Here are the basic stats:

Overall Place: 204 / 2353
Age Group Place: 36 / 266
Overall Time: 10:42:15
Swim Overall Place: 579
Swim Time: 1:15:17
Swim Pace / 100 Meter: 1:57
Bike Overall Place: 592
Bike Time: 5:51:27
Bike Pace mph: 19.1
Run Overall Place: 84
Run Time: 3:27:10
Run Pace min/mile: 7:55

Pre Race

Nikki and I woke up early to get our nutrition in a few hours prior to the race start.  So we were up and I was drinking my bottles of Fortify at 4:15am.  I had a little coffee and my usual 3 trips to the bathroom.  I tried to lay in bed as much as I could, but I wasn’t resting well, so I decided to get up and moving a little earlier than I wanted.  We ended up leaving our hotel to make the walk down 4th street and to the Great Lawn around 5:30am.

It was interesting walking right by the finish line on 4th street on our way to the start.  Knowing that at some point during the day I would be running (hopefully) through the finish line that was so abandoned and empty was a little poetic.  I prayed that this feeling was a foreshadow to being a part of something great.  Not only for myself but for thousands of other athletes and family members that were on their own Ironman journey.  I had a little visualization of finishing strong.

We made it to the transition area at 6:00am and as soon as we walked into the area we heard them start calling out that the transition area would be closing in 15mins.  It was very comforting to see so many friends in the transition area that morning.  Jeff, Neely and Casey were all there to help us.  Tyson was there to prep his stuff too.

The amazing thing for me was that I never had too much anxiety the couple days prior to the race or on race morning.  I attribute a lot of that to taking the time to write out my last post: Perspective, Priorities and Racing Ironman Louisville.  When you are willing to take a step back, it can really change your approach to something as simple as a race.  I also think that seeing other people completely freaking out made it easier on me to realize that I didn’t want to spend my emotional energy in that way.

Swim

We ended up getting in the start line next to Ron Shashy.  He and Nikki swam the 2.0 mile open water swim at Cave Run together, so they were a pretty good match to try and stay together during the swim.  Once the race got started, it was amazing how fast people started moving.  I got my goggles on just in time to run on the deck to try and stay in line and jump off the dock. I thought that a time trial start would create less of a crowd in the water, but I had a lot more issues swimming around-into-over people during this swim than I did at Ironman Wisconsin in 2007.

The first segment of the swim is done against the current, but I’m not sure how much it slowed us down?  It didn’t feel like the current was too strong, but I was struggling to find a straight line to swim more than I was worried about the current.  Directions I was given by Gordo after the Cardinal Harbour Race in July were:

A – increase my Monday and Friday swims so that I was swimming 4400 meters during each workout

B – Float the swim at Ironman Louisville

I continued to think about that as I was headed out to the turn around.  Not too far from the turn around I saw other athletes walking in the water.  It seemed a little odd because the Ohio River is not a small river and it should be pretty deep where there where at.  Not too many seconds after that I hit a log in mid stroke that stopped me cold.  I guess they must have been walking across the log.

After the turn around I put myself as far out into the river as I felt comfortable and could maintain my bearings.  The swim back in was fairly uneventful.  I tried to catch a few people’s feet but that wasn’t working out too well, so I used random feet from time to time, as long as I felt like I wasn’t working too hard to stay there.

T1

As I exited the water, I saw that my swim time was 1:15.  Not exactly the start to the race that I was hoping.  I thought that 1:10 to 1:15 was reasonable depending on the water conditions, so at least I was within range of what I thought was acceptable.

Jeff and Neely were again in the transition area.  As I ran my bike out to the mount line, Jeff yelled “Nikki’s about 3mins ahead of you.  She needs some encouragement!”  This was a piece of good/bad news for me to know.  The fact that I was within 3mins of Nikki coming out of T1 was either really good news for me, or fairly bad news for Nikki.  I chose to make it good news for me… thinking that it must have been a tough swim for everyone.  (BTW, Nikki swam 1:09. I’ll let her tell her story).

Bike

The bike starts out on a very flat section of the course.  Nikki and I talked on Saturday about using the terrain as a way to get our effort levels where we needed them to be, opposed to getting caught up in the race and start thinking about riding “fast”.  One sign that I knew things were going my way was when I looked at my heart rate and saw that it was below 150bpm.  This was such a good sign to see because at Cardinal Harbour I spent a lot of time on the bike trying to get my effort levels under control.

