Ironman World Championships, Kona, Hi. race report

Kona Race Report. the nitty gritty.
here is the down and dirty race report. some power files, etc. more thoughts and details on the race will follow.


Race morning: was pretty standard. food, drink, get to the race, bathroom, etc...
the difference here was this is the world championship. The spectator volume simply crushes that of any other race out there. Media, helicopters, the whole 9. It was just fookin crazy.





I felt good 2 days earlier on my opener ride. and while I had this nagging tiredness and fatigue I told my self it would pass. I was confident it wouldn't bother me on race day.
The swim was pretty wild. The Ford car float, the sound of the helicopters, I took it all in. I lined up front and center. moment number one of "Oh my god I can't believe I am here!" Contact was pretty standard. but I found some clear water and got a rhythm. the water was rolly at times but I plowed through. at the turn I saw a guy under water 10 feet or so in full scuba gear filming. Moment number 2. "holy Sh** I can't believe I am HERE!"

The second half of the swim I pushed a bit more. The pack thinned out and went single file. A large group looked to be a bit ahead of me but I was still on some feet and connected to the group. I didn't have to sight any more, I felt strong and the separation was starting to happen... like normal... right? nope. This is the world championships. Everyone here qualified, you can't simply hold your pace and wait for the other to "fade away". About 10' from the finish of the swim it felt like the entire world came up behind me and it was the start all over again. "you gotta be kidding me!" I thought. but I made it. up to T1, in and out. Most crowded T1 I've ever been in. I had no idea what my swim time was at that point, didn't care. time to ride.



The bike was crowded. again its the W.C.! and I was getting passed, a lot. its rare for me to get passed. but I wasn't worried. Its kona there are just as many people here who will get over pumped up and blow there race as people who will crush it.
However, about 10 miles into the bike I could tell. I had the feeling... That feeling of struggle. There are different kinds of pain. good pain,bad pain, etc. at 25 miles I had been riding for 52 minutes or so. and I felt like i had done 250-260 watts. I had done 220. uhh. not a good sign. this feeling of strugeling would stay with me the rest of the race.
The fatigue of our 20 hour travel day (more on all this later) crawled into me and wasn't gona go away. I have felt this before and it has simply faded away. I had a great race, other times its been the worst day of my life.
I could tell the tail wind was raging as well. I knew it would only get harder. Onto the climb to hawi and I was still strugeling. I adjusted a bit. almost 100% going by feel and using my watts to stay real. Also my HR was jacked. This confirmed to me that this just wasn't gona be my best day. ohh well, I made it hear I wasn't that disappointed.
On the climb to Hawi I started to get pretty annoyed with guys passing me then just stopping 1 bike length in front of me. I tried to stay cool but I am sure there is a pic of me somewhere waving my arms and yelling at someone. Big head wind on the climb which was nice because unlike the common head wind we got a tail wind on the way down.
mile 80 to the finish was a big steady head wind. what I expected. I pushed. I tried to tell my self that I was riding well, just ride EK, come on push! This ain't supposed to be easy. I seemed to drop some of the people I was with for most of the ride but this is where I lost lots of time on the guys that were just in front of me. My watts dropped here a bit even if I was steady. I have seen a few power files of guys the bested me in the bike and this was the biggest area of lost time for me.
In T2 I was quick but scared. As I finished up a volunteer asked "sunscreen?" "yeah, please." he lathered up my shoulders and neck, I stood up and paused. "whole crap... I feel wrecked, I can't believe I have to run a marathon." not the feeling we are looking for coming off the bike in an IM.
Bike file:
if this jams up on you sorry, I am going to download it again when i get my stuff back with my bike.

in the Run I was at first holding back to stay around 8' miles but it was taking some much energy. Normally, "energy" is not my limiting factor. I've got energy to spare. Its more about how much can my muscles take. oh far and how hard can I push them until they fail. This time it was different. I was in a place I had not been before. i hadn't prepared for this. I don't prepare to do poorly.

