Ass Sweltering Pain

Yep, that’s what I’m calling my race report. Three simple words, combined, encapsulate the week leading up to, and including, the National Marathon To Fight Breast Cancer, aka “Running with Donna 26.2″. Warning: This is a long, long, long post.

First off, the ass. I won’t include a link here, since most of you know what one is. Matter of fact, I’ve been called one from time to time. It’s even likely I’ve been called one in the past 24 hours. But I digress.

For those of you that follow this blog, you’ll know of my inability to run for the past month due to a very painful “calf pull” that I experienced in mid-January. A couple of weeks off from running, as well as stretching and massage, did seem to help. At least until I ran on it again. With only two weeks until the marathon, I was desperate to find something to fix my pain. So last week, while driving to the rodeo, I did some exploratory poking and squeezing on my calf (while driving, which I DO NOT recommend). The exquisite pain that shot up my thigh, into my glute and the small of my back got me to thinking and a bit of research once we got home that night. With the help of my Trigger Point Therapy Workbook and TriggerPoints.net, I was able to narrow down the culprit, which certainly didn’t cross my mind in the previous weeks.

Who would’ve thought that a debilitating calf issue would be caused by your butt? Even with my experiences and successes with trigger points over the past year, I certainly didn’t. In the picture below, my particular issue is the one on the right.

As you can see, the X’s mark the trigger points and the red areas mark the associated pain. I didn’t typically feel any pain in my hamstring area and had only felt the pain in my cheek area during my long runs leading up to my “calf pull”. The majority of the pain associated with this trigger point was in the area on the outside of my calf.

But that still wasn’t the “calf pull” area. That area was more associated trigger point #2 on the Soleus, but frequent massage and pressure on that trigger point did not solve the problem, so it had to have something else contributing. That turned out to be the Gluteus Minimus.

After referring to the book and the web site, it was time for a bit of exploration. For such a sensitive area, I’d normally turn to the Goddess for help, but one thing usually leads to another, so I had to do this one myself. Plus, since the gluteus minimus lies beneath the gluteus maximus, the probes had to be deep and forceful; not something she enjoys doing (she tells me “that’s your job”). The probes confirmed a line of large knots right where the muscle attaches to my pelvis. Let me tell you, there was no pleasant in this probing.

So all last week I massaged them by sitting on a tennis ball on the living room and slowly rolling over the muscle, working from one knot to the next. Quite a few times the pain took my breath away. Following each rolling session I’d stretch. I found the most effective stretch for me is the Prone Glute Stretch, which feels absolutely wonderful. By following this sequence on both legs last week, I was comfortable that I could start the marathon on Sunday.

In the final days before the marathon, I revamped my original goal (break 4:00) and came up with three separate goals, two of which I could fall back on if the previous goal was unattainable. They were:

1. Break 4:00. Even with one month off, there’s always the possibility that the forced rest from the injury would deliver me to the line so fresh that I would comfortably crank out the required 9:09 miles (which I was doing with ease on my long runs leading up to my injury last month).
2. Complete the race. With the most likely possibility that I would still be feeling the effects of my calf through the race, I would have to adjust my finish time goal on the fly and hold out for the finish.
3. Stop the insanity, wait for Goddess and my sister to catch up, then walk the remainder of the half-marathon with them. The intent of this goal was to continue to heal and hopefully set myself up for April’s Country Music Marathon in Nashville.

The overarching goal was to not injure myself any more. But doesn’t that go without saying?

Goal number three was the only goal as recent as 7 days out from the race. I had resigned myself to not running the marathon and would enjoy the morning with Goddess and my sister. That certainly isn’t a bad thing, not by any means, but my goal signing up was to race the 26.2. But with the “discovery” of my gluteus minimus, goals 1 and 2 quickly became more attainable.

After a gaggle at the start area (see “BAD” and “UGLY” below), we were off. I was very comfortable at a 9:30 pace for the first few miles, figuring that if I was to achieve goal 1, I would warm up during the first few miles and then be able to slowly ramp up the pace. That’s my typical race strategy anyway, since I don’t typically warm up for 4-6 miles.

By mile 4, I could feel my calf. No pain, but a steady discomfort; enough discomfort to back off the pace and toss goal #1 out the window. At no point during the 26.2 miles did my calf hurt like it had during the previous month, so that was a huge success.

By mile 6 I had passed the turn-around for the half-marathon, so I was committed to the full.

At mile 10, my quadricep heads started to cramp slightly. Not a good sign, but a reality of the day.

By mile 13.1, I was a full 20 minutes slower than my half-marathon split at the Flying Monkey Marathon, which had over 2,000′ of climbing. This course was flat, with only 215′ of total climbing! It was a run-walk strategy for the last 13.1 miles.

Why so slow? Other than the leg issues, for me it was the weather. Over the past several months, I’ve been running in a Kentucky winter. Runs in the snow, runs in some pretty cold wind chills, runs in dreary overcast days with temperatures hovering in the 20’s. The morning we left to drive to Florida, it was 19 degrees. And that was after a couple of days of ice and snow. In Florida, by the time the race started on Sunday morning, it was 69F with 75% humidity and continued to get worse, settling at 75F and 65% by the time I finished. In other words, relatively oppressive heat.

Although I knew it was going to be warmer, I failed to properly build my hydration and electrolytes in the days leading up to the race. It caught up to me.

