Triman

I was never a big dreamer, preferring instead to plan the next thing and work towards a long term objective. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. But this year was different, I had a big dream, it went like this.

I head to Germany for Challenge Roth, the original Ironman Europe; the following week head to IM Switzerland to watch Ronnie Schilderknicht race for a record 6x Ironman win; then I'd head over to Northern France to my Sisters house, catch a couple of days of the Tour de France, meet up with Laura and Shane on their cycling holiday; then I'd head over to Northern Spain and race for Team GB in the ITU World Long Course championships; then back to the UK, watch both the Mens and Womens Olympic Triathlons, and in between, race the Trowbridge Sprint Triathlon where my Mum lives, perfect. To top it all off, the European Triathlon Union (ETU) announced that Challenge Roth would be the European long distance championships, how good is that, 2x Team GB competitor in a single summer.

The wheels started coming off the bus at Corpus Christie. With the cancellation of the swim and a shortened bike course, it meant that my time wouldn't qualify me for Team GB; Then I had a DNF at the Shiner GASP century, the first time in 5x years. After that I talked to coach about the psychology of my training program, and after much discussion we agreed to part company as I pretty didn't feel I had the confidence to complete Roth, let alone in a new PR time.

And so it was I went to the Armadillo Classic century ride, 105 miles up at Liberty Hill, I didn't have to ride to a certain HR, a certain power output, just for fun and for the first 40 or so miles it was. From mile 38, I pulled a group of some 7 or 8 riders through about 4-miles, at a decent HR and cadence, we made a turn, there was a sign that said rest stop 1-mile, I looked back and we'd dropped one of the riders I was with, so I dropped off the front and went back for her.

We road up the hill, me doing the pull, checking back to see if she was behind, I looked back once and when I turned around, my front wheel dropped off a 2-inch drop of pavement onto a driveway, I tried to bunny hop back on but ended up going over the handlebars and coming down hard on my right shoulder. I picked myself up, looked at the bike, both tires were punctured, so we set about replacing the tubes, wen I went to pull on the lever, I had no power. I put my left hand on my right shoulder and pushed my right arm in the air, I felt my collarbone loose. Game over.

Later I drove myself to E/R, X-ray confirmed it was snapped in half but a non-urgent; I saw a couple of specialists this week, no surgery but a 8-10 week recovery. This means no Roth, no Roth means no Switzerland, no France, No Spain and so it was yesterday I booked my flights to the UK, at least I'm getting to see the Olympic triathlons,and a couple of other events my sister has already got tickets for. Finally, I've entered the Wiltshire Times Trowbridge (sprint) Triathlon and hope my shoulder will be well enough for me to do the 400m pool swim.

No more big dreams.

So the big deal here in Austin is the local city officials are giving the worlds most profitable company, Apple, a tax break for what amounts to be no good reason. Tonight this headline showed up in my inbox ""Triathlon events to bring 600 athletes, $700K to Butler Co." why are local councils so gullible?

In this case it's a youth and Junior championship organized by USAT. You read here. I struggle to see all in that the local municipality could get in that sort of money. Sure since its a championship a lot of people will stay at hotels, eat at restaurants etc. Thats over $1100 per athlete... even with entry fees, hotel for a couple of nights and a few meals thats a stretch. Figure in the price of gas and driving...

I headed down to Corpus Christi on Saturday for the Sunday half ironman distance race. The entry price was right, no day before racking your bike, and the timing was right for me to test out my ironman fitness, with Challenge Roth only around 100-days from now; the field was also ripe for a podium position, since the entries for first year long distance races is almost always low, in the USA.

However, the conditions were not right. The sprint race on the Saturday had been a bike/run only, and the wind hadn't dropped, some said it was worse. Once I got out into the street, it was obvious unless there was a significant change the swim for the half would be abandoned, but I also couldn't see how they could realistically send us up onto the harbour bridge.

And so it came to pass on race day morning, the swim was cancelled and the bike course had the bridge removed, and so we found post race, about 4-miles at the far end of the bike loop cut off because a traffic signal was downed in teh wind and blocking the course. I'm not complaining about the decision, in fact Dan, Nick and the High Five events crew made exactly the right call and I'm grateful we got the chance to race at all.

