A New Challenge

Hey all how are things. Taking the week off from doing a formal post for the weekly workout series. If your still eager and really want a workout here's a nice one I've done many times, it's a ladder style workout so it is aimed at speed development.

The Workout:

Warmup+Drills
3-5 sets (depending on abilities) of 600, 400, 300, 200 all at around 5k pace

So you run the 600m then 1:15 rest, 400m then 1 min rest, 300 then 45 second rest, then 200m and 1 min rest before starting the next set with the 600. This workout is a very high intensity one because as the speed increases the rest between intervals decreases and the 1 min between the 200m and the subsequent 600 is very difficult. Anticipate that your heart rate will be very high and you'll be breathing hard throughout the workout. Like I said it's ladder or pyramid type workout in this a broken 1500 since the 600+400+300+200 all add up to 1500m, and feel free to go after it anywhere from 3-5 times. If your still relatively new to workouts do three of them so 4.5k total of hard running, if you love pounding big long sets 5 of them will leave you winded and more than satisfied afterwards. Any questions regarding the workout feel free to comment below.

Now onto the main purpose of this post. A couple weekends ago I traveled to Wilson, New York to compete in my first ever triathlon. This time however, since my hip has continued to give me problems and after the Canada Day 5k I had to take about a week and bit off due to persistent pain in the hip, back and tibia my mileage and speed work was not up to snuff to give the full olympic distance a go. So I decided to compete in the aqua bike event which is the exact same as the olympic triathlon for distance on the swim and bike just no run afterwards. So just the first two legs of the triathlon but still a formal event which many people willingly choose to do because they dislike running, but it also worked great for an injured runner like myself. So the task at hand was a 1500m open water swim in Lake Ontario, then a 40k bike. When I arrived at the race I could see immediately  that the swim leg of the race was going to be brutal. The water had big waves about a 1m high (I think the race director said 3.5 feet) and after doing a tiny warmup swim I was actually scared to go back into the water. This wasn't really the usual pre-race jitters, this was more being downright scared that I was going to choke on water from the huge waves coming towards us on the way out and drown. Heck this was only my second ever open water swim so I was already unexperienced swimming in the open water let alone in such choppy conditions. Suffice to say I was starting to miss the pool lines at the bottom of the clear blue lanes in Thornhill. But I hadn't come all this way to give up. In addition since the water was so dangerous the race director who had already doubled the on-water firefighter staff who would travel alongside the swimmers in a boat in case anyone needed rescue or wanted to quit, and called the coast guard to check if the water was safe-ish for swimming, decided to cut the swim from two laps of the 750m course (1500m total) to one lap. This helped to ease a little bit of the anxiety at least. Soon the gun sounded and we were off. I started off just trying to focus and stay as relaxed as possible. I knew if I started panicking about the choppy conditions I would be in trouble, so I just tried to focus on one thing and one thing only: the orange bouy way out there marking the turn to the right (it was a square loop). I was really unable to find any rhythm whatsoever since the waves kept breaking up my stroke. I would basically reach my arm out to catch for my next pull and would have my hand either meet the water earlier than I anticipated due to a wave, or delayed longer than I anticipated from being at the depression in the water from an oncoming wave. But just kept focusing on the bouy ahead and it did seem like I was moving decently. Made the turn and swimming perpendicular to the waves now I could feel my stroke amping up and was starting to now focus on pulling my hand through the water harder and harder. I started take 4-5 strokes between breaths and was starting to pass bunches of swimmers. Eventually made the turn back to shore and despite having my rhythm throw off again due to the waves, heard the race director as as exited the water say that I was first place out the water. I was pretty stunned and found later that I held 1:28/100m for the 750m swim which I probably could just barely do in a pool let alone choppy open water, so I was stoked.

