my treadmill) I could only keep that up for about 15 seconds! The second time I tried this, I managed two intervals of about 20 seconds (takes 10 seconds for the treadmill to reach 12 MPH) and each time I reached and blew through my LT in that short amount of time.
I realized that this was good. I was training my body to relax and move at that speed. My body and leg turnover were being stressed and forced to maintain that rate by the relentless nature of the treadmill. There is no way to not keep it up; otherwise you’ll fly off the back of the treadmill! This can’t be repeated effectively outside because you’ll always naturally slow down when you get tired.
I told my PT person about this and he related to me that at San Jose State, they do this kind of training all the time. They actually use a cord around the waist to tie someone to the front bar of the treadmill so that it helps keep them on the treadmill and forces you to move your feet under you. It still doesn’t prevent you from falling flat on your face, so you gotta move your legs!
I am going to try more of this in my off season before I hit the track for real workouts. I am curious to see if this will have an effect on my run speed, which I really want to work on in the first half of this year. My next goal is to increase the amount of intervals I can achieve at 12 MPH and get my body used to leg turnover, body positioning, and form required to maintain these speeds.

Racing Photogenically

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Friday, I picked up my official DVD for the NYC Marathon. It was the first one I’ve ever bought and thought that it would be cool to see how I ran on video.
It was really well done. It covered the pros and saw Paula Radcliffe’s amazing acceleration at the finish, and the men’s finishes.
And then, there was me.
ACK! I ran like a dork! The great form I thought I had was an actual bouncing, half limp. When running, you strive to keep your head at the same level and reduce the up and down motion of your body. Obviously I did none of that. My head bounced up and down quite a bit. Also, I was reminded of my growing blister on my right foot and could see me limping slightly to favor it. It made my stride much stiffer and didn’t help the up and down motion of my body as I ran.
The first time I raced, I saw pictures taken of me at various stages. I thought I looked kind of lame and wanted my race pictures to show me looking like I was racing well. On the bike, I would be upright but I thought that didn’t look as good as being in aero position. So now, when I see a camera man, I go into aero position whenever possible, even if I’m going uphill to make myself look better in the picture. Sometimes I smile, but sometimes I try putting on a Lance Armstrong-esque grimace. On the run, I have a similar strategy. Generally, if you are running with the compact step that is typical of most of an Ironman marathon, you’ll look like you’re walking in pictures and not running. I discovered that if you just simply lift your heel a bit more as your foot goes back, almost like you’re going to kick your butt, the pictures look like what is the popular perception of running versus walking.
Also, there are finish line pictures where I do not raise my hands all the way up, but only partway. Ugh! That might be a great way to show your enthusiasm at the finish to do a bent arm fist pump with both hands, but it looks real dorky in a picture. Raising your hands all the way up looks much better! In fact, pausing under the finisher’s arch and raising your hands/fists all the way extended upward looks great and gives the photographers a chance to snap the shot!
It sounds silly, but I have learned to race not only to finish, but photogenically as I want my official pictures to look good. Sometimes they have great photographers to help take great pictures, but most of the time you have to do a bit of posing yourself.
Now, upon receipt of this NYC Marathon DVD, I have another thing to worry about and that is to race for video and not just still pictures. I need to figure out how to pose a bit to make sure I look great on video !
With video, I think there is also a method to the madness; after watching the DVD, I am now thinking that I should use video more often as a check on my form. This gives me ideas on bringing my video camera to the track and videotaping myself as I run my intervals.

Iron Resolve

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It was shocking to see/feel my mental resolve fizz away so suddenly. I had experienced lapses in resolve before but never as large as this time, half way through the marathon of Ironman WA.
In the past, my resolve has weakened at the “wall” of a marathon, where my body just seems to get really tired. But here there is definitely more physicality involved where my body is getting to that point where between shifting from the previous way of burning energy and the next.
At Ironman NZ 2005, I hit that point with about 3-4k left in the run, but bust through it knowing that my friends were waiting at the finish line for me and would bust my butt if they knew I was walking to the finish. At Ironman Austria 2006, I was too busy dealing with cramping leg muscles to worry about disappearing mental resolve. Likewise, at Ironman Brazil 2007, my poplitius muscle being really sore made me walk through much of the run until I initiated the Ironman shuffle. But I didn’t feel a lowering of my resolve, perhaps because I was distracted by pains?
This year at Ironman WA 2007, it was really miserable. I got to 20k in the run (about half way) and my mental resolve just disappeared. Poof. Vanished. It was a shocking moment. I could not run at all. I would just run a bit and then resort to walking. And it was definitely mental. My legs were OK, except for some cramping in the right hamstring which seemed to go away later. Every time I did actually run, my pace was quite good, so it couldn’t be a physical thing.
I think it was a combination of factors.
My coach M2 thought it might be because of the long season, and this being my second Ironman of the year. Also, it was on the heels of another key race for me, the NYC Marathon. And not to mention all the other smaller races between IM Brazil and IM WA. These all could have sapped my ability to maintain focus.
I also think it was the bike leg during IM WA. I had to focus so much on maintaining constant wattage output with virtually no breaks that by the time I reached the run, my mental endurance was already lowered greatly.
This being my longest race season to date, and a full one too, I am somewhat not surprised to find such an issue popping up towards the end of the season. I am hoping as I race more, I will get tougher mentally as I encounter problems like these for the first time, and then I will be better forewarned and armed next time around.
Maintaining iron resolve through an Ironman is super tough and I look to train my mind smartly in 2008. I hope to train well physically to remove those barriers where my mind needs to deal with declining physical resources, and then my mind can focus on maintaining physical output through the entire race, especially when I hit the run.