Running Form

On another educational topic, this week was the start of a 4-week clinic at Big Peach Running Company on Good Form Running. Since it's not news to me that my running form is pretty awful, I'm hopeful that the classes will help. Right now, I usually struggle to get my cadence as high as 80; the ideal of 90 has seemed unreachable.

The first session had a few drills, that didn't do much for me. What did help, though, was viewing a video of my running. It's on youtube here and here. What an eye-opener! Forget about cadence, the real problem is posture. The day after the session, I did a quick 2-mile trail run focussing entirely on posture. To be fair, I was running in a pair of minimalist trail shoes, and no doubt cadence was on my mind. But I wasn't consciously trying to speed it up. The data doesn't lie; average cadence was 86!

Now this is promising. I can't wait until the next session.

School Days Chapter 4

Key lessons from Chapter 4 of Going Long:

Nothing. Nada. Nil. Zip.

School Days Chapter 3

Not much of interest in the third chapter of Going Long, but I did like the following tidbit about cycling:

There isn't a much harder session to do perfectly than a four- to six-hour steady ride in the flats because that is a very long time to concentrate.

Consistent with my observations in a previous post.

School Days Chapter 2

Key lessons from the second chapter of Friel and Byrn's Going Long.

The main theme seems perfect for a first time Ironman: consistency, moderation, and recovery. They claim (reasonably) that the biggest limiter for an athlete new lo Ironman is aerobic stamina, and addressing that limiter is the only thing to worry about during training. They rely on three key workouts—build to 4000m swim, 5 hour ride, and 150 minute run. The plan is to first work toward completing all three in the same month, then the same week, and finally over a single weekend. Furthermore, the main focus every week is getting to the key workouts fresh and injury-free. Anything or any workout that compromises that focus must be eliminated.

There are two things I like about this approach. First, it's refreshingly simple. Just three workouts a week to really worry about; everything else is extra. The approach is also unambiguous. If something gets in the way, drop it. No doubt I'll find some way to obsess over some minor hill repeats or track intervals, but when that happens, I now have an out. Stress elimination at its finest!

Progress Report

Warning: high geek content ahead.

As noted in a early post, my short term focus is getting to a good racing weight rather than training. Today I dropped below 150 pounds, so there is less than 15 pounds to go. (I'm using a weighted moving average instead of daily scale readings to track weight. It's a much more accurate approach.) Over the past month, that's a little less than 1.8 pounds per week, which is more than I was anticipating. As long as it's less than 2 pounds per week, though, I won't worry.

Looking at the numbers from my bio-impedance scale (in which I put very little stock), I'm carrying 24.2 pounds of fat. Assuming as a (doubtlessly unrealistic) best case that I reach my goal through fat loss only, my body fat would be 9.5%. While definitely lean, that's not a crazy insane number; it's not at the 6% to 8% level of professional triathletes. More realistically, I'll probably end up between 10% and 12%. So for now I conclude that it will still be very tough to get to 135 and stay there, but if I do make it, it won't require restructuring the fabric of Einsteinian space-time.

School Days Chapter 1

Or what I learned from Chapter 1 of Going Long.

Since it's pretty much the Bible for Ironman training, I'm trying to study Friel and Byrn's Going Long very carefully. In lieu of notes, blog posts will serve as summaries of each chapter. As it's just an introduction, chapter 1 doesn't have a lot of content that merits its own summary; better to wait for more thorough coverage later on the book. But there is a real doozy of a suggestion at the very end: don't do your long ride and your long run on the weekend. Instead, separate them by doing the long run mid-week. This approach seems like a great way to reduce physical stress. I'll have to see how the schedule works out, but a long run shouldn't be much more than a couple of hours. And a pre-dawn run is a lot more doable than a pre-dawn ride. Duly noted.

