Coaching Basta

Oh Canada!

2010-08-28T07:26:00.000-07:00

How does one do an Ironman with almost no training? We are going to find out tomorrow.

Basta decided a while ago that he doesn't need to train much to do events. He didn't train much for the Boston Marathon and finished it without trouble. He wasn't fast, but he hadn't planned to be. He took his camera and shot pictures the whole way. He frolicked with the Wellesley girls. His longest run leading up to that event was 16 miles. He did a smattering of shorter runs, too, but nothing substantial. He never ran more than once or twice a week.

Before that, he did the Palm Springs Century ride with no training, too. He hadn't been on his bike in ages, then jumped on it and rode the course with his group of triathlon friends. They said he was whining quite a bit the last 20 miles or so, but he did it.

Now he thinks he can do an Ironman with similar inadequate training. As I said before, we moved and started remodeling. That whole scenario was very time consuming for quite some time. We're still not completely done with the remodel.

Mostly he's just not making the time to train. He wants his training to be easy and convenient, which isn't realistic. He needs to plan it around work and contractors and social obligations and all of that. He hasn't done it. He doesn't see how people with kids ever get any training done.

He ignored my training plans that I made for him. At 16 weeks out from this event I started to strongly suggest that he start training for it. He said he would. But he didn't.

At 12 weeks out, I told him that this was the longest he could put this off. 12 weeks is considered a minimum training length for anyone leading up to an Ironman. He said he would, but he didn't. He ran a couple of times, so that was something. But it wasn't Ironman training.

I started signing him up for events, just to get him to get some exercise. He did the OCTC duathlon and a few 5ks. He rode his bike twice during the week with a group that rides hills on Wednesdays after work. He did four long rides with his triathlon buddies. 80-100 mile rides with hills. He swam in the ocean, 1-2.4 miles each time, on six occasions. He ran with his dog 3-5 miles a few times, and he ran 14 miles with a buddy once.

That's it. That's the sum total of his training. On all the other days of the 12 weeks leading up to this, he did nothing, exercise-wise. Walking the dog doesn't count.

Now we are here in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada. This is a beautiful place. We're here with the core triathlon group, six of us total. Four competing and two of us spectator-spouses.

We're all staying in a condo together and it's been great. We're a short walk to the starting area so the location is perfect. We have a view of the lake, a pool and hottub in the back, a full kitchen, laundry, and four bedrooms. Couldn't ask for a nicer place.

We've been here since Wednesday. The event is tomorrow. We've done the expo and bought a load of stuff. The athlete's banquet was last night. That was inspirational, as it is intended to be. Sister Madonna Buder is here, competing again at 80 years old. She looks fantastic.

The people here are so friendly and welcoming. Canadians are good people. All of the volunteers at the event are local Pentictonites. They love hosting Ironman here.

Tomorrow is the big show. How will Basta do? He thinks he can match his Brazil time, at least. I think he's dreaming. I think he'll finish, because he's stubborn that way. But I think the hilly bike ride will take it out of him and he'll end up walking much of the marathon. I predict a 15 hour finish.

'allo

2010-04-03T18:34:00.000-07:00

tap tap tap Is this thing on?

Um, hi. Yes, we're still here. Basta and I. A lot has happened between last post and now, just nothing much of the training or triathlon variety. Hence, no posts.

Since Ironman Brazil last year and our failed Whitney attempt, there's been Thanksgiving and Christmas. Party time. Then we sold our big house in the harbor and moved into a cute little new (to us) house not far away. It's much smaller, much quieter, and we're much happier here.

However, the stress of the above was quite high. This is not a good time to be buying or selling a house, as many of you know. If you haven't tried lately you may think it's a good time to buy a house, but it's not. Prices may be good but getting a loan is a ridiculous process. Banks have gone from, 'here ya go, and don't you need an extra 50K for some remodeling?' to 'oh, we don't care how well qualified you are, we're going to just keep asking for more and more documentation so that we can delay lending you money as long as possible.'

Grr. But now that we own the place, we're remodelling it. The kitchen is a gutted hole right now. We're eating out of a fridge and microwave in the garage. It's rather like camping. Camping without the pure air or the mountainous scenery. Which does get old after a few days.

In addition to all of that, Basta has essentially taken on another job. In addition to his regular sales job, he's gone back into lawyering part-time. His spare time that he used to use for training is spent doing that.

I point out that there are people who work longer hours and also have kids and greater family/social obligations who still do Ironmans, but he is uninterested in that. He wants his training to be convenient, and it just never will be.

So he's been telling people that he's an Ironman, planning for future triathlons, soaking in the glory and admiration of those who don't do these things, and not hardly training a whit.

He signed up for Ironman Canada with a group of friends. Late August.

He agreed to do Wildflower as a relay with buddies. He'll be doing the run. Early May.

And he has Boston. The Boston that he qualified for last year, remember? He finally gets to run that run. In two weeks.

Many weeks ago I started pestering him about starting training for Boston. I made him a training schedule, which he completely ignored. He did none of the workouts. So I didn't make him another schedule for the next week. I told him to just keep the original and do it -- when he finished it I'd make him a next one. He never did.

He did work out a little. A run here and there with friends. He did the Tour de Palm Springs -- a century ride -- and survived it. His riding companions said he won the biggest whiner award the last 20 miles or so, but he finished.

Finally, about three weeks ago, he agreed to get serious about his Boston training. Five weeks to get marathon-ready? Ha.

Basta is convinced, you see, that he is capable of finishing any distance without adequate preparation. I may be guilty of fueling that assumption since I've expressed my amazement at how he's been able to finish some events. However it came to be, he is sure he'll finish Boston just fine. He is not looking to PR, just to enjoy the Boston experience and have a fun day.

So, five weeks to train up to 26.2 miles. I sent him out on an 8 mile run to see how he did. He did it, but he was sore and achy afterwards. He said he was amazed at how much running ability he's lost. Really? After not running much at all for 7 months you can't run like you used to? Shocking.

So we backed off to 4 miles. Rest a day, then do 4 miles. Then 6. Slowly building up again.

I'm trying him on essentially a Hanson's program, or a least a Hanson's theory approach. Lots of shorter-distance running rather than less frequent, short runs with one serious long run each week. The total mileage in a week is the same, but the body doesn't get the destruction caused by the very long runs.

It seems to be working. His aches and pains are normal. He ran 16 miles yesterday. That will be his longest run prior to the big show. It's not enough, I know, but it's as good as it's going to be. For the next two weeks he'll run more 8, 10, and 12 mile runs, then we'll fly off to Boston.

It's going to be fun. We're both really looking forward to it. We can use a little vacation to get away from all the remodeling dust, too.

The Whitney Expedition

2009-08-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'm finding I'm not that good at backstories. They take too long, they bore me to write. Anything that bores me to write, I've learned, bores you silly to read.

So I'll save you that. Let's just say we decided to summit Mt. Whitney a while ago. We got the required permit to do so, did some training hikes, and off we went to do this thing. Last weekend.

Mt. Whitney is the tallest peak in the contiguous US. It stands 14,497' tall. The portal/trailhead lies around 8,000', that's where we parked the car. We put everything that had a scent into a bag and stuck it in the bear locker provided, lest a bear smell something tasty, like my lip balm, and rip off the car door to get to it while we were away. Bears are a big problem in this area.

And then we headed up. The plan was to backpack 6 miles in and 4,000' feet up to Trail Camp, a campground that sits at 12,000'. There we'd spend the night. The next day we'd leave most of the gear in the tent and summit with only the essentials on our backs. Then we'd come back down, spend another night in Trail Camp, and have a leisurely walk back down to the car on the third day.

6 miles, 4,000' feet. I thought that would take me about 3 hours. I haven't been all that healthy, as you know, and I was not nearly as ready for this hike as I had wanted to be, but still. With all of the locals hikes I'd done to get ready for this summit attempt I thought 2 miles an hour was a very generous pace, taking into consideration the altitude and the steepness. I thought these 6 miles would be pretty easy.

Ha.

The climb up was a lot of switchbacks that weren't particularly steep, but they were relentless. My heart went into over-drive in no time. When my heartrate gets that high I can feel it in my ears and the back of my throat and there's nothing to do but stop and wait for it to recede. That meant I could go a switchback or two, maybe three or four, and then I'd have to stop. It didn't take long, only a few moments usually, and then I could carry on. But that made for a painfully slow pace.

Basta, being still Ironman-fit and all, had no trouble with this. He just walked at my pace, took a lot of pictures, and enjoyed the scenery.

It was really scenic, too. The trail followed a creek that cascaded down the mountain and it was quite lush and green. There were a couple of waterfalls and a few pretty little alpine lakes. I had expected it to be mostly scrabbley granite so this was a pleasant surprise. The air smelled fresh and clean and of pine and sage.

This helped as I struggled up the mountain. I felt weak and tired, like I had no energy. Part of this was my condition, part of it was my lack of fitness and training for it, but a huge part of it was the altitude. It just sucks away your energy and breath. My pack got heavier and heavier as I trudged on more wearily.

We made it to Outpost Camp, 4 miles in, and had lunch. Outpost Camp is around 10,000'. Here I asked Basta if he could handle any more weight because my pack was just too darn heavy. He said he could, so I handed over the bear canister. This is a hard, thick plastic bottle in which to store your food that bears haven't figured out how to open. Yet. It's heavy in and of itself, and much heavier packed with food. That lightened my load by a good 6 pounds. I felt much better about the whole thing after offing that and having some lunch. We carried on.

Only 2 miles to go. And 2,000 more feet to gain. Another hour? Ha. We walked and walked and walked, trudged and trudged and trudged. I had to stop even more frequently. Making it to the summit was starting to look unlikely at best. This was supposed to be the easy part! It wasn't supposed to get hard until tomorrow. But this was hard.

I ran out of water at around 11,000' and we stopped to filter some at a small creek crossing.

Finally, at long last, we reached Trail Camp. 12,000', 6 miles, and 5.5 hours later. That's right, five and a half hours to cover those 6 miles. That was unbelievable.

We'd arrived around 4pm, with plenty of light to get everything done that we needed to do. We found a good campsite, pitched the tent, then walked over to the nearby lake and filtered water for dinner. I started to get a headache at the base of my skull, the first sign of altitude sickness. It was mild but persistent. Basta said that he felt dizzy as we sat by the lake.

We cooked dinner, a lovely freeze-dried lasagna. As we were doing dishes afterwards the sun started to set and it got cold. We bundled up in our fleece but opted to hit the sleeping bags early. Warmest place on the mountain.

As I lay there, enjoying the excellent features of my new Big Agnes sleeping bag, I reflected on the summit. After having rested for a while and had a good meal I thought I could make it. Everything I read said to plan for 4 hours to make it the last 2 miles to the summit. They are the hardest miles of the trip. From camp I could see how the trail got much steeper from there on, plus the altitude only got worse and worse. It was already bad enough here at 12,000'. They say altitude sickness can affect people as low as 8,000', and here we were well above that. I had whole new respect for people who summit Everest.

Honestly, if I thought about the summit I didn't think I could do it. But I knew the route to the summit was a series of switchbacks, lots of them. I knew I could make it to the end of the next switchback. There I'd rest if I needed to, then I could make it to the next one. That way, I knew I'd eventually get to the summit. My altitude-headache went away as I lay there in the tent, and I felt pretty good about the summit attempt the next day. Optimistic, anyway.

I slept off and on. The cool new Big Agnes sleeping bag was comfy and warm, the integrated pad system they use worked very well, but it still takes a night or two to get used to sleeping in a tent. Bears did not visit camp and the bear canister full of food lay undisturbed on a rock a few yards away.

Deep into the night Basta started thrashing around in his sleeping bag, waking me. He rolled from side to side, curled up, then flopped over onto his stomach. Then repeated that. Again and again. I put up with that for quite a while, then finally said something like, 'damn, pick a position and stick with it for a while.'

"I'm sick!!!!" he groaned.

??

"I'm sick. My head is pounding, I feel like I'm going to throw up, I'm dizzy . . . I've almost gotten up to barf a few times, but I'm fighting it. I don't want the whole camp to hear me. God my head hurts . . . It's pounding. . . ."

Well.

"That's altitude sickness," I sighed. Too bad. Mine had gone away in the night, his had gotten much worse.

"It's not Giardia or something else in the water?" he asked.

"No. It takes Giardia at least 2 days to show symptoms, usually longer," I explained. "It can't be that. What you have is classic altitude sickness."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure. And there's nothing to do but go down."

He groaned and curled up into a ball as another wave of nausea hit him. "I feel horrible."

I looked at my watch. 3am. I unzipped the tent and stuck my head outside, seeing if the full moon was still out lighting the mountainside. It wasn't, so a gorgeous, crisp & clear black sky full of stars was out. I told Basta he should stick his head out and see that, but he just groaned again and didn't move.

"Can you make it another 3 hours?" I asked. It was too dark to set out now, we'd have to wait for dawn.

"I've made it this long." Poor Basta.

He asked if he was going to have any permanent damage from this, and I assured him no. As soon as we got him down a couple thousand feet or so he'd be good as new. He didn't believe he'd ever feel good again, but he agreed he couldn't go up any farther.

The next couple of hours were miserable. Neither of us slept. He actually rolled over and put his head on my lap, looking for some comfort. Believe me, he never does that. Never.

He continued to get worse. When it seemed like he couldn’t stand it any more, dawn spread her rosy tips across the wine-dark mountainside. At last, we could get up and move.

I put our backpacks on two nearby rocks and he sat on another next to them while I broke camp. I packed all of the camping bits into their respective little bags and set them out for him to load in the backpacks, then took down the tent. As I did so, he'd pack a few things, then put his head down on his pack and groan for a bit until he could raise his head again.

Amazingly enough, I felt damned good. My altitude symptoms had completely passed during the night. But still, I was not the least bit disappointed in not attempting the summit, knowing as I did how hard it would be for me. Better to leave that for another day when I was more prepared. I was at least able to break camp by myself and get us ready to go without trouble.

Basta broke out the trekking poles to help with the dizziness as he descended, and off we went. Down, down, down. The trail was just as steep as when we'd come up it, but that still meant a good mile per thousand feet. Even though I didn't have to stop and rest on the way down, it took about 20 minutes per mile.

At 11,000' I asked Basta how he felt and he said a little better. Headache a little better, nausea a little better, dizziness mostly gone.

At 10,000' we made it to Outpost Camp and stopped for breakfast. There Basta said his head just had a dull ache and the nausea was minor. He could eat. We had cold Clif bars and water. Basta said he wished we had the time and energy to boil water and make coffee and eggs, but by now the warm breakfast offerings at the Whitney Cafe in Lone Pine were calling our names and we were in a hurry to get down.

At 9,000', the symptoms were gone. He felt completely fine. He was amazed.

Another 1,000' and we finally made it to the car. This trip down wasn't exactly a piece of cake, either. It took a lot longer than I expected and my pack was HEAVY. I definitely need more training before I try this again.

And Basta needs more time to acclimate. Some people just do and no one knows why. We debated if it would have been better if we'd spent the night in the car at 8,000' instead of in the motel at 4,000'. Probably. Or if we should have camped at 10,000' and made the much longer summit hike the next day instead of going all the way to 12,000'. I couldn't have done that hike, I tell you that now. Too much for my weakened body right now.

Really, we just need more time. Basta, as it turns out, feels the altitude every time he skis in Colorado. He's just susceptible to it, and I didn't know it. We'll need to go up slowly, maybe taking it over the course of several days more, if we plan to try this again.

Maybe next year. In the meantime, we're looking forward to some lower-altitude hiking and backpacking in the mountains closer to home.

Pictures are here:
Whitney pics

Painkillers

2009-08-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

Research has vindicated my gut-feeling that pain-killers and anti-inflammatories before, during, and after exercise are bad. I'm pleased that my drug-free training advice holds water.

The article is here: NYTIMES

And I will post it in its entirety so I have it after it rolls off the New York Times archives:

Phys Ed: Does Ibuprofen Help or Hurt During Exercise?
By Gretchen Reynolds

Dan Saelinger/Getty Images
Several years ago, David Nieman set out to study racers at the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile test of human stamina held annually in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The race directors had asked Nieman, a well-regarded physiologist and director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the North Carolina Research Campus, to look at the stresses that the race places on the bodies of participants. Nieman and the race authorities had anticipated that the rigorous distance and altitude would affect runners’ immune systems and muscles, and they did. But one of Nieman’s other findings surprised everyone.

After looking at racers’ blood work, he determined that some of the ultramarathoners were supplying their own physiological stress, in tablet form. Those runners who’d popped over-the-counter ibuprofen pills before and during the race displayed significantly more inflammation and other markers of high immune system response afterward than the runners who hadn’t taken anti-inflammatories. The ibuprofen users also showed signs of mild kidney impairment and, both before and after the race, of low-level endotoxemia, a condition in which bacteria leak from the colon into the bloodstream.

These findings were “disturbing,” Nieman says, especially since “this wasn’t a minority of the racers.” Seven out of ten of the runners were using ibuprofen before and, in most cases, at regular intervals throughout the race, he says. “There was widespread use and very little understanding of the consequences.”

Athletes at all levels and in a wide variety of sports swear by their painkillers. A study published earlier this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that, at the 2008 Ironman Triathlon in Brazil, almost 60 percent of the racers reported using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers (or NSAIDs, which include ibuprofen) at some point in the three months before the event, with almost half downing pills during the race itself. In another study, about 13 percent of participants in a 2002 marathon in New Zealand had popped NSAIDs before the race. A study of professional Italian soccer players found that 86 percent used anti-inflammatories during the 2002-2003 season.

A wider-ranging look at all of the legal substances prescribed to players during the 2002 and 2006 Men’s World Cup tournaments worldwide found that more than half of these elite players were taking NSAIDS at least once during the tournament, with more than 10 percent using them before every match.

“For a lot of athletes, taking painkillers has become a ritual,” says Stuart Warden, an assistant professor and director of physical therapy research at Indiana University, who has extensively studied the physiological impacts of the drugs. “They put on their uniform” or pull on their running shoes and pop a few Advil. “It’s like candy” or Vitamin I, as some athletes refer to ibuprofen.

Why are so many active people swallowing so many painkillers?

One of the most common reasons cited by the triathletes in Brazil was “pain prevention.” Similarly, when the Western States runners were polled, most told the researchers that “they thought ibuprofen would get them through the pain and discomfort of the race,” Nieman says, “and would prevent soreness afterward.” But the latest research into the physiological effects of ibuprofen and other NSAIDs suggests that the drugs in fact, have the opposite effect. In a number of studies conducted both in the field and in human performance laboratories in recent years, NSAIDs did not lessen people’s perception of pain during activity or decrease muscle soreness later. “We had researchers at water stops” during the Western States event, Nieman says, asking the racers how the hours of exertion felt to them. “There was no difference between the runners using ibuprofen and those who weren’t. So the painkillers were not useful for reducing pain” during the long race, he says, and afterward, the runners using ibuprofen reported having legs that were just as sore as those who hadn’t used the drugs.

Moreover, Warden and other researchers have found that, in laboratory experiments on animal tissues, NSAIDs actually slowed the healing of injured muscles, tendons, ligament, and bones. “NSAIDs work by inhibiting the production of prostaglandins,”substances that are involved in pain and also in the creation of collagen, Warden says. Collagen is the building block of most tissues. So fewer prostaglandins mean less collagen, “which inhibits the healing of tissue and bone injuries,” Warden says, including the micro-tears and other trauma to muscles and tissues that can occur after any strenuous workout or race.

The painkillers also blunt the body’s response to exercise at a deeper level. Normally, the stresses of exercise activate a particular molecular pathway that increases collagen, and leads, eventually, to creating denser bones and stronger tissues. If “you’re taking ibuprofen before every workout, you lessen this training response,” Warden says. Your bones don’t thicken and your tissues don’t strengthen as they should. They may be less able to withstand the next workout. In essence, the pills athletes take to reduce the chances that they’ll feel sore may increase the odds that they’ll wind up injured — and sore.

All of which has researchers concerned. Warden wrote in an editorial this year on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine that “there is no indication or rationale for the current prophylactic use of NSAIDs by athletes, and such ritual use represents misuse.”

When, then, are ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory painkillers justified? “When you have inflammation and pain from an acute injury,” Warden says. “In that situation, NSAIDs are very effective.” But to take them “before every workout or match is a mistake.”

Coach Ana Update

2009-07-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

Some of you have been asking how I'm doing, and I finally have some answers to give. Before it's always just been, "neh, good days, bad days."

It's been a learning process, I tell you. For some background to those of you who aren't up on the whole story, it started with the mysterious symptoms -- the rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, shortness of breathe, muscle pain, aching joints, erupting skin, inflamed mouth, weariness, constantly itching skin, etc, etc that forced me out of my Oceanside event and sent me on the long quest to find out what was wrong with me.

My Western Medicine-style doctor sent my blood off for tests and took a chest x-ray. Everything came back fine. She was baffled and asked if I wanted to go on blood pressure medication, but I declined.

There was a cause for all of this. Suppressing the symptoms wasn't going to cure me.

Eventually I sent my blood in for the Alcat test. From that I learned that I had a huge collection of food intolerances. My body reacting to these foods was causing all of my symptoms. Sure enough, when I eliminated all of the foods I have a problem with, I felt good. The symptoms faded and then disappeared. I thought I had found the problem.

But why had my body suddenly started to reject these foods that I've never had a problem with before? Why so many so quickly? I started digging deeper.

Something was causing me to react to these foods. The start of the answer lie in the Alcat test, too. It said I had severe candidiasis. That alone, I learned, can cause all of the symptoms I have been experiencing. I set out to kill the candida in my intestines. I started taking coconut oil and Threelac probiotics. I stopped consuming sugar in all of its various forms, fruits, and all simple starches, too.

I also started to focus on my liver. If it wasn't functioning as well as it could, my whole system is sluggish and I'm not able to clear out the toxins and wastes as quickly as possible. This allows candida to thrive. At my age, with my history of regular wine consumption and enjoyment of gourmet foods, chances were that I had at least some level of fatty liver disease. A huge percentage of Americans do, after all. So I started on liver-cleansing supplements, namely Milk Thistle and B-Complex. I eschewed alcohol in all forms. I strive to eat clean, organic, stress-free foods most of the time to give the liver the best chance to heal and perform well.

So I started to feel better. A lot of the symptoms diminished. The heart rate and blood pressure went down to normal most of the time. The breathing slowed and I could usually climb stairs without dizziness again. My mouth felt better, the pain in my legs subsided, and my joints ached less.

But still, I didn't feel great. I had good days and bad days. I still itched, a lot. Almost every meal resulted in a stomach ache and itchy arms, legs, and face that lasted for hours. I added probiotics and digestive enzymes to the mix.

I figured my candida just wasn't dying, so I kept searching for more ways to kill it off. In doing so, I came across the theory that candida causes leaky gut syndrome. I'd never heard of that before. But it explained a lot.

Basically, the small intestines are permeable, allowing nutrients into the bloodstream as they are extracted from foods. When candida grows, it can put down roots into the intestinal walls that create more and bigger holes there than would be naturally. Larger, not fully-digested food particles can now pass through those holes and get into the bloodstream before they are processed and broken down. The body sees these large, foreign bodies in the bloodstream and reacts as it does to any foreign intruder. It sets off the immune system to attack them.

This was the smoking gun. This is the actual cause of what was wrong with me. I have Leaky Gut Syndrome. While most Western doctors are taught that leaky gut syndrome doesn't exist, the evidence is mounting that it indeed does. It is the likely cause of a whole host of auto-immune diseases. An article in this month's Scientific American discusses it at length. The author, a doctor, expresses his surprise in learning through his research that the intestine isn't a solid pipe after all and that a leaky gut is a very real and very common problem.

Now that I had a cause, I needed a cure. Turns out the gut will heal itself if the things damaging it are removed. Those most damaging things in my life are wine, coffee, and candida.

I'd been off the wine and coffee for a while, so it was time to attack the candida differently. What I was doing obviously wasn't working as well as I'd like. I had not experienced a die-off reaction from any of the cures I had tried.

I came across a yeast, saccharomyces boulardii,that reportedly kills candida albicans in the intestines and does not populate the intestines itself. Perfect. The same day I learned of L-Glutamine, an amino acid that is essential to growth of new intestinal wall tissues. It is big in the bodybuilding community because it is essential to cell growth throughout the body, too. It is readily available. The killer yeast was harder to find but I got it at Mother's Market in the refrigerated supplements section.

I took those two things before I went to bed. The next day, I felt like utter crap. Weak, weary, achy. I felt like I was coming down with the flu. My skin also erupted, getting red spots like adult acne in odd place, like my neck, back, and legs. But this was a good thing. These were die-off symptoms. When candida dies it gives off a massive load of toxins more quickly than the body can eliminate. It takes a while to catch up and clear them all out.

After taking this killer yeast each night for 5 nights, I feel tremendousy better. I know I'm healing.

I'm not fully cured yet. This is a long process. Even when my guts heal and get back to normal my blood will still have the markers to react to the food I'm eating for a good 4 weeks before they fade away. And while my candida is dying, it is a persistent growth. It will take dietary dedication and a long series of supplements before I can stop being so vigilant about it. But I'm thrilled that I think I've found my problem and the cure.

I start my mornings with a tablespoon of coconut oil (kills yeast) and Manuka Honey ( heals wounds, might kill candida) mixed in hot water with a pinch of cayenne pepper and ginger (digestive healing) and lemon juice (liver cleansing). I drink that in lieu of coffee. I also mix an ounce of aloe vera juice (digestive healing) with a packet of Threelac (yeast-killing probiotic) and wash down a Milk Thistle tablet (liver healing) and Zinc (to try to make my hair stop falling out) with that.

Throughout the day I avoid the foods on my bad list as much as possible, especially sugar. I lean towards veggies and eschew grains without going too militant about it. I also have at least one glass of water mixed with Vega powder, a powerhouse of nutritional support including vitamins and probiotics.

At night, I have another dose of aloe vera juice mixed with L-Glutamine powder and take the saccharomyces boulardii yeast pill.

It's not so bad. It's not so hard. And it's working. Slowly I am healing. I can feel it. I'm excited about it.

I'm working out on good days. I still can't run very far without pain, but I can ride slowly and I can swim. I can also walk. Not sure what it is about running that makes it hurt so much, but I'm looking forward to that passing.

Instead I've been hiking. We set our sights on summiting Mt. Whitney and we've been doing training hikes every weekend. Our summit bid is next weekend. I'm not ready for it, I can't march right up it as I'd like, but I think I'll make it if I take it slowly and rest as needed. We're camping halfway up so I'll be able to take the mountain in stages. Sometimes I have really good, strong workout days, too, so I'm hoping summit weekend will be that. I'm going to be very strict on the foods and nutrients all this week to give my body the best chance at being as strong as it can be.

Wish me luck.

Ironman Brazil 2009

2009-07-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, let's cut to the chase. I've started this a few times and got lost in the boring details that made up our trip that no one cares about. So rather than do my usual "fall into the trip and be with us" style of race report, I've just written the bits that I think some of you may be interested in, all of you triathletes and non-triathletes both.

For starters, it took us 18 hours to get there. We flew LAX to Miami, then to Sao Paolo. We got our bags and cleared customs in Sao Paolo, then flew one last time to the island of Florianopolis where the event is held.

Florianopolis lies at the same latitude as San Diego but on the other side of the world. Hence the weather there is very similar. Late May is their late Fall, similar to San Diego's November. That means cool but not cold, some rain but nothing serious, with the potential for some warm sunny days here and there, too. Humidity felt the same as home, which means it's a non-issue, neither too wet nor too dry. It was perfect weather for an athletic event.

We booked this trip through Endurance Sports Travel, a company that specializes in triathlon travel. It was founded by Ken Glah, a man who won Ironman Brazil something like 8 times when he was a pro. He thought this was the best Ironman in the world but most Americans weren't doing it because of the hassle of logistics with language, travel, visas, etc. So he started this company to help facilitate the trip. The company has flourished and now does triathlons around the world, but Brazil is still the biggest and the one they do best.

For the less than the cost of booking just the flight and the hotel myself, EST:
1. Booked the flights. And no, there is no easier way to get there than the four airports. I looked. At length.
2. Provided vouchers for the bike on all air travel (airlines charge $100 per flight, on average, to carry a bike box).
3. Picked us up at the airport and transported us and the bike box to our hotel.
4. Provided shuttle service to and from the expo every 20 minutes all week long.
5. Had CO2 cartridges for all athletes on race day. Those cartridges are needed to inflate your tire if you get a flat, but they are banned on airplanes. If you buy them on site you pay a major premium and then just have to throw them away if you don't use them during the event since you can't fly them home. Having them on hand for athletes is a small but very nice touch.
6. Had a bike mechanic at the hotel to help re-assemble your bike out of the box and give it a once-over to make sure nothing was jostled out of place in transit.
7. Provided dinner tickets for non-competing spouses to get into the Ironman pre-party dinner.
8. Rented a house on the run course near transition where non-competing EST clients could hang out during the long day. They provided munchies throughout the day and dinner in the evening.
9. Threw a dinner party the day after the event for all clients.
10. Provided transportation to the airport for the flight to the next leg of our adventure.
11. Made arrangements with other tour operators to facilitate our Amazon, Rio, and Iguacu adventures after Ironman.
12. Plus they had a person in the lobby at the hotel who was generally helpful, arranging day trips if you got there early, translation services, money exchange, everything.

They definitely have Brazil nailed. We couldn't have had a better experience with them there. Several pros book their trips to this Ironman through EST, too.

One of my big fears before we left was that the bike wouldn't make it. With each transfer the odds of an airline leaving the bike behind because it is bulky becomes greater. This many flight legs had me really worried. Our bike box is a double-wide, bought with the idea that I may take my bike and do a destination event someday, too. Since he had extra room Basta loaded it up with a bunch of his gear. He put his wetsuit, shoes, attire, nutrition, and spare parts in there along with his bike. If that box didn't make it, his event was never going to happen.

So it was a big relief when I saw it roll down the chute in Sao Paolo, and then again when it arrived with us in Florianopolis (known as Floripa there).

Another guy at our hotel wasn’t so lucky. He is a New Zealander who had arrived the day before us but his bike did not. He is an Ironman junkie by all accounts. He said he'd done 5 Ironmans in 9 weeks, this would be his 6th. He flew to Brazil straight from Ironman Lanzarote. Nice guy, very calm, especially about losing his bike, but everyone thought he was crazy to do so many in such a short time.

He called the airlines every few hours throughout the days prior to the event and they told him each time that it was at a different airport someplace around the world. The afternoon the day before the event they told him it was in Basilone, France. He didn't believe them as they had told him Rio de Janeiro, Sydney Australia, Phuket Thailand, and Paris on previous calls. He'd decided they were just making up locations since they had no idea where it was. In any case, it was obvious his bike would not make it to Florianopolis in time for the event. So Ken Glah called a friend, a serious triathlete who lives in Floripa but wasn't doing the event due to injury, and talked her into letting this guy she didn't know borrow her bike. She brought her ultra-expensive tri-bike over, the mechanic adjusted it to fit the New Zealand guy, and he was set. He obviously didn't pack all of his other tri-gear into his bike box.

Speaking of the bike mechanic, this guy was great. Manuel, a young guy of Asian descent who lives in Floripa and speaks Portuguese, of course. Not English. Every time Basta takes his handlebars off for packing into the box he's had trouble re-attaching them. There ends up being too much play in the head tube. This time, same thing. Same odd 3-4 cm of play that shouldn't be there. He took the bike down to Manuel, who had a big stack of bikes waiting for his attention. We left it there with him for a day and a half while he worked through all of these bikes that needed their final assembly and once-over. One bike had been damaged in transit and he spent a great deal of time getting it fixed and functional. It was starting to look like he might not be able to get to the bikes that only needed the once-over in time. Basta might have to ride his with the odd play yet again.

But no, by late evening Manuel had powered through all of the bikes and gotten them done. Basta's handlebars were fixed. Manuel was concerned that Basta was attaching them wrong and set out to teach him how to do it properly. No small task, given we don't speak each other's language. With a very good picture that he drew and a smattering of English he showed us how it needed to be put together next time. The bike was tight and sound for race day, and now I know how to do it right for next time.

The day before the event Basta wanted to swim part of the course, so we went down to where they were building the Swim start arch. Small, gentle waves rolled up onto the soft white sand. A light breeze slowly swayed the palm fronds. An occasional dolphin pod showed their backs as they cruised around the bay. A few small islands decorated the ocean just offshore. Idyllic. A lovely place for a swim. The tepid water was made nice and warm with the wetsuit. Basta swam for about 30 minutes in the pool-like water and felt much better about the swim after that.

Later that afternoon he took his bike and various bags to check into transition. There they assign a volunteer to you to help you take your bike to its spot, explain how everything will work on race day, and answer all of your questions.

Basta came through with his must-be-a-local-no-matter-what-county-we're-in coloring. The guy assigning volunteers to athletes assumed he was Brazilian and said, "Portuguese?" as a formality. He was surprised when Basta said, 'no.'

"Español?"

"No," Basta said. "Un poquito español."

"Ah. Italiano?"

"No," Basta said. "Dutch!"

"Dutch?" The guy was taken aback. He looked over his group of available volunteers to see if maybe there was one who might speak Dutch. But no.

"English?" he asked hopefully.

"Oh, ok. English," Basta agreed. Everybody laughed. Basta got a very helpful English-speaking volunteer to help him get situated.

Back at the room, the night before the event, Basta did not appear to be nervous. He said he felt great and that he wasn't nervous at all, just excited to have the day actually come. He didn't even spend much time checking and rechecking his morning preparations as he sometimes does. I wouldn't have been so easy, that's for sure. I really need to work on my own pre-race nerves. Relax and enjoy the day. Basta seems to have learned this concept and embraced it fully.

I didn't sleep very well that night, but I think he did. He sounded asleep most of the time. He said he woke a few times but felt rested.

The Event
The wake-up call rang at 3am and Basta bounded out of bed to answer it. Then he went straight to the kitchen and started downing his pre-race calories. A few bars and his usual morning shake gave him around 1,500. I looked out the window while he ate and saw palm trees whipping in the wind. What was this? Yes, the wind had really picked up through the night and was now howling.

Since the entire hotel was full of EST guests, the breakfast area had opened at 3am for us. When we went down around 3:30 the breakfast room was already full of triathletes. Some were talking nervously, some were very much into their own thoughts, and some looked completely normal like this was the same as any other day. Basta had bread, eggs, potatoes, various fruits, and some coffee to finish off his calorie requirements.

Then on to the bus. A tense and sleepy bus full of we competitors and spouses trundled off to the expo in the dark of 4:30 am.

Once into transition, Basta checked out his bike, making sure it had survived overnight all alone and in the rain. He loaded it up with his nutrition for the first half of the ride, which consisted of Power Bars cut into bite-sized pieces. He'd tried many things for nutrition during his training and learned that this worked best for him. He had Fluid in his bottles and Speedfil, a mix that has some protein in it as well as electrolytes. He's trained with that for many miles, too, and likes it. No salt tablets since this was going to be a cool day and he's not a particularly salty sweater, anyway.