I inhaled my Clif Shot Bloks, wishing I had more than just one pack of the Margarita with Salt. I started gulping the Accelerade that they provided and even talked a First Aid tent volunteer out of his bag of Lays Potato Chips at about mile 20. I was able to keep the cramping at bay for the most part, but it would rear its head enough to keep me focused on sucking down as much electrolytes as I could.

Goddess called and told me that she and my sister had finished. I was (and still am) so proud of them; neither had done anything like that before, not even so much as run a 10K. They committed to walking the 13.1 with each other.

Between miles 20 and 21, I had the most amazing walk with a lady. I first approached her because she was wobbling like crazy and I was worried about her. The heat was definitely taking its toll on everyone. Turns out she was a 68 year old who was using the marathon as a training run for an upcoming 50-mile race. She was quite upset with her performance thus far because she knew she was fitter than that, just coming off a 70-mile training week and had run under 4:00 in the past year. She was from out west, so the humidity was definitely getting to her. I waved down medical support, who had a talk with her and let her continue. I was quite pleased last night to see that she had finished the race.

By mile 22, I did some quick calculations and realized that I needed to pick up the pace if I was to finish in under 6:00. With the heat and cramping, it was going to be a challenge. At this point, everyone was walking. Occasionally someone would shuffle for a minute or so, but it really was the walk of the dead.

I revamped my walk-run strategy and threw time out the window. No matter if I picked a 2:1 or 1:1 time strategy, I just couldn’t get the legs moving very well after walking. So I decided on a 30:30 strategy, not of time, but of foot strikes; 30 left foot strikes while running, 30 left foot strikes while walking. It kept me focused and moving relatively quickly at a 9:45 pace during the run segments. In the next two miles I figure I passed between 75-100 people. That was a huge confidence boost.

At a mile-and-a-half out from the finish, the worst climb of the day arrived as we had to climb a bridge that crosses the Intracoastal Waterway. Past the last water stop and starting to cramp again, it was back to walking. Turning the last turn, greeted by the sign “The last .2 mile will kick you in the ass” and seeing the finish line got me moving again. The cramping got me walking again. Even coming up to the timing mat that they had set up with 100 yards to go, my leg locked. Luckily that didn’t come through in the pictures. I was passed by quite a few folks at this stage, but I couldn’t have cared less.

Finish time - 5:57:14 by my Garmin, chip time 5:57:18.

The Good -

• I finished. Thanks to the lack of running over the past month, this entered back into my race goals.
• I broke a rule of racing and was better for it. I wore my new pair of Injinji Toe Socks and they rocked! I had been wearing Thorlo’s for the past year+ and had always had problems with blisters on the balls of my feet, no matter how much or how long I ran. The Thorlo’s are thick and have good padding while the Injinji’s are very thin with no padding. So I discovered that with the Injinji’s I’ll likely have to come down half a shoe size to make up for the difference in sock padding. With the thinner socks, my forefoot was sliding around a bit in the shoe box, but absolutely no blisters!
• I had several mental breakthroughs during the race. Details are unimportant, but they happened.
• The communities of Jacksonville Beach and Neptune Beach absolutely rocked! A significant portion of the race ran through neighborhoods, which effectively cut them off to all auto traffic. So the residents made the best of the situation and stood out in their driveways, sprayed the runners, provided oranges and cheered. One group of guys even provided shots of beer at the 21 mile mark (it was GOOD).
• For a first-time event, the course was completely stocked with supplies on the course. There was never a shortage of water, Accelerade or Gu (I didn’t use it, but they had plenty). This was in sharp contrast to several of the more well-established events that I’ve participated in.
• The support from the community and runners (I know I mentioned the community before, but this is different). Since this event was to raise funds for Breast Cancer Research, each of us could wear a sign on our back that said who we were running for. Mine said simply “Mom”, who is a survivor. I had many folks run past saying “I’m running for Mom too”. That was always a great boost. More humbling were the folks who ran by with 7, 8 or 10 names on their sign. More amazing was running and talking with survivors who were out there pushing themselves. The couple of times that I thought about folding I thought about what my Mom and all of these others had gone through; my discomfort paled in comparison.
• The support and advice from those of you out in blogland. Thank you so much for the public and private advice and concern. That really means a lot to me.

The Bad -

• There weren’t corrals for the runners, just pacers with planned finish times, so you would look for your planned finish time and stand near that person. The gun went off and it took a couple of minutes to get to the start line (normal). But once we got moving, it was evident that several walkers had seeded themselves at the front, causing several traffic jams and collisions as the thousands of runners had to work around them. I applaud those ladies for getting out there and moving, but at the front of 8,000+ was not the place to be.
• This also goes for the folks following the Jeff Galloway plan. Overall, I believe that this group did great things for thousands of runners at the marathon, but sticking to the plan in the first mile was a recipe for disaster as the pacer yelled “Walk” and groups of 60+ runners stopped to walk just 3 minutes out from the start line; again, they caused huge traffic jams and many collisions in a very crowded situation. Tempers were flaring already and I’m surprised no one got hurt.

The Ugly -

• The race started a full 30 minutes later than the 8am start time. They knew it was going to be warm and were announcing over the loudspeakers that folks need to adjust their pacing and not plan on a PR, yet still started it late. It looks like they’ve fixed this and have adjusted the start time for next year’s race to 7:30am. Hopefully they’ll start it on time.

