Listening to Your Body

Often when training we hear the phrase “Push through the pain”. It is often good advice, but not always. There are times when you have to find the difference between ‘discomfort’, ‘healthy pain’, and ‘injury looming’. You can push through any of these, but pushing through ‘injury looming’ is a quick way to take a forced 4-16 weeks off. Today, I got a first hand glimpse of this, and almost made the wrong choice.

It is a saturday, it is long run day. So I headed out on the run. Things were good early, but somewhere about mile 4, something wasn’t “right”.  By the 5.5 mile mark, it wasn’t just not right, it was headed for really wrong, and fast. The signs were there, but I wasn’t paying attention. By the time I caught on, it was almost too late. I backed it down to a walk, but the left hip, calf and heel were all telling me that there was a problem. It took a bit to figure out the source of the problem: worn out shoes.  Sadly, they shouldn’t be, they only have about 150 miles on them, but this particular shoe ( Brooks PureDrift ) just hasn’t worn well at all. In this case, though the sole looked to be in good shape, the softer foam padding between the insole and the sole itself was breaking down, and fast.

Slowing to a walk I figured I could at least work my way back to the car, lick my wounds and live to run another day. Unfortunately, the shoe damage was terminal.  By mile 7, I concluded the shoes were doing more harm than good, so off they came, socks into a pocket, and walk/run the remaining mile or so. Since I frequently run in New Balance Minimus Zero’s, running barefoot is not a crisis, but I do not have the callouses built up to do it for long distances.

At the end of the day though, I ignored ‘discomfort’ and pushed into the ‘injury imminent’ territory. I got lucky, and started listening before it turned into an injury, so I shouldn’t have any downtime for it. But it is days like these that reinforce the dynamic that I sometimes forget.

Listen to your body it is talking to you all the time and you ignore what it is saying at your own peril.

Embrace the Commute for Training

As an aspiring ( and late in life ) triathlete, finding the time to get in the miles and hours required to build fitness and base endurance is probably the single largest challenge. Time, for many of us is our most valuable commodity. Between the demands of employment, family, sleep, and our social commitments, squeezing out potentially hours a day for working out is tough. Many of us look to combine our fitness goals into other aspects, be it social, or family obligations, while some of us are lucky enough to be able to get our fitness as part of our employment, the rest of us, have to find that time elsewhere.

Consider a pretty typical white collar professional parent schedule:

7:00-7:45AM – Feed kids/launch them to school.
7:45-9:00AM – Transit to place of employment.
9:00AM-12:00PM – Work
12:00-12:30AM – Lunch like time (in many cases eaten at a desk)
12:30-5:00PM – Work
5:00-6:15PM – Transit Home
6:15-8:00PM – Family Time (dinner,homework,domestic chores)
8:00-10:00PM – “Down Time”

Carving out ‘workout time’ that isn’t in that late evening time, using dreadmills and indoor trainers is brutal. This is where the commute as a training window comes into play. A commute of say 10-20 miles is going to take 20-60 minutes in a car in most areas, while that same commute by bicycle is going to be between 20-90 minutes depending upon the rider. Add some clean up and a change of clothes at the other end, and you are typically still well within the transit time window. Now instead of needing to find another time during the day for a workout, the workout is part of the day.

Will this work for everyone? absolutely not, but if you can make it work for you, it can be a huge benefit, not only in time saved and fitness, but it also improves on the job performance (though I will be the first to admit that there are days when the temptation to keep riding past the office is almost overwhelming!).

For me personally, I have had to adapt a couple of things in my schedule. My working hours are early, I typically target getting to the office around 6:30AM, so I am commuting in the dark, so that means riding with lights. I enjoy the morning ride as a low pace 12 mile spin, with an average of about 15 mph. I then work until 2:30 or 3:00PM and then hustle home on a different return route that is close to 16 miles over some nasty rollers. This is a far more spirited work out, that usually pushes over 18 mph. Once I am home, and I get the kids off to their various events, I use the down time between drop off and pick up times to either work on the laptop, hit the trail for a run, or hit one of the pool options for a few laps. Then it is home for dinner, homework, baths and bedtimes. Sure, the days are full, but I actually feel better for it, and I am not stressing about finding time in the day to squeeze in a bike workout too.

