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april 4 - april 17 | march 20 - april 3
Well we made it through Week One of The Big Push and, as my entries over the last couple of days might have shown, it generated some serious fatigue. So many different kinds of fatigue. I’ve actually found the fatigue to be cleansing; I’m more relaxed than I can remember at any time of my recent life. We are all hanging in -- it’s a whole new kind of tired this time. When I’m not training, I simply sit or lie down and do nothing at all. Not really like me. I’ve got plenty that I could be doing but my desire to do these things is gone and I’m quite content to take it easy and simply look at the trees (or whatever happens to be around). [so if you are one of the 100 or so folks waiting for an email reply, it will likely have to wait until my mind reactivates in Nashville, post-the-big-push] Oklahoma is a great state – trees, leaves and endless rollers. OK City was a bit of a nightmare – the drivers were great but the city isn’t laid out for bikes (at least, where we were). As for training… yesterday was run easy 5K, swim 5000 yds and bike 150K. The swim…
10x400 – odds free, evens alt by 100 IM/free The ride had its moments hanging with the Baron for a bit. It got a lot more fun once I dropped back. I then noticed that I was holding him and TT’d back onto his wheel. I noticed that I was making all my progress on the flats and downhills. I think my new position will really work for me. I did all my riding in it and it’s become more and more comfortable for me. So I bridged back to the Baron at about the 100K mark but let him go (once he’d seen my shadow return – point made). He’s got this thing now where he likes to TT every section – no drinks stops, no breaks, etc… That’s cool, I can’t argue with it’s effectiveness as a training protocol. However, I like a little refreshment from time-to-time and have started giving him a map and directions so I don’t have the grim reaper up my keister all day long. He finds it strange that anyone who could stay with another rider wouldn’t do so – not sure what he makes of how ‘slow’ that I train – he was surprised by my run at IMNZ relative to my training speeds. We did, however, have some very quality key sessions. Training today – pretty mellow! 12K running to take me to 90K for the week (Baron hit 102!). 74K riding to take me to 974K for the week (Baron cracked a thousand!). 100 vasa and 1500m open water to get me to just over 25,000 yards for the week (with the Vasa adjustment). So we made our goals for week one – but there is a long, long, long way to go in order to back-it-up. But as my little Swedish buddy pointed out… “Sure we might blow up, but it was still a good week.” I am really enjoying the riding in Oklahoma. It’s tougher than Texas and our average speeds are falling but the terrain is perfect for training – and it’s beautiful for when we are just cruising. We had a MONSTER lightning storm last night – a bolt hit right in town, sounded like right beside our trailer and we all woke up. A bit of excitement. That entry on Quiet Power – I think that was the start of a deeper realization for me. The lessons of the road. It’s related to the cleansing effects of long training. Different aspects… Spending a long time out of cities, the insanity of a metro area becomes very clear when we roll in. Insanity ‘for me’ the environment must make good sense for a lot of people, just not me. I guess that my time in big cities has burnt me out to them. There are only a couple that I can deal with – I really like San Francisco for some reason. I’ve also been able to place things into perspective a lot better. Having a chance to sort through things. I also think that the isolation of the tour has been a good thing. Most of the dissonance that I create for myself disappears when I’m simply rolling towards a goal (it’s pretty simply “training for the tour”). When left to my own devices in the rollers of Oklahoma I seem to be a happily mal-adjusted individual. I might run through it a bit more. For now, Baron and I are enjoying a couple of Coors.
See ya,
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Forty Incomplete diary entries and strange happenings on the road. All indicators of excessive fatigue. Yesterday Baron decided it would be a good idea to stretch in the middle of Hwy 152 – Barry will report on that conversation. As a third party observer he’ll likely get the facts right. We started with 10K of running – then 90k of riding – city riding isn’t great and we were all spooked by OK City. N May St – something like that – Penn Ave was much better. Set our internet card up again – back in business. Then 30K to the pool.