Lessons learned -

• Electrolyte loading - I can’t believe I still haven’t figured this one out. I’ve known for many years that I’m a very heavy sweater and that I lose a lot of electrolytes during a race. Yet I never remember to load up on them until I’m in the race.
• A stride-focused walk-run strategy is the key when I get to that stage. I was amazed at how easy it was to get moving once my left foot hit 30. And it was easy to hold an unflagging pace for “only” 30 strides.
• The Base layer is crucial. What’s that? A base layer in 70 degree weather? Yep. After running the Monkey and chafing my nipples down a full 1/32″, I learned that I needed to wear a skin tight layer under my shirt. Let’s just say it was a good thing that I wore a red shirt for that race. Since then I’ve always worn a skin tight technical shirt and haven’t had any problems. I did the same for this race and it was a godsend. Once the heat got unbearable, I peeled my outer shirt and let the slight sea breeze cool me. The wicking effect really kept me cool, even though the shirt was black. I’d even dump a cup of water over me and get chilled, which was great! So if you look at my race pics, you’ll see that I’m wearing two different shirts.
• Stretching, massage and cross-training. I need to do more of each to help with these injuries, all of which have been flexibility related over the past year. I’ve had much success with identifying the appropriate trigger point and relieving the pressure, but some have taken longer to solve and have kept me away from training longer than I’d like. So I now need to schedule more sessions each week.

Will I do this race again? Absolutely. The location was great, the community was great and it had the added bonus of allowing me to spend several days with my parents as well as my sister and her family.

From here it’s the Tom King Half Marathon next month and the Country Music Marathon in April, both in Nashville.

MS Blues Half Marathon: Race Report

In the words of S. Baboo Friday night as we ate dinner with him and GeekGirl - “Life is funny. You just can’t make up stuff this good”. But that doesn’t really have anything to do with this blog. We were already laughing and that line made me laugh even more.

It all started with checking in at our hotel in Jackson, MS. The guy in front of us, wearing his Boston Marathon Finisher’s Jacket, mentioned to one of the hotel staff that this race was going to be tougher than Boston, thanks to the hills. No one mentioned hills. Not in this race. The course profile showed some bumps, but certainly nothing to get concerned about, right?

So we check in to the hotel, grab a quick nap, then head over to the expo to sign in. I call S. Baboo and GeekGirl, who are out driving the course. The first thing he mentions are the hills. And it doesn’t sound good. Further discussion squashes any plans for a PR on this course.

Race morning turned out beautiful for a run, although a bit warmer than I like. But standing around before the start was pretty cool at 45F with a nice breeze. So I stood with Goddess, wrapped up in my sweats until just moments before the horn went off. Then I slipped into the pack, not 30 feet from the front, and started the run.

As expected the first 1/2 mile was pretty slow as everyone is packed together and shuffling along. It took a while, but then things started thinning and and I could move. The plan was to start out slow and throttle back for the first half, then pick up the pace. I planned this for two reasons: 1) with the hills, I didn’t want to go out to hard and blow up, and 2) this was always planned to be just a training run for me (definitely a priority B race, where I didn’t peak and taper like I would for a priority A race).

The first few miles were warming up, talking to Elvis (who invited me back to Graceland after the race), and working my way around the other runners. Not that I was flying, but it was pretty easy to pick out who had started out too hard. The first long uphill was between 3-3.5 miles and folks started drifting back. This hill even slowed my overall average pace a few seconds, but that was fine with me, especially this early in the race.

Through the mid-section of the race, I planned on keeping the pace nice and steady so I’d have something left for the last 4-5 miles. I actually ended up picking up the pace in the mid-section, shaving time off my average pace from miles 3.5-8. So far so good, but the hills just kept coming as we worked our way through the downtown business/capitol district of Jackson.

The last 5 miles started out quite hilly as we worked our way past the fairgrounds and climbed up into a residential area. This is where quite a few folks started walking, but that wasn’t in my plan. I started reeling in more runners as I picked up the pace, but now that I look at the data, I didn’t actually pick up speed. Matter of fact, over my last 5 miles, every 1/2 mile split was within 1 second of each other, either 8:45 or 8:46. How’s that for consistent? Here’s the pace chart and route (click on the picture to see the full image, which includes the full route):

I think the killer was the last 1/2 mile, where we made a left turn and went straight up. It sure felt like a wall at that point. I crossed the finish line at 1:55:46 , not a PR, but just 8 minutes off. Not too bad for a hilly course and a training run. If I remember correctly (the web site’s not updated), that made me 132nd out of 600. Also, I think they had me at 1:56:02, which would account for passing under a railroad track (more on that later).

After Goddess and I drove back to the hotel for a quick ice-bath and shower (Goddess refused to join me for either one), we grabbed the boy and headed back to the race. We sat at the finish “wall” and cheered the marathon finishers on, telling them it was the last hill. There were a few comments of “It sure as hell better be”.

We almost missed S. Baboo as he came sprinting up the top of the hill on his way to a PR! We cheered GeekGirl on as she went up the hill, but it was a few minutes later when we realized that it was her. She finished quite strong herself and I know she’s pleased with the race, especially considering the hills.

So we sat in the finish area, ate some food, listened to some blues and enjoyed the free beer. It was quite an energetic post-race.

After a few relaxing hours in the hotel that afternoon, we met up at a local bar, which sponsored the race. They definitely threw in a great deal, with free entry to all race competitors, plus two free drink coupons. Very nice schwag there! The bands were great, as was the beverage and company. But it all had to come to an end, especially since we had a 7-hour drive home the next day.