OK reality check and adjustment time. Chris and I did a damage assment and made a new plan.
I was in rough shape all ready. If one more thing goes wrong, one tiny thing gets messed or stops working at 100% I am screwed. I'll be walking the rest of the way, at best.
~OK. run on 100% feel.
~walk at every aid station. get everything i need.
If I fall behind on fueling, get hot or .5% dehydrated things would crumble fast!
~I decided I would walk every aid station, get everything I need, stay cool.
~ My stomach was good so I started hitting coke on top of my other nutrition, Infinit.

This worked well. I walked most of palini but my rhythm, while slow, was steady. I never thought I would have to walk the rest of the way or not finish. I just kept on keeping on...
I had 3 or 4 more "oh my god i'm can't beleieve this" moments. when people say "just enjoy your day", this is what they are talking about. Often at the best times of our lives we don't realize it because we are so caught up in it. And... that's the way it should be. But every now and then it's worth taking a moment and just being aware of whats going on. of what your doing. Alii Dr., the Queen K, going down into the energy lab, The finish line. The finishing straight is INSANE. it's long, real long. the crowd is huge, and if you miss this opportunity to "take it all in" you are missing out.
Run file:

Lindsay meet me at the finish I drank several cups of chicken broth and saw lots of racers and friends I knew. The stories begin. "did you hear about so and so? 3 flats!" did you see Drew Scott? his running shoes were red with blood."
Even during the bike I saw guys just pull off the rd and stop. guys on the run 3 miles in, that were ahead of me! (I finished in 10:10) just stop and called it game over. while seeing this stuff during the race doesn't make me happy at all, it did, make me realize, "hey, that's NOT happening to me..." things could be way worse.

so Chris and I learned a few things at this race. It is possible for me to keep moving and finish what I think is fairly respectable time, with out feeling 100%. not even 90%. pretty cool.

Next post will be Soon! more on what Ironman Hawaii is like, do's and don'ts and what happened to me? training, prep, heat?

The Ruben Sandwich and blending of ingredients

The Ruben is my favorite sandwich. I get it every where I go. Yes its good. I like the grilled bread, hot sandwiches and the gooyness of the meal but I also love it because the Ruben should NOT be so great. every ingredient I dislike. every one.
~Rye bread, Pass
~Swiss cheese, its ok but not my first choice.
~Russian dressing, no way.
~Corned beef, ok that's pretty good... but still not a first choice.
~Sauerkraut. barf

Yet for some reason when you put these together, the right way, in the right proportions it F**** rocks!
This is a delicate balance. To much beef, no good. it's to dry. To much kraut, awfully, if you toast the bread (the number one mistake) major fail. But when the ingredients are good quality, in the right portions and grilled perfectly you have the makings of the best meal ever!

2 days ago, 6 days before the Ironman world championships, I went for a run. Since IM LP I have not felt... my best. slowing getting my strength and feel back. The swim came first, bike next, almost now to the point where I was preLake Placid but the run has been an up and down battle. Struggling to balance the right ingredients in the time I have to simply get to the best place possible. No need t0 better or even at the same level, but I still gotta finish! I need to have that "feel" back. This has been further hampered but another nagging issue which I'll discuss post race regardless of the result, how I get it, or if this issue becomes an issue or not.

Yet on Sunday days before I am to leave, my run felt... like my running legs just woke up from a 2 month nap! I felt at ease with my 45' run at race pace. "ahh thank god!" I said aloud to my self when I got home.

Training will sometimes feel odd "why am I doing 30 sec. sprints on the bike for a 5-6 hr ride?"
"why am I doing 100 yd efforts in the pool? the swim is 2.4 MILES?"

some times the ingredients don't look right when viewed alone. The road to your goals is never a straight line.

But when you take the nasty sauerkraut and Russian dressing (does anyone even put that on salad anymore?) the cheese and corned beef, slap it on the grill between the right bread you get something totally different.

Some times you have to be patient, trust your self, trust your training and resting, put your head down on race day and never stop.