Knowing that my efforts were in order, I worked on getting comfortable and drank some water to clear out the Ohio River’s deisel fuel taste.  I also started paying attention to the power meter (that I had thanks to Alan Hawse) to cross check if my heart rates were providing the same feedback that the wattage was saying, it did.

After you get out of Louisville and onto Hwy 42 the terrain starts to become more rolling.  You are also very early in the ride when you start to encounter these hills, which can bring about bad things if you don’t have discipline and stay under control during this segment.  One of the advantages that I had was that I had been in many discussions about how to approach the race day with my athletes and Nikki prior to the race.  It was interesting to see how all the things we talked about not doing, I saw hundreds of athletes doing.

I’ll admit that it is very difficult to slow myself down climbing hills so much all the time.  Being such a light weight guy (136 pounds 2 days prior to race day), it’s pretty easy to climb some hills.  But I continued to cross-check my heart rate monitor and the power meter to keep things under a “lid”.  What was the lid?

Heart Rate – 155bpm.  I did a great job all day of not getting over this cap.  I don’t ever remember a time that I saw it over this level.  I rode between 144 and 148bpm pretty much all day.  There were brief periods that my heart rate dropped below this while I descended but it bounced back.

Watts – 210 to 220.  I was told that I should consider having a “FIRM” cap of 210 on the bike.  So when I saw the watts go over 200 I took notice, when I saw it go over 210 I would back off a little, if I saw it over 220 I did everything I could to get it back down.  Here’s the link to my trainingpeaks account the powertap file from the bike ride: Gary’s IMLou Bike

After riding about 75 miles I decided to look at my average pace to see how things were going.  It said, 18.7mph.  Bummer!  But I knew that I was riding my race and the speed was what it was.  The one thing I also knew was that I felt really good still and felt much better than I did last year at the Great Illini and at Ironman Wisconsin.  The boost to my bike came after the last turn onto Hwy 42.  There must of been a good tailwind because at the same heart rates and watt output I was flying.  It also felt nice to actually pass a few cyclists, opposed to the normal routine of watching people come by and dissappear into the distance.

Power Summary:

First Half – 158watts
Second Half – 156watts
VI – 1.08

I really like this bike course.  I also really appreciate the effort and time I have spent to learn how to descend more comfortably.  If we could find a course that was all uphill, I might enjoy Ironman even more.  The only thing about the loops that were not appealing was the big Ironman painted in the road with a large “don’t” sign painted over it.  Apparently someone doesn’t appreciate the bike traffic.

The other thing that made me nervous on the bike were all the flats.  Just after the second turn onto Hwy 42 that leads you back to Louisville (about 33 miles left), there were a ton of flats.  It made me nervous because I had a hell of a time getting the tires on the Zipps earlier in the week and I knew if I had to do it on the road, already fatigued, I might not get it done.  I have heard people say there were tacks on the road, but I can not confirm or deny that information.  If there were tacks, I guess I was just a lucky guy.

T2

Again a pretty quick and uneventful transition.  The only difference this year was that I changed out of my tri shorts and put on my RaceReady running shorts so that I could carry gels in the pockets.

Run

The great thing about being able to run well and using a conservative race strategy is that you get to the run and feel excited about what lies ahead.  As I started running, I was pretty confident that it was going to be a good day.  The weather was perfect and my legs had no sign of fatigue.

But this good feeling also made me think back to the Great Illini last year and Cardinal Harbour six weeks prior.  In both situations I had some pretty serious break downs on the run.  So even though I felt great and was moving past some athletes pretty quickly, I kept a constant look at my heart rate monitor.

I had an early cap of 160bpm on the run.  Even with this cap, I went through the first mile in 6:58.  “Yikes, that’s too fast!”  So for the next couple miles I really backed off the effort and my heart rate was sitting in the 150 to 155bpm range.  The second mile was even faster – Huh?  I’m pretty sure that the mile markers early on were not properly placed?

