Treadmills and Hamster Wheels

My Wednesday brick was cancelled today due to rain.  Fortunately, I work for a great company on a fantastic office complex featuring a state-of-the-art gym that now includes spin bikes. Shannon, half of my vaunted Shan Clan training team, led the workout.  One hour and 600 hundred calories later, I was drenched in sweat, so much so that Shannon joked she could see my nipples poking through my mesh tank.  Hey, it was hot in there, OK?  My bike workout called for 1:15 so I spent the next 25 minutes on a recumbent stationary bike.  This was only made worse by dwelling on how much better it is to be outside riding with my friends and teammates.

But that's not all!  Since it was a brick, I needed to run for one hour.  Complicating matters was me leaving my running shoes in the car and being too lazy to schlep to the parking lot to retrieve them.  So I chose instead to use the elliptical machine because I was rockin' my low-top Chuck Taylor's, which offer absolutely no support for my flat and sensitive feet.

Let me assure you, two-plus hours indoors on spin bikes and treadmills feels like an eternity.  Might as well have been a four-hour workout. It's almost like the duration of indoor workouts feel the way dogs age -- in this instance on the opposite end of that exponential scale.

By the time my interminable workout ended, after stretching, showering, driving from Burbank for food and finishing it at home, it was 9:30 p.m.  My workout started at 5.

Some days, the world of training for an Ironman makes total sense.  The journey is pure, the cause is just, the scenery is beautiful and the company is even better.

Other days, I sit on my couch while blogging before bedtime wondering what the hell I'm doing.  It's 10 p.m. and I have to be up at 5:40 to be in the pool at 6 so I can run at 7.  All because I have a flight for a business trip at 11 a.m. -- one that I'll be home from by 8 p.m.

I suppose the irony of all this is that sometimes my life feels like it's on its own treadmill...with the speed ever-increasing while the resistance continues to elevate.  Along with my heart-rate.

Maybe it's more of a hamster wheel?

217 days and counting.

The Natural

Among sports purists, there's often heated debate about the greatest sports movies of all time.  Some of my favorites include Field of Dreams, Remember the Titans, Rocky (all except Rocky V), and Hoosiers. None surpass Rudy though.

I realize I'm not listing many on the list.  Including the Robert Redford classic, The Natural.

What's this got to do with triathlons?

It's simple, really.  This past Sunday, my college friend and fraternity brother, Rusty,  completed his first triathlon.  It happened to be a Half-Ironman, in New Orleans.

His time? Six hours, two minutes.

The Natural. Enough said.

I saw what the man ate before the race.  Po Boys.  Fried alligator.  French fries.  If it looked unhealthy, Rusty took a photo and posted it on Facebook before devouring it.

And then he chewed up his first tri and spit it back out.  (While keeping the fried food down, miraculously.)

I'm about to participate in my 10th triathlon and I wonder if I can come close to breaking six hours at my first Half-Ironman this July, Vineman.  That is, if I make it into the race -- I'm currently on the wait list.

Aside from seemingly breaking every culinary pre-race rule, Rusty trained really hard right up until the final week of the race.  Taper?  Nah, not really. And Rusty did most of his training on his own.  No coach.  No team.  No tri club. Just him, basically.

I'm incredibly happy for my friend.  He has been on a similar journey as me, even blogging about his training experience.  And he designed a sweet race kit to match his blog brand, Season One Racing.  Yet, while Rusty is The Natural, I'm closer to Rudy.  As the movie quote goes, I'm "five-foot nothin'.  A hundred and nothin.  And not a spec of athletic ability."  I need the coach.  I need the team.  I need the help just to keep up with faster, stronger, bigger, badder athletes.  Always have.  And Lord knows what would happen to me if I ate a bunch of fried food in my first triathlon, let alone a Half-Ironman.

I'm in awe of Rusty's accomplishment.  Wondering if I can approximate his success.

