Update Since IMTX

Well it has been a while since I wrote on this this blog. Life has been busy and training has been almost non-existent since IMTX in May.

I started a new Real Estate business in May and that has been consuming alot of my time and focus. I also was and am still pretty burned out from IMTX on the whole training side of things.

I raced a couple of weekends ago and it did not go so well as expected since I have not been training and definitely have not been focused on threshold training most of the year.

New Challenges is what I am looking for.

I am planning on doing P90X starting next week and do that with 2-3 Bikes and runs each week. One long run to help get me prepared for Spartan Race beast happing in December.

 

IMTX Photos

Below are my photos from IMTX:

Ironman Texas 2012 - Race Report

Nutrition Breakdown

Pre-Race

3.5hrs prior to race start. 4 cups of apple sauce, 2 scoops of First Endurance Ultragen  and some added salt.

Then had a bottle of water with a GU Electrolyte Brew tablet while in transition and about 100 calories of First Endurance Liquid Shot.

Cup of water coming out of the swim.

1^st 3hrs on bike:

1 bottle of water every 3omin and 300calories of First Endurance EFS with added salt every hour.

2^nd 3hrs on bike:

I used on course nutrition (Ironman Perform) because hot liquid nutrition is not good and I supplemented that with 300 calories of solid foods (2 servings of gu chomps and 1 honey stinger waffle). So, at minimum 1 bottle of ironman perform an hour plus one of the solids above and at least 1 bottle of water. This equated to 275calories an hour or so. I would have added salt to this but my extra salt was left in my bag.  This lack of salt caused some cramping for the end of the bike and throughout the whole run. I got creative during the run to make due.

The Run:

I went out to get ironman perform 2 out of every 3 aid stations and supplement that with 100 calories of clif blocks and drank water at every aid station no matter what and most of the time two glasses. I went with margarita clif blocks as they have the most sodium. Knowing I was way behind on sodium heading onto the run I asked several people in the change tent and no one had any they would give up. So, at the first aid station they had pickles so I poured pickle juice into a cup and drank it.  At two points during the race I found salt tabs in zip lock bags on the ground that had been dropped and I picked them up and used them.  Maybe gross but may have saved my race.

Things to keep body temp down during the run. Used sponges at every aid station on my head and at least 4 times poured ice down my pants.  This may sound weird but does wonders for cooling you off.

The Race

Swim:

It was by far the roughest swim I have ever done with a ton of contact from start to finish. I decided to wear a wetsuit and that was by far a great decision with how rough the swim got to be. It was a terrible decision for the huge chaffing/rash I got under both of my arms and on the back of my neck that bothered me all day. I went out to go sub 1:20 for the swim. 

Final Time 1:17 

Bike:

 Well from the very beginning of the bike my ability to push power or my power meter was off big time compared to both heart rate and perceived effort. So, I ignored power for the most part and just raced by heart rate. The best part about this is I was going faster with less power.  At mile 50 tendonitis in my knee struck and stayed with me throughout the entire race. At this point I knew I could bike through the pain but running was going to be terrible. Then at mile 70 or so to go with the tendonitis and the head wind one of my little toes I thought was going to fall off. It was killing me to put out pressure so I had to change my pedal stoke frequently to do my best to relieve pain. I had to make sure I kept my cadence lower so that I put less pressure on it. Now, I am extremely upset and wondering if I am even going to finish this thing. I have never ran over 15 miles in training and trying to do a marathon with a hurt knee and a hurt foot was not looking like a possibility. I of course persevered as I was making good time on the bike and close to 1mph over what I was guessing I would be at for the day.

I stopped twice on the bike once to pee as I could not do it on the bike and once to make sure my athlete tracker was working.

A special thanks to my buddy Eric who saw me several times on the back half of the bike and that really helped me get through the tough times.

Final Time 5:57 18.83mph

Run:

Well my goal on the run was to walk through aid stations and run between.  Making sure I got all the nutrition I could and wanted to get in. Once I started running my knee was still hurting me so not good. Good thing was the pain in my toes was not. But I did have a lingering cramp warning the whole run in my hamstrings.