By now, many people know that I’m a big believer in the run:walk method (Episode 172).  And I had a plan to run:walk this marathon – so I did.  Here was the final plan:

first 10k : walk 30sec every other aid station
second 10k : walk 30sec every aid station
third 10k : walk 40sec every aid station
fourth 10k : walk 40sec every aid station or until I felt confident to rip to the finish

That’s also what I did.  I’m pretty proud of how well I stuck to the plan early on in the run because everything felt so easy.  I did allow my heart rate cap move up to 165bpm once I started walking every aid station.  What I noticed was this:

1. The longer the run went on the less my heart rate dropped during the walk portion

2. The middle of the run my heart rate would get back up to the cap pretty quick

3. The last 10k I didn’t have to worry about the heart rate cap, because I needed to work pretty hard to push it up to 160bpm… but it was possible, which wasn’t the case at Ironman Wisconsin.

4.  I walked only at the aid stations.  At Ironman Wisconsin and Great Illini, I used a run:walk method, but by the end of the run I was fatigued enough that I either had to walk longer during the aid stations (GI) or take more walk breaks (IMMoo).

Here are my run splits:
FIRST RUN SEGMENT -  3.38 mi. (22:47),  6:44/mile  (again, there’s no way this is right)
SECOND RUN SEGMENT - 8.25 mi. (37:10),  7:37/mile
THIRD RUN SEGMENT - 13.1 mi. (38:38) 7:57/mile
FOURTH RUN SEGMENT -  15.33 mi. (18:17) 8:11/mile
FIFTH RUN SEGMENT - 20.19 mi. (40:17) 8:17/mile
SIXTH RUN SEGMENT - 25.04 mi. (40:32) 8:21/mile
FINAL RUN SEGMENT - 26.2 mi. (9:29) 8:10/mile

Again the run was where I gained on a lot of people.  I came off the bike in 500th place and finished in 204th place.  Being able to run well at the end of the Ironman is a good feeling, but I still believe that there’s more in my run.  Doing the Ironman Run under 3:15 is something I feel is very doable.

Final analysis:

I love the Ironman distance.  Triathlon is a lot of fun, but Ironman is what I really enjoy.  Maybe because it allows me to never really get good at the swim/bike portions and still do ok.  I have no idea when I’ll be able to do another Ironman, but I found myself looking at the 2010 schedule the other day.  Maybe 2011 or 2012?

What do I need to do in order to continue improve my ability to race with people faster than me?  I have been told:

My hunch is that in terms of your development from here you could benefit from a run focus. For a smaller athlete there is even more upside to devoting energy to the run. However, at the paces you’re running now, you’re probably getting to that point that pure running fitness may be limiting your ability to ‘hold back’ for the marathon. While it is tempting to assess your splits in relation to the rest of your AG, it makes more sense to assess relative to others with similar body type. Generally it pays to play to your strengths.

And

The swim will be a key part of getting you up into the Top 20 in the AG.

The interesting thing as I look at people in front of me (203 of them), only 4 of those 203 people had a bike split that was slower than mine and even those times were close to mine.  I guess this just means I need to continue to improve across the board – swim, bike and run.

Good thing I love to do all three (well… swimming is a part time love).

It will be hard to believe for people that know me from a post high school setting, but basketball was my primary athletic obsession when I was in younger.  Honestly, for about 6 years of my life, basketball was almost all that I worried about and gave attention to.  Basketball and trying to “fit in” were my primary goals and objectives when it came to surviving high school.

The idea of playing a game of basketball right now seems almost comical and if anyone was present at my last showing of the Annual O’Neill High School Alumni Basketball Tournament, then you know it is beyond comical and to the point of being embarrassing.  While my basketball career never blossomed and I never reached the levels of competition I dreamed about, I still take away some very valuable lessons from all those years dribbling, shooting, practicing and playing games.

Here’s a lesson that I keep coming back to that relates to mental imagery and sports performance.

Mental Imagery and Sports Performance:

One thing that I’ve developed over the last 7 years is a decent ability to use mental imagery and affirmations to support my performances.  These practices developed out of my meditation practice that was very consistent for about 4 years, the same period of time that I was regularly practicing and at times teaching yoga.

The irony is that this was a major weakness in my maturity as a basketball player.  Therefore, in a retrospective fashion, I have learned a lot about what not to do by looking back and reviewing my mental imagery during those games.

