What’s in store for 2013

Wow, 2012 seemed to come to an end very quickly. So fast that I didn’t really have much time to reflect and plan out much for 2013.

For 2013 I am going to try some new things.  For triathlon I will focus on speed, with some sprint and olympic distance races.  We have planned a family trip for the summer, so most of my races will either be early or late season.  I may sign-up for a 70.3 distance later in the year.

For the last 2 years I have set some big goals, starting with a 70.3 in 2011, and full Ironman in 2012.  This year I am going to change things a bit and aim for my first xterra off-road triathlon in June.  I am hoping to mix in a fair amount of mountain bike riding into my training, and since my kids are now starting to ride on the trails too – it will be a great opportunity to have some family fun.

Possible races:-

• January – Ragnar Florida Keys
  The basic premise is that you have a team of 12 people run 36 legs in a relay totaling 199 miles from Miami to Key West.  Each competitor has 3 legs.  Mine total around 19 miles.  I have no real expectations, other than to go out and have fun, and run hard
• March – possible rock n roll half marathon
• March – Rev3 Trail/MTB series – leg 1
  rev3 announced a new series of 5k/10k trail run and 18mile MTB, separate races on the same day.  I would like to do both the 10k trail run and MTB races
• April – Rev3 Trail/MTB series leg 2
• April – Richmond Sprint Triathlon (possible)
• May – Kinetic Sprint or 70.3  (sprint is on mothers day, so may do the 70.3)
• June – xterra Richmond
• June – rev3 olympic, Williamsburg (may try the 70.3 distance)
• July – family vacation
• August – Luray sprint (possible)
• September – Nation’s Tri – 4th year in a row
• October/November – might try a marathon

These are the races on the radar, it is likely that I will not do all of them.

2012 Recap

Here is a summary of the races I competed in for 2012.

January – Frozen 5k.  New 5k PR – 18:50
March – Mollys 5k – 20:31, solid run on a course that was long
May – ITU Olympic distance Triathlon, San Diego – 2:25:22 – best race of the year
June – EagleMan 70.3 – 5:55:33  20 min PR from 2011, but had nutrition problems that lead to a difficult run
July – IronMan Lake Placid – 11:24:44 – good race, exceeded my goals/expectations
August – not a lot of structured training
September – Nations Triathlon – 2:24:39  solid race, good performance
October – Giant Acorn sprint, calf issues on the run, but still a decent performance
November – Zombie 5k obstacle race for fun with the family

After a great off-season, I started off strong with a great performance in San Diego, which ended up being my best race of the year.  The highlight was my first full IronMan at Lake Placid.  I found that preparing for an IronMan really takes a toll both mentally, physically and on family life.  I tried my best to get by with a minimum of training, averaging <12 hours per week for the 3 months leading up to the race.  Given that, and some calf issues leading up to the race I was very happy with a sub 11:30 finish time.

Here is how my year looked according to WKO+.  The blue line is CTL – chronic training load, a measure of overall fitness.  The Pink line is ATL, Acute Training load, a short term measurement indicating how hard you are training and how tired you are.  The yellow line is TSB, roughly CTL-ATL – it can be used to tell how race ready you are.

You can clearly see that I successfully built my fitness leading in the middle of the year, with a pretty steep drop off after IMLP.  The CTL (blue line) started increasing again in November when I got back to a decent schedule with my off-season routine.

Comparisons to 2011

• Run miles – 989 – (790 in 2011)- 182 hrs
• Bike miles – 3,751 – (2300 in 2011) – 141hrs
• Swim yards – 162,600 – (147,000 in 2011) – 52hrs

I think this chart shows pretty well how my year of training went, it shows the time distribution for swim (blue), bike (red) and run (green) for each week across the year and the big drop off in training volume after the IronMan.

I will write up a post with details on what is in store for 2013.  I don’t have a big A race planned yet, there will be no full IronMan in 2013.  I am hoping to complete an XTerra (off-road triathlon) and spend more time on the mountain bike, and competing in the shorter triathlon races, mostly sprint and Olympic distances.

My first adventure is running the Ragnar Florida Keys relay on January 4th-5th.

my first century ride

Last friday I completed my first century ride – my training plan was to execute an IronMan race rehearsal with 6hrs or 112 miles of riding followed by 1hr or 6 miles of running – whichever comes first for each.