SCY Decided to call it a day at that stage. Random Thoughts… Just like the Inuit have more than 20 names for snow, we are developing knowledge on more than 20 types of fatigue (angry fatigue, goofy fatigue, irritable fatigue, flat fatigue, quiet fatigue…). It’s all different. Me and fatigue, we are getting to know each other. The glamour of the elite triathlete lifestyle – decided to help Baron empty the trailer tank yesterday. PHEW! The boy has earned his sleeping accommodation – I did a deal for the Capitan’s Suite with him. He’s the dunny-man and also gets the C-Suite. I was so shelled before the ride to the pool that it took me two colas and a grande Americano (thx Kris) simply to feel a bit tired. Swedish for skid marks is speed fart – who knew? Baron wants you to know that we are simply trying to eat/train/sleep and keep our lives together. He’s got a lot of tour chores to do so he’s not able to write much. He hopes you understand. Following our nap today, we were feeling more reasonable – we are totally destroyed, often on edge, occasionally irritable (even Baron – “it’s not the training, I need more sleep” – kinda like the “cold hands” issue the day I nearly died). – anyhow, we had a chuckle when we agreed that everything would be a lot better if the other two guys would just “be a little more like me”. Of course, I know that trap and laughed at myself. We must really be getting tired. Still, there’s a lot of comraderie and goodwill so things don’t get too out of hand. We’re not dickheads, just wiped out triathletes. Did I mention that Barry’s been eating out of the ice bucket? A little fuller today than yesterday. We also found ourselves arguing about the merits of fruits and veggies in a triathlete’s diet – Baron decided it was all a waste of time (for a bit) – think he might have simply been feeling feisty. Anyhow, we are keeping it together but we are having to give everything to do so. That was the point of the “Big Push”.
Shaka,
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-Nine Have to admit that Barry’s haircut wasn’t 100% successful, we took a pretty good looking guy and left him looking like Harrison Ford in Presumed Innocent. Oh well, Baron’s promised to fix up the situation once we get some new clippers. Tough time for mechanical problem! No swim today but 200 reps of the Vasa. We kicked off with 15K of running and rode a little over 200K. My legs didn’t have the same spark as yesterday (wonder why). That had me standing quite a bit and that torques my back – I made it 151K before cracking and getting baron-paced into Binger, OK (home of Johnny Bench). We found a sweet campsite this evening – so nice to have trees, leaves and cool air after weeks in the desert. I also got a kick out the ranger’s Oklahoma accent. The folks are real friendly here as well. I wonder if an athlete needs to earn the right to blow themselves up – I think in some aspects of our life we engage in a subtle form of self-sabotage through trying “to hard”.
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-Eight The Bucket We all finally got a good night of sleep after about a week of sleeping next to train tracks – what a difference it makes. Felt much better all day. Back when we spent the night at the Socorro Motel 6, Baron grabbed the plastic ice bucket from the room. When I asked him “why” he said that he was planning ahead for when Ben and Barry were with us. Well, it turns out that Barry has taken quite a shine to his bucket – eating about 1.5L of vegan chow at most meals. With the increased training load, he has to eat a lot more volume that he’s used to. The other day, he noted that he felt like he had to go to the bathroom all the time because he was carting around so much food. Training We rode a little over two hours to the pool in Pampa. The people seem to be getting more and more friendly – we get a lot more folks asking us what we are up to. I suppose that we are also starting to look more and more like “y’all ain’t from around here”. Our workout was:
SCY Good session for all of us. I honestly thought that Barry would be breaking down by now. I figured that it simply wasn’t possible to sustain the level of training that we do on a grass-muncher diet. He’s certainly got his vegan nutrition wired – he’s tired at the end of the day (we all are) but keep bouncing back. Fastest vegan I know… Shift Tomorrow About our ride… we rode 80K before and 87K after the swim – lots of steady. I hadn’t had an back pain for about a week so I thought that it would be a good idea to take another spacer out – about 1/3rd of an inch more. For some other reason (unknown to me) I decided that it might be a good idea to do the entire second ride in my 55/11 (we had a tailwind most of the way). That was working quite well until the Baron decided to ride tempo through 15K of rollers at the end of the ride – that proved quite difficult. Ran 40 mins off the bike. Ride time was 4:25 for 167K. Baron noted that I was “less weak” now. I think that’s a good thing? We are both building the confidence that one has when it’s clear that the work’s getting done. Oh yeah, if Mister A is reading – I haven’t unpacked my cyclo-tourist bike, yet.