One thing I did well as a junior high and high school basketball player was practice hard and practice often.  By my junior year in high school, I had not only developed a decent ability to play “quick” but I had also developed a pretty serviceable jump shot.  The issue that I found was that the ability I demonstrated in practice and in the junior varsity games very rarely came through in a varsity game.  That was also the case my senior year (maybe more so) where I had transferred to a new school and found myself even more uncomfortable in my own skin.

The question is why?  I mentioned above that one thing that I focused on in high school was trying to “fit in”.  Something that most adolescents hope happens, but for me it became an issue that crippled my mental imagery during those games.  Let me give one example that sticks in the back of my memory and then I’ll discuss how this lesson is currently influencing my Iroman Louisville preparations.

1 for 3 at a free throw line:

My senior year I attended a new school and to my fortune we had a pretty good basketball team.  We were highly dependent upon one or two players ability to score, but overall it was a great year.  In the first game of the district tournament, there was a play that has stuck with me for all these years.

Just before half time the other team was pressing the ball up to the court to make a last second shot attempt.  I happened to be in a good position, stole the ball and sent up a shot from about 2/3’s the length of the court.  For some unknown reason a player from the other team fouled me, so I got 3 free throw attempts. (That’s how I remember it anyway).

I remember going to the line and looking at the hoop, getting the ball from the ref and going through my free throw routine.  I had been through this routine thousands (if not a hundred thousand) of times, since I started doing it in the Elks Free Throw Contests when I was in grade school.  So what was on my mind? 

It’s a picture of the crowd.  They are off to my right with several of the student body members holding home made signs and others wearing homemade shirts.  In particular, the individual I was most anxious about, the one I worried the most about what she thought was wearing a shirt with my number.  Or… I wasn’t sure … I wished she was … I hoped she was.  She was about 3 or 4 rows from the court and about 15 to 20 people from the wall.

As you can imagine, I didn’t do well at the line.  I went 1 for 3.  Your first thought might be that this doesn’t have a whole lot to do with mental imagery, it has more to do with concentration.  You might be partly correct, but let me finish the situation at the free throw line.

The interesting thing for me about the whole situation is not that I remember what was actually going on in the gym, with the crowd, with this anxiety raising person; the interesting thing is that I actually remember fairly well the situation that was NOT real.

I remember being at the line, going through my routine and then I remember a whole made-up post game scenario that was going through my mind.  Here’s the scenario that I was creating while at the line: 

[made up scenario] After not having talked to this person in sometime, for some reason after getting finished in the locker room I head out to the team bus, surprisingly she’s there by the exit door and is happy.  I think that she’s happy because we won the game, but she tells me that I had a really good game and she’s surprised that I am playing so well.  The conversation goes on about the game and all the good things that I was doing at the right time of year, then before we end the conversation, she asks what I would be doing later.  I eagerly mention that I had no plans and we decide to figure something out so that we could just hang out with some friends. [/end of scenario]

Again, this scenario never happened.  But that story line and the real setting that it occurred (at the free throw line alone in a district tournament game) have made it stay pretty clear in my mind.  The thing that I can look at now from a performance perspective is how this situation influenced my physiology, anxiety and ability to perform a simple shot – the free throw.

The anxiety associated with making the free throw was compounded by the need to make the shot to allow my fake scenario to come true.  Because what happens if I miss the free throw?  I don’t get the praise, I don’t get the ability to talk to the girl post the game and I end up going home after the game bored and a failure (that’s what I likely perceived).

So while I am in a high pressure situation and need to calm my mind, relax my wrists, have strength in my legs and have a fluid motion – I end up raising my anxiety, increasing my heart rate, tensing up my arms, rushing my shot and pushing the shot short because my legs give out.

Top down imagery:

Herbert Benson, MD has written one of my favorite books titled, Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief.  Benson is most famous for his work around the Relaxation Response which is a technique that I believe is very valuable for athletes, but it is the discussion in Timeless Healing around imagery that I find very valuable in this context.

Chapter 4 in Timeless Healing is titled, The Brain’s Prerogative.  Within this chapter there is a discussion about “top down” and “bottom up” events.  A bottom up event is something our brain responds to in response to the environmental stimuli we encounter.  The simple example is when we touch a hot burner, we move our hand.