Since there is a fair amount of climbing – I mapped out a course that would be around 100 miles, and have over 9,000 feet of climbing. 

Here’ is the route I took.

and the elevation profile – both courtesy of Strava – complete detail here

My approach was to ride this as close as I can to an IronMan paced effort.  Based on recent FTP tests,  and targeting 70% of that – my goal was to be around 205-220 watts.  I also broke the ride down into 30 minute segments, this way you closely watch you average/normalized power for a 30 minute window (or box) and don’t worry too much about what has already happened, or what is coming.  This  really helps to stay in the moment and not dwell on how long the ride really is.

I deliberately kept the first segment/30 minutes easy, then stayed steady from there, even during the hilly segments, I tried to keep it within my ranges.  Here’s how it unfolded.

Entire workout:

	Avg	Max
Total miles		102.9
Total Time		6:02
Avgerage Power	206	511
Normalized Power	211
Vi	1.7
Cadence	85	121
Elevation Gain	8,747
Speed	17.1	44.7
Temperature	84.6	102.2

With the temperature and humidity, the last 2 hours of the ride was really tough.  As I descended into Sperryville, the temperature went from 85 – 100 within 30 minutes and stayed there for the last 90 minutes.

Overall it was a great ride, it managed/conserved my energy well and executed my fueling well too.  I consumed the following. 

Total calories – 1,900 (316/hr)
                          20oz EFS Liquid Shot + 3 scoops EFS frruit punch in 26oz water
                          6x Hammer enduralytes 
                          approximately 150oz water (filled up twice during the ride)

The other thing to note about this ride was that I went into it with a fair amount of fatigue.  In the 3 days prior to this ride I had done the following:-

• tuesday – hard swim
• wednesday – bike FTP test
• thursday – 2:30 long run – 18 miles

I think with the heat and accumulated fatigue, I managed to have a great long ride, one that sets me up well with 3 more weeks to go before Lake Placid.

Next stop… San Diego

This coming Saturday is my first race of the 2012 triathlon season.  The ITU World Triathlon in San Diego. I am racing the Olympic age-group race.  This event also serves as an Olympic qualifier for many countries.  The women’s pro race is on Friday afternoon, age groupers race early Saturday and the men’s pro race is Saturday afternoon.  The location for the race is Mission Beach/Bay, San Diego – the same location where the first triathlon was held almost 40 years ago.  I can’t wait to get out there and experience all of it.

The picture below shows the bike course (in red).

My main goal is to get out there and have a lot of fun, with no real time goals other than to go hard for the whole race.   I hope to get out of the swim in 28-30minutes, bike the 25 miles in 1:05-1:15, and run somewhere in the low 40’s for the 10k.  Looking at the course profile (picture below) there is a challenging hill that we climb on both loops of the bike.  My plan for the bike is to go hard for the whole ride, and see what I might have left on the run.

I think USAT have done a great job with this race, especially by offering free bike transport for athletes from the DC/VA area, as a part of the world club challenge.  I took my bike to the truck on Sunday afternoon and got to meet Siphiwe who is driving the truck across country.  He is a triathlete, and recently finished IronMan South Africa.  I am sure the bikes will be well taken care of.   They have created a twitter account (@FitnessTrucking  & @kanebicycles) , and a blog so we can follow their progress! (http://sandiegoorbust2012.blogspot.com/).  They are making good progress and we all really appreciate that they are making this possible.  Here is a picture from the blog post, showing the 55 bikes from DC all nicely packed.

I wouldn’t be traveling to this race had it not been for the free bike shipping.  Getting to see the pro’s fight it out for Olympic spots, especially the Australian and USA teams should be a real highlight.

2011 OutSeason review/results

This year I decided to switch things up a bit, and join in on the Endurance Nation out season.  I had listened to a number of their podcasts, and their philosophy on training and racing fit well with my thoughts.   The basic idea is to get fast first, then add far on top of the fast.  This is completely opposite to many other training plans where you start with volume, and then add speed on top of that.

The plan is a simple concept.  Low volume (6-8 hrs / week), high intensity bike and run workouts. No swimming.  The workouts are really hard, but they produce results. 