Wetsuit on, two Gu packets at hand for the swim, one for right before and one for the halfway point, and he was ready to go. Soon people started to clear out of transition and head down to the beach. We joined them.

And saw the water. Our gentle little ripples were gone, replaced by crashing waves. The wind had stirred up the ocean and it was not a calm pool any longer. The wind wasn't howling quite so badly any more but the water would take a while to settle down. The tide was coming up and by my estimate had at least another half hour to go before it reached its full height. That meant the swimmer would be pushed towards the shore.

But the conditions are what they are. You take them as they come on race day. We had a few goodbye/good luck kisses, a brief rush of anxiety, and then he trotted away down the beach to toe the line, sucking his first Gu as he went. There was some music, some speaking on the microphone, and then with the boom of a cannon they were off!

The Swim
They were to swim out to the first buoy, across to a second one, then in to the beach for the first mile. They trot down a railed off path along the beach, across a timing mat, then out to another buoy, across to the final buoy, then in to the swim finish. The course is a big, flat-topped M.

Everyone seemed to be swimming far to the right of the first buoy. Was it the swell making it hard to sight or was there current out there, too? Eventually the pros rounded the first buoy and headed towards the second, a long line of swimmers behind them. Soon it became clear -- there was current out there, probably tidal flow. Everyone was being pushed towards shore and had to fight to make it back out to come level with the second buoy. As the line of swimmers stretched out there was a distinct sag in what would have been the direct line between the two buoys.

The pros made it to the second mark, turned and headed to shore. There was a big white marker on the beach showing where they were to go. But it was on the right side of the actual spot where they needed to start their run up the beach. With the current pushing everyone right anyway, people ended up waaaayy down the beach from where they should have been. They had to run quite a while in the wash to get into the chute that guided them across the timing mat and down to the next leg of the swim.

Race officials realized what was happening and moved the marker buoy up the beach to the left side of the chute, but it was too late. Everyone was just playing follow the leader since sighting was so difficult, and everyone ended up far to the right of where they needed to be. Volunteers in kayaks tried to steer people left towards where they needed to go, but it didn't seem to help. Follow the leader plus current prevailed.

Many people came through before Basta, as expected, but there were many more behind him, too. He's still a middle of the pack swimmer. He pulled the Gu out of the sleeve of his wetsuit, sucked it down as he trotted, and then he was off on the second leg of his swim.

Shortly after he finished his first lap a woman came out of the water, desperately asking volunteers for goggles. Her eyes were squinted practically shut and were watering from the sting of the salt water. Her goggles had been knocked off by another swimmer or the strap had broken, something. The volunteers were no help, they didn't have spare goggles for her. But I did. I had a backpack and inside were Basta's extra goggles. I started digging for them and called to her, "I have goggles, over here!" and she trotted over to me. She was an older woman, probably in her late 40's. I handed the goggles over the rail to her and she said, 'gracias! gracias!' over and over again. She called her race number to me in Spanish, several times over, as she ran to start the second lap. I guess so I could get the goggles back from her when she finished. "No, no, son tuyos", I called after her. They are yours, keep them.

I headed over to see what I could see at the Swim Out area, so I didn't see much of the second leg, but Basta said it was just as difficult to get to the second lateral buoy as it was on the first leg. The current was still pushing. He said the swells were so high that only if you got lucky and looked up at the top of one and caught a glimpse of your buoy could you tell where you were going. Most of the time it was just following feet.

But he did it. He finished the swim in 1:36:24. He had estimated a 1:20 - 1:30 swim, but conditions obviously took that away. Still, he finished without losing the rest of his race.

He nearly ran past the strippers and they had to shout and wave to get him to come over and sit down. Once they had him they got his wetsuit off in short order and sent him on his way.

The Bike
The bike course is two loops. Though it is billed as a flat course there are some hills. The course wound through streets protected by large buildings and open stretches on the highway along the beach. With plenty of turns they had either headwind, tailwind, crosswind, or protection from the wind such that the wind wasn't really a factor in the ride. The wind continued to fade as the day wore on, too.

Most other spectators who have an athlete out on the course say they worry during the swim and feel much better after their beloved gets out on the bike. Not me. I worry most about the bike. While there have been tragedies where someone drowns during a triathlon swim, it is very rare. I don't worry about Basta in the swim. The bike, though, another story. I worry. So much can happen on the bike. It troubles me with my own riding and very much when he's out there on training rides or in events.

I took up residence at the special needs bike hand-off spot, halfway through the bike course. This turned out to be an amazing place to spectate. I learned that unless you are a pro and know how to grab a bag at top speed, you shouldn't do it. You also really need to get a volunteer who knows how to hand off a bag at high-speed, too, because a bad one can cause you much trouble. I saw a volunteer take down two separate riders because he held onto the bag too long and knocked them off balance. Down they went, elbows, shoulders, and knees bloody, the volunteer looking sheepish but not knowing what he'd done wrong to cause this.

After the pros and super-fast age-groupers came through it settled down to people who stopped, got their bag from the volunteer, fished through it and took what they wanted out of it, maybe let the volunteer hold their bike while they used the porta-potty, and then were off on their way again.

Basta was amongst this group.

He got his special needs bag, pulled the second half of his Power-Bars out of it and loaded them into his Bento Box, then saw me on the curb and came over. He said he felt great and was having a good ride. No flats, no wrecks, no blood, no broken bones. Good.

Except that he had gone over a speed bump and launched both of his bottles and his gel flask very early on in the ride. He uses his Speedfil on the bike and the bottles were just for refills. He could refill with the Gatorade at the aid stations as needed. He had plenty of nutrition aboard and could do without the gel flask, too. So he didn't stop to get them. But a guy rode up to him and offered a bottle to him. In choppy English he said, 'I saw what happened, here, I have an extra. You will need it, take it.' Basta said, 'No, no, you need it too, I'll be ok' but the guy insisted. Basta took the bottle mainly to acknowledge the man's kind gesture and make him feel good.

56 miles down in 3 hours, 15 minutes. 56 miles to go.

A lot of the guys he does his weekend rides with have done Ironmans before and a lot of them have hired coaches to help them. Pretty much all of them said he wasn't riding enough long distance rides leading up to this and predicted that he'd struggle making it the whole way on the bike.

To that I say this: The goal of every professional coach that you hire, either in person or on the internet, is to make you as fast as you can be. That involves pushing you and pushing you hard. My goal with Basta, with his complete concurrence, is to get him to these events very physically ready and injury-free. He wants to be doing triathlon and to keep this level of fitness into his 70's, and he won't be able to do that if he's chronically injured. Pushing yourself hard and an abundance of super-long workouts leads inevitably to injury and burnout.

His program for the bike training was in each month do one century ride, two 60-80 mile rides, and a 30-40 mile sprint. These are the long weekend rides. During the week he'd ride the Computrainer twice a week. I believe, and still do, that this is ample distance on the bike to prepare for an Ironman. Not to win it, no. But to finish strongly, yes. He was plenty ready for this bike.

And it showed. He finished the second lap with no trouble. It rained briefly during this lap, but still no flats, no wrecks, no blood. He did see an ambulance racing past once and saw a woman down with many people around her, but he made it unscathed. Total bike time 6:24:02. He actually negative-split the bike, doing the second half in 3:09. He didn't lose any steam at all in the long miles. He took it a little bit easy to save some leg for the run.

The Run

Volunteers took his bike and he trotted off to the changing tent. He took off his helmet, put on his running shoes, and headed out the tent, then realized he still had his bike shorts on. Oops. In all other triathlons he wears the same outfit throughout, but for this Ironman he had on full bike shorts and then intended to change into tri-shorts that don't have the big crotch pad for the run. Fortunately he noticed that before he left transition so he went back and changed. Then it was off on the run for real.
The run is a mostly-flat course with two big hills. One hill is long and steep, the other is shorter but incredibly steep. These hills come on the first lap, you go up them and then get to go down them on the way back. This first lap is 20 kilometers. The wind had settled down long ago and was no longer a factor.

The EST house was on this course near transition. I had come back to this house during the bike, had a little nap in the hammock by the pool in the back, ate some of the munchies they had for us, and chatted with other spectators. Mostly Americans and Canadians, wives and parents and the occasional husband here to support their athlete. Each time a runner who was associated with one of us came by the whole group would cheer for them. The three principle EST employees were there, keeping track of everyone on the course.

Each time Ken Glah came by the whole house erupted. He's now a 45-49 age grouper, and he finished in 9:25:56, taking second in his age group. After he finished he came over to the house for some food and a shower, then settled in to see how everyone else was doing. People said he isn't training much at all these days.

Basta came by the house, said hello as he trotted by, then came back the other direction within a few minutes sporting a yellow arm band that showed he had finished one lap.

The second and third laps went through town, were flat and just over 10 kilometers each. I figured it would be about an hour before Basta came by again. It was quite dark by now and the crowds were thinning out a little bit. Well over an hour later Basta came through again. He was still running, still looking pretty good, all things considered. He was smiling and happy to be approaching his last lap.

He went on to the turn, got his pink arm band that showed he was on his third lap, and headed out for the final loop. I fell in next to him as he passed the spouse house and ran with him for about 100 meters. He said he hurt all over and was having to walk here and there, but mostly he was running. At that point he was running pretty well, too. I had to pick up my pace to keep up with him. I figured if he had a last burst of energy and could keep the pace he had for most of this last lap, he might do this one in about an hour. That would give him a sub-13 finish, which would make him very happy.

Near the 13 hour mark I went down to the finish line to await his approach. So many happy people crossing that line! They did not enforce the 'no family in the chute' rule and the finish was often clogged with spouses, children, parents, siblings, cousins, friends, neighbors . . . too many damned people interfering with other athletes trying to finish and get a decent finisher's picture. I hoped there would be a little clear space between finishers when Basta came through so he wouldn't have to trip over children or get a finisher's picture with him off to one side while someone stood with their entourage, kissing and crying, right under the finish arch. I swear, having the family interfere like that BEFORE the finish is one of the stupider thing I've ever seen. Make an area AFTER the finish line where athletes can kiss and cry with their families and solve the problem. Ironman recently made the no-family in the chute rule but since they don't enforce it it's meaningless.

Anyway. 13 hours came and went, no Basta. Then 13:15. So he was having a tough last lap. At least when I saw him last he was still running and still having a good time. He really embraced that, 'enjoy every moment' advice and was having a great day, no matter how he felt or how long it took.

At 13:34, Basta turned the corner into the chute. He did have clear space with no other athletes in the immediate vicinity. He said he timed it that way intentionally, making sure no one was in front of him and that there was plenty of distance between him and the guy behind him. He had a clear chute, so he stuck out his arms and swooped from side to side, like an airplane coming in for landing. At 13:34:13, he jumped high in the air across the finish line. The announcer was impressed with his finish performance and called out, in heavily accented English, "Adriaan Fan der Cap-Ay-Yen, from los Estados Unidos, djyoo are an Iron-Man!!" He wasn't saying that for everyone who crossed the line.

I made my way through the crowd and found Basta in the finisher's area. He was very, very happy and a little delirious. He wanted out of there, so we went over to transition, got his bike, and walked up to the EST house. There he had some dinner and chatted with some people, but mostly he wanted to get back to the room. The EST bus whisked us and our bike off to the hotel in no time. There we popped the bottle of champagne, Basta had maybe half a glass, and then he was out like a light.

He awoke the next day feeling very good. His neck and upper back were sore from riding aero for so long, as always, but I rubbed him with some Alcis crème and that took the soreness away. His legs were a bit stiff, but he felt surprisingly good. He could definitely feel that he'd had a very long, physical day, but he wasn't hurting. He was even walking down stairs normally. One rub of Alcis was the sum total of what he had for pain mitigation for this whole experience. Well, that and some caipirinhas.

Downstairs at breakfast and throughout the day we talked to others about their day. The New Zealander finished without trouble and got his benefactor's bike back to her unscathed.

A Mexican man who was in the wheelchair division talked about going up the super-steep hill. His front wheel kept lifting up because it was so steep and he thought it was going to come all the way up and over at times. He had to keep throwing his weight forward to try to keep it down. The veins on his arms were huge from the effort of pushing that wheelchair up that hill. Good thing they only had to do that hill once. He didn't speak much English, so he was pantomiming it for us English-speakers while someone who spoke both Spanish and English translated what he was saying for the group.

Greg, a young man in the 24-29 age group, had a bad day. He is nearly ready to turn pro and was hoping to qualify for Kona in this very tough age group. He was flying on his bike when his back tire went into a depression where the road had subsided from a pipe installation underneath. He had on racing tires with insufficient tread for these damp-road conditions, and his back wheel just rolled out from under him. He hit the ground knee-first , then shoulder, then continued the roll with bike still attached to his feet, hitting the ground again with the other side of his body. His bike broke, he had scrapes all over his body, and he had a tremendous pain in one leg. Still, he got up and tried to ride on. Then he realized that his bike's frame had a huge crack and that pedaling with one leg was getting him nowhere. He stopped. An x-ray later that day showed that he had a spiral hairline fracture in his femur.

But he did much better than another EST client, the woman who needed the ambulance that Basta had seen flying down the course. Unknown what caused the accident, but she went over her handlebars and landed head first, smacking her face and head on the road. Her helmet broke, plus she impaled her thigh on something and was bleeding profusely there. The ambulance took her off to the hospital. X-Rays showed that she had a concussion but no serious brain injury. Her husband was doing the race, too, so when he finished an EST employee took him to the hospital. They kept her overnight for observation. They eventually sent the husband back to the hotel since they had no place for him to sleep in the room, but Ken Glah had one of his people stay all night with her. The hospital staff spoke only Portuguese and the woman spoke only English, so the EST woman was there to translate and make sure the woman knew that she was being well cared for and it would be ok. An EST staffer also got her bike and all of her gear out of transition the next day.

She was ok, too. She made it to the dinner party that Ken throws for all of his guests the day after the event. She had a huge black eye, bandages here and there on her face and body, a stiff leg that had probably received some stitches, but she was happy to be out of the hospital and walking. She would be good-as-new soon.

Other people had very good days. John, a man from Florida in the 70-99 age group, finished in 16:09. He is 72 years old. There were two other men in their 70's in this event. But he was the only one who finished, so he qualified for Kona. He was very, very happy to have qualified and is looking forward to the big one. Then he says he's retiring from Ironman distance and will stick to Olympics. He started doing triathlon when he was 54.

Then there was Rosie, a 54 year old woman who finished in 16:57:32. That's two and a half minutes before the cutoff time. This was her first Ironman, she'd been fighting the flu for a month now, and was so pleased to have made the cutoff. She wasn't last, either. Two other people made it in behind her before they closed the course.

I don't know if this was a life-changing experience for Basta as it is for some people. In some ways maybe it was. He says he feels calmer and more patient now, thanks to Ironman. He's proven that with proper preparation and a good mental outlook (and good nutrition), anything is possible. He says he is going to write a paragraph or two on what he feels about this experience, so stay tuned for that.

As for his triathlon future, he definitely has the Ironman bug. He wants to do one a year from now on, until he's in his 70's and will qualify for Kona through attrition. I need to figure out how to get him to run better on tired legs, but overall I think he's doing very well. He took this one, his first, rather conservatively, but now that he knows he can do the distance and how it feels he can push it a little harder next time.

Right now he's just enjoying this feeling of accomplishment.

I hope this report was worth the wait. Thanks to you all for supporting Basta throughout this adventure. He appreciates it very much!

Links to all pictures from this experience are here http://picasaweb.google.com/annebrand/IronmanBrazil#

Not the Race Report

2009-07-06T20:08:00.001-07:00

I'm working on the Brazil race report, really I am. I'm finding it difficult for some reason, which means it'll be boring. Can't have that. I hope to have a presentable one done soon.

Ironman Brazil Pictures

2009-06-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

Some pictures to tide you over until I get something written.

http://picasaweb.google.com/annebrand

At last, off we go

2009-05-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

We're packed, we're ready. We leave the house at 6am. Finally, the time is here. This has truly been a long time coming.

For those of you who want to follow Basta or check how he did after the fact, go to Ironman.com, click on Athlete Tracker for Ironman Brazil, and enter his info to search for him. He's listed as number 656 in the registration but I'm not sure if that's his bib number or not. Try it.

It's been raining off and on all week in Florianopolis and the forecast is for rain on the day of the event. Scattered showers. Shouldn't be of much concern.

I will be much more relaxed when we arrive at our hotel, bike box at hand, and can get into the full flavor of the area and the event. I'll tell you, I'm glad I'm not the one competing because the stress of this is sky-high, even for me. Basta is handling it well and doesn't appear to be losing sleep over it now. But I'm prepared to give him a great deal of space in the two days before this event while we're down there. He's liable to be a tad touchy.

Thanks for all the good lucks and well-wishes, everyone! I'll post updates if I can get my hands on a computer with internet access.

Setbacks

2009-05-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

Basta's father passed away. He had a massive heart attack while sitting on the couch watching tv in the evening. He was 80 years old.

Basta comes from a very large family and he's been talking to friends and relatives from around the world. All have been wonderful, offering condolences and kind words. He's been trying to contact as many people as he can who knew his father and would like to know about his passing. It's been busy.

We are incredibly lucky to have family that live near him in Holland who are willing and able to handle his affairs. One cousin in particular had made it a point to keep in contact with him regularly, even when he got difficult and argumentative in his old age. For him and his kind and gracious wife we are forever grateful.

Basta's father had been in poor health for some time and had prepared for his passing pretty well. One of the things he had arranged was to donate his body to science. He had met with people at the University that was going to take him and had the intake documents completed.

This donation to science has meant that the typical funeral arrangements will not take place. There is no rush to fly to Holland. We can and will go to Brazil as planned.

So Basta will do Ironman Brazil and dedicate the race to his father. That will make for an even more emotional day, I'm sure.

We leave in 5 days. Packing and planning the last details this weekend. As is typical with Basta, "tapering" to him means not working out at all, despite my best efforts to keep him on plan. He did go for a short run two days ago, but that's been it. No bike ride today. A friend wants to swim with us tomorrow so that may actually happen. But otherwise, no taper. No peak. Just, 'I'm ready, let's get there, let's get this done.'

We leave Thursday morning. Long long loooooong 18 hours of travel and four airports later, we arrive in lovely Florianopolis, Brazil. Lax to Miami, then to Sao Paolo, then a short jump to the island. With luck the bike will arrive at the same time, too.

The "Setbacks" title was about me and my dramas. I've fallen off the wagon. I've eaten bad things. Rather, good things that I react badly to. You try and avoid everything on that list and see how long you can do it.

I've been calling it, 'testing' and 'seeing how I do' but that's a load of bull. I'm just being undisciplined. And now, I feel normal. Which is such a sad testament. Normal for me is tired and weary and itchy and achy. Feeling great like I did felt like I was on some kind of happy/perky drugs because I just haven't felt good in so long. Must work on that. Normal needs to become feeling great and energetic.

Part of it is also knowing that I won't be able to eat very restrictively in Brazil. I'll have to eat what's available. That's part of the joy of travelling, anyway - enjoying the local cuisine and experiencing new foods. I'm going to do that. I'll avoid the major problem ingredients (sugar!) whenever possible, but I'm going to eat.

In the few days left, though, back on the bandwagon. I want to feel as good as I can when we're there and so I must cater to the fussiness of my delicate little system while I can. Because I realize now that I've been suffering the effects of these problems for quite some time now. Years. It just got worse and started to affect my heart and breathing when I stepped up the training and started consuming a bunch of sugar & chemicals in the form of sports drink, bars, and gels. The good part of that is it put me over the edge and made me find out what was wrong.

Food Intolerance Recovery - 1 Month

2009-05-14T21:59:00.000-07:00

It's been 4 weeks since I got The Report. Nearly a month. In that time I think I've done a pretty good job of handling the monumental task of changing my life to accommodate my myriad problems.

To make a long and probably terribly boring story* about what a pain in the rear that has been, let me tell you that it's working. Two weeks into this it was clear that it was working. Now, four weeks into it, I feel fantastic. I mean really, truly fantastic. I haven't felt this good in months. Maybe even years.

And to think there are those in the mainstream western medical community who say this Alcat test has no validity. Ha. It has made a night and day difference to me.

It's amazing how many people want to take this test now as a result of seeing what it's done for me, too. I hope you do have it done, Crister. I think they have some European centers. A woman at work who is having a number of problems with swollen joints and various other distresses ordered the kit and is having her blood drawn for it tomorrow. She's anxious for the results but hopes it's not a severe as mine, of course. Another co-worker has a young son with some behavioral issues that they know are directly related to food or additives. They've spent years on the trial-and-error method of trying to figure out what all he reacts to. Now they are going to have the test done to remove the guesswork and hopefully make some real progress with him.

But back to me. After nearly a month of diminished exposure to reactive things, I'm finding that I react less to stuff. I can eat a lunch out, for instance, and have a sauce that probably has some onion powder in it, and just get a bit itchy for a few hours. Before that would nearly wipe me out, make me struggle to stay awake all afternoon, and then send me straight to bed when I got home. I hope, over time, I will be able to handle the smaller-reaction items with no trouble at all.

I'm also still losing weight. I'm getting a sufficient number of calories in. The super-fast weight loss of the first two weeks has stopped but I'm still losing 1-2 pounds a week. My clothes are falling off of me . I've already retired 4 pairs of pants because I can pull them off without unbuttoning them. Woot.

The other topic of note here -- Basta and Brazil -- is still on track and going well. He had a sore Achilles' tendon after his last long bike ride that he didn't tell me about until after he'd done a 9 mile run on it and made it hurt much worse. We rested it and focused on swimming for a bit and now he's ok again. He's started tapering, he's healthy, he's really tired. All is as it should be right now.

We are unable to get the Yellow Fever vaccines done. It's such an unusual vaccine for around here that most doctors don't carry it. You have to go to a travel vaccination clinic, and the one here hasn't had it in stock for over two months. They don't know when they are going to receive another batch. So we take our chances with the mosquitoes and the viruses they transmit. Along with Yellow Fever we have Dengue and Malaria to worry about, too, so I think we'll be wearing the long-sleeved shirts and pants when heading out into the jungle.

It's been raining a fair amount there, so I hope the Amazon has some depth to it! How funny to go to the largest river in the world and have it be too dry to float a boat. There is a fair chance that Basta will be doing his Ironman in the rain. A cool rain at that. He says he's mentally prepared for that if it happens. Good.

I'm not planning to take a laptop with me. Don't know what the internet situation will be like at the various places we will be in Brazil. In most of my travels I can find internet access periodically from either the hotel or an internet café, but who knows what Brazil will offer. I may be computer-free for three whole weeks. What a change that will be. I'll have to take notes and tell you all about it after the fact. I imagine the Ironman website will have their live athlete tracker going. Basta doesn't have his race number yet so you'll have to look him up by his name. His first name is spelled "Adriaan", in the Dutch manner. Yes with 3 a's. For those of you who don't know or just think that's a misspelling when you see it.

In 13 days we jump on the plane and start the long journey down south.

*If you're truly interested in what all I'm doing to try to avoid the things I react to, read on. The rest of you can go now. Thanks. Bye.

Within all of the things I'm reacting to, there are severe, moderate, and minor reactions. I only severely react to two things: Candida and wine-grape mold. So no wine -- easy enough. I've occasionally had to skip a sauce I knew had wine in it but otherwise I just don't drink wine. The candida, though, has been problematic.

Candida. Candidiasis. The theory that my guts are overgrown with candida yeast, even though I have no external indications thereof. I have plenty of the symptoms of an internal overgrowth, though, and the Alcat test says emphatically that I do. So I must go on faith on this. That means consuming nothing that yeast feeds upon, which is blood sugar. I must avoid everything that raises the blood sugar. Like sugar itself in all of its many forms, flour, rice, potatoes, fruit, etc. Also all grains because they may contain mold, all mushrooms because they are a fungus themselves, and all fermented sauces like soy sauce and vinegar because they contain yeast. I did that quite strictly for about 3 weeks. I made my own salad dressing using lemon juice instead of vinegar (lemon juice doesn't raise blood sugar). I made my own mayonnaise, too. It's really tasty.

I read a lot about candidiasis. Like everything on the internet, strong opinions from all aspects of the topic are vented and debated. Some think the condition is medical nonsense. Some say you must adhere strictly to the diet 100% of the time or you will relapse instantly. Opinions vary on what foods are 'allowed', what foods actually help, and what modern medicine can do for you. Having read through a ton of that, sorted through what appears to me to be fact from fiction, and knowing myself as I do, I think I have a pretty good handle on this. In a nutshell: Sugar -- bad. Fructose really bad. White flour -- really bad. The rest? Neh. Probably not that big a deal. I can eat a mushroom without trouble. I can eat a bit of rice now and then. The key is small amounts. A few bites of rice at lunch once a week I can handle. A whole bowl of rice makes my stomach blow up like a balloon as the yeast feasts on the resultant blood sugar spike and gives off gas. That's my sign -- bloated stomach -- too much blood sugar. The next couple of days I have nothing bad and stomach goes flat again.

Interestingly enough, it turns out raw honey can work its healing wonders on candidiasis, too. Instead of feeding the yeast as one would expect, some say it kills yeast and helps heal the gut. Well, I got some raw honey this weekend and have had a tablespoon of it every day since. It hasn't caused the bloated stomach that a sugar intake of that size would. I think it's helping. Plus it tastes really good. I'm putting it on an Ezekiel brand sprouted grain tortilla (yeast-free) along with almond butter. Dang useful for when the food cravings get to be intolerable.

My next biggest problem is fluoride. I got a two-stage fluoride + everything-else filter and installed it at home. I drink from that and try to remember to use it to brush my teeth, too. It's helping. My mouth feels a lot less irritated. At work they offer bottled water. I looked up their water analysis report, available on the internet, and this particular brand says it contains no fluoride. Good. My exposure to fluoride is limited to restaurants who serve tap water, and the shower. I'm not sure if fluoride contacting the skin is bothersome to me or if it's just what gets ingested. I can't change the shower situation, but I have stopped taking baths. No need to soak myself in it. But I have learned that Borax -- the 20-Mule-Team stuff, neutralizes fluoride. I got some of that and have been adding it to the laundry to make sure my clothes aren't fluoride-infested. I am going to try adding some to bath water one of these days to see if that really will make my water fluoride-neutral. Wouldn't that be nice to have such an easy solution to that problem.

After that I focus on the 6 big food items that bother me. Of those, Brewer's Yeast and Onions are the biggest problems. No leaven bread, no alcohol, no vinegar, no fermented sauces, no onions. Just try eating out without consuming one or more of those things. It's not possible, and after every meal out I am itchy. So long as I do "best I can" the reactions are minor. Maybe as I avoid other things that are causing me to react my whole system will settle down and I can eat without itch again. Even now, like I said, it seems my reactions are lessening a bit.

Finally, there's the minor reactions. Lots of those. Just avoid whenever possible. If unavoidable, don't have them very often. Less than once a week is best.

The rotation diet is a big part of this. Not eating the same food more than once every 4 days. I'm trying to do that, as much as possible. Basta has been very good about that with the dinners he cooks.

I'm trying to eat as many veggies as possible.

I'm definitely eating everything fresh and natural. No processed, preserved, or colored foods for me.

I'm eating one small serving of fruit a day. Different fruit each day, if possible. The NO SUGAR IN ANY FORM EVER Candida people will be shrieking in horror at that, but the same people who recommend the raw honey also say that natural fruit's natural sugar is more healing to the system than it is yeast-feeding. When I eat fruit -- no bloated stomach -- so it's all good.

The ramifications of that are that I can do endurance sports again. I can ingest quickly-digested carbs for energy in the form of honey or fruit. That is very promising to me.

Taper + What Is Wrong With Me

2009-05-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

Basta finished his last long week. Now the taper begins. He's really looking forward to tapering.

Not that he's been working out religiously. His work situation has him very busy right now and he's let his training suffer these past few weeks as a result. He's skipped a lot of workouts, in fact.

But he says he's ready. He's been saying he's ready for a long time now. Mentally, physically, he's ready. He has his nutritional plan set. He says he's really ready.

Maybe he is. I really wish he would have done all of the hours of these last few really hard weeks, but it is what it is. He's as ready as he's going to be.

Logistically, we're nearly ready. I got my passport renewed. We got our visas a few weeks ago. We're going to try to get Yellow Fever vaccines tomorrow. We don't need that for the event but we do for the Amazon river cruise we're taking afterwards.

As for me and my troubles. Well. Here is my saga:

My doctor surprised me and actually did listen to my problems. She took my blood pressure and agreed it was way too high for my age, weight, and reported athleticism. She ordered a bunch of tests, which I did, and a chest x-ray. The blood work came back fine, nothing to worry about, maybe a touch of anemia. Blood sugar a tad high. Cholesterol a tad high. Odd considering my healthy eating habits and fitness level, but nothing to worry about. Chest x-ray showed that my lungs are fine, so is the heart. She thought it could be a food allergy and referred me to an allergist. Yes.

While all that was going on the kit for my Alcat test arrived. I had the blood drawn for that, sent it in, and waited most impatiently for the results. I had high hopes that would give the answer to my problems.

The Alcat test identifies food intolerances. These are different than allergies. With a true allergy, your body reacts by pumping out histamines, swelling dramatically, potentially causing anaphylactic shock and death. A food intolerance, on the other hand, won't cause death. But it can cause muscle aches and pain, joint aches, itchy skin, coughing, gastrointestinal distress, high blood pressure, rapid heart rate, lack of energy, water retention, weight gain . . . A whole host of potential symptoms. Most of which I was experiencing.

I've thought all along that this was caused by something I was eating. I tried to figure out what it was by eliminating this and that suspect food from my diet but nothing seemed to do the trick. I knew it wasn't a true allergy because I've tried taking Benadryl for it but that made no difference. I was really hoping the Alcat test would shed light on my problem.

Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for. The results of the test arrived. I have a HUGE list of intolerances, far more than I would have ever imagined. For instance:

Brewer's and Baker's yeast. That means no more alcoholic beverages, baked goods, or bread. Nothing made using yeast. That includes soy sauce & all vinegars. Most sauces, in fact.

Cabbage. In all of its many forms -- white cabbage, red cabbage, bok choy, sauerkraut, coleslaw, etc.

Carob. No biggie here. That's probably in some of the 'sports' bars that I consume but those are easily skipped.

Chicken. I knew this. I haven't eaten chicken for over 10 years now because of this. But chicken broth is everywhere and it's hard to avoid. Every time I have it my neck turns red and I itch all over.

Coffee. WTF? You can have an intolerance to coffee? Apparently so. I was keeping a diary of foods and my reactions and I did note a sneezing and itchy spell after consuming coffee but thought it must have been caused by something else. Guess not.

Hops. No beer. No biggie. So this is why I turn red when I drink beer? Or is it the yeast? Or the double-whammy effect? In any event the brewer's yeast eliminated beer anyway so this is redundant.

Onions. Seriously -- WTF? Onions? Onions are in everything. EVERYTHING. It's more prevalent than chicken broth, even. This one is really hard. It includes all onions -- green onions, shallots, leeks, etc.

Peaches. And their bald cousins nectarines. Not a problem here. One of my favorite sports drinks is peach flavored and I wonder if it actually has some peach extract in it.

Those were the big reactions. Along with that I had minor reactions to another collection of foods. Cinnamon. Crab. Brussel sprouts (oh darn). Sesame seeds/oil. Olives & olive oil . Cashews. Bananas. Black & green tea (no more iced tea at lunch). Corn (or tortilla chips). Cottonseed oil. Grapefruit. Oregano. Salmon. Rye. Snapper. Yellow squash.

I have a severe reaction to Candida, which indicates that I probably have candidiasis -- a systemic Candida overgrowth. I don't have any external symptoms of that so it is all in my gut. As a result, I can eat no sugar, no fruit, and no mushrooms. That's sugar in all of its many forms, including honey, molasses, fructose, sucrose, dextrose, maltose, etc. Nothing that the Candida can flourish on. Avoiding all grains, potatoes, rice and flour is also advised because they raise the blood sugar. Candida loves blood sugar. Avoiding all of this should make it die off within a few weeks.

I have a minor reaction to casein but not to whey. Still, that means no dairy. I'm not a milk drinker but the no cheese, no yogurt, no butter, no sour cream part is sad. Since I can't drink coffee any more the no half & half is not a problem.

So that's the foods. That's bad enough, but it gets worse. They also tested for molds, environmental chemicals, and food additives/colorings. I react to a handful of food colorings (orange, green, red, yellow), potassium nitrate (no more processed meats), aspartame & saccharine (I knew those bothered me and never have "diet" products as a result). I am best off if I just stick to natural foods -- nothing processed, nothing from a box, nothing colored or preserved.

Then there's the molds. I severely react to botrytis -- a mold that is most commonly found on wine grapes. Great. Given the severity of that reaction I will probably never be able to have wine again without suffering bad effects. A bunch of other molds, too, like the ones that grow in the shower. I am lucky I don't live in a more hot/humid climate where molds thrive more.

Last but not least are the chemicals. I reacted strongly to fluoride, of all things. Also to chlorine, nickel, and orris root. I can't wear my white gold wedding rings for more than a few hours at a time or they burn my finger, so I knew about the nickel. Orris root is the base for most perfumes, so now I know why perfumes make me cough and sneeze. I've always hated swimming in a pool because of how the chlorine wreaks havoc on my skin and hair and saps my energy. Every time after swimming in a chlorine pool I had to go home and have a deep and hard sleep of the dead for a few hours. I thought I was just a bad swimmer and it wiped me out. Now I know that is not the case, it's my reaction to the chlorine. It really does affect me differently and more strongly than it does most people.

The fluoride is a big surprise. I switched to a fluoride-free toothpaste but my city adds it to the water supply so it's in everything. I think that's why my mouth almost always feels inflamed and irritated. I think that and the onions are causing that reaction because it is still somewhat with me, though much reduced. My mouth always flares up after eating at a restaurant, and I think it's because onions and onion powder are so common and because restaurants use tap water in the kitchen, so I'm getting a lot of fluoride in every dish. I've ordered a fluoride filter for the home and it should arrive next week. In the meantime I'm drinking and brushing my teeth with fluoride-free bottled water. I hope with reduced exposure the mouth symptoms will fade, even though I won't ever be able to achieve complete fluoride elimination.

So there you have it. For two weeks I've been trying to adapt to these restrictions. It's not easy, as you can imagine. I thought I had a pretty healthy diet beforehand but now it is absolutely pristine healthy.

What can I eat? Beef. Pork. Eggs. Soy. Garlic. Tomatoes. Lemon. Avocado. Peanuts. Those are on a lot of people's lists but I tested no reaction to them. Most vegetables are okay. Hooray for small things. I can eat something.

