There are some funny things about doing an Ironman. There is a big difference on people’s perception. For example:

Most non-triathletes friends were more impressed with my first ironman time (14:23 hrs) than with my 12:18 hrs personal best. The general comment is “Wow, 14 hours of exercise, non-stop”?!

Triathletes friends secretly think “ok, but in 14 hours is not that hard”  :)

Reality is always your own perception. For me both at 12:18 and 14:23 were equally “easy”. In fact there is some stupid phenomenon after an Ironman, which makes you forget all the pain that you had during the marathon and makes you sign-up for the next one as soon as possible! Seriously, be honest, at the  21km run the last thing on your mind is “Yea, this is great, I want to do it again”. It is more like “there is another 21 km to go? Why?” All the months of training, negotiations with the spouse, all the weekend parties we don’t go… and why? Just to feel this pain?

My last race was even worse! When I was around 5k, I could see about 7 km ahead, where the line of people disappeared from the canal… That is a freaking long way to go and to come back too! At that point I was really hurting and I even doubted I could maintain my already slow pace (walk/run) for the rest of the race. At this point in an Ironman race I’m usually thinking “OK, just finish it and you won’t have to do this anymore”, but this time another thought came to my mind “Shit, I already signed up for IMMT!”

A wise athlete once  said: “The only thing certain about an Ironman is that it is going to hurt!”

Magic wand

The finish line, the magic wand that makes all pain go away! There is a stupid sense of accomplishment, a sudden adrenaline rush and all pain is gone. At that moment, you may not be Superman, but you ARE  Ironman!! That feeling keeps tricking your mind to forget the pain and sign up for more!

A couple hours later… somehow you think you could have done better, no matter how good or bad you did. That thought is what keeps us pushing  harder and harder… Not only do you want to do it again, but you want to do it FASTER!

An interesting point in long distance triathlons is that as you get older you get faster! OK, I’m not saying at 60 or 70′s, but I’ll tell you when I get there! That probably explains the  Ironman demographics: most people on Ironman races are 40-44 years old!

(source: http://kgroll.com/blog/2010/11/07/ironman-demographics)

After the Race

The next day you are either pretty sore or you’re thinking “damn I could have gone harder!” BTW, that never happened to me… I was always sore!

You wake-up thinking “if I had…” while you get a foot out of the bed… Arggg… it hurts! “Yea, maybe next time”

Believe it or not, training or even racing an Ironman is not the hardest part, at least not for me. The following weeks when you are no longer training are the hardest! You are still pumped with the race, you want to be faster, you want to race again! But, this next step is giving your body a break. You need to heal and recover, you have stop exercising and you have a lot of time in your hands.

Guess what? I don’t know what to do with all that time! I became the laziest bastard on earth. I’m too tired for everything, I become what I hate the most… a couch-potato! I guess it is natural to be tired, but when you’ve been living at the best shape of your life and suddenly that is gone… You feel a big empty vacuum around you. It is borderline depressive… I look in shape, but I feel out of shape and I have no clue what I’m going to do in the next little while!

At about a month (some people more, some people less) after the race, you start to get back to normal, but by no means in race shape. But what is normal? December last year I was 92kg with ~16% fat, six months later 84kg with ~5% fat.

Off-Season

And then comes the off-season.  The goal during the season is not to loose too much weight, while in the off-season it is to not gaining too much weight! Getting faster, but at the same time, not peaking… back to the blackboard.

What will I do different to improve next time? Should I follow the same program? Should I try something new? How many weeks do I have till my next race? This is where I find myself now…

So what is next? I’m planning to remain in my couch-potato form for another week or so, then I’ll resume swimming, and I start my bike/run out-of-season plan. The plan should finish with a half marathon in October (Scotia Bank Marathon), assuming my feet are healed by then. Then I take another couple weeks off… Until I start my 40 weeks official training for IMMT (20 weeks off-season + 20 weeks race specific training).

The sad part? IMMT is going to be one of my hardest races. It is hilly and probably slow… so getting another personal best will be pretty hard there. But again, if it was easy, everyone would do it!

The swim – 1:01:16 hrs

The swim went as expected. It could have been a bit faster if it wasn’t a wave start or if I had started in a earlier wave. I had to pass a lot of people, and the water is pretty dark, so you don’t see people until you’re very close. I went through at least three major group of people, which I had to find my way around them. I was in the purple wave, as you can see below, no purple caps around me… But the good thing is that there was not much contact overall, so very peaceful swim. I even spotted my wife taking pictures and waved to her as I was swimming!