I started my OutSeason training in November, shortly after my last race of the season.  I had high expectations for improvement, and was starting in the best shape I have ever been in.

The OutSeason is a 20 week program, broken down into sections for functional threshold work (FTP) for 8 weeks, then V02 (much harder effort for shorter periods of time) for 6 weeks and back to functional threshold to finish the season.  Included in the mix are test weeks after each section so you can monitor your progress.

Throughout the 20weeks, I completed as much of the plan as I could.   Sometimes I would have to skip sessions due to travel and other commitments, and on 2 occasions I took 3 days off due to illness.  Other than that I stuck to the plan very closely.

Here is a chart I started keeping with weekly training volume.  It shows that I averaged under 6hrs per week. 

I stuck to the no-swimming part of the plan for November and December, then added  some  shorter sessions in January.  My rationale for adding swimming was I needed to work on my technique and I was not traveling much at the time.  This allowed me to add some swimming without compromising any bike/run workouts.

Another thing I started to focus on after following some of the EN forum posts was body composition.  My bike power and run speed were coming along nicely, however I realized I would get a boost in power/weight ratio if was was also able to shed a few extra pounds.  During January I weighed in at 184lbs – a little over my racing weight from last year.   I downloaded the LoseIt app on my phone and started documenting my food intake.  I soon realized that I could cut down just a little on rest days, but I was not really eating enough on hard training days  It really helped identify my total calorie intake, and the mix of carbs/protien/fats.  Over an 8 week period I managed to drop 10lbs!  I think this is the lightest I have been since my mid-20’s.  I am already under the weight that I was hoping to be by IM Lake Placid.  It might be time to set new goals!

The results at the end of the season were:-

	Start	End	Diff
Bike FTP	256	283	+27watts
5k Run	20:11	18:50	-1:21
Weight	182	174	-8lb

So that equates to a 10% increase in bike power, and 20% in power/weight ratio.  My run times have gotten significantly faster, and more importantly I managed to consistently run well for all 20 weeks.  The other interesting thing is that my swim time did not drop by much from last year, and will easily be made up (and hopefully exceeded) when the swim volume begins.

I am very happy with these results and exceeded any expectations I had.  I hope to continue to make progress throughout 2012.  For me it proved to be the perfect platform to start the 2012 season.

1,000 miles in my Newton’s

This weekend I hit 1,000 miles of running in my Newton Gravity’s.  While it is customary to change into a new set of shoes every 300-500 miles, mine have been still going strong and not showing a lot of wear.  The wear pattern is even across the lugs too, showing that my foot strike/form must at least consistent.

Until now I didn’t really see a need to get a new pair.  I have raced in them a few times, but recently only used them for training (using the Distance lightweight trainer for races).    Of course lugs have worn down over time, but the rest of the shoes are still in great shape.

After hitting the 1,000 mile mark – I think it is time these shoes entered retirement. The good news is that Newton just released the new model of the Gravity training shoes, this time in Red!

2011 by the Numbers

It is that time of year again when we reflect on what we did, and start thinking about what is to come for the following year. 

For me 2011 was a breakthrough year, starting slowly with a few months of physical therapy and finishing with a great races at the Nation’s Triathlon (olympic) & Beach 2 Battleship (half iron distance).  I am very happy with my progress this year, especially for running and the bike,  I am really looking forward to some strong performances in 2012.

Here is a summary of the year, in numbers – since 2011 was the first year I was really tracking mileage (using trainingpeaks), I can’t compare to directly 2010.

• 5 – number of triathlon’s I completed
• 5 – number of PR’s overall or s/b/r individually
• 15:22 – minutes faster for the 13.1 mile run from EagleMan in June to Beach 2 Battleship in October
• 147,000 – number of yards I swam this year, not bad after not swimming at all in November or December (48hrs)
• 2,300 – number of miles on the bike (143hrs)
• 790 – number of miles running (110hrs)
• 88,591 – number of miles flown on United this year (just short of 50,000 in 2010)
• 53 – nights stayed within the Hilton family of hotels (~20 for other chains)
• 268w – last bike ftp test of the year (December 19th) – started the year at 240w
• 19:12 – fastest 5k run test of the year (December 21st), huge improvement
• 0 – surgical procedures in 2011.  2 in 2010 (knee’s), 1 in 2009 (nasal valve reconstruction)

I will post something about my goals for 2012 next week – I have only planned as far out as Ironman Lake Placid in July.  I am really not sure what I will feel like after that.