Basta, who is the chef in this family, is adapting to this beautifully. He has a list of my can't-eat foods and makes extraordinarily tasty meals around that. If I could eat at home all the time I'd be fine. It's eating out that gets me. Imagine ordering something in a restaurant that doesn't have onions, butter, or olive oil in there somewhere. I am doing the best I can, but after every meal out I get a reaction of some sort. Either an inflamed mouth or itchy skin or a stomach ache. But it's mild and it passes in a few hours.

Because now, after two weeks of avoiding these things as much as I can, I feel tremendously better. Blood pressure dropped to 103/63 after the third day of dietary purity. Resting heart rate dropped to 73. I am thrilled with that.

All the other symptoms are dissipating, too. My ears no longer feel like they are stuffed with cotton and don't itch any more. My skin in general doesn't itch, just for an hour or so after eating at a restaurant. I can live with that. My joints don't ache and my knuckles feel fine. I can write with a pencil without pain again. The feeling of needles stabbing into my quads is gone. The overall muscle aches are fading.

My energy is returning, too. I don't have to plan my weekends around naps and I don't come home from work too weary to do anything but take Misty for a short walk and then crash into bed. I actually have the ambition to do things after work now. Like work out. I feel like a blanket of weariness is slowly being lifted off of me.

My lungs took the longest to recover from this. Up until two days ago I still had the shortness of breath thing whenever I climbed a set of stairs. I could feel that my lungs just weren't right whenever I tried to exercise, no matter how gently. It's hard to explain, they just didn't feel right. I felt pressure and like the lungs were laboring far too hard for what I was doing, and doing so incorrectly. Like they were sliding against something in there. I'm glad I had the chest x-ray done to tell me that nothing was obviously wrong in there. No pneumonia, no cancer. And now, at last, that symptom is gone. That is a huge relief. I can work out again.

It's nice to know what was wrong with me, even though the solution is very difficult. I am to avoid all of these things for 3-6 months, then I can try to introduce them back on a very occasional basis and see if I can handle them. The key is to not do constant exposure. Someday, I can maybe have a dairy product one day (cheese!) and have a minor reaction, then if I don't have it again for 3 days the reaction will clear from my system and I can have it again. 4 days is apparently how long it takes these reactions to leave the body completely. So they recommend a rotation diet: Don't eat anything more than once every four days. Not even things that I'm not currently reacting to, because I may start reacting to them due to overexposure. Given that I am obviously prone to food sensitivities, this is good to know. I don't want to develop a problem with anything else.

So we are trying to do the food rotation thing. We have beef day, fish day, pork day, shellfish day. Different veggies and salad greens each day. Substituting a vegetarian meal or an uncommon meat like lamb or buffalo at any time is fine. We rotate the oils, using grapeseed, canola, coconut, safflower, peanut, or walnut oil instead of just olive all the time. I am eating an abundance of varied vegetables, not just broccoli, cauliflower, carrots all the time. We've switched from the mixed lettuce salad to one type each night -- romaine, spinach, mache, arugula, butterleaf, etc. Basta made a garlic/lemon dressing with grapeseed oil that I can use (once every 4 days) since all of the commercial ones have at least one ingredient on my banned list.

So yeah, there's a lot going on. Feeling better and having all of these symptoms fade away is worth the effort, though. I am committed to doing this strictly for at least 3 months, then maybe I will start to see what I can add back in on occasion without causing me too much trouble.

The first 5 days or so of this was really hard. I had headaches, aches, pains, weariness -- worse than the actual symptoms I was having before. I was warned that would happen as my body was working hard to clear everything out. After that phase was over I started to improve rapidly. As of this morning my blood pressure is 88/60. That's normal for me. Finally.

I've lost 10 pounds so far, too. I'm thrilled about that. At this rate I'll probably lose another 10 within a couple of months. Then I'll be right around my goal weight.

And I'm exercising again. I swam 1.2 miles in the ocean today and it felt fantastic. The heart and lungs felt fine, just fine. I was thrilled to be out there and having a good swim. Yesterday I ran/walked 3 miles and it felt great, too. The legs are still a little weak but I have high hopes my strength will return in full force very soon. I know I've lost some fitness through all of this so it's partly a matter of building the strength and fitness back up, too. Since I'm unable to consume sugar in any form my workouts are pretty well limited to about an hour, but I plan to make full use of that hour. I can stay very fit with an hour a day and I can work on speed.

I'm looking forward to a good bike ride tomorrow. And to having a bit more energy, a few less symptoms. I can only imagine how good I'll feel 3 months from now.

Oceanside 70.3 2009

2009-04-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

Been there, done that, no big deal.

That's about the extent of what I have to say about Basta's Oceanside day. He wasn’t stressed at all about it, he was well prepared for it, and he knew the course.

Also, this really wasn't an important race for him. His focus is on Brazil. Brazil, Brazil, Brazil. Oceanside was just a training day.

It showed in his time. Last year -- 6:21:56. This year -- 6:18:44. 3 minutes faster. Big whoop.

He was actually 3 minutes faster on the swim, 4 minutes faster on the bike, but he had leisurely transitions and a slower run by 3 minutes. He just wasn't pushing it. He wasn't racing. He was cruising at a comfortable pace.

Which is all fine -- we do this for fun and fitness, after all -- until we sit around the athlete food table with fellow triathlon club members and hear them bemoan not getting sub-5 today. These are a speedy group of people, and being around them makes you feel woefully inadequate for not being fast enough. I told Basta if he wants to get to be sub-5 himself he needs to set time goals and work hard to achieve them. He just wasn't interested in that for this race.

And then there's me. Long story short, I didn't compete. DNS. Did Not Start. My blood pressure is still high, my resting heart rate still often in the hundreds, plus a whole host of other oddball symptoms that I haven't really talked about here. I've been getting worse instead of better. Climbing a staircase leaves me panting for breath with my heart pounding. Doing 70.3 miles was inconceivable. I can't even imagine running 100 yards right now.

But I did go to registration and get my athlete's wristband and swim cap. Basta was doing this, and so were my friends from work. Same as last year, we all stayed in the same room and went down to the event together. I went into transition with them, pretending to be an athlete, and set up my rack as if I were competing. Then I took pictures and hung out, trying not to let my disappointment become a sucking vortex of negative energy and impact their days.

I wasn't feeling very good, as usual, that morning. My heart was pounding and I was a little light-headed. I saw the Medical Tent near the finish line and thought I'd check, just one more time, to make sure I was making the right decision. I went over there and asked them to take my blood pressure.

A very nice doctor sat me on a bench and took it. I told him what was normal for me and the reading he got was 40/40 higher than that. He talked to me about how I felt and how long I'd felt that way. He took my pulse and said it was quite high. He very carefully said that he recommended I not compete this day. I thanked him. That made me feel better, actually, to know that a doctor felt I shouldn't do this event this day, too.

Now, two days later, nothing has changed. Basta feels fine, no pain or soreness. He's going for a short run when he gets home tonight, then it's back to regularly scheduled training.

I am still thinking I'm having an allergic reaction (or intolerance) to something I'm eating or being exposed to somehow. I ordered the ALCAT test and have high hopes for that showing something. I also ordered a box of vegan meal-replacement drink mix. You can supposedly live off of this stuff without eating anything else if you wanted to. I plan to try consuming just that for a week or so to see if that helps.

At Basta's insistence I have also scheduled an appointment with my internist. I suspect that will be a complete waste of time, but maybe she'll surprise me. Really wish I could find a good doctor but they don't seem to exist in the HMO system I am stuck with. At least she'll probably run a bunch of blood tests and we can rule out any problems there. Then she'll tell me to eat better and try to get a little bit of exercise. Yeah, she never bothers to ask how I eat or what kind of exercise I do. Just assumes I'm your typical sedentary fat American.

But I actually have been a sedentary fat American for a while now. I haven't had a decent workout in what feels like forever. Since this obviously isn't going away quickly, I've started doing what I can to help keep me in the game without actually making my eyeballs explode. I've discovered I can walk without trouble. A walk raises my heartrate up to around 130, so it's a nice Zone 2 workout. So walk I will. Also, I can lift weights. And do yoga. All low-stress activities but it's certainly better than nothing. This vegan thing should result in some nice weight loss, too. Maybe I'll be leaner, more muscular, and bendier as a result of all this.

Today

2009-03-30T06:24:00.000-07:00

Sitting here in bed. Just woke up. No coffee yet. Blood pressure is 128/87, resting heart rate is 81. While neither of those would make a western doctor even raise an eyebrow, they are high for me. Normal is 90/60 and 72ish.

So something continues to be awry. Along with this is a headache, intestinal distress, an overall feeling of achiness and lack of energy. Maybe it's a bug, who knows.

Basta's flu is gone and he feels pretty good. He took several days off from training because of his illness and it made him twitchy. He couldn't wait to get back to it. Funny how that becomes an addiction.

5 days to Oceanside. Strong focus on simple, healthy foods, getting good rest, and light training for both of us.

If I feel like I do now I'm not sure it's wise to do any of Oceanside. I'd really like to do at least the swim, just to prove I can. The swim has been my challenge all along here and I really feel like I've conquered that. At one time the thought of swimming a mile in the open water made me terrified. Now I've learned how to swim, I have done the distance many times in the pool and in the ocean, now I just need to do it in an event. Then I can say Done. Success. Goal Achieved. Feel good about that.

I can ride the bike and I can run a half marathon (well, not today. But you know what I mean. When I'm healthy). Doing all three on the same day may have to wait for another event, but I'd really like to get that swim done in Oceanside.

Of course I had to read that article about how most people die in triathlon in the swim and due to a heart problem. Great.

I am going to go barf now. Bye.

Bad Things

2009-03-21T16:55:00.001-07:00

Well, alas, things continue to go awry over here.

In the interest of not-whining - much - I'll try to keep this succinct. Another allergy/sensitivity problem has turned up resulting in another few weeks of mostly-lost training time.

Nearly everyone I mention this to says, 'oh, it's just muscle soreness. HTFU.' Apparently they think that I don't know the difference between a normal workout where my heartrate goes from a calm steady beat to a nicely elevated and comfortable 150-160 versus a pounding 210 within the first few steps of a run. That a muscle pain that feels like a netting of razor blades wrapped around my thighs feels the same as the typical stiff & soreness that comes from a good long run.

Trust me on this one: I am not stupid. I am pretty self-aware, too. I know the difference between what is normal for me and what is significantly abnormal.

Also know that I will figure it out and take the actions I need to fix it. In this case, once again, I narrowed the problem down to what is affecting me and am using avoidance to solve it. I feel better again. What I don't know is why all of the sudden I'm reacting to so many things that never previously bothered me. Maybe that's a question that will never get answered and my days will be filled with identifying and avoiding problem ingredients. Oh joy.

What this means for my triathlon life is that I've lost some more training time. Oceanside is in two weeks. There is no more time for significant fitness gains.

So. I know I may not finish this event. I have made peace with that. I am where I am. I will do this for fun. I am now looking forward to the excitement of the event and having a great time. It's not like I was a threat to break the top, oh, 60% anyway. It turns out that a whole lot of this pre-race anxiety is just taking yourself way too seriously.

I know I'll finish the swim. I am pretty sure I'll finish the bike. I might finish the run, if all goes well and my knees and hips hold out. Realistically, they might give out and I will just go as far as I can.

In other news, Basta is sick. Aches, pains, runny nose, intestinal distress. Flu. He's been down for 2 days and is getting better. Considering I've caught almost every cold or flu he's brought home, chances of me getting this one within a few days is pretty high. Which will really benefit my strength and fitness for Oceanside, no?

Hmm. The no-whining thing didn't work out so well, did it?

On the positive side, we did the Solvang ride last weekend. Basta did the century ride, the second one of his career, and I did the half century. We both had a very good time. It was a hilly, challenging course but we both finished strong and within our goal times. We were happy.

Athlete Information

2009-03-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

Basta had an 18 hour week last week. That's a lot of training and he was not terribly happy about it. He groused a bit, but he did it, knowing that this week is a recovery week.

When I scheduled him for workouts during his recovery week, he really groused. I explained, yet again, that recovery week doesn't mean sitting on the couch doing nothing. It means easier, shorter workouts. You still have to run, bike, and swim. Just less thereof.

So he's doing it. He is disciplined.

We got our athlete's information package from Ironman California (Oceanside). The email containing the package said to reply to the email if I wasn't going to be able to compete or didn't want a race number assigned for any reason.

I nearly hit reply right then and there. But alas, that's just me being less than courageous. Which can't be, so I didn't. I will get a race number. I will toe the line.

But first, a ski trip. We're off to Mammoth for the weekend. Should be a nice weekend with gorgeous conditions.

Fun & Fitness

2009-03-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

Last year, around the point in his training where I am now, Basta was hating it. He didn't like the training, the long hours, or the sore body. He said he'd do it because he signed up for the event and needed to do the training to get there, but he wasn't enjoying it. At this point in his career, he wanted to back off after Oceanside and just do sprints and Olympics, if he even wanted to continue with triathlon at all.

I remind myself of this, rather often, because that's where I am right now. I don't want to do this any more. I'm tired of training. I'm tired of being sore all the time. I'm tired of missing workouts because I'm tired and sore and then feeling guilty for missing workouts.

But mostly, I'm tired of doing all of this and not making much progress. That's the difference between Basta and I. He was tired and sore, but his bodyfat plummeted, his blood pressure dropped, his fitness improved by leaps and bounds, and he could see improvement in everything. I'm not seeing improvement anywhere. In fact, I'm getting slower and I’m just tired all of the time, even though I don't think I'm working out all that much. It's most frustrating. I think I am coaching myself incorrectly.

But I said I wasn't going to talk about me if all I was going to do was whine, didn't I? Well, best to drop this topic then. Instead, let's talk about motivation. Why do we do triathlon? Why do you? Why do I?

I exercise in general to be fit and healthy. I took up triathlon to get a good all-around body appearance. Runners are super-fit but far too scrawny. Cyclists have big legs but slight upper-bodies. Swimming gives you the nice upper body that balances the whole picture.

I like the stuff, too. The gadgets. The equipment. The high-tech attire and accessories. I like that stuff a lot.

Of course there's the camaraderie, too. Signing up for events with friends. Talking about training, workouts, logistics, frustrations, breakthroughs, all. Travelling together or meeting up at events. Having a group cheering for you at the finish line. That's all very nice.

So I plan to continue. Right now I'm just tired. I need to change my training a bit because what I'm doing is not really working for me. If that means I don't finish Oceanside, well, so be it. I'll get as far down the course as I can. Next time I'll make it farther.

I'm doing this for fun and fitness, after all. It's time to pay some attention to the 'fun' aspect.

3-Day Triathlon

2009-02-23T15:41:00.001-08:00

I had myself a little 3-day triathlon this weekend. Ran 9 miles ( 14.5k) on Friday, biked 52 (83.7k) miles on Saturday, and swam 1 mile (1.6k) on Sunday. Taking the times I did on all of these events, extrapolating them out to the full distance, and I get an 8:03 finish time. That doesn’t include transition times, so add another 5 minutes or so to that. As of today I will not make the cutoff time.

This site is really helpful for calculating that, btw: http://triadtriteam.com/tools/calc_tri_pace.htm

Specifically, my run pace was 12:57mpm (5:32mpk), my bike was 12.8mph (20.6kph), and my swim was 2:45/100m. All of which are quite slow. I have 5 weeks to go. Can this event be salvaged?

Or should I give up, knowing that I can't beat the cutoff time? I would save myself from being pulled from the course by the clowns in the big white ice cream van that comes by and grabs you with a hook after clock strikes 8. Small children dressed as monkeys hang from the corners, rails, and doors of the van, chattering, screeching and mocking you for failing the whole way back to the finish.

I don't want to have to throttle a monkey.

But I committed to do this. A lot of people try and don't succeed, I may just be one of them. I'll get as far as I can get.

I have 5 weeks until the big day. As a friend points out, it's really only 4 training weeks because the last week is tapering. I hate to point out to her that most training plans call for a 2 week taper.

In any event, how do I shave off some minutes in the time I have left? Well, there's room for huge improvement on the run. It seems I've lost interest in running and I don't enjoy it any more. I used to. These things go in cycles, apparently. I can go a lot faster than 12:57, even over 13 miles. It's time to suck it up and work on my running again. 3 runs per week, some speed and tempo work. Get back to at least 11 mpm (6.8kpm) over the full distance. That'll still allow for some run/walking, which I'm sure I will need.

I don't see much hope for the bike. I'm learning that riding a bike fast is all about suffering. I don't like suffering. No. I'd rather ride up a hill in a comfortably difficult gear rather than feeling the extreme burn of muscling up for the sake of speed. Ergo, I will never be a good cyclist.

But I'll improve as much as I can in the remaining time. I figure 3 more long rides, 50-60 miles, with hills, will at least make my legs stronger and give me more of a chance to make it through the run.

I thought I was ok with my training for this course, but as the event gets closer more and more people are talking about how difficult the bike course is. Great. I've always heard it is 1/3 flat, 1/3 hills with 3 steep ones, and 1/3 into a headwind back. Not a great deal different than the course I am riding for training right now. But now people are saying, 'oh no, you'll need to be able to ride double that to do Oceanside!' Great.

The Oceanside course profile is this: Oceanside 70.3. 3 big, steep hills. A fair number of people walk their bikes up at least one of these.

We've signed up for the Solvang ride, 2 weeks before Oceanside, and it will be difficult. I'm doing the Half Century, Basta the full. I'm hoping it'll make Oceanside look easier. http://www.bikescor.com/solvang/route.htm

I don't see much changing on the swim. Pull harder. Faster arm turnover. Blah blah blah. All I want to do is get through the swim without drama or physical stress in under an hour.

At this point I think the biggest thing I can do to improve my time is to lose some weight. Will I get another mph on the bike for every 5 lbs I lose? Every 10? Will my running pace pick up by :15 or :30? It'll surely help.

It's funny, looking back at the changes in Basta's body when he was training for his first half. He lost 10 pounds almost instantly, and he was thin already. I haven't lost a thing. He was probably training more than I, but I'm training a lot. I'm not slacking off here. I just haven't changed my diet much, and I've perhaps fallen into the, 'oh I'm working out hard, I can afford these extra calories' trap. I can't afford to do that any more.

My resting heart rate has gone from 82 last year (yes that's high) to 68 now. I have a 'suzuki heart' and my RHR has always been high. To see 68 is almost unbelievable to me, but now I expect it to go lower. My blood pressure is 95/60. I'm pleased with that. Exercise really does affect your health dramatically. But the body fat? Not so much. I need to get a strong hold on my food intake and drop 10 pounds or more before the event. 5 weeks - 10 pounds (4.x kilos) -- doable. Goodbye, four evil whites (sugar, flour, rice, potatoes). Hello, small portions and lower calories.

It's All About The Bike

2009-02-16T15:45:00.000-08:00

First, the obligatory Basta update (OBU?): He (we) did the Tour de Palm Springs on Valentine's Day (aw) and it was his first Century. He finished in 5 hours, 47 minutes for an average pace of 17.5 mph (28 kph). We're both pleased with that. Much as I believe he can average above 20mph like other guys in his age group, I now know that it will take another year or two for him to get there. Speed on the bike just doesn't build that quickly. He's gone from 15mph average last year to 17.5 now. Maybe he'll see 20mph next year. Or he'll be closer to it, anyway. He's doing well.

He finished strong and was still bursting with energy. He came back to the hotel, dropped off the bike and put on his running shoes, then did a half hour brick. He said that felt fine. So all is well with his training.

Now on to me (me, me, me). Triathlon is all about the bike, as we all know. Santa gave me a nice chunk of change for Christmas and when I saw that check my first thought was, 'oooo, tri-bike.' I started shopping in earnest, trying to find the right tri-bike for me. But something was holding me back. A little voice in the back of my head saying, 'buying a tri-bike right now is a waste of money . . .' Well I've heard that little voice give me sound advice enough times over the years that I try to listen to it. What would a tri-bike actually do for me?

I know what a tri-bike does for most people. My much-read post on the topic explains all that and I still believe it to be true. The question is what will a tri-bike do for ME. Me, me, me. That niggling little voice in my head kept saying, 'nothing. '

And then I found out why. This article here explained to me what I was feeling. Tri-Road-or-Tweener

Key points in that article:
1. If you're slow, a tri-bike won't help you. You'll probably be slower on it. You need the riding skills first, then the tri-bike. A fast rider will be faster on a tri-bike, a slow rider will be slower.
2. If you're not going to ride aero at least 90% of the time, you won't benefit from a tri-bike
a. You're not going to ride aero much if your belly gets in the way of your legs in the aero position.
3. If you're fat, you'll be a lot more uncomfortable on a tri-bike. That's because the tri-bike shifts your weight forward and you'll be sitting on your tender lady bits instead of that big fat cushy butt. If you're slow to boot, that just means that much more pressure on the lady bits.

Well, as I've mentioned here before, I'm slow. Not just slower than you, but really truly slow. I'm working on that, but I know it will take time and dedication. I'm not there yet.

And then, I have some weight to lose. I stated just last week that I'm not particularly fat, and I'm not, but I'm not triathlete taut either. I could lose 20 pounds. I'd really like to lose 20 pounds. I've worked very hard to lose 20 pounds but they stubbornly refuse to budge. My belly plus my general hip stiffness makes riding aero difficult for me. If I can't ride aero most of the time, I will be slower on a tri-bike.

Plus there's that simple power to weight ratio. I can spend thousands of dollars on a tri bike that weighs ounces less than my road bike. Or I can lose ounces off my body and accomplish the same weight to power improvement at no cost. I really need to lose these 20 pounds if I ever hope to get faster on the bike. I'm working on it. As always.

Finally, I just need more time in the saddle. More leg strength, more pedal efficiency, more speed. I need to get faster on the road bike before I can hope to see benefit from a tri-bike.

So I'm not going to buy a tri bike this year. Maybe next. Maybe cable-less shifters will be all the rage then. That'll be fun. So what should I spend Santa's money on now?

Once I decided not to buy a tri-bike I knew I needed to plunk some money into my road bike. I wanted help on the hills, so I bought more gears. Which required a new chain, too.

And I bought clip-on aero bars. No, I don't think I turned my road bike into a tri-bike by doing that. I will not see any improvement in my running from these clip-ons. I still push and pull down and up on the pedals, not back. So why put them on?

Well, to make me ride more aero. In every picture I see of me on the bike I am really upright. I look like I'm riding a beach cruiser. My bike doesn't feel like it fits quite properly, but the more I look at it the more I think the fit is fine, it's just me that's not riding it right. I'm supposed to be laid out a bit forward when I ride, and I'm not. I'm stiff. I'm too upright.

Then there's the simple rest factor. My shoulders, arms, wrists, all get sore when I'm riding. With the aero bars, I can rest my arms in the pads and hold my upper body up with my humerus bones. Then all that hurts is the neck from holding the head in aero position, and that more than makes up for any discomfort I felt before. I trust that will improve with practice. Right now I'm riding up until sore, then aero until sore, then up, then aero, etc.

Riding aero is really interesting. It's fun. I makes me feel really technical, and that makes me pay more attention to my pedal stroke and cadence. That results in me riding somewhat faster. The weight on the arm pads makes the bike squirrely as hell, too. It really teaches you how slight changes in your weight affect the direction of the bike. It magnifies any upper-body movement, too, so I think it will make me a 'stiller' and more efficient rider. All in all I think the aero bars added to a road bike offer far more advantage than I imagined.

They still don't turn a road bike into a tri bike, though. That's a whole different story.

So I did the Tour de Palm Springs 55 mile (88k) course this past Valentines Day (aw). The aero bars were attached and I used them at times during that ride. The wind for the first 10 miles was utterly brutal but I think the tailwind later on made up for a lot of that. I did 55 miles in 4 hours 15 minutes, which is 13.1 mph (12.8 kpm). That's just riding time and doesn't include 3 sag stops where I had rest, some sustenance, and a visit to the porta-potty. I felt strong at the end and like I could ride at least another strong 10. This is good.

My goal for Oceanside is a 4-hour ride, so I am not there yet but I am close. The Oceanside course is harder (hillier) than Palm Springs. It won't have sag stops. I will have swum beforehand so I will be wet and cold for much of it. But still. I did the distance this past weekend and I am in the ballpark of my time goal. I'm pleased.

Surf City Marathon 2009

2009-02-04T10:02:00.001-08:00

The BQ attempt.

To qualify for the Boston Marathon is a big deal for a runner. In the United States, anyway. I have no idea if it is outside of this continent. I know a number of Canadian marathons are touted as Boston Qualifiers, but do the Europeans care? The Latin Americans? Anyone else? Somehow I doubt it, but I don't know. Crister? Can you shed any light? Boston? BQ? Mean anything to you and your running friends in Sweden?

Assuming that the entire world doesn't know what a big deal Boston is to us in the US, let me explain: It's a big deal. To runners. You have to qualify to get in, so it's an elitist thing. It's also the oldest annual marathon in the world, so you have an historic event as well. Pros do it. It's televised. Every American runner, in their heart of hearts, would like to be able to say they qualified for Boston once. Big deal.

Well. According to Wikipedia, the world does know about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon Ok, then.

With Basta's very fast Half Marathon at Surf City last year (7:44 pace (4:48k), we thought there was a possibility he could qualify for Boston. He decided he wanted try, along with doing Ironman and a bunch of century rides and plenty of skiing and all of the other things he wants to do. He needs an 8:35 (5:20k) overall pace to qualify in his age group.

I don't know if I clearly communicated that he hasn't run at anything faster than a 9:30 mile (5:54k) in quite some time. His sciatica problem kept him running but slowly. His bursitis or baker's cyst kept him from running at all for a couple of weeks. When all of that was gone he was running, he just wasn't running very fast. It was like his speed had just vanished.

Maybe it was the Ironman training. For that, long steady distance is the key. Not great speed you can't sustain all day long. But maybe he just got tired of running. Or maybe the suffering through running while not at 100% left him with thinking this was his new pace now. I don't know.

I tried to get his speed back through speed work, intervals, and tempo runs, but it didn’t help. He was doing the miles but doing them slowly. He said he just didn't feel like pushing himself to run that fast. He seemed to have lost his interest in qualifying for Boston, too. He'd just run the marathon and have a good time with it.

Then, about a month ago, his speed returned. Out of the blue, he went on a typical training run, and he ran fast! He looked at his pace watch and was amazed to see 8:30 (5:16k) when he was used to seeing 9:30 (5:54k) or higher. Maybe it was that his injuries had finally fully healed.

So hope for Boston surfaced again. A little glimmer of hope, anyway. 8:35 (5:20km) pace over 26.2 miles (42km)? He could run shorter distances at that pace, but a full marathon? He did his last long run prior to the event at 11:30 (7:08k) pace, making it a leisurely jog and stopping often for bathroom breaks and phone calls. I didn't think a BQ time was even in the realm of possibilities, but he thought the excitement of race day would pick up his pace as it always does. For 26.2 miles (42k)? Nah.

During the week before and up to the morning of I was giving him all sorts of sage marathon advice: Run your own race. Don't start out too fast. Don't get swept up in the excitement at the beginning and go out too fast. "Bank it now" is what will enter your mind but it's the worst thing you can do. Save it now or pay for it later. On and on. I told him to save himself in the first half, then let it out in the second. He agreed with all of that. I wrote goal times for the 5, 10, 15, and 20 mile marks on his arm right before we took off for the event.

We rode the bikes down again this year. Nice little warmup, that is. This event has always been well-run and it seems to get a little bit better every year. Backpack check-in was a quick, easy and secure thing. There were almost no lines at the porta-potties . We heard from friends that parking was no big deal, either.

The event started on time. Wave starts, so you can actually start out running and don't have to waste your first mile waiting for clear room to run. Basta was off in the first wave, running with his buddy Robert. Robert is a pretty fast runner and this was his first marathon. He was planning to run an 8:30 pace as long as he could and was hoping for a sub-4 hour marathon, so he and Basta would be able to run together for much of the distance.

But alas, they took off way too fast. Basta said they ran several 7 minute miles and once he glanced at his watch and saw 6:30 (4:02k). Too fast, boys. Way, way too fast. Spend it now and pay dearly later, remember?

They did not remember. Or they did not believe it was true. Basta said he did tell Robert they needed to slow down, several times, but Robert didn’t slow down and Basta stayed with him. So much for my, 'run your own race' advice.

They got to the 5-mile mark and cheered that they were 7 minutes ahead of the goal time I'd written on Basta's arm. Any seasoned marathoner could tell them that wasn't cause for cheer. That was practically a guarantee of a meltdown around mile 20 (32km).

Meanwhile, I was toddling along, doing my own run. The course looped around here and there so you could see people at various points. I saw Robert around what would have been his mile 21 or so. Ahead of him I caught a glimpse of what could have been Basta, running at a much faster pace. If that were indeed Basta, they had just separated, and Basta was still running well.

I looked at my elapsed time watch and did some calculations. He had 5-6 miles to go and about 45 minutes to do it in. His started in a different wave than me so my elapsed time was a bit different, so maybe he had a few less minutes. But maybe that was actually mile 22 or 23 where I saw him, not mile 20. Maybe he'd taken off from Robert in a sprint and was going to blow himself out with just a few miles to go. Maybe he was still strong and was going to nail this. Maybe he was going to come close and miss it by a few minutes. Would he try again soon if that was the case? Oh wait -- that guy could be Basta -- if so then he has no chance of BQ'ing. Oh, nope, that's not him. Good.

So many what-ifs to ponder while trotting along, trying to ignore the growing discomfort in the hips and thighs.

I finished my run, then found Basta and Robert in the crowd not long after. They were both hobbling a bit and looked tired. "How'd you do?" I asked.

Robert responded with a frown and a down-thumb sign. "I tanked at mile 20." Shockingly enough.

"And you?" I said, looking at Basta. He held out his watch for me to see. 3:41:37. He'd BQ'd with 4 minutes to spare!

Joy and celebration! We headed off to the beer garden and had our first taste of adult beverages in a month. Others in the beer garden heard us talking of his BQ and came over to congratulate him. He was very happy. I was very proud.

We rode the bikes home after a few beers. Everyone was amazed that he could ride at all after completing a marathon, in BQ time at that. But he was thinking, 'oh piffle. I'm an Ironman. This is nothing.'

In analyzing his splits afterwards, though, I have to say -- I'm amazed he managed to do this. He ran a foolish marathon. He started out way too hot and held that for far too long. He did fade considerably in the last 6 miles but held on to enough pace to make it to the end in time.

He said those last miles few miles hurt but he gutted it out. He does have an amazing capacity to continue on when a normal person would say enough.

Now I'm thinking . . . If I could somehow get him to run a strategically sound marathon, what time could he achieve? I don’t think a 3:30 marathon is unrealistic for him. Or, if he's not interested in that goal, at least he can finish in a BQ time but with much less pain. Maybe I can get him to run with a pace group next time.

More Navel Gazing

2009-01-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

What with my own training going on, I haven't watched Basta swim lately. I figured he had it pretty much under control and now it was just a matter of longer and faster.

Well, I watched him swim a couple laps in the pool before I was ready to jump in and start my own workout. He looked like a corkscrew. What happened to his nice smooth roll? It was gone. His upper body was completely disconnected from his lower. He was twisting at the waist and giving a weird whirly kick with his legs on occasion. Huh? What happened here?

I stopped him and asked why he wasn't rolling any more. He, of course, said that he was. We talked about that for a bit and then he claimed to have never rolled like that before. Wrong again. I told him to do some laps of the rolling drill but he didn't remember it. I told him how to do it and he said it was impossible for him, he'd sink. Sigh. He fights me so hard on this swimming.

So I got in the pool and showed him the drill, straight from the Total Immersion video. Push off the wall on your side, kicking gently. Bottom arm is under the water and reaching forward, upper arm is on your thigh out of the water. Your hips align with the bottom of the pool and the sky, your face points directly down. Glide in that position for a few moments, then pull the forward arm down and roll the body to the same position on the other side. Roll face up to breathe then back down to face the bottom of the pool. Glide on each side a few kicks, then roll gently to the next side.

After a few laps Basta finally stopped fighting it and got the smooth roll down again. We think that the roll went to hell when he started to really reach for maximum length on his stroke. He was reaching too far, twisting his upper body, leaving his lower body to do whatever, and crossing his midline in a big way, too. Basta, Basta, Basta. Coaching him like this is interfering with my workout time, too. My work schedule doesn't align with the pool hours very well so my available time to swim is very limited. When I walk the deck watching him swim I'm losing my own training time. That's a bit of a problem.

Fortunately, this didn't take long to fix. He looks much better again.

As for me, I tried all the methods of counting laps that I'd read about after a quick google of 'counting swim laps.' I did 1x400 doing an easy, build, easy, hard sequence. Swim each length in that manner and after the hard length you've done 100. Repeat 4 times to 400. That was easy to keep track of and was a good workout, too.

I did the next 400 using letters of the alphabet. 400 is 16 lengths, or A through P. Pick a category of some kind and think of all the words you can that start with the letter of the lap you're on. I chose 'animals.' So on lap one I thought "Aardvark . . . Abalone . . . Apple - no that's not an animal . . . Anchovy . . " and so on. It worked. I never lost track of where I was. P, the end of the 400, came pretty quickly. But with all the searching in the brain for animals there wasn't any time to think of form, speed, variation in arm turnover, anything. So this would be good for just slogging out the laps. I'll use it once in a while.

For the third 400 I counted every length, not lap. That way going up would be an odd lap, coming back would be an even. If (when) the mind drifts and I lose track of the lap count, at least I know if I'm on an odd or an even and it can help find where I am. That did indeed help, though not perfectly. I still had to really think sometimes -- now was that 7 or 9? Hmm. Must have been 7 . . .

I did that 3x400 in 33 minutes. 11 minutes per 400, or around 2:30/100m. Slow. If I keep that pace for the event I'll have a 48:16 swim. Not quite the last one out of the water, probably. I must pull harder. A little quicker arm turnover. Press the chest and streamline the body. Steady improvement.

I Have Much To Say

2009-01-20T16:37:00.000-08:00

And no doubt I will take a while to say it. So I'd best begin . . .

When last we spoke, I was suffering from a baffling malady that made every step of a run painful, sent my heart rate through the roof during extreme activity like, say, standing up, and made me feel like either my eyeballs or my heart , or both, was going to explode. Needless to say all of that was causing my workout schedule to go down the tubes.

Well, turns out it is the poultry allergy. It has progressed to including turkey now. It took about two weeks of being poultry-free before most of the symptoms left and I could do a somewhat normal workout again. But hallelujah that I figured out the problem and simple avoidance takes care of it. I can train again.

We usually do some kind of purity program for the month of January, and because of the aforementioned problem I wanted to do a major purity routine. So for this month of January we are booze-free and meat-free. Fun, I know. But we are kind of enjoying it.