The Road to Kona part 2

“So Eric, how’s training for Kona going?” ahh training? Well not much “training” to be had really. But I feel ready...

Sounds weird but it's true. I have got this question a lot lately. And others like it. At the awards ceremony for IM lake placid a guy from my AG asked us others in the top 5 as we waited to head up to the stage “you guys raced kona before? And then , “what do you do to train between now and then?”
It’s a very valid question. So, what am I doing? What should you do if you find yourself in this or another similar situation?

~Find your Perceived exertion chi.
~Leave the ego at home.
~Take a reality check. Every day!
~find your form, don’t work for the sake of working hard.

You will not find anything in here on “heat training” nothing on changing your body clock to Hawaiian time or riding a course that mimics the kona one. You won’t find one anyhow so Don’t bother looking.

Steep one.
RECOVER!
This is the most important thing. From the finish line at lake Placid to the start line of the IM World Championships one has 11 weeks to prepare. And your preparation can not begin until you are FULLY recovered, plain and simple. Depending on the person this recovery can vary more than my wife’s work travel sch. !
This year my friend Steve Johnson finished 2nd overall amateur at IM CDL. 2 weeks after this race is the Boulder peak. Oly dis triathlon. Last year it took Steve until the last mile to catch and pass me on the run at the peak. My running had improved… a lot. And while he had made improvements as well I thought I had it in the bag! “2 weeks after IM CDl. I’ll put over 5 minutes on him by T2, he doesn’t have a chance” I said to a friend. yet at mile 3.5 he did catch and pass me without even looking tired. He said he felt great. WOW! he is a freak of nature. We train together freaquently so while on one hand I was suprised by this performance, on the other I wasn't really.

After IM Canada last year it was over 6 weeks until I felt somewhat normal. 2 months after the race I was 15 lbs heavier than on race day and while I was feeling “better” and could train, my ability was gone. My threshold power on the bike was some 60+ watts lower at threshold than pre Canada. Recovering from an IM is complex. The race breaks you down badly. On top of that recovering may take so long that you also de-train slightly as well. What this comes down to for your recovery is you have to listen to your body and leave the ego at home!
On the flip side, if you wait until you can do a field test of some sort and match your previous bests you’ll be waiting a long time. You will also be constantly testing yourself and getting worn out as well as frustrated and discouraged.
You will need to find a balance of complete rest and recovery and then after and appropriate time have to put you nose to the grind stone and do some hard work, slow and pathetic as it may seem. Then slowly start working with what you have not with what you want to have.

Recovery that worked for me, so far:
With Kona all ready in my mind I hit some good nutrition and recovery as soon as I got back to the hotel a few hours after IM lake placid.. Some vitamins, ibuprofen and dinner that included 2 beers and some johny walker red label!

Week 1: totally off!
A massage this week, LOTS of sleep, 10 hr’s a night, one 15’ spin around the block to move some blood around and a trip to the local recovery lab for 30’ in those pants that squeeze your legs.
Compression socks worn for at least 1 hr. every day and a good diet. Go ahead induldge but lets not go Supper Size Me, on yourself.

Week 2: 2 EASY swims
1 easy ride 1 hr. long
another massage. Lots of stretching, GREAT nutrition and some ab work.
This is a great time to analyze your race. What worked, what went well, what was bad, what was bad luck and what did you get lucky with? For me this big thing that stuck out was my tight hip flexors for the entire bike. My PT helped me address this with some activation movements and core strength work. 2 times a week. Easy, straight forward, 5’ done.
After this 2 weeks of very focused recovery I was feeling good but still far from normal.

Week 3: involved 2 easy swims again and 2 rides which I incoperated some strength work. High intensity,30” (second) efforts in a big gear/low rpm.
This was to get my neurological system working again and build back as much strength as possible. 6 weeks after IM LP I was going to a stage race (bike race) in steamboat springs. My goal was to recovery 100% and then get myself to a point where I could “handle the race”, 4 days of hard racing. If I could get myself to a point where I could get some good training out of this race without digging myself a huge fatigue hole I would be in a great position.