Transition 1 – 10:06 min
Europe is just different, specially Germany! Every transition in ironman distance races I’ve participated, you go to a tent, get butt naked and you change… But usually there is a male and a female tent. Not here! Women and man change in the same tent and best part is that “it is OK”. it is just a bunch of grown-ups doing an Ironman. No pictures for this part of the race!

Bike – 6:15:30 hrs
After my swim, I was pretty pumped for the bike ride!

However, this was the one part of the race I could have done better. I started with a very high Heart Rate (160 bpm) and I never got it under control. I decided to follow my target power (190W) and see what happens. I finished my first lap with 190W and 160 bpm averages, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sustain that pace, which is pity, as I averaged just over 30 km/h with that power. However, on the second loop, my power drop to about 160, and I just could not get it up. To make things worse, my heart rate didn’t drop by much, it was around 150 bpm, which is what it was supposed to be at the first loop. I’m starting to think I should incorporate more Swim-Bike (like brick) workouts in my training. I’m not going hard on the swim but I still have problem in the races. Anyhow, the course is fast. If I was just biking, I would average 30-31 km/h with 190W.
The course is just great. It starts with a small uphill to cross the canal and it pretty much goes downhill or flat to Eckersmüllen, where you have the first aid station and lots, I mean lots of expectators! From there it is fast rolling hills with great surface up to Greding, where there is the worst hill, it is not too bad though. It is like Papa bear in Lake Placid. Then again riling hills till Solarerberg, which isn’t hard, but there are so many people cheering that you go up there like it was flat. I have to check my power meter later, but I’m sure I climbed that with 350w all the way. Btw, this picture is from the Solrarerberg on the second loop, when there was “no one” there!

Once the crowd is behind you, you’re back to rolling hills. There is on section that is fairly technical, with a few 180 and 90 degrees turns, but I have only seen one accident, a guy had basically no shorts on his left butt cheek! But fortunately the wound didn’t look bad, just a big scratch.
One thing that I changes from my training, was the gel. Since I didn’t have a lot of energy on the second loop, I decided to try the energy gels from the race, which were MUCH easier to digest as they were liquid. Looking back, I should have had more of them. I have to find out where to buy them in Canada (GREAT gels!)

Transition 2 – 6:06 min
Like transition 1, everyone was naked, but this time I had a person (she was in her 50s) holding my bag helping me to put my biking clothes away… Which was a bit odd since I was changing the bike shorts and putting my try shorts on, but, I had to do it. I turned my number belt to put my number in front so that it was a little more discrete, but trust me, there is nothing discrete about putting vaseline between my legs while a older lady is holding the transition bag in front of me. But seriously, the volunteers were FANTASTIC.
Before the run, I made a quick pee stop… And there was no lineup!

Run – 4:45:06 hrs

This is when I always ask myself: “Why, why do I do this?” and I always think “OK, this is the last time I do this”. But this year I also though “Shit, I already signed up for next year!”.
Anyhow, I started to run with those feaking side stitches and that was not a good sign… Fortunately I felt much better about 1 km into the run. The stomach had settled and I was ready to go, with one detail, I was running at 9.6 km/h with a 155 bpm heart rate! So one thing was for sure, my 12 hours goal was out of the question. I started to count the remaining kms! 41, 40… Boy did they ever come slow. First aid station walking, hydration, hydration… back to the run. We actually started on the shade, but it didn’t take long to get to the canal where the sun was just burning the hell out of me. My plan was to just kept going until I couldn’t run anymore, but walking every aid station. I was 100% sure I wasn’t going to run much of it… But surprisingly my Achilles didn’t hurt at all (until the next morning) and I just kept running at 9.2 km/h (yes, it did go down a bit), 150 bpm and waking the aid stations and any hill. Yea, they were VERY steep at that time, 20% grade for sure
Fortunately, about 16 km to go, the sun disappeared…

Along the way out of no where, my wife kept popping out and taking pictures. I have no clue how she got there, but there she was… I think she was running faster than me! All these nice professional pictures were taken by her. Oh, yea, and she even shouted several times “Vai marido, São só 11 km, você ainda tem uma hora para fazer abaixo de 12!!!!” (Go honey, there are “only” 11 km to go, you can still do it sub 12 hours!)
Great support, but I knew that 11 km in one hour would be completely out of the question, I was trying to stay at 8.9 considering the aid station walks!
A few minutes later, about 8 km to go, it started to rain, now a thunderstorm! But I could only think about two things “single digits to go” and “holly crap, I hope Beatriz is fine”. I kept running even faster (back to 9.6 km/h, a super sprint!) with my wet and heavy shoes… Until I got into the town of Roth, where some teens were inside the water fountain cheering for the wet runners! Once they saw me smiling and lifting my arms, they all got out of the fountain and ran about 100m with me cheering “Schnel Hans, Du shaft es!” (fast Hans, you can do it – I can’t spell German btw).

