Gary’s Fitness Blog

It’s fairly common in conversations about triathlon training today to discuss watts, normalized power, TSS, functional thresholds and intensity factors.  These terms are all the result of more cyclists using power meters to monitor training intensity and even race efforts.

I have been using WKO+ (formerly cycling peaks) for a little while now, primarily with my Garmin 305 (because I still haven’t justified the power meter expense) to monitor my run training.  The WKO+ software is really great and allows an athlete to get deeper into the training data more than any other training software and log program I’ve ever used.  Because I don’t have a power meter it does have limitations.

The biggest limitation for me is that because I don’t have a power meter, the software’s performance management analysis doesn’t give me an accurate picture for triathlon training.  Why?  Because I have no way of quantifying the work done (TSS, CTL and ATL) on the bike that allows the software to analyze the data.

As a triathlete we also have to consider swimming.  Can we monitor power in the water in a downloadable manner?  Not yet.

So as I look at the athlete’s that I’m trying to help prepare for the 2009 triathlon season (specifically, Ironman Louisville) I have several issues when trying to use a similar method for monitoring training stimulus over time:

1.  no one uses a power meter (and likely are not going to purchase one)
2.  few have a Garmin 305/405 to monitor their running workouts
3.  if they had all this equipment, it takes a lot of time to download and analyze, which they may or may not do.
4.  they have to use the power meter and/or Garmin device for EVERY workout, or they can just estimate the workouts and enter a best estimate TSS or rTSS for the individual workout (which gets us back to why use it anyway)

So, while I am very excited to see some of the data that comes from my Garmin (and yes, hopefully soon my power meter?) it is not a practical solution right now to help my athletes by using the WKO+ software and the Performance Management Charts.  (I have to say though, it is a lot of fun to spend time with the data I can get.  It’s amazing the kind of data we can get in the field better data than what we had in the exercise phys lab on the Monarch.)

How we are tracking long term / short term training stimulus:  (the post to my Ironman athletes)

In the past years I have used total hours of training as my main monitoring system. This was a good method because the majority of the exercise that I did was done at a very reasonable almost easy intensity.

For most of us, this is still going to be the biggest limiter (steady state ability and duration we can hold that intensity).

But with powermeters, heart rate monitors, gps’s, etc…. coaches and athletes are now getting pretty analytical in these monitoring methods. In my opinion, we are making a lot of things too difficult - especially for Ironman training when it matters more that we are consistent and gradually build duration. .. but ..

I realize that we all don’t have powermeters/gps’s so I’ve been thinking about how to add in an "Intensity Factor" to our monitoring.

Here is what I’ve decided to do:

A mixture of the Aerobic Points System (as seen on slowtwitch ) and Borg’s 10 Point RPE Scale (as discussed in the power training article by Dr. Coggan )

Here’s how the scoring it works:

10min swimming = 3 point
10min cycling = 1 point
10min running = 4 point

So as an example: 9.5 hours balanced week
1.5 hours (90 mins)of running: 36pts
6 hours (360 mins)of cycling: 36pts
2 hours (120 mins)of swimming: 36pts

That was just an example of how to add the total times, now to look at the RPE scale / intensity. We’ll be using the Borg 10 point scale , notice the Borg Scale is weighted so that the higher numbers are more spaced out. (Which is done for a number of physiological reasons that Dr. Coggan explains in the article also.)

Example of a workout calculation:

60 minute swim, effort at 3 RPE = 6*3 = 18pts * 0.3 = 5.4

45 minute run, effort at 2 RPE = 4.5*4 = 18pts * 0.2 = 3.6

60 minute cycle, effort at 5 RPE = 6*1 = 6pts * 0.5 = 3.0

Does this make sense? What I’d like you to do is calculate your total points at the end of each week, but you’ll need to write the "RPE" score in the comments as you log each workout.

The key to this system is that you are honest with your RPE scoring, otherwise we could just track hours. We will be tracking hours each week, etc… but I like how this system will account for the differences in intensity, plus we get to track it across all 3 sports, not just power on the bike or pace on the run.

One other data chart that we’ve been tracking:

I had an athlete that put together her own spreadsheet to track her RPE score, aerobic points and what we are calling intensity factor (which isn’t the same as IF for WKO+ which is NP/FTP).  One of the charts that she set up was to a plot of the intensity factor to workout duration.  By plotting that chart we can monitor the ratio on a week-to-week basis.