Ran up the stairs out of transition and did an okay job getting through transition. I was pretty happy how quickly I was able to get my wetsuit off, but was a little slow wasting time grabbing a sip of gatorade. Was through transition and next up was a 40km bike ride. My game plan was to hold my FTP (functional threshold power) which based off an all out 20 minute effort about 3 weeks before the race was 266 watts,  but if multiplied by 0.95 is 252 watts for an hour long effort, which is roughly what I was aiming for. First 5k flew by and I could feel like I was in a really good rhythm. Was about 50m back from the only person ahead of me at this point(the guy had passed me in transition from the water to the bike). I was trying to just hold my wattage not by mashing on my pedals but rather by maintaining a very high cadence at about 106 rpm. As we made the turn back south there was the slightest grade uphill probably 1.5-2% only, and I gathered myself to make a decisive pass. Held about 350 watts for 30 seconds or so then burst passed at 550 watts. From this point on just kept flying at 106 rpm, and one 5k split I had averaged 114 rpm. In the end my average power was exactly 251 watts, but normalized power was 257 watts. I finished first place completing the 40 km bike course in 59:05 which is an average speed of 40.5 km/hr. I was more than happy with this result. It was also a great learning experience to understand what it was like swimming in open water, going through transition, and experiencing the feeling that my legs would go through during a bike race. It was a very different kind of fatigue/hurt than I would experience during road races of various distances. This feeling was more like constantly going back and fourth over the "red line" crossing into anaerobic fuel sources and a kind of burning sensation in the legs throughout the bike portion of the race.

A couple weeks and tempo runs later, I felt I was ready to give the full olympic triathlon a go. The race I chose to compete in was the Peasantman Steel Intermediate (Olympic) Triathlon in Penn Yan, New York - the Finger Lakes region. The Steel race distance prides itself on being just that much more difficult then the ironman distance, in that the leg distances are just slightly longer. So instead of the typical Olympic distance which is 1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run, the Steel Olympic Distance is a 1 mile swim (1609 m), 47.5 km bike, and a 10.5 km run. Arrived in Penn Yan the day before the race to scout out the course and try my own first wetsuit, the Nineteen Frequency. The water was beautiful but quite warm with the wetsuit on, and was unsure if there would allow wetsuits or not based on the temperature - luckily enough the temperature was just barely wetsuit legal by the USAT standards so I was excited. I had run that morning, and then biked the 47.5 km course to scout it out. What I learned was that the swim was the only flat part of the race course. There was hill after hill out on the course, including one 7 mile long hill (that's 11.2 km). So ya I was kind of now nervous because my bike and its gear ratio was set up to pound a flat course. Also in the back of my mind was the fact that the Tuesday before the race going up a big hill near Hwy 9, my chain had actually snapped into pieces. I must have made a poor gear change and not realized that I had done so and then the added tension now on a misaligned chain/chainring must have been enough to snap it into pieces. So even though it was probably my own fault, and now I had a high end dura-ace chain on the bike, it was still in the back of my mind. My Dad took notes for me at the athlete's meeting which was going on while I was on the bike, gave me the run down in the car on the way back to the hotel and we were set for Sunday.