The finish – 12:18:06 hrs
First of all, I’m absolutely sure the last two kilometers were in miles! Man, how long could they take? But I kept going, no walking for the last 4 km, a real Ironman!! The only people actually running were relay people, which I could identify because they had an “S” on their calf… Everyone else was surviving!
As I crossed the finish line, still under rain, there were a few brave expectators cheering, but it was by no means full. Nonetheless it was another emotional finish, one to remember!

After the race
I got into the huge tent where I got a massage. After that I started to shake compulsively, I was wet, tired and a bit dehydrated. I then went to get my street clothes, and to my surprise I was told I should take a shower! Yea, there were HOT showers at the finish line! I have never seen that, but boy it was good!
For those wondering, that was the only part of the race with male and female separate areas!

This a race like nothing I have ever done and I will do my best to race it again and again!!

Auf wiedersehen Challenge Roth!!!

Hans

PS: official finisher photos are here http://www.marathon-photos.com/scripts/photo.py?direction=backwards&event=Sports/GKDE/2011/Challenge%20Roth&photo=CRRAF0062&match=2782. I have way too many triathlon pictures to spend 59 euros on new ones! You know the drill… Hands up, crossing the finish line!

Simcoe Lake April 15th (windy and cold, ~3C!!)

But, it is spring now and with spring comes outdoor biking! But as e know, in Canada spring has bit of a unique flavor, it comes with pretty low temperatures. It has been sunny, but not that warm. The rides to Simcoe lake have proven to be extremely cold. By the time we get close to the frozen lake, it is literally freezing. Today it was my third ride up to the lake, supposed to be a 4 hours ride. Fernando and I left from Major Mac and Warden and head north for about 50 km until reaching the lake. Once at the lake we head east against a very strong cold northeast wind. We went east until highway 48, and then south… Unfortunately with another 50 km to go, I heard a splicing noise followed by a noise that sounded like a branch had caught my wheel. I stopped to remove the branch, but as it turned out it was not branch, but a spoke. I tried to continue without it, but the wheel wasn’t straight and it was even touching the breaks. So instead of making matters worse I decide to call it a day and walk home… Well, not quite, I gave Fernando my at keys, and he picked up when he was done. I have to say, Canada is a nice place. As I was walking back, mind you about 30 min walking, a van stopped and offered me a ride! David, a guy from Newmarket was heading south and dropped me at Warden and David road, about 20 km from my car. He actually offered to take me all the way, but I didn’t think it was fair, besides Fernando was going to pick me up any way. So I walked another 30 minutes and then waited for Fernando, just 15km from the car. My heel started to bother me, as walking with the cleats is no walk in the park!

Broken spoke, waiting for my ride!

I survived, 2:55 hrs with 200W, and 28.8km/h average. Very comfortable ride, I kept 200w all time as prescribed. I was actually looking forward to the way back, as I had a bit of a tail wind, and I was picking up speed… The average was going up…but I will never know how much. Thanks God for powertap, at least I know I was on the right range regardless of the speed. At the end of the day it was just a technical misshapen, which is MUCH better than an injury! Now I’m safe and sound at home! Lesson: always have your cellphone and don’t ride alone unless you don’t have any other option!

Ride Details: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/79374121

Winter wont stop us!

I completely disappeared from the web, but I am still training, despite the weather. My dog and I are still fighting the elements!

The last months I’ve bee quite busy at work and I haven’t had time to much other than working and working out. Fortunately it has not interfered with my training schedule, which doesn’t really take much time anyway. I’m averaging 5 hours a week and as I mentioned before, these are very hard 5 hours, make no mistake.

I just finished week 15:

• Bike: 3:19 hours, 109 km
• Run: 2:29 hours, 28 km
• Total: 5:48 hours, 137 km

I’m still not swimming, but I’m going to pick it up in February. I’ll probably go twice a week for a month and after that I’ll follow the same volume as dictated by my 20 week Ironman Plan, which I’ll start 5 weeks from now.