Feedback?

I would love to hear what others have to say about this concept.  We’ve just started using it several weeks ago, so until we get more data I’m not going to make any conclusions.  I am sure that those triathletes and/or runners that are used to monitoring their hard data from high tech devices with balk at the idea of using RPE.  But I’m not worried about that, I’ve come to peace with using a subjective data point like RPE.  In fact, I think that it can incorporate variables that impact training that a power meter can’t - such as psychological variables (fatigue) and health implications (early stages of sickness and stress).

Here’s a few links to where and what the EndureChallenge was:

1. How it started - Why guys need to find fitness (and life) milestones
2. When I decided what to do - Celebrating 30 years of living well
3. Great Illini Race Report - iron distance race on Sept 6th, 2008
4. Lake City Marathon Race Report - marathon ran on Sept 13th, 2008

I was able to get some data loaded into motionbased, but not all because the Garmin 305 started deleting the oldest data during the week.  I have the totals of the workouts, but not the gps data (and therefore no maps or motionbased links).  Here’s what I have:

1.  Great Illini Marathon - don’t have gps
2.  Effingham, Illinois to Paris, Illinois - don’t have gps
3.  Paris, Illinois to Attica, Indiana - Sept 9th
4. Attica, Indiana to Logansport, Indiana - Sept 10th
5. Logansport, Indiana to Warsaw, Indiana - Sept 11th
6. Lake City Marathon

It’s too bad that I don’t have the gps map from my first day of bike touring, it would be comical to see how much I was backtracking and moving around the Illinois countryside to get away from small gravel roads.  The other thing about the data during the bike touring is that I started the gps when I left the hotel in the morning and stopped it when I got to the next one at night; therefore the charts are a little odd because I stopped to eat at diners, fast food joints, talk to locals, etc.  That’s what I love about touring!

Thoughts on what this taught me about my athletics:

Lesson One: The biggest lesson that I’m taking away from this event is that I don’t need to fear Ironman.  This was my third Iron Distance race in the past three years and up to this point I think that Ironman was still intimidating me in some ways.  The biggest way that it intimidated me was (as I mentioned in the lake city race report) by making me fear a complete collapse during the run that left me immobile.  That fear caused me to develop a race strategy that was possibly too conservative.

Granted, I did have somewhat of a breakdown during the last 10 of the marathon on the 13th, but the next time I do Ironman (Ironman Louisville in 2009) I will remember that it too 2.4 miles of swimming, 435 miles of cycling and 40.2 miles of running before I finally slowed below a 7:30 pace (and I still managed a 7:22/mile pace overall).

Lesson Two: I can ride a bike faster than “touring” pace.  I have been pretty consistent over the last couple years in telling myself, “back off the bike or you won’t be able to run… back off, back off.”  If you read my Ironman Wisconsin Race Report from 2007, that was a pretty consistent theme during that ride.  I wish that I had my heart rate data from the Great Illini because I guarantee that I rode well above 145 - 150bpm, which is what I used as my ceiling (or mostly) during IMMOO last year.

The one little bit of data that I have from the bike is when I turned my Garmin 305 on during the last couple miles of the bike during the Great Illini (to have it ready for the marathon).  During that period I was sitting in the 157 - 161 bpm, which is a time that I was trying to relax and prepare for the run.  The best thing is that I got off the bike and ran well!

Lesson Three: The third thing that I learned (again) will relate to training over the next year - when you find your behavior and emotions changing, it is a good sign of overtraining.  I noticed this during the touring that occurred between the two races.  I remember sitting down in the hotel room after one of the nights of touring and just felt like crying?  No reason, I felt wasted and wanted to cry as I laid there on the bed.  You can probably see some of this if you watch the youtube video updates that I shared.

As I sit here (Wednesday, 4 days after the last marathon) I have been dealing with small levels of depression each day.  Nikki has noticed that I haven’t been in the “best mood” too.  It might be an exaggeration to say “depression”, but it is really hard to find anything to be happy about - even though I know there is a lot to be happy for.  I believe this is just another way that our mind tries to tell our body what to do and not do?  It’s not easy to get out there and exercise when you have lowered moods; therefore I’m going to listen and be very careful over the next few weeks.  I don’t want to get sick (like I did two years ago a few weeks after Ironman).