Race Report – Callaway Gardens Fitness Series Triathlon & 5k

August 30, 2014 two of the OGRE’s joined up with Lee and Steve Karp of Endurance House Atlanta to take a short trip down to Pine Mountain, GA to participate in the Callaway Gardens Fitness Series Triathlon and 5k event at Callaway Gardens. This is an event that claims to be the oldest ongoing triathlon in the continental U.S. having run every year since 1980. That may be the case, but the information to be found online, is a bit shall we say, lacking. Regardless, the venue offers up some pretty scenery, and the event held a lot of potential. As an added bonus, this was Scott’s first triathlon event.

The event itself was billed as a 1km swim, 30km bike and 8km run, though the course and profile was not available until checkin on sunday, and even that map was a little tricky to make heads or tails of. It doesn’t help that many of the roads inside of Callaway Gardens are not properly mapped in any of the current mapping tools online, so going into the course quite blind meant preparing for an unknown.

Course Swim Bike Run

As you will see if you look at the maps, none of the distances measured to quite the lengths expected. Not a crisis, but the event proved to be a little shorter than expected.

Swim

The swim portion of the course was cut down pretty dramatically due to a wakeboarding competition to be held in the same lake later in the day. The net result was a swim course that swam much closer to 600 meters than one 1000. Adding to the confusion here was a mixture of buoys in the water courtesy of the same wakeboarding event. All in all, the swim itself should have been a nice loop, but the confusion with the buoys combined with a lack of swim support ( 4 support ski boats, no paddle boards or wave runners for close support of swimmers ) made for a couple of scary moments as one swimmer did have a bit of panic set in early in the swim and the support simply was out of place. Competitors saved the day there, not the support staff.

Bike

This was the part of the course that probably raised the most eyebrows. The race director noted early and often that the course was quite techincial with several 90* or worse turns (14 of them in total). In addition, there was a good bit of riding up (and down) grades between 3-7%. with a total ascent of about 650 feet, none of it on straight roads, and all of it in the shade of trees, or on the edge of lakes. Certainly pretty, but a little frustrating if you are trying to maximize your speed on the bike course. Advertised at 30km, the measured distance came in at a little over 26km, and while it was fairly technical, it remained a course that could be ridden at an average speed over 20mph. In addition, the course was well marked and had support staff at every turn directing traffic. Unfortunately, in sections that meant also directing cars, as the roads were open during this time. There were moments where the ride was flowing in the same lane as cars, in a strange twist on the norm, it was the bikes speeding around cars that created most of the challenge here.

On a final note about the bike course, this was not a USAT event, and though it was never stated, there were no drafting guidelines mentioned, and it was being done. It felt more like a WTC style event than a USAT event. This would have been good information pre race to have had.

Run

Coming off the bike, the run course went out on a short, fast section of course that is better suited to trail runners than road runners, with some sections of the path that have roots causing ripples in the pavement. That first 2.75 mile, 4km section of the run is fast, and blessedly shaded, it was quick, and featured 2 water/gatorade stations along the out and back route. At the 2.8 mile mark, though, the course turns left into a long slog of a climb, around the back side of the lake the swim was in. Honestly, I do not think the run route was a bad course by any means, but as I was having some issues at that point, I can honestly say that I had hit the ‘just slog through and finish’ wall, so my judgement of the back side of this course is probably harsher than it deserves. About all I can say is that on a good day, it should have been a fast course. On this particular day, it was not a fast course at all.

Race Notes

Overall, this event is one that held a lot of promise, but largely failed to deliver on the promise due to poor communication and weak swim support/safety measures. While the course is a gorgeous track, the issues place it pretty firmly on the Do Not Repeat list. At the end of the race, we all seemed to have the same feeling too. Just poor communication, and I suspect the race director was simply trying to do his best to cope with things that got pushed and changed by forces beyond his control. These things however do not excuse the issues. Which, is a little sad. The timing, location and venue for the event are all really good. It would be a great venue for a great event, with just a little more structure and communications.