The current state of Basta is quite good. He had a problem with his right knee over the holidays, this time the back side of the knee was puffy and sore. He wasn't able to run with any kind of pace. I think that was simple overuse and we backed off on his running for a few weeks. That didn't help a great deal so he stopped running altogether for a week. That did the trick and the knee/calf healed. His chronic sciatica problem has been in remission for many weeks. All of the sudden he can run again. Back at his old fairly perky pace of 7-8 min miles. We're both very pleased to see that.

The Surf City Marathon is in two weeks and he is going to do the full distance. His last long run was 18 miles and he did just fine. No pain, no stiffness the next day, no swelling anywhere. He is ready. He'll do two weeks of tapering and then it's show-time. I don't think he'll BQ, but he'll probably have a good run. He needs a 3:45 finish time to do that. That's an 8:35 pace. It's within the realm of possibility, just unlikely. He hasn't held that pace on his previous long runs. But he's going to start with the 3:45 pace group and see how that goes.

Otherwise he's doing quite well. Swimming, biking, running. All on track for IM Brazil. Bueno.

Then there's me. My big event is the Oceanside Half Ironman, right? My little problem resolved to the point where I could train again at 12 weeks til event. That's bare minimum for training for a Half Ironman. I'd lost a lot of fitness from being unable to train well for over a month, so it really feels like I'm starting over. I've been doing a full training schedule for two full weeks now, just entering the 10-weeks-to-go week. It's been a tough two weeks and I'm POOPED. Tired. But it's a good tired. Just plain ol' muscles being used and my fitness being pushed. I like it. I know it'll only get better and I'll get stronger.

But I'm just not very fast. I know I'll be able to complete the distance at Oceanside, but will I be able to do it within the allotted amount of time? I'm worried. Here's where I am right now:

The swim: I swim for an hour in the pool once a week. I'd like to tell you how many meters I cover in that time but I have yet to successfully count laps. Seriously, how do people do that? I've been just going by time and figuring surely I've swam a mile within an hour. I just read some advice to count letters of the alphabet instead of numbers, so I may give that a try next time.

On Sundays we're doing an open water swim in the bay. That water is COLD this time of year! 54F (12C). Brr. The wetsuit warms up quickly enough but the feet, hands, and head stay cold the whole time. You can't feel your feet as you climb out of the water and it's hard to talk for a bit until your lips unthaw. But Oceanside won't be significantly warmer by early April, so this is good training.

But I'm slow. There's a buoyed off swimming area in the bay that's .6 miles from buoy to buoy and back. I swam that distance in 27 minutes last Sunday. Too slow. If I could keep the same pace for another lap I'd have a 54 minute swim in Oceanside. That's really slow. So I have 10 weeks to double the distance and pick up the pace. The slowest swimmer in my age group last year at Oceanside finished the swim in 59:30. Only 10 were over 50 minutes. The vast majority did the swim in 30-45 minutes.

One of the reasons I'm so slow is that my shoulders just aren't very strong. They've always been pretty wimpy so this isn't a surprise. I'm working on that -- pushups & weights. The other reason is that my arm turnover is too slow, which is just a matter of fitness. So get stronger, get more fit, put more time in the water, and I can hope to shave a few minutes off that swim time.

The good thing is that I actually kind of like the swim now. The very thought of swimming a distance like this used to fill me with a gut-gnawing queasiness and dread. I'm quite pleased that I've managed to conquer that fear and learned how to swim with some idea of knowing what I'm doing. I no longer dread it and I know I will only improve.

The bike: This is my limiter, now that I've improved my swimming. I am just slow. Far too slow. Apparently my legs aren't very strong, either. I work on technique, I make sure I am pedaling efficiently, I keep my upper body still, I keep my cadence high, but I'm just not pushing hard enough on the pedals. I need more gears, in fact, because my legs are toast by the end of a ride.

Here's the sad truth. Two weeks ago I rode 30 miles. Flat river trail, into a mild headwind but back on the tailwind so that probably evens out. I forgot to pump my tires (d'oh) so they only had about 80psi. I swam earlier in the day and had just a power-bar in between workouts so I was quite hungry by the end of that ride. This was the last workout of a long workout week so I was rather tired, too. But I really tried to push the pace hard, especially when I had the tailwind. I worked hard to keep my cadence around 90 and to pedal non-stop, no coasting.

The result: After 30 miles my legs were like jelly and my average pace was 13.3mph (21.4kph). Way too slow.

Last weekend I rode again. This time I felt more rested. The bike was freshly lubed and the tire pressure was correct. I ate a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich pre-ride and brought along plenty of gels, blocks, and fluids. It was a pretty day, cold when we started out but nicely warm by mid-ride. I felt stronger and able to ride farther. This time we rode the Backbay trail that follows a river with a slight but continuous elevation rise for the first 15 miles or so. Then the trail parts and goes up into the canyon with long and steep hills. I did 10 good miles of hills, then took the river trail with its now slight decline back to the car. 40 miles total. I felt strong up until the last couple of miles, then my legs lost their steam and I knew I'd planned a good distance for me that day. But the result? 12.2mph (19.6kph). Yeah, I don't ride hills very well. Obviously.

So right now I'm just over halfway to being able to ride the full distance, and if I keep my current pace I'd do it in somewhere between 4 - 4:30 hours. The slowest biker in my age group at Oceanside last year had a 12.6 average pace and finished the bike in 4:26.

I really don't want to be the slowest biker in my AG. There were 6 women that actually finished the bike in the sub-13mph range. The top 20 or so all rode 18-20mph. So the bulk were in the 14-17mph range. I need to get up in that range, comfortably. I need to do this ride in less than 4 hours. I have much work to do.

And 10 weeks to do it in.

Finally, the run. Don't have much to say about that. I've done a lot of running in the past few years. I've done several half-marathons. They take me around 2:20 to finish. I've never done one after riding for 4 hours beforehand, though, so I have no idea how I'll do in Oceanside. But I can already do the distance, though with some walk-breaks. In 10 weeks time I should be able to improve my pace and non-stopness nicely, but I'm not putting a great deal of emphasis on it. My focus will be the bike. With some run bricks afterwards.

So yeah, overall I'm a little worried. I want to beat the cutoff time of 8 hours, and I really don’t want to be last. What was I thinking when I signed up for this? I need to double my distance and increase my pace all around.

But Rome wasn't built in a day, I know. Half Iron fitness doesn't come from monumental effort here and there but from steady progress, day in and day out. I have a plan and I'm following the plan. I'm healthy and my fitness is improving.

It'll be ok.

Holiday Trouble

2008-12-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

Normal people make the winter the off-season for training for a very good reason.

We are not normal people, apparently. We sign up for events in the winter or early spring that require us to train through the short days, the cold weather, and the holidays.

We're not very smart. I remember last year saying, 'never again in the winter.' Then I signed up for the same danged marathon in February and added that half Ironman in early April.

Not very smart.

So I have these aggressive training schedules made for both of us. We're plugging along, doing our best to put in the hours. Basta is doing a lot better at it than I am. He's much like a machine that way. You tell him do x at y intensity for z duration on this day and he does it. It takes a lot for him to miss a scheduled workout.

But me? I am missing workouts.

Not for lack of discipline. No, I have a problem. An odd problem. It's taken me quite a while to figure it out but I think I now know what it is.

It started Thanksgiving weekend. Training was going pretty well up to that point. We were back from vacation in Holland. My fitness was improving. The runs were going pretty well, the swims very well, and the bike was the bike. Normal training. I was upping the hours slowly but surely and trying to push the pace at times. Good.

Then, Thanksgiving. Much food and festivity. We had a huge turkey feast at Basta's sister's place. Basta likes to cook and is quite the home chef, so he made another turkey feast for just us two days later. That resulted in a lot of leftovers.

And my training went to hell. It hurt to run. Not just the normal, 'oh ow ache here twinge there' stuff that you get in the first couple of miles. No. This felt like a thousand little razors were embedded in my leg muscles, sawing back and forth as I ran. Hurt. Ache. Pain. Hurt.

Along with that came a hugely elevated heart rate and the feeling that my eyeballs were being pressed out from the inside. I checked my blood pressure and it was high. 120/79. Normal according to the standard charts, but that's quite high for me. Usually it is around 90/60.

I had no energy on the bike or the swim, either. As soon as I'd start a workout my heart rate would take off like a jackhammer and my ability to perform or continue for very long would plummet.

I assumed overtraining at first. Seems most likely, no? I'd increased my workout volume by a good jump. My last good long run was 14 miles. I didn't think I'd increased my training volume by an excessive amount, but maybe my body just couldn't handle. It could be overtraining. That's what all of my fellow athletes thought it was, too.

So I took a few days off. Didn't really feel any different. I started to think maybe I was dehydrated. Realized I hadn't been consuming much besides coffee or wine lately. Started sucking down the water and the electrolyte drinks. Didn't make much of a difference.

By now I was really worried. My training was going to hell. It just hurt too much. I couldn't actually run, so I tried run/walking. 5 minutes of running followed by a minute or so of walking. That really didn't help, either. It just hurt to run.

Then I had a burst of insight. This all started around Thanksgiving. That's when my diet changed pretty radically. I was eating things that I don't normally eat. I know that I am sensitive to a lot of foods. Maybe this was a food intolerance problem.

Common symptoms of food intolerance are nausea, indigestion, diarrhea . . . Gastrointestinal complaints. I wasn't experiencing any of that. But a little research showed that other common symptoms are fatigue, muscle pain, joint aches, rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, headache, and itchy skin, among others. I was having all of those. While those same symptoms can be caused by a whole world of things, I think I was on to something.

But what could it be? Something that I'd been eating a lot of starting on Thanksgiving day and continuing for several days thereafter. Something I don't usually eat . . .

I started eliminating foods and trying to isolate what it was. That isn't easy, especially this time of year with all of the parties and potlucks that one must attend. Who knows what is in that stuffing, after all?

Well, to cut to the chase of a long story, I think I know what it is: Turkey. I think I have poultry allergy. It's not all that common but it does exist. Google it if you don't believe me. I never eat chicken because it causes my throat to swell and my face and neck to turn red and itch. Turkey hasn't bothered me in the past, but apparently now, all of the sudden, it does.

It takes several days for the symptoms to abate after consuming something your body doesn't like. I was both turkey and pork-free for about a week and things were improving nicely. I did a 10K last weekend and felt pretty good. Like I'd missed some training and wasn't in the best shape, but not like my heart was going to explode. Then we had a department potluck at work. Several turkeys were cooked. I had a few pieces, just to test my theory. Could I really be allergic or intolerant to turkey?

Yes, I absolutely can. Within moments of eating the turkey my skin began itching all over. Face, neck, stomach, back, legs. Whole body itching. Plus my heart took off and I timed it at 95bpm while just sitting at my desk at work later that day.

I tried to run the next day, which was yesterday, and it was a disaster. Every step hurt. Not typical muscle pain, but the same feeling of stabbing knives as before. I had to cut the run short and walk home.

Today I tried to ride the bike and had a very similar experience. That doesn't cause the pain so much but it shoots my heart rate through the absolute roof. I can't push out more than about 100watts or I feel like I'm going to die. That didn't make for such a good bike this morning.

So, here I am. I need to avoid all poultry if I ever plan to complete the events I'm signed up for. The marathon in Feb is already looking really iffy, given my lack of ability to train. I still have 13 weeks to go until Oceanside so I'm hoping to still get plenty ready for that.

Come the new year, I'm going on a complete detox program. All vegetarian, no booze, serious workouts for the entire month. See if I can truly clear out my body of whatever is bothering it and actually feel good during a workout again.

Looking forward to that.

First, though, we're headed up to see my parents for Christmas. Cold, snowy, fun. Will try to ski a time or two while there. I found a gym nearby and we will try to do some guest workouts while we're there. If my theory is correct I should feel normal by then and can get some good workouts done.

The Plan

2008-11-28T11:20:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok. I realize some of you haven't read The Triathlon Training Bible and so that annual hours question wouldn't really mean anything to you. Also, it's Thanksgiving. The hit count on this site is way, way down. Y'all are off happily stuffing yourselves with holiday food and then burning it off with long workouts, I know.

So I'm on my own with this workout decision. To help with that, I took a good long look at how those annual hours translate into weekly workouts. If we went middle of the road and chose 900 hours, Basta's longest week would be 26 hours. He'd have a few 23-24 hour weeks, a lot of 21-22 hour weeks, and smattering of weeks in the teens.

20+ hours per week is a lot of working out. Getting it done around work, eating, sleeping, and all of life's other obligations is a challenge. It leaves you time for little else.

Basta has been averaging around 10-12 hours per week for a while now. He is going to fuss, big-time, about nearly doubling that. But he's the one who chose Ironman. Despite what some of you may think, I didn't push him into this. He chose this on his own. My job is to develop his workouts and to coach him along the way.

He chose Ironman, he has to do the time. But I think 900 hours is too much. 800 is more realistic. We can always adjust as time goes on, but I think 800 is a good starting point for him. That means his longest week is 21.5 hours. The bulk is in the 17-19 range.

Making this schedule, according to the Joe Friel Triathlon Bible method, is a challenge but it's also kind of fun. It starts with the annual hours. Once I make that decision, based on Basta's goals and his planned events, I go to a chart in the book that lays out the weekly hours. These vary by week following the periodization plan: Prep, Base, Build, Peak, Race. I adjust for his geezerly state so that he gets a recovery week every 3 weeks instead of every 4.

Then I take Basta's race calendar and apply those periods to the time he has available. Key to that is which events he wants to peak for. I make note of our vacations and holidays because they will screw up a schedule, big time. Then lay in the periods to get him from start to peak. Adjusting for current fitness level may mean more or less Base or Build.

Now I know what phase and what period each week is in, so I know how many hours Basta needs to do in a given week. I'm ready to schedule a specific week.

This is where it gets really hard. Let's say he's in the second week of the Base 1 period. That's a 19 hour week. I need to spread those hours across the 3 disciplines, swim/bike/run. The bike is his weak sport at this point so I'm planning more rides than anything else. He's doing that marathon in Feb so training for that is a strong sub-note in this vast scheme. Swimming can't be ignored. Neither can the extremely important yoga. At least a couple days a week of core muscle work is useful, too. All of those workout minutes must add to 19 hours total workout time.

In Base we work on endurance and technique. Not a lot of intensity at this point. Long Slow Distance workouts and technique drills. For all 3 sports. Scheduled for gym hours, pool hours, weather forecast, social obligations, working around the various aches and pains, etc. I don't do the detailed weeks more than a week in advance because a lot of these things change too rapidly.

So for his 19 hour week, he's doing 15 mins of yoga every day, running 3x (intervals, tempo, long slow distance), swimming 2x (200m & 300m repeats), biking 4x (spinning 2x, intervals 1x, long distance 1x), and doing core+shoulder weights twice. I give him the specifics of the intervals and the pace he should strive for on the tempos.

Then I email it to him. It's his job to do as much of that as he can, and he usually does a very good job of doing the workouts as prescribed. He should tell me if it's too much or too little, or if I scheduled him to do a long bike on a day he's travelling for work, for instance. I do my part, he does his. It works.

The especially fun part of right now is that I'm now doing this for myself, too. As mentioned, I'm doing Oceanside, my first half. I need this kind of detailed training, too. Just putting in the time will only get me so far, I need the specific workouts, too. So I do his schedule, then I do mine. Since our work hours are very different they end up being quite different schedules, but the principles and the process are the same.

As of today I have his and my annual plans done, the weekly phases set, and next's weeks detailed schedule done. I feel good about this.

Time to have some turkey leftovers. Then I need to read some more specifics and get more ideas for Base 1 workouts in all 3 sports.

Plans

2008-11-26T15:10:00.001-08:00

Yes, we're back. Been back for a while. Had a lovely time, thanks.

Basta has begun his Ironman training, sort of. I have begun training for my Half in earnest, and therein lies the problem.

Did I tell you that I signed up for Oceanside? I don't remember. Well it's in early April. Why did I sign up to do to this? Me who teaches but can't necessarily do? Because I'm tired of not necessarily doing, I guess.

I'm also tired of not being as fit as I want to be, of carrying around these 20 extra pounds that I just can't shake, and of watching from the sidelines. Yes, I do the occasional sprint. I run the occasional half marathon. But I'm not really into this. I read about it, write about, coach it, and admire it when Basta does it. But I don't actually do much of it myself.

It's high time to do it on my own. So, I signed up. I gave credit card number to website and thus obligated myself to 20 weeks of swim/bike/run/repeat. Ignoring the fact that I really don't like to swim or bike that much. Yes, ignoring that with my head turned fully away and my jaw set stubbornly. That is irrelevant at this point.

Then I sketched out my training program. I'm in Week 3 right now. My goal is to not get pulled from the course. To beat the 8-hour time limit. If I had to do the event today I don't think I'd make that time, so I have much work to do.

So far I've done every workout that I've scheduled for myself. Go me. But I'm pooped. Tired. Exhausted. My legs are lead and it makes me weary just to trudge up a flight of stairs. I knew this would happen. I expected this. I saw it in Basta and I know that's how this game works. You are tired and weary and sore and miserable for a while, then it gets better. Then it gets much better.

It will take a while before it gets better, though. Probably quite a while. Right now I'm riding that fine line between sticking to my workouts and keeping from overtraining. It's hard.

It's hard on the rest of the things I do, too. This blog, for instance. A pooped Ana is not a prolific Ana.

Nor is she a particularly good coach. I need to re-read Friel's Training Bible with specific attention to Ironman training this time. I need to develop Basta's overall plan with ideas for each phase, then specifics for at least a few weeks in advance. I just haven't had the energy to do it. I've been faking it with giving him essentially the same workouts as he's done all along, throwing in some bricks and a bit longer times. I need to do better than that. It's early yet, and he really doesn't need to start serious training for a couple of weeks. I'm calling this, 'prelude to seriousness' and hoping to get a respectable plan together for him soon.

I will. This being a holiday weekend I'll have some extra time to focus on the training and the writing along with the festivities and the planned long workouts. Plus the guilt is getting to me so I must do it, no matter how tired I am.

As for this blog, I may have run out of fascinating things to say about Basta's training. Ironman will be more of the same, just longer and longer. I'll write about him and his training if something interesting arises, of course. I can't let his legions of (largely non-commenting) fans down, after all. But I think I'll branch out and write about my own training struggles a bit. Maybe. So long as it doesn't start to sound like whining.

But before we do any of that, help me with his schedule. The first step and most important aspect of building his training schedule is to choose his annual hours. For Ironman, Joe Friel suggests between 600-1200 hours, depending on a number of factors, such as your age, time available to train, how competitive you want to be, and your fitness starting point.

For the half-ironman he suggests between 500-700 hours spent training per year. I initially chose 600 but found that was too much and backed down to 500. 500 was good for Basta and he took to that training program well.

Now he's ready for more. He's ready for Ironman. His fitness base is very, very good. He can do more hours.

He has as much training time available as he wants. His work schedule is flexible, we have no kids, the dog takes up little time, and the spouse (me) is busy with her own workouts and so isn't giving him grief about missed home time.

But he is 54 years old. He's healthy and strong but it will take him longer to recover than it will a younger man.

And does he want Ironman to be his entire life? Or just the vast majority of it for the next 5 months? That's a big unknown at this point.

So what do you think? What should his annual hours be? I'll post a poll, I think. The lowest -- 600 hours? That's not much more than he's doing now. The highest -- really push him to train as much as he can possibly train? Or somewhere in between. Voice an opinion if you have one.

Random Bits

2008-10-18T13:36:00.001-07:00

Some random bits of things I've been wanting to say, none of which makes a complete post but all told might make for a mish-mash post. Good enough.

First off, The Long Beach Half Marathon was amazing.

We have this weather condition here in Southern California called the Santa Ana winds. That means a hot, powerful wind blows hard from the wrong direction (offshore as opposed to the prevailing onshore) for several days. These winds are what usually drive the devastating fires we experience in the fall. These conditions take a typical fall day of 68F/20C and make it like summer, 85F/30C. The day prior to the event, the Santa Ana winds set up. It was warm and the palm trees were whipping in the wind. It was a mild Santa Ana, so it wasn't horrific wind or heat, but it was windy and warm. This didn't bode well.

The expo was well organized and we got some good swag. They gave very nice technical t-shirts to everyone who signed up within a certain time frame. We got ours, and mine fits beautifully. It's a feminine shirt, which is much appreciated. They also printed your name on your bib so spectators can cheer you on as if they know you.

The day of the event broke to no wind. Hallelujah for that. The winds of the day before had cleared the air and it was a sparkling crystal blue sky. Beautiful. Not hot. The run itself was absolutely gorgeous. Downtown Long Beach is a pretty city with a lovely harbor area. We ran around that, then down the beach boardwalk for many miles. Sandy beach, rolling waves, sparkling ocean, beautiful sunny day, not too hot, not too cold, and you simply couldn't ask for a better day, better scenery, or a better event.

They said that this year was their largest event to date: 18,000 people across the Half, the full Marathon, a 5k, a bike tour, and a kid's run. It's grown each year, but after a day like this I expect it to have significantly more entrants next year.

Basta ran well. No foot pain. He didn't put any effort into a PR and just ran easily. He finished in 1:50:31. 42nd out of 259 in his age group. 8:26/mi ( 5:14/km). He ran the half marathon, and they detected by his chip, no doubt, that he'd switched to the half and just automatically moved him from the full to the half in the results. I like that.

Me? I have been suffering with a hamstring strain and wasn't sure I could even do this event. But the hamstring held out and I finished it, albeit not quickly. Finish time 2:31. The leg actually feels much better now and I'm hoping & planning to post a more interesting time for my full marathon in Feb. I had a very nice time at this event, though. This is the 3rd year we've done it and it's definitely on the recurring calendar.

That afternoon, after the event was over, the wind kicked up again. It howled through the night and all the next day, too. We just had a perfect weather window for the run.

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Foot update: It's fine. Basta can run again. Yoga must be a part of his daily routine (and mine) to keep the injuries at bay.

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Basta's friend Randy came down for a visit and they rode Santiago Canyon together. He commented on how much Basta has improved since their trial ride of the Vineman course back in December. "Amazing difference," he said. Back then Basta had just started training on the bike. Now he has a lot of bike miles on his legs, a lot of hard hill workouts, and a lot of rides with people who can push him. Training works.

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I've figured out how to make him take some time off. Don't give him a workout schedule. Normally, I plan his upcoming week and give it to him on Sunday night. I just stopped doing that. He took a few days off, thinking I had just forgotten. Then he started to ask me, "shouldn't I be training?"

"No, take it easy. It's your break."

"But I don't want to lose my fitness!"

"Of course you don't. What do you feel like doing today?"

"Um. . . Swim. A swim sounds good."

"Ok, then swim."

"What kind of workout should I do?"

"Which one did you enjoy most? Do that one. Or just swim for fun. Enjoy the water. Enjoy the day. Enjoy the feeling of sliding effortlessly through the water. Don't train. Just swim. However long and hard you want to."

And that actually worked. He's still working out every day, and he's doing it because he wants to. He runs, he bikes, he swims. Workouts, for the most part, are easy and not more than an hour or so. He's maintaining his fitness, enjoying it, and looking forward to beginning his Ironman training in earnest.

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Speaking of which, he did it. He committed. He registered for Ironman Brasil. May 31, 2009. I suppose we ought to learn a phrase or two in Portuguese between now and then.

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I decided on a 28 week training program for him. That will begin November 10.

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On that date there are 12 weeks until the Surf City Marathon, so he'll begin training for his BQ then, too. Perfect.

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Because that's the week we return from Holland. We return the 12th, actually, so he'll miss his first two days of training (oh no!). Then, right back into it.

We leave for Holland in a week and half. I really don't see any maintenance training happening while we're there. It's likely to rain and be quite chilly the entire time (but there should be no tourists and no lines). We'll have to suffice with loads of walking every day to maintain some level of fitness. And walk we will. We're spending a few days in Amsterdam and a few days in Paris, along with seeing Basta's various relatives that live throughout the country.

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Yes, we have our absentee ballots in hand and will mail them off before we go. The election will take place while we're away.

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After following the Ironman Championship this past weekend and reading a lot of info posts and blogs thereon, I now know that yes, the humidity and heat is just as bad there as it is in Cancun, if not worse. People deal with it by either coming to Kona a week or more in advance or training in a similar climate. It is a hot, humid race and a significant challenge, even for an Ironman, no matter how you prepare for it.

Fun.

Half or Full?

2008-10-06T18:46:00.000-07:00

Long Beach Marathon this Sunday.

The potential Boston Qualifier, right? Except that the pain in the heel has prevented Basta from doing proper marathon training, so he's not ready.

So.

He ran 13 in Cancun pain-free. He was slow and miserable, but he was pain-free. That's important. I think we've truly figured out this problem (sciatica) and how to solve it (yoga).

But not soon enough. He needs a lot more long-distance runs on his body before he can hope to do a marathon in BQ time. Cross-training is lovely for keeping the cardiovascular system primed, but you need sport-specific workouts to perform well in a certain sport.

Or does he? He surprises me with his physical abilities at times. His ability to just keep going and going when a normal person would stop. Maybe he could manage to do this marathon after all.

To find out, I sent him on a 16-mile long run. If he did ok on that, maybe he could go ahead and try the marathon.

Off he went. When he returned, the verdict was clear. No marathon for him.

It wasn't his foot. It started to feel a little twinge towards the end of the run but wasn't painful during and disappeared again after the next yoga session. No, his foot is ok. It was his ankles. His calves. His back. His shoulders, even. He hurt all over.

He didn't plan his route very well and ended up running over 17 miles. His body just isn't ready for this kind of running distance. He hasn't done the time. Hasn't built up the endurance his muscles and ligaments need. He's not too far off. Maybe even 5 more weeks of training could have gotten him a lot closer. But that's 5 weeks we don't have.

The next day he awoke to a swollen lower back. Right around the base of his spine was a pad of fluid. Seriously not good. That convinced me, if there was any doubt, that he shouldn't be doing this marathon. It dissipated throughout the next two days and he is now fine there. The rest of his body has recovered, too.

I have convinced him that doing this marathon is dumb. He has no prayer of doing a BQ time. But more importantly, he risks getting hurt, setting back his training, and maybe making him come to hate the long-distance running. There's no need for that. Train properly and really do the event, don't just suffer through it.

So he's going to do the Half. Shoot for a PR, maybe. He did an 8 mile long run today, the final long before the event. He did ok and felt fine.

We'll set our sights on the backup marathon, the Surf City Marathon, the first weekend in February. We have time to train for that. Both of us, since I'm doing it too.

Cancun 70.3, Part 2

2008-09-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

The Event

Basta always sleeps well the night before events. He has an untroubled mind, I guess. He bounded out of bed at 4:45, had his pre-race nutrition, and headed out the door.The plan was to meet Vicki and Michelle in the lobby at 5:15 and they'd all take a cab to the event. I have spectated enough of these events and I knew it would be a long day. I saw no reason to go down that early and add another hour and a half to the experience. There was nothing to do that early but watch them futz with their gear and stress about the start. I went back to sleep. This was Michelle's first triathlon and she wanted to see everything, so she took the taxi with them.

Around 6:15 I headed out of the hotel towards the event. Walking. I figured I would either catch a bus if they started running early because of the event, or I'd just walk the whole 3 miles. I could use the exercise.

I walked and walked. Wow, it was hot. The sun was up and the heat of the day had already set in. I'm not sure if the heat ever really leaves, actually. Maybe walking this wasn't the best idea I'd ever had.

Really, I thought I'd be able to catch a bus. Or something. I didn't expect to walk the whole way. Hundreds of athletes plus hordes of spectators all headed the same way usually makes for plenty of transportation options.

Loads of cars full of triathletes passed me. A bus full of military personnel passed me. The shuttle from the host hotel passed me twice. The regular bus passed me and I tried to flag it down but it did not stop. There were no turnouts in the road at this point. A taxi paused and inquired if I wanted a ride, but I declined.

I saw a bus drop off a few military personnel at an intersection, then move down the road and drop off a few more at the next one. These military men and women were working the event, directing traffic and keeping the cars off the closed roads. Interesting.

At last a bus stopped just up ahead of me, opened the door, and waited for me to jog up to it. This was the military transport bus, now empty. The young man driving it asked (in spanish) if I was going to the triathlon and offered me a ride. Fantastico! I climbed aboard and he drove me the remaining 2 miles or so to the event. Muchas gracias, amigo!!

Ok, so that was a story of little interest to anyone but me. Too bad, my blog. My friends had said I'd never catch a bus and would have to walk the whole way. While that was a distinct possibility, I figured chances were high I'd catch a ride somehow. Something usually works out like that. And it did this time, too.

Once at the event, I found my party very easily. They were on the beach, waiting for their start. Shortly after I arrived the pro men were started. Excellent timing on my part, I might add. Then wave after wave were started, like clockwork.

I normally kick off a timer on my watch when Basta starts, but my watch didn't survive the humidity and had no display this morning (it recovered the day after we got home and is fine now, btw). I had no way to tell how his swim was going, other than to look for other men in yellow caps and get an idea of how many finished before him.
I also looked for caps from waves that started later that were finishing before him. By these indicators it looked like a slow swim for him. Choppy water, no wetsuit, some current, to be expected.

Official swim results: 44:13. 2:21/100m. 16th out of 30 in his age group.
Then they trotted up the beach 250 meters, into the park where the event was held, and out to transition. This long jog made for a long T1, 5:25. But it moved him up to 12th in his age group.

Vicki came out of the water, too. She was worried about making the cutoff time, hers being the last wave to start and thus getting the least amount of available time to swim. But she made it without problem.

3 hours to wait until Basta might finish the bike. I had a 7 mile run planned for the day and brought my running stuff so I could do it then. I decided to run the event run course. It's a flat road in very good condition, closed to cars, 6.5 miles long, perfect! I headed out.

It was hot and my body was already coated in a light sheen of moisture from sweat and humidity, but it was ok. I ran. It felt pretty good. I reminded myself that I do ok in heat, usually, and ran happily. The kids volunteering at the water stations were getting set up and marveled at my presence. "Who are you? What are you doing running on the course?" their quizzical faces said. I waved and called, "Hola, Buenos Dias!" to them. They waved and said, 'buenos dias' back.

At mile 2 a volunteer boy offered me a cup of Gatorade. Aahhh, that was good. Cold, sweet, and salty. Very welcome at that point. I was carrying my own water but it was tap water from the hotel and it had a gawd-awful flavor. Distilled, sterilized, and chemical-treated. Bleah.

I walked for a bit every mile. This was just a vacation stay-fit run, no reason to push it. Drank, tried to cool down a bit, then ran on. There were water stops every kilometer, so I got to greet volunteer kids about every 6 minutes. One offered me a pouch of water, again very welcome.

They do water in plastic pouches instead of cups. That's a much better idea. You bite off a corner of the pouch and squirt water into your mouth. Then you can carry the pouch with you until it is empty. Far more useful and less wasteful than paper cups. The pouch that I received was ice cold and wonderful.

At 3.3 miles I reached the turnaround. A small black cloud passed over head and produced a downpour of rain for a few minutes. Aaahhhh, that felt good too. But then the sun appeared again and it seemed hotter than ever. I was soaked. Normally, when hot, this is a good thing. But here, it's so humid that evaporation doesn't seem to take place. There is no cooling effect from being wet. It's just clingy.

My 'run for a mile then you can walk' mantra became 'run for a half mile, then oh hooray we can walk.' That deteriorated into, 'run to that tree up there' which eventually became, 'that rock up there. The cute little one. I have to run to that.' The walks got longer and the run portions got shorter. Have I mentioned it was hot? And humid? I could feel the blood in my temples throbbing.

Another sweet volunteer girl tossed a water packet to me and I put the coolness of it on the back of my neck. That didn't help much so I moved it to the front, right on top of the veins leading to my brain. Cool them down, at least. It felt good but didn't help my running much.

At the next aid station I dipped my hand into a bucket of Gatorade bottles and took a piece of ice. I rubbed that on my neck for a while and then put it down my jog bra. Anything for some cool.

I don't know what I would have done if these aid stations weren't willing to give their stuff to me. The water I had brought with me was woefully inadequate. Unlike Chicago, this event had plenty of supplies on hand. Even the very last people on the course had cold water and ice available to them.

But even with plenty of ice, water, Gatorade, and Powerbar gels, I felt for the competitors out there. How were they going to be able to do this run after riding for 3+ hours? I couldn't imagine.

Finally, I finished my so-called run. I found Michelle, then found a grassy knoll underneath some shady trees right by the Bike In arch. Perfect. Cooler. We headed over there and settled in for the duration.

I'd brought along some clothes to change in to. Good thing, since my running duds were soaked through and through with no hope of them drying out, ever.

We watched bike after bike finish. Many finished in groups. Basta said that the drafting rule was never enforced. Officials rode by on scooters and said, 'break it up,' but never made sure they were obeyed and didn't issue a single drafting penalty. This course is pancake flat and the benefit of riding in a peloton is vast. So many, many people did. Can't this problem be fixed? Either enforce the rule or eliminate the rule. Why should those who follow the rules be at a disadvantage? It's frustrating.
There was a stiff wind today, as is typical in this area. It pulled loose a tie holding a big Gatorade bottle in place and it tipped over, blocking the course. A guy running in to finish had to push it up and run underneath it. But a group of event staff rushed onto the scene and got it back upright. Basta finally finished the ride. He didn't even see us as he got off his bike and trotted in to transition. Official bike: 3:03:44. 29.39kph. 18.28mph. That's about a minute slower than Vineman. Headwind. But he's now in 9th place in his age group.

T2 was fast and then he was off on the run.

Vicki finished the bike much later. As she finished she saw us and came over to the fence. She'd had 3 flats. The first one she changed herself. She didn't have a second tube so had to wait for the roving mecanico for the second one. That guy changed her flat, but he pinched the tube and it flatted again almost immediately. She had to wait again for a second roving mecanico. She was quite pragmatic about the whole thing and just said she wouldn't be able to do all of the run now. Not enough time left. Too bad.

She also said that she saw lots and lots of barfing as she was waiting. People pulled over to the side of the road, yacking their guts up, then continuing.

Michelle and I moved over to the grandstand at the finish. There we watched athlete after athlete finish. More and more, on and on, athletes finished. Time came and went for Basta to appear, yet he did not appear.

I waited quite a bit longer than should have been necessary, at least half an hour, then decided to walk up the run course and try to find him. I expected to find him limping and hobbling, his foot in agony. That was the most likely reason for the slow run.

An ambulance had its lights flashing and was rushing down the run course towards transition. Uh oh. Luckily for me, they stopped right beside me, popped open the door, and pushed out a guy on a stretcher. It wasn't Basta. Whoever it was looked to be very overheated. He had an IV in his arm and ice packs on his neck.

I saw Basta shortly after this. He was running normally on both legs, so no foot pain, but he looked terrible. Hot. Miserable. Spent. Slow. He was actually running, so this was a good thing, but it wasn't a very fast run. We shouted encouragement to him but he just rolled his head, groaned, and ran on.