Florida is/is not Flat

Over the holiday weekend I had the chance for a couple of long rides from Tallahassee. The first was pretty much due south to the coast and the second was a loop around Lake Miccosukee. If you ignore the hills in the Tallahassee area itself, the first ride was pancake flat:

In contrast, there were quite a few hills to the East:

What I found interesting is that the second ride actually seemed easier. On the first ride there was simply no variation (and no shade either, which might also be a factor ;^). The later ride had enough variation to keep things more interesting. Sure some of the uphills sucked, but there was also a bit of coasting (or at least easing off) on the downhills.

It seems a stretch to claim that the Mont Tremblant course will be more enjoyable because of its elevation profile, but I suppose it at least won't be boring.

A Run Strategy?

Here's a slowtwitch.com post I want to review during race planning: Re: Walk first min of every mile in IM marathon? Here's the post in full in case it disappears down the Internet rabbit hole:

We've been recommending a run/walk strategy for our athletes and at our "Four Keys" pre-race talk for years. It works and these are our thoughts:

Run through the aid station to the last water, gel, coke, sportsdrink guy/gal, whatever your needs are for that aid station. Get it and walk for 30 steps:

• Last means you're not tempted to walk allllll the way through the whole aid station. They can be big. You're now, hopefully, walking among people who are running = a reminder to start running vs keep walking like everyone else.
  
• 30 steps is a hard, non-negotiable number that removes you from the decision to start running again. 30 steps takes about 15-18". Maybe later in the race you start running after 30" vs 30 steps. Whatever, pick a non-negotiable something that removes your will from the decision to start running again.
  

Walking for 15-30" at the aid stations then becomes:

• A tool for slowing you down early on the run. Stand a half to a mile out from T2. From the looks of it, about half the field thinks they can run a sub 3:15 marathon, has hundreds drill it at sub 7:30 pace...until they end up walking 10 miles at 17' pace. Walking the aid stations slows you down, separates you from these people who are running too fast, and focuses you on your race, a 140 mile TT, not a race to the fastest mile 8 of the run split.
  
• A reward for continuing to run between the aid stations. As the run develops:
  
  • At first you won't need to walk the aid stations, at all. You don't think about it until you're in the aid station.
    
  • After about mile 8 or 10, you'll start looking for the next aid station (ie permission to walk and take a short break) about 7-8' after you've left your last aid station.
    
  • Then you start looking for it at 6' out 
  • Then 4' out
    
  • Then 2' out
    
  • Then 30" out :-)
    
  • Giving yourself permission to walk the aid stations, beginning with Mile 1, becomes a reward for continuing to run between the aid stations. The mental conversation becomes "Body, STFU. Keep running, don't slow down, and I will reward you for that effort over the next mile by letting you walk 30" at the next aid station. That's the deal and we only have to play this game for another 6-8 miles. Suck it up."
    

Walking then becomes a tactic, to keep you running and not slowing down between the aid stations, vs a failure. Next time you go for a long run with friends, do this 1 mile on, 30" off (walking, not standing) thing. See just how little space they actually gain on you, how quickly you can get back up to pace, and long you can maintain this total pace vs them slowing down. That slowing effect is much greater and much more likely on the IM marathon.

I have a Garmin 310 and I walk 30" every mile on nearly all of my training runs. I have one display screen that gives me current pace, cummulative distance, time, blah, blah and another that gives me current pace, lap distance and average pace of the lap. I hit the lap button at the end of the mile and see myself walking for 30" at about 17-18' pace. When I start running, my avg pace for the lap is...17'. But it quickly spools down until by about .6-7 miles into the interval I'm back at the average pace I would be at anyway, had I not taken a 30" break. Each time I do and see this I gain confidence in what the numbers tell me. I'm able to reset my focus on form and pace cues that I hold for 1 mile and then reset at the start of the next interval.