The strength efforts got better. I felt better, pushed more watts and added more reps.
Swimming felt good pretty quickly and running I slowly added to this. Week 3 I did 2, 30-40’ runs. One felt great the other horrible. Many folks experience this when coming back from an IM or any BIG endurance event. One day they feel like they’re old self. The next like it was the day after the big race.

When this happens you stop, head home and take the next day off. Remember we are still “training to train”. Just getting to point where we can train again. And sometimes it takes awhile. It always takes longer than you think it will. As we start to add in more training here we must think about training and its core. Training is a give and take, a scale if you will. How much adaptation can I get (the training/ the workout) and how much fatigue will it cost me (having to rest later). The later also has a risk element to it. What if you get injured from overuse, or sick? So this HARD training that we all want to do has sand traps everywhere! Injury, extreme fatigue, decreased performance, sickness and for what? What are you getting from your training? This is where I recommend a few protocols.
1. more off days than normal. (I did 2-3 instead of 1)
2. NO excessively “long” workouts. I do a seminar that talks a lot about what is “long”. The deal is, Mr. or Mrs. IRONMAN are you really worried about your endurance? Really? You just did an IM?
Long endurance workouts (4+ hour bike rides, 2 hr runs) have lots of fatigued associated with them. And, alone, they don’t offer a big adaptation. So you either have to do a lot of them or you might as well find a new approach. And you don’t have the time to do a lot of them. 3 weeks recovery, 1 week restarting the engine, 3 week peaking phase(tapper) , that’s 4 weeks, 3 if one is a recovery week.
3. when intensity returns to your training use shorter intervals and/or longer rest than normal.
4. listen to your body. No time to be a tough guy. If you’re not feeling it today, even though you think you should be, go home, tomorrow will come.

My strength workouts on the bike turned into a 2.5 hr hilly ride and one threshold workout. this was my "nose to teh grind stone day" the first one (hilly ride) was horrible. i could barley pedal that day. i went home rest 2 days and tock another shot.

For the threshold workout I did 4x10’ and went more on feel. The zone 4 workout gave me some clues that my threshold was around 285-290. Down from the 320-330 it was before IMLP. Reality check time! Time to lower the training zones and train with what I had, not what I wanted to have.

The bike race came, I did 320 watts for 20’ in the TT on day one and almost dropped a lung. OK maybe the threshold is up towards 300 watts all ready. Progress! The next 3 days I worked hard for the team, we had the leader’s jersey for a few days, and while there was no impressive power files to talk about I “felt good” I was able to push my body each day. there it s again, “Felt” back to PE. Perceived exertion. The most important aspect of intensity and the one that ruins most athletes because they don’t use it correctly.
More rest and back at it the next weekend. Another short threshold set. 10’ intervals again only 3 this time. Power was up. all 3 intervals in the 310-320 range. confirming my 20’ TT effort at the race. Always get more than one data point. Even in ice skating they take out the highest and lowest score! You should too.

Swimming was going well. This is a relative strength for me so I did not push myself here. I was consistent, 2 times a week. I was never worried about how many yards I did and I error’d on the easier side. Again bang for your buck. Hard long swim workout can crush me. I’ll do some in time, but first I had to find my riding and running legs.

Running is coming back the slowest. This is common for many people. Running is also my weakest area so it further exacerbates the issue. I focused on short runs, making them more frequent as the weeks went on and I felt stronger. The 2 weeks before the Labor Day weekend race I ran 1:50 total each week. Then 0 the week of the race and about 1hr total the week after.
In the recent weeks I have felt stronger and stronger. My focus on the bike has stayed with shorter threshold intervals and more rest than normal. Working my muscles to push the higher watts without added fatigue and muscle damage of longer intervals and shorter (more normal) rest time. I was am taking 3-8 minutes rest instead of 2-4 minutes. Sometimes longer if the terrain called for it. (long down hills etc)