I did learn a few things during this race:

1). Pay closer attention to the race profile. Goddess even asked me afterwards when I was going to pick a flat course. My Garmin gave me 1,300 feet of climbing during the 1/2 marathon; BIM Active calculates 839 feet (I believe that more).  Either way, I don’t want to think of what it was for the full.

2). Turn off the “auto pause” feature on my Garmin. We went under a train overpass at one point and it turned off for about 15 seconds. All-in-all, nothing horrible, but just an odd event that took my mind off of my run.

3). Fuel. Making the transition from getting ready for a triathlon and getting ready for a run was difficult. My first half-marathon last year, I ate my normal 600+ calories like I would before a triathlon; too much to run on right away. I scaled that back for my marathon and felt a bit better, although I did suffer from some gastro-issues during the last few miles. This time I drank one Ensure (250 cals) and everything worked fine. Also, a few weeks back I found the culprit of my stomach pains during the latter parts of my runs- my long-beloved Hammer Gel. I was on a 10-miler and popped a gel at mile 7. By mile 8-9 I had the familiar stomach pain that I had throughout all of my races last year; the rest of my run wasn’t good. So I switched to Clif Shot Bloks and they worked fine during my long run last weekend. They worked great during this race, too. No issues at all, either during or after. So I ran with my Fuel Belt, water and a package of Shot Bloks. I drank the water at the aid stations and took the occasional swig from my belt. Absolutely no issues.

Anybody need some Hammer Gel?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not slamming Hammer Gel. I’ve been a big fan of Hammer products for the past 12 years and will continue to use them. But I’ll just have to limit the gel use to long training rides and races. No runs.

Pardon the pun.

Would I recommend next year’s Mississippi Blues Half-/Full Marathon? Hells Yes! An excellent course, with bands along the way, plenty of aid stations, enthusiastic volunteers, a welcoming community, great schwag and entertainment make this a race that needs to be on your “must-do” list. Plus, if you live in someplace cold (it was 9-degrees here the morning before we left), a place like southern MS in January is pretty darn warm (and humid). A nice change of pace for a few days.

Food Guidance

Reading Athena’s blog this morning got me to looking around at links.

I found the greatest news concerning dark chocolate. Seven ounces a week!

That on the heels of my doc telling me that two drinks a night is a good thing.

All this great news makes it a bitch to stay near race weight, though.

BTW, I asked the doc if I could bank my drinks during the week and make a withdrawal on the weekend. For some reason, the look was disapproving.

Hasher’s $4K Run

<rant>

Absolutely freakin’ amazing. Some Hash House Harriers do what they do all the time, sending an ignorant township’s leaders into a tizzy. Instead of facing a felony conviction, they pay $4,000 as a plea bargain.

People have lost their paranoid, freakin’ minds.

Perhaps, using prosecutor Marc Ramia’s words, we should prosecute all fast food joints because the spreading of such food “creates a dangerous situation for the public, who are not aware of what the substance is.”

</rant>

Full text follows:

Flour-sprinkling joggers out of trouble

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Charges have been dropped against two siblings who inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare when they sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who was visiting from Hamburg, Germany, had been charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.

The charges were dropped Thursday after Daniel Salchow agreed he and his sister would donate $4,000 to local charities. Prosecutors could reopen the case if the Salchows do the same thing again in the next 13 months.

Dorothee has returned to Germany and prosecutors agreed not to require her to appear in court.

The siblings set off the scare while organizing a run for a local chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a worldwide group that bills itself as a “drinking club with a running problem.”

“Hares” are given the task of marking a trail to direct runners, throwing in some dead ends and forks as challenges. In August, the Salchows decided to route runners through an IKEA furniture store parking lot.

Police fielded a call that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns.

Daniel Salchow biked back to IKEA when he heard there was a problem and told officers the powder was just flour, which he said he and his sister have sprinkled everywhere from New York to California without incident.

Daniel Salchow and his attorney, Michael Jefferson, said they were pleased with the resolution but still believe authorities overreacted.

“We felt all along it was an innocent activity,” Jefferson said.

Many fellow runners sent letters of protest over the Salchows’ arrest, but New Haven officials maintain their response was warranted.

Prosecutor Marc Ramia said in court Thursday that spreading such material “creates a dangerous situation for the public, who are not aware of what the substance is.”

For the actual page.

To a halt

Well, if I was rushing on Sunday, Monday brought me to a screeching halt.

Feeling increasingly under the weather through the weekend, waking up early Monday morning was an experience. Flowing from the nose like a hose (hey, that rhymes) and sharp pain in the chest when I coughed or drank anything.

Walking out of the doc’s office, I felt like I needed a picnic basket to carry the bottles. Now there’s an image for you, Fe-Lady.- all 192 lbs of me, skipping with a picnic basket. Outfit is your choice.

Anyway, there went the rest of Monday, which I had off anyway. Goddess and I tried to think back to the last time I was sick. The best we can recollect was about five years ago. So I guess I was due.

Halfway through the day, Goddess walks out of the pantry with my new favorite snack - Special K Chocolatey Delight. Relatively healthy, with chunks of chocolate. What else can you ask for? One of these days I’ll try it with milk. But what’s the rush, right?

I’m telling you, yummy chocolate goodness.

So today I still wasn’t feeling right. So I went into work, grabbed the stack of folders off my desk and worked from home. No sense in getting everyone else sick. I’m just glad I have that sort of flexibility.

And I got to enjoy more of that yummy chocolate goodness.

And from the sounds coming from the kitchen, Goddess is digging in the box. Time to grab some for myself before its all gone.