Basta finished, then went straight to the bucket of Gatorade bottles, fished out a big chunk of ice, and put it on top of his head. He saw me and said, 'wait a minute.' He stood there and breathed heavily for many minutes, letting the ice melt down his head and face.

When he could move again he came over to me at the fence and said something along the lines of, 'Effing hell.' Then, 'hot. So hot. Just too hot. Couldn't run . . .' A volunteer steered him towards a chair and took off his chip. Then he stumbled over to the food and took a cold can of Coke.

As he slowly regained some energy and cooled down somewhat in the shade of the finisher's tent, he moved a little better. He got some pizza. A Gatorade. They had showers with chairs under them with athletes parked there, just getting showered upon and not moving.Mmmm. Pizza in the shower. Tasty.

They had to turn off the water every few minutes to get the athletes to budge and allow new ones to sit down and get soaked. He sat there for his entire allotted amount of time, as did everyone.

I noticed the medical tent, just past the finish line. It was packed full of athletes, all receiving IV's and ice packs. Hot and humid, baby. Hot and humid. There are no other words to describe this event. As the Mexicans that Basta talked to at Vineman had said, 'Bien event. Mucho calor."

Official run: 2:34:46. 7:20 mins/kilo. 11:48 min/mile. Ouch. But he passed one guy in his age group and finished in 8th place.

He said he walked through every water stop and took in as much coolness as he could. Volunteer kids sprayed all comers with cold water and Aa asked them to spray him every time. He put ice on his head and down his singlet. He poured cold water over his head. He drank plenty of cold water and Gatorade. But he just couldn't cool down. He couldn't keep a pace higher than a slow Ironman Shuffle most of the time.

He said he nearly barfed many times during the first two miles. He thought about just moving to the side and doing it, thinking he'd probably feel better after he did. Many people did just that. But the feeling passed and he felt better. Just hot. Very hot.

I told him I could empathize, based on my run earlier in the day.

His finish time was 6:29:30. Slower than Oceanside. Slowest 70.3 to date. Yet the best finish place: 8th out of 30. He was the highest placing gringo in his group by far. Those who beat him were Mexican, Argentinean, Venezuelan, or Guatemalan. Used to this climate and able to train in it, in other words. The next American in his group placed 18th.

Plus, we'd done this for fun, remember. For FUN! Not time. I didn't peak him for this event and time was unimportant. This was just a vacation event. But of course, you always care about your performance. He was very pleased to be first gringo, and by such a wide margin.After that an evening in the pool bar at the hotel was ideal. We floated in the cool & shallow pool, we drank margaritas, we talked to others that had done the event. We talked to admirers who were curious about triathlon and thought they might want to give it a try, too.Basta now wants to move down there and train in the heat and humidity. We just don't have humidity around here and he thinks if he could train in it he'd have done a lot better. He would, too. I recently read a thesis about adaptation to climate and learned that the average body adapts its sweat rate and temperature regulation quite quickly, making dramatic changes even within a week.

We wonder how similar this climate is to Kona. It's hot and humid there, too. Is it this hot and humid? This windy? Probably. Just like other tropical parts of the world where triathlons are held. St. Croix. Thailand. Many others. How do athletes prepare for that? Athletes with real jobs, that is. Age groupers.

No doubt we'll learn as we continue with this sport.

Cancun 70.3, Part 1

2008-09-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

The Day Before

Cancun is a beautiful place. There is no doubt about that. Gorgeous turquoise water. Soft sandy beaches. Warm tropical breezes that help with the heat and humidity. Huge, luxurious hotels right on these beautiful beaches. Truly a tropical paradise.

We are not much ones for luxury hotels where the highlight of the trip is sitting on the beach getting a sunburn or hanging out at a pool bar. We'd rather be staying in a more rustic setting, roaming around on Mayan ruins, eating local food from an open-air roadside restaurant, snorkeling cenotes and coral reefs. But we're here for the event, so resort hotel it is.

And a fine hotel it was. The Westin, at the quiet end of the hotel zone, 3 miles from the actual event. The nearest hotel to the event, too. Our room was quite large and had a stunning view of the beach and that amazingly blue ocean. Our amigas, Vicki and Michelle, had another room nearby.
The first order of business on this day-before day was to do the practice swim. At 7am we took a taxi to the beach where the event swim would take place. A fair-sized crowd of athletes was there, along with the race director and the spokeswoman for the event. The swim buoys were all set up and they explained the course to us. First the race director spoke in Spanish, then the spokeswoman repeated it in English.

The course is a big half-mile rectangle. In the event you swim two loops. They had jet skis on the water and lifeguards on the beach this morning to assist us if needed. We could swim as much of the course as we wanted to.
Basta and I both swam one loop. Even though I wasn't doing the event, this was my workout for the day. The water was around 78F (26C), so very pleasant. No wetsuits allowed. The constant wind keeps the water always a little choppy, but it's small chop. A slight current pushed us gently towards the shore.

I found myself swimming next to a 45ish latino man. We bumped into each other and veered off. He'd swim past me, furiously kicking and thrashing, then have to stop to breaststroke and breathe. I just kept swimming, plugging along, sighting well, swimming around him when I caught him. He'd get behind me and then take off swimming furiously again. Once he smacked me in the leg with his thrashing. That surprised both of us. You expect some contact in an event with a bunch of people around you, but this was just a practice swim. With nobody else anywhere near us. Dude. Get your own bit of ocean. I looked back at him. He'd stopped and with a very chagrined look on his face waved his arms at me and said, 'Sorry! Sorry!' I smiled at him. He was cute. He could stand to pay a wee bit more attention to his swimming skills, but he was cute.

It was a nice swim. They had water and Gatorade for us afterwards. Vicki had just wanted to feel the water and stretch her arms a bit so she swam to the first buoy and back. Michelle, who had knee surgery not long ago, stayed on the beach and tended our bags.

After a shower and breakfast we headed up to the host hotel for the expo. There all was well-organized. Basta and Vicki got their packets, along with a very nice fleece jacket (why a fleece jacket in a place that is always 85F/30C with 90% humidity? I don't know. But it's a nice jacket and we can use it at home.) They also got tickets to the pasta dinner. We bought some expo stuff. All very typical there.

We learned that there were athletes from 30 countries competing tomorrow. The highest percentage of athletes are from Mexico. Next biggest group are from the US. After that are smaller numbers of people from around the world. Plenty of Central and South American countries were represented, like Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Brazil. Also Europeans, a handful of Australians, and a few Brits and Canadians. The event did not sell out, but had close to 900 competitors. I think this is the 3rd year it's been in existence. I suspect it will sell out in future years as triathlon grows and people learn about this beautiful venue and the high-quality event organization.

The competitors had to take their bikes to transition and leave them there overnight. Bikes only. No helmets, shoes, bags, pumps, anything. They recommended taking off any saddle bags and bento boxes, too. Basta didn't hear that part about removing everything and left his bento box, saddle bag, and pump attached to his bike. We hoped they'd still be there tomorrow.

Bike checked in, body marked, ready for tomorrow.
The pasta dinner was a little bit of a bust. Far too many people for this restaurant to handle and then the pasta wasn't very good and there wasn’t much of it (and no, I'm not Jewish). But we had arrived early and got seated easily, so that was a plus. When we left there was a long line of disgruntled athletes stretched out the door waiting to be seated.

At last, back to the hotel for a fine pre-event sleep.

Cancun 70.3, Part 0

2008-09-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

This could become an epic tale so I'm splitting it into parts. I'm writing this in case anyone has ever wondered about the logistics of taking a bike on an airplane like I have. If that topic holds no interest for you, there's no need to read this post. I'll get to the actual race report eventually.

On Transporting a Bike

I admit that I didn't think this event was a good idea. It's his third 70.3 this year, for starters. He can do the distance. That's not an issue.

He met his time goal at Vineman. The heat and humidity in Cancun would ensure that he'd have a slow event, so he wasn’t going to do it for time.

He's decided to do two marathons this winter, so his focus was supposed to be on running. Swim and bike just to keep the skills up but no serious training until the push for full Ironman begins.

So why do it? For fun, he says.

A big expense and hassle for fun, I say. We have to get the bike down there. A week of event plus vacation in Cancun is not cheap.

We'll get to see how transporting a bike goes, he says. Plus, it'll be fun! He really wanted to do it.

Ok, we'll do it. A group of friends from work who also do triathlons also said, 'yeah! It'll be fun! We'll do it, too!' Two of them actually did, too. One to compete and one to spectate along with me.

So the four of us made plans for Cancun. Figured out the logistics of getting a bike there. In the Continental US you can ship your bike to events and that may be the way to go sometimes. But when going to an international destination, really the only way to do it is to take it on the airplane with you as luggage. Otherwise it is extremely expensive, plus your bike may get hung up in customs and not even be cleared by the time of your event. Flying with it is by far the better way to go.

Basta borrowed a bike box from the bike store and they showed him what to disassemble on the bike to get it to fit in there. I point out to Basta that you must reassemble it before you can ride it again. We booked our flight on Alaska and confirmed that they charge $50 each way for an oversized box such as this.

The day came and we headed off to the airport. No trouble with the bike box on the shuttle bus. They just put it in the aisle along with all the other extra luggage. It's light, so it's easy to get up the steps of the bus. Bueno.

Checking in and paying the extra for the oversized box was no big deal. I'd read somewhere that it's a good idea to print out the airline's policy regarding bike boxes in case the counter personnel tries to charge anything other than the defined cost. Sometimes the staffer isn't aware of the company's set charge for bikes or sporting equipment and tries to charge more. But at Alaska, the attendant asked if it was a bike, nodded, and said he was sorry but it'd be $50 extra. No hassle there.

The 4ish-hour flight to Cancun was uneventful and our bike boxes came out of the baggage chute intact. There were two other bike boxes besides ours on this plane. They belonged to a couple from Seattle who were doing this event for the first time, too. We chatted with them as we waited for the rest of our bags.

We'd been advised that TSA always opens the bike box and rarely bothers to put it back together correctly and the bike may get damaged in the process. So one should open the bike box as soon as it comes off the conveyor and check it. If damage exists, file a claim right away. We did check both bikes and they had been inspected by TSA and the lids weren't on quite right any more, but the bikes were ok.

Through customs without a hitch and then off to find a shuttle to take us to the hotel. September is the off-season in Cancun and the airport was far quieter than last time we were here. Instead of the typical chaos and hordes of taxi drivers outside yelling for your attention and trying to take your bags, there were uniformed representatives asking, 'do you need a shuttle or taxi today?' The taxis and vans were lined up in an orderly fashion. Shocking.

Here we are at the airport. The humidity fogged the lense of my camera instantly.
I inquired as to price for a van from several representatives and all said $14/person. No bartering to be done today. Everyone had the same price. Ah well. I chose a polite and non-aggressive young man who was managing a fleet of vans. $14, 4 people, $56 total he said. Ok. A taxi might have been cheaper but the bikes don't fit in the trunk of a car.

The bike boxes filled the back of the van. They had to wedge the rest of our luggage in around them. The young man frowned, talked on his radio a bit, then explained to me that because of the bikes this would have to be a private van. There was no room for any more luggage and yet the back seat could still fit four more people. Total cost would be $60. 4 whole dollars more than the shared-van price.

Fair enough. 6 miles to the hotel and then vacation began.
Transporting a bike does add some expense to a trip but is not nearly the hassle I was anticipating.

Malibu Update

2008-09-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

Ok, more Malibu info with metric conversions!

The swim was .5 miles (.8k) in the cold ocean in a wetsuit. Basta swam it in 17:17, which is a 1:57/100m pace.

The bike was 18 miles (29k) of rolling hills. He did that in 55:13, a 31.5kph pace.

Finally, the run was 4 miles (6.4k), completely flat. He completed the run in 31:14, a 4:53 min/km pace. First time he's been able to run pain-free in many weeks.

So yes, you were correct in your conversions, Crister. You'll be happy that the results from Cancun are posted all in kilometers, since that's what they use in Mexico.

We are back from that adventure. I'll put up a full race report with pictures soon. In the meantime, he had a good event, the heat and humidity was definitely a feature of this race, and he did well. Results are posted if you want to peruse there while I work on the gory details of how those numbers came to be.

ironmancancun.com/resultados_ing.html

His bib # was 339. If you click on his name you get more numeric details and pictures of him, too.

Malibu Tri

2008-09-16T08:36:00.001-07:00

Did the Malibu Tri on Sunday. Fun event, well run. Basta and I both did well. I did it in around 5 minutes faster than last year and felt much more fit the whole way. Happy about both of those things.

Basta rode his tri bike and rode it hard. He averaged 19.58mph, a new record for him. The course was 18 miles of rolling hills.

Then he flew off the bike, his leg/foot completely pain-free. He had a 7:48 pace on the run, faster than he's been able to run in many months. He was very, very happy with that.

He placed 17th out of 63 in his age group. Good.

His foot pain is in the coming and going state. Sometimes he's pain-free, sometimes it comes back. The daily yoga is making a difference. If that has to be part of his life forever that's not such a bad thing. Far better than drugs or surgery or quitting triathlon.

Now our sights are on Cancun. Hurricane Ike passed it by and it doesn't look like anything is forming out in the Atlantic right now, so we should be ok there. We leave in 3 days.

Crister --- thanks for your thoughtful comments. I am taking time for myself and my training, thanks. I was just tired. Overtraining, perhaps. I feel much better, both physically and mentally, now.

As for Basta's training, I have him on a 3-week cycle. Build 2 weeks, recover 1. Still essentially following what I wrote about back when: http://coachingbasta.blogspot.com/2008/01/oopsie.html
That really works. Push, push, recover. In the beginning he really looked forward to his recovery weeks. Now, he feels like he's not training enough during them and I have to remind him to ease off with a purpose.

We hope your hip pain stays at bay. Pain like that is so frustrating. Similar to what Basta is experiencing. It's not an injury, per se, that will heal with time. That makes it so hard to diagnose and resolve.

You should come to California to do triathlon, I think. There were bunches of men in the 60-64 age group. Several in 65-69, some in their 70's, and even two men in their 80's who completed the event. Some of them are quite fast, too.

We can do Kalmar as a relay?? Is that option hidden in the Swedish words somewhere? That would be perfect if we could be a team while Basta does the event by himself. Ironman doesn’t do relays. I'd have to stay marathon-fit . . . And probably would want a respectable finish time (4:30?). That would be a challenge for me.

You might decide you want to do the whole thing yourself, too.

We have time to figure this out. First, Cancun. Then Basta needs to make up his mind for sure and commit to an event. We really appreciate your flexibility on Kalmar.

Cranky

2008-08-31T17:10:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's been a while. Just haven't felt like writing.

Don't have anything to say, for starters. No pearls of newfound knowledge, nothing of real interest to report.

And I'm feeling cranky these days. Mildly irritated, most of the time. Apathetic. Listless. Bored. Cranky. I'm not entirely sure why. But it's been going on for a while now and I'm very tired of it. I have nothing to complain about, after all.

Yet here we are. I feel quite good after a run or a good workout, but it doesn't last.

I've stepped up my own training program, trying to get the health, fitness, and low bodyfat that Basta is enjoying now. Maybe that's my problem. I know he went through a very cranky phase that lasted a good long time, back last winter before Oceanside. He was tired all the time, very, very cranky, and pretty much irritated with everything. He got through that, he's working out more than ever, and he's a happy boy again. Yes, it could well be that this is my problem.

Anyway. Basta originally wanted to run the Long Beach Marathon with an eye on qualifying for Boston, remember? Well, the pain in his foot is a continuing problem and it's preventing him from doing the training he needs to make that goal. The kinesiologist is good, but he hasn't solved the entire problem yet. Basta can go into the guy's office, limping with the pain of a hot poker shooting through his heel, and come out completely pain-free. But it doesn't last. A few hours later, a day later, or a few days later, it's back. Running always makes it come back.

He's seen the kinesiologist 11 times now. Each time the guy says he thinks he has the problem solved and the pain won't return, but 11 times it has. Each time it's a little different, and the pain shifts around, but it's always back. This isn't covered by insurance, either, so it's starting to get expensive. Basta is going to cancel his next appointment and give up on this course of treatment. Maybe.

We've come back around to believing this is a pinched nerve. It's not plantar fasciitis. I don't think it is, anyway. If the pain can be released with muscle manipulation, it's not an injury or an inflammation. It's his sciatic nerve. It has to be. He's agreed to do yoga every night for two weeks, just to see if that will provide the solution.

In the meantime, his running has understandably suffered. He still runs, but sometimes the pain is so much that he gets down to 12 minute miles, hobbling and shuffling instead of really running. He's taking this week off of running to see if that'll help at all. There is an answer somewhere, we just haven't found it yet.

He's still biking and swimming. Doing really well with both of those. No breakthroughs or interesting words on that. Just steady training. Swims in the pool, weekend long rides. We should be doing the occasional open water swim but neither of us can seem to summon the ambition to get over to the ocean to do it.

We are doing the Malibu Tri in two weeks. I'm doing this one, too. It's a sprint. It's a 'for fun' event that we're doing with friends but it'll be the first event where Basta actually gets to use his new tri-bike. So he's looking forward to that.

Right after that we're headed down to Cancun for his final Half Ironman of the year. We'll get to experience the joys of shipping a bike to a foreign country. We'll be keeping a close eye on the hurricane situation, too. Cancun lies on a vulnerable and often-hit peninsula, after all.

Then, he needs a break. He doesn't think he needs a break but as his coach I know he does. He'll do maintenance training, that's all. He'll run his marathons if his foot problem allows. But no super-hard workouts. No super-long workouts. What do triathletes do in the off-season? We'll have to find out. Because he'll burn out if he keeps up this pace. We'll start training for full Ironman when the time comes. Brasil. Kalmar. Both? Could be.

Thank you for the brochure on Kalmar, Connie & Crister. It looks lovely. We very much appreciate the offer of a cabin near there for the event, too. That would be most convenient. I'd like to go. Perfect time of year, beautiful place, and a mostly flat course.

I've been looking on the internet for information on the event and it's a little bit hard to find. In English, that is. The website is all in Swedish. There is an English link but once you get there most pages say, 'this is not available in English.'

I perused the athlete's list from this past year and saw lots of Swedes, Norwegians, Fins, and Danes, as expected. 3 Americans. A few Germans. 1 Brit. So a very Scandinavian event. We'd have to depend heavily on you two for translation services.

Aa has his heart set on Ironman Brasil. It's in Florianopolis, which is a resort island just off of Brazil. He wants to do the event and then spend 2 more weeks in Brazil, seeing Rio, Sao Paolo, Iguazu Falls, etc. He's always wanted to see those things, so he figures this is a good way to do it. The pathetic dollar is doing much better against the Latin American currencies than it is against the Euro, too. It'd be a much cheaper trip for us. The event is May 31st, and it's an Ironman event.

Kalmar being in August makes it possible to do both, if the first one doesn't cause Basta to say, 'enough is enough.' It'd be a much different event, I think. Smaller. Calmer. Perhaps more efficiently organized, although Ironman does do these events very well. But I can just imagine the difference between the fiery, flambouyant latino event and the quietly efficient Swedish one. Plus, Ironman does things in a certain way that you can count on from event to event across the world. I'm sure the Kalmar club handles everything well, just differently. I'd very much enjoy seeing the differences.

If you were to do Kalmar with him, Crister, that would inspire him to do it for sure. What do you think?

Vineman Analysis

2008-08-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

The most interesting part of this whole event, to me, was how much more time can be shaved off of Basta's overall time. Even though he took 32 minutes off his Oceanside time, there's at least another half hour or so to be saved before he 'peaks' at this.

How?

Well, not on the swim. He swam 1.2 in 37:20. That's a 1:46 pace. In Oceanside his pace was 2:12, so I'm very pleased with this improvement. It helped, certainly, that this was a quiet river as opposed to a somewhat rough ocean, but still. That's a fine pace. Maybe he'll get a little faster as he continues putting in the laps in the pool, but there's no need to work on this further. He said he felt great in the water the whole time and felt fresh when he got out. That's just what we wanted.

T1 was nice and fast. No room for improvement there.

The bike. He averaged 18mph on this course, as opposed to 16mph in Oceanside. They are different courses, but probably comparable. Vineman is a lot of rolling hills, Oceanside is a lot of flat with a few big hills. Vineman roads were poor -- rough with a lot of potholes. Oceanside roads were smooth and beautiful. Vineman was colder and everyone had numb fingers and toes the whole way. So I'd say his biking has improved quite a bit. He's certainly ridden a lot more, and a lot more difficult terrain these past few months.

But the winner in his age group did 21mph. The top 5 all did 20+. He can get another 20 minutes off the bike by increasing his speed, which means more time on the bike, working those hills, honing that technique. He'll get there.

It also means better nutrition. If you read the race report you'll remember that he shouted, 'I'm hungry!' as he was leaving T1. Well, we'd made peanut butter and honey sandwiches for the pre-swim morning, but he didn't eat his. He'd had a protein shake at 4am, then a Gu just prior to his 7:26am start. That was it for pre-race calories.

Then, on the bike, he didn't eat hardly at all. It being cold was a big part of that. He'd brought along 3 mini Clif bars but ate just one during the course of the whole 3 hour ride. The cold also meant that he didn't drink much of his water or electrolytes, either. He had another Gu about 10 minutes before dismounting the bike and starting his run. Seriously -- not enough calories! If he had fueled himself properly he no doubt could have pushed the bike a little harder.

A bit of drama in T2. He couldn't find his shoes. He knew his rack because he'd committed it to memory well beforehand. This was his rack, but it was packed with bikes and he didn't see his transition towel or shoes. He searched a couple other racks, but no. This was his rack. It looked like a bunch of guys had just dumped their bikes there, taking advantage of it being an end spot, even though this wasn't where they'd laid out their shoes.

At last, Basta saw the corner of his transition towel peeking out from under some guy's aero helmet. He lifted the helmet, and sure enough, there were his running shoes, visor, and transition towel wadded up under there. Intentional sabotage or just a guy being a self-centered jerk? We'll never know. Basta had to push a bunch of bikes down the rack to make room for his, taking care not to tip over the whole rack. Then he was able to rack his bike, put on his running shoes and visor, give the aero helmet a strong kick and send it skittering away, then take off running. T2 time, 4:51. A good 3 minutes wasted there, but what can you do? Things happen in events.

Basta's toes were numb and his feet felt like cement for the first three miles. Everyone was complaining about their numb feet as they headed out on the run. The tri bike might have made his legs feel less heavy, but they wouldn't have prevented the numbness from the cold.

By now he was really hungry. Really hungry. He was stopping at aid stations and taking in Gatorade, but he soon realized they were offering more than just liquids. After that, he ate what he could at each pause. Pretzels. Oranges. More Gatorade. But he was still hungry. No wonder with as little food as he'd eaten.

He said he felt like he could run faster, and he knew he should try to push it harder, but he just couldn't summon the energy to do it. That's simple lack of energy. His body was fit enough to run much faster, but he just didn't have the calories on board to do it. Not smart.

At the turnaround point he saw that they were handing out cookies. He ran past that, thinking, "I don't eat cookies," then turned around and said, "I need the calories!" He stopped, took a big cookie, and ate the whole thing while standing still. He said he was famished at this point and all he could think was, "'Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!"

That gave him enough energy to finish the run, but it wasn't a good run. 9:15 pace. He did 9:31 in Oceanside, so it's better, but still. I was hoping he'd do more like 8-8:30 pace. I know he could have if he'd been properly fueled.

So there it is. More time to be gained on the bike, lots of time to be gained on the run. The tri bike should give him some more time in both. We'll focus a lot more on nutrition. He understands that, conceptually, but in the passion of the event he threw all of that out the window and went by how he felt until it was too late.

But even under-nourished as he was, he finished a lot stronger. Not just in time-savings, but in how his body felt. At Oceanside, as he crossed the finish line he was huffing, puffing, gasping, and exhausted. He staggered off to Athlete Food with me supporting him, and there he sat on a bench for a good long time. Afterwards we went home and he went to bed. The next day his right leg was locked up and it took about 3 days before he loosened up and could walk normally. He was tired for a good two weeks after Oceanside.

At Vineman, he crossed the finish line looking fresh as a daisy. No disorientation at all. After chowing down on two full plates of food and chatting with other finishers for a while, we went wine tasting. Our hosts had a dinner party that night and Basta was up as late as all of us. The next day he felt fine. A little stiffness that went away once he got moving.

Training. It's a good thing.

Vineman 70.3 2008

2008-07-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

Sonoma County, California. Wine country. Hence the name of the event -- Vineman.

480 miles (780k) from home, it is. There's no good way to get from here to there other than to drive, so drive we did. Beloved European friends who haven't been to California yet, please note: We never left the state. We didn't even get near the top of the state. Italy can fit comfortably inside the borders of California with room to spare on all sides.

Anyway. We left home at 6:30 Friday morning, freshly cleaned and tuned Roubaix on the roof rack, and arrived there 7.5 hours later. Not a bad drive, really. Most of it through the Central Valley where California grows most of its produce. We passed truck after truck loaded with tomatoes, garlic, onions, or turnips.

We were lucky enough to stay with friends that Basta has known since college who live about a half hour from the event. The husband, Randy, is his friend the very good cyclist who took him on the trial ride of the course last year. Randy has also been giving Basta tips on how to be a better rider via email and phone calls throughout the year.

Saturday morning it was off to do packet pickup at Windsor High School. While Basta got his race stuff, I went expo-shopping. Alcis was a big sponsor and I got a tube of their Alcis cream at half price. That stuff is wonderful, I tell you. Pricey, so I was happy to pay half. But really works. Eases aches and pains, has a faint but pleasant aroma, doesn't sting, isn't hot. It just kills pain. Love it. I've been rubbing it into my bruised hand every few hours.

Basta got his packet, wristband, race numbers, and a very nice technical event shirt. Then we headed over to T2 and he set up his running stuff. This is a point to point event, so they start at the river about 15 miles away, swim there, ride the bikes into the hills and then down to the school for T2. So athletes leave the shoes and whatever else they need for the run there overnight.

Basta was there early and was able to lay out his shoes and visor on a towel under one of the end racks that wasn't full yet. 8 shoes per rack, the packet said. More than that and the rack is too full.

His shoes are upside down on the orange and brown towel, row 15. Note the Looney Toons dude is taking up far more than his fair share of space. Mr. White Towel is pushing it, too.

It was hot. Once the morning fog burned off the sun came out and it was quite hot there at the high school. Randy and I found shade under an awning while we waited for Basta to finish his futzing with his transition area. We weren't allowed in there -- athletes only. Basta futzed for a while. He likes to futz. Once he had placed his shoes and visor just so on his towel several times, he stepped back to memorize his rack location. The number, the landmarks around it, what it might look like on race day full of bikes. This is important. Nothing worse than not being able to find your stuff as you're racing into transition.

The rest of the day we relaxed. Had the obligatory pasta dinner. No wine for Basta. I finally got an expert opinion on the alcohol question: One shouldn't have any alcohol (or junk food, for that matter) 3 days prior to the event. Basta had his last glass of wine with dinner on Wednesday.

I had volunteered to do Bodymarking, mainly because as a volunteer I can get into the transition areas and move around like spectators cannot. Plus, volunteering is fun. As a Bodymarker I needed to be at the start at 5am. Basta's wave went off at 7:26, so he'd have quite a bit of time beforehand. But he likes to arrive at events very early, so that was fine.

The alarms went off at 4am. By 4:30, we were headed off to the cute little town of Guerneville. There was a dense fog the entire 30 mile drive between bed and race. That's common in this area.

Basta dropped me off at the corner where the Bodymarkers were stationed. There I received my volunteer t-shirt and Sharpie pen. It was quite chilly -- 45F (7C).

Bodymarking. Race number down both upper arms, towards the front so that the number can be read from face-on. The number again on both hands, so that the athlete can still be identified while wearing a wetsuit. One more number on the right thigh just above the knee. Finally, the athlete's age on their left calf.

The bodymarking is all about the photos, you know. The photographers need to identify the person in each photo so that they can make it available to admire and buy. They need as much help as they can get in figuring out who you are via your race number, hence the numbers all over the body. The age on the left calf is so that you can tell if the person in front of you is in your age group.

And srsly, now I understand some of the male fascination with Asian women. It's the skin. Smooth and silky. Writing on them is like writing on a whiteboard, they are so smooth. Asian men and women both. Latinos are pretty silky, too.

Basta got his bike situated then came to me to be bodymarked. #912. Can you tell? His portion of Indonesian blood makes him pretty easy to write upon. Still, it helps to stretch the skin taut as you write. Another volunteer passed along the tip that if you have the athlete make a closed fist and then angle their hands down it stretches the skin on the back of the hand smooth, thus making it much easier to write upon. Good tip.

And there he is showing off his age group.

In this event they use age on race day, not the typical USAT rule of age on Dec. 31 this year. He's used to racing as 54 this year and thought I had written the wrong number on his leg. Trust me, honey. I read the race packet.

He went down to the beach to get his transition fully set up and I went back to work. Soon a flood of people came pouring through, all looking to be marked. There were at least 10 of us armed with Sharpies and we were all kept non-stop busy for over an hour. I had a good time with it. Chatting briefly with the athletes. Wishing them luck. Admiring their muscular arms and thighs as I wrote on them. My but triathletes develop nice bodies.

The sun came up and the fog lifted to high grey cloud cover. But it was still quite chilly.

Official water temp was announced: 72F (22C). Wetsuits were allowed and almost everyone wore one.

I was still in the thick of bodies to be marked when a horn sounded, a cheer went up, and off the pros went. Every 8 minutes after that they sent off another wave. Basta's start was 56 minutes after the pros.

As things started to slow down a little bit up in the bodymarking area, a nice-looking young man with his arm around an older woman walked up. "Hello," he said, with a strong Latin American accent. "I'm looking for some way to transport my mother to the finish line. Is there a bus or a shuttle?" I noticed that his jacket said "Team Brasilia." Other volunteers told him that there was no bus, but maybe she could catch a ride with someone as lots of people would be driving to the start. Trouble is, Mama speaks no English.

I said that if she spoke Spanish we might get by, but I knew no Portuguese. He said, 'oh, she speaks Spanish!' Basta is seriously considering making Ironman Brasil as his first Ironman (sorry, Crister. We'll get into why later), so I thought it might be interesting to talk to her. I said I'd give her a ride. They were very appreciative and sweet. We introduced ourselves. She is Lilia, her son Cristiano. We made arrangements to meet back at the same corner at 9am, then they headed off to get Cristiano ready to race.

Eventually most of the bodies had been marked. When a bunch of us had been standing around for a while with no new athletes to mark, I headed down to the beach to check out the proceedings.

The swim start is at Johnson's Beach in Guerneville. You swim upstream up the Russian River, round a buoy, and swim back. There is a barely noticeable current. Water depth is reported to be 4-7 feet, so yes, you can run parts of it instead of swimming if you so desire. But then you'd risk cutting your feet on the rocks or what-have-you on the river floor, so I don't see much point in doing that. Especially since almost everyone swims faster than they can run in chest-high water.

T1 was on the beach in a nice fenced-off area. The spectators could stand outside the fence right in line with their favorite athlete and see the transition up close.

Basta, having gotten there so early, once again scored an end spot on the rack. He marked it with his sweatshirt so he could find it easily.

By the time I got down there Basta was in the water, waiting for his wave to start. This is a tread-water start as opposed to a run-from-the-beach start. Or, really, a stand-up-and-wait start, if you find a shallow spot towards the side of the river and would rather stand than tread water. In either case, Boom, off they went at the appointed time. All the 50+ men in their purple caps.

The Press-Democrat, the local newspaper, was on hand covering the event. They took great pictures. One similar to mine, though much closer-up, appeared on the front page of their Empire section the next day. In the big blown-up picture you can quite clearly pick out Basta. He has a copy of it framed along with his finisher's medal on our workout room wall now.

Their picture is here: Vineman Ironman Picture 16

And here is mine.

The purple-capped men started trotting up the beach out of the water and into transition less than a half hour later. I was inside the fence, camera poised, just beyond Basta's rack, staying out of everyone's way.

He did the swim in good time: 37:20, officially. That's 6:34 faster than Oceanside.

Transition was speedy. 2:51 versus 4:32 at Oceanside. He's gotten a lot better at ripping that wetsuit off and getting it off his feet without drama.

As Basta approached the rack, he shouted, "I'm hungry!" at me. Uh oh. That's not good. Well, he had a good amount of calories onboard the bike, and time to eat. I hoped he'd take advantage of that.

When he was ready to ride he took his bike and started trotting off back the way he'd come, towards the swim-out flags. He quickly realized that wasn't the right way and looked back at me, shouting, 'where do I go?' Twenty spectators lining the fence and I simultaneously pointed him towards the bike-out arch. He saw it, turned, and headed off on his bike adventure.

The main point of me being down inside of T1, and indeed volunteering at all, was so that I could have access to his stuff. To get your stuff over to the finish line, they gave you a plastic bag in your race packet. You are to put your race number on that bag, close it tight when it contains everything you want back, leave it under the rack, and it would be transported to T2 by volunteers. While that no doubt works just fine, it was easier for me to gather up all of his stuff and put it in the car.

I waited until most of the rack was clear and I wouldn't be getting in anyone's way, then I went over and started collecting Basta's gear. As I was gathering, a man came up to the rack next door and started trying to pull his wetsuit off. He had trouble. "I hate this," he said. "This is the worst part of triathlon. I HATE this! " He moaned and groaned as he tugged and pulled on his wetsuit. He had an entourage on the other side of the fence shouting advice to him, too. "Pull down!" "Pull out!" "Stand up, step on it, and pull your foot out!!" None of it was working for him.

I took pity on him and pulled his wetsuit off. First, off the hand. He was trying to get it off his feet with only one hand free, the other still trapped in wetsuit at the wrist. Dude. Give yourself a chance. Once I had his wrist free I yanked the wetsuit quickly off both feet. He said, 'oh thank you, you're a sweetheart, thank you so much!" over and over again. His entourage called thanks to me, too.

Before I'd finished with him another guy plopped down on the carpet by us and asked if I'd strip him, too. I said sure, grabbed his suit at the armpits and pulled it all the way down off his legs in one big swoop. He thanked me profusely and trotted off with his suit over his shoulder. Fortunately, these were the last few guys at the tail-end of the pack and I hadn't inadvertently started my own one-woman stripping service.

I took Basta's stuff to the car, then watched the bikes go off for a while. The clouds didn't look like they were going to clear and it was nowhere near warm enough to take off my jacket. I worried about Basta not having arm warmers with him. Big difference from the 86F (30C) that was forecast. But as they rode more inland it was sure to get much warmer.

Lilia found me at the appointed time and we headed over to the high school. Now, my Spanish is not great. I can hold a very basic conversation that includes a fair amount of charades. I wouldn't call myself fluent.