The weather was perfect, if perhaps a little humid once the sun really came out near the finish of the run. The awards were presented promptly, and they did a very nice job of getting everyone their awards quickly complete with photos, as well as keeping the results posted early and often for the runners as they crossed the lines.

Race Day Equipment

Dru’s Race Day Kit

Endurance House logo’d Shorts and Singlet kit by Garneau

These are basically the Tri Elite Course kits with custom print and color setup. Superb kit, and we got to represent for some really good people, which is always a good time.

2014 Cannondale CAAD10/4

This has been my road bike this season and it will likely remain my primary bike for the foreseeable future, it is going to have to be joined by a dedicated tri bike this winter. For this race it served exceptionally well, and is for the most part a bone stock 2014 CAAD10/4. The exceptions are that the pedals are Speedplay Zero’s, and the seat has been swapped to a Fizik Airione. In addition, it has been heavily adjusted to fit me, and my slightly aggressive riding position.

New Balance 890v3

Due to the moisture I expected on the course, and some lingering issues in my left heel where I bruised the heel on a rock in the yard during the week, I made a last minute switch to running in my 890’s. I did get a couple of training runs in in them so the shoes themselves would have been fine. Unfortunately, I failed to think through the entire process, and honestly I paid for it. For this distance race, I do not wear socks, and this race did not afford a good place to clean the feet in transition. So it was that I jumped on the bike with wet feet, and pushed a pace where I wasn’t going to dry out. That meant that when I hit the run transition, I went into the 890’s a little wet, with a little grit and sand still lingering on the legs and feet. As I started running, the combination of sand, grit, water and swet led to an achilles blister on the right heel. The unconscious favoring of the blister led to a hip cramp, which ultimately disrupted my run. While this remains a fantastic shoe for single discipline runs for me, I just find the versatility of the trail minimus to be the better answer for my tri needs.

TomTom MultiSports GPS Watch

Still the goto device for me, the TomTom showed well. Per it’s usual weakness, there remains no open water swim mode, but for both the bike and run, the GPS picked up exceptionally quick in transitions, and we got good maps and results for those legs of the event.

Wahoo Fitness Bluetooth HRM

For this race, it was still the original bluetooth heart rate monitor. The TIKR is very much on the list of items to acquire and test out, but budgets being what they are, we are still working with the older model. That said, this remains the most reliable of the heart rate monitor units that we have used to date.

Weekend Randomness

WP_20140901_005As noted during the week last week, we had a race to do at Callaway Gardens on Sunday, so Saturday was mostly a travel day. The weekend was a long onethough, being Labor Day here in the states, so Monday was open for some play time. I was in need of a nice little post race recovery run, so I went and did a little exploring in the area. I knew there was a small trail loop down by the Chattahoochee River that I had not found a chance to explore before, so off I went.

WP_20140901_001The trail itself is very nice, though sitting where it does, there are some odors that might be a little much for some.  There is some nice wildlife to be seen as well. The whole thing is about a mile loop around, and can easily be worked into a pretty comfortable 10 mile loop including most of the Azalea Rd/Riverside Rd greenway system.  In addition, the traffic is light while the path itself is really quite good with few roots or large rocks to negotiate, making it a nice place to run for someone that is normally a ‘road’ runner.

WP_20140831_008Of course we also had the triathlon, which will get a full race report in a day or so, once time allows.  The short version though,  we arrived, we swam, we biked, we more or less ran.  We finished, and we got to represent our friends at Endurance House Atlanta.

You Might Be a Triathlete If

  • You failed high school chemistry but you could teach a course on lactic acid

  • While at the gym, you change clothes as fast as possible because it feels like a transition