I can tell you one thing, it serves as motivation.  Just like Rudy trained even harder in moments of doubt or failure, I will be using Rusty's performance as my own fuel.  If he can do it, I can do it.  It started this morning in the pool.  I missed a workout yesterday to attend the Dodgers game.  I could have skipped it since my training allows for one skipped workout per week.  But, that 6:02 is burned in my head.  And I know if I let up one bit on myself, the clock will continue to tick away. Mentally, I'll see myself getting slower right then and there. Can't do it.  Can't have it.  Won't accept it.

So tomorrow, at 6 a.m., you'll find me in Sherman Oaks at the local pool. Then, I'll be on the trainer for an hour-plus cycling session.

I may not be the fastest.  Or the strongest.  Or the biggest.  But I will work the hardest.

Rusty, I couldn't be more proud of you.  You have done something I can't wait to experience for myself and you absolutely crushed the time.

Not bad for your first time out!

I can't thank you enough for the added motivation, either.

219 days and counting.

Night Shift

I remember reading these LA Tri Club dispatch emails last year where people would discuss meeting up in the afternoon to do their brick workouts.  I'd think to myself, "Um, yeah.  Helllooo?!  Some of us work.  That's crazy to just leave work early just for training.  I'd never do that -- it's just excessive."

Today, for the second time in three weeks, I left work early to train in the middle of the afternoon.  Because my workout schedule said I needed to do a brick lasting 2.5 hours.

Never say never.

Of course, I'm arriving into work early to make up the hours, which is nice on a Wednesday following a Tuesday morning workout. It likely will suck tomorrow around 5:30 a.m., when I wake up to visit the pool with the rest of my Fortius teammates.  But at least tonight's workout was fun and rewarding.  I felt fresh on the bike, scampering up Mt. Hollywood at Griffith Park towards Griffith Observatory without my heart-rate taking much of a beating. I felt vastly improved from just a couple weeks ago when I did the same ride more slowly.  I was rewarded at the top with this magnificent view of the Los Angeles basin.

Following the hourlong bike journey, about 15 LA Tri Clubbers and Fortius teammates embarked on an hourlong sunset run through Griffith Park.  We did a lot of climbing, but I handled it well since I was allowed to cross into heart-rate zone 4.  This gave me plenty of room to explore my pacing and threshold.  While I couldn't quite keep up with speedsters Mike and Richard, I felt faster than just a few months ago when I needed to walk a lot more of the course than I did tonight.  Granted, I was limited to heart-rate zone 3 at that stage, but progress is progress.

I gotta be honest.  Throughout the run, it felt like I was playing hooky from school (not that I ever did that, mom).  I'm enjoying this beautiful LA weather with some good friends and pursuing my passion.  I put in a full workday, but what better way to cap it off than to train in the afternoon when it's still light out (for the most part) and the rest of the world slaves away at their desks?  A little guilty?  Yeah, maybe.  Do I care? Nah, not really!

Now, sometimes when I visit the kitchen in our Burbank offices, I gaze towards the Griffith Park hills off in the distance.  I wonder if anyone is running on the trails at that moment.  And instead of thinking they're crazy, I will smile.  I know what it feels like to have that freedom and flexibility.

One day, I'm sure I'll miss not having it.  For now, I'll soak in the moment and enjoy the opportunity.

224 days and counting.

Cheering For a Giant Killer

I swam at 6 this morning.  This meant that The Big One didn't materialize as forecast.  But it was cold out -- just shy of 50 degrees.  I used to hate that kind of condition, but the steam rising from the 80-degree water creates such a mysterious, epic feel that I now look forward to plunging in the pool at that ungodly hour. It's the getting out part that is not so nice.

In fact, I chose not to do my customary second workout immediately after the swim because going from the warm pool to the cold outside makes it hard for me to feel my fingers for the first 10-15 minutes. I simply didn't feel like running -- instead choosing to surprise Stephanie, who was still sleeping at home.  She wasn't expecting me, as evident by her staring at me blankly for a few seconds wondering if she was dreaming or not.  Funny.