With running the focus has stayed with frequency over the long run and I have added short intervals. 30” (seconds) intervals at Z4-Z5 pace. “well what are your pace zones now EK you haven’t tested have you? No. I haven’t. Based on a relative PE on my steady runs I put my threshold at 6:45. Back from 6:15 I had going into IMLP. This is a bit of an educated guess and far from ideal. In the next week or so I will likely do a tough run workout or maybe a 5k test. Something maximal to give me another data point to figure out what is reasonable on race day in Hawaii. I have an idea, again from my PE in training on my “easy” runs but you need more than that. Again People’s sense of what is what when they ONLY there PE is wrong 99% of the time. this gets folks into trouble all the time! that said ideal threshold test data or not I am going to get more info for my race day pacing goals!

Next post will be looking at a few of the big training sessions I did. What they’re worth on race day and performing instead of just getting it done…

Sacrific, and the road to IM world championchips.

Sacrifice.
This word gets used a llot in sports. “It takes sacrifice to get to the top, to obtain your goals”, etc.
Often in endurance sports it has a definition I disagree with. You need to sacrifice a lot for that goal. Sacrifice sleeping in, eating the foods you like, having a social life, fun in general, the list goes on. If you have read more than one or two of the training entries on this blog you know that I do things a bit differently.
However, there is truth between those lines. The higher your goal, the more you MAY have to sacrifice to achieve it.
There is a saying in the mountaineering world when traveling on a glacier, “You don’t worry about the crevasses you can see, you worry about the ones you can’t.”
In sport the toughest times you will often face are the ones you never saw coming. I often wonder if that is because there’re so difficult you never imagined having to deal with it? Or is it simply because you were not prepared as you should have been?

As I prepare for the Ironman world championships in Kailua- Kona, Hawaii things have gone well. Recovery far better than last year after IMC, I slowly started training, getting myself to a point where I could “handle” the Steamboat Springs stage race and get some good training out of it, without digging myself back into a hole. I did that pretty well. A few days of recovery and I was feeling great, ready to go for my 1 week of focused training in all 3 sports. The only full week of real training I would have between IM lake Placid and IM Hawaii. Then, bamb a cold struck. Time is NOT on my side here. One HAS to be healthy and rested for an IM, or any big endurance event. yet I am still a shadow of my former self from June and July when I did IM lake placid. The classic catch 22 “I want to be more fit/prepared but I must be rested, healthy, motivated and fresh for race day.”

I say this in every training seminar I do:
“The biggest limiter every athlete faces is TIME”

Now as I finish up this post with completely backwards writing we need to take another steep back. Before I was even at the starting line in Lake Placid in which was able to use my body that cast the shadow I which I speak of, I avioded a potentially catastrophic disaster. Getting sick 3 weeks out from my biggest race of the year. I did this with a very large amount of sacrifice. The twist here is that the sacrifice was not on my part but my wife’s.
Lindsay had been very busy with work, traveling a lot. In the middle of a 2 week work trip on the phone one night I could hear it in her voice. “are you sick?” I asked. A long pause. “… I’m sorry baby, I tried, I've done everything…” she felt horrible. She knew the place I was at. Just finishing up a huge 2 week training block, ready to rest, perform well at one last Oly distance race and then drain a tank I had been filling for the last 2 years in less than 10 hours.
It’s likely she could have come home and all would have been fine. But when you prepare all year for one day the risk was kinda high. Lindsay decided, and yes this was her idea, she would return from her long work trip and spend two additional days at a friend’s house in town not comeing home to get more clothes and not seeing me. This was to ensure she was not contagious anymore. I thought this was a bit ridiculous but she tock words that I have used before “if we are gona do this, let’s do it 100% or not as all”. Motivation to come up with the goods on race day at Ironman Lake Placid? You could say that.
The biggest sacrifice that was made to achieve a lifelong goal of making it to the ironman world championships was not made by me… crazy. Life still amazes me, every day. my wife amazes me, everyday.