Ever Have One of Those Races?

Or at least felt like this?

Taken during the Men’s 3,000 meter steeplechase at Osaka, Japan.

My first reaction was “oooommphhhh”!

Then it got me to thinking about my first (and second to last) experience with steeplechase. And as with any good story, it starts with that phrase. What phrase is that, you ask?

Well, there I was.

Senior year of high school. At a track invitational whose name has since escaped me. But it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, there I was. Done with my races, which results escape me as well. After my last race, it was time for a feed. And right next to the track of the school that we were racing at was a Carl’s Jr. How convenient! My favorite fast food joint to stuff my gullet while growing up. So, being a 17 year old runner who had already burned plenty of calories, I opted for my choice of meals - two (2) Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger’s. With fries and a Coke.

And during that time, what restaurant wouldn’t win a teenage boy’s heart with the slogan - “It doesn’t get all over the place, it doesn’t belong in your face”.

Anyway, back to eating. I scarfed it down. And it was good. All 1900 calories for just the burgers, plus the fries and Coke (no Diet Coke for me back then).

So afterwards, I rolled back over to the track to watch the rest of the races.

A little while later, the coach comes walking over and says “Bill, they’re going to run a steeplechase at the end. So I signed you up”. “Oh $h!t. Thanks, coach”.

Having never run the race, I had no idea how to approach it. Especially with 4lbs of meat in my belly.

I wish I had video. It had to have been the funniest thing ever. None of us racing had ever run the race, much less jumped the hurdles and vaulted past the water hazards. I’m sure that a few of the hurdles should have been shown on American’s Funniest Home Video’s.

I didn’t trip, I didn’t land face first in the water. I didn’t puke, although there were some serious doubts, especially during the last lap.

I did curl up into a ball on the side of the track after the finish.

Over 20 years later, I can still picture everything.

Good times.

Oh yeah. The second time wasn’t any better, although I had more notice so I didn’t fuel for it the same.

My Goddess, My God

First off, my Goddess.

After only five and a half hours of sleep, she got up at 4am with nary a cross word, helped pack the car, stayed awake on the drive to the lake, saw me off, moved the car to the transition area after the park opened, had my refill of bottles ready when I finished bike loop 1, was there again when I finished the bike, helped me transition to the run by making sure my bottles were ready, then smiled at me when I was done. Seven and a half hours, parked in empty parking lots, then later surrounded by some of finer specimens that America has to offer. Not a peep of complaint, just encouragement. She even drove home. My Goddess rocks!

On to the workout. It was to be eight hours, with the full 112 mile bike ride for my upcoming race, followed by the balance running. Didn’t work out that way. “Only” 7:20, but discretion is the better part of surviving.

The bike ended up being 114.5 miles, mainly because I had to tack on an extra mile and back to get to my Goddess at the end of loop one for a refill.

From the beginning, a good breakfast of 650 calories two hours before the start. In the parking lot, I did what I do best - sabotage myself. I thought that a PowerBar would be a good choice to top things off right before I took off. A PowerBar and a sip of water. Fifteen miles into it and the GI distress started. Good job, Bill! Luckily I caught it immediately and was able to have things sorted out and back on schedule by mile 40. Lap 1: 3:17:17.

By the start of lap 2, the wind had picked up. That meant grinding into a stiff headwind. But before that stretch of the loop, I had to cross the bridge. My God, the bridge. About 7 miles from the transition area, we have to cross Lake Barkley, which is actually a wide part of the Cumberland River. The Cumberland is a working river, which means large coal barges must travel past. So this bridge is tall, some 80 feet off the water in the middle. It’s a 1930’s vintage design, so there’s no shoulder, just the white line, then a waist high railing. Mind you, I’m not afraid of heights. But this bridge unnerved me. Never mind that traffic starts backing up, because I’m going to take my part of the lane right down the middle, thank you. Oh, and that part about avoiding Zone 5 at all costs during an endurance event? So much for that. Had to cross the bloody thing four times today. Luckily the drivers were considerate.

Lap two was more interesting. The typical stages of an Ironman ride worked their way through my body. Miles 75-90 were definitely uncomfortable. But then it started looking up again. Loop 2: 3:23:36. A bit slower, but I’ll take it.

Total ride: 114.45 miles, time: 6:49:26 (including my 6 minute stop between loops and a 3 minute stop at mile 100 to fill my water bottles).

Now, the time’s not fast, but it’ll definitely do for my race day. What that doesn’t show is the climbing. This route has a some hills. Only one’s a wall, and that’s at mile 111 for race day. Total climbing for the route is a whopping 7,158 feet! Have a look here at the route and the elevation slice.

By comparison, the longest standard ride that I take from my house is 76 miles with a “measly” 1,541 feet of climbing.

So taking into account the climbing, I’m quite pleased with the time and my performance. Outside the GI distress in the early parts, my nutrition was spot on. My average heart rate for the entire ride was 129 bpm, well entrenched in Zone 2 for the majority of the ride, with some time in Zone 3, less than 13 minutes in Zone 4, and only 3 minutes in Zone 5 (bloody bridge). I finished the ride ready for the run.

Given the effort on the ride, I decided to scale back my run. I was shooting for 8 hours total workout, but that was only so I could “rescue” my weekly hours and make up some time I lost missing my two swims this week due to work commitments. Since I had plenty of time to think about it, I realized that the best thing to do was to fall back on Gordo’s original plan for this day, which was the 112 mile ride followed by a 4 mile run. Nothing more.