After a busy day in the office, I began workout #2 at 6:30 p.m., 12-plus hours later.  Pretty simple stuff, one hour of treadmill running with 20 minutes in heart-rate zone 3. Spacing the workouts apart so much was beneficial as I didn't crash in the middle of the work day from fatigue.  That happened around 5 p.m. instead, which was easier to overcome with a snack of homemade pizza that Steph and her girlfriends cooked together during their weekly "girls night."

The highlight of my training today didn't come from actually working out.  My buddy Rusty is about to compete in his first triathlon.  Rather than start with a sprint and work his way up, Rusty is tackling Ironman New Orleans 70.3 this Sunday.  Talk about just going for it!

I called Rusty to wish him well on his journey.  I think he'll be physically ready and mentally tough.  He's a pretty fast swimmer, and will absolutely annihilate the bike portion.  I encouraged him to wear a heart-rate monitor for the entire race so he can pace himself, especially since he hasn't done an actual triathlon race before.  Rusty has the right overall approach in that he doesn't really have a set time in mind, but rather rough projections of what he should be able to hit in each discipline if all goes well.

I can't imagine jumping straight into the deep end of this sport without prior triathlon experience. Some people thrive that way, like my swim coach and training partner, Megan.  She was telling me this morning on the way into swim practice that she's never done a sprint triathlon and started with a full Ironman.

Is experience overrated in this sport?  Is it better to just go for it and simply do your best to finish a 70.3 or full Ironman without the burden of knowing how tough the challenge really is? It's like the young basketball team that enters the NCAA Tournament not knowing it doesn't belong, only to peel off a string of upsets and advance farther than expected.

My thoughts are with Rusty for the next few days as he acclimates to 'Nawlins.  May he be a giant killer and slay his first 70.3 Ironman without too much pain and suffering.

Meanwhile, I'll resume my training tomorrow with an afternoon brick session at Griffith Park with LA Tri Club and my Fortius friends.  Off to sleep shortly to recover from today.

225 days and counting.

I Heard

Tonight, I heard a rumor from more than one source that Cal-Tech employees were sent home to prepare for a massive earthquake in Southern California.  The proverbial Big One. If you want to get anyone's attention who has ever spent a reasonable amount of time in the greater Los Angeles area, tell them you know something about The Big One and where and when it might occur.  If LA were a person, the Big One is our Achilles heel.  We are brought to our collective knees worrying about it and obsessing over it.

Of course, being the gullible person that I am, I tended to believe said rumor. Partially because two of the most credible people I know -- my father and my buddy John -- had been told the same thing by people they trusted.

Hours later, the Los Angeles Times and rumor debunking website Snopes.com rebuffed the rampant rumor, which spread on Twitter faster than a brush fire ignites on a windy, hot LA day.

As I sit down on my couch before bedtime to type, I realized this earthquake rumor and my Ironman training -- my other Big One -- are similar in one regard.  During the past several months, I've heard all sorts of stories about people bonking at Ironman, crashing days before the big event, or experiencing some grave misfortune after nearly a year of hard work and sacrifice.  Like an earthquake, these episodes are unpredictable, happen quickly, and the results can be shockingly painful. Numbing.

And like rumors, I've yet to meet someone who experienced an Ironman "Big One" on race day.  While the going certainly gets tough, the folks I've spoken with all finished.  Some have finished multiple Ironman events without experiencing a personal tremor.

I hope I can be so lucky.  Then again, maybe it's not luck at all, but preparation.  Like what I did this evening before learning that this rumor was a false one.  I used my triathlon transition bag to pack extra water, Clif Bars and Hammer gels.  Not to mention clothes, because navigating the streets of a chaotic and disoriented Los Angeles naked would really be a bad call.  I also checked over my emergency prep kit to actually see what's inside.

If I continue to prepare for Ironman in the same manner I prepared tonight for a massive earthquake that may never come, then hopefully the only Big One I experience will be the overwhelming feeling of accomplishment and pride when I achieve my goal time in Arizona of between 11:30 and 13 hours.