--
Rich Strauss
Endurance Nation Triathlon Coaching
Create a 5-day trial membership

Inspiration

As if any reminders were required, the lock screen for my iPhone seems like a good place for daily inspiration. Let's hope the WTC trademark police don't feel too persnickety. In case anyone else wants to use it, here's an image compatible with the Retina display.

The lock screen looks extra spiffy with the extreme hot red Elago S4 Slim Fit Case.

Goal

Singular. Not plural.

I may have to repost this entry every month until it's etched in my brain, but I'll start by stating it once: My goal is to finish the race before the time cut-off. That's it. My goal is not to finish before nightfall. My goal is not an age group placing. My goal is not to qualify for Kona.

The emphasis is probably going to be important. If all goes reasonably closely to plan, come next August I'll be in the best shape of my life, fitness-wise. That will tempt my brain to outgrow my body and try for a better performance than my training will allow. Cue the ominous music portending a looming disaster.

So I'm going to be clear. All I want to do is finish. And if I want a stretch goal, it's simple: finish with a smile.

Sold Out!

The word yesterday is that the race is now sold out. For those outside of the Ironman community, five days to sell out is a rather long time; Ironman races are worse than rock concerts. Registration for Ironman New York opened at the same time as Ironman Mont Tremblant, and even at $900 sold out in 10 minutes.

Speculation is that the course profile scared off a lot of folks. There's no doubt it's a challenging course. But I'm going to treat my naivety as an advantage — it got me in the race.

A Man with a Plan (or at least the start of one)

The Links section on the right side of this blog now has a link to my training plan. (Here it is as well.) Anyone incurably curious enough to take a look might be confused. No, it isn't really blank. It's just that the plan doesn't start until next January, so you have to skip past a bunch of empty months to see anything. The plan is based on Joe Friel's work, particularly from his latest book Your Best Triathlon. Friel claims that you can't really sustain a training plan longer than the 24 weeks (plus preparation) without burnout. That definitely matches my experience, and working backwards from the race date sets the start of official training.

So what happens between now and January? That's easy to say, but less easy to do: Lose weight. It seems like every year I end up having to get down to my racing weight while working through my training program. That means losing weight and building fitness simultaneously, and it's hard to do. Some years (2009) I've managed to pull it off, but others (2010) haven't worked out as well. The biggest conflicts occur on rest and recovery days: my training plan says "take it easy," but my diet says "burn some calories." I'm going to do my best to avoid that battle this time. And given the elevation profile of the bike course, power-to-weight ratio looks to be critical. My ideal racing weight is probably close to 135 pounds, and although I've never quite gotten that light in the past, it will be my big hairy audacious goal for this race. The scale this morning showed 153.7 pounds (which is already down from 173.7 pounds in early May). Reaching 135 pounds by the start of training means losing less than 2/3 of a pound per week, and that doesn't seem too impossible. All I really need is to develop a fatal allergy to chocolate chip cookies.

By the way, the training plan so far only maps out the macro and meso cycles. Eventually I'll add the details for each week.

(As noted in other posts, it might be confusing to figure out how to add a comment. Just click on the title to see the full post with a comment section. Alternately, you can click on the number of comments text right below here.)

Lord, What Have I Got Myself Into?

After talking myself into signing up, and then chickening out, and finally closing my eyes and squeamishly clicking Submit, I am now officially signed up for Ironman Mont Tremblant, my first full Ironman race. If I suddenly disappear from the real world, it's probably because my wife has had me committed.

Reading someone else's blog today, a note of regret caught my attention. The writer was sorry that he hadn't taken the time to keep a record of his first Ironman travails. No one would accuse me of being sentimental, but I suppose you never know, and it's true the first time only happens once. Thus this blog. As long as it still seems like a good idea, I'll keep writing. Thanks for reading.

P.S. Someone noted that it's difficult to see how to comment on posts. I agree, but it looks like a problem with the blogger template, and I can't see an easy way to fix it. (I'll keep looking, though.) In the meantime, just click on the title to see the full post with comment area.