  • You wear your heart rate monitor during sex.
  • You bring bottled water to a party so that you’re properly hydrated for the next morning’s long run
  • Everyone else at the party also brought their own bottled water because you don’t have a social life outside of triathlon.
  • Everyone showed up by 7pm and left by 10pm
  • When you wear your bathing suit under your work clothes to make a fast transition from work to swim on your lunch hour
  • Your girlfriends are insanely jealous of your tan legs. Until they realize that the tan stops at your bike shorts.
  • One of the criteria of a vacation is that the hotel has a spin bike, pool and there’s running trails nearby
  • Baggage for any out of town trip includes running gear and goggles
  • 90 degrees is too hot to mow the lawn but not to go on a century ride
  • You consider Clif Bars one of the four food groups
  • You wake up at 5 am but don’t get to work until 9.
  • You think there are only two seasons during the year, triathlon & marathon.
  • The inside of your car looks like a going out of business sale at Sports Authority.
  • You consider work, recovery time between training sessions.
  • You have a water bottle when you drive your car.
  • You spend your 2 week annual vacation at a training camp.
  • You know exactly how much protein each energy bar has.
  • Your legs are smoother than your girlfriend’s.
  • You use race shirts to clean your bike.
  • You know you’re a triathlete when you take more showers at the gym than at home.
  • 6:30 am is sleeping in.
  • You have everything needed in your car to swim, bike or run within 5 minutes notice.
  • The one “suit” you own has Xterra written on the chest.
  • You catch yourself about to blow a snot rocket while walking around the office.
  • You know you’re a triathlete when you take ice baths!
  • You can plow through a whopping plate of pancakes and sausage and go back for seconds with a clear conscience.
  • You don’t mind your spinach in liquid form.
  • Your cologne of choice is chlorine.
  • You consider ‘bonking’ a bad thing.
  • You know you’re a triathlete when your house and office is littered with half full water bottles
  • Your bike costs more than your car.
  • You shout “on your left” when passing people in the aisles at the grocery store.
  • You use the words “only” and “10k” in the same sentence.
  • IM no longer refers to ‘instant message’.
  • You use the words “easy” and “long run” in the same sentence.
  • You not only eat gels, but you know the best flavors for every brand.
  • Your bath towel is never dry.
  • Your wife no longer thinks it’s strange that you keep a heart rate monitor at your bedside.
  • You take (at least) two showers a day.
  • You think the ultimate form of wallpaper is all your racing bibs.
  • You have a vanity license plate with the word “Kona” in it.
  • After you meet someone and they tell you they race, you go home and check online to see what age group they’re in and what their times are.
  • You plan vacations around where your next race will be.
  • You feel like you took the day off because all you did was swim 3000 yards.
  • You show up to work on Mondays with faded race numbers written all over your arms and legs.
  • About half the shirts you own have at least a dozen logos on the back of them.
  • There is a group of people in your life about whom you are more likely to know how fast they can swim 100 meters than their occupations.
  • There’s a separate load of laundry every week that is just your workout clothes.
  • You don’t giggle anymore when someone uses the word ‘Fartlek’.
  • Your bike is in your living room (possibly mounted on your trainer).
  • A car follows too closely behind you and you accuse them of drafting.
  • Your friends cried during The Notebook; you cried during the television coverage of the Ironman World Championship.
  • Your husband/wife is looking forward to the day when you will slow down and just run marathons.
  • You see no problem with talking about treatments for chafing or saddle rash at the dinner table.
  • You know you’re a triathlete when nobody believes you when you say “I’ll never do an Ironman”.
  • You have peed outdoors more times in the last year than you did in your first year of college.
  • You call a 5 mile run an easy day.
  • You shave way too many body parts.
  • You spend more money on training clothes then work clothes.
  • You clean your bike more often than your car.
  • Your car smells like a locker room.
  • You have far more pairs of shoes in your closet than your non-tri wife does in hers.
  • You go for a 5K cooldown run after a 5K race just so that you can call it a training session.
  • You have to explain to your co-workers what “splits,” “bricks,” and ‘LSDs” are.
  • You know you’re a triathlete when people see your ’140.6′ sticker on your vehicle and ask what radio station that is.
  • You’ve forgotten how to drink out of cups.
  • When asked how old you are you answer your age group (40-44).
  • When people praise you for being able to run 15 miles you feel insulted.
  • You purchase your new car to match the color of your bike.
  • You know you’re a triathlete when your car purchase depends on whether your bike will fit in the back.
  • You consider sprint triathlons as group training sessions.
  • You reach for a snack, and its a Clif Bar.
  • You would rather surf race pictures than watch TV

Pre Race Day Jitters

I am fairly certain that I am not alone in the following, but the week before a race, particularly at a venue or distance that I have not done before, I get the jitters pretty bad 4-5 days in advance. I worry that I am undertrained, have missed something in the preparations, or even really crazy things like did I forget the registration. I love race day, but I am not a big fan of the week leading up to it.