But we managed. Lilia has two sons. One is a professor who teaches in Japan. The other one, Cristiano, does the triathlons. He's done full Ironmans. She expected him to finish this event in 4 hours. That's really fast. I was sure I was misunderstanding her and asked her about that in a few different ways. Finish the bike in 4? No, the whole thing. 4 hours then you see him in transition before he starts to run? No, 4 hours for the whole thing. Ok. Sure enough, his official time was 4:36.

I told her that Basta was thinking about doing Ironman Brasil in Florianopolis. She said that Cristiano has done that event and enjoyed it very much. She said it's a beautiful island where a lot of ex-pat Europeans live.

She said a whole lot of things I didn't understand, too. I think she forgot and slipped into Portuguese rather often. And she gave me a quizzical look now and then, like "what the heck are you trying to say to me?" But we did ok.

We made it to the high school and were guided into a close parking lot. Lilia came with me to find where the entrance to T2 was, then landed herself there, camera ready, waiting for Cristiano to come through. She'd be there a while.

The hours went by and the sun still did not make it through the clouds. I still had my coat on. Perfect weather for biking and running, though.

When my elasped-time watch hit 3 hours exactly, I saw Basta round the bend.

I don't think he saw me as he went past and I yelled, 'great bike time!' Official bike: 3:02:59. Oceanside was 3:26:17, so that was 23:18 faster. 23 minutes faster! All of time and effort he's put in the bike has really paid off.

I went over to the Run Out area and caught Basta on the way out.

His goal, as we all know, was to beat 6 hours. He had about 2:30 hours left to make that goal. Plenty of time to do this run. Heck, even I can run a half marathon in less than 2:30.

About 1 hour into Basta's run the sun broke through the cloud cover and the temperature shot up to the forecasted 86F (30C). I was able to take off my jacket and change into shorts for the first time.

I went back to the actual finish line and found the whole expo set up there. I ran into Randy. He'd ridden his bike from home, following much of the race course. He'd had a good 53-mile training ride. He and his buddy stopped at a porta-potty along the course and found Basta in line for it, too. Good timing!

We took up station at the finish line and waited for Basta to come through. Given his 56 minute offset from the first start, he'd need to cross the line with the official clock showing less than 6:56 to beat his goal.

Yes, he did it. By a long shot (click on the picture to see it bigger). His official finish time: 5:49:13. He made his goal by 11 minutes. He beat his Oceanside time of 6:21:56 by 32:45. Fantastic.

He was thrilled, I was thrilled, Randy was thrilled. He was a lot more coherent when he stopped running than he was at Oceanside, too. He said, 'thanks to my coach!' many times, which made me happy. He called Randy his bike coach and thanked him, too. He was very, very happy.

We went off to athlete food right away because Basta said he was starving. Basta got a full plate of food and ate his chicken breast while waiting in line for drinks. He went back and got another one while I got his drink. He was really hungry.

We ran into Lilia and the much cherished Cristiano at the picnic tables. Basta and Cristiano talked about their day. Lilia told him that Basta was going to do Ironman in Florianopolis. Cristiano said we must keep in touch so they can help us out in Brasil. He took Basta's cell phone number and we got their home address and phone number. He thanked me again for taking care of his mother.I hope it works out that we can meet them in Brasil.

Eventually we left the event, loaded up the bikes onto the car, and toasted a fine day with champagne on the tailgate.

Then we headed out to do a little wine-tasting. We managed to see three wineries before they all closed at 4:30. We bought some wine to have with dinner that night. Basta was still wearing his triathlon outfit so of course everyone asked him all about it. They all raved at his accomplishment, and he loved the attention.

So if you made it this far, leave him a 'congratulations' comment, eh? He worked hard for this.

Off to Sonoma

2008-07-17T11:06:00.001-07:00

We leave tomorrow morning, early. Early enough to beat the LA morning traffic and early enough that we'll make it through the SF Bay Area afternoon traffic, too.

Basta went to see the kinesiologist for his plantar fasciitis. The guy said there is a lot of scar tissue in there and just rest won't cure it. He's done 3 sessions of deep-tissue massage on his feet and legs. The results are dramatic. Less pain with hope of healing. He recommends ice after every run and stretching exercises. Far, far better than the doctor's recommenation to stop running, have a cortisone shot and take naproxin for two weeks. Why oh why are they so stupid? There's a place for drugs and surgery, certainly, but it's not the answer for everything.

So the bike is ready, the foot is better, the fires have diminished and the air might be a little clearer up there. Forecast is for a high of 86F (30C). Hot but not as hot as it can often get up there. Water temp is right on the edge of wetsuits being allowed.

No idea on the forecast time now. He did Oceanside in just under 6:30. That was a cold water swim and a cool day. This will be a warm swim and a hot day. He's using the same bike. His swimming has improved somewhat and he's that much more fit from continued training. But the heat really slows a person down. So who knows if he'll post a better time.

We'll have a good weekend regardless.

Pollyanna

2008-07-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

So next time I post such a pollyanna-ish la la la everything is wonderful entry, please smack me upside the head. Or remind me that I'm tempting fate.

Fate doesn't care for being tempted, apparently.

For starters, Basta drove his bike into the house.

Specifically, he forgot that the bike was on the roof and drove the car into the garage. Crossbars on the roof rack of the cool new car broke, cool new bike rack, with cool new bike still attached, came crashing to the ground.

Fuck.

To put it gently.

The car wasn't badly hurt. A scratch on the roof that you can't see. A couple hundred bucks to replace the crossbars. The bike rack is fine. The bike, though . . . totalled. Bend front wheel. Shattered frame. Fuck.

He took it to the bike shop and they commiserated, but said there was no hope. He'd need a new frame. They sent it off to Kuota who will do some analysis on it and let him know what was broken and what can be saved. They have a 'crash warranty' which they will apply towards this wreck, maybe. That will allow him to buy a new frame at a discount. No idea what the final bill for the bike will be, but $2,000 seems to be realistic.

The bike shop doesn't have a frame in his size in stock, either, so he can't buy one and get it built in time for Vineman. So he'll be doing Vineman on his old Roubaix. No tri-bike benefit.

He rode the Roubaix yesterday and found the gears were shifting erratically. He dropped it off at the bike shop where he bought it -- a different one than where he bought the tri bike -- and they will give it a tune-up and have it ready by Thurs. We leave Fri.

The next thing is his foot. He has plantar fasciitis. Very common runner's injury. He's had it for some time and I've prescribed ice, stretching, and wearing supportive shoes at all times. Well, he ices it sometimes, stretches it rarely, and walks around wearing flip-flops most of the time. So it's gotten worse. It's gotten to the point to where he dreads running and he's screaming in pain after every run.

So no more running for him. These past two weeks I've had him doing pool running. He's fit, he can run the distance, he doesn’t need more miles. He needs to keep what he has and also let that foot heal. So, pool running it is. I've done it with him and it's kind of fun. Definitely works the leg muscles.

He's still not stretching, icing, or wearing anything but flip-flops, so I don't expect this to heal any time soon. He's seeing a kinesiologist this week who will probably tell him to ice it, stretch it, and wear supportive shoes. Maybe he'll do it then. I hope the guy also does some deep tissue massage or something that will be helpful.

He can run on it, and he will do the event. He'll be in pain afterwards, but fortunately he won't be doing any long-term damage to himself.

Then there's the fires. They've been burning for weeks in California and the air quality is terrible. The Western States 100 mile event was cancelled because of very poor air quality, as was the Donner Triathlon and probably many others. Sonoma isn't as bad off as those places and the event will probably go on, but air quality is 'the worst they've ever seen,' the newspapers say. Lovely. It's still a week away and we can hope the fires will go out and the air will clear. But it doesn't look likely.

Finally, I fell, tried to catch myself, and broke my hand. Well, it's probably not really broken but it's swollen and hurts like hell. I'm typing to you using just my left hand. Not so speedy, that is. This doesn't affect him or his event but still. It hurts. Woe is me.

Crister -- your estimate of 12-13 hours for a full is right in line with mine. Maybe a little more optimistic.

We leave for Sonoma in 5 days.

June

2008-06-22T20:49:00.000-07:00

Has it really been 3 weeks since I've posted? Wow.

It's not that we've been so terribly busy. Just nothing going on, I guess. Nothing bad, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing bloggable.

A status report will have to suffice until something exciting or interesting does happen.

Basta did the Playa Del Run and did alright. He placed 5th out of 10, which is fairly meaningless. It was a 1K swim, 5K run. It was chip-timed but the 'winners' in many age groups posted physically impossible times. Speculation is that they only ran the first loop of the run. Buggers.

But it's not like we win money or prizes for these things. Basta felt very good in the swim and got another open-water experience under his belt. He finished shortly after our friend Michele, who is a very good swimmer. In the past she's beaten him quite handily at events like this.

The next weekend he did the Huntington Beach Pier swim. The surf was much bigger this day, wetsuits aren't allowed, and it's a longer swim. Again Basta said he felt good and had a comfortable swim, but this time Michele beat him out of the water by many minutes. He said that he felt like he was caught in a current as he tried to swim around the end of the pier. It took him forever to finally get around and start swimming back down the other side.

So is his swimming getting faster? I really don't know. His form looks good in the water. He says he's comfortable, swimming easily, and feels good at any distance. When I time him in the pool, though, he's doing around 2:00/100m. That's on the slow side of average, as I understand these things. How does one swim faster? The search continues.

I scheduled some laps of closed-fist swimming this week. First time for that. Those are supposed to make you feel how the shape of your arm on the pull makes a huge difference. We can hope.

He's going to swim a 1-mile (1.6k) harbor swim up in Long Beach next Sunday. That'll be that for his open water training pre-Vineman.

All is well on the bike, too. These swimming events have made it hard for him to do his Saturday 60-mile club ride, but he has been riding. Drills, sprints, hills, all. Doing some spinning at the gym, too. He's still not super-fast but he's a lot better cyclist than he was four short months ago when he did Oceanside. He'll do two more 60-ish mile rides before he starts his taper.

Vineman is near. 3 weeks away.

The thing I am most happy about is that he's injury-free. He's corrected his swimming stroke and the swimmer's shoulder is a thing of the past. He's doing the yoga almost daily and that's keeping his back and legs out of pain. I truly believe that proper form, combined with the right balance of work and recovery, prevents overuse injuries.

Another thing of note is that he likes his workouts and looks forward to them, for the most part. The bitching and whining is gone. He plans his work, his food, and his social schedule around his training. That means he'll still go out with his buddies and watch Netherlands perform miserably and get knocked out of the Euro Cup in a game they should have won, but he'll drink less, skip the bar food, and come home earlier because he has a ride scheduled the next day.

We Like Spring

2008-06-01T15:46:00.001-07:00

We spent the Memorial Day weekend visiting my parents in Nevada, which was nice. It didn't do the training much good, but it was a pleasant weekend. It rained much of the time and was far colder than usual, so we didn't do a lot of the hiking in the Sierras that we had planned.

Basta did run for an hour in the rain, and that at high altitude (4500 feet / 1370 meters).

Now that we're back, the training program is going really well. Basta is not longer bitching like he used to about these workouts. Sometimes he grouses a little bit before he gets out and does it, but most of the time he just goes out and does it. He says he really looks forward to his swim workouts, for instance, because they feel so good.

That's a big change from how he was pre-Oceanside. If you remember from back then, he was not enjoying this. He was thinking about quitting the long distance stuff, in fact, and sticking to Olympic distance events or less. I know a lot of that was because it was winter. Short days, rain, wind, and chill are pretty miserable for workouts, and no doubt worse so for the novice triathlete.

But now? Now he's loving being a triathlete. He looks forward to a lot of his workouts.

Our focus in this training for the upcoming Vineman is to make big improvement on the bike. I am happy to report that is coming along nicely. He likes the bike now, which is the start of making all the difference. He looks forward to his Saturday group rides. He rode two loops last weekend for a total of 64 miles, so that makes two weekends in a row that he's ridden 60+ miles.
He's met up with two guys who do the second loop, too. Both are very good cyclists, better than Basta. But they have encouraged him to join them for the second loop every weekend, so he can't be that much slower. They start riding at 5:45am, ride the 2 hour loop, then join up with the club group that rides at 8, repeating the same loop.

The two who ride with him in the early morning leave him in the dust on the second loop. They both say that they feel stronger in the second half than they do in the first. Basta's goal is to get fit enough on the bike so that he feels the same. He wants to keep up with them the whole ride. That's a fine goal.

There is the option for some variation in these loops, and occasionally they turn up and ride a major grade that offers itself to cyclists who really want a tough ride. Basta says that hill is much harder than the dreaded 'Chalk Hill,' the big hill that comes near the end of the bike at Oceanside. He thinks that right now he'd have no problem with the Vineman ride.

He has another 6 weeks of training left, too. He could do very well at Vineman. His sub-6 goal is certainly possible.

He's really starting to look like a triathlete, too. I've mentioned before that he'd lost all hint of bodyfat and became very lean. Now, he's getting muscular. His body is growing, becoming more dense and even harder than I thought possible. It's amazing. It's nice. He's still an ectomorph, but he's a more muscular ecotomorph. All of the women in his office who told him a few months ago that he looked sickly because he'd lost weight so fast are now saying, 'ooh la la!'

Speaking of nice, as the one who sleeps next to him, let me tell you that he is like sleeping with a furnace. Always before his body temp has been rather cool. Or equal to mine, at least. Now, I get close to him and I feel heat. Lean muscle really does burn calories at rest and he's obviously burning a lot.

And speaking of that, he's not eating enough. Or rather, he's having trouble finding enough to eat during the day. He won't eat anything but quality nutrition and that rules out most of the junk that is available quickly in the country. He refuses to eat in a restaurant for lunch unless he is with clients, so he brings along food to eat during his day most of the time. He's realized he needs to almost double what he brings for food to get enough. Such a problem to have.

San Diego Century Bike Tour

2008-05-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

In short: Hilly. Way, way hilly. Far hillier than I expected.

Really, this post is more about me than Basta. He had a fine ride. He rode with a fellow club member, a very nice young guy named John. John is probably in his early 30's, and he's a good cyclist. He was doing the 103m (161km) course and Basta the 66m (100k), so they rode together for 66 miles. If Basta can keep up with John, he's doing well. So he worked hard to do just that.

He was able to keep up most of the time. He got dropped on the longer and steeper hills but was able to catch up once they leveled out. He said he was paying close attention to how John rode, too, trying to pick up some tips. He watched what gear John was in and when he shifted. Basta tried to match that, and found that he couldn't a lot of the time. John has some very strong legs.

They had a nice chat. A pleasant day. Basta finished in 4 hours, 20 minutes. Yes, hilly.

I, on the other hand, had a tough time of it. I did the 37 mile course, right? 37 miles. Easy peasy. About half the distance that Basta is doing. No problem.

Yeah right. Even though 37 miles isn't all that far, it's farther than I've ridden a bike in well over a year. I've been training on the Computrainer, and thank god for that. I wouldn't have survived those hills at all without that.

But I do the Computrainer for an hour, at most. This ride took me 3 hours. My crotch was killing me. I am not conditioned to sitting in that saddle for 3 hours.

After about 20 miles my legs were jelly, too. Frequent infusions of caffeinated Clif Shots and knowing that it would be over eventually got me through the ride.

Then I came home and napped most of the rest of the day. The next day I was done in, too. No energy. Napped often. Ate a lot. Climbing stairs was brutal. I need to start paying attention to my own biking career if I am going to do a triathlon myself ever again.

Enough of me. Back to the ride. It was a well-done event. This is only their second year, and it remains to be seen, of course, if it will thrive. The course was well marked and very scenic. The one sag stop on my route was well-stocked with typical ride munchies and had adequate porta-pottyage. They did say that this was an 'intermediate/advanced' course, so I should have known better. We got no t-shirts or medals but we did get a cool coffee mug with the course logo on it and colored the same as the wristband that designated your course. It's actually a very cool mug. The whole experience was worth the $30.

All in all, a lovely event. We'll do it again next year. I'll be better prepared for it. Maybe Basta will do the full Century distance.

Since all real cyclists have monster legs, I’m curious how much the bike will make Basta's legs grow. After a summer of serious hills and long-distance rides, will his legs start to explode? Or will his ectomorphic body resist that at all costs. I measured his thighs and calves tonight. We'll measure again after Cancun in September and see if there is any difference. They can't get any harder. They feel like cement pillars now.

Screwed Up Swimming

2008-05-16T14:16:00.001-07:00

Basta fights change. More than anyone I know. Or at least that I know well enough to how they feel about change.

He fights me every step of the way with his swimming. He didn't want to try bilateral breathing when I first started coaching him. "It screws me up," he said. I told him to give it a try, just to see. Sure enough, his body turned into a corkscrew and he was all over the water. He coughed and sputtered at the end of one length. He told me he'd never get it, didn't want to try, and didn't see why he should bother, anyway.

I told him that being able to breathe on either side is an advantage to a triathlete who finds themselves in an event where the waves are breaking hard on one side, the wind is blowing, or even if the sun is shining bright. If you can only breathe on one side you might spend the whole swim sucking in water or being blinded, whereas a more versatile athlete has options.

That worked, and he agreed to try it again. After maybe 3 lengths he had it figured out. At least to the point to where he wasn't struggling and it wasn't throwing off everything else about his swim. Now, these many months later, he bilateral breathes easily and routinely.

Pretty much same story with rolling his body. He was doing it on one side, not the other. I told him he had to roll evenly on both sides. He insisted he was and wasn't going to change anything. "Rolling more the other way screws me up," he said. It took a video of him to convince him he was really doing what I said he was doing. Then he started to exaggerate the side that wasn't rolling. Sometimes he exaggerated it so much that he rolled over onto his back, snorted water up his nose, thrashed his legs about to right himself, and came up sputtering. "I told you this screws me up!" Yep. All my fault, too. I told him to persevere, and soon enough he did. He rolls evenly now.

Our latest technique improvement is the high arm catch. He's still entering the water across his center line, though his glide and pull is much better. Today I told him to concentrate on making his hand entry in line with his shoulder. "I am doing that!" he said.

"No, you're not. I'm standing here 3 feet away, watching your every stroke and I assure you, you're not. You're entering more in line with your opposite ear. Focus on entering in line with your shoulder."

He did that for a lap, and he looked like a wreck. "That's screwing me up!" he said. "I can't focus on that and do everything else right, too. "

"I know. Focus on your hand entering the water in line with your shoulder. Today, nothing else matters."

"But what about my rolling? My pull? My glide? My legs?"

"Think about nothing but your hand entering the water in line with your shoulder. You swim well as it is now and your body will do all those other things naturally. Today -- focus on your hand in line with your shoulder. "

So he did. He was still corkscrewing and whipping his legs for the next lap, but his hand entry was better. No more Swimmer's Shoulder for him. Within a couple of laps his body was back to normal and the hand entry was still good. Hooray.

There is so much to swimming. You can work and work on this and that and there will still be something to improve. Overall, I think he's getting faster. He certainly looks better. We need to do another 20 lap test one of these first days to see for sure just how much faster he is.

More New Stuff

2008-05-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

A new bike necessitates all manner of other new things, as it turns out.

Like a new bike rack to go on top of the new vehicle. Because there are times Basta wants to take that vehicle instead of the old vehicle which already has two bike racks on the roof, you see.

I swear, he is trying to single-handedly stimulate the economy.

But it is a nice rack. A Thule rooftop rack. Not overly expensive, in the grand scheme of things. Looks like a fine design. It's a Swedish company, so it ought to be.

Oh -- Crister --how is that properly pronounced: Thule. Is it like Thool like in Rule? Or Thoolee like in Truly? Or something else like, Tool or Toolee or Tuh-Hool maybe. We must know.

The new bike also needed new pedals and thus new clips, of course. The new clips are much, much tighter than Basta's old ones. He proved that quite spectacularly when he went down in front of a group of riders last weekend. Pulled up to a group stopped at a light, tried to clip out, didn't make it. Boom, down he went.

He with his fancy new bike, wearing his 'Look what I did!' Ironman 70.3 jersey, getting stuck on his pedal like it was his first time on a bike. Oops. He was very embarrassed. The group looked at him in amazement, then concernedly asked him if he was ok.

He was ok. He did fall properly, taking the blow with his shoulder and not trying to catch himself with his hand and thus breaking his wrist. The bike got a tear on the handlebar tape, but that's easily fixed.

Just his pride was wounded. He told his fellow tri-club members about it, the group that he thought he was pulling up to, and they all laughed at him.

I don't know why those clips are so tight. Maybe they can adjust that when he takes it in next time.

In other news, we did Wildflower a couple of weekends ago. He did the swim portion of a relay. He did the 1.2 miles in 39 minutes, knocking 4 minutes off of his Oceanside time. He is getting faster. He also found feet towards the end and experienced the joys of drafting. He says he's going to try to find feet every time now. Good.

He's also enjoying the bike. He looks forward to his rides and is doing all of them. Big progress there. He's keeping up with some of the medium-fast guys now but is still getting dropped on the hills by most of them. But he'll figure it out. His biking is dramatically better than it was a year ago. He has the machine he needs, now all he can do is improve his skills and put lots and lots of miles on that bike.

To wit, we're doing the San Diego Century Ride next weekend. He's dong the 66 mile (100km) course, deemed 'moderate to difficult.' It's a hilly course and will be a challenge to him, I'm sure.

I'm doing the 37 mile (56km) ride. I hope I finish before him.

Good God

2008-05-10T20:11:00.001-07:00

Basta bought a new bike. A tri bike.

And what an experience that was. My god there is a lot to a bike. I mean, of course there is. If you are going to spend thousands of dollars for a product there had better be a ton of technology and pricey parts in it.

But understanding those parts? Yeesh. So much to know. So much to geek out upon. So much I just flat don't care about. Maybe I will someday, but right now the bike is not high on my list of things I want to study much further than I have already.

Better leave that to professionals who do care. Much like my taxes. I want to understand that topic well enough to understand what my accountant is telling me, but not well enough that I get all of the nuances, stay on top of the latest changes, and make the most of my tax situation. I'd rather pay someone good to do that.

Basta was counting on me to find him the right bike, me being his coach and all. I decided my job was to find him the right bike professional who would then guide him to the right bike. So I started reading about bike fit and calling local bike shops.

Long story short, I think I found them. In fact, I know I found them. The right shop with a wide selection of bikes and the right staff to help the serious triathlete find the right bike for them: The Triathlon Lab in Redondo Beach. No, they aren't giving me anything for endorsing them. They are a fair hike from home, over an hour away, and there are other triathlon shops closer, but these guys do it best. I wish they were closer. They have everything a triathlete needs and then some, a huge inventory of run/bike/swim essentials, and staff that lives and breathes triathlon.

So Basta set up an appointment with a guy there to find his own true tri bike. Larry. Larry did a fantastic job. It was Larry who helped me find the right wetsuit for me last year, when we first embarked on this triathlon adventure. He explained in detail what matters and what doesn't in triathlon wetsuit fit, why a tri-suit is so important, and how to properly put one on. They had just my suit in stock. I bought it and I still love it today. Larry's a good guy.

Larry spent 3 hours with Basta. Basta is a quite normally-shaped guy, fortunately, so many stock bikes would work for him. He's of average height (5'10") and well-proportioned. That means he doesn't have ape arms or super-long legs or anything weird that might require a custom frame. Larry put various bikes on the trainer, had Basta ride, and assessed bike fit. Eventually he decided that three bikes within our budget had the geometry that fit Basta best. The difference between them was components.

Holy crap is that component topic complex. Basta kept calling me and saying, 'this bike has this, that bike has that, which should I get??' I don't know. I've read enough about this to know that this brand is considered better than that brand, but I have no idea why. So we relied heavily on Larry. "This component is stiffer, that is more generous, these are more aerodynamic," he explained. On and on with so many components. It's enough to make the head shake.

So cut to the chase. This is what we bought: A Kuota Kalibur

The other contenders were from Scott and Felt. The Kuota just had a better combo of what Basta needs at this time for the money.

It's a beautiful bike. Basta has put a few hundred miles on it already and is absolutely in love with it. It's a much, much different ride than his Roubaix road bike. He feels fast on it. I can't wait to see how much it improves his run time.

Aero Bars

2008-04-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

I have wondered what the deal with aero bars is for some time. All serious triathletes use them. But why?

Aerodynamics, I've been told. Well, ok. So why don't the guys who do Tour de France use them? You know, the pro cyclists? Surely if being aerodynamic made that much of a difference in speed then everyone would be using them. Surely.

So why do triathletes use them? And why do tri bikes have flat tubes and road bikes round ones? The standard answer is always 'aerodynamics.' They are called 'aero' bars, after all. But that can't be all there is to it. Again, if it were that great, the pro cyclists would be using it, too.

Also, I know pro cyclists spend a lot of time and money making sure their aerodynamic position is perfect. Remember that "Chasing Lance" series on the Discovery Channel? They showed him in a wind tunnel with an aero helmet changing his body position ever so slightly, making sure he was as aerodynamic as he could possibly be. He wasn't using aero bars.

And why does our local cycle club discourage the use of tri bikes in their group rides? That I found truly baffling. Was it just road bike purist snobbery? What could the big deal about dropping down into aero position possibly be?

There was something there. Something I was missing. Some reason why triathletes use tri bikes, and very expensive ones at that, and cyclists ride (also very expensive) road bikes. But what?

The answers to these questions has taken me a surprisingly long time to find. Months of googling, talking to cyclists and triathletes, reading articles, and bike shopping. Just in case you've pondered the same questions yourself, I bring you the answers that I've found at last.

And let me point out that a whole lot of triathletes don't know what I'm about to expound upon here. "Aerodynamics" is the extent of the reasoning behind why they ride a tri bike. That and because everyone else does. So let me 'splain, to those of you who care and don't already know this:

First of all, it's not just that a tri-bike has aero bars. The entire geometry of the bike is different. On a road bike your position is flat. On a tri-bike, the frame is shaped such that you ride with your butt up and your shoulders low. You rest your forearms on those aero bars and really get low. The reason for this is not aerodynamics. It is so that you use different muscles in your legs. Instead of pushing down on your pedals, you are actually pushing back somewhat. You're using more butt muscle and different parts of your quads and hamstrings. Those are now different than the parts of the muscles used in running.

It is also an aerodynamic position. This makes you somewhat faster. So why don't pro cyclists ride this type of bike? Turns out they do. For time trials. In situations where they are riding alone and nothing but speed matters, they ride an aero bike.

Why don't they ride them in a peloton? Because a tri bike is not as maneuverable as a road bike. A tri-bike is super-stiff and does not respond as quickly as a road bike. In the tight quarters of a peloton, you need to be able to react to the guys around you instantly. Riding a tri-bike in a situation like that means you are likely to cause a wreck. No wonder cyclists don't want to ride with a guy who is on one.

But in a triathlon, where drafting is not legal, quick responsiveness is not as important as speed.

A tri-bike is also more uncomfortable than a road bike. It's not a bike that you're going to ride for over a hundred miles, day after day. It's hard on the neck and shoulders especially. If you're not going to jump off of it and run afterwards, you don't want or need to put yourself through that kind of suffering.

You'd think that clipping an aero bar onto a road bike would be the best of both worlds, but it's not. Clips-on allow you to get a more aerodynamic position, yes, which is nice for downhill and windy situations. They allow you to rest your arms and upper body a bit, too. If you buy the right clip-ons you can get adjustable pads that you can move to be right under your shoulders, so that's a good thing. But clip-ons don't change your bike's geometry and thus don't do anything to benefit your run. Clip-ons could make you a little more comfortable on portions of the bike ride, but they won't make you a faster runner.

I read an article somewhere (sorry, no link. Forgot where) that said the aero-bike geometry with aerobars is an invention that changed the sport of triathlon on par with sports discoveries like the Fosbury Flop changed high-jumping and putting the skis into a V-shape changed ski jumping. That's huge. Huge.

But it's not that a tri-bike with aero bars makes your bike time that much faster. It'll be a bit faster. Maybe a mph or two. The real time saving will be gained on the run. You use different parts of the leg muscles in biking and running now, so your running muscles are fresher. You won't have to spend the first two miles or so working through aches and cramps as your legs adjust from biking to running. Instead, you'll run right off the bike. You will run closer to your fresh running pace throughout, not your 'OMG I just rode for hours and my legs are tired' pace. So your overall finish time will be faster when you use an aero-bike, mainly thanks to a faster run time.

Basta rides a road bike. He bought it about a year and a half ago, when we first got the idea that we wanted to become cyclists. It's a Specialized Roubaix. A good, entry-level bike. It retails for around $1300. He's ridden a lot of miles on it, he's very fond of that bike, and he's made good gains in his biking skills with it. He did Oceanside on it.

But now that he's a triathlete, he's completed a Half Ironman, and he has his sights set on a Full, he needs a proper triathlon bike. Now that I understand the benefits, I know he absolutely needs one. He wanted to hold off until his Full, but I want him to get one for his upcoming Vineman Half.

Let the shopping begin.

Breakthrough On Wheels

2008-04-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

I think we had a little breakthrough on the bike tonight.

It is super-windy so Basta opted to ride the CompuTrainer. He hasn't done that in a while. He'd forgotten how to connect everything and lead the leads the best way to keep them out of the way of the turning back wheel and the pedals. He's really not good at that kind of thing. Sigh. So I did it for him and turned him loose.

When I came back in the room about 10 minutes later, he had the display on SpinScan but it was flat. No bars at all.

"Honey," I said "Why don't you have SpinScan going"

"Oh it's not working," he said. "I'm not paying attention to it, anyway."

"Dear," I pointed out, "SpinScan is why we bought that CompuTrainer. SpinScan will make all the difference in your pedal efficiency and thus your bike speed. SpinScan is THE most important thing to have working." (No doubt you power and heartrate people will disagree with me, but right now Basta's pedal technique sucks and he needs to work on that first. Power later. Heartrate maybe someday).

I looked closer at the readouts and saw that the sensor wasn't detecting RPMs any more. I had him stop pedalling and tweaked the sensor a hair forward. Tada, RPMs. Now we were getting some useful information.

Useful to me, anyway. Basta didn't understand at all what those bars were telling him. Despite all my trying to explain. It isn't exactly clear at a glance what those bars are telling anyone, so I've done some reading on it. It makes sense to me now. I thought I had passed that knowledge on to Basta. Not very well, obviously.

So we went through the explanation again. "Ok," he said, "but how do I get the bars more flat?"

"Pedal efficiency. Pressure through 360 degrees on the pedals. Remember that graph of how your foot position should be that I showed you from www.tri-ecoach.com yesterday? "

"No. I mean I remember it, but it didn't mean anything to me."

Sigh. He's not stupid. Really he's not. He's an effing lawyer, for Christ's sake. He passed the Bar on the first try, lo those many years ago. He's far from stupid. This just isn't his thing. He doesn't get this stuff by reading articles like I do. He needs to be shown.

That's why this is working for us. I like to read and study and show. He listens and adapts, usually.

So I had him pedal slowly and showed him what his foot position should be on the pedal as it rotated around the circle. I had to actually hold his heel and move it into the place it should be through a few rotations. Then, the breakthrough occurred. He got it.

He started to spin again with renewed vigor. The bars responded nicely and the previously deep valleys on the top and bottom became gentle little dips of lesser power. Bravo!

He said it was hard to do on both legs at the same time. Agreed. I suggested he focus on one leg for a while and then on the other. Soon enough it will become second nature. Like everything, it takes practice.

Before long he was commenting on how much he felt it in his ankles and calves. Yes. More strength there will make him run faster and be less prone to running injuries, too. This is all good.

Now to continue this when he's out on the real road. I think he will. He ought to see more of those coveted miles per hour, too.

Proper Form

2008-04-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

My but the internet is a wonderful place. So much information out there that makes my life so much easier.

The hard part, of course, is separating the junk and bs from the real information, but that's also part of what makes it fun.

To wit -- proper form. How does one run efficiently? Swim? Pedal properly? Well, just turn to the internet. Good people have taken the time and effort to post their expertise and make it freely available to all. Love them for that.

How to swim?

Well, we started with the Total Immersion approach. It is fantastic, as everyone knows. http://www.totalimmersion.net Read the book, get the video. Roll and balance that body, baby. Basta has that part down.

Now that we're in a Build phase again, it's time to address proper form in all sports again. Basta is ready to get some finer points of his swim technique improved. Well, how about a nice little coaching session from six-time Ironman Champion Dave Scott? Beauty: http://youtube.com He has several very well-done videos there. Do a search on Dave Scott Swimming. Thanks, Dave!

Running?
Here's a cool video of Olympian Sara Hall doing running drills to improve form and thus speed. http://video.on.nytimes.com I don't know if Basta will do these but I certainly will. Anything that might improve my running speed is a good thing. Improved running form reduces injury and that's a very good thing. Plus, you can do these down the hall in the privacy of your own home. Don't have to feel like a dork out there with people watching if you don't want to.

Biking.
Finally, I like this article on pedal power: http://www.tri-ecoach.com/art13.htm Especially the simple graphic in the middle. I've watched a bunch of videos of pro cyclists on YouTube to see how they pedal and it seems pretty clear. Need to continue those one-legged drills and focus on the SpinScan readout on the CompuTrainer to get it perfected.

Onward

2008-04-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

The rest/transition phase is over, on to the next event.

Basta needed these two weeks of Very Little Exercise. He was tired. He skied four days, as mentioned. He swam a few times. He didn't run or bike. Letting the knee heal and the body recover. He ate a lot.

He felt run down and like he was battling a cold. He used Zicam and it never developed into a real cold. He may have had the bug or he may have just been showing signs of high physical exertion. In either event, he's fine now.

His knee is also fine. It apparently was sciatica because the yoga did the trick. The pain migrated up his leg and into his hip. From there the area of pain reduced until it finally left completely. Now all he needs to do is continue these 15 minutes of yoga every day and he will remain pain free.

Now, back at it. His next event is Vineman on July 20. He has 14 weeks between now and then. Plenty of time to get his bike down to sub-3 range. Sub-6 overall is the goal. He's already fit so we can launch right into a couple of Base phases and then Build and Peak.

Along the way we have lots of events we can do. We could really do one every weekend if we wanted to, and all of those within driving distance. We are already signed up for Wildflower on May 3, doing it as a relay.

I think he should do the San Diego bike tour on May 12, probably the 66 mile/106km course. (since I now have a number of Basta's friends and relatives from Europe reading, I'll try to remember to put distances in metric, too. Easier than looking it up yourselves or doing that conversion in your head. Plus, it sounds longer to us. Oooh, Basta's riding 106km! That's a long way!) San Diego is a couple of hours away from us.

There's a Half Marathon at the end of May down in Mission Viejo. 45 minutes away.

There's the Playa Del Run, held about 2 miles/3k from our house. That's an aquathon, a nice little ocean swim followed by a run up the bike path along the beach. It's not a long event, but it's so close to home it's hard to skip.

Then there's the Huntington Beach Pier Swim, another local event, on June 7. Start on one side of the pier and swim around to the other. About 1/2 mile (.8k) total distance. The fun part about that one is that wetsuits aren't allowed, and the water is dang chilly around here. Estimated water temp that time of year is around 67F/19C.