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-Seven Things might start to get a bit disjointed. We are really pushing ourselves for the next two weeks. While my mood and energy remain good, I find that my mind is so calm at the end of the day, I just sit and look at the wall, floor, whatever – I first witnessed the phenomenon with KP at our first Epic Camp. He was watching cricket on TV and someone asked him if he liked the game. Dude didn’t even know that we was watching it! Flatline… Building Mental Strength Some ideas that came to me on my run this morning. Athletes often want to know how to achieve the mental strength required to race well. I used to think that you simply start with short races/training sessions and extend the duration of the “mental toughness” session. However,
Train the mind to tolerate adversity – train the mind to view challenge as opportunity – train the mind to see difficulty as simply the norm Creating Quiet Power Last summer when I heard that Peter Reid was living on the side of a volcano and training solo in Kona, I didn’t understand it. I’d also heard that Mark Allen was advising him. I’ve studied quite a bit of Mark’s writings and interviews. I’ve also talked through Mark (and other champion’s) training and attitude(s) with Scott. So I’ve been mulling that over and thinking about the most important aspects of ultimate sports performance. I’ve also been thinking about the qualities that the best endurance champions project. What I’ve come up with is Quiet Power.
Quiet – calm, patience Run 26K, rocky style Feeling feisty – the dissatisfaction that we see in others as well as our own life situation – caused by the clutter in our own minds. The world being a simple reflection of what’s in our mind
Easy 58K of riding
SCY Baron says that my swim sets are boring. Part of me takes that as a complement for some reason. I like the Jockums-School of swimming – of course, he’s probably think that I don’t crank enough in the water. Still, I hope that he’d respect our overall approach. Near the end of the day, I was lying on the massage table feeling totally shelled and it hit me – “fatigue isn’t fatal”. We were totally shelled before the swim, could have quite reasonably gone for a nap and skipped it. However, we didn’t, we pushed on and managed a decent session, given how wasted we were. Got to the RV Park a short while ahead of an electrical storm – started pounding sugar to revive myself. Didn’t eat enough today and it showed. One Last Thing Something that I’ve been wondering as I roll through these small towns in Ranch Country… what the heck is “custom slaughtering”? Does that mean that you get to choose the method that your steer gets whacked?
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-Six OK, mull this over for a second. What are the critical performance limiters for an age-group athlete? It’s late now and we’ve got a long run in the morning so I’ll keep the training update short. We kicked off with a 15K run on the highway which was followed by 85K of riding to Clovis. Barry did a little negotiation on our behalf at the pool and we managed to get our own lane (in possibly the hottest pool in the state).
Swim was SCM Back on the bikes for another 116K of riding. We averaged 41 km/h today – favourable conditions with a mix of easy and steady riding. One thing about the ride – off in the distance we saw a huge burnt out patch of grass and thought that a recent fire had swept through the area. Once we rolled up, we saw that it was a cattle yard and there were so many cows that the ground looked brown. Barry wanted to stop of a burger but we convinced him to push on. Stealth flats – the lads had three out of four tires flat yesterday morning. Today, I had the flat in the AM – Baron helped me when it was pinching. He’s good that way. Performance Limiters I’ve been thinking about the athletes that I train alongside and the athletes that I coach. Most people think that their key performance limiter is the inability to train harder. At some level, we all think that if we could only train harder/faster then we would improve. That might be the case but it’s certainly not the main thing slowing most of our progress. Our key performance limiters are typically not due to the nature of our training (unless we are constantly smoking ourselves). Rather they are: Biomechnical limits – overuse and other injuries caused by structural issues or a lack of self-maintenance (massage, stretching, proper equipment). Sleep – not making high quality rest a priority. Over-scheduling leading to excessive fatigue (poor recovery, increased risk of injury/sickness). Nutrition – poor nutritional choices leading to low energy, sickness and/or poor body comp. Consistency – one or more of the three factors above, causing a lack of consistency. The power of “keeping it rolling” is huge! Many athletes are binge trainers, several solid days or weeks followed by large gaps. Those gaps are costly. Building a solid, straightforward week and repeating for many seasons will lead to progress. Of course, you will fine tune as you learn more about your needs and body but I think that we can all waste a tremendous amount of energy worrying about the exact nature of our sessions. An element of general periodization is useful but (especially for IM) I think that many athletes simply fry themselves with a misunderstanding of the correct nature of the specific preparation period (maximizing race duration performance). Anyhow, 17 miles of running with the Baron in the AM. Gotta lie down for a bit. Hope you managed some good sessions today. We got ours.