Lesson Four: I have talked about this a little bit in the race reports from both races (Great Illini and Lake City Marathon) - but when racing in endurance events, getting the mind out of the way is a major part of the race.  The body must be trained and fine tuned, but the mind must also get out of the way and allow the body to work.

Chris McDonald just did an interview over on Endurance Corner Radio where he talks about his 2nd Place finish at Ironman Louisville and 1st Place finish (and course record) at Ironman Wisconsin a week later.  It’s a great interview and he does talk about the mental challenge during Ironman Wisconsin and how it played a role in his race.  They spend a couple moments talking about the mental aspect of fatigue.

The last thing that I’m excited about is that I’ve learned about barriers that I’ve built over the years and how those barriers are abstract constraints that I’ve placed on myself more than they are real physical and physiological limiters.  That is a lesson worth its weight in gold.

If you follow my twitter page (twitter.com/ditschfitness) then you’ll know the basics as Nikki sent some out during the race. This report will fill in my emotions and feelings for the race, but first the basic stats:

Great Illini Results -

swim: 1:17:48
t1: 2:00
bike: 6:00:40 (18.6mph)
t2: 1:14
run: 3:38:51 (8:21/mile)

total: 11:00:34

Swim - as the horn sounded things were a little rough in the beginning. I’m not sure if I was not anxious enough; therefore unprepared to get moving or if I just needed a little time to get into a rhythm? It didn’t take long though as I felt incredibly efficient in the water. I had zero kicking going on and felt like every pull was really getting some work done. I kept thinking to myself, “pull yourself through the tube.” Which is a visualization that my coach/professor at UNL shared with me when I was learning to swim.

My time ended up being around 5 minutes slower than last year at IMMOO, but that is what I expected. I didn’t swim one time from Sept 9, 2007 to June 9, 2008. And once I started swimming in June I made it to the pool only a couple times a week (a few weeks I got three swims in). The one thing I did do this year that gave me a little confidence that I could get out there was the Cave Run 1.5 mile swim that the YMCA put on at Cave Run Lake.

Bike - the bike training this past year was also not specific to Ironman. If you have been following my blog for awhile, then you’ll know that I just wanted to take a different approach this year. I didn’t want to train for any specific event, but try some races out, if I felt they were possible. (And you’ve seen what kind of brainstorming occurs when I don’t have events picked out!). That philosophy of training for this year left me with few specific race rides. In fact, I did zero race simulation rides this past year and only had one brick (bike/run) workout this year at all (last weekend with Jeff).

All that being said, you can imagine how pleased I felt to see that I rode 13 minutes faster this year than I did at IMMOO. I realize that you can’t compare different races and courses, but that is a positive that I’m going to take away from this race.

I actually felt really good most of the bike. There were periods that the wind had me moving at what felt like a turtle’s pace, but I just tried to push on. The biggest issue I had on the bike was my back. I did most of my rides on my road bike this year, in fact, I think the longest ride I did on my triathlon bike was 50 miles (again last weekend with Jeff). My gluts and lower back were in pain pretty much the whole time, but with the wind I didn’t want to stand too much. Occasionally I would stand and just spend a couple minutes in my big chain ring and ride hard standing up to relieve some tension.

The other positive that I’m taking away from this ride is that I even split the 2 loops. I rode 3:00 on the first loop and 3:00 on the second loop. Can’t be bummed about that.

The one lesson that I’ll take away from this is that I need to learn to ride the bike faster. I was the only athlete in the top 10 that rode under 19mph. (The top two rode 22mph or over!) Training to ride faster and learning how to race that way would leave a lot less work to do on the run for me.

Run - The run training was very similar to my bike training. I did nothing specific, but I also never stopped running through out the year. The one thing that I always feel is true, if I run consistently, is that my run will not abandon me.

When I got to the run, I felt really good and started out pretty quick. My leg turnover was good and my pace was too fast but at a comfortable effort (6:40ish). As I approached the first aid station I asked for coke or gatorade. They said they had, “water and ecaps”. SH*T. That was my first thought. I had some egel’s with me, but my stomach was not willing to take any more of those. So I took some water and used a couple of my Succeed Salt Tabs.

As my usual plan of action, I walked 30 seconds at every mile.

As I approached the second aid station, I asked the same question. Again they had nothing but water and ecaps. I saw a pattern here and was getting nervous. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to run the marathon if all I had to use for aid was ice water and salt tabs.