So, busy busy. It will be an active spring & summer. I'm sure other events will pop up, too.

Basta rode his bike with the club yesterday. Their typical short but hilly ride. 32 miles/52K in the canyon. It was very warm and very windy. We set temperature records yesterday. He had a tough ride. He doesn't do wind well and he doesn't do hills well. So it was good training for him.

Today, official rest day. I am working on his master plan and his detailed workouts for next week. He's ready to run again. He likes swimming. He'll ride the bike until he actually enjoys it, too.

Recovery week

2008-04-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

We had a great time skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho. Basta skiied me into the ground, which really pointed out the expanding gap between our fitness levels. Must work on that.

He ate plenty of ice cream. A whole lot of calories all around. He was constantly hungry. That's a natural side effect of his big calorie expenditure all at once on race day, plus the appetite stimulation of the sugar. It's ok. He can afford it. He's still skinny and will be back in training soon.

He's been complaining of knee pain around his left knee. As with most of his aches and pains, I assume they will go away on their own soon enough. But just like his shoulder pain, this one hasn't. It's not debilitating, but it's there. Whenever he runs or walks, he feels pain in his left knee.

Not really pain, though. Tightness. Soreness. More of an 'awareness'. Like it might become pain if he continues running on it. Ok.

Can you isolate the pain? Is it on or under the kneecap? No. Behind the leg? Sort of. Does it feel puffy? No. On the side of the knee? No. Outside? Inside? No. No. It's not really 'in' the knee. More 'around' the knee.

Frustrating. Not a knee pain that is normally associated with any of the running injuries or pains. A fairly long research bout led me to the belief that it is his sciatica radiating down to his knee. He has a chronic problem with that. A problem that yoga cures nicely. Yoga that he's not doing.

I finally got it out of him why he's not doing the yoga. He thinks he's so fit now, that his core is so strong, that his sciatica is cured for good and won't come back.

Well. Unfortunately not. I told him the information I'd found on knee pain and sciatica and he agreed that was probably what was going on. And he agreed that yoga was the answer. AND, he's now actually doing yoga. He's committed to doing it every day, and he's done it 3 days in a row now. Hooray. His pain is starting to diminish. I hope he actually makes this a part of his life now. He'll be a much happier athlete for it. He'll be more limber, have less pain, and less injuries.

We have a few more days of recovery. He's going to swim tomorrow. Easy, gentle swim. He wants me to show him what I mean by 'reaching long.' I hope I can find a good video on that. No running or biking this week to give the legs a rest. Skiing was enough for them.

Analysis

2008-04-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

Basta said that the swim lasted forever. He was expecting a protected harbor swim, and he got that for the most part. But towards the turnaround they left the close protection of the harbor and swam out to the breakwater. It still wasn't open ocean, but it was rough and choppy.

I'm not overly concerned about his swim time. He'll keep swimming. We'll do more open water training. We'll work on reaching long, gliding, and a strong pull. Maybe I can find a swim coach that will help us out, too. Over time I expect him to shave some minutes off his 1.2 mile swim time. Not a huge amount. He averaged 2:12/100. He ought to be able to get that down to 2:00 one of these days.

His biggest complaint on the bike was that I forgot to put the Motor Tab in one of his water bottles. He always rides with one bottle of straight water and one bottle of energy/electrolyte drink. The Motor Tabs work nicely. I had intended to drop a tab in his water in the morning, but I forgot. He didn't think of it because I always do that. So. He was out there for 3.5 hours with no electrolytes.

Now mind you they were handing out bike bottles filled with Gatorade at every aid station. But Basta had it in his mind that he wasn't going to stop or pause at those, so he didn't do it. A wee bit more flexibility in the mindset would have been useful here, I'd think.

He also had Gus, Shot Bloks, and a Mojo Bar with him. He wasn't calorie-free.

He said he started to cramp up about an hour into the bike. He blamed it on the lack of salt and electrolytes. So pick up on of those freely available Gatorades, dude. But no. He pressed on.

The course was hilly. Scenic, but hilly. The last hour or so was straight into a headwind. Basta averaged 16.3 mph. That is way, way too slow. The top 10 guys in his age group all did 20+. This is where we will spend our time working on improvement. More mph pay big dividends in time saved. He should be able to ride 56 miles in less than 3 hours.

We will do lots more riding. Group rides that push his pace, rides that take him into hills with people who know how to ride and can help him improve. He is good enough now that he can ride with a group, he enjoys it, and the club has plenty of good riders who are willing to help push and pace. I see nothing but good things in his biking future, and that will make all the difference in his finish times.

At last, the run. The run is his strong suit. He averaged a 9:31 pace. 42nd out of 88. Without putting in over 4 hours of effort before running, he can do a 7:44 pace over 13.1. With more training and more endurance experience, he'll be able to keep more of his fresh pace. I think we're good continuing what we're doing there.

He chatted with other runners as he ran. He sprinted the last mile. He had energy in reserve. He did not leave it all on the course. That's understandable, being his first Half and all. He wanted to make sure had enough gas to make it to the end. Now that he knows, he can pick up his pace sooner. He can also save the chatting for afterwards. Honey.

A lot of you emailed me on the stick-thin skinniness of his legs in the picture at transition. They're not really that skinny. Just a quirk of photography. He is thin, but his legs are a little meatier than they look there. They could stand to be more muscular, though, and we'll continue his weightlifting and sprints program to build those legs as much as they can be built.

He said he learned a lot. Like he needs to run with a hat. And he should lube up with a sturdy waterproof sunscreen in the morning. That he can do this distance and still have energy to do more at the end.

These events are so motivating, so stimulating, that it's no surprise that Basta is psyched up for triathlon again. He emailed everyone his results and pictures. He is very pleased he reached his sub-6:30 goal. He knows he needs to work on the bike and is looking forward to riding fast and often this summer.

His next event is Vineman, July 20th. 3 and a half months away. He's already set his goal for that: Sub-6. I think he can do it. It's a less hilly course and he'll have spring/summer weather to train in.

But the big news is that he wants to do the big one. Ironman. He's proud to have done a half but he says he has the bug now. He has to do a full. He's looking at them and deciding which one he wants to do. It has to be a destination location and a good time of year. Not sure which one yet. We have time to decide.

He showed me a brochure for a marathon coming up in a few weeks. "I need to do marathons now," he says. Yes. He might even have a Boston Qualifying time in him. Not in a few weeks, though.

Because we are going skiing next. Off to Sun Valley, Idaho for a week. I took a page from Bold's coach of last year and told Basta that his next week's training included nothing but sitting on his butt and eating ice cream. He took me very seriously and stocked up on several difference flavors, along with some cheesecake and chocolate-covered blueberries. He's embracing this training week hard.

Oceanside 70.3

2008-03-31T20:09:00.001-07:00

A race really begins at the Expo. We drove down to the lovely little town of Oceanside, got checked in to our lovely little motel, met our friends with whom we were sharing a room, and all headed off to the expo.

They did their packet pickup thing while I wandered around the expo and chatted with vendors. I listened to a panel interview with a number of pros, which was interesting. None of them wear socks, and all of them get blisters as a result. Except for those sponsored by Zoot who are wearing the new Zoot triathlon-specific shoes. No socks needed, no blisters. I must have a pair.

Basta and friends finished their registration obligations, then did the expo thing themselves. Basta bought an Ironman 70.3 bike jersey, because one simply must have one. A friend bought some compression socks, which seem to be all the rage right now. They look silly, but they appear to really work.

Then it was off to an early dinner. Italian, of course. We found a lovely little restaurant in the heart of downtown that had good food at good prices. Can't ask for more than that. A lot of other athletes found it, too. The waiters were looking a bit puzzled -- all these people coming in for dinner so early. None of them drinking wine. All asking for a pitcher of water. Apparently they didn't check the local events calendar or consider the ramifications . . .

Finally, back to the motel. Everyone futzed with their gear. Bike and helmet labeled with the sticky race numbers provided. Bib attached to race belt. Gu, Shot Bloks, Mojo bars in the Bento box and stuck in the little pockets of the singlet. Water bottles filled, ready for the Motor Tab to be added in the morning.

They start the event in waves based on your age group, and each wave has a different colored cap. Basta's wave was hot pink.

There he is, all set up and ready to go.

We watched a little tv, then turned it off at 9 and hit the sack in hopes of some sleep.

But alas, it was not to be. Our lovely little cheap motel turned out to be a busy place. People were coming and going, roaming around the parking lot, climbing stairs, and shouting (maybe just talking) to each other all night. It was a noisy place despite the double-paned windows. I slept on and off, as did everyone else. No one really expects to sleep much pre-event, anyway, so it was not that big a deal.

At 4:45 the alarm went off. We all jumped out of bed and launched into our final preparations. At 5:15 or so, we got on the bikes and rode down to the start of the race. They all had their wristbands that gave them entry into the transition area. I had to find my team leader to give me my volunteer wristband that would get me in, too. I kissed Basta goodbye, wished him luck, and went off to check in to volunteer.

I found my guy easily enough. I did this last year so I knew where to go and what he looks like this time. He handed me a wristband through the fence and told me where 'Volunteer Bike Parking' was to be found. This event is really organized, I tell you. I took my bike to the designated rack and locked it up. Then it was off to work!

My volunteer job was working Timing. I got through the fence and into the special area, right where the timing mats are at the start of the swim. I put on my official volunteer t-shirt over my regular shirt and became part of the team. Our job was to hand out new timing chips to people who had lost or forgotten theirs. This is a Very Bad Thing because they don't get an official time without a chip. So we have to register the new chip to the right person and disable their old one. We also had a small supply of essential parts, like swim caps, swim goggles, ankle bands for the chips, and safety pins for attaching bibs to shirts. We answer a lot of questions. We try to be as helpful as possible.

Some dude -- a "World Renowned Hip-Hop Artist" -- that I'd never heard of sang the National Anthem. He came in through the egress in the fence next to me and left the same way. He was a nice looking young man with very well-coifed hair. He put his heart and soul into the anthem and gave an impassioned rendition of it. Pity I didn't catch his name.

At last, it was time to begin. Everyone started to line up in their waves. First, the pro men. Their start was right after sunrise, 6:45am.

Here is Andy Potts, last year's winner, looking happy and confident, waiting for his start with the rest of the pro men in their yellow caps. He would go on to repeat as winner this day.

After the men came the pro women in their green caps. One of these came up to me and asked me if she could clean her goggles on my t-shirt. At first this seemed like an odd request, but then I considered that a wetsuit makes a poor cleaning cloth, indeed. She knew mine was a branny-new cotton volunteer shirt, perfectly good for lens cleaning. I offered up the bottom of my shirt, she cleaned her goggles and thanked me. I wished her good luck. She looked to be a good four inches shorter than me, and I'm a mere 5'3". How can anyone so short be fast enough to be a pro? The mind boggles.

Each wave continued on afterwards. Men 20-24 in blue caps. Women 35-39 in red. On and on, each with their own cap color. Basta's pink wave was up at 7:17, 33 minutes after the first.

Here he is looking quite serious and focused, as is everyone.

And then he was off. Other waves followed. Soon enough the first swimmers came out of the water and sprinted up to transition. One pro ran up so fast that he missed the turn down the Swim In chute and tried to run back down the Swim Out chute. Volunteers and race officials yelled and steered him to the right way. He spun around, zipped back to the right chute, and bashed right into another pro. They both went down, spun around and rolled around on each other in their slick wetsuits on the wet carpet. They looked just like puppies on ice.

But they recovered quickly and sprinted down the chute as if nothing had happened. In a blink of the eye they were off on their bikes. Those pros do amazing transitions. After that they stationed 3 volunteers to stand in the way so that swimmers had no choice but to go down the right chute.

More and more people came slogging out of the water. Eventually the first pink-capped guy came through. I know Basta isn't a fast swimmer and didn't expect him to be anywhere close to the first guy, so I kept my camera in its case. Soon enough, the next pink-capped guy came out. Caps of all different colors were coming out of the water at a rapid pace. The starts are staggered but there is such a wide variety of swimming skills in each wave that the assortment of caps finishing at any given time looks much like a handful of M&M's.

I broke out the camera, expecting Basta any minute. More and more pink caps finished. A big clot of them finished together and I thought Basta might be in that group, but no. A skinny guy about his height came stumbling up the ramp and I was sure that was him, but no. I kept waiting, camera poised.

At last, Basta finished the swim. He trotted up the ramp quickly and made his speedy way to transition.

Official swim time: 43:54. We had estimated 50 minutes, so this was actually good. But it was 77th out of 88 in his age group. Have I mentioned lately how competitive his age group is?

He had a very speedy transition and was in and out before I spotted him. Another tri-club member was working Transition as a volunteer. He helped strip Basta out of his wetsuit quickly and then snapped this picture of him getting ready for the bike.

In 4 minutes, 32 seconds he was off on his bike.

Anddddd . . . then we had some time on our hands. There was still plenty of volunteery stuff to do, but I wouldn't see Basta again for over 3 hours. After the last swimmer was out of the water we broke down the Swim Out path and set up the Bike In path. They lined us volunteers up along the final couple hundred yards of the bike course to yell at bikers as they rode by, "Slow Down!!" "No Passing!!" "Ride to the End!!" Riders get easily confused as to where they are supposed to dismount and it's our job to keep them riding to the dismount area that is much farther than expected down the route.

I kept looking at the legs of people as they rode by. In triathlon they write your age on your left calf. This way you can tell who is in your age group. After around 3 hours I had seen lots of men with an age between 50 and 54 ride through. Crap. Basta was having a tough ride, I was afraid.

But I also saw loads of women, all who seemed to have the number 43 marked on their calf. My age. These women push a bike a good 5 miles an hour faster than I can. Grr. If they can do it, why can't I? It was both frustrating and inspirational.

I had hoped Basta could do a 3:15 bike. That time came and went, and I started to get worried. I had seen several people come into the medical tent with scraped shoulders and road rash. They'd gone down. Unfortunately, it happens. I hoped it hadn't happened to Basta.

At last, in he came:

3 hours, 26 minutes, 17 seconds. 72nd out of 88 in his age group. I'd forecast 3:15, so he was 11 minutes over. There were some big hills on this course and a good headwind for the last section. Who was regretting his skipped bike workouts now? His missed hill training sessions? His shortened courses? Mmm hmmm.

So a 6:00 or 6:15 finish probably wasn't going to happen. If he'd had a tough ride chances were he'd have a tough run, too. If the bike had taken it out of him he wouldn't have much left for the run. I did a few calculations and figured we'd be happy if he got a sub-7 at this point. 6:45ish might be possible.

He had a very fast T2 -- 2:37 -- and that included a stop at the porta-potty. Then he was off on the run.

Another 2 hours to wait. I guided in hundreds more bikers and shouted support and encouragement to all, "OCTC!" to fellow club members. I had a good time with it, chatting with fellow volunteer and club member Wendy, meeting Ironman legend Greg Welch, and doing my part to keep the athletes going.

I had signed up for the 6am to 11am shift, but ended up staying long after 1pm. Last year there were so many volunteers we all stood around with not much to do. This year we were quite understaffed and they really needed me. So I stayed until I thought Basta might be about to finish.

And finish he did.

He said he really, really wanted to meet his personal goal of sub-6:30. He knew he'd need to hoof it to do that so he started running intervals on the second loop of the course. He all-out sprinted the last mile or so. He finished with a 2:04:37 run. 42nd out of 88 for the run.

The clock time you see there is from the first pro-wave start, so subtract 33 minutes. His official time is 6:21:56. He made his sub-6:30 goal.

He was elated, as was I. I put his medal over his head, then put my arm around him and sort of propped him up, trying to keep him walking while his body adjusted to the new, non-racing state. It involves a few minutes of delirium. During that time people are handing him a finisher's hat, the finisher's t-shirt, removing his chip, handing him his chip strap, and herding him off to athlete food. I took most of that stuff for him and led him back to the food.

There he had some pizza, and had a nice sit in a chair for a while. We chatted with friends and fellow competitors.

A fine event was had by all.

Two happy finishers.

Off We Go

2008-03-27T19:54:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow -- we head down the freeway to the do packet pickup and expo, have a nice high-carb dinner, and then nestle into the el-cheapo motel near the pier.

Saturday: Show time. At the tender young age of 53, Basta's First Half Ironman.

Tonight we are packing, checking gear, gathering up all the bits and pieces that make up a triathlete's life. The dog is looking concerned, wondering how long we'll be gone this time.

Just one night, doggie. Then the daddy will come home, with luck a tired but happy man.

He's ready. He's surprisingly unstressed. A little snappy at times, but mostly he's fine. He'll sleep well tonight.

The forecast is for chilliness, a high of 62 on race day. Water temp will be around 58. A slight chance of showers. We've packed the arm warmers and a sweatshirt to wear in transition before the event.

We'll leave home around 1 tomorrow. See you on the other side!!

Where We Are

2008-03-16T08:45:00.000-07:00

Only 12 days to go until the big event. Basta is remarkably unstressed about it. "I just want to get it over with," he says. He's tired of the constant grind of training and figures he is as fast as he's going to ever be.

That's not entirely true. This is his first year of triathlon. From what I've read, it takes the adult onset athlete four years of dedicated training to reach their full potential. If Basta were to continue training like this and participating in events, he'd have faster times three years from now.

But it remains to be seen if that's what he wants. He really likes the health and fitness that he has now. He's not so sure he wants to train like this forever. We shall see.

I walked the pool as he swam the other day. It's pretty obvious we've reached the peak of what I can do for him here. He needs a real swimming coach if he's going to improve any further. He's rolling beautifully and smoothly. His arm stroke is good and no longer crosses his centerline. He swims without shoulder pain now. But he lost a lot by not being able to swim for two months. He's not pulling as hard as he could, probably still tentative about injuring his shoulder. He is slow. We're focusing more on relaxed, effortless swimming than we are on speed. You don't win triathlon in the water, after all. But still, he should be an average swimmer, not a slow swimmer.

His biggest problem in the water is that he has such low bodyfat. He sinks. Rather than floating effortlessly, he has to work to stay afloat. Thus he kicks a bit more than a fatter, more buoyant person would, and he doesn't glide well. If he tries to do a long & lovely glide, he sinks. I think a proper swim coach could teach him how to press his chest and balance his legs better, but I can't. He insists that this is as good as it gets and I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if that's true. A real swim coach would. If he wants to continue in this sport we'll have to find one. Go to a good swim clinic, at least.

We met with the triathlon club for an ocean swim the other night. Basta swam a mile with them. He came out of the water last, but not by far. Some people only swam half a mile, so they don't count. The ones who did a mile are all veteran triathletes. It didn't help that he got seasick out there, either. It's funny how a good swell rocking you around will indeed make you seasick when swimming. We will add a sliver or two of pickled ginger to his pre-ocean swim routine to help keep that at bay next time.

He said he felt good out there, otherwise. Water temp wasn't too cold. He was sighting well enough. He feels he doesn't need any more ocean time to be ready for the event. Ok. A couple more pool swims and he is set. We are anticipating a 50-minute 1.2 mile swim on race day.

Then there's the bike. The club ride on Saturday continues to be a big hit with him. He looks forward to it, enjoys the people, and gets pushed. He rode with the fastest group yesterday. He could keep up with them on the flats but they dropped him on the hills. The bike is where he can and will see the most dramatic improvements over the years, if he keeps this up. Given that the bike is the longest part of any triathlon, it pays the most dividends to be good at it. Clubs rides, Computrainer, TITS (time in the saddle), he'll get there. For now, for this event, we're optimistically thinking a 3:15 time for the 56 mile ride.

And, finally, the run. He may well be at his peak with his running. He can sustain a 7:45 pace for a Half Marathon. He's running injury- and largely pain-free. The guys who podium in his age group are faster, but this is a very good pace. He will be able to pass a faster biker who has a slower run pace with this.

If he does a smart triathlon. If he doesn't blow all of his energy in the swim so that he tanks on the bike. If he doesn’t push too hard on the bike so that he has nothing left for the run. If he doesn't start out the run too fast so that he can't sustain the pace through the finish. If he handles his nutrition properly throughout. Getting to the finish line as fast as possible requires patience and the ability to hold yourself in check for the vast majority of the event. Then the ability to let it all out and leave nothing in reserve at the end. The timing of all of that takes a great deal of skill and experience. This, his first Half Ironman, will be a tremendous learning experience for him.

We'd be happy with a sub-2:00 run. Add 10 minutes or so (we hope less) for two transitions, and we have a forecast of a 6:15 finish time. If he'd gotten that time last year, he'd have placed 41st out of 71 in his age group. It continues to amaze me at how competitive his age group is. His goal at the start of this was to do a sub-6:30 time, so he's right on the money there.

12 days to go.

Listen To Me

2008-03-02T18:41:00.001-08:00

This would be a whole lot easier if Basta would listen to me.

Case in point: His biking career. It's not progressing as I would like. He's improving, yes. I've talked about that here. But he could be doing much more and much better. He really doesn't like the bike and he resists riding hills.

Every week, I schedule him for 2 hours or so of hills, he doesn't do it. He rides the CompuTrainer, which simulates loads of hills, but he really needs to get his butt out there on his bike and ride on real roads with real hills. Whenever he does ride on the road, it's on the routes accessible straight from the house. River trails. Nice, long, traffic-free trails, yes. But flat. The only hills involved are when the path dips under a freeway and then pops up the other side. With enough speed you can coast up that 'hill.' Whoo. Not exactly the hill training he needs.

I know why he's fighting this. The bike is boring. I can sympathize with that. It bores me, too. Hours and hours of sitting there, pumping the legs, thinking about form, always being on the defensive to try to avoid imminent death by traffic . . . No music allowed, too dangerous. No real reward that I can see. Why do people ride bikes such long distances, anyway? I don't know.

Yet, if one is to be a triathlete, as Basta is, one must become good on the bike. No option on that. As his coach, I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out how to get him out there on his bike, riding hills, and enjoying it.

A long time ago I suggested that we ride with one of our triathlon club group rides. He is such a social person I thought riding with a regular group each week would make riding more interesting and make him look forward to it. But Basta said no, he didn't want to do that. Sigh.

I've tried to schedule weekend rides with friends who are fellow triathletes, but that hasn't worked out. Weather, rain or wind, has always made us cancel the ride. Plus, these friends are women. Friends of mine. Fine triathletes with far more triathlon experience than Basta has, but they are slower than he is now. He needs to ride with people that will push him. That's why I can't ride with him. Aside from the, I don't want to aspect, I'd slow him down. We can't have that.

Time is drawing nigh, here. We have less than a month until showtime. (I really need a countdown timer. Anyone know of a quick and easy one to plug in to Blogger?) He needs to ride hills, and he needs to ride them fast. I have been getting more and more insistent about this in his weekly training schedule. He understands that he has been quite remiss on the hills front.

I scheduled him for two hours, canyon ride, this Saturday. As usual.

But verbally, I pressed that he really needed to do it. Something along the lines of, "DO IT!"

"Find me someone to ride with!" He countered. "I'm not going to do 2 hours by myself!"

Okay. I looked up the schedule for the club rides. Sure enough, they still have one, every Saturday. A nice 30 mile hilly loop through the very canyon that I've been recommending all along. "All paces welcome," they said.

So I sent the coordinator an email saying that Basta would be there, printed out the directions to the meeting place, and told him to go.

And he did. I think his reluctance to do so before was because he wasn't very confident in his riding abilities. Now that he's much improved, he can ride with the group and not embarrass himself. So he went.

And he had a blast. He said the course was perfect, the people wonderful, the conversations interesting, and the whole experience very positive. There were about 20 people and they naturally broke into a several different speed groups. He is a very social person and enjoyed chatting with a number of people as they rode.

One of them asked him if he had a coach. He said, "yes, my wife!" Heh.

Afterwards, about 5 of them did a 30 minute run for a nice little brick.

He came back raving about the whole experience. "Schedule me for that every Saturday!" he said. Ok. I will do that.

If only he'd listened to me on that about three months ago. He could have been riding with them every weekend. Ah well. He's there now. I think this will help a great deal. It'll help a bit for Oceanside coming up but it will help much more Vineman.

Tour de Palm Springs & Beyond

2008-02-26T07:46:00.000-08:00

We did the Tour de Palm Springs a few weeks ago. Haven't written about it because there really isn't much to say. We had a great time, we love Palm Springs, and we enjoy this event, but nothing of real interest happened there.

Except that Basta rode his heart out the entire distance, pushing it as hard as he could for the entire 56 miles. He averaged 17.3 mph overall. That's up 2-3 mph from when we starting riding last year. He had many miles of 20+mph, but dropped the average down whenever he hit hills. He hasn't been training on hills other than on the trainer and it really shows.

This is his first year of triathlon, after all. He is nowhere near his potential on the bike. He'll get there if he keeps working at it, and if he wants to. He will become a decent hill-climber one of these days. We're both happy with 17.3 mph over that distance.

His swimmer's shoulder is finally healed and he's easing back into the pool. I walk the deck alongside him whenever I can, working on his form. Body-awareness is so hard in the pool. You can be completely convinced you're doing something one way but the coach above can see and tell you what you're really doing. I'm taking a lot of video to show him what I'm talking about. He fought me on the 'pinky-entry, palm facing inside' concept but finally gets that he will always cross his bodyline if he continues to do a cupped-hand, middle-finger-first entry. He says he likes the palm facing in approach better now, that it feels more efficient and easier. He's still rolling well. His body position is not good. He says he's pressing his chest and head down hard but his legs are still dragging significantly. His bodyfat is so low that he's really going to struggle to get those legs up. A wetsuit will help, of course.

So he's swimming again. Soon we'll get out and do some open water swimming. There are less than 5 weeks until Oceanside. Basta will have been training for 21 weeks when that arrives.

He was sick all last week. He kept it from becoming the major cold that everyone seems to have right now with Zicam, but he was still weak and snuffly. He took a day off. Then another day. Then another. Then we went skiing for four days. He took yesterday off, too. Finally, today, he says he feels fully over the cold, re-energized, and ready to train again. Fortunately, last week was a Rest&Recovery week anyway, so he didn't lose too much.

This week he starts his last Build, then it's time to Peak.

Blood Work

2008-02-16T11:38:00.001-08:00

Basta went in for his annual physical last week.

When I met him, 8 years ago, his doctor had just put him on high-blood pressure medication. He was also taking Prevacid almost daily to combat chronic acid reflux (heartburn). He was thin, because he's a hyperactive ectomorph with OCD, but his diet was not great. He didn't eat fast food, which was refreshing, but he ate for taste, not for nutrition. He's a good cook, and he cooked rich, buttery sauces, cheese-based delights, and meats. Not many veggies. He had frequent hemorrhoids. Plus, he drank way too much. He smoked around 7-10 cigarettes a day. He didn't do any intentional exercise. He thought he was healthier than his peers, and he probably was.

Enter me. I've always been fairly fit and I've always been interested in nutrition, thus I eat a pretty healthy diet. I have my fair share of desires for taste sensations and choose flavor over health quite often, but overall I'm pretty healthy. Slowly, gradually, I changed the way Basta lives his life to be one with a focus on health.

First to go were the medications. I convinced him that with a few dietary changes he didn't need modern medicine to suppress his symptoms and give him a host of side effects.

Key to that was quitting smoking. He felt that since he didn't smoke "much" it probably wasn't hurting him. I suggested that since he didn't smoke much, it wouldn't be that dramatic to not smoke at all. It wasn't easy, and it didn't happen quickly, but he did quit smoking.

Next was the diet. The addition of vegetables to his outstanding culinary creations. Fats are not bad for you, in and of themselves, but his percentage of fat intake to everything else was way too high. Changing that, also, was not easy or quick. Thanks in huge part to the publication of the South Beach Diet book, he now understands what is healthy and what is not, and why. He still cooks fantastic meals, but now they are always with fresh ingredients, and always with vegetables.

The results were quick and encouraging. His blood pressure went down below hypertensive level and the brief foray into bp-lowering drugs seemed ridiculous. He also stopped taking the heartburn pills daily and just took them whenever needed, mainly whenever he ate tomatoes.

Over the years we got progressively healthier and healthier. He began happily using quinoa instead of rice most of the time. He grudgingly stopped serving bread with every meal. He came up with other sides besides baked potatoes. He started paying attention to partially hydrogenated oils and refuses to buy anything containing them. We have plenty of setbacks, of course. Forays into chocolate and ice cream weekends. Rich, heavy, calorie-obscene meals consumed just for the sake of decadence. Outstanding wines consumed in abundance. We are far from perfect.

But overall we strive for health. We try to keep a very high ratio of good meals to bad. Basta is the first to say that he feels so much better now than he did a few years ago. He can eat all the tomatoes he wants -- raw, cooked, sauced, juiced, in a bloody mary, whatever -- without a hint of heartburn.

The final step was exercise. I started running about three years ago and decided to run a marathon. He started running with me. He liked it. He ended up running the marathon with me. We both got injured during training and our run/walk time was hardly impressive, but we did it. We both now had the fitness bug.

Last year, after several years of eating a mostly-healthy diet and a few years of random running, Basta's blood work was pretty good. Resting HR 75. BP 115/78. Normal. Close to pre-hypertensive stage, but ok now. Cholesterol 205. Since his father has heart disease and has needed a quintuple bypass, this concerned his doctor. I contended that the ratio was more important than the total number, and his ratio was outstanding. Since we eat so much healthy olive oil, avocadoes, nuts, etc, his good cholesterol was sky-high: 68. His LDL cholesterol was 135. Not high enough to cause real concern. Yet, perhaps in an abundance of caution based on his family history, his doctor recommended a stress test. Basta did it and passed with flying colors. His heart is fine.

Then triathlon entered his life. We went from being runners to being run/bike/swimmers. He decided he wanted to do a Half Ironman. I started this training program (and blog) for him. He went from being an occasional exerciser to a 7-15 hour per week athlete with specific focus on fitness and performance.

His diet changed somewhat, too. He now starts his morning with a whey-protein shake mixed with a banana, psyllium husks, crushed flax seed, and a 1 oz shot of some superfruit juice (blueberry, cranberry, pomegranite, acai, mangosteen, noni -- whatever looks good and maybe is on sale at the health food store). He carries a bag of nuts, a hard-boiled egg, a hamburger (vegetarian-fed beef, of course), some veggies sticks, and water to snack on throughout the day. He still cooks fantastically tasty and healthy dinners.

As a result of the significantly increased exercise these past four months and the addition of the health-packed shake in the morning, Basta has lost 15 pounds. His stomach is perfectly flat. His muscles, all over, are hard and well-defined. His hemorrhoids are gone. He looks at least 10 years younger than he is. He had high hopes for this latest blood work test.

And the results are in:
Resting HR: 64. Down from 75 last year.
BP: 94/63. Down from 115/78. Outstanding.
Cholesterol: 174. Down from 205. Huge change!
HDL: 68. 65 last year. Essentially the same. This is high, and this is good.
LDL: 101. Down from 135 last year. This is huge. Remember, he takes no drugs (other than a multi-vitamin and glucosamine). This is all diet and exercise, baby.

All other tests were normal.

So, my 53-year-old husband has the blood and cardiovascular system of a very healthy and much younger man. If he can do it, anyone can.

Like me. I eat pretty much what he eats, but I don't work out as much. If I up my exercise to 6-7 hours per week, and up the intensity rather dramatically, I can see these outstanding results, too. My blood work is like his was last year: Good, healthy, fine, but not outstanding. I want outstanding.

He says that he feels like he'll live to 100 now. I point out that no matter what age he lives to, he feels great now. Every day he reaps the benefits of this abundant health.

Surf City (Half) Marathon

2008-02-12T18:11:00.000-08:00

It rained. Buckets. Cold buckets. Cold, wind-blown buckets. What a cold, miserable, nasty day it was.

The fun thing about the Surf City Marathon is that the starting line is 7 miles from our home. Yet they close the roads for the event so we can't actually get there from here, by car. We can, I suppose, but we'd have to drive all the way outside of the route zone and then come back in on the other side of the course, ending up in a big line of traffic waiting to get into the beach parking lot. We'd have to leave home hours before the start. With the bikes, we can do it in about a half hour. It's a good warmup, after all.

So off we went at 6:30 am, into the darkness, howling wind, and pouring rain. I wore my supposedly-waterproof sailing jacket and running tights. I put Basta in a poncho. He wore his biking leg warmers and a sweatshirt over his running attire. But it was all for naught. We were soaked through and chilled within minutes. By halfway there, I could feel a pool of water surrounding my toes inside my shoes. We just hunkered down and kept pedaling into the wind-driven rain, hoping to get there soon.

The marathoners came running by on the other side of the road, headed the opposite direction. They were a couple of miles from the start. Their start was at 7, ours at 7:30, so we would probably get there in time despite the hard wind trying to keep us away.

Most of the marathoners were running in ponchos or trash bags, and there were a lot of them. I had wondered if anyone would bail on the race, us being wimpy Southern Californians after all, but it didn't look like many did.

We made it to the start, locked up the bikes on a handy rail, and went to find our Tri Club tent. This tent is actually more of an awning, and it was struggling to stay upright. Cold, wet, miserable triathletes were huddled underneath, hoping to collect some last-minute warmth before the start of the half. We joined them, saw a few people that we know, and did our best to find some warmth, too. We pretty much failed.

The ride down was enough of a warmup for the legs, so Basta didn't do a jog prior to the start. I did spray some Kool&Fit on his legs in hopes of warming them up a bit and keeping them from cramping. It probably just washed off right away.

The corral was segregated into waves by time, and Basta's planned time of sub-1:50 was the second wave, right after the elites. I had thought he'd be a bit farther back. 8 min miles is really not super-fast in the grand scheme of things. A lot faster than me, yes, but plenty of people can do sub-7 Halfs.

I took his wet legwarmers and sweatshirt, kissed him good luck, and off he went to stand in his crowd. The gun went off, they sprinted away, and I was left cold, wet, shivering, hunkered down with my back to the wind, and with some time on my hands.

I wandered up the course, on the sidelines with the other cold and soggy spectators, watching the remaining waves start. Lots and lots of runners went by. Around 13,000 in all. Some all togged up in ponchos, trash-bags, or high-tech waterproof jackets, some in just shorts and a skimpy top as if it were a typical beach day.

I was getting very cold very quickly. I did not wear enough layers for this day, and the layers I did have were almost completely soaked through. I was starting to shiver uncontrollably. This wasn't good. Perhaps Starbucks could help.

I walked up Main Street several blocks to the local Starbucks. It was packed with fellow spectators who'd had the same idea. I stood in line for a bit, warming up, but it was crowded i n there and I decided it wasn't worth staying if I wasn't going to be able to sit somewhere inside after I'd gotten my coffee. So I went to plan B -- a restaurant.

A nearby restaurant was open for breakfast and had plenty of room at the bar. They didn't seem to mind that I was soaking wet. I had some Huevos Rancheros and plenty of nice warm coffee. This was a much better way to spend my time while Basta was out there running his heart out. No one could hear me shake my cowbell out there in the wind, anyway.