A top down event is when our brain responds to something that we create in our imagination or bring up from a strong memory.  The thing that we need to understand is that our brain interprets these top down “situations” just as it does the bottom up events we encounter.

Here’s an example Benson gives in the book:

Have you ever been driving a car and imagined an accident occurring?  You probably emerge from this momentary lapse only to realize that your speed has decreased and that your heart rate has increased.  Without the enviornmental stimulus of an actual accident, of screeching tires or cars slamming against one another, without the physical impact of such an event, your nerve cells have nevertheless reacted.  Your mind has ordered the same fight-or-flight response it would have for the real threat of an accident, and unbeknownst to you has directed your foot to ease off the gas pedal.

How this applies to my triathlon training right now:

When we went and did the American Triple T race over Memorial Day weekend, one thing I noticed (pretty significantly) was that I was losing tons of time and speed on the downhills.  Some people were saying that it was just because I weighed a little less or was just a little anxious.  Others said that I shouldn’t worry about it because it is better to be cautious and stay upright than be a daredevil and end up on the deck.  At first I was in agreement that I didn’t need to worry too much about my descending, but it created a whole new level of mental anxiety when we did the team time trial at the TTT and while I was slowing down on a descent, I still developed significant speed wobbles.  Enough of a situation that the two guys that flew by my both commented on how I had made a nice recovery from my out of control front wheel.

It all came to the forefront on my mind again during our Cave Run Camp when I lost approximately 10mins of time on a training partner (Royden) on a 40mile loop and it was obvious that I was losing every second on a downhill.  Saturday night as everyone was discussing their rides, a few people talked about their top speeds on a descent we had on that first loop.  36mph, 40mph, etc.. etc… When I looked at my data, I was embarrassed to share the fact that I had only hit 28 to 29mph.

What people don’t know about my riding at the TTT weekend and at the Cave Run Camp is that I had been through 100’s of top down bike wrecks.  It was getting to the point that anytime I came to even a slight descent I would immediately begin to imagine out-of-control speed wobbles and most of the time I would imagine a wreck or two.

What do these imagined disastorous descents do to my body?

1. Increase my heart rate
2. Tighten up my aerobar grip
3. Get me out of my aerobars and into a seated position
4. Create a shallow breathe
5. Tighten my legs
6. Point my toes

All of these things actually make descending more difficult.  So in order to improve my descending, I have been focused on changing the mental imagery script that comes naturally when I start to go downhill.    Here is what I’m currently doing:

1. I take a deep breathe
2. On the exhale I begin to picture myself running through the finishing line strong with my arms raised in triumph
3. I take note of the finishing time on the clock and realize that I have met my race expectations

By the time I do that exercise, I am often to a place in a descent that I can ride through the rest of the downhill.  This exercise has actually been working very well for me over the past month.  I have developed a level of comfort in my aerobars that I haven’t had in the past and at the Cardinal Harbour Half Iron Distance triathlon I found that I didn’t lose significant speed/time on the downhills.  I still lose some, but nothing like before.

Another benefit is that I don’t have all the anxiety.  The breathing, the imagery – it all helps to keep my heart rate from spiking and my overall anxiety at bay.  What I find is that if I don’t actively choose to use these methods, I revert back to my hardwired imagery and start to see myself lying on the road bloody and beat up.

If you are someone who struggles with confidence or has periods of anxiety during a triathlon, start looking at the stories you create in your mind while training.  Then begin to retrain the negative stories lines by inserting more positive imagery.  It has helped me with swimming in the past and I hope it continues to improve my cycling skills.

Today’s workout was a race simulation brick:  6hr ride / 30min run.  To do this workout, I used a course that I have used the past couple years.  I posted a workout on motionbased last year from the course (2 loops of the course):

Motionbased chart of Race Simulation Loop

Just for a little more information about the loop, I did an analysis of this loop versus the loop at Ironman Wisconsin:

Ironman Wisconsin Route Elevation vs. Race Simulation Route Elevation

The key element regarding the loop that we use for race simulation is that the elevation gain for 1 loop is 2,926ft (36.2 miles).    Looking at motionbased entries for the Ironman Louisville course we get a few different numbers, but it appears that approx 8,000 to 8,500 ft of elevation gain is common for the full 112 miles.  That appears high compared to what I’ve been told, so I’ll have to dig a little more.