Shaka,
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-Five Following yesterday (and given that The Big Push starts tomorrow) we called a truce, sort of. I was pretty jazzed up with a couple of mugs of Peat’s, so after a 2K warm-up, I pulled over to the side of the road to remove my jacket.
G – Hey bro, how’s it goin’? Barry picked a bad time to not be able to find his 11 and rolled out the back shortly thereafter. I am sure that he would have better shifting if he ate eat meat (later I bought him a pound of deli meat to keep in his jersey pocket). Baron wasn’t feeling too sharp and let me know it. He never does that so it must have been highly unpleasant for him at the start. Still, I was careful not to do anything unwise or rude. I rarely have three good days in a row and payback will be just around the corner. 72Ks in 1:35, phew, that was a sweet tailwind – one of those days where Mister A isn’t the only one to need a 58. I think that I’ll be running a 56 for IMC. We sent in my application yesterday and I am looking forward to it. In fact, I think that I’ll be very ready to race by then. Like last summer, after only five weeks of decent training, I am looking forward to racing again. However, different from last summer, I’ll be doing the IMC/IMH double, so I’ve made a decision to reduce my racing a bit. So far, I have… Triple T (May), 5430 Half (July), Apple Tri (Aug), IMC (Aug) and IMH. That should be enough. I also want to do the following gEvents:
I was planning a run this afternoon but Baron mentioned that we’ve got quite a bit on our plate starting tomorrow. If he’s resting then I’d better rest. Now isn’t the time to try to get a few Ks on him. Tomorrow we start The Big Push – two weeks of 25K (yds) swim, 900K bike, 90K run per week. Baron’s made an appeal to The Committee to be able to substitute 200 reps of Vasa per K swimming up to a maximum of 1,000 reps. We’ve accepted this proposal subject to ratification by Scott. It’s going to take a lot of pacing discipline to get through that in one piece and avoid the typical gMeltdown around Day Ten. Oh yeah, B/TV/G all managed a vasa session this evening. Mine was 3x50 reps, setting 5 with the pulleys. My first dryland since the end of February – I’ll be feeling that tomorrow! That’s it for the training talk for today. Freedom These are just thoughts that I’ve been kicking around for the last little while. Don’t take them too seriously – by the time that you’ve read them, I’ve likely moved on to other musings. These thoughts pertain pretty much to me and some folks that are like me – I’ll generalize but you’d probably have to moderate them to make generalizations. As I might have mentioned earlier in the trip, my interests have consisted of: running, hiking, trekking, mountaineering, ultrarunning, off-shore sailing, backcountry camping, rock climbing and ironman racing. Not exactly a long list of team sports. I think part of the appeal of these sports for me was that when I was doing them, I am away from the world. Away from pressures (self-created and otherwise). Away from work, from obligations, from telephone messages, from society, from email. There is a nice sense of freedom when one is isolated and able to simply focus on the task at hand. Baron mentioned a few weeks ago that it’s very easy to train when that’s all you have to do – kind of a truism but difficult to full understand until you’ve tried it. I think we get very few opportunities in our lives to completely focus on excellence in a single field. When I talk to people that understand the way my life runs – not necessarily fellow athletes. People that have spent time with me and see what really goes on in my life. Something that appeals to them (the men mainly) is the high degree of freedom that I enjoy – the ability to define my life on my own terms. Or perhaps, I am able to accept the terms that circumstance defines for me. That would be the same mind-set from a different source. Either way, it’s taken many years to achieve that ability and it’s something quite valuable to have. Scott’s joked before that I simply can’t understand why everyone isn’t able to take a month off to do any random project that appeals. That hit home at the time. If you live with me then you’d see that I don’t take much “time off” per se. I simply have my life running on flexi-time and out-source/delegate a lot of items to enable me to focus on my personal value added (adding value to the quality of my life). Increasing the quality of my own experience has enabled me to be more effective in the work and tasks that I do for/with other people – although I can still improve on the social skills side of things. It’s getting better but I’m a bit hot & cold there – probably in sync with my recovery situation. Perhaps it’s the same way with some of you? Part of the appeal of your training is simply getting away from the structure and web of obligations that you’ve created for yourself? When I left venture capital, it took me a year to effectively (and properly) work myself out of the business – that’s a fairly complicated web. If you think about the material goods that we are pushed in the Advertising Age then you’ll find that most of them are simply traps that rob us of our