Boulder Peak Triathlon Race Report 2009

For the past 24 hours I've been trying to think about what I would tell my athletes if they had a race like I did at Boulder Peak and how they should react. After taking 8 months off from training, I found myself slow, out of shape, and overweight. Over the last 6 months I've worked hard at dropping the fat, adding muscle and getting my fitness back. I also told myself not to have any pressure on race goals this season. Of course that's complete BS b/c we always want to do our best and when we don't it's disappointing. My goals coming into BPT, and these are stretch goals - but a sub 2:20 race and a top 10 in the AG. I looked at the start list and trust me, I know who wasn't there. There are at least 4 guys I can think of off the top of my head that typically race this race and have gone to Kona, who weren't signed up. I knew the opportunity for a Top 10 was out there. It would take good execution on my part and maybe a 10k run that was a little better than my fitness indicated.

The swim: I started to the left of Dave Sheanin, who I knew would be in the lead pack. But, as it played out at Pelican Fest, he went out slower than me, and I had to look for another set of feet. The guy on my left took off and I jumped on his hip and he pulled me up to Dave's group, which came by a short time later. I only stayed on about 200m before backing off and swimming on my own. I had a train of people on my feet that I unsuccessfully tried to ditch time and again. The first turn buoy was tough to see and I did breast stroke twice to see where the heck I was going. Once I could see the tip of the triangular buoy I was good to go. I made the turn and sighting was easy from here on out. Once I got to the next turn buoy and looked to see how far the last turn buoy was, I knew the swim was long - oh well - that's to my advantage anyway so just keep plugging away. I swam as straight as possible and I made it to the buoy in no time. Once I made the final turn to the finish, I was moving pretty good and I finally ditched those guys on my feet. :) I think maybe one guy in my AG passed me on the swim but that was it. I was out of the water in 7th place in a time of 26:41.

I sprinted up the hill and into T1 -I did see Craig Wilson briefly but he he didn't see me. I got out of T1 quickly and my goal was to get to the top of Olde Stage as fast as I could and if I could make it to the top of Olde Stage without anyone in my AG passing me, I knew that I had a good chance of holding them off until late in the run. I worked the bike hard on the lead up to Olde Stage and I was feeling good. The hills were coming easy, I was staying down on the bars and no one in my AG has passed me yet. Once I crested the top I used the aero dynamics to my advantage and flew down Left Hand, up 36 very quickly and then ripped it down Nelson. At the bottom of Nelson was looking for places to rest and knew this was not a good sign. The hills were still coming easy as I was spinning up them, but my legs knew they were working. I had probably gone too hard at the beginning of the bike, and sometimes it's ok to take chances, and this was definitely one of those times. In order to reach a stretch goal, you have to stretch yourself.

The turn onto the Diagonal Highway was tight with the cones about 2 feet from the edge of the road, but I made it through there without crashing. I was looking forward to the run and seeing what I had left in my legs. Once again the turn onto Jay and then 51st was a demonstration in bike handling skills - but I safely navigated this once again and cruised back to the Res. I swam without a watch, biked without a watch, power meter, HRM, mph etc - I was free of all technology which was a good feeling. I was into the Res in no time cresting that last little bugger of a hill. I always look for signs that my legs are tired, like a lot of lactic acid building up when I stand. This wasn't the case, but my hip flexors were tight - and I knew this might be a problem on the run. My bike time ended up at 1:11:34, good enough for 14th AG and 21.8 mph.

I dismounted quickly and was out onto the run course in 45 seconds. I took the first hill easy and settled into a pace I thought I could maintain until 5k and then the plan was to pick it up. About 1.5 miles in, my legs had other ideas and they just didn't want to move. I wasn't breathing hard, but mentally and physically, I didn't have it. On some days, this is still good enough to reach your goals, but on this day, it wasn't. I chugged along, promising myself I would pick it up at the next aid station, the next hill, the next whatever, but in fact I probably slowed down. I was running a comfortable pace but I just didn't have the energy or ability to run faster than my current HIM Pace.

The last 1/2 mile I was just cruising, looking forward to stopping (!) - really that's all I wanted. Down the hill with 500m to go and two guys in my AG go by me. I don't care at this point - I'm in what 20th place (?) - so I just keep up my 'chug along' pace until the line and I am done, thankfully. My run ended up at 45:05. 7:15 pace and 19th in my AG. A total time of 2:24:54, easily my slowest BPT.