Like the bike I used heart rate for the run and ran as fast as my heart rate would let me.  My first of 3 laps I think I pushed a little much but ran really well 8:48pace. The second lap felt like the hottest lap of the run and I was really struggling mentally and physically. I told myself I would keep the plan of running between aid stations at least through the 2^nd lap and see where I am at. I saw my family (wife, son and parents) near the end of the second lap and that made a huge difference for the next couple of miles. Then right before the start of lap 3 I ran up on Jeremy and that helped me a ton as I had someone to run with for a good portion of that last lap. Then when Jeremy fell off dealing with stomach issues I knew I had a chance at going sub 12hrs and with that I picked up the pace. I at this point knew I did not really have to pay attention to HR any longer and just run. I still took my time at aid stations but my pace was anywhere from high 7’s to low 9’s at this point and I felt good. I was ready to be done. Those last couple of miles like on the bike felt like time was going the wrong way but I got through it and again beat my goal run time of 4:30 marathon. I could not believe that was even possible with the issues I was having but I showed more mental toughness in this race than I even knew I had. I think I learned something about myself during this race that I could not have learned doing anything else.  I used to think that I was mentally weak but now I know that is not true.

Final Run Time 4:21 9:57/mile

Total Time 11:49:32

Final Thoughts:

This was by far the hardest thing I have ever done and I learned a lot about myself while doing it. I am stoked I broke my 12 hour goal in my first ironman with the training load that I had, but I have no desire to ever race ironman again.  The race nor the training was fun. I enjoyed the camaraderie of ironman, the finish line and being able to point at the clock as it was under 12 hours but nothing that will bring me back to this race.

Things I noticed:

Most athletes had no idea about nutrition or did not pay attention to their nutrition plan.

A lot of athletes could not handle the temperature.

Lastly, most athletes bike too hard. You look at the results and I gained over 200 spots in the overall ranking on the run. So, that tells me 200 people that were ahead of me going onto the run probably biked to hard. I would say after looking at results 1/3 to ½ of the competition bike too hard to run well off the bike.

If anyone has specific questions or comments let me know: jeff@apexendurance.com

2nd to Last Big Weekend until IMTX

Another big week and weekend are in the books.

Another 100+ mile course ride, 2.4mile open water swim and 17 miles of running for the weekend along.

It is the Monday after and I feel pretty good considering the work load.  I am definitely feeling more fit now than I ever have in my entire life and I am down to my race weight goal of 155 lbs as of this morning.  I hope to lose a bit more before race day but I hit my number and hope to not gain when the taper starts.

Confidence is growing with every mile and this coming weekend should be the culmination of that and where I work on my final race pacing thoughts.

Doing another 100+ on the bike with a decent size brick run on Saturday then a long 14-16mile run on Sunday.

The week of training though is low volume to try to get fully recovered before the weekend.

All for now.

Biggest Training Week and Weekend of My Life

Today is Monday after I completed the biggest training week of my life and to be honest I feel terrific.  I am not really even sore and I am a bit confused.

This week was 5hrs more volume than my avg for 2012 and 8hrs more than my avg for 2011. I have to give props to First Endurance and their products who fueled me through my long workouts using a combo of EFS and EFS Liquid Shot and helped me recover using Ultragen. This was my first week on the combination and a lot of how I am feeling I have to attribute to that.

Also a large thanks needs to go out to my wife and mom (who takes care of my son during the day) who both have sacrificed to allow me to get this training volume in.

I have another similar volume week this week with a bit more swimming and running and a bit less biking.

Break down of my nutrition below:

Bike Ride Per Hour

2 Servings of EFS and 1 Serving of EFS Liquid Shot (mixed with water in a sports bottle).

Total of 300 calories, 75g of carbs, 700mg sodium (I added some thermotabs to get me to 1000mg)

1 Bottle of water per hour on top of the liquid above.

Run Per Hour

2 Servings of Liquid Shot for the second hour of the run.

Total of 200 calories, 50g of carbs, 200mg sodium

Big Week Update

Well it is now Wednesday and I am close to 50% through my biggest training week of my life.  Not huge by triathlete standards but big per my norms.