The good news is that I have never been this strong on the bike. Last FTP test I hit 260W, which is the best I have ever done! Most interesting is that I usually finish the test literally “on my last breath”, but this time I still had a little bit left, which is shame… I might had been able to squeeze a couple more watts out of me. Oh well, still better than my 248W at my peak for IMLP.

As far as the run goes, my last 5km TT went fine too, 22:13 minutes, which corresponds to a 4:26 min/km pace (13.5 km/h). Not bad actually, at least for me. Unlike the bike I was dead at the end. But what I’ve noticed is that today after doing my intervals (2×1 mile @ 4:30 min/km pace), I ran about 30 min at 5:23 min/km with a HR at 151 bpm and feeling extremely well. I was watching TV at the gym and I didn’t even realized that I reached 1 hour.

Last but not least, I’ve been working on my running cadence, which I’m now averaging 83 rpm… not stellar, but better than the 79 rpm, which I use to do before. Even at 5:23 min/km, I’m still at 83 rpm.

Other than that, looking forward for a better weather and seeing what I can do outdoors with the bike. It is -19C outside today and it may not bother my dog, but I guess outdoor biking will have to wait a bit!

3 Months old 30XT: No warranty!

This week started a bit off to say the least. I have a Garmin 310XT and so does my wife. In fact it was her birthday present just 3 months ago. The watch is great, I have it for more than a year and I really love it. My wife however, had a little mishapping with hers though. She dropped it from the coffee table, about 70cm high into a tile floor. For her surprise the screen broke and Garmin does not cover it under warranty. Very odd that a “Sports Watch” can break in a circumstance like this. Very disappointing. Cost’s $118.00 to repair! Very poor customer support is all I can say.

But life moves on and the training continuous! This week was also very busy at work, it was very hard to put all my training in. In fact I missed Thursday’s work out. I actually woke up early jumped on the bike and did the warm up. Unfortunately that was all I could do. Using the computrainer has its drawbacks too… I’m using erg mode, where I set the power I must pedal and regardless of the speed or cadence, the computrainer will maintain the load. I was going through the warmup doing 3×3′ with 1′ rest at 190W and I could barely do 190W! Just before my real workout (3×10′ at 224W and 4′ rest), I bailed. There was no way I would do 224W. This is always a hard decision, but one that has to be taken every once in a while. Got off the bike, back to bed and that was it.

Well, this was a short but hard week! On Saturday I even had a 2×12′ at 224W + 2×15′ at 190W followed by a 25 min run! Fortunately, this time was fine. Hard, but fine.

Week Summary:

• Bike: 2:14 hours, 72 km
• Run: 2:28 hours, 28 km
• Total: 4:42 hours, 100 km

Wow, less than 5 hours?! I just realized how much I didn’t train… I hope I can get used again to my long workouts once I start the ironman plan. I have to say, it doesn’t look like a lot, but these almost 5 hours are pure hard workouts. I think week 8 is when I have another threshold test for both bike and run. That will hopefully show some improvement!

Running Improvements, finally!

I just completed 5 weeks of my off-season program and I never felt this good so early in the season. Not sure that is good or bad, but I’ve seen some significant improvement on my run this week.

As I mentioned last week, my bike FTP improved 11% from 202W to 224W and I must say, I still think I’m even better this week, but I have another test scheduled for week 8, so we’ll see.

Now the run!! I had a couple very good runs this week. My intervals were usually at 12.5km (or 4:48 min/km) at around 170 bpm. This week it has been consistent at 13km/h (or 4:36) around 165 bpm. By the way, I’m talking about 1/2 and 1 mile intervals! I feel much better during these intervals, my breathing isn’t fading, my cadence is at 85 rpm (awesome for me!). In fact, I’m concentrating a lot on that, which apparently is working!

Lets see how it goes. This is the first time I feel some improvement on my run since week 1. I’m very excited about it. I’m starting to look forward for next season… I know, I know, it is early, but I’m really starting to think that work works!

I’m just glad to see my speed improving and my HR coming down. Have a look at week 3 vs. week 5 distribuition:

Week 5 - Heart Rate distribuition

Week 3 Heart Rate Distribution

One of my big concerns regarding the Endurance Nation line of thought was injuries. However, my hamstring hasn’t felt this strong for ages! I guess because you have so much time to recover, 2 off-days a week, what a luxury!