On the return section of the first lap (we ran 4 laps) they finally had some coke available at mile 5. I took a can of coke and was able to drink a couple drinks. My stomach was pretty messed up at this point, but even more scary was that I was starting to feel really dizzy, my fingers tingled and I felt light-headed. If you listened to my last podcast (hydration and the role of sodium) then you’ll understand where my thoughts were going. I started to say some multiplication tables to myself, hoping that the answers wouldn’t allude me: “1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 2 = 4, 4 + 4 = 8″ … ok, you’re not there yet.

Around mile 7, I thought it was over. I stopped at the aid station and began to sweat heavily. I started to dry heave pretty heavily but couldn’t get anything to come up. My head was spinning and my legs felt like jello. To be honest, it felt like I had been at the bar a little to long on a Nebraska Football Game day. The aid station workers were standing there not sure what to do, they asked if I as alright, when I said “no”. He turned around and walked away like “oh boy… that isn’t good”. They offered me some bananas, but that wasn’t going to happen, so I asked for some coke again. At this point all I really wanted was a ride back to the start. Without different aid on the course I was worried that I couldn’t get what I needed to recover at any point. I also wasn’t excited about putting myself in a place to risk my health and ruin my chance of riding my bike this week and doing the marathon next weekend.  I guess the one positive about the several minutes that I stood there (I’m guess 5 to 6 minutes), was that despite the violent dry heaving, I didn’t actually puke fluids up.  Had I began to lose fluids with every attempt (which I saw happen to one guy), I’m not sure I would have been able to get moving again.

After I took the coke I started walking again. In the end, I think my ego and anger pushed me forward. Looking back, I am happy that I didn’t DNF at that point, but I’m not sure that being propelled by ego and anger is the place I want to be in life, even during a race.

After I got my mind settled down, I began running again. I’m not sure how it happened, but I actually ran ok once I was running. My body was still chilled (in the sun). I craved water, but everytime I tried to drink any I felt like I would throw it up.

Around mile 18, I finally got a bottle of Gatorade Endurance. Magic. While my pace was decreasing to 8:30/mile pace, my thoughts finally cleared up. I didn’t have the “lost in space” feeling as bad and that gave me confidence to try and push home and at least try and break the 11 hour mark.

It didn’t happen. As you can see above, I missed it by 34 seconds. 34 seconds is a tough pill to swallow after 11 hours.

Final Thougts:

I feel pretty darn happy as I come away from this race. It is 12 minutes faster than I went at IMMOO last year and while it’s difficult to compare courses, I’m happy with the way things turned out. While I am a little bummed about how my run ended up, it was still the 2nd or 3rd fastest of the day (I think the 2nd fastest on the results page is a relay team?). And I guess when I am at the point that running 3:38:51 for the marathon in a Iron-distance race is a bummer, I have more to be thankful for than I have reason to complain.

Now — learn how to swim and bike!

I also learned that you need to be very aware of the race course nutrition. The Great Illini website said this:

“The 26.2 mile run course will be divided into 4 6.55 mile loops. Competitors will have the opportunity to access their run course special needs bags every 6.55 miles. There will be aide stations and porta-johns every mile of the run course. The aide stations will be stocked with fruit, Hammer Gels, E-Caps, water, Heed energy drink and much more.”

I knew that I would need Gatorade Endurance and Coke to get me through the run.  I should have had Nikki’s Fuel Belt full of Endurance and used it, with some extra bottles for the fuel belt at the special needs bag.

That is why we do races like this, to practice and learn.  The great thing about this race is that usually I have a year to sit around and think about what happened before I get another shot.  This time I get to ride my bike around Illinois and Indiana for a week and then give the marathon another go around at the Lake City Marathon!

I can’t wait for Ironman Louisville next year though!

*note* This is an older race report that I wanted to be included in my blog archive. It has been fun to go back and read my thoughts about this race, which was my first half-ironman distance race. And a very hot day that we still talk about with grand disillusions. (And good reason for people to write race reports.) *end note*

Pigman Half Ironman Distance Race, 2003
At the start of the 2003, I had two main goals:

one - to put out a solid marathon qualifying for Boston
two - to race a half-ironman and to race it well

You can read my Flying Pig report to analyze goal number one. (It was the year of the pigs.)