I have already had three curve balls thrown my way when attempting my swim workouts this week.  First being that I had to move a swim because my wife is on call and my normal Tuesday/Thursday was not going to work.  No problem I am now swimming Tuesday/Wednesday this week. Base hit off that curve ball no problem.

The second curve ball came when my son decided to wake up at 5am on Tuesday morning as I was about to walk out the door to do my swim.  I took an extra 15min to help take care of him so my wife can get some of her morning stuff together before I got out of the door. Instead of an hour swim it was 45min. Not bad.

The 3rd curve ball came this morning when again my son decides to wake up at 5am.  This time though my wife is on call tonight so I spent 30min trying to take care of him so she could sleep a little bit longer.  She is great though and took over so I could scamper off to the pool.  Very constrained on time I decided just to get in and swim 1500 yds without stopping to make the most of my time.  Out in under 30minutes and off to work.  So, a planned two hours of swimming has become 1.25hrs but oh well I am rolling with the punches in this large volume week.

Tonight I have a bike ride and we will see what curve ball come flying my way.

IMTX Update

Well I have been plugging along.  Had another 10+ hr training week last week thanks to my Saturday 1.5hr run and my Sunday 4+ hr solo bike ride and 20min brick run.

I have to say that I do not enjoy solo training for Ironman.  Being by myself on the bike for 4hrs was both mentally and physically challenging.  I really think my limit is 3hrs before it really starts to go downhill.

I have managed to average over 8.3hrs a week so far in 2012, which is not great but considering 2011 was 5.3hrs a week I am doing pretty well.  I am also pretty healthy so things are looking good. I have 4 more hard weeks of training to put in before the big day and this week is my biggest to date with 15 hrs of training scheduled (2 swims, 4bikes, 5runs (2 are short bricks)).

I am curious to see how I feel next week with this kind of volume but I am also excited about the opportunity to post this volume.

CDifferent Race Results

Summary:
6th overall and 2nd in my age group
500m Swim: 1:39/100
12.6mile Bike: 22.7mph on a windy day with 231watts Normalized Power
3.1mile Run: 6:53min/mile avg pace
Combined Transitions T1/T2: 91secs total, which was a 3 way tie for 1st place overall with the 2nd and 4th place overall finishers.

I am happy with the results as I have done basically zero speed work all year with increasing my volume and dealing with nagging injuries. So, the fact that there was some speed there was good news and the fact that I had zero pain throughout the day was the best news.

Based on HR I left a tiny bit on the bike but quit a bit on the run.  I probably should have been in the low 6:40s or so on the run at least but my running economy was lacking as I have not been running at those speeds in months.

So, definitely some learnings to take away from the race and some good results.

1st Race of Season

I will be participating in my 1st race of the season this Sunday 3/18.

It is a sprint race I am doing for fun and to support C-Different the title sponsor of the race.

Goals for the race are to have fun, stay healthy and to go hard.

I hope to set personal bests at the swim and bike portions and then hold on for dear life on the run. We will see how that all unfolds here in a couple of days.

For more information please visit the C Different website

IMTX Training Camp Weekend

Well this past weekend I was lucky enough to take part in the bike day of the IMTX Training Camp put on by local elite coach Trent Stephens and nationally recognized coach Muddy Waters.  These two guys know their stuff and on top of that some of the best long course talent around attended the camp to make sure I know where my place is and that is in the MOP.

I put in a good 96miles on the IMTX bike course and felt pretty good about it.  Did about 10watts over my goal for the race (normalized power) and a very short transition run. All in all good day.

Sunday I did another good tempo run to finish out the weekend.

Now I think we have 10wks left so time to focus in and keep consistency high.

13 Weeks to Go till IMTX

Well week 13 started off well this morning with a good technique oriented swim.  I felt good in the water and I think swimming is coming around.  I need to start making my workouts longer but at least my fitness is to the point that it is possible.

To be honest my Interval from H20 Audio is what really gets me through the pool workouts.