Week Summary:

• Bike: 3:24 hours, 112 km
• Run: 2:24 hours, 27 km
• Total: 5:48 hours, 139 km

Challenge Roth might be interesting! Breaking the 12 hours barrier baby, that is the goal!!

I’m started week 4 with a Bike threshold and I actually improved 11% from 202W to 224W, which was pretty good. Obviously to gain back performance is always easier than building from scratch. I was 248W at my peak in this year, but still 11% in three weeks isn’t bad at all. The goal is to finish the season around 248W, which would give me the opportunity to build on the threshold closer to Challenge Roth. Time will tell.

Not sure about my run though. I’ve skipped a few short easy runs since the beginning of program, but I don’t think that would make a difference. I’ve done all the intervals… I’m just too busy. I’m lucky to be following this low-volume, high-intensity program, otherwise I would be in real trouble!

I can still swim!

Oh, what was different this week? I swam 3km in the pool. First time in the water since September (Muskoka 70.3)! The good news is that I didn’t drown. The bad news is that I’m so out of “swimming shape” that I even got cramps on my hand while doing my 600m warmup!

Week Summary:

• Bike: 3:05 hours, 100 km
• Run: 1:44 hours, 19 km
• Swim: 1:00 hour, 3 km
• Total: 5:49 hours, 129 km

Bastards, hit and run!

This wasn’t the best week. Sunday morning I broke a glass and cut both hands (nothing serious)  then minutes later I realized someone had bumped into my car! The day before we had dinner at friends, and the next morning this is how my car looked liked. Yeah, the car was parked at a completely quiet street… The funny part was that my wife drove home without ever seeing the smashed door. We only saw it the next day.

Anyhow, three weeks into my off-season training and I’m starting to feel some fitness coming back. I can’t say I’m in great shape, but at least I’m better than three weeks ago! How much better? I will see that on Tuesday, when I’ll do another threshold test. I’m hoping for a 5% improvement, so maybe 215W… but we will see.

The training continues at a very high intensity and pretty low volume, as expected. Power zones are always tempo and threshold, while HR is mainly around to 160′s:

Week 3 Power Distribution

Week 3 Heart Rate Distribution

Week Summary:

• Bike: 3:14 hours, 109 km
• Run: 2:15 hours, 25 km
• Total: 5:29 hours, 134 km

The run, well, it is still hard as hell. Maintaining 12.5 km/h is so hard… and it isn’t getting any easier. On the bright side, my hamstring isn’t hurting. So I think that last week was just some lactic acid accumulation, which with one day off, just went away. Anyhow, that is my theory and I I’m sticking to it!

This training is VERY different from Mark Allen Online. Endurance Nation has a totally different approach. I’m spending much less time working out, but a huge difference in intensity. Look at the bike profile, the majority of the time is spent in Tempo and Threshold paces:

Bike Zones Off-Season 2009-2010 (MAO)

Bike Zones Off-Season 2010-2011 (EN)

The run is basically the same. Most time is spent on Threshold Zones and above. Mississauga Half Marathon will be interesting. I will be able to compare the results on the run.

Week summary:

• Bike: 2:59 hours, 100 km
• Run: 1:47 hours, 20 km
• Total: 4:46 hours, 120 km

Well, I can’t say I’m very happy right now, because my left hamstring is bothering me again. It actually started to bug me in the forth week of doing nothing. Yea, the only thing I did in that four weeks was running 1 mile with a 6 years old son of a buddy of mine. I was his “pacer”, very fun race actually!

Anyhow, my hamstring tarted to bug me completely out of the blue and after a few speed workouts this week, it has gotten worse. I doesn’t bother me at while biking, but running is another story. I’ll see if I can book a massage for tomorrow, which is my day off anyway and I’ll go from there. If it doesn’t get better I might take a week off, take some anti-inflammatory and a few more massage sessions. I’ll see how it goes. At least there is lots of time between now and my Ironman Distance race (Challenge Roth).

As per this week, one thing is clear, I lost a lot of fitness on my time off, supposedly to get healthy and NOT have injuries… My 5km time trial pace as 4:50 min/km, which was slower than my half marathon pace earlier this year!! My FTP (Functional Threshold Power) went down from 248W to 202W. But that was expected, this is the beginning of the off-season, so I’m not supposed to be on prime shape… yet!

Week summary:

• Bike: 2:27 hours, 74 km
• Run: 1:18 hours, 14 km
• Total: 3:45 hours, 88 km

Does look much, right? But it was actually hard. All speed workouts… Well, we will see how it goes!!