Woke up Sunday had the usual breakfast, and went off to the race site. We arrived in great time checked my bike into transition got my body paint, timing chip and was ready to go. Just as I was about to start body gliding my entire body for the wetsuit about 50 minutes before the race I looked at another competitor who was in the half steel distance getting ready to start his race (it started at 7:30 mine was at 8). I saw him strapping on his goggles, and just then realized that I left my super expensive Speedo Fastskin Elite goggles in the hotel room. Now for legal purposes I won't devulge how far the hotel room was from the race site but my Dad all out sprinted to the car and somehow got back to the hotel and then back to the race site to hand me the goggles with ten minutes to spare before the race. I guess it was good traffic cops were manning the turns on the bike course and not on Pre-Emption Rd back to Geneva. I managed to get my wetsuit on by myself, and other than the minor heart attack when realizing I forgot the goggles, I felt pretty good. Hopped in the water warmed up a little and before you knew it we were off. I started out very fast, and quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to do any bilateral breathing for this race since the sun to the east was just so low still in the sky and too bright to look that way. I started regretting not having more shaded triathlon specific goggles (mine are competitive swimmer goggles) but soon would take advantage of the huge benefit these goggles offer. I started off to the left and when I breathed to the right I could see a few swimmers ahead and to my right. I worked hard to veer that direction and eventually got within a few meters of the two of them. I was breathing hard already at this point but my stroke felt awesome. I felt in control and powerful. Oddly enough although on the bike I prefer to sit in a slightly lower gear and maintain a very high cadence, in the water I prefer a slower stroke per minute rate but pulling hard on each stroke. as we approached the turn the two of them were really pushing hard and I was needed to work very hard to stay up with them. Witnessed some awesome technique by one of them to turn around the bouy, whereby they flipped onto to their back and rotated around the bouy using a couple backstroke pulls. Seemed to help them take the turn really quick and not lose any speed. This will definitely be a strategy that I will use next time. On our way back I started hammering, swimming at 1:07/100m for a bit as the leader seemed to really kick in into high gear on the way back to shore. That's faster than I've ever swam in my life. Then my goggles came into good use. When I caught up with the leader the peripheral vision that my goggles give me due to their design allowed my to see my opponent to the left of me while under water pulling. He was sighting often to swim in a straight line back to shore, so what I did was essentially let him sight for me and swam in his line since my goggles allowed me to keep an eye constantly on him. Eventually I worked my way onto his feet and just sat there until the end of the swim averaging anywhere from 1:12/100m to 1:24/100m which again I normally would not be able to even swim that in a pool. When I arose out of the water I was once again thrilled with my swim and was 2nd out of the water. Only problem was that I got passed in the transition run over to the bike area thanks in large part to some significant orthostatic hypotension when I got up out of the water (lightheadedness due to a drop in blood pressure (BP) that you may feel when getting up off the couch to quickly for example). I was not completely shocked by this since the Friday heading into the race had my BP and resting heart rate taken and it was 82/66 and 45 beats per minute respectively. Apparently this is quite a common feeling for triathletes after the swim since you're going from a supine position to upright position and running in a matter of seconds.

So onto the bike. Transition was pretty smooth this time much better than the last race. My game plan for the race in terms on nutrition was to have a 768 mL bottle of water + 1 Skratch labs hydration mixed into it, and a gel about 15 minutes into the bike then at about the 30km mark. I also planned to have a gel about 2 miles into the run. So I started the bike in third position. The first 5 km or so I felt pretty sluggish. We were heading into the wind and up a constant grade at this point which didn't help, plus I had gone pretty hard on the swim. By about midway through the 5-10km split I started to feel alive again, and my cadence rose from 96 to 102 and speed from 33km average to 38.7. On a slight downhill portion I cruised at 50 km/hr and reached 60.5 km/hr. By this point I had already passed both my competitors. I could just feel on every hill from about 15-40km that I was distancing myself from the rest of the field. I saw so many competitors ahead of me (who were in the steel man and half steel man distance which started before me) using what I think is poor technique for the hills. They were either doing one of two things: either staying in their aerobars for too long on the uphill, or using way too big of a gear. If you stay in your aerobars you are already putting your body at a mechanical disadvantage. In an upright position your glutes can be recruited to a greater degree, and if you own a power meter you can clearly see that in the aerobars for a climb its impossible to achieve the same power output as you can upright. Second, as the DurianRider says (great, informative and funny youtube channel) winners spin. If you've ever watched the tour de france and seen chris froome, you'll see his legs spinning like crazy up a climb. Try it yourself put the bike in a very easy gear and spin up a hill. You'll see the power output soar through the roof and probably pass a lot of other riders. After purchasing my power meter, I feel my climbing has now become one of my biggest strengths despite my tri bike not really being built for climbing. Since I've employed this strategy of spinning up climbs at a super high cadence I can pass so many people. Even just on my Saturday and Sunday rides where there are big groups out riding up north in oak ridges, I pass so many on climbs thanks to this strategy. With power, it has become so much easier to judge my effort level and has helped me from going over my threshold too early in a climb. I can simply say to myself maintain 320 watts on a climb for example and look at nothing at except that number on the garmin and I'm up the hill before you know it.