freedom. Why? Taking aside the trap of finding one’s self over-leveraged – the pursuit of goods requires ever increasing sources of capital and income. So we spend our energy to get the cash, to get the goods but then we need more cash to upgrade our goods. Constantly spending and chasing to improve the quality of our lives. But is it the goods that give us the satisfaction? With some people, it is. I have good friends that truly enjoy living at a very high standard of living – they also really enjoy the ‘work’ required to achieve that living. It’s their gig. But I don’t think that it’s that way for everyone. Take me, my gig is training and I used to joke that all I needed was “two crates of tuna, a bike and a pair of running shoes”. I have the ability to appear pretty convincing when I say things (occupational requirement). Imagine what it would be like to have a partner/boyfriend/husband that had you convinced that he’d be just OK with some tuna and his training gear – not exactly reassuring if you have to have a highly feminine personality that values a web of relationships more than personal freedom. Needless to say, I’ve learned not to drive that point home as much but you’ll see it in action throughout male elite athletics (read their books, listen to their speeches and watch their actions). Why do so many of us accept limits to our freedom? Having worked myself to the fringes of the matrix, I’d need a pretty attractive proposition to be lured back into the middle. So many of us find ourselves feeling trapped within our personal webs. So we turn to other methods of short-term simulated freedom – be they a form of narcotic, sexual distraction or other pursuit. I’ve tried them all. By other pursuit, we could be talking about triathlon – the structure, training and concentration required helping us forget about the traps, hooks and limits that exist elsewhere in our lives. Just ideas from my time with fatigue and the Baron. Sex & Companionship Explorers don’t get a lot of action when they are on the road. However, most of them have traveling companions – sometimes this is practical for survival (like in the hills) but often I think this is for mental stamina reasons. The ability to endure is heightened through companionship. Indeed, I think the ability to share a common experience is far more important than the physical aspects of a relationship (especially, when you have other physical outlets available). When I consult with mentors and people that I respect about marriage – the ability to share a common experience is always cited in the top three reasons for being married. Of course, you don’t need to be married to experience that. There are jokes, experiences, looks, insanity that Baron and I will always have through “the miles of trials and trials of miles”. Still, my dreams make for interesting reading. Guess that’s a sign that I’m not over-trained. Route Update
Fort Sumner to Clovis, NM then into Texas We’ve got 1,850K to Nashville (across 14 days, 4,000m of climbing) and then 900K to the coast (across 11-12 days, 3,900m of climbing). The first leg is a volume cycle designed for a bit of aerobic overload before the specific prep phase. The final leg will be used for Baron’s specific preparations for Brazil so the reduced distances should enable us to give him what he’s looking for – Ben and I might be doing a fair bit of drafting if history is any gauge! Beer – wrote this a few days ago I’ve been having a few beers through this trip and I’ve made some observations. The marginal return on beer is clearly declining. Without a doubt, the maximal return is on the first large chug (say half a bottle in one go). That’s a real satisfying pull. The next sip after that is pretty noteworthy as well – mainly due to the fact that you don’t get a real good taste when you throw down a half bottle in one go. However, after that, I tend to merely be filling myself up without enjoying much of that initial, “hey, this is pretty good”. Baron made the same observation. It’s for this reason that he rarely goes past a single beer. “If I was to get drunk, I just get out the Red Bull and Vodka”. Always a practical gent. That first pull is very tasty. I’ll give it that. Almost a little too tasty and I suppose that you need to have a highly addictive personality to understand what I mean when something is a little too enjoyable, kinda like illicit sex. Good but you wonder if something that feels _that_ good is really the right way to go. Anyhow, Coors and Samuel Adams are my only gRAAM action so they make a nice treat every once in a while. Up Next I’ll be heading back into the hole for the next fourteen days. Watch my entries and look for those tell-tale signs. It should prove entertaining to watch me get drilled. I know that I’m looking forward to it. Perhaps my life is the point of my life – in other words, the goals that you set for me might not be what I am aiming for. I might simply be rolling along, strong coffee buzz in toe, laughing at our mutual insanity as we all run around in circles worrying about things that are important only in our minds. Then again, maybe not. Perhaps all that noise in our heads is really important. Sitting in a remote town of New Mexico, it sure doesn’t appear that way.