Pre-Race:
I didn’t get much sleep the night before, but I felt rested. I had my normal breakfast:

* 2 cans of Purify (Kroger style Ensure)
* 1 bagel
* some Gatorade
* with 1 cliff bar 40 minutes before the race

Due to poor planning, I had to find an adapter for my CO2 cartridges right before the race. After a little running around, some borrowed cash and help from the guys at Gear West, I got the adapter a couple minutes before the pre-race meeting.

The Swim:
My strategy was to take the swim very, very easy. When my heat started, I saw everyone run into the water and dive. I jogged behind and kind of fell into the water. By doing this, I was able to make sure I didn’t lose my goggles. I also was able to make a point to myself that I wanted to take it easy.

The first buoy came after what felt like forever, but I wanted to stick to my game plan. I turned the corner and found someone swimming about the same pace so I dropped back and drafted for several minutes. At the last buoy I felt like I had yet to begin swimming so I picked up the effort just a bit during the last stretch.

Coming into the transition I saw my time was 38 minutes, which was about 5 minutes slower than I anticipated. I was a little disappointed but I knew the day would be long.

Analyzing the times after the race, I saw that all the times were a little slow. Even the better athletes that raced last year had times 3 minutes or more slower.

The Bike:
The biggest thing for me going into the bike was pacing and nutrition. I knew the climbs and demands of the course would not be too much because of the daily rides we do in central Kentucky. It was hard to hold back the first half hour but I kept repeating to myself that finishing strong meant more then starting fast. The pace allowed me to take in all the food and nutrition that I needed. I mixed the intake of water, Gatorade and GU’s just as I during training.

During the middle of the ride, I think I may have let my ego get to me? While going up hills I would ride by what felt like 10 to 15 riders, but on the flats there was a pelaton of 4 to 6 bikes that would fly by. My mind made a choice that my body should not have followed. I decided to step up the pace for the next 10 miles. I rode up the hills and pushed the flats. The pacing was not in line with my plan of easy riding the first half, pick it up during the middle and use the end of the ride only for preparation for the run.

Going into the second transition, I still felt really good! I spent the last 6 miles making sure I had every bit of liquid in me I could get. I had also planned on eating a cliff bar, but I couldn’t get it down. So I finished off my last gel. I finished the bike with a pace of 21.4 mph. This was exciting because I felt good and I had only anticipated a 20 - 20.5 mph pace.

The Run:
In one word - Miserable. I felt like I had prepared for everything correctly, used the proper nutrition, but I had not been subjected to that kind of heat in training. The temperature was in the low to mid 90’s by the time we were on the run. And one thing about running on the roads in Iowa, there is NO shade.

I knew immediately that I would not be running a sub 1:30, which is what I felt prepared to do. I quickly slowed my pace down to what felt very comfortable and decided that my goals were to:

a - not walk during the run
b - finish as close to 5 hours as possible

By the time I reached the 3 mile marker, I figured out that the run was going to be rough. There were a lot of people walking through the aid stations and for periods before, after and during. I was taking a glass of water, Gatorade and ice at every aid station (Although I missed ice at one aid station because I didn’t want to start walking).

At this point I believe that my dedication to the mental training during the summer paid dividends. Here is what I did:

* I focused on my foot cadence, upper body position and foot strike
* I moved my focus only to my breathing pattern
* I moved my mind to the mantras that I had been using in my practices and meditations

Psalm 23, for my meditations I had been spending a lot of time in this Psalm so I started repeating it twice

“I belong here, my body has done the training” - this is a phrase that I took from Gordo Byrn’s Book.

During my training runs I had practiced using this phrase as a guide for focus and imagery. I would repeat this to myself 4 or 5 times then I would go back to the Psalms

Finishing The Run:
I believe it was the 9 mile aid station that I decided that I needed to really be careful or I may not finish. I made the decision to walk through the remaining aid stations. It was a little disappointing but I knew it was necessary. I finished the run in 1:50:43, which was 20 minutes slower than I had hoped. My final time was 5:10:12. I had hoped to finish at or under 5 hours.

Post Race:
I felt great until we got in the van to leave. I had to make Eric, Beth and Jeff suffer through a couple stops so that I could deal with sickness. Motion sickness from the van or heat exhaustion, I do not know? But I bet a little of both.