So back to the race, a cool part of the race was all the Amish folks out and about with horse and buggy, and we were told in the athletes meeting just to pass on the left. It was pretty cool. With about 10k to go on the bike I had a little conversation with myself in my head. I started thinking about the run, and thinking maybe I should ease up a bit to save something for that leg of the race. But I thought the bike at this point was my biggest weapon, so I was going to try to gap my competitors as much as possible heading into the run. So I continued to hammer the last 10 k and for an entire 5 minutes my speed did not dip below 42 km/hr. It rose constantly from 42 km/hr up to 60 km/hr then back down to 50 km/hr. It was one heck of 5 minute span where I felt I may have just locked up a victory knowing I had the run left to go, which despite not being at the same level it was last year after Park City or two years ago before Scotiabank, still is kind of my thing. As I entered the park however, and was mentally gearing up for the run something bizarre, but probably inevitable in hindsight, happened. My hamstrings, calves, quads, hip flexors, pretty much my whole body suddenly started cramping up. I carefully dismounted the bike because I didn't want to make any sudden movement at this point. I had no idea how far ahead I was of 2nd place, but knew this was going take sheer willpower to get through this run. I said inevitably because I vastly underestimated how much I would sweat on the bike since Sunday was just sweltering hot, and also I didn't really think about the fact that I probably came out of the water already about 2% dehydrated since if you've ever been in a wetsuit you'll know it can be steamy hot in there since your essentially wearing a think piece of rubber (neoprene). Also the water remember was just borderline wetsuit legal so I had sweat a lot on the swim leg, and then even more so on the bike thanks to the heat. As my Dad said after the race he could see even from where he was that as I quickly put my shoes on for the run that sweat was pouring off my face and body. So I took the other gel right then instead on waiting and started taking in as much water as I could. I started the run and passed 1k in 3:30. I was actually pretty surprised by that but by the 1 mile marker I was praying to just make it through the run in one piece. Its rare for me but I was actually taking as much water as I could at the aid stations, taking 1 or 2 cups, one to drink the other just to pour over my head since the dehydration mixed with the high heat on the day was really starting to make me overheat. Still though I was running at around 3:30/km pace and the hip and tibia actually felt okay. Really though I wasn't thinking too much about them specifically because I was pretty much running in fear the whole time of my body seizing up on me and having to stop. I got to the turnaround glanced at my watch to mark the time, and then when I saw 2nd place looked at my watch again and calculated that I was 5 minutes and 40 seconds ahead. Now even though I calculated with about 5km to go that it would take a miracle for 2nd place to catch me I still didn't feel that this one was in the bag by any means since I knew my body could just seize up and cramp at any point. In fact, at one point I had actually turned my body to take a quick check behind and felt my opposite hip twinge a little, so I knew with the dehydration still in effect I needed to be careful, run smart, and just stay as smooth as possible until the finish. Finally, I got to the finish and heard my name announced as the Peasantman Steel Distance Triathlon Champion, and I was thrilled. Thrilled but actually too tired to raise up my arms to celebrate my victory. Post race I drank three full gatorades, another bottle of scratch, and three bottles of water all before I had even got to the car to go back to the hotel. So since this is a crazy long post I'm going to wrap it up here. Basically, it was an amazing experience, and I learned so much. In addition I felt I pushed myself to a new limit, and can't wait to race another and push even harder.

Summer Workout Series #4

How ya'll doing? Hope you enjoyed last week's workout and feeling faster by the week. The reason I didn't post earlier in the week is because this week's workout is a little different. Instead of talking about a true speed workout, this week I'm talking about the importance of the long run.