Then, the only quake you'd see is the "Ryan Shake."  And for the few people who actually get that inside joke, you know exactly what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Now, I'm going to get some rest.  Hopefully without any interruption.

226 days and counting.

Newport Beach Tri Race Report

Last night, I wrote about no longer needing sprint triathlons as part of my Ironman training.

Tonight, I write about why this morning's Newport Beach Triathlon was among the most important races I've completed.

Like my 20-mile Firecracker run in February, I proved something to myself this morning.  Perhaps more appropriate, I earned the validation I was seeking that my Fortius Coaching training is paying dividends.  After my LA Marathon debacle, I needed a proof point.  Moreover, was my Garmin speaking the truth lately?  Was I indeed getting slower?  These questions needed answers in the worst possible way, so the timing couldn't have been better to experience something tangible to compare year-to-year.

Fortunately, I did just that today, shaving off more than eight minutes from las year's 1:32:54 performance.

Eight minutes! I was hoping for improvement in the three-to-five minute range.  This year, I finished in 1:24:05, good for 11th place in my age group (top 20%) and top 20% among all men.

I cut 2:30 off last year's swim, nearly three minutes off last year's bike time and nearly :30 off my run.  The transitions were much faster too.  Moreover, my swim pace per 100 yards was by far my personal best -- 1:40.  My T-pace when I started training with Coach Gerardo was around 2:05.  I cannot believe the progress I've made.  Perhaps that is what I'm most proud of, given all the troubles I've been writing about lately regarding my swim technique.  And my 14:45 swim included a more brutal than usual opening 200 yards, with several people grabbing at my ankles and shoulders.  Not to mention slightly swimming off course after the first buoy.  In other words, I could've swam faster.  That's a great feeling.

Cycling the bike course several times yesterday paid off today too, though it was more than likely the lack of a cross-wind that put me over the top.  Yesterday, my Garmin indicated I averaged around 16.4 mph on my ride.  Today, I was .01 under a 20 mph average.  Of course, I was taking care yesterday to largely remain in heart-rate zone 2.  Today, while I could've dug a little harder, I was definitely in zone 3 for most of the ride.  Once again the only bikes beating me were guys on TT bikes.

I will be fixing that issue shortly.  I've got my eyes and heart set on a Cervelo P2 with upgraded wheels.

The run was about what I expected.  Were it not for the 7-8% grade hill at the 1.5 mile mark, I likely would have broken 21 minutes.  Instead, I paced myself to have a strong finishing kick.  I'm sure I negative split the latter 1.5, with a sprint on the last 150 yards.

There was also an intangible factor that helped fuel me this morning.  Stephanie, despite being sick, along with her dad came to support me.  This was the first triathlon that Steph's dad had ever seen, and I wanted to put on a show.  I wanted to let "Mr. V" know -- loud and clear -- what I was made of, and that the same kind of resolve and grit I demonstrate during a race is the same kind of attitude I will bring in taking care of his daughter.  As a result though, I was more nervous than I should have been.  Case in point: I put on my wetsuit backwards!

Fortunately, I overcame my nerves, along with a brief panic attack when I couldn't get my normal pre-race breakfast of oatmeal and banana until 40 minutes before the race.  Unlike the LA Marathon, the race itself was the highlight, instead of the pre- and post-event activities.

As I reflect on today's triumph, I no longer need to benchmark my training last year.  Fortius Coaching works.  My training is paying off.  I'm a better triathlete.  A more knowledgeable triathlete.

And tonight, a happier triathlete.

Next up: Wildflower!  But for just a little bit longer, I'll relish today's milestone. What was supposed to be a small event was a rather large confidence boost.

227 days and counting.

Race Night

Short post tonight.  Gotta get up at 4:45 a.m., standard wake-up call time for triathletes everywhere.