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2012 & if you are out partying on new year’s eve – stay save.

A quick trip to Sydney

Last month, I had to go back home for a week to renew my work visa.  While my main priorities were work and cleaning out our storage unit (after 9 years), I was able to catch up with family and friends and I managed to get a few decent training sessions in.  I am a bit biased, but Sydney has got to be one of the best training places anywhere in the world.

I have one more race this season, the Beach 2 Battleship half (70.3) on October 29th.  Since this will be a cool salt water swim, I wanted to get a few swim sessions in with my wetsuit.  So I headed down to Dee Why Beach, on Sydney’s northern beaches.  There is a 50meter outdoor pool, which sits right on the ocean, and is filled with ocean water.  This was a perfect place to get some good training in, and since the water was still cold (17c/63f) I could get some wetsuit time in too.  A 50meter pool is so much better than the 25yard chlorinated pool I usually swim in.  The salt water was nice too – every race that I do in fresh water (just about all of them) feels a little weird, having grown up at the beach.

Here’s a few pictures of the pool @ Dee Why.
after swimming, letting my wetsuit dry off a little.  That is Long Reef in the background, one of my favorite windsurfing spots.

another view of the pool, the water was perfectly clear, sure beats my local pool.

For me, swimming with the wetsuit is much faster than without – I managed to get in a 2km (2,180y) in just over 35 minutes, that is so much faster than I usually swim.  I hope I can replicate this during my next race!

I also managed to get in a great long run, right in the heart of downtown Sydney.  My course took me from the Opera house, through the botanical gardens, across the harbour bridge, past Luna park, back across the bridge, around to darling harbour and then back to the opera house.  It took 2 hrs and was almost 15 miles.  This continued something that I started in San Francisco when I ran over the Golden Gate Bridge.  I struggled on the last 30 minutes of this run.  I’ll chalk that up to a lack of nutrition/electrolytes whilst running.  Better for that to happen in training than in a race.

Map of my run course, from Garmin connect (used my edge 500 bike computer during the run)

I had also planned a great long ride, but due to heavy rain I had to give it a miss.  I was really looking forward to a solid 3-4hr ride in the hills national park from Church point, to Cottage point.

Even though it was a short trip (7 days) I think I made good use of my time, and get everything done.  I am looking forward to my next trip back home, however I am not sure when that will be.

Nation’s Tri predictions & calf injury

I am doing the Nation’s Tri again this year.  It was my most fun race from last year – see my race report for details.

Not only was it a fun race last year, it was my first Olympic distance Triathlon, and I finished with a time that far exceeded my expectations – 2:28:11.  So what about this year, do I think I can beat that?  Until 2 days ago, I was pretty sure I could post a great PR this year after some solid training for the last few months, but then on Sunday I was at the pool with the kids and while diving off a 1meter diving board I felt a pop in my left calf.  I could barely walk after getting out of the water.  Since then I have been applying plenty of rest, ice and compression.  It is starting to feel a little better, but is still very sore.  I can’t push at all, but I can walk.  I don’t think I will be running at all next Sunday during the race.  I do have an appointment at a Sports Doctor for Thursday to get a better idea of the extent of the problem and what the recovery time is likely to be.

My first thought was that my race was done, however after some reflection I realized how lucky I am to be able to race at all.  Less than 3 years ago I would never have thought I’d be competing in an Olympic distance triathlon, especially with a 1.5km swim.  I remember seeing some forum posts recently that a DFL > DNF > DNS.  So with that in mind, or unless the doctor tells me otherwise, I am going to start the race and walk through T1, T2  and the run.  So instead of getting down about missing my original goal, I can set a completely new goal.

I hope the swim will be wetsuit legal again this year, if not I’ll be around 2-3 minutes slower than last year.  Anywhere around 28-30 minutes will be great.  If the water is warm, I think I will be in the 30-32 minute range.  This year they have switched to a time trial start, instead of mass waves of 200+.  This should be interesting.  It means that we can’t get in the water before the start for a warm-up.  My swimming is not as strong as it was last year, having spent a whole lot less time at the pool.  I have been working hard for the last few weeks, so I am hoping that I can come close to last years great time of 27:37.