Post Race Thoughts:
No excuses needed, I do feel a little disappointed. I have went back and forth about the heat and how I should react to that, but I think that my final analysis is that I do need to take into consideration the heat and should not have expected to be able to push myself the way I wanted. The bike pacing? Even though I felt good coming into T2, I know that I may have pushed it harder than I should have and trained for. I have second guessed myself a bit, thinking that if I would have stuck with the 20 mph pace I could have run better. I will never know! The final view is that it was a great experience. I now know that I have another couple years before I make it to the Ironman. I also know that I am still improving. And I still want to do more triathlons….!

It is now a few days post Ironman Wisconsin and it is time to sit down and write my race thoughts down. I am going to break the race into a few different reports and reviews in order to keep them shorter and topic centered. The reviews I am going to write for now are:

1. Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience
2. Ironman Wisconsin - My race results and analysis
3. Ironman - What Next? (2008 thoughts on training and racing)

Links will be provided once the reports are complete.

Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience

Thursday - 9/6/07
Nikki and I finished our early morning training sessions and jumped into the car to drive to Wisconsin. The trip was pretty uneventful other than the terrible rains that forced us to drive 35 mph for way too long.

After getting into Madison, we went straight to our hotel to see Jeff, Eric and Beth who drove up on Wednesday. Soon after arriving, Eric looked at me with a concerned look and said, “Let’s take a walk.” Right away I thought that my bike had been destroyed because we all transported our bikes in a U-Haul that they pulled. The initial anxiety was an over reaction to what actually happened. The short story is that Nikki’s bike wasn’t secured well enough and her cassette ended up scratching my rims all up and destroying my tire. The solution was that I used Beth’s wheels that she normally rides because she was going to use a set of race wheels anyway. Problem solved.

Friday - 9/7/07
We woke up early enough to make our way down to the Gatorade swim. The water was really choppy and made me a little nervous. Even though I had improved my swimming a lot over the last year, it was still my first Ironman experience and the idea of 2,300 athletes swimming together made me nervous. The choppy water didn’t help.

The rest of the morning was spent at the convention center getting massages (I didn’t but the others did), buying items at the store and getting my registration packet. One major lesson I learned was to not let your USAT membership expire. My number expired on 8/31 so I had to stand in line forever while Nikki by-passed at least 45 minutes of standing in line.

Upon returning to the hotel Eric spent time changing out wheels and cassettes for us. Thank goodness for his bike mechanic knowledge. I should learn a few more of the basics too. We went on a little ride from our hotel that afternoon to make sure the bikes worked properly. They did, but I still felt a little uneasy on new / different wheels. Looking back it was just something for my mind to grab ahold of and stress about.

The Ironman Hospitality
The rest of the weekend was really governed by the Ironman timeline. We went to the athlete dinner and meeting, we raced, we woke up Monday morning and went to the Ironman store, attended the awards banquet and then left. One thing is for certain, Ironman does fully support the athlete and they do a tremendous job building up the experience to be a one-of-a-kind event. I’ve always been a little anti-MDot because of the associated attitude. (The one that says your not “xx” if you haven’t done Ironman or Kona, etc.) I can see the addiction to these events and I appreciate the place that these events have in triathlon. But I also appreciate the place that events like the Lake Barkley Race has too.

Why Triathlon is different than many sports.
One thing that continues to come up again and again for me is the line between the professional athletes and the age-group athletes. This maybe due to the fact that professional triathletes don’t make big money or because they commonly come into the sport from positions that rarely include the limelight, I don’t really know. Maybe triathletes are just level headed by nature (although I’ve seen some very unlevel headed age-groupers….).

After volunteering at the finish line of the Ironman Louisville race and talking to people that were also there, several people mentioned how nice Chris McDonald (the overall winner) was. At Ironman Wisconsin we sat down at the athletes’ dinner and Jeff began talking to a kid sitting next to him. While in line, I realized that it might be Zach Ruble a younger professional. Jeff, Eric and Beth ended up talking to him throughout the dinner and I had a brief opportunity to also talk to him after the race. Once again an example of a professional that was generous with his time and not big-headed. How many sports can an average fan/athlete get that close to the professionals?

The Spectators and Volunteers at IMMOO
This is definately the best part of the Ironman race experience in Wisconsin. There were over 3,500 volunteers at the race! It is pretty amazing to have volunteers strip your wetsuit, find your transition bags, unrack your bike, chase you down with bottles of water, etc, etc.