Dog Days Run 2014 Race Day

Dog Days Run 2014 Race Day

This week, I am going through the ritual. With the upcoming Labor Day weekend long sprint triathlon at Callaway Gardens lurking on Sunday, the pre race jitters are in full effect. This is only my second triathlon, and it is a quirky distance, with a  1km swim, a 30km bike and 8km run, it is a little longer than the usual sprint triathlon. I do not feel like I am under trained, but it is a new distance.  I have trained at every discipline, at longer than these distances, but there remains an irrational, what if that drives me crazy.

There is a point at which the mind overcomes and I get excited.  Too bad, that time probably won’t be until about midnight on Saturday before the race itself. Oh well.

On the upside, this weekend will be a trial race with aero-clips on the road bike until the budget ( or a sponsor steps in ) to allow for the purchase of a dedicated triathlon bikes.

Training OTP

Living and training OTP, or Outside The Perimeter to the non-Atlanta readers, is very much a mixed bag. Personally, I love the experience, but I know many people that think we are crazy. Why? well, the  typical suburban Atlanta road lacks amenities like bike lanes or sidewalks. More often than not, even curbs are a luxury. At the same time, any time spent on these roads is an adventure in dealing with soccer mom’s in large SUV’s, angry landscape truck drivers ( yes I am looking at YOU Bardin Landscaping ), unleashed dogs, deer and squirrels and even the occasional turtle crossing the road.

running in the burbs - north valley Of course there is the other part to this, the realization that ‘flat’ is a relative term, so every route you take is going to involve rollers at best, and some big hills at worst. The scenery however, often makes it all worth it. This field is a the valley floor along a creek that eventually feeds into the Big Creek watershed area, but sits just high enough that it rarely floods.  What you cannot see is that on the other side of that tree line on the left is a golf course.

WP_20140818_005It is on training days like this however, that I truly have come to appreciate what training OTP brings for me. I may be suffering up and down some of these hills, but over each hill is a new vista to look at, and around here, there are some gorgeous ones.

Things Seen

WP_20140814_003
 Seen while riding home on Friday, we have a pair of beautiful vintage cars sitting at the front of a farm. This is just one of the many advantages of using a commute as an opportunity to take in the sites.  Get off the beaten path as you will.  WP_20140814_001

Race Reports – Dog Days Run 5k

August 9, 2014 a couple of us got a chance to go over to East Cobb and run in the 9th annual Dog Days Run that is put together by the Rotary Club of East Cobb. This is one of the more family oriented events in the area, and is also a very dog friendly affair with contests being held for the dogs around the running events. In addition the 5k that was the primary race, the was also a 1 mile fun run and a short tot trot for the youngsters.

Course View

2014-DogDaysRun-Map The course itself was well marked and staffed. It was also a flat course that ran hillier than it maps. With only 64 feet of gain, each of the three small climbs were of the short variety that cause runners to bunch up without intending to. In addition, the sharp right hand turn from Woodlawn Dr onto Johnson Ferry Rd definitely created a pinch point for runners that were bunched up. Fortunately, the total field was small enough that these little course details did not create any problems.

There was water at the 1.5 mile mark, which was nice, but for a 5k it was largely ignored by the runners up front. Also being a dog and stroller friendly event, most of the dogs and strollers did start towards the back of the pack, eliminating the contention for space between the runners and the strollers and dogs.

Race Notes

As a relative newcomer to the 5k race format, having run a limited number of them since adding them to my schedule of longer distance events, I find the differences in the race organisation of the 5k events to be interesting. This particular event used chip timers, but did not route all of the runners across a start line sensor. Instead, they used a mass start right at 7:30AM, with a single timer at the finish line. Out on the course, they put people with stop watches at each mile mark calling out splits as the runners passed by. Quite a fun little personal touch, one that some runners did not like, but as I run with a GPS watch anyways, I found it fun. Race day also brought with it some significant humidity, having seen pretty heavy over night rains that left the ground damp, and some standing puddles. The temperatures in the mid 70’s together with the high humidity meant that despite being relatively cool for early August in Hot’Lanta, it was still a truly steamy run.

