Iron in the veins, Pain on the radar (Part 3)

Sunday July 22nd:

The scene: ~2,800 floating pink (female) and green (male) caps located in Lake Placid’s Mirror Lake.  In just moments an event unlike any other (from my perspective) will begin and will carry me from this rather wet location to a point within half a mile from where I’m treading with one minor caveat, I will have travelled 140.6 Miles to get there.  Once finished I will officially have earned the title ‘Ironman.’...

The past 3 days have been quite exhilarating.  Sam and I left Ithaca, NY on Thursday evening around 7PM to make the journey to the official Nick Kirk race crew cabin located in Saranac Lake, NY (12 Miles from Placid).  We arrived after an arduous 5.5 hour drive and immediately fell into a coma.

Sammi and I

Friday arrived and I quickly realized, in a panicked state, that a key suit case filled with raceday items never made the incredibly far journey from Ithaca the night before.  A lot of this: !!!! and a little of this: ??? filled my worried mind.  Apparently, in all the excitement I blew out of the house leaving my patient bag awaiting its lovely trip to the Adirondacks.  After the use of a few profound words I gathered my broken self back together and started to formulate a plan.  Surely I could find someone who hadn’t left Ithaca and who would graciously offer to shuttle it up with them?  With the help of my friend Ian I was able to arrange just that.  Selina saved the day!  J

Throughout Friday, Sam and I meandered around Placid accomplishing pre-race tasks such as getting my bike outfitted with race wheels (Thanks to my Mom and Brother), checking in (acquiring race bibs and other such items), indulging in the plethora of free samples at the Expo, and meeting up with support crew members as they trickled in one by one.

After attending the pre-race dinner (think over cooked pasta, loads of meaty sauce like substance, and, oh yeah, gourmet ice-berg salad, clearly we weren’t on the VIP list) and the mandatory race meeting we settled back into our cozy little cabin.  Admittidly I did experience some pre-race jitters and stress throughout the day.  Thankfully, my crew kept me together, :)

Saturday morning began with a 50 minute easy bike ride into Placid where I met Sam to convene on the rest of the items I had to complete before the afternoon ended; such as last minute bike adjustments, placing the bike in the transition area, visiting my new friend Selina at her campsite to pick-up my bag (yay!), returning back to the transition to place other cycling and running gear in the miniscule space allocated to racer 1157 (me), and gather with the support crew.  Once together we decided it would be best to reconvene back at the cabin in order to minimize decision making difficulties. 

Race cap

The race vehicle

Where's 1157?

Cabin activities included shenanigans such as poster making, food devouring, quaffable consuming (minus a select one of us), nutrition planning, and much laughing. 

The support crew hard at work 

The finished products

What I've observed thus far is that the coordinated ‘cattle herding’ of athletes and supporters is quite incredible at an Ironman event.  I truly applaud the race directors, assistant race directors, the handful of coordinators, and the army of volunteers that make an event of such grandeur become a reality.

...00:00:00 - CRACK, goes the race gun.  We’re off!  Stroke after stroke 2,800 of us begin the 2.4 Miles of violence known to everyone else as ‘The Swim.’  The energy is static yet fluid.  Everyone is moving in the same general path although the splashed water seems to be suspended in the foot and a half of air directly above the surface of the water.  My choice to start in the front was a scary yet very rewarding one.  Scrambling to find a vacant 2’x6’ area of the lake was inconceivable yet not quite as alarming as I previously thought it would be.  The current amidst the crowd sucked me in the only direction I wanted to go, forward.  The energy fell during the second lap as the group began to spread.  To my surprise the second lap proved to be more painful than the first as I took a few good thwacks to the rear of my head.

Swim start

01:09:19 - From the water I made my way to transition #1 located 400 Meters from the swim exit.  Taking my time I transformed from a rubbery swimmer to a 'techy' looking cyclist.

After driving one loop of the bike course I had a good feeling that I would enjoy this ride.  From Placid the course dives down into Keene throughout which I approached speeds in excess of 40MPH.  It was during this time and again during the second loop that I was the farthest from another competitor (~200’) the whole race.  Consequently, loneliness isn’t a feeling I would relate to this experience.   Inspiration, on the other hand, never ceased to fuel my ambition to drive this 112 Mile expedition to 0.  Much of this inspiration came from the sidelines, encouraging volunteers who repeatedly shared their delicious (at least in the beginning) food and semi cold bottles of water proved to bolster my very spirit.  Along with this I always had a fellow group of Ithacans or a rambunctious crew of personal supporters to look forward to.  And in return they always received a warm smile and an occasional remark or burp of laughter for their efforts. 

The ride didn’t truly begin to hit home until around mile 80, ironically coinciding with the bulk of the courses uphills.  I know, I was shocked too J Luckily I knew I only had to complete a marathon after battling the relentless Adirondack ‘hills.’  This was surely motivation and if that wasn’t then maintaining a positive attitude was a must.  My IM training included such aspects and were labeled ‘Mental toughness' training.  The technique I chose throughout the bike ride was positive self-talk.  By simply repeating a positive word or statement in your head you can orient your mind around a positive train of thought which eliminates any negativity from your thoughts.  ‘Yes, yes, yes,…’ was as creative as I was able to convince myself to be.  Turns out it worked, I made it to transition.