After an hour or so it was time to wander back down to the start/finish. I wasn't much drier, but I was warmer and well fed. I'd survive.

The really speedy runners were finishing when I reached the line at about 1:30 into the race. I saw several men with two blood-soaked stains on their chests. It appears that running in the wet & cold makes the nipples stand up hard, thus making them more prone to such chafe. I saw some smarter men who'd put bandaids over thars. Basta has never had a problem with this before and I hoped that conditions today didn't cause him a problem.

I expected a 1:50ish finish for Basta, but with this weather it could be anything. The rain had abated somewhat but it was still windy. I saw a couple of really-fast people from the tri club finish. Normally, spectators cheer finishers, but today the best we could manage was to be out there; cold, miserable, and glaring silently at these loved-ones who had made us come out this day.

Sooner than I expected, there he came. Looking much like a drowned rat, his curly hair matted to his skull, he came flying through the finish. 1:41:17 was his chip time. 7:44 pace. That's 11 minutes faster than Long Beach just four months ago. That's almost a full minute per mile faster pace. That's amazing. That's impressive. That's encouraging.

I yelled at him through the fence to take one of those silver blankets that they hand out at the end and wrap up in it. Then I told him to get one for me, too. He tossed my space-blanket over the fence to me. Aahhh, a bit more warmth. By the time I found him again outside the finisher's area he was shivering hard. I gave him his cold, wet leg-warmers and sweatshirt. Wet though they were, the extra clothing helped.

He was very excited about his finish. He said he felt great the whole time. No blisters from the wet feet. No bloody nips. No aches, pains, or problems. He just ran fast throughout and sprinted hard the last two miles. He is fit. He is ready. Coach is proud.

Yet he told me that he walked through a couple of water stops and took one porta-potty break en-route. He figures he will do that at Oceanside, he might as well do it during training runs, too. So if it had been a perfect day for running and he hadn't needed the potty break, he might have done this sub-7:40. Even more amazing.

The ride home sucked, as you can imagine. The rain had finally stopped but it was still windy. Most delightfully, the wind had shifted so that it was nearly a headwind on the way home, too. Plus, we were cold and tired. But we made it. A nice hot shower, some dry clothes, and all was well.

Then it was off to the Superbowl party.

Half Marathon on the Horizon

2008-02-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

The Surf City USA Half Marathon is on Sunday. We go to do packet pickup in a couple of hours.

Basta is really ready for this. He can run 13 miles easily. He can push this and run 13 miles faster than he's ever done before. He's healthy. His swimmer's shoulder still lingers but his legs are fine. His nutrition is good. He went into pre-race nutrition mode yesterday, which means more complex carbs, less saturated fats, and nothing to drink but water and coffee.

He knows what he wants to wear and is unconcerned about the forecasted rain. This run is going to be cold (for us. 45⁰ at the start. I guess that's more like chilly), but he's been running in the wind and chilliness for a few weeks now. He doesn't like it -- no one does -- but he does it.

He has his pre-race nutrition lined up: The same protein shake that he has every morning. No solid foods. A Clif Shot pocketed for before the start and another one for halfway through. The course is supposed to have Clif Blocks at various aid stations, and hooray for them for choosing Clif, but it's better if you have them on your person, available exactly when you want them.

Today he's going for a short 30 minute run and an easy "Seniors Spin" class at the gym. Tomorrow he'll ride the bike for a quick 30 minutes to keep his leg muscles fired up.

Then it's Showtime. B-race Showtime, anyway. It would be nice if it doesn't rain.

He really likes the new training program. He also seems to be just plugging away at the training, too. It's not the sole focus of his life any more. Far from it. Yet he's working on doing each training day as prescribed, and he's doing pretty well at that. On hills days he rides hills, even if they are on the Computrainer. He runs intervals, tempo runs, and sprints. So far he refuses to do another run test (blame the rain and wind) and long slow distance, but we can do fine without those. This is where I wanted him to be, and where he wanted to be, too.

Now if I could just get myself there. I may have to start another blog on that little topic.

Oopsie

2008-01-27T14:31:00.000-08:00

I spent a number of hours this weekend re-reading Joe Friel's Triathlete Training Bible. I was re-impressed with what a great book that is.

When I first started this little coaching stint, I knew I had a lot to learn. That's why I did it. I read through the book, which is very detailed, and came up with a basic plan for Basta's first couple of months. I knew I'd need to go back at some point and learn more to get proper workouts designed for his last few months prior to the big event.

That point is now. He's entered the "Build" phases, and I wasn't exactly sure what those Build phases were supposed to entail.

I do now: levelled-off durations but building intensities. Anaerobic threshold workouts for the first time. Ok, bueno, we can do that.

But I also learned that I sort of skipped over one key piece of advice . . . Adjusting the workout schedule for the over-50 athlete. Oops.

It's a little worse than that, actually. I read that part initially and decided not to use it for Basta. Yes, he's over 50. 3 years over. But he doesn't look or act 50. He recovers very quickly, he's lean and fit, and he was so gung-ho for training that I thought I could give him the general Half-Ironman plan and he'd be fine.

Well, no. He hasn't been doing the training volume that I've prescribed. Honestly, I've been finding it hard to even schedule the volume, knowing what I do about his available free time and his willingness to do workouts. For instance, I know he won't do a three-hour bike ride very often so I'm scheduling him for a two hour bike, 1 hour of cross-training instead. Of that he might do the two hours, or he might do just 90 minutes on the bike. Then he'll skip the cross-training.

And he bitches about being tired and looking forward to his rest days and his recovery weeks. A lot, he bitches.

Weeeeeeellllll . . . . . The Bible says that the over 50 athlete needs more frequent recovery weeks and less overall weekly volume. Each phase should last 3 weeks, not 4, with the focus on quality intensity instead of greater volume. Mr. Friel seriously knows what he's doing.

So I redid the master plan. The plan that tells me how many hours per week to schedule and what workouts types to focus upon. The resulting plan is much better. MUCH better. I can schedule the workouts that he needs and it takes up the minutes needed. I don't have to throw in cross-training and long workouts I know he won't do just to meet the high weekly volume. He's happy doing intensity, so I can bump the intensity of one workout per sport per week.

And he gets to hit it hard two weeks, then rest & recover for a week. He's very happy about that.

I also realized that I had picked the middle of the annual-hours-recommendation for the Half Ironman distance. I went down to the low-end of that recommendation and came up with perfectly reasonable weekly workout hours. Less. Better. Since he wasn't hitting the high hours anyway, this just means that he'll get the personal satisfaction of actually meeting his prescribed hours each week.

Basically it turns out that his body knew his limits and was only doing what he should have been doing all along. Impressive.

In other news, we're sticking to our conviction to boycott the Chicago Marathon this year. This as a protest of gross mismanagement starting with the stupid decision to put a slick sponsor's mat down at the finish and causing the winner, Robert Cheruiyot, to slip and crack his head on the pavement, giving him a concussion and headaches that last to this day. The race director, Carey Pinkowski, took no responsibility for this and said, 'he collapsed from exhaustion.' No, he didn't. You made a mistake, immediately removed the slick mat for the rest of the finishers, yet refused to take responsibility for accident and blamed the athlete instead.

Then last year, same race director, high heat, no plans for extreme conditions. Water stations quickly ran out of water, one person died, and the race was cancelled. Race director? "Some runners didn't do adequate preparation." Yeah. No admission of fault, again. It's the runner's fault to expect actual water to be at water stations. It's not like this was free water, either. Each runner paid $125 to be told they were inadequately prepared if they can't run 26.2 miles in extreme heat without water.

Carey Pinkowski. No, you shouldn't still have this job.

CompuTrainer

2008-01-25T07:23:00.000-08:00

So where are we?

Well, it's still raining, still windy. That means lots of time on the CompuTrainer.

The CompuTrainer arrived a few weeks ago, and let me tell you that thing is great. Far, far superior a plain ol' trainer.

It has a bunch of sensors that you put on your bike, then all of that feeds into the software on the computer. The software has various courses that you can ride, or you can make your own. A bunch of Ironman and shorter triathlon courses are in there, which is interesting. Most are really hilly. Far hillier than we get around here on the real road. You ride along, seeing yourself on the screen and a competitor beside you. As your terrain changes and you go up and down hills the pressure on the rear wheel changes and really feels like a hill.

But the best part is the SpinScan analysis which shows your pedal efficiency. It shows you in real time where the power in your pedal stroke comes from. Ideally, the graph is flat as power is consistent throughout 360⁰. Basta's pedal stroke shows most power at the top. Now that he can really see that, he is supposed to be working on changing his stroke to get more consistent power throughout.

All of this requires a computer, preferably one dedicated to this, situated in front of the bike so that the course and stats can be easily viewed. I have an old computer that is just sitting there unused in my office. It didn't quite meet the specs needed for the software, though. It require 32M video RAM, which is pretty small by today's standards, but this old computer has 16M. It met all the other specs fine.

I decided to give it a try, anyway. It might work just fine, just the graphic rendering would be a bit slow. And it did. The program works beautifully. Scene transitions are slow, but they get there. When you're sitting on a bike spinning hard and going nowhere it's not like you're in a big rush to see a screen change, anyway.

So we set up our home bike gym. We got some rubber mats and converted a 4x8 section of the bedroom into a gym. There was a weight bench and some weights there, anyway, so this wasn’t a huge change. It just protects the carpet from potential bike crud.

The monitor went on a table in front of the bike. It was a good quality monitor in its day. Now it is considered huge and bulky, but the resolution and quality is still good. It's perfect for this.

All of the sensors and wires attach to the bike with velcro. It's kind of a task to get them all attached, but it gets easier and quicker with practice.

And best of all, Basta likes it. He says it's way, way easier to do this than to ride the simple fluid trainer in the garage for an hour. Easier in the mental sense. You don't just sit there thinking, 'god, when will this be over.' There are plenty of stats to admire -- heart rate, power output, pedal efficiency. You can race against the virtual guy next to you. When you repeat a given course you can race yourself's previous performance. That feature is really cool.

I have yet to put my bike on it and try it out, but I'm going to this weekend. It's supposed to be rainy and windy for the next several days, so no real riding for me, either.

Whenever we buy an item like this, I like to calculate the cost based on number of workouts. This thing cost $1670, so that's what the first ride cost us. The next time he used it, two days later, the cost per ride went down to $835. Three days later, another ride, $556/ride. And so on. As of today we've put 10 rides on it, so the cost per ride is now $167. When it gets down to $10 per ride I'll consider it paid for, since that's what we pay for a spin class a the gym. That'll be 167 rides. I seriously doubt if I'll be tracking it that long. But right now it's fun to see the number drop rapidly.

Off-Season

2008-01-06T15:50:00.000-08:00

Just in case it's not abundantly obvious to everyone, training in the off-season SUCKS. Big time.

The short days and the rain make for long hours on the treadmill and the trainer.

The holidays make for interrupted schedules and shuffling workouts to try to get them done.

The post-holiday blues make the training that much harder. Now it's just putting in the hours. No joy, no excitement, nothing to look forward to. It takes a dedicated athlete to train in the off-season.

Basta is dedicated. He's made up his mind to do this and he's doing the workouts. He's not enjoying it, though. He said this is really teetering close to this being, 'not fun.' He says he's not all that interested in doing an Ironman any more. He'll do the two Halfs that he's signed up for, then back off and stick to Sprints and Olympics.

That's fine with me. Who knows if that's what will really happen, though. This is just off-season blues talking at this point. We haven't had a competition in a while so there's been nothing to stimulate his excitement for competition.

He's not training with others, either. Training is largely solitary but joining a group can make it a lot more fun. He's a very social person and I think he'd enjoy a bike group, especially. He's been doing a lot of spinning lately and knows all of his fellow spinners now.

He's trying to change his workouts, too. If I have him down for a 90 minute run he wants to change it to 45 minutes today and 45 minutes tomorrow. I tell him, no, it doesn't work that way. He needs the long distance work to make the physiological changes in his body that only long distance will give him. He says, 'yeah, yeah, yeah, I know' but then runs 45 anyway. Sigh.

He is enjoying the benefits of training, though. His blood pressure is down to 93/60. His bodyfat appears to be nil. He says he wants to ingrain the routine of working out 6 days per week and continue that forever and ever, even if he stops doing triathlon someday.

That's an excellent goal. A goal I am working towards, too. The only reason we started triathlon was because it was a fun way to stay fit and become much more fit. Basta's desire for the podium has faded for now but it may rekindle with our next competition.

And that is the upcoming Surf City Marathon. We're both doing the Half Marathon. He's running a 10K in 48 minutes these days (7:58 pace), so I'm predicting he'll do this half in 1:46 or so. That'll be a PR.

Good Long Week

2007-12-16T18:19:00.001-08:00

You know your workouts are going well when you have an entire load of laundry to do of just exercise attire. Between the two of us, it was a big load.

A nice side benefit of his working out so much is that I'm more consistent with my workouts, too. I've gone from skipping most of my running workouts, practically all of my bike workouts, and definitely all of my swim workouts to running 3 times per week consistently, spinning once, biking on Saturday, and swimming once every other week or so. I'm pleased about this, too.

Basta is one tired, sore, whiny boy today. He worked out hard all week. He nearly got his minutes done, too. He did 800 of the planned 900 minutes. After not doing much at all last week, this was a big jump. It's not a wonder he's sore.

The only thing he skipped was his 15 minutes/day of yoga. He needs to do that every day, and he's not. I started making the minutes part of his total plan, hoping that would inspire him to do it, but so far it hasn't happened. Ah well. When he gets stiff and sore enough, maybe he'll listen to me and do the yoga.

We have two days here, then it's off to Florida. Rest and recovery week. Easy workouts, short duration. Amongst all of the holiday with family stuff.

Basta can ride

2007-12-16T17:43:00.001-08:00

Holy moly.

We went out for our 3 hour ride this morning. I told Basta to warm up at an easy pace for a good 20 minutes by riding with me, then take off. 2 minute balls-out sprints followed by 20 perky-paced recovery minutes. Repeat until total time = 240 minutes.

Well, his warmup pace is now 17-18 mph. I did my best to keep up with him. I kept asking him if that was an easy, no-effort, warmup pace and he kept saying yes. I believe him, too. His whole appearance on a bike has changed. He looks like he knows what he's doing now. His line is true -- he doesn't roam here and there down the path. His upper body is still. His legs are pumping and look like he has pretty efficient 360⁰ pressure going on. He's fast. Amazingly fast, compared to where he was two weeks ago. One long ride with the big boys and he understands how to be fast now? Amazing.

I kept up with him by drafting when I could. Also, fortunately, there were plenty of lights in the first 30 minutes of our bike ride on the way to the river path. He got caught at pretty much every one of them and thus I was able to catch him. I rode his wheel for as long as possible. Then he was gone. Until the next light. He's riding 20mph pretty consistently now. I am most pleased.

Shockingly enough, I'm riding faster, too. I've gone from 14-15 mph to comfortably 16-17mph, thanks to the improved pedal stroke. A few weeks of practice with that and it's almost second-nature now. With work, I can do 16-17 for 10+ miles. Not the whole ride, but for long stretches. Go me.

Re-rejiggered

2007-12-14T20:44:00.001-08:00

Basta has been bitching loud and long this week about being tired.

It makes sense that he would be tired. This is his heaviest week to date. He's sticking to the schedule, too, so he's really putting in the hours. Since he didn't do the hours last week, this is an especially hard week.

He's also in the muscle-build phase of his weight training, so his muscles are sore. His shoulders, in particular.

Poor Basta.

He's not injured, so I'm pushing him to do the time and do the intensity, too. He can rest next week.

But that means he has to actually rest next week. So an easy week, as previously scheduled, it will be. Short hours, only 8.5. Easy intensity. Let him recover. Let the bygones of the poorly done week last week be bygones.

We'll be in Florida next week, too. That will make getting the training hours done more difficult, of course, but since it's an easy week that should work out better than it did in Napa. No biking will occur, but he can run and swim. He can swim in the Atlantic, even, and get some sighting and nonstop-swimming practice done. It should be a good week.

He continues to amaze me with how well he can follow direction. He's the kind of athlete every coach wants. You tell him to run 40 minutes with 1/3 intervals, he runs for 40 minutes doing 1/3 intervals. He may grouse about it beforehand, but that's to be expected. Afterwards he's happy with his performance. Today he nailed 5:15, consistently, in his 1-minute sprints. I'm really happy with that.

I went to the pool with him this morning. He's rolling his body through the water quite well now. He's breathing bilaterally nicely. No more neck pain. His shoulders are sore so he's not pulling as hard, so he was pretty slow. But he looked good. Except for his stroke. He was pulling his arm out of the water too soon and missing the entire glide/follow-through part of the stroke. I took video. We'll work on that.

Adaptation

2007-12-10T20:08:00.000-08:00

Ok, the schedule has been rejiggered.

He was supposed to do 16 hours this week. I backed that down to 15 because it would be too much of an increase in training volume otherwise. Also, I backed off on the time spent running and put it more on the swim and the bike. This is to keep the injuries at bay. Running is so far worse for that than the other two sports, after all.

Next week is supposed to be his easy week. He took his easy week last week thanks to the trip. But if I schedule him long then he'll be doing 5 long weeks in a row, and that's too much. Burnout and injury could ensue. This is bad. So I think he ought to keep the minutes short as previously scheduled -- a mere 7.5 hr week, but make the intensity high across the board.

Next week is stats time, too. I don't expect a huge improvement, again thanks to the travelling, but there should be a little bit. I hope he gets a proper bike time trial done, too.

Wimped Out?

2007-12-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

Things went awry after the good bike ride, at least from a training perspective.

Things went very, very well for the palate, though. Four days of intense wine education, four nights of dinners at awesome restaurants.

Four days of no exercise. This was supposed to be Basta's heaviest week to date, too. 14.5 hours. I knew it would be difficult, being on this trip and all, but I had hope in Basta's impressively high discipline level and his nearly-obsessive fixation with triathlon. So I schedule him for workouts every day. I thought he could run before class and ride the bike before dinner. No swimming would take place but that's not a big deal, so long as he is still improving his cardio capability.

But no. For starters, it rained. A lot. With wind. Whipping, howling wind.

Then there was class. Wine class. It was fascinating. We learned so much about wine, and we thought we knew a fair amount before. Actually, we found out that we are practically on the initial rungs of the ol' wine knowledge ladder. Basta's focus shifted quite quickly from triathlon to wine. Becoming a Sommelier. Heck, becoming a Master Sommelier (of which there are only 158 in the world). Have I mentioned that he obsesses about things? Yes, he's a 7.

Then we come to the food. OMG, the food. Napa has some wonderful restaurants. We indulged. Every night. Truly fantastic food, really good wine to test our newfound wine knowledge with regard to food pairing, and late evenings plus rain and class obligations do not make one want to train. At all. The schedule went out the window.

Then we came home. Basta may be a 7 and he may have a fair touch of OCD, but he's not so bad that he can't accomplish things. He dreams big and gets excited, but he decides he really wants to do something, he does it.

He's decided he wants to do triathlon in a big way. I thought it might take him a few days to get back into it once we got home, but no. He swam, ran, and he lifted weights. Today he rode the bike 3 hours. In the cold wind. He really is serious about this.

But his total minutes this week are shot to hell. This has become his easy week, one week too early. I have to rework his schedule. That happens a lot, I'd think. People get sick. They get injured. They go to Napa. Schedules must be adjusted. Next week will be his heaviest week to date.

And on the plus side, he hardly mentioned triathlon for those four days. Now that he's back, he's training, but he' seems to be taking his training more as a matter of course rather than the sole focus of his life. I think this is a very good thing.

Booties

2007-12-07T17:53:00.001-08:00

Booties would have been good on the long ride. Numb toes. Otherwise, we did quite well with the attire. It was chilly and I never exactly felt warm, but I was never really cold, either.

Basta headed out with the boys. They were a nice group of guys, all local professionals, friends of Friend Randy. One had done the full Vineman a few years back and the half Vineman many times. The others were very good riders, used to this terrain of constant rolling hills. Off they went at a very fast clip. Poor Basta.

I finished getting myself together and then headed out on my own ride. Pretty county, Sonoma. Pity the motorists are so anti-bike. Really, you'd think the inhabitants of a place that was so obviously made to ride a bike in would actually encourage the endeavor, but no.

I rode here and there, having no idea where to go. Fortunately, it's all pretty. Randy had shown me a map and suggested routes for me, but I couldn't actually find the right road on the bike. Ah well. I didn't try very hard. Mostly I rode around at my own happy pace, thinking push -scrape - lift, push-scrape-lift -- oh, pretty vineyard! Push-scrape-lift, push-scrape-lift -- fall colors, wow! push -scrape - lift, push -scrape - lift -- yeah fuck you too, asshole. That stupid oversized pickup of yours doesn't make your dick one bit bigger, does it? Push -scrape - lift. Push -scrape - lift. Oh yay, coffee shop. Cappuccino time . . . I had a nice ride. 25 miles. Took about 2 hours of riding time, plus a half hour or so for the coffee stop.

The boys had planned to be back at the car at 1, and I made it there at 5 'til. No boys. I changed out of my bike gear, put the bike in the rack on the roof of the car (no easy task when you're 5'2"), and headed over to the park next door for a walk. 20 minutes later, I completed the loop around the park and could see the cars. Still no boys.

But shortly thereafter, a boy appeared. Then another. A few minutes later the third arrived. But no Basta. Everyone was all smiles, saying they'd had a great ride, good day, happy, happy. They said that Basta was maybe 10 minutes back. Randy had stayed behind to ride with him.

"So how did he do?" I asked. They smiled. They were very nice. No trash-talking from them. Or maybe they were just being nice because I'm a girl. One said he did fine. "He just needs more time in the saddle." Another said, 'Well, he's not a hill climber." The last said, "he did well to keep up." See how nice they were? The picture was clear, though. And exactly as I expected. He did it, because he's tough that way. I knew he wasn't ready for this ride, but I wanted him to be challenged. To realize that he's neglecting his bike workouts and this is going to bite him in the butt if he doesn't ride more.

Basta and Randy finally showed up, about 20 minutes after the others. Basta was tired but excited. He said he'd learned a lot. One that he needs more time in the saddle (Yes! No more skipped bike workouts!) Two that he can push his pace a lot more than he thought he could. Three that hills aren't so bad. He is slowly losing his dread of hills. Four that he really needs to build his leg muscle endurance. That relentless cadence thing is hard.

53 miles done, including the dreaded Chalk Hill. He did well, considering where he is in his fledgling bike career.

I feel like mission was accomplished. I really wanted him to ride with these guys to learn these very things. He's spent far too much time riding with me at my pace, and that's a bad, bad thing. He needs manly speed.

Trip Prep

2007-11-29T18:11:00.001-08:00

What does one take to keep warm when one is headed north to colder climes? Normal dressing is easy enough, but what about for workouts?

For the bike rides: arm warmers, leg warmers, a headband that covers the ears, a coolmax jacket . . . will that be enough? I have no idea. We don't ride around here very often when it's even chilly. I have leg warmers that I've worn maybe twice, and both times they were too hot. Arm warmers are usually enough on a cool day around here.

It's not like we're really going to Siberia. We're going to Napa. It warms up nicely there in the afternoons, but at night it's been getting down around freezing. It stays in the 30's-40's until midday. Since we're planning to ride at the crack of dawn, that's going to be dang chilly.

The running is easier, I think. Long tights, long-sleeved shirt, maybe gloves and a hat. Do I even own a hat? Oh yes -- I have a fleece thing I wear for skiing. I'll take that. The hard part will be making ourselves leave the nice, warm, comfy home and head out when it's that chilly. Must. Not. Wimp. Out.

Basta shows no signs of wimping out. He is on the trainer again tonight, and bitching less. He started out by whining that his legs were tired, he felt he was working them too hard, he didn't know how he could do this for an hour, waa, waa, waa. He lifted weights today and he's started the new "Muscle Build" phase where he lifts heavier weights at lower reps to failure. The goal here is to build muscle, of course. It makes the muscles tired, for sure.

I told him to put the bike in an easier gear so it wasn't burning his legs. He said had it as easy as he could get it. I looked over at the bike and saw he was on his middle front ring. "Honey," I said. "Go down to your smallest ring. Ease up the load on your legs. Easy load, high cadence, remember? And stop bitching."

So he did. He's having a much better time in the easier gears. I gave him the remote and he got the volume on the tv adjusted to make him happy. He hasn't bitched in the last half hour and he only has about 15 minutes to go. Hooray.

Tomorrow morning, early, we are going to the pool to get one last swim workout done. 40 minutes of swim intervals --warmup, then 8 laps as fast as possible followed by 4 recovery laps, repeat 3x. I'm thinking about getting in the pool and swimming a few laps myself. Ha. Might. I hate swimming. But if I ever intend to do another traithlon myself I'd better swim once in a while.

Then a 40 minute run, interval waves (3 minute easy, 1 min moderate pace, 1 min sprint, repeat). I might do that, too. Same course, just not with him. He's too fast. We'll meet at the car after 40 minutes of running.

The forecast is for rain tomorrow. That will be the first test of our potential wimpiness. We should do these workouts even if it is raining. The swim, for sure. You get wet anyway, right?

After traffic dies down, we'll load up the bikes and head up north. 8 hours later or so, we should arrive at our friend's house. A nice dinner with them is planned; to bed at a reasonable hour; then up early Saturday - ready for the big ride with the big boys.

Balance

2007-11-28T20:52:00.001-08:00

Basta said tonight that he's thinking about skipping his annual ski trip with the guys.

He's been doing this ski trip for something like 15 years now. Same group of guys. They have a routine. Same week every year. Nearly everyone makes it every time. They are all on the pushing-geezerly side so they ski hard all day and then spend their nights listening to jazz at the local club. This opposed to some things a group of men together in a après-active ski town away from their wives could be doing. I actually believe that, too.

Anyway, this year he said he was thinking about skipping the trip because it would interfere with his training. We could call his time on the slopes "cross-training" but really, we all know it wouldn't be. It'd beat up his legs and do nothing for his cardio conditioning or his speed. So a week away would affect his training. So if he wants to dedicate his life to nothing but triathlon, he shouldn't ski.

But what kind of a life is that? I mean really. Even the pros must have fun sometime. As an age-grouper aspiring to a podium one must make sacrifices, sure. But one must still live their lives, too. Balance. Training is not everything. There are a number of people in our triathlon club who make triathlon their lives. They can't keep a girlfriend, much less a wife, and they have chosen jobs that allow them the flexibility to train long hours during the day, every day. They are successful triathletes and have great bodies, yes. But is this living a full life? I don't think so.

I think Basta will achieve burnout pretty quickly if he avoids all of the things he used to enjoy because of his training. Right now that's all he can talk about. Anyone he hasn't talked to in a while gets regaled with detailed tales of his training, his goals, his intervals, his distances, and his speed. Zzzzz. He doesn't notice his dear friends' eyes rolling back into their heads and them nodding off as he talks. But he will. And he'll tire of this himself, one of these days.

Unless he learns about that ever-difficult balance. We talked about this. I told him I thought he should ski. Enjoy life to the fullest and all. He still thinks he should skip it because he doesn't want to blow his training. I worry that's he's setting himself up for huge disappointment if he doesn't podium after he gives up everything for training.

I know that anything can happen in an event. Even if he is extremely well trained he could have a bad event. Get smacked hard or follow the wrong feet in the swim. Have a lousy transition. Flat on the bike. Have the nutritional plan rise up and meet the asphalt in a colorful display. Or cause delays in a much less colorful but equally dehydrating way behind a handy bush or port-a-potty. Throw the race plan out the window in the excitement of the day and burn out too early. Many, many things.

As his coach, I need to find a way to convince him this isn't his one and only triathlon. It might be a great one or it might be a learning experience. You just never know. We do intend to do triathlon for many years to come. He tends to approach things with single-minded focus, though, so this could prove a challenge for me. On the one hand, it's great because he follows my training plans almost to a T. But on the other, he needs balance. He needs to make triathlon part of his life, not his whole life. As his coach, I know I can influence that.

Fat Is Not Evil

2007-11-27T20:46:00.001-08:00

A report published by the Journal of Exercise Physiology supports the results of many other similar studies:

"Total blood cholesterol and lipoprotein levels appeared not to be significantly affected by dietary fat intake. Interestingly, they were also not significantly correlated with measures of body fatness. "

http://faculty.css.edu/tboone2/asep/BrahlerFeb2007.doc

The "Low-fat" dietary recommendation is one of the worse things the USDA has pushed on us. SO many people still believe it to be true and buy the low-fat! and fat-free! unnatural products that crowd the shelves in the typical American market.

It's not the fat that makes your body store fat and give you heart disease. It's the overall excess of calories, the unbalanced diet of high carbs , low protein, and low fat, and the consumption of artificial or highly-processed ingredients that send the body into fat-creation mode.

Consider the Inuit, the natives of Northern Alaska. How do they survive on a diet of very high fat, protein, and no grains or veggies? They not only survive, they thrive. This article is worth reading in its entirety:

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/inuit-paradox

Spinning

2007-11-27T18:43:00.001-08:00

Or not.

We were supposed to spin tonight. I've never spun before, but I've certainly heard about it. Everyone, without fail, says it's the hardest workout they've ever done. Great.

I've been trying to spin for a while now. The only time my gym offers a class I can attend is Tuesdays at 6. A few weeks ago I showed up, bike shorts and shoes in my handy gym bag, only to find a 'Class Cancelled' sign on the door to the spinning room. Grrr.

Then we went on a trip to New Orleans. No spinning.

Then I had a business trip to Philadelphia. No spinning.

Then Thanksgiving week. Class cancelled again (we belong to a small gym. Classes get changed and cancelled a lot). This time they at least planned the cancellation ahead of time.

Which brings us to today. I've put "60 mins spinning class" on Basta's workout schedule every Tuesday for the next few weeks. I think spinning will improve his biking. It'll also encourage me to go, and lord knows I need both the improvement in the biking and the workout for myself.

I packed my stuff again. I know I should do this. But I fear the spinning. I don't know if I want to work out that hard. I was dreading it all day long.

Along about noon, I started to feel sick. Hmm. Really sick or dreading spinning sick? It feels really sick, but who knows? I started on the Zicam right away and have high hopes that will do the trick yet again. But tonight, I feel achy and snuffly. I need to be healthy by this weekend when we head up to the wine country, so I opted to skip spinning (aw) and go home to bed instead.

Basta, determined to get his minutes done this week but not wanting to spin without me, decided to ride the trainer at home instead. We are still debating the Computrainer and right now just have a regular fluid trainer. It works well. Of course, it's boring as hell. He moved it up to the bedroom so he can watch tv while he rides, but still. It's boring. He did 60 minutes tonight, bitching pretty much the whole time. I wonder if the CompuTrainer will be any less boring? I think somewhat so. You get to see a lot of stats, work on your form, and watch a video of actual courses. But it'll still be a trainer. I think that's something you just need to change your attitude for or else it'll always be awful.

Next week, Napa. My next potential spin drama is mid-December. Far enough away for now.

Day of Rest

2007-11-26T19:08:00.001-08:00

Mondays are rest days for both of us. The last two Mondays Basta has been pooped. Lead legs, achy body, and very, very ready for the rest day.

Today, he's fine. Happy to not be training for a day, but not exhausted. Of course, this was also Thanksgiving week and he skipped a few workouts. But let's ignore that for the moment. I like to think that he's getting more fit and able to handle the workout load better.

Well, no. Scratch that. I just updated his actual times against his planned times. He was supposed to do 600 minutes this week. He did 423. No wonder he's feeling rested. But holidays make it hard, I know this. He could have skipped a lot more than he did. He could have drank a bit less at the friend's get-together Friday night and gotten a better ride done on Saturday, too. But I suppose if he were perfect he'd be wearing a halo and that would probably annoy the hell out of me.

This coming week he has 720 minutes scheduled. We'll be out of town for half of it. Not ideal. Fortunately, we're spending Fri - Sun with a friend who is a biker. He has a 56-mile ride planned for us on Saturday. He rides FAST. I'm hoping he can teach Basta a lot of technique that day. They are going to ride most of the Vineman course so Basta can see what it's like. He wants to do the half Vineman this year. I'm going to ride some of it myself, just not with them. They are too fast for me.

Basta hasn't ridden 56 miles all in one sitting in nearly a year. His longest ride in these three short weeks of training has been around 2 hours. Also, there aren't many hills around here. We have to drive to find hills if we want them. This Vineman course is very hilly, and he won't be done in 2 hours. I suspect this is going to kick his ass.

It'll also help get all of his minutes done this week.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

2007-11-26T15:29:00.001-08:00

Is it truly evil? Why? I've been trying to figure this out since I first heard about the potential evil of it. After reading tons of articles, both those slanted ultra-negatively against it and those that sneer at the very thought that anything could be wrong with it. And loads in between. Here's what I've figure out:

The problem isn't exactly "High Fructose Corn Syrup." It's any fructose in high doses. Let me explain the difference.

Fructose is a natural sugar. It's what you get when you eat an apple, for instance. Fructose, unlike most other sugars, must be broken down by the liver before it can be utilized. If you eat an apple's worth of fructose, this isn't a problem. It's a small amount and the liver handles it easily.

High fructose corn syrup contains a massive amount of fructose, comparatively speaking. The equivalent of far more apples than any human would ever eat in a day. The liver can't handle this well. So what does it do? Same thing it does for most things that overwhelm it: It creates and stores fat. Eventually this can lead to fatty liver disease. Some research shows that HFCS can cause a host of other maladies, but this simple fat-storage trigger is enough for me to want to avoid it. My liver has enough work to do processing the wine that I drink and all of the environmental toxins I am exposed to. I don't need to be forcing it to do so much more work when I can easily avoid this stuff.

And that means avoiding all fructose, not just the high fructose corn syrup variety. I'll still eat an occasional apple (and other fruits) with their natural dosage of fructose, but I don't need products that use fructose as the sweetener. My liver doesn't need it.

All other types of sugar are broken down in the stomach and can be absorbed directly by the cells without having to be processed through the liver. Thus, from an athlete's perspective, they are more readily available.

Armed with this knowledge, I went through our stores of myriad sports drinks, gels, blocks, tablets, and wafers that we've picked up at various events over the years. We have piles of this stuff. I swear, we'll never need to actually purchase a sports drink ourselves. That's even with me putting back anything that says 'partially hydrogenated' or 'high fructose' on it.

I was not surprised to find that a fair number of these products on the 'nutrition' shelf in the garage contain fructose. I had sworn off HFCS-containing sports products a long time ago (and there are a lot of them), but I wasn't aware of the trouble with fructose itself until recently. Even my beloved GU contains fructose. Bye, bye, GU.

We only use products that are fructose-free now. Anything made by Clif is a-okay in my book. Rice syrup is the carb and most ingredients are organic. Plus, they are great event sponsors.