Ironman Louisville, Motionbased downloads

Now that we know what today’s course looks like and a glimpse at IMLou’s course, let’s look at my data from today:

Today’s Workout:

Distance    Time             AveHR     MaxHR      AveSpeed
36.17 mi       02:16:10       123              189                15.9 mph
36.22 mi       02:08:33       131              156                16.9 mph
36.15 mi       02:04:26       138              165                17.4 mph

The parameters that I put on these loops were as follows:

loop 1 – cap heart rate at 140bpm
loop 2 – cap heart rate at 145bpm
loop 3 – cap heart rate at 155bpm

If you look at the data then it appears that I failed this objective.  I don’t think that it was as bad as the data appears.  The first loop was really easy and I know the the 189bpm max is not accurate.  For one, I was never working even moderately hard.  And two, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my heart rate at 189bpm on the bike (maybe in the lap 8 or 9 years ago?).

I personally believe that I did an excellent job maintaining those objectives for the 3 loops, but there is one climb during the loop that peaked my heart rate every time.  So those max heart rates were likely for 30secs to 2mins out of the 2 hours, as I tried to calm myself down each time I came to the hill.

An interesting comparison is to compare today’s workout with my Race Simulation #2 in 2007 as I got ready for IMMoo:  Race Sim and Nutrition 2007 #2 That workout was 6 weeks out from IMMoo.  Today’s workout looks very similar.

The one difference is that I appear to be running stronger right now!

Run Data:

1.00 mi      00:07:46     157     165       07:46/mi
1.00 mi     00:07:52      161      167      07:52/mi
1.00 mi     00:07:23      164      170      07:23/mi
0.12 mi     00:00:53      164      169      07:35/mi

Nutrition Review:

All I can say is that today was really poor!  I made a big mistake before I even started the workout:  I didn’t order my Infinit Nutrition refill soon enough.  So I was left using what we had at the house:  gatorade, gu’s, egel’s, luna moons, ale 8, salt tabs and water.

Needless to say, that was too much stuff to try and take in on a pretty hot (88F) day.  Especially when I’m not used to using any of those items right now.

What ended up happening was I was mixing things a little too much and ended up having some serious stomach cramps by the end of the second loop.  For the 3rd loop, I used water, 2 bottles of ale8 and salt tabs and things got back to normal.

My order of Infinit should be here Monday (those guys are fast!).  And I should have enough to get me through until the Ironman.

All in all, I was pretty happy with the workout.  I keep waiting for this sudden jump in cycling performance and it will come.  Patience is a key to success in ultra endurance events, but a highly uncommon trait to those that are attracted to this sport.  Master patience and humility and you’ll be above the normal curve come race day… that is what I continue to believe and coach.

img by : retrofuture, click image to see at flickr

Training Anxiety:

I’ve had a lot of anxious days with my training over the last few weeks. Most of the anxiety is not over what I’m doing or how my training is going but with my analysis of what I’m doing and what is “optimal”.

A few weeks ago I got really anxious about my personal workouts as I started thinking about the optimal way to train for an Ironman. Specifically, the most effective way to train for an Ironman to reach the goals I have set out to accomplish this year. The interesting thing for me as a coach is that many of the same anxieties that I have about my own training are shared by the triathletes that I’m coaching.

The truth of the matter is that my anxiety had less to do with my knowledge of how to train for Ironman, then it did with being 100% accountable for all of my personal workouts and training analysis. As I sat down to write this training phase for the Ironman Louisville group I followed the steps that I normally follow:

1. look over the annual training calendar and review what our training goals are for this phase
2. review the benchmarks or fitness tests that were most recently completed by the athletes and see where they are at and if they are ready to move on (I do this for swim, bike, run)
3. review conversations that I’ve had with the triathletes and see if I pick up on training issues that maybe going unnoticed: tired too often, consistently poor nutrition choices, stressed at home or work, etc
4. take the key workouts for the training phase and put them on the training calendar
5. complete the training schedule to fulfill both psychological training needs and to continue improving the triathlete’s fitness and physiological / metabolic profile to meet the Ironman’s requirements

What I found was that while I could sit back and answer these questions for my Ironman triathletes, I was having some difficulty answering them for myself?  It was difficult to be objective and honest.  It was impossible to be unbiased.  As I looked at the answers I was emailing and discussing with those triathletes that I coach, I realized it was sometimes the opposite advice I was incorporating into my own training.