So the run starts out just like it did for my Half, straight up. In the first .8 mile, the climb is 219 feet, which is an average grade of 5 percent. However, it’s not a steady climb; there’s actually some flat parts and a downhill stretch. So in parts the grade is a fair bit steeper, probably in the 9-10 percent range. So I already figured my race strategy for my marathon - walk the first mile. After that there are a couple of fairly steep hills, which I’ll likely walk. Otherwise, it’s rolling for the entire run. Manageable, but I suspect there will be quite a few walkers out there.

Quite a bit of words for just one workout, eh? I’ll do it again in a month, then do the whole thing in two months time.

But between now and then, I’ve got some work to do in the hills.

Postscript:

On the ride I had plenty of time to add to my “tagged list”:

Shows I enjoy:

• Two and a Half Men. I can’t believe I forgot this show, which has me rolling every week.

Guilty Pleasures:

• Music. Again, I’m not guilty about this at all. 600+ CD’s, 250-ish album, and I keep adding to the collection.

I tagged Karl, who managed to tag me as well with a slightly different list.  Someone’s got to get this under control! 
Hope all is well with you.

Broken Bolts, Bonking and Papers

Not much of a tri update this time around.

As I mentioned in my last post, my parents were driving up from Florida; my dad was to help me rebuild the rear suspension on my 1964 Chevy Fleetside truck. And that’s what we did.

The front end of the trailing arms broke free pretty easily. Almost every other bolt had to be cut off, which took quite a bit of time on Saturday. Luckily I foresaw this situation and had ordered all new bolts and nuts, which were on hand before we started this project. By the end of Saturday, the only thing attaching my rear axle to the truck was one bolt on the rear torsion bar.

Good thing we did this job too. Once we had things off, I found that one spring was broken and both U-bolts holding the trailing arms to the axle were badly worn and that one was cracked about 75% of the way through. What does that mean? If the bolt broke, especially at freeway speeds, the rear axle could have swung wildly and I would have had zero chance of controlling the beast. Not a good thing.

It was quite a bit of hard work. Trying to torque off rusted, frozen bolts that have been in place some 43 years tested my tri-shaped muscles in ways they weren’t used to. By Monday, I was completely knackered, almost worse than after some of my long bricks.

As with any vehicle work, injuries come and go. Luckily we both got out with minor scrapes and a few bruises. Although on Sunday it was touch and go for a minute as I was wedged up under the frame, sitting up with my back and shoulders pressed against the frame. I reached out for a tool and my left arm popped out of its socket, which happens from time to time with me. Unfortunately, it was stuck straight out and I couldn’t move it by myself to let it slide back into place; I was wedged in well enough that I couldn’t slide my butt forward to get the pressure off of my shoulder. Luckily, my lovely bride and mom (who went to nursing school way back when) were able to rush over, stabilize my arm and slowly rotate it forward enough for it to settle back into place. Just a few minutes later I was back under the truck pushing and pulling.

After two weekends with two different sets of parents, today was the beginning of my serious training for my Iron-distance race in September. And I started off in fine form. After a long run this morning and a small lunch, I was up to my old tricks of not fueling enough. Needless to say I bonked on my ride this afternoon. So I’ve been spending my evening trying to make up the deficit.

On top of all of that, I had to submit three topics to write on for my online English class. The topics were due yesterday, but I finally decided on three topics while on my ride today. Oh well, 24 hours late is better than not at all. The bad thing is that of the three topics, we’ll have to pick only one and then write our three papers this term on the same topic, writing from different perspectives. The exercises will be interesting, but like most of my classes, I’ll be bored with it only eight weeks into the 12-week course. Luckily the course will be done in mid-August, a full month before my race.

Twelve+ hours of training this week, my lovely bride’s birthday, and a Tool concert to end the week. All-in-all, good days ahead.

Taylorsville Race Report

Bottom line - I finished!

My planned time, not my goal, was 6 hours. I based on that total time on where I expected to be based on my training so far. Here’s how it panned out:

Swim (1.2 miles): 35:19 (4th of 22 in my Age Group)
T1: 1:30
Bike (56 miles): 2:55:14 (5 of 22)
T2: 1:52
Run (13.1 miles): 2:32:04 (19th of 22)
Total: 70.3 miles in 6:05:38 (12th of 22)
or 49th of 73 total finishers

So I hit my planned time pretty close. My number one goal was to simply finish. Everything else was gravy.

I didn’t do too good of a job researching the race beforehand, only to find out last week that I was facing over 5400 feet of climbing during the ride. Since I don’t have too many significant hills in my area, this was a shock. And since I’m a heavy rider, I knew that it was going to be quite an experience.

The quick recap -Wait, wait, wait; start, swim, swim, swim, splash, swim, swim, swim; run, peel, run, peel, pedal, pedal, pedal, coast, pedal, pedal; run, run, run, walk, run, walk, walk, walk, run, walk, run, Finish!

The long recap:

Thanks to a very cool night (47F) and a warm 71F lake, visibilility was zero. Apparently this isn’t the first time it has happened for this race, so the start was pushed back 30 minutes to start at 8:30am.

Swim - Very comfortable. I didn’t push the pace and kept right at a 1:40/100 yard pace, which is my normal pace during my long pool intervals. I know I could have gone harder, but didn’t want to since I didn’t know how the rest of the day was going to play out. So I was quite surprised today to see that my swim was 4th in my age group.