The fan support for this race is also like no other event I’ve done, outside of the Chicago marathon. A few things that really stood out to me:

- Swim to Bike transition: heading up the helix and into the parking garage was amazing. Spectators stood two or three deep all the way up the helix, which made it hard not to run by-the-way. A very nice pick-me-up after swimming 2.4 miles.

- Verona: Beth and Eric had told me about the people in Verona, but it had to be experienced. Riding through town made me feel like a professional cyclist riding through a small town in France. The street was baracaded off, spectators were lining the street on both side cheering.

- Devil’s Hill: If Verona made you feel like a professional cyclist, then this climb definately did. The spectators were line up on both sides again, but this time there were no baracades. It reminded me of some Tour de France climbs when you wonder if fans are going to get out of the way… in this case, out of my way. As we hit that hill, both times the cheering got me a little juiced and I killed the hill. I spun fast and past a lot of riders both times. (And noticed my heart rate in the 170’s!)

Final Thought
The experience of doing an Ironman is worth the time, effort and money that it took. I always anticipated I would race Wisconsin in 2008, now I am certain I will be there again. While I was a little too dazed to hear my name called out “Gary Ditsch. You are an Ironman” I was told by several people that they saw it online.

Another amazing thought. People actually cared and were able to see me become an Ironman. The only thing that was able to make the day better, was that Nikki became an Ironman on the same day! The training and the race will be an experience we will be able to share together for a long time.

After spending time watching Iroman Wisconsin last year and seeing so many people struggle with the cold temperatures, I thought that I’d take a little journey through the historical weather records on race day in Madison.

I also wanted to see how the race may have been impacted by the type of weather they had. The best place that I have found to review race results and the historical results is, www.triresults.com

The TriResults site actually just put up an Ironman Wisconsin Events page that has a great listing of the historical data, including: the results listing, divisional top ten by year and Hawaii qualifiers by year.

Weather Data: taken from wunderground.com

Sept 10, 2006: Mean - 56F, Max - 59F, Min - 53F
Sept 11, 2005: Mean - 80F, Max - 91F, Min - 69F
Sept 12, 2004: Mean - 71F, Max - 85F, Min - 57F
Sept 7, 2003: Mean - 74F, Max - 89F, Min - 59F
Sept 15, 2002: Mean - 59F, Max - 71F, Min - 48F

Results Analysis:

Taking some data from the TriResults site, I wanted to see how the times changed year to year. To make things easy, primarily because the data was already put together, I took the 10th place finishing time (male 25-29) and the last Hawaii Qualifying time for each year.

I realize that those times are not a good snapshot of the field of triathletes racing on those days, not even a good snapshot of the male 25-29 year old age group, because to finish that high you are definately on the long tail of things. But the data was accessible and there may be a day I’ll have the desire to search through and find the median number in the age group so that we can see where the exact middle finisher would finish…. maybe later. Here’s what I do have:

Final Thoughts:

So are there correlations that we can draw from this data? I think the one thing that becomes obvious is that the 2005 race was an outlier in terms of race performance (among the top 10 and Hawaii Qualifiers). When looking at the weather data, we also see that 2005 was the hottest year the race has been held. In 2005, the average temperature was 80F with a high of 91F. The high’s in 2004 and 2003 were both in the 80’s (2003 being 89F) but the averages were both down into the lower 70’s.

The one fact that I find interesting was that in 2006 the times were not significantly different than the times in 2004, 2003 and 2002. I guess I expected them to be primarily because we saw so many people appearing to struggle with the cold. The best explanation that I have for this is that the results that we are looking at are people that are on the course for 10 to 10.5 hours. If we were able to look at the middle of the pack (mop) and back of the pack (bop) results, we might see something different. My hypothesis is that the weather becomes more of a factor the longer your day is, but it is just a hypothesis.

The last thought that I have is that the weather will impact the way I approach the event, especially if it is going to be a very hot day. But in the end, it is a variable that is out of my control and therefore something I should be prepared for, but should not be anxious about. It appears that most years athletes do a pretty good job of adapting to the conditions.

To view some Ironman Wisconsin 2006 Race Reports that I tagged on del.icio.us go here: Ironman Wisconsin Tags

The Mountaineer was my first triathlon of 2007 so I was a little anxious about taking the start line. I’ll run through a few of the fears I had:

1. Swim - this is always a concern, but due to my fairly consistent swimming over the past 8 months it is becoming less and less of a concern. The positive talk about my swimming has also helped out the anxiety.