As I've mentioned this week, tomorrow morning is the Newport Beach triathlon.  It's a sprint, which means today I rode 35 miles on the bike as if it's any other training day.  But the scenery changed (pictured), which was welcome.  I rode tomorrow's Back Bay race course, which is primarily flat and very pretty. Mostly marshland, and outside of the afternoon cross-wind, numbingly consistent.  There's one brief climb that takes me from heart-rate zone 2 to 4 quickly if I'm not careful.  It's roughly an 11% grade for about 50 yards, and then drops off to 7% for another few hundred yards after that.  I rode the course loop at least five times today, so I actually feel more prepared for this race than most.

Overall, I learned today that sprint triathlons are probably not valuable for my Ironman training considering I'm working towards endurance and not necessarily bursts of speed.  I chose to compete in this event since I did it last year, when I was less strategic with my race selection.

As I told Coach Gerardo tonight via text, I think this is my last sprint tri for quite a while.

He agreed.

As for goals, last year I completed the course in 1:32:54.  The swim was just over 17 minutes, the bike was slightly longer than 48 minutes and the run was around 22.  My T1 was nearly three minutes and T2 was just over two minutes.  I'm hoping to shave off around three to five minutes total.

Wish me luck.

228 days and counting.

Is it Worth it?

My day started just outside Oakland (running hill intervals on a treadmill), wound through Simi Valley for lunch with my parents along with an afternoon swim, swung briefly through Sherman Oaks and concluded in Palos Verdes, for a wedding.

Yeah, I'm a little tired.

Fitting in training on days like today is a real pain in the ass.  I enjoy the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that comes with forcefully finding time to do something for myself.  However, it can come at a cost, mainly fatigue that reveals itself at inopportune moments at the end of the day. Such as at a wedding with all your friends.  While they're ramping up, I'm winding down -- like a toy solider running out of momentum.

It's moments like that where I admire professional athletes even more.  How do they find the balance to enjoy their lives while also putting in the necessary time and expending the energy EVERY DAY to be the very best at what they do? I "only" worked out 1.5 hours today, yet it was a significant feat to do so.  And it affected the flow of my entire day.

How do those of you who read this blog do it?  How do you feel when you do it?  After you do it?  Or if you aren't able to do it?

There are moments like right now, around 11 p.m. on a Friday night after an evening out with my lady, where I wonder if this whole Ironman journey is entirely healthy.  It forces me to compromise my social life, occasionally my work schedule and it can drastically affect my wallet.

What's the ROI here?

I know I'll be 100% fired up to train tomorrow.  But right now, at the end of a long day of planes, cabs, cars and toasts, I'm just a pile of exhaustion and confusion.

Why do I do this to myself?

229 days and counting.

Oh Garmin, My Garmin

I'm currently on the sneaky side of the double-mirrored glass at a focus group test in Northern California.  Ears glued to the discussion, eyes focused on uploading several days' worth of workouts on my Garmin 310x. Finally, I'm beginning to understand the wisdom contained in this supercomputer posing as a watch.

Sadly, I don't want to see some of the truths it contains.

My "controlled" tempo running pace is slower than I thought, to the tune of about 9:30.  I know I'm faster than that, but when instructed to keep my heart rate under control, more often than not 9:30 is where I live.  This would partially explain my demise at the LA Marathon to a degree.  I was pushing a faster controlled tempo pace than perhaps I should have while my immune system was having none of it.  That equals trouble, big-time.

I'm slower on the bike, too.  On road rides where I'm supposed to be cycling within the lower heart-rate zones, my pace is closer to 15.5 mph.  Yikes!  I can sustain 18-21 mph for sustained periods but on longer rides my pace drops.  I'm not sure what to make of that.  Am I a worse cyclist?  Smarter because I know how to pace myself?  Weaker because I need to?

One good bit of news is that my heart-rate rarely escalates above 90% of my max during any one workout.  So, I have plenty of fuel left in the tank during my training.  At least I know I'm capable of running faster and pedaling harder.  And, with two triathlon races coming up in the next three weeks, a mental confidence boost is just as valuable as a physical one.