With only about 100 people in the water (there was an AquaBike event at the same time), the jostling was fairly non-existent, although there was one jerk who decided he needed to swim over me hundred yards or so into the swim even though there wasn’t anyone else withing 10 feet of us; a couple of well-placed elbows got him to move along.

The course had buoys set up in a curved line, with the turn-around buoy about 1/3 mile out; we had to do two laps of the course. Since the buoy line curved to the right during the out leg, I’d end up a bit wide and have to correct, but nothing serious. What I couldn’t understand was that on the return leg, folks were sticking right next to the buoys instead of taking the straight shot from the turnaround back to the start buoy. But everyone has to swim their own race, right?

Transition 1 (T1) - With a 100 yard run up the boat ramp into the transition area, the wetsuit came off quick with no problems. I set up on the far end of the transition in the very first rack, so I had the furthest to run, but only feet to carry my bike out and back in. Wetsuit off, gel in pocket, helmet on and bike off the rack. Done in under 2 minutes.

Bike - Straight out of the transition is about 150 yards of gradual uphill in the parking lot, then a steep climb of 120 feet in about 1/10 mile. What a nice way to wake the legs up after swimming. Like I said above, 5400+ feet of climbing to come in the next 56 miles and the start was one of the worst. Not the worst, but one of the worst.

The worst was at the 25.5 mile point, where we climbed about 150 feet in 1/10 mile. With my wide load, I was passed by six guys on that climb. It took me the better part of the next 20 miles to catch half of them.

For me, the best part of the hills is down. I’ve got enough extra weight that gravity is my friend. And in the flats and small rolling hills, I’m a locomotive. It’s just the short and steeps uphills that really knock me down. Luckily those were few. I passed about as many as passed me and heading out to the the turnaround point on an out-and-back leg, I counted that I was in 12th place overall. But that was right before that steep hill at 25.5 miles.

Finishing the bike leg was welcome. I still felt quite strong, but could feel the onset of fatigue. At this point, I was 3:30 into the race. I was pleasantly surprised to see that if I ran my expected 2:00 half marathon, I’d finish right around 5:30, which would be great for my first 1/2 IM distance race.

Transition 2 (T2) - A quick dismount and then scattering to grab my water bottle that I kicked off the back of my seat. Since I had the first rack, it was just a few feet to my area. I had planned on standing and putting on my socks and shoes, but ended up on my butt, which took extra time. No big deal. I was still out in under 2 minutes.

Run - No problem getting the legs moving. I never do after a long hard ride. Up the parking lot and straight back up that steep 120 foot climb. Now that didn’t feel good. Not at all. I started to feel some pain in my stomach, which is odd, since I never had problems with my food during training and I hadn’t introduced anything new. Midway up the hill, a lady passed and asked how many times we had to go up - “Luckily only once”. She took off and blazed her way to a 1:33 half-marathon and Overall Female win.

At the top of the hill, my lovely bride and son had jumped in to help out at the aid station. That’s where they caught me, still looking fairly strong. As you can see in the background, that’s Taylorsville Lake and the spot in this picture isn’t but a 1/2 mile away; that’ll give you an idea of the climb. Luckily they didn’t take any more pictures until the finish, because soon after this is when it got quite ugly.

My normal pace after a long, hard 80 mile ride is a comfortable 9:00-mile. A 10:00-mile is my “go all day long” pace. If you do the math above, my average for the 13.1 miles is 11:36.

With my stomach giving me fits, I knew to slow down and let it work itself out. It took until the 4.5 mile point before I was comfortable enough to take in some water. 2 miles later at the next aid station, I took in some Heed and some water. I kept running, but the pace was slow and I knew it. But I kept working through it and never got discouraged.

By the 8 mile point, I gave up any plans of a 5:30 finish. I was still confident on a 6:00 finish, but that confidence was waning with each stride. By the 9 mile point, I realized that I could walk faster than my shuffle was moving me. But I didn’t let myself walk long, more for the mental aspect. By the time I hit the aid station at 10 miles, I knew that I was well on my way to finishing and hoped that knowing that would boost my pace. It didn’t. I walked the first 1/4 mile after the aid station and got to shuffling again.

A couple of more walking bouts and a few more shuffles and I got to the final aid station at 12.5 miles, only to find that my lovely bride and son had left to meet me at the finish. Normally you’d think that would get the legs moving, but mine wouldn’t have any of that. Luckily the steep downhill was coming and that got the legs moving. A sweeping left turn into the parking lot and a long gradual downhill to the finish and I was done. Not far off of my original estimation of total time - 6 hours, 5 minutes, 38 seconds.

Post mortem - In hindsight, the bike leg was my downfall. I felt good throughout that leg, but I wasn’t hammering hard. I kept my heart rate under control and never overexerted myself. But the total climbing was a good 4,000 feet more than any other ride that I did during training. But that wasn’t the whole story.

During the ride, when it’s easiest and best to fuel, I only took in a total of 800 calories! I thought I was doing a good job of keeping on top of my fuel and feeding consistently, but when I’m burning 800+ calories an hour, taking in only 800 during the 3-hour ride certainly wasn’t going to be sufficient to get me through the 1/2 marathon at the end. By comparison, during a 4-hour bike/run training session I’d typically take in 1300 calories, and that’s with 4,000 less feet of climbing on the bike.

And with the stomach issues that I had on the run, that just served to push me deeper in the hole. Once I was able to drink some HEED, the small cups only gave me, at best, 50 calories each. By the 8 mile aid station, I grabbed a single Fig Newton, but that certainly didn’t do much for me.