6:54:37 (bike split: 5:45:18) - During transition #2 I escaped my cyclist costume and donned a pair of anxious running flats to embark on the final leg of this adventure.

From here on in it will be one foot in front of the other.  Getting to the run felt like a huge accomplishment only to be dwarfed by the thought of running 26.2 Miles while feeling more exhausted than I have felt in the past six months.  The only difference was that I had adrenaline and a sea of spectators on my side and I took advantage of both.  Unfortunately, the adrenaline wore off after the first 3 Miles.  The crowd, except for sections of under populated areas kept the energy high.  I quickly realized that by simply smiling I could reap two benefits, one was the simple act of smiling made me feel better about the indelible feelings that persisted throughout my body.  The second was that spectators LOVED it!  Yeah, it was palpable.  Instead of getting not so motivating ‘Hang in there!’ remarks I was now getting ‘You’re looking great!’ and ‘Looking strong 1157!’ or my favorite ‘He’s not even breathing hard!’  The last one probably had something to do with the fact that my legs simply couldn’t go faster than the shuffle I now maintained quite steadily J

On the run!

10:52:52 (run split: 3:46:37) - By far, out of the whole experience, the finishing shoot was the most exhilarating.  So much so that it brought me to tears.  Rounding the Olympic oval seeing the crew and crossing the finish line was a powerful and moving experience.  One that could only be topped by a post race burger and beer at the LP brew pub with a dozen close friends and family members.

On the Olympic Oval

Tomorrow morning I’ll be leaving Placid with what I came for, an unforgettable experience filled memory complete with a tangible reminder of such, a finisher’s metal.

Done!

Wednesday, Aug 8th: 

My gratitude to this day (two plus weeks after IM) is immeasureable.  I’m supremely grateful for the 14 individuals who made the trek to Lake Placid to partake in my journey to becoming an Ironman.  I would also like to thank the many remote supporters that sent their positive energy through the internet.  On top of this I gleened much positive energy from the 22 other fellow Ithacans that joined me throughout this event and all their supportive people that followed them to the start line to spectate.

It is without further ado that I would like to unvail a little video treat that that I put together for everyone who helped make this happen:

Until next time (50 mile trail race on the horizon???)...

A house of Iron (Part 2)

Physical conditioning for Ironman has been anything but parochial in manner. Similar to my methods of mental and nutritional training, it reflects a deep desire to pursue all things in life wholisticly.

Early on (Jan, Feb, Mar) I incorporated P90x and other such body weight activities for strength, Yoga or stretching for flexibility, and speed or hill training for cardiovascular capacity.  It has been important to me to not let any one activity dominate my physical conditioning which is why I would occasionally incorporate other activities such as soccer, basketball, ice skating, rock and ice climbing, hiking, and skiing.

The reason I posited such an approach to training was to avoid weak links in my conditioning in order to prevent injury allowing me to train in my core activities (swimming, cycling, and running) at a high level throughout the past six months.

I guess the big question would be: 'Did it pay off?'  Maybe.  I still had physical issues such as hip tightness and IT band stresses.  What I do know is that I'm very happy with where I'm at and how far I've come which is what will ultimately carry the most weight come Sunday morning.

The following is a collection of my Ironman training experience.

Swimming:
Total time since April 1st: 15.8 hours
Cumulative length: ~21 miles

Swimming is a matter of technique.  The first 10-15 minutes are tough; getting the breathing down, concentrating on stroke, body position, and glide, and getting over the fear that I'm drowning.  After that it's repetition and focus:  tuning out the gargling sounds of the water around my ears, avoiding the occasional inhale of water, and not letting my mind drift from my technique.

Piseco Lake, NY

Forging the sea

Cycling:
Total time since Jan 1st:  102 hours
Cumulative length:  ~2000 miles

In January I feared the cycling leg of Ironman because of its sheer length.  What I've learned is to stay calm in the saddle, avoid jostling from side to side, keep my upper body relaxed and shoulders extended.  All the while keeping a tight reign on feelings of pain and discomfort as these are signals that my form may be slipping and that a simple shift one way or the other can prevent the dominoes from falling.

The Fuel

The Vehicle

The scenery

The Journey - 115 miles in 6:25

Running:
Total time:  90 hours
Cumulative length:  ~677 miles

By far my favorite activity throughout training.  Running, for me, is like getting a good nights sleep or relaxing at your favorite place; it offers a sense of freedom from persistent thoughts and stresses culminating from life's responsibilities.  My mental health improves the minute my legs break into a run.

However, during a triathlon the run is definitely the wildcard.  The swim happens when your the freshest, the bike happens thereafter but you are able to drink and eat almost limitless as the jostling is minimal and therefore cramping is less likely.

The run is where it all begins to break down.  If you didn't drink enough on the bike be ready for a good round of stitches.  If you didn't eat enough don't count on getting much down running.  If you ate too much or the wrong thing, look out for a stomach fit to ache.  The list goes on.  I've never been good at roulette; Tinman and Syracuse 70.3 have taught me much and I will apply every bit of it.