Marathon Finish and Knee Progress

Well first off I want to congratulate my wife on her first Marathon finish and going sub 4:30 at that.  She did amazing and I am super proud of her.

Well this weekend also marked some improvement on my knee healing.  I was able to run the first 8miles with my wife and her group and I ran the final 3 miles with her all with little to zero knee pain yesterday.  Today I have zero residual knee pain so that is definitely a step in the right direction.

With that being said and hoping things continue to progress I signed up for the Telfair Triathlon which benefits C-Different that is occuring on March 18th.  It is a sprint and should be super fast.  I am looking forward to racing again for sure.  I will not be tapering for that event and will not have done a ton of speedwork leading up to that day but oh well.  It will be fun to see where I am at.

IMTX Training Update

Things are progressing.  I got another 3hrs on the trainer last night thanks again goes out to Coach Troy and his Spinervals DVDs I couldn't put that time in on the trainer without them.  Then I decided to go for a super quick 2mile brick to test out the tendonitis and legs.  The run was fine and the knee was fine for the two miles.  I ran on as much grass as possible and I kept it slow.

I also was running with my new "Footbeds" which are custom made insoles from my friends at Tad Hughes Custom who also did my bike fit.  I am now wearing those insoles 90% of the time and I think it will help my tracking of my knee stay inline and also help take some stress off the foot in general.

I am signed up for a half marathon in Austin this weekend and I am still undecided on whether I run or not.  I am probably going to run knowing that I have already paid for it but I plan on biking long the day before and giving my self excuses to pull out if need be for the knee.  I plan on running it slow and steady and not racing it as I do not need another setback before IMTX for any reason.

Looking forward I have 4hr bike rides starting next weekend and then start to rebuild my volume slowly.  It will not be an ideal build to an ideal level but oh well.  It is what it is.  Trying to make some lemonade.

Besides that my swim fitness is coming back.  I am still terrible in the water but I am feeling better than I have in two seasons which is due to the fact I am getting to the pool and swimming consistently.

All for now lets see what happens with the Half Marathon this weekend.

Good Ride & Good Nutrition

I had a very good long ride last night on my trainer.

I had a long week with getting prepared for my sons first birthday party so most of the week was hit or miss with training.

Last night though I was determined to get my long ride in no matter what.

So, I got on my bike at 9pm and got off at midnight.  Not ideal but man it felt good on so many different levels.

Best part was that thanks to Third Coast Training's testing services my zones are dialed in.  My average power and HR were right where they were predicted and my nutrition was on point.

Right now I am trying out Infinit Nutrition (a custom formula I made) and it has done me well.  I mix thress servings of 220 calories in one bottle and sip from that for 3 hours.  I have additional water bottles to drink from as well.

For 3hr ride I took in a total of 4 bottles of water (1 containing nutrition).

Nutrition Breakdown per hour

Infinit
Calories 220
Sodium 555mg
Potassium 161mg
Carbs 52g
Protein 3g

GU Electrolyte Tabs
Calories 10
Sodium 320mg
Potassium 55mg

Total Per Hour
Calories 230
Sodium 875mg
Potassium 216mg
Carbs 52g
Protein 3g

Initial IMTX Goals

Thanks to QT2's Triathlon Calculator and confirming some caluclations using http://kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm below is my initial goal for IMTX.  I did add some time to the bike and the run from what the calculator said due to how extreme the conditions are on this course during the month of May.

I have been told multiple times by others and myself to not put a time goal out there but here it is anyway.

IMTX Goal Splits and Finish Time
Leg	Time
Swim	1:27:00

Bike	5:45:00

Run	4:40:00

Finish

11:52:00

Swim Day

It was swim day today and I made it to the pool.

I am super excited I did not let being tired or anything else talk be out of going to the pool this morning at 5am when my alarm sounded.

I made it to the pool did some nice sets of 200's and then found a new speed. This new speed is super slow or at least feels that way but it is controlled and seemed almost effortless.

When I looked at my clock to see my split it was under 2min/100 which if you know how bad a swimmer I am you would know that this is not a terrible time if this is the slowest I can swim.