For all of the good things about this event, there were two items that were less than positive. The first was that the volunteers were not covering the finish line as well as needed. We saw two different runners cross the finish line in clear distress without volunteers there to get them water, food or even medical attention if warranted. One of them probably should have been looked at by one of the emergency staff, but without volunteers present, was allowed to wander off. ( We did get him some water and a banana and he perked back up after a little recovery time ). The other was the handling of the awards. These were held for a VERY long time, with the first award for a 7:30 AM start time race not being presented until 9:40 AM, and after several of the expo vendors had started packing up to leave. To all appearances, this was an organisational challenge, not a technical one, but it made for a bit of confusion, and very few of the winners stayed long enough to be presented with the awards.

Race Day Equipment

In what is to be a regular section of our Race Reports, we will specifically discuss equipment used in each race. We don’t change equipment all that often right now, but at the same time, we are trying to take every opportunity to try products to see if they work better for each of us.

_Dru’s Race Day Kit

New Balance Minimus 10v2 Trail

For a little over a year now, these have been my go to shoe. I am now on my 3rd pair, and continue to find them to be the best match for me. You may note that this is a trail shoe, and this was not a trail event. That is exactly right, I find that I prefer the minimal style, but the little bit of grip and protection from the trail shoe design gives me greater comfort on the road. This pair ticked over the 200 mile mark during this event, but is still showing very good tread and structure, so I am expecting to be able to use them for another 100 miles before moving to my fourth pair. After my last race of the 2014 season, I am planning to reevaluate some shoe options, with the Altra 3sum being the most likely runner up.

TomTom MultiSports GPS Watch

Almost a year in, the TomTom has served quite well. Though it may find itself relegated to other duties in the not too distant future due to it’s weaknesses in open water swimming for my triathlon usage, it remains one of the quickest to acquire signal (even on heavily overcast days like this one), and it’s accuracy in recording is excellent. The only complaint about it on this race day is the same one that I have seen in training with the last couple of software updates. The real time Pace updates very slowly and has a tendancy to be more accurate as a reflection of an average over the last 2–3 tenths of a mile than a reflection of your current speed.

Wahoo Fitness Bluetooth HRM

For this race, it was still the original bluetooth heart rate monitor. The TIKR is very much on the list of items to acquire and test out, but budgets being what they are, we are still working with the older model. That said, this remains the most reliable of the heart rate monitor units that we have used to date.

Garneau Tri Elite Course Triathlon Shorts

Having recently started running triathlons after two decades of off and on cycling and just a couple of years of running, I have moved almost entirely to running in triathlon gear. Why? comfort. Atlanta tends towards muggy anyways, and tri gear is built to transition from the water to the bike and the run. For me it works extremely well. If you find yourself needing multi-sport gear, I highly recommend you give your local tri shop a visit. These Garneau’s have been a training staple for the last 8 weeks, and they have replace my long time favorite Saucony running shorts as well as the Pearl Izumi bike shorts that I have been replacing with the same basic short for almost 20 years.

Endurance House Technical Tee

And last but not least, this event was the first run event we have done since Endurance House Atlanta opened up. These are some great people, and so when the opportunity presented itself for us to grab one of their shirts to represent, we did. For the record, the shirt was fantastic to run in particularly on such a steamy morning.

Shout Out

We would like to send a huge thanks out to the Tuesday Run crew at Endurance House Atlanta whom we have been running with for the last couple of months. Thanks for the work that has helped us get so much faster this season.

AIP-11022014

As we flesh out our fall calendar, we are trying to sprinkle in some smaller events to keep motivated, and keep running.  This is another one that is local and should be a good time.  Dru and Scott are both signed up, along with a couple of friends that will be completing just their 3rd race each.

Race forward as time moves back!
The Anything is Possible 5K run/walk starts at 1:50am on Sunday morning when Daylight Savings time ends and clocks get turned back.