Next post I’ll talk a bit about IM recovery, starting training up again and what it was like for me. I will also be posting, daily in the last few days leading up to the IM Hawaii. Stay tuned!

The Anatomy of a PR

This past weekend we had 4 athletes race at the Boulder 70.3 half ironman. All the pr’d is some way.
new best performances can come in many ways. Here is a quick recap of what they did and more importantly, how.
The biggest part of every story here is RACE EXECUTION everyone of these athletes used to train hard and then on race day, just go… some had a touchy, feely plan, go hard here, not so hard there. It should feel like this or that. But no hard data. “First 5 miles of the bike you do X watts no more”. “First lap of the run you run this pace. no faster, no slower”. This hard data was determined through field testing and backed, tweaked or changed completely with training analysis. When you combine this accurate, hard data to the experience of one’s PE (perceived exertion) you have 99% of the tools to perform at your best ever.

Results page here: http://ironmanlive.com/tracking.php?race=boulder70.3&year=2011

Megan Flanagan:
A relatively new athlete to us, but not new to triathlon. Megan is a great swimmer. A swimming back ground is always nice to have coming into triathlon but we all know you can’t win in the water. Megan’s focus has been improving her riding. Her bike is the weakest leg of her race. There has been a focus on threshold intervals. Not simply doing them but doing them right. We have employed some techniques that enable her to pace herself very well even without a power meter. The result. Faster AND more efficient riding. Which, as is the case most of the time, a better run as well!! Megan paced her bike better as well as rode faster. Back that up with a solid run right at her Zone 3 pace and you’ve a got a PR.

Gavin Anderson. First year Pro. Gavin is in his first year as a pro. A wife, 2 kids, full time job and then gets up early on Sunday to face off against the best pro’s in the country on a monthly basis. Yes, I feel lazy just writing this. Gavin also has a swimming back ground. His run and bike both need improvements to race at the pro level. Gavin has a huge capacity for workload, the amount of work he can absorb is astounding. Even after a few months of working together I still become amazed every now and then. Through some training and testing I discovered that Gavin has a great Endurance. For example his fatigue rate is very low. He runs very close to what he would stand alone for 13.1 miles after coming off the bike. So, despite his focus on the 70.3 series his training has revolved around getting “faster”. Threshold intervals, VO2 int. and more run volume. His run volume was simply to low before. When we first started we eliminated high cost, low return training, like lifting weights. Put in more recovery time, so that the hard workouts could be done HARD, at the correct wattages and pace prescribed. The results. Gavin has made steady progress, improving in every race, beating athletes that had better him earlier in the year. Felling stronger and getting closer to the money!

Joel Byersdorfer:
An Athlete at heart but new to triathlon. Joel’s best asset is his common sense. A runner and ultimate Frisbee player in the past, he knows when to really push and when the set training sch. just won’t work. Joel’s communication with me has made for a strong coach athlete team and the results show it. Joel is another case of when we improve the bike the run improves as well. Go figure! We identified Joel’s weak area and got to work. Joel, like everyone we had race, negative split the bike and pushed through the wind in the second half of the run not slowing down to much and earning a great result.

Brent Schoeb:
The definition of toughness.
To do well in any sport, to “PR”, to go beyond what you have done before you must, at some point, push your body beyond what it is capable of. At that moment the “what you are capable of” turns into “ what you were capable of”. However, sometimes, this happens is a different manner than we imagine. Brent was cruising through the bike leg when a rapid series of events caused a fall. Small bump in the road, throwing an empty water bottle, hitting his own arm, a gust of wind and he was inspecting the chip seal on the bike course roads. After Brent got back under way he knew something was wrong with his hand. As he started the run he had a decision to make. Med tent now or in 1:54 minutes when I finish. He chose the latter and ran through 90+ degree heat with one operational hand to a PR. A great story of adaptation and not giving up. Sometimes you don’t have to be at your best to achieve your best.