This small tidbit along with getting to the pool to gain back some swim fitness gave me some more confidence on my road to Ironman Texas.

Knee Diagnosis

Well I posted  earlier about some pain I was dealing with on the inner portion of my left knee.  I decided to bite the bullet and see an orthopedist.

I saw the great Dr. Jensen at Athletic Orthopedics & Knee Center here in Houston. I have been seeing him since probably middle school and he has taken great care of me and my brother with all our various injuries from broken bones to ligament tears.  To make a long story short this time it is just some tendinitis at the insertion point and I was given some anti-inflammatory and told to lay off running for a week and build up slowly.

The other recommendation was to get some orthotics for my running shoes, which I will be seeing Tad Hughes of Tad Hughes Custom Studio for those.  He is also the guy who got me fit right on my Trek Speed Concept.

Fueling for Workouts and Racing

Fueling for Workouts/Races
Basics are 200-300 calories per hour consisting of 50-70grams of carbs and 300-1000+ mg of sodium.  The carbs and sodium vary because every athlete is different and also every workout is different.  A highly aerobic ride you will need less carbs as you are using less carbs.  A lighter athlete is burning less carbs than a bigger athlete.  Sodium I feel is needed more by people who sweat a lot (like myself) and in very hot races like most in Houston.

Articles on Fueling and Carbohydrates:
http://www.thirdcoasttraining.com/blog.php?s=training-race-day-fueling-strategy
http://sportsci.org/jour/0101/bmd.htm
http://www.poweringmuscles.com/article.php?id=61
http://sharepoint.worcester.edu/external/evescio/Beginner%20Tri%20Program%202007/Triathlon%20Sports%20Nutrition%20to%20Improve%20Performance.htm

I recommend 4 main products in this area EFS by First Endurance, new Roctane Drink by GU, Infinit custom make your nutrition and CarboPro.  

Articles on Sodium:
http://weshobsonperformance.com/articles/nutrition/sodium.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2492002/
http://www.slowtwitch.com/Training/General_Physiology/The_Math_of_salt_loss_1093.html
http://ironman.com/training/nutrition/electrolytes-in-the-ironman-nutrition-and-hydration-plan#axzz1kPkCv62c

With most of these you will probably need some sort of sodium supplement which I suggest Athlytes by MST and Thermotabs.  I usually do not worry about supplementing sodium during my daily training as much as I do long weekend workouts and during my races.



Recovery
This is super important and needs to be done in the 30minute window directly after your workout is completed.  I suggest something with some protein in it to help rebuild any torn down muscle tissue and some carbs to further replenish your glycogen and get you back to a normal state.

I recommend Honey Milk, Ultragen by First Endurance, Gu Recovery Brew and Fluid.

Performance Enhancement
I will not bore you with all the technical stuff but the ingredients in the following two stacks are very similar and have been shown to do a lot of cool things for endurance athletes (runners and cyclists in particular).
This is less important than the previous two but if you have the funds it is worth looking into.
1. First endurance OptygenHP and PreRace
http://www.firstendurance.com/pdf/optygenhp_2.2.pdf & http://www.firstendurance.com/pdf/pre_research_packet_1.4.pdf
Check them out on www.firstendurance.com under products and they have videos.
2. MST Cre-02, Citruvol - Ultra and Cordygen5
http://www.millenniumsport.net/

I have been on Citruvol and Cordygen5 in the past and think it had good results.  After doing some research I am adding the Cre-02 coming up very soon. I have also ordered the first endurance stuff to take immediately following the end of the MST stack to compare but again the ingredients are virtually the same and the feedback from users is amazing.



Daily Vitamins
Most of us do not have perfect diets thus need daily vitamins. I have found two dailys that focus on endurance athletes and have a lot of good feedback from triathletes and runners specifically.
First Endurance produces MultiV, Millennium Sport produces MVP and SixNutrition puts out a monthly vitamin supplement that is only for men.
http://www.firstendurance.com/pdf/multiv_research_2010.pdf
http://sixnutrition.com/
http://www.millenniumsport.net/


If you do everything above this can get quit expensive trust me I know cause I have been trying a bunch of this stuff out to be able to put out this list.  I do have deals with most of the companies above to help with the cost and any Team Apex members can take advantage of them.  IF you want something above and are not on the Team I can probably still beat retail so let me know.