Here are some of the inconsistencies I saw:

• I’d tell my athlete to “be patient” and trust in their developing fitness, but I’d tell myself “you need to start running faster on this run every week”
• I’d tell my athlete to “recover well and eat well” when they felt tired, but I’d tell myself that I “didn’t have time to rest up this week” (really bad the 2 weeks I had a cold)
• I’d tell my athletes to remember what our goal is this year – Ironman Louisville, it is 26 weeks away (at the time) and we have several months to continue to develop fitness before we get into specfic Ironman Louisville prep.  But I told myself, “You’re not in the best shape of your life right now, how are you going to be your best at Ironman Louisville”.

In the end analysis, I had convinced myself that somehow my training needs were different.  I was different.  When in reality what I needed was an objective voice, a voice of reason.  What I needed was the ability to step back and review my own benchmarks and training history and realize that I too needed:

• Pateince
• Humility
• Faith
• Rest, Nutritious Food and Stress Relief

In order to help me get this done, I hired a coach.  It has been a very positive step for my training and I believe that it will be a very positive step for the athletes I coach too.  I ended up using the EnduranceCorner coaching services, primarily because of the respect that I have for Gordo’s approach to the sport and lifestyle.  I used to learn a lot from his triathlon forum back when it was alive at gordoworld and I enjoyed learning from his clinic at the Olympic Training Center back in 2006.  He also has perpective that I would like to draw upon; he went from a working “Joe” doing triathlon to a professional triathlete.  While I have no dilusions of going pro, I think that this experience is worth drawing from.

Data Analysis and Training Anxiety:
Here’s a lesson that we all can learn from

If you are not doing the training, it doesn’t matter what the analysis of the training data says, you are not setting yourself up to succeed.

I have to admit that starting in January of 2008 I began falling for this data “entrapment”.  This began with the greatest gift I’ve received from an athlete I coached in a long time – my Garmin 305.  I love that thing.  But with the Garmin 305 came a new level of data responsibility.

Prior to the G305, I used a basic Polar Heart Rate Monitor that allowed me to get an average heart rate, max heart rate and time (not even laps).  After a workout I would enter that information into my training log (at workoutlog.com which I had used since 2003).  But after the G305 the process got more involved, I had to connect the watch up and download the data.  I started using the Garmin Training Center only for the data download and then would try to manually enter the info into workoutlog.  This became too much so I decided to just use the GTC, until one day in June when I went  to load my data and notice that all the data is gone?

Frustrated I search the data, thinking that my daily auto back up of my computer would have saved it.  It didn’t!  Ironically I felt like all the running and cycling that I had done for the year was erased.  Almost like somehow because I couldn’t produce some chart to post on my blog or share with other friends/athletes my body had lost all that exercise and training benefit.  It was really that ridiculous.

I moved onto using Motionbased and GTC, and then on to a new traininglog website that allowed me to also coach my athletes.  The new site became as much of a job trying to maintain and use as my job of coaching was, so I just recently moved some athletes back to workoutlog.

The anxiety about all of this came back into my own training program when Gordo asked me “what kind of weeks have you been putting in over the last 10 weeks or for all of 2008″?  OMG – Where’s my chart!  So I spent 4 hours Sunday trying to recreate a training log to share what I’ve been doing.

I’m not saying that having data isn’t important.  It is a very useful and important tool.  As a coach it is difficult, if not impossible to assist someone or help them without having the data.  But as a coach, If I had to choose between someone who completes their runs regularly and logged occasionally or ran occasionally and logged obsessively, I’ll choose the former.