So after giving an interview in transition to the local Corpus Christi newspaper, I'd pretty much decided that what coach had asked me to do, try to keep the bike at 130BPM and see how my legs were for the run wasn't needed, I'd go out and do what I always do, blast the bike and see if I could hang on for the run. This decision was confirmed as I watched everyone line up rack by rack for the time trial start. Personally when the swim is cancelled, I prefer a short hard run to separate people out before the bike. At least as far as my age group went, there were only four people that left before me, and I passed one of them in the first 3-miles. Battling into 33 MPH wind was hard going, and required an easy gear, high cadence and low profile. I passed the other 2-guys in the first ten miles, which meant, at least as far as I was able to count, I was leading.

The bike picture shows me leaning into the wind at the end of the first loop. It was ripped from the official photographers web site, Liz Kreutz, who I met the week before at Lance Armstrongs house, and now I feel really bad about ripping off the pictures.

Just before the turn around, we got a short respite from the wind in a dog-leg out-and-back, getting the wind behind you felt so good, I was soon cruising at 30MPH+ and I came across the most dangerous part of the course. A long section with the wind, followed by a sharp right onto a bridge into the wind. At this point I was leaning over, still in the aero position and got swept onto the opposite side of the road, doing 29MPH. I wouldn't make that mistake on the 2nd loop.

The ride back into town was a total blast, it was mostly totally flat and more or less straight, with the wind behind me, I managed a 5-mile split of 28MPH back into town on the first lap and reached 35MPH,and completed mile 20 at 31MPH, and just under 27MPH on the 2nd lap. You can see the data by clicking on the attached picture, which clearly shows I did all the bike in Zone 4, and mostly 150BPM or greater. Despite no swim, and a shorter bike, I'd pay for this, and I did.

What you can see from the data apart from HR through the roof, is the dog-leg out,with the fast ride back, the turn into the wind, and then the turnaround. I made it into transition with a running mount, but running downhill with the wind blowing a gale holding just the saddle, as I tell all my padwans, was tough going. My bike was a full 9-minutes faster than anyone else in my age group.... and my transition time was fastest in age group and only 2-seconds slower than the overall winner, James Bonney from Austin.

Despite looking pretty good as I headed out on to the run, my heart rate was soaring, I won't bore you with the data but my first mile was over 150BPM, and I only managed a 10-min mile; it got worse from there; I walked most of the aid stations on the first loop, as I went out on the second loop, I knew my race was over. At least to the best of my knowledge I'd only been overtaken by one from my age group, and at the turnaround at mile-10, I was passed by Tom and Michelle. I knew Michel was in my age group and Tom in the 50-54. They were walking when they passed me, try as I might when they started jogging together, I could keep up.

In the last 2-miles Tammy passed me, I asked her to do anything to stop me from stopping, since the guy behind me was in my age group and would take 3rd from me. In the zone she just ran on after a few short words. Shortly after, or before, I can't remember, my right calf went into severe cramp. I stopped to stretch it out, but it would go. Kathleen Woodhead stopped, massaged it for me until it at least eased up and I started down the last mile. I beat the guy behind me, but it turns out Tom was in my age group, so that meant 4th. I didn't deserve to podium based on my performance, and have a lot to work through before Roth, not least starting to be scientific about hydration again. My weight was down some 6lbs after the race.

There is a great picture of how I felt among the official Kruetz race pictures. We I was suffering and really fed-up, another half, another blow-up. Overall though, despite the conditions a great race from High Five Events and Jack and Adams.

Summary
Swim: Cancelled
Bike 41-miles, 2:01:44, 20.2MPH, 1st in Age group by 9-mins, 27th overall
Transition: 1:02, fastest in age group by 12-seconds and top-20 overall
Run 13.1-miles: 2:52:33, slowest in age group, 91st out 121 overall

I got the 115% of age group winners time that I needed to qualify for the GB ITU Worlds Long Course team, but without the swim and a short bike, it wouldn't count.

The full results are here.

Next up: Aside from wrapping up this trip to Banglore, and thinking through what I learned from Corpus, I'm doing the Sheiner century from Austin on May 5th, I'll be doing the whole thing as close as possible to 130BPM come hell or high water, and then trying to at least do 5k run afterwards. Memo to self, no one ever says they wish they'd gone harder on the bike after an Ironman.

I'll get my Corpus Christi/Republic of Texas Tri write-up done, suffice to say with the cancellation of the swim, it was never going to be a qualifier.

In the interim, I'm in India, actually Bangalore, which means training consists entirely underground which is pretty depressing. Add on top of that I picked up a stomach bug on the flight over, and this week is going to be tough to keep to schedule, but the Corpus race, despite a massive deviation from coaches plan, showed me how far short I am.