Any Team Apex member who wants to come to me with a budget I can help pick and choose what is best for you.  If you have no budget go to the First Endurance website do some research and pick out almost everything they have and let me know so I can order it for you at a discount.  It is the easiest and maybe the best products out there cause they are back by tons of research (even if its their own) and are focused on endurance athletes.

Week 1 of IMTX Training

All in all it was not a bad week of training for me until I got to Sunday.  I had to switch out my long run and long bike this weekend based on life.

I like to do my long runs on Saturday so that my legs are fresher than doing them the day after a long bike.  Oh well no big deal.

So, set out to do 18miles of running with the wife as she is training for the Austin Marathon in a few weeks.  The run was going well until mile 6-7 then I started feeling something going on with me knee.  This was not a new feeling and I knew it was trouble but not wanting to let my wife down I kept going. The pain of course did not go away.  We were employing a run/walk program every mile like there were aid stations and finally around mile 10 or so the wife noticed me limping while walking.  So, we "discussed" over the next mile the smart option of my stopping the run.  Which I did :( .

This is now the second time in three weeks and the second long run in a row that I have had to stop due to this knee issue.  I have had knee issues since college and I do not know if they are cut out for long distance running. I have ran a few half marathons with the wife and have done a Half Ironman all with no knee issues but all the sudden I decide to train for an Ironman and help my wife train for a marathon and my knees have decided they wanted to age 30 years or something. Needless to say this is really bothering me because I feel my fitness is getting better but my body is not letting me do the long distance running I need to not only be successful at Ironman but even to complete the Marathon at the end of that beast.  The pain slowly comes up and then it cripples me and it is tough to even walk.  It is now Monday the day after my legs have almost zero soreness (note: my fitness is good) but my knee is still in pain.

I do not want this to be me.

I am going through the internal struggle now on how to proceed.  I am going to talk to a ortho friend of mine and seek support from my network of friends, family and coaches to try to get through.

 

First Hurdle On My Path to IMTX

Well today I hit my first hurdle on my way to Ironman Texas.

My 1 year old decided that he needed to wake up at 2am last night and with that the wife and I also woke to take care of the poor guy.  Still no clue as to what was wrong with him but better that than something actually being wrong.

With that and a couple other minor things I did not make it to the pool for my second/last pool session of the week.  I did however get in 15min using bungee cords working on dryland swim drills I got from Coach Troy see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVUBIXi5JM0&lr=1.

This is not a picture of me this morning but a pic of Conrad Stoltz the Xterra beast but this is one of the exercises I did.

I think I will start adding this more often to help with my technique and strength in the water.

So, I might not have cleared the hurdle but I also did not fall on my face. Something is always better than nothing.

I am however going to nail my interval run today to help make me feel better.

Ironman Texas Training

Ok, Ironman Texas training starts today.  I have my plan done through middle of April when I get retested at Third Coast Training and with their help reevaluate what my focus should be going forward into the race on May 19th.

I am super apprehensive and super excited all at the same time.   It is going to be an interesting journey filled with ups and downs and I hope to chronicle it all here.

Today is a scheduled rest day but since last week was vacation and I did only one run, one really good hike and walked a lot each day I will probably get in either a bike tonight or a strength session.

Time to get my diet and training consistent and on track for performance on race day.

Goals:
I am going into IMTX realistic as this is my first Ironman.  I am hoping to break the 12 hour barrier but have people telling me that through my test results I should break 11 hours.  We will see what happens as this is no easy Ironman with super hot and humid weather that saw a lot of DNFs last year.

Strength Training Continued

Strength training is going well and is helping me get back some of the size and definition I lost from the two years I have gone away from it. I also can already tell it is helping keep the nagging issues at bay by having all stabilizing muscles much stronger.

I do not have any data as to how it is equating to triathlon performance but I do know I am enjoying myself, helping reduce nagging injuries and am looking better.