I made it across the finish without getting wobbly, so I can’t say that I completely bonked. But I was almost there. Once back at the hotel, I weighed myself and I was 5 pounds lighter than I was before the race that morning. So it definitely took it out of me.

But I crossed the finish line with a smile on my face. And that’s all that mattered.

Now I’ve got this week to rest and then start up again. In just four months I’ll be tackling a full Ironman-distance race (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run). And I’m ready for it.

Tapering, Pouring and Tix

Well, the taper continues. After last Saturday’s meltdown, I took Sunday off, which is my normally scheduled rest day.

Monday started with an easy run and then a swim at lunch. Both were very poor, at best. I just didn’t have anything in me, even though they were both recovery sessions. Tuesday morning I sat on the stationary cycle and spun for about 30 minutes, which was poor as well. After that, I decided to take time off completely. Glad I did.

Thursday I joined an organized workout session that was mostly strength and plyometrics. But between 10 minute focus sessions, we ran 1/2 mile. The first 1/2 felt good, the second 10 minutes later felt better, then I was able to smoke the last two 1/2 miles. Back on track for the remainder of this recovery week/taper.

Friday night we drove down to Nashville to enjoy some music and food at the “First Annual” Riverfront Park Crawfish Boil. Which brings up a point - how can something be the “First Annual”, since there’s no guarantee that they’ll actually have it every year after the first? Shouldn’t “Annual” be reserved for the second and subsequent events?

The scheduled music lineup was good, with Soul Asylum opening at 5pm, followed by Fuel, Cheap Trick, Papa Roach and finally Hinder. Not that I’m a huge fan of any of those bands, but each is good enough to get the toe tapping and the head bobbing. And for $25 at the gate, plus the promise of a huge mess of crawdads to eat while drinking beer and listening to live music, how could I refuse?

And for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of a crawfish boil, here’s what a huge mess of crawdads should look like, complete with potato and corn-on-the-cob:

Definitely some good, good stuff.

So we got down there just a few minutes after Soul Asylum took the stage, found an area on the hill to spread our our blanket, got some beers and sat back to enjoy the show. Soul Asylum gave what I would consider to be a pretty pedestrian show - good but nothing I haven’t seen out of a good bar band.

During their set, I was looking across the river at LP Stadium, which is where the Tennessee Titans play, snickering and telling my 15-year-old son that when I was his age, I saw Cheap Trick in San Diego’s Jack Murphy (later to become Qualcomm) Stadium, which was about the same size as the stadium we were looking at. He was trying to make the connection between going from playing stadiums to small venues like the one we were sitting in. As a budding bassist, he at least understood continuing to play because one loves it, regardless of the size of the crowd or venue.

And the stadium got me thinking back to all of the shows I saw there. 101KGB always put on good summer concerts, where we got to see acts like Motley Crue (long before their rapid downward spiral with the release of “Theater of Pain”), Def Leppard, Chuck Berry and The Who (after which I actually met Roger Daltrey). Good times.

But enough reminiscing. Fuel took the stage. That was more like it. Energetic, loud and electric. Literally.

As they continued to play their set, the sky kept getting darker. And darker. And then tinges of green in the clouds. And for those of you who have lived here in the Midwest, green in the storm clouds means only one thing - hail. Fuel kept playing, the rain started and a few rumbles were heard. Nothing to worry about. Yet.

Then the downpour, followed by dime-sized hail, which never feels good on the noggin. That’s when everyone broke for cover. By the time we got under cover, we were all soaked completely to the bone. Ah well, it’s all part of the experience.

As the rain continued, the drunk and otherwise influenced crowd decided to keep themselves entertained by sliding down the wet grassy hill. The only problem with that was that after a few grassy ledges and drops, the grass gives way to concrete steps. A few bodies went launching over the concrete, but I don’t think any of them could feel what they were doing to themselves. I suspect this morning is a different story.

Of course, the downside to being soaking wet as the sun goes down is that you can get cold. And with my newer, slimmer physique thanks to all of this tri training, I don’t have the insulation that I did just four months ago. Shivering became my newest physical activity as we waited for the rain to stop. Even taking my shirt off was warmer, but didn’t help much. Others had the same idea, and for some of them we wish they hadn’t.

Anyway, we sat and waited out the storm. And waited. And waited. And waited. The promoters had done the right thing and cut the power to the stage. The downside to that is that the crowd was pretty restless after a while. Some guys up on stage worked hard to keep the crowd in front of the stage entertained by doing silly things like spraying them with water. Methinks they were wet enough.

After two hours and me continuing to shiver, we decided to bag the rest of the night. It was already halfway through the time that Papa Roach would have been on stage. That meant we had missed out on half of Fuel’s set, all of Cheap Trick’s set and it looked like all of Papa Roach’s set. And with me being concerned about getting sick just a week out from my 1/2 IM, heading home was the best thing to do.

Not 10 miles up the road, everything was as dry as a bone. But even after driving the hour home, I checked the radar and it was still raining down over downtown Nashville. So I don’t think the crowd even got to see Hinder. That wasn’t a big loss for us, since we were going to leave right after they started playing anyway.

So after the crawdads and beer, this cartoon this morning made me laugh:

And it’s all not a loss. I got home, checked my e-mail and got my daily music update. Thanks to that, we just scored tickets to see Tool up in Evansville next month, coinciding with my beautiful bride’s birthday.

Hope all is well with you.