I’ll report back from Texas. TV = “The Vegan”. We are thinking about giving him a proper haircut. He’s got this surfer look going and it could prove a liability if things ever warm-up again. Perhaps we’ll do a team-head-shave in Texas, Baron and I are looking a bit scruffy and that just won’t due in the Marine Kit (worn with pride and always thinking of our pals at 29).
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-Four “OK, so we’ll just take the first two days easy. Ease back into training and start off serious on Saturday.*” – gordo, yesterday to the lads Ah yes, the asterisk made an appearance today. I suppose what I should have said was… we’ll take it easy unless I am feeling stronger than everyone then we’ll go way long. Today was a good day for all of us. We kicked off with a swim at the University – had a bit of a drama getting in but we managed to convince a Volleyball player to be our “voucher”. SCY
200 fr, 4x50 as 25 fr/25bk Following our swim, we ran back to the RV Park – 10K with 200m of climbing. Easy to steady pace. Then we took the late morning off to sort out gear and get ready. The ride ended up being about 5:10 of ride time, 184K with 1600m of climbing – a mix of wind directions and I’d guess that about four hours of that riding was steady or better. We did have the advantage of a sweet meal and at least an hour break at 7,200 feet. Barry rolled straight into this trip without any acclimatization – so he was feeling it a bit on the climbs and qualified for quote of the day. “Phew, I sure feel better riding downhill.” By the end of the day, it had progressed to… “I’m having a little trouble thinking right now.” He did great. Should be fun to read his view of our training. I had some other topics that I wanted to run through but I am feeling the effects of an appropriate training stimuli so those will have to wait for another time. But one quote before I go… “Gordo, you need to worry about the training that’s appropriate for you, not worry about what others are doing.” – John Hellemans, World Champion Triathlete (AG, 6x) and Olympic Coach.