I am stronger on the bike this year.  With the new bike fitness/power and the new bike, I am still hoping for a strong performance.  The course is a little different, so I am not sure how that might change the final time. Last years time was 1:08:27, far exceeding my expectation of a 1:15.  This was the first race that I was able to average over 20mph.  I’d really like to finish in the 1:05-1:06 range this year. 

Last year’s run leg was a great one for me – 46:39, this was a real breakthrough. I felt strong and really pushed for the last 3 miles. Before the calf injury I was hoping to get close to that again  So now I am going to try to walk in a sub 15:00 mile pace.

Time Predictions:

	2010	2011 (fit)	2011 walking
Swim	27:37	28:00	28:00
T1	3:40	3:40	5:00 (walking)
Bike	1:08:27	1:06	1:06:00
T2	1:50	1:50	3:00 (walking)
Run	46:39	46:00	1:28:00 (walking)
Total	2:28:11	2:25:30	3:10:00

The time is always hard to predict, I think a 2:25 was possible before the injury.  Usually I can walk much faster than 15:00/mile so I’ll walk as fast as I can without pain.  If I can walk a little faster, I might go close to the 3:00 mark.

So my priorities and goals have changed.  #1 is to make sure I don’t do any damage to my calf.  If I can have a good swim/bike I’ll be happy with whatever comes after that.  I am trying to keep things in perspective.  I will be happy being out there giving it a go, and if I do happen to be dead last, then I will celebrate that I could finish and didn’t give up.

Wish me luck!

Weight Loss Update–2 days in, 4.8 lb. down

I am now 2 days into my effort to drop a few pounds before my next race in just over 3 weeks.

So far it is going pretty well, here’s an update of my progress.

• Day 1
  • Start weight: 185
  • 1hr run in the morning, 3x1 mile repeats, afternoon 30 minute swim
• Day 2
  • Weight: 182.5 – down 2.5
  • feeling a little tired.  Masters swim in the evening.  In addition to the egg whites & avocado, I had a muffin and Hammer bar to fuel the masters session.  Felt good.
  • Skipped my planned run workout today, have some pain in my left heel.  It is probably Plantar Fasciitis, so I need to rest my feet for a few days.
• Day 3
  • Weight:  180.2 – down 2.3 since yesterday, 4.8 total
  • bike interval session this morning, planned 4x10mins @ 255w with 2 minutes rest.  Got through the first 2 intervals ok, but struggled on the 3rd, stopped 5 minutes into the 3rd work interval, and rode 15 minutes easy, with a 3 minute hardish effort.  Usually I’d consider that a fail, but I think the lack of fueling before the workout hurt me here.  Ran a 20 minute brick after the ride at a pretty slow pace and felt ok

So far I am pretty happy with progress so far, let’s see if I can get under 180 tomorrow.

Training/Racing Update

It has been a while since my last post after the EagleMan 70.3 race.  Since then I’ve had a busy summer, which included volunteering at IronMan Lake Placid, and registering to race there next year!

My training has been progressing well, and this weekend I raced a sprint triathlon in Luray – this was really a B race just to see where I my training is, before the Nation’s Triathlon in September (4 weeks away) and the Beach to Battleship 1/2 tri at the end of October.  I’ll post a race report this week.  I managed to finish 2nd in my Age group – first time in the top 3 and a very encouraging result.  More on that later this week.

The other thing we (my wife and I) started this week is a push to lose a few extra pounds.  My weight has been hovering around 183 for the past 6 months, and I thought that dropping down to the high 170’s would mean I could run a little faster.  So we are trying to replicate what Fatty – from fatcylist.com did with his egg white/avocado eating plan.  His blog is awesome, and when we talked about both wanting to lose 5+ pounds, I immediately thought if this.

This morning we weighted in – I’ll try to keep posting my progress for the next couple of weeks, or at least until we stop.

Starting Weight:  185lb – I always seem to weight more after a weekend, and would likely drop to 184 by tomorrow anyway.
Goal Weight:  178lb

I am still going to keep training, only then will I consume something different, like Recoverite after a hard workout, or EFS during a longer workout etc.