Looking at the results later I see that I am 12th in my AG, and a mere 12 seconds from 10th place. Apparently I was in 10th place coming into the last 1/2 mile, so, I guess letting off the gas wasn't such a good idea. What a knucklehead I am. Oh well. I ended up 70th overall, which may be my best placing at BPT. I know when I was 80th overall in 1999, when I was under 2:15, so either the course is getting longer, I am getting slower, or the competition was a little weak this year. Maybe a combination of all three? ;-)

Lessons learned:
1. Swimming straight is underrated! By swimming straight you can have a pretty good swim time relative to others.
2. Biking too hard is going to hurt your run more than you think, especially when your run fitness isn't what you want it to be.
3. Transitions in Oly and Sprint races MATTER! I had decent transitions (1:37 combined) and I know that helped my race placing.
4. Don't assume you are having a bad race ever. Keep the pedal to the metal and go hard until the finish.
5. If you miss your race goal be a few seconds, and you are really ticked off then do what I did: Take a nap, and then go ride your bike for an hour in a thunderstorm. You'll feel better when you get back!

Why I love triathlon and I am happy to be racing again in 2009:
You ALWAYS learn something new, every season, every race!

Onto the 5430 LC and maybe another HIM this year - I am not letting Sheanin off the hook that easy - I need him to get to 100% again so we can have a fair race :) - so maybe I'll race the Harvest Moon. Thanks for reading!

Power Cranking up the Watts

Since my last post, I've traveled a bit and have missed some training time, so I've made the most of what time I've had. I got one 3 hour ride in, right before I completely blew to pieces the next day where a 25 minute run and 30 minutes PC session just about killed me. This was the week of Collegiate Nationals and it was going to be an easy week anyway - too much travel (10 hour drive each day) and work to be done. We did pretty well at Nats by the way: http://www.coloradotriathlete.com/articles/09/2009_collegiate_colorado_triathlon_team_01.html - I did end up with a head cold from lack of rest and a cold swim in 52F degree water. So, my taper into St Anthony's wasn't really taper. I had a pretty solid day on Wednesday with a 2 hour ride, lifting session and 5x3' LT efforts on the run. The week after St. A's was a solid one and I started to feel more like myself. On Thursday I dared to TT the intimidating Olde Stage Road - time was 11:47 with a Normalized Power of 284 watts. So, even though it was only 11+ minutes, I saw this as a step in the right direction. Saturday was a solid ride, and even though it was in the rain, I pushed some decent watts - I think my best 60 minutes somewhere around 200+ watts. Not back to the old levels, but far from the 170s of the last few months. Sunday was a 2 hour run, and that seemed to go well. On Monday and Wednesday, I was wiped out. Tuesday was a ride with CU Tri Team that was 2x20' at Zone 3 effort. I managed 220 watts and 216 watts for these two efforts. I thought it was pretty easy and felt encouraged. On Thursday, I attempted the BTC TT and that went 'ok' - I averaged 268 watts over 18+ minutes on a rolling course. The important piece was that I raced the entire TT on the aerobars, in the big ring, and my time may have suffered, but I know I got stronger from this effort. Friday was a swim, that as much as I tried, I couldn't break 4:30 for my 300s - usually a lay up for me. I knew I was tired, but until I tried my run intervals on Saturday morning, I didn't know just how tired I was! I could NOT get my HR up, and it took a lot of effort to go 4:00 for my 1k repeats. So, after 5 reps, I ran home and called it a day. On Sunday I ran 90' and it was a real struggle - my legs were tired, but my mind was just not into it. Monday I rode 2 hours - up and over the backside of Lee Hill Road - again, nothing really in the tank and I called it good before I even got home! I stopped at Proto's Pizza - ordered up a Medium Pontiff and ate the entire thing in about 6 minutes. I got back on my bike and coasted home. Well, that's where I am with training. This week (5/14) I am in Costa Rica - trying to learn to surf! I am having fun, taking a break from training and learning something new!

Body Fat Update and Power Cranking to Coach Troy

Just a quick update - we are getting buried in snow today so I had a few extra seconds to post a second time this week. I am working with Craig at Max Muscle Boulder and my body fat numbers continue to drop. I went from 15.6 ro 13.6 to 12.6 this week (that original 23% I posted was wrong, thank GOD!). That's a nice improvement for the good guys - I have also put on 7 lbs of muscle since our first assessment on 2/17. I think the dead lifts are helping really burn up some stored fat. I still need to lose about 6# to get to race weight, but I am working hard on the nutrition side as well as the strength training. This week I am going to up the ante by using some Coach Troy videos and the power cranks - I may only last 10 minutes, but I'm willing to give this a shot. One of my athletes who qualified for Kona last year swears by this routine. You know the guy; you give him 5x6' at LT and he goes out and does an hour long Coach Troy video - I guess it worked for him! More important than the improvement on the bike was the improvement on the run! He went from a 3:23 in LP in 07 to a 3:11 at IMCDA in 08. I think power cranks had a LOT to do with that. We'll find out as I try this out for myself. I'll report back next week!