Shaka,
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-Three Today was a travel day back to New Mexico. The calm before the storm! Thought I’d lay out what Baron and I are going to try to achieve starting this coming Saturday (Day 36). We want to do a two week overload cycle to prepare him for Ironman Brazil. At first, I wanted to target back-to-back 50-55 hour weeks but the first leg of the trip showed us that massive volume might not be what we needed. Actually, some observations on the overall volume… It might appear that we are training massive volume. Well, yes and no, in fact the absolute level of hours achieved is down from my normal IM base training. I don’t normally write a diary like this each day when training. Although my log is up on line, I don’t think folks focus on the absolute amount of training that I log on most weeks. These diaries show much more what I am doing. I’m still doing a lot, but not as much as when I stay in one place. Now what probably comes through is the aerobic quality of the training that I am doing. That is the key factor of this trip. I am doing lifetime best steady-state volume and that’s what’s generating quite a bit of fatigue. We are also doing some extended periods where we sit between IM and Half IM effort on the bike (what I call upper steady). These periods generate quite a bit of fatigue for me. It’s a technique that I learned from Mister A. While Mister A has a clear plan for his weekly cycling structure -- Baron and I are going on feel -- and to be honest, it’s pretty much “my feel”. Baron’s a patient guy and knows that when the star(bucks) align properly, I’ll get out there and provide him the aerobic intensity that he’s looking for. He’s also been doing a heap of big gear work -- he’s forsaken his small ring as much as possible. I suppose Mister A putting 18+ minutes into the entire IMNZ field made an impression on us. But I think that it’s important to make another point to the readers that use my logs to generate ideas for their own training. First -- you create the physiology to support high frequency, large volume training -- this is done by long periods of easy volume Second -- you learn what steady-state training is -- most athletes don’t understand steady-state training -- or perhaps, the wish that their steady-state endurance was better than it is. In other words, the most common mistake is an over-estimate of steady state ability. Long steady workouts should feel comfortable for the first 90 minutes or so. The work element starting later in the workout. For athletes that are new to this technique, I think that longer efforts at a slightly lower intensity are the way to go. Third -- as your fitness increases, you will find that it becomes much more “work” to sustain your steady zone, especially on the flats when cycling (or in the water when swimming). So you might get the sensation that you are working harder to simply maintain the same intensity as before. I sense this is because you limiter is moving from a cardiovascular issue more towards a strength or muscular endurance issue. So what the Baron and I have found is similar to what I’ve read when studying the methods of athletes like Mark Allen and Pauli Kiruo. These were athletes that over many seasons improved their aerobic fitness to the point where they would be _really_ moving it out when training at their max aerobic paces. While Baron and I have a long way to go, we are finally starting to build the ability to tolerate extended periods of steady to mod-hard riding -- IM race effort or slightly faster. Hope all that made sense. It’s a bit late now so I’ll leave it at that. Barry joined us in Albuquerque. The two of us managed a SCY swim for our session of the day…
1000 straight every 4th bk It’s really nice to have Barry along for swimming. He’s a touch faster than me in the pool so I have a good partner to keep me honest during the main sets. Barry had my on the soy-sage this evening. Pretty tasty and I went back for seconds.
Take care,
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-Two Alright – brief training summary – ran out to GG Bridge Area with Gordy and Sammy – Gordy waited until I was warmed up to tempt me for a bit further than I wanted (or needed) – 1:25 run time and I was asking him frequently to slow down (for me, not Sam!). Swam an easy 1000 yds after I put myself back together. It was nice to see the guys. If there is one aspect of my “old” venture capital life that I miss, then it’s getting the chance to hang around guys like Sam and Gordy. I can now see how men get most productive through their 30s and 40s – you’ve got the contacts and the energy to get some fun business done. When I left VC, I thought that I’d learned everything that the business had to offer. Now I think that I left before I truly learned how to relate with the entrepreneurs and chief executives that we backed – as a firm we were quite reliant on the managing partner to handle that aspect. My massage guy agreed that my run was probably excessive. I was WORKED throughout my body. Baron just laughed when I told him about it. He got a kick out of watching me drill myself yesterday. I’m pretty predictable to him – at least, he finds that amusing. He lets me make my mistakes and (typically) only offers advice when you ask or when you really need it. I appreciate that. Oh yeah, a friend of mine summed up our relationship quite well… “…it is great that you have someone that is not only a true friend but can also be a valuable training partner. You have to remember that Clas is not going to show you any mercy and will not give you the satisfaction of you knowing that he is feeling weak, so remember that he will also have hard days.” So true, so true. Just to make it clear – Mister Baron has been punishing me, yes. But I am having a lot of fun and am being forced to grow up (and get faster – but it’s not really about getting faster – it’s more about exploring myself). Do you know that part in Train Spotting (the movie) where they are trying to kick heroin and one of the lead character’s pals quits because he can, no worries. Well last night, Baron pulled a large dish of butterscotch pudding out of the fridge and took one bite. He then put it away and said that he was leaving the rest for me… I managed not to eat all the pudding – saved a little bit for Baron today. Oh well! My Olympic Year I’ve been thinking quite a bit about commitment, achievement and fear – I’ve also being thinking about love, relationships and achievement (perhaps I’ll talk some other time about that). Not sure if you picked it up but my earlier conversation on fear was with Baron about IM Brazil. His concern being that he wouldn’t enjoy the trip once he committed to race. Well, it’s official, he’s committed and looking forward to the event. I am looking forward to doing everything possible to help him get ready for his race. I’m not worried at all – sure there will be some suffering but, hopefully, I’ll reduce the whining because I know that it will all be for a purpose. The elite swim coaches that I know say that the work you do the year before the Olympics is what determines the type of Olympic year that you are going to have. For me, 2003 was a kick butt training year. It wasn’t perfect and there were a lot of gaps – however – on balance it was the best year that I’ve managed to put together. So I think I have a unique opportunity to play off the Trans USA base and put together a very solid race. So I’ve decided to race Ironman Canada and have asked Baron to support my effort. There’s no better training wingman for me.