Tomorrow I will approach my workouts not only a little more refreshed -- I had a training off-day due to my business trip -- but a little wiser about my capabilities.

Perception versus reality.  Friend or foe?

Both, I think.

230 days and counting.

2 For 1 Special

Technology was not my friend last night.  But of course, it was my own doing.  I left my laptop at work and my back-up wasn't able to log-in to my blog site for some reason. Lucky for you, today is a two-for-one special!

As I may have mentioned, I tweaked my right inside knee slightly climbing all those hills at the Wildflower training camp.  So yesterday, I took it pretty easy outside of the pool for my hour tempo intervals run.  Inside the pool, well, that was another story.  My friend and Fortius swim coach, Megan, pushed us hard during our 6 a.m. practice.  Among several drills, we did 10, 100-yard sprints at race pace with 10 seconds to rest between each 100.  My approximate pace was between 1:50-1:55, which if accurate, represents a 10-15-second improvement from my early 2:05 T-pace.  Still, my stroke is a mess.  When I'm not crossing my body on the follow-through, my arms are entering the water too early.  If I'm doing those things correctly, then I'm not rotating enough or kicking from my hips and not my lower legs.  Or keeping my head down.  Or gliding enough.

I have so many things to think about during each stroke, it's amazing I don't drown under the weight and pressure of it all.

Now I know what it must feel like being a professional baseball player at the plate batting against a four-pitch hurler.  Too many things to consider besides just swinging the bat.

Of course, like that baseball player who plays for the love of the game, I drag myself out of bed at 5:30 in the morning because I've grown to love being in the water -- no matter how twisted my technique may be.

There would be no water for me today though.  Instead, I had a brick session.  This was made more complicated since my car is in my father's repair shop for normal maintenance, and my Colnago is in the shop for a tune-up.  The compromise was to ride on the trainer at varying degrees of difficulty for 90 minutes and then immediately running hills for the next 45 minutes.  All before 9 a.m., when I need to race the clock to make it in the office by 10.

The bike ride was largely uneventful, made more enjoyable by catching up on The Pacific on HBO.  (Side note: I feel silly complaining about swim technique after watching a mini-series about the inexplicable hardships the Marines endured during WWII in brutally inhospitable jungles throughout the South Pacific.)

My only real concern is the soreness in my right inside knee.  I've never had knee trouble in my life, but after all the climbing we did at Wildflower I think I strained a quad muscle or hamstring.  The tightness in either muscle is pinching the convergence point of three muscle groups on my knee, reducing my flexibility.  The more I pedaled, and climbed in a higher gear, the more my knee acted up.

What was strange though was that my knee didn't hurt as much when I ran perhaps my most challenging local hill not residing in Boney Mountain or Cheseboro Park.  From my condo on Dickens Street in Sherman Oaks, I climbed Woodcliff Road at Valley Vista all the way to Mulholland Drive.  This was literally 20 minutes straight of steep climbing, approximately 1,200 feet if Google Maps is correct. I don't even know why I chose that route this morning.  Especially with my knee feeling a little funky.  Guess I was bored of the usual 'round-the-block runs I've been doing for more than a year now.  It's great to know that I can make it to Mulholland and back home within 45 minutes at a fairly relaxed pace, especially with Wildflower looming.

The only downside of my training today came not frm the workouts but from the recovery.  I had Abby, our company massage therapist, work on my right leg for 30 minutes just after lunch.  Surprisingly, it felt worse after, tighter, than it did immediately after the run and throughout the morning.  Why is that?  Over the past several hours, my knee has remained tight though it's a little more relaxed now that I'm on the couch typing.

Tomorrow is my training off day instead of Friday. I have a business trip in Northern California. Perhaps the extra day's rest is coming at the perfect time?  I hope so.  I really want to avoid another LA Marathon scenario where I can't perform to my potential at races due to circumstances beyond my control.

I'll remain positive, for now.

232 and 231 days and counting.