Tabata and Nutrition

Over the last two weeks I have implemented some Tabata intervals into my program. I have done this workout 3 times over the last 2 weeks so far. The protocol can be found here: http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/tabataintervals.html -but the general principle is to go as hard as you can for 20 secs, rest 10 secs and repeat 8x. Pure pain at it's best. In 4 minutes, you can really get in a very tough workout. In addition to adding this workout to my schedule, I have also started swimming intervals again - the first time since last March. I took 8 months pretty much off after mid-April last year. Even looking at my paltry 8 hours a week for training, some might consider me still in the off-season. :) The swimming has been going well - I started the first week with 6x100 - 2 on 1:45, 1:40, 1:35. The next week I did 9 on the same send offs, and then I did 6 on 1:40 and 6 on 1:35 in the 3rd week. On week 4 I did 4x100 on 1:35, 4x200 (2 on on 3:20 and 3:15)) and another 4x100 on 1:35. My only goal on these workouts was to keep the pace under 1:30, which I have been able to maintain. Today's main set I decided to step it up to 8x200 (2 on 3:15, 3:10, 3:05, 3:00). I made them all, but barely! I only see upside with my swimming and fitness in general.

I do this workout on Wednesday's and follow that immediately with a super intense weight training session at Functional Fitness with this guy who owns this company. Danny is a great guy and he took a guy like me with no formal weight training experience and has made me SUPER STRONG this winter - I was struggling with 125 lbs on the dead lift before Christmas and now we are up to 235 in my max sets. Maybe this won't translate to being faster, but the numbers I am seeing on my Compu Trainer Step Test and Tabata intervals tells me otherwise.

Typically in February, my Step Test wattage maxes out around 240-250. This winter I was at 300 watts on my last 2 minute step. If that's my starting point for the season, I'll take it. :) I haven't been riding much (under 200 miles for 2008) so once I get the miles rolling I am sure the watts will go up.

Lastly, I have been working with Craig at Max Muscle Boulder. Craig has put a nutrition plan together for me and I am seeing results in only 2 weeks. We did a body fat test two weeks ago - and I am someone who doesn't do well with caliper tests - probably b/c of my thick Italian skin - so I typically score a few points higher than what I do on a hydrostatic test. Well 2 week ago Craig measured me at 15.6% BF. Lean, mean and ready to race I typically sit at 7-8%. So, I was still in 'fat boy who took 8 months off from training' mode. In two weeks, I've lowered my body fat to 13.6% and I've seen better energy for my workouts. The best sign of improvement is when I put on my 'fat boy' jeans and they are starting to fall off me!

This week's goal is keep on the training and to even try the Tabata intervals on the power cranks - with my ultimate goal being able to make it through a Coach Troy DVD on the PCs by April 15th.

Keep on trucking!
Mike
d3multisport.com

Winter 2009 Baseline Numbers

Ok, so after many months of trying to get myself untracked, I think I have accomplished that. Where to start - I am unfit and I am overweight - both are true statements. Here is the skinny:
I had a body fat test done with Craig at Boulder Muscles Max last week - using calipers - these aren't my favorite ways of measuring body fat but as long as the measuring technique is consistent, I am ok with that. I do prefer a water based test or a DEXA Machine - both of which I've done in the past. Craig measured me at 23% which is a lifetime high, I am sure. The highest I've ever been with a caliper test is 17% or so. With the water based test, I've been as high as 14% and in September I did the Dexa test - and I came in at 18%. I weigh about 174 which is about 6 pounds over race weight. Not really a big deal in terms of pounds, but it's not about the pounds as much as its about what type of pounds they are. When I was very fit - mid 7's for body fat, I had about 11 pounds of body fat. Right now, let's say the body fat is approaching my age! So, lots of fat to lose and lots of muscle to put on.

Speaking of, my weight training sessions have been going awesome. I bumped up again last week on my dead lifts - I'm over 200# now and I am feeling stronger.

I did a CT Step Test last week and my results were good for February. A step test is where you raise the watts every 2 minutes (by 20 watts). I thought I would bottom out at 240 watts, but I managed to make it to 280 watts, which was surprising.

I also did a swim test today which was 15:33 - about 1:33 per 100 - about as slow as I've seen in many years. Going back to 2002, I can't find anything over 14:45, so I have some work to do in the pool.

Running - I'll leave that test to this week. Yesterday I did my hellacious Sanitas, North Cedar Brook run in 1:29.09 - only a minute off my best ever. Quite crazy to see that time, but I was working hard and I feel it today. My legs are sore for sure.

Last week I also rode the PCs twice - once before warm up for the CT Step Test and again before I rode my Tabata intervals - 8x20" as hard as you can, 10" recovery. I averaged just under 300 (299) for the 4 minutes. My 20" efforts averaged around 360 so not a total loss of power. I am giving the credit to the weight training. I'll be on the PCs again today and then I'll hit the 8x20" on/10" off again - hopefully I'll break 300 watts for the 4 minutes. :)

I'll keep updating on my nutrition progress as well as my 2009 fitness - I have a long way to go, but this is actually fun. I haven't been this out of shape before and it's a good challenge to try and get back to 165# and 6:15 a mile off the bike for OLY distance.

Cheers,
Mike
d3multisport.com