That’s all for now,
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Thirty-One Enjoyed a nice sleep in this morning and a slow start. Seems that my calves took the biggest beating of all my body parts – there were torched this morning. No training yesterday – just a nice train ride and a nine-year-old’s birthday party (Happy Birthday Pierre!). Training today was two rides of about 30K (each) with 5000 yards of SCY swimming sandwiched in between. Swim was...
1000 every 4th choice Thoughts on World’s Toughest Just some ideas from the weekend... It’s a great race for someone doing an IM 4+ weeks later. I wouldn’t want to do this course closer than four weeks due to all the downhill running on fatigued legs. Tim DeBoom is a class athlete – great result. He’s also not very big – I think Cam’s the most muscular guy to race well in Kona. Not surprising given the heat stress. It was nice to see Tim/Nicole giving a talk to the athletes in the evening after the race. For a sport without a strong TV revenue base, the elites rely on the strength of the AG base to support the people that support us (RDs and equipment companies). I’m surprised that more elites and coaches don’t volunteer their time pre- and post-race to support the events. Athletes/Coaches that have the reputation as really adding to an event will, in the long run, do themselves a big favour. While it might be nice to have zero responsibilities, we can’t expect folks to compensate us for simply turning up, drilling it and going home. Baron and I ran well. In the four weeks prior, I probably had less than 5K of running at 40 min 10K pace or faster. Baron and I both felt that lack of faster running in our run turnover – but we still ran well. Again, I don’t think that long course running is linked to top end speed – I find a much stronger co-relation to overall fitness and durability. Answering questions for years on my board has really helped my public tri speaking – not sure how many people attended the Molina/Byrn talk but it looked like more than 100. That’s the most comfortable I’ve felt in a long time. As usual, I talked a bit much but, hey, I gotta be me! After the talk, a few folks came up to ask me about all the “silly questions”. To tell you the truth, the questions all seemed pretty reasonable to me. A good sign that I was rested, patient and thinking clearly. There aren’t many events in the US where you can roll-up and park within 50m of the finish area. The small race feel was nice. I enjoyed the free post race smoothies as well – the only other place I’ve had those was IMC a few years back. I took a bunch of photos including a reunion shot of The Doodes! Those will be on-line in a week or so. Left my camera in Auburn with my homestay family. I seem to be leaving gear all across the USA! If the dude that finished second sticks with triathlon then he’s going to be a factor! Impressive result for his fourth triathlon.
That’s all for today,
gRAAM - Trans USA Day Twenty-Nine - Thirty Hi Gang, Enjoying a few off days from the trip. Very pleased with my performance at the triathlon yesterday and very proud of my buddy, The Baron. He had a real struggle to get going but hung tough, came around and posted the fastest run split of the day. Goes to show what we can achieve when we refuse to give up. Brad Kearns runs a fantastic race and is a quality guy. The World’s Toughest course is ideal if you are preparing for an Ironman race later in the year. It has everything that you need for an early season hit out. I hope to be back next year. If you did the race then be sure to rest up – you’ll be far more tired that you realize! I’ll write more once the urge grips me. Been talking a lot lately. g-man |
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