Yesterday I had a 45-minute treadmill session, which was done zone2/3, so fairly straight forward; today was a mixed session 75-minutes on a gym bike that included hill climbs, ie, greater resistance, and sprinting, which meant all out at lower resistance. The only saving grace was for the steady parts I could fold my arms and watch Tottenham lose to QPR in the Premiere League.

Prior to "going down" though, I popped out the front an had my picture taken with the King of India in my shiny new Moxie Multisport cycling gear. I' m not a fan of dark colored cycling gear, so its appropriate I was heading down to where the sun doesn't shine.

Sunday see's my first race of the season the half distance Republic of Texas Triathlon. This is unique for me, I've never done a half as my first race of the season. It's also unique for another reason, it's the first time I've had a personal coach since the lead-up to the 2002 ITU World Championships, 10-years ago. Wow.

My prep has left me feeling race ready physically, notwithstanding a case of Plantar Fasciitis that been causing a lot of early morning pain in my left heal. My prep though has left me intellectually feeling like I'm ready for a fast Olympic Distance race... I'm travelling down on Saturday with my coach and the conditions look "iffy" at best, with the weather underground currently reporting 91 | 70 °F, Chance of T-storms, 20% chance of precipitation, and winds 22 mph SE.

So, probably no wetsuit; given the bike is a bridge, then 3x repeat loops without the bridge, I guess the tactic is to absolutelt totally hammer the decent from the bridge and the start of the first loop; recover the retunr into the wind, hamer and repeat.

To add some excitement to my race, I'm back shooting at a GB Team qualifier time for the ITU World Long Distance Championships in July.To get this, I need a PR by 12-15 minutes at least I guess. Athlinks has most of my half results, so for the measure.

To Gain the 10-15-mins means is I have to have a swim and bike close to my best time; and a run at my best time for a half distance race.

Given I PR'd at Half Marathon this year I hope I'm in shape, but the fact all my long runs/rides have been little over Olympic distance means I really have no idea what to expect. 

I do though feel great, and thats what the plan has been to allow a good recovery, which takes longer as you get older.  I saw Dr Z for the plantars, as always I came away feeling confident that I knew what to do to minimize the impact. So, we'll see.
I'm guessing it will be a small field in my age group. I've aged up this year, so again I have every incentive to do well.

I mentioned I had Ronnie Schildknect staying with me this week; Ronnie is the 5x Ironman Switzerland Winner and the fastest man ever over Ironman distance on US soil, at Ironman Florida 2010, when he coincidentally stayed with me until he left for the race. Last trip I avoided training with him, today I got to ride for an hour with Ronnie and Pat Evo today, just an hour out, they were doing 4hrs, I had only 2hrs on my schedule, so dropped off.

Here is Ronnie among the Texas Wildflower while we waited for Pat.

In February, hence this back dated entry, I attended the 2nd Triathlon America conference. Unlike last year where I made a few notes here, I wrote up extensive notes which were publish on the tri247.com website, pretty much as I sent them in. You can read them here.

Like last year, the annual awards were decided in a vacuum, which is even more disappointing this year since TA didn't have the excuse it was new and they didn't have time etc. Specifically I've written my summary and comments on that here. Come on Dan, you above all can do better than this.

lynnivere has mentioned a few times in person and on facebook that she'd like one day to write a book. I've done computer stuff in the past, a chapter author for various REXX and VM/370 books, but never had aspirations beyond that. Today also mark's the start of my training for Challenge Roth, an Ironman distance race in Roth, Germany. I have effectively 6-month of training ahead of me, and a 1-month taper. The final coincidence for today was that the Roth organizers also released their remaining reserve and chairty slots online, and they were gone in 8-minutes. I got my slot in the original sign-up back in July when it first opened.

And so it was I showed up at the Pure Austin North(Quarry) this morning, it was just above freezing, and there was steam rising from the water above the outdoor pool. So, here it is, I'll edit this as I go along, but here are some chapter titles for my book on training for, and racing at Challenge Roth, the original Ironman Europe.

Working title: Steam on the water
Chapter title: Clueless, strange things men do in the changing room's at gyms's
Chapter title: Really, that's the best you can do? 

I'll be editing and adding material as I go. Also, a big deal for this triathlon, I'm taking on a personal coach to set training and help me focus. More on that at a later date.