2. Very few brick workouts this year - I have been swimming, cycling and running more than any other time in my life, but I haven’t added in too many brick (bike/run) workouts. This left me in a position of the unknown regarding how my legs would react to running once I was off the bike.

3. Very little to zero mid/upper intensity work. My primary training after the Derby Half Marathon has been long (sometimes very long) easy bike riding. The swimming and run workouts have all been easy too - my fear was that they had been too easy. The doubts were there because I hadn’t seen a sub 7:45 mile on the run since the 1/2 marathon and I wasn’t sure if all the 8:00 to 9:00 / mile easy runs were going to allow me to run well again? Join those doubts with the knowledge that my friends and training partners had been doing sub 7:00 min/mile runs regularly and my mind was in a period of high intensity self doubt.

The Race (brief)

The swim started without much issue. The in_the_water start was a very nice change for me. After a few minutes of swimming I felt fine and in a good place - that left midway through the course. I am not sure about the reason for my mid-swim change_of_heart, but I began to feel “slow”. Nothing like feeling slow to mess with your mind. The swim continued on without issues other than my own mental battles, allowing myself to concede that even if I was slow - there was still the bike and run.

As I came out of the swim I stopped on the dock, sat down and pulled off my wetsuit, prior to running to the transition. While in route to the transition I looked at my watch to see where I was at, it said, “4:00″. Apparently my Polar froze up a little bit into the swim. This meant I would have to reset it, which I didn’t have time for. It also meant that I was “flying solo” for the day because I purposely didn’t put a computer on my bike for this race. Riding with zero feedback was difficult when you are already anxious because all the bikes were off the rack when I got there.

My swim result - 32:00, 122 overall rank. Faster than 2 of the top 4 in our age group and 17 seconds behind the 1st place person in our age group. It looks like I didn’t have as much to worry about as I thought!

The bike started out with anxiety (probably left over from the swim) too. As I got on my bike and took off, the bike was making a hideous “creaking” noise. It bothered me for about 15 miles, but I came to peace with it once I felt like it was just my Look cleats making the noise.

The bike route was a 2 loop course, therefore my strategy was to ride comfortable the first loop and work a little bit on the second loop, making sure I had the ability to run. Since my heart rate monitor was frozen, I had to continually remind myself that comfortable is probably “easy”, especially knowing how worked up I was about being “behind”. While the course was supposed to be challenging, it was not that challenging at all. There was some climbing but nothing significant or blow_your_legs_up hard.

My bike result - 2:45:12, 20.3mph, 78 overall rank. As it turns out, the bike is where I lost the majority of my “placing”. Every person that placed ahead of me in our age group rode a faster bike split.

The run was highly uneventful four 11 miles and highly challenging for 2 miles. The majority of the course was an out and back leg on a bike trail, but there was 1 mile that was very hilly and difficult. (The run was a two lap course too.) The hills actually came as a nice relief as I found my legs struggling with the flat out and back portion more than in the hills. This is likely due to the speed that I was trying to maintain but hadn’t run in some time.

I used the walk/run pattern that I used in the Derby Half Marathon, although it was a little modified because I didn’t have a watch to check splits.

My run result - 1:37:13, 7:25pace, 36 overall rank. To be honest this was the most dissappointing of my splits. I was anticipating a sub 1:35 on that course, but I guess without doing any tempo, threshold or upper steady running it might be hard to expect that in the race.

Final Thoughts and “What Next?”

The race went as well as I could have expected. After all, I did have a personal best at the half iron-distance (4:58:56). I also knew that the bulk of my training over the past 18 months has not been focused on having half-iron speed, it has been focused on having Ironman endurance.

That being said, I realize that I am coming to a point in my training that will require me to include some steady, upper steady and tempo or threshold workouts. I am not completely sure how they will be inserted into my training yet - it will depend highly on my ability to recover from each workout.

The next two weeks (July 9 to July 22) are 9 and 8 weeks out from Ironman Wisconsin. They will also be my biggest weeks in terms of volume (hours) this year. After that I will use a lighter week (week 7) to recover and go into a 6 week specific preparation period.

I have been going over how to handle my specific preparation for IMMOO. If you have any suggestions or comments, I’d love to hear them. (I may not act on them, but always ready to listen!)