So far today I’ve had 1 serving (5 egg whites with 1/2 avocado) and about an hour after that I went for a 1hr run with 3x1mile intervals at the track.  I felt pretty good, especially considering I raced pretty hard yesterday.

Wish me luck!

Bike Progress

Last weekend I chose to do a 34 mile hard ride, followed by a 30 minute brick run.  Since it was 1 week out from race day (EagleMan) I wanted to complete one last race style test before starting to taper for the race.

I made a few changes to the bike in preparation for the race:-

• added a water bottle holder for between the aero-bars, for carrying nutrition (most likely EFS liquid shot)
• fitted 2 new tires with latex tubes
  I purchased 2 Specialized S-Works Turbo 700/23c competition tires, and ordered some Michelin A1 AirComp latex tubes – 700x18c-20c.  These tires have 220tpi casings and are a much lower rolling resistance than the standard Bontrager R1Plus that came with my bike

The course that I chose was a challenging out/back with a lot of hills, for the 33.3 miles there is a total of 2,400 feet of climbing, see the elevation profile below.

I have completed this ride twice now – here’s the statistics for each.

Date	Total Time	Avg Speed	Avg HR	Max HR	Max Speed
22-May	1:45:09	20.1mph	141	160	36.8
5-Jun	1:39:39	18.9mph	140	158	38.3

This is a huge difference/improvement.  Only 2 weeks apart and a 5:30 faster time and a 1.2 mph increase in average speed.  The lower rolling resistance of the new tires/tubes seem to have made a large difference.  My fitness is probably better too, but that should only account for a 1-2 minute advantage.  I am really happy with this result, especially with EagleMan within a week now.

If I look back to just 1 year ago, I was about to head into my 2nd knee surgery of the year, and had not been on my bike since October of the year before.  Before then I struggled to average 18mph for any ride, even flat courses.  To have come so far in a short time is really amazing, and something I need to remember if I ever get down about a performance.

I am still aiming for a minimum 20mph bike leg at EagleMan – it is likely that I will go faster, but this is my first long-course race and I want to be able to run strong.

April Totals

April is a month that i ‘d rather forget from a training perspective.  It started when I returned from a business trip to California – 2 weeks of a flu/heavy cold that I just couldn’t shake.  I tried to complete some light training during this time.  I didn’t push the pace and wasn’t swimming at all during that period.

	Distance	Time (hrs)	Difference from last month
Swim	11,000 yds	3.25	-6,350
Bike	177 miles	9.2	-52
Run	59.18 miles	8	-30
Other		9	-2
Walking	13 miles	3.5
off days		7	+3

I also had another strain in my calf, the left one this time.  So for the last few weeks I have backed off the running and added some more physical therapy (part of the “other” category).

I have 2 weeks until my first race of the season – I hope that the calf is better by then, and I can’t wait to try the new bike in competition.

March Totals

Wow – the year is 1/4 over as far as the calendar goes.  January and February for me were focused on physical therapy, to fix the problems I had with my calf and the hip imbalance's that we found.

For march I was finally able to start running again, building up from 45 minutes to just over 1hr for the longer sessions.  Here’s a summary from training peaks.

Swim 17,350 yards   5.5 hours
Bike    229 miles         11.8 hrs
Run    89.6 miles        12.6 hrs
Mtb    14.9 miles          2.5 hrs
Other (stretching)     11 hrs
Days with no training - 3

Overall I am happy with that – I thought I had spend more time on the bike, but it has been hard with some of the traveling that I have been doing, including a 4 day weekend at the beach.  If I add the 2.5 hr mountain bike ride the bike total looks a little better.

April has started off quite a bit differently.  Since returning from California, I’ve managed to bring back a nasty flu that has meant no training for the last 4 days.  I am hoping that tomorrow I can at least get some light exercise for 30minutes.  I did have a flu shot last year, I guess that it has worn off by now.  I haven’t been as frustrated as I thought, since I really have been feeling off.  Today is the first day where I was feeling a little agitated.  I’ll take that as a sign that I am getting better.  All of the coughing that I have been doing has worked out the abs though!