What is it: the concept of having a long run inserted in runners' weekly schedule is not novel. In fact pretty much every single program you will ever look up includes a weekly long run whether you are training track and field all the way to marathons and ultra marathons. The long run is quite simply exactly what it sounds like, it's a longer run (crazy eh). Now there is quite a bit of variance in the distance of the long run, but basically it should be a minimum of 90 minutes to actually get any effect, but its distance should not account for more than 25-30% of your weekly mileage. So if your a 80 mile (130 km) a week runner your long run should't be more than 20 miles (32 km); if only a 40 mile/week runner (65 km) no more than 10 miles (16 km). In terms of scheduling long runs or progressing them it really all depends on your goal race that your training for. For instance if your a 5 km runner the long run's purpose is basically to increase your cardiovascular efficiency as well as to condition and strengthen muscles and tendons to be able to withstand the pounding your body takes during gruelling workouts on the track. In contrast, if your a marathon runner the long run is meant more to prepare your body physically and mentally to be able to withstand the distance of the race. So it will help increase your muscle and liver glycogen storage to be able to last longer in race essentially before bonking, and also to prepare you mentally to be able to stay focused for a sustained period of time. In that sense, since a long run for a track runner or shorter distance runner, 5-10k races, is really only meant to improve your ability to withstand your training on the track or fast road workouts it really doesn't have to be progressed. You may simply insert a 90-120 minute run into your weekly schedule every week. In comparison, a half marathon/marathon runner will work to progress their long run gradually working your way closer and closer to the total distance of the race. Now for progression, this really depends on your level of experience and abilities. For some odd reason runners have this thought ingrained in their minds that for a marathon the goal is to get the long run up to 20 miles (or 32 km) about a month out from their race, although I believe this is nonsense. The long run can be however long you want it to be, 20 miles is not like this magical number where if you make it to there your set to go for 26.2. In fact, I think this is totally inaccurate since based on my own experience in marathons, and other marathoners that I've talked to it's at about 37-38 km where my legs start to shake and my sense of time and place starts to get distorted. Usually at 32 k I kind of feel decently fresh (of course I'm getting tired but still I can still feel my legs, and I feel in control). So why not take it a little further. Really it's up to you, if your experienced give a bit longer of a run a go in the range of 35-36. When gearing up for 2013 Scotiabank I did the following progression a 32k, 32k, 34, 37, 38, 38, 40, 40, 41, 43 (the 43 was done in 2:45 btw), 36, 32, and then smoked a 2:34 42.2 marathon and actually felt pretty decent start to finish which I attribute 100% to being used to doing the long long distance long runs, and being used to being out for that long.

How Fast: Okay well you thought the distance of the long run had a lot of variety, well the pace and structure has even more. Basically, long runs used to be only though of as these LSD runs (long slow distance runs) where you trotted along at a conversational pace. But the long run can be so much more. You can do progression type long runs starting out nice and easy pace and getting faster and faster throughout eventually finishing at or just under marathon pace which helps prepare you to be able to run at that goal speed on tired legs and will simulate the race more closely. I did one long run in 2014 where I started at one pace for the first kilometre and then played a game for the next 35k of the run trying to just beat the previous kilometre's time. It actually made it pretty fun/strategic because I wouldn't want to beat the previous kilometre by too much so say 4:15 to 4:01, because that would mean the next would need to be faster than 4:01 and so on, which would basically start getting too fast too quick. On the other side I wouldn't want to be too too close to the last kilometre time because I gave myself a penalty kilometre if the previous kilometre's time was not beaten having to run the next kilometre under marathon pace. Aww those were fun times.

After progression long runs, there are "workout long runs" where you basically embed interval workouts into the long run and this could really be any workout from fartleks to tempo runs. For example one long run I did last year, I ran the first 30 minutes easy, then for the next 30 minutes alternated running 1 min hard at half marathon pace, 1 min easy (so 15 total hard minutes), then ran easy again for 30 minutes then another set of 1 min hard/1 min easy for 30 minutes, then finished with 30 minutes easy. I've also found throwing a tempo run into the long run is great practice, for instance training for 2013 Scotiabank one of the 38 k ones in there I did a 5 mile (8k) tempo run to the finish which again helps learning the feeling of running hard on tired legs.

In Summary the long run is an essential part of any runners program whether running 3000m to the marathon. And for me for example, it is always my favourite part of any build. I look forward to it every week. My biggest word of advice I can give you for your long run is do not think of one particular long run like the so called golden 32 km mark as the difference maker between a good race and bad. A good race comes from a collection of long runs mixed in with great speed workouts to make a great race. So with that the long run shouldn't take away from your weekly speed workout, if so your either going to far on it, or going to hard. Long runs as I've explained are incredibly flexible on how fast and how far, so you don't have to think I need to do exactly "X" distance or whatever. Again your performance on race day is the culmination of months and months of training. Until next time keep piling on the training.