That being said, to cut down on this anxiety and get the information I need, I’ve chosen to use the following procedure:

1.  upload my G305 data to workoutlog after each workout / swim times just manually enter (workoutlog now has a very clean user experience when the G305 has been downloaded)

2.  weekly upload my G305 data to my WKO+ software to get the deep down analysis it offers

Alan over at EnduranceCorner has had a couple good posts recently discussing some of these topics:

• Benchmarks and Forecasting
• WKO+ for Simpletons

The Positive Side of this data displacement and anxiety:

1.  I don’t have solid records of run/bike/swim from January to mid June 08, but I know this:  I set a personal best at the Iroman distance on Sept 6th (11:00), I then rode over 300 miles commuting from Illinois to Indiana and on Sept 13th ran a fairly decent 3:17 marathon.

2.  I set a personal best at the half marathon just 10 days ago, running 1:21:53.

Racing has a way of showing us “The Truth“…. training logs and charts often lie if we’re not careful or if we don’t have an objective eye to look them over also.  That is one of the best services I can provide as a coach.

We all need athletic “blinders” … most of the time.

This morning Nikki and I got into an argument during our run. It centered around a workout that I had given the Chicago Marathon group that we were in the middle of completing. I was trying to get a message of “experience” across, while she was trying to get the point of “perfection” across.

In the end, we both had reason to feel frustrated. But the workout ended great and another life lesson was learned while taking part in this endurance lead life.

Upon thinking about this mornings run, I have continued to think about this idea of training with an emphasis on perfection. I am actually in favor of training for perfection, but only within the right mindset. For example, training with a focus on perfect experience and not perfect outcome.

This may seem like an argument in semantics, but I don’t think so. I’ll share more on this subject when time allows, but here’s a quick thought:

Perfect Experience vs. Perfect Outcome

I find that when I become more devoted to challenging an aspect of my own physiology or mindset I obtain a higher satisfaction out of my endurance lifestyle, versus the times that I become focused on obtaining some external outcome (i.e. Boston Qualifying, top 3 age group, etc.). The irony is that I often perform my best when I am able to completely detach myself from those external influences (times, paces) and allow my body/mind to focus on self-perfection in my performance.

This is a fine line (as in today’s workout) when a workout or race is governed by specific external factors. It is difficult but it can be done.

Creating our athletic blinders.

Elaine Breeden is a swimmer at Stanford University that just qualified for the USA Olympic Team in the 100 and 200 fly. Back when Elaine was a swimmer for the Wildcat Aquatics program, I had the opportunity to work with her for a short period of time in one/one and team settings.

At that time there was also some interest in sharing ideas with her about how to prepare mentally for competition, I wrote my “Mental Training for Athletes” article as a response to thoughts that I wrote out to share with her. As time passed, I continued to see personality traits in her (at 14) that I felt were an essential part of her success. I wrote some of those thoughts in a blog post titled, “Personality of a Champion“.

After Elaine qualified for the Olympic Team she was quoted in the paper and interviewed on tv, which lead me to send her some questions regarding her mental preparation. I feel that one thing she said in her reply, really addresses this topic of “perfect experience” vs. “perfect outcome”.

Here is that specific question and answer:

Me: I am really interested in some things that they quoted you saying in the Lexington Herald and in your interview, specifically: “I had my eyes shut and was focused on my stroke” interview after the 200.

Elaine: Closing my eyes is more of a natural reflex while racing than something I plan on doing. Its my way of putting “blinders” on so I think about my stroke, not the rest of the heat.

Most of us do not understand what it means to compete at such an elite level – I don’t. But I can only assume that the temptation to feel motivated or driven by an outcome is significantly greater at that level of performance than any level I have competed in. Especially when your competition is ultimately determined by finishing first or second (and not some personal best).

Elaine’s response is the reminder that I sometimes need. I need to focus on my experience and ultimately the performance will be there and the outcomes will take care of themselves. This is another characteristic of a champion, they understand what they can and can not control – then they perfect what they have the power to manage. In fact, earlier in her response she wrote:

“My focus going into trials was to stay confident and positive and to concentrate on the things I had control of. “

It appears that she is much better at implementing some of the mental training and preparation ideas that I shared with her than I am myself. Not surprising to me. As I have said many times since meeting her, she is very talented physically, but there is something about her personality and character that sets her apart (and she is only 19!).

Elaine has shared some more thoughts with me and I have a few more questions to ask her, but I’m going to wait until she gets back from China.

Seek the perfect experience. Control what you can. Find the blinders you need … and allow the outcome to occur!