Crisp morning

My favorite place, the trail

Racing with friends along the way:
My perspective on racing is that you get to challenge yourself while scrubbing shoulders with people who are out to have just as much fun as you.  It really is contagious and never stops to thrill me.  Here is a collection of events that helped tune my race day anxieties.

Seneca 7 - 1st place men's team

32 mile mountain adventure, Pemi Loop, NH

Tupper Lake Tinman - 42nd

Boilermaker 15k - 226th

On Sunday the 22nd of July 2012 I will put my efforts to the ultimate test.  It's clear to me now that the only way out of this beautiful house is through the pain...

 IM #1157

An Iron Foundation (Part 1)

Have you ever gotten the urge to challenge yourself beyond your wildest imagination? Have you ever thought to yourself “I could never do that,” after hearing how a person defied their individual limitations and accomplished something so huge it seemed inconceivable?

Throughout my brief personal history I have truely been galvanized by people who dare to achieve fascinating levels of athletic ability in the hopes to put themselves to the test.  Or as I like to perceive it, an adventure of the mind, body, and spirit.

This is exactly what brought me to my computer 12 months ago as I sat there clicking the ‘refresh’ button on the Ironman Lake Placid website. Knowing that this particular IM event sells out sometimes within minutes of opening, I was feeling rather anxious. Twelve noon struck and once again I clicked the refresh icon. Suddenly my screen began loading what looked like an application form. How could this be!? I sat there staring and trembling slightly as I wasn’t expecting such a result. I, deep down, wanted it to be sold out as I knew IM required a commitment of time, energy, and money that I had never encountered in my previous athletic endeavors.

An IM distance triathlon consists of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile run (aka a marathon).  These distances might seem arbitrary, however, they were selected out of a competitive dispute in 1979 between three men over which sporting event in Hawaii was the most grueling, the Waikiki 2.4 mile rough water swim, the Around-Oahu bike race or the Honolulu Marathon.

Borne from this competition Ironman took form and has increased in popularity among the endurance community ever since.  Ironman has become a worthy athletic goal by which to test one’s physical and mental abilities.

Mentally I have been building up for this very moment, the decision.  To digress, in 2009 the biggest block, in my mind, was the marathon as I had never ran more than 10 miles at that time.  How does one deal with such a block? 

My approach was to register for a Marathon and make it my focus for the next four months.  

Rochester Marathon

To further my mental preparation I decided in 2010 to compete in the Tupper Lake Tinman half distance triathlon (1.2 Swim, 56 Bike, 13.1 Run).  

My brother and I in Tupper Lake

Keeping pace with my goal, throughout 2011 I ran the Wakely Dam Ultra (a 32.5 mile unaided trail run) and Ironman Syracuse 70.3.  

Wakely Dam Ultra

Syracuse 70.3

Each event brought me closer, mentally, to not only breaking down these barriers but also refining my training and nutrition approach.

Ironman training has not only proved to be a test of my physical abilities but of both my mental strength to endure the long training events and a test of my time management skills.  Squeezing 15-20 hours a week into an already tight schedule can be a daunting task. 

In a long distance triathlon such as Ironman there are really four components of the race: the swim, the bike, the run, and nutrition throughout the race. I placed a large focus on the nutrition portion both during and between training events. My diet drew from the philosophies contained within a book I read last fall, “The China Study.” The short of it is I have completed the last 6 months of training by eating a 90-95% vegan diet (ie. no meat or animal products) which was about 35-40% raw . TCS defines a diet consisting entirely of whole plant based foods. A typical day of eating would look like this:

-Breakfast: Oatmeal & a slice of bread with Avacado

Rolled oats, cashews, filberts, pecans, almonds, walnuts, raspberries, and blueberries

-Lunch: Homemade granola with dried or fresh fruit

-Dinner: Salad with a grain (rice, spelt, barley, etc) and a bean (black, pinto, kidney, etc)

Spinach with onions, hummus, grapes, honeydew, freekah, and balsamic

-Snacks: dried fruit, fresh fruit, trail mix, oatmeal, nut butter and bread     

Toast with avacado tomato and salt

-Other aspects: Plenty of vitamin D in the form of sunshine, .75 to 1 gallon of water daily, a shot of wheatgrass juice 3-4 times per week

Wheatgrass

Along with tracking my performance, diet, and training I have also been tracking such details as my Cholesterol, resting heart rate, weight, and happiness. 

            -Cholesterol - These results were rather profound.  My family has a genetic tendency to have high cholesterol and a predisposition for heart disease.  It’s a focus of mine, nutritionally, to avoid this undesirable heirloom that has been passed to me.

                        -December 2011:

Total – 213

Triglyceride – 59

HDL (good) – 74

LDL (bad) – 127

Ratio (Total/HDL) – 2.88

                        -June 2012:

                                    Total – 146

                                    Triglyceride – 56

                                    HDL – 76

                                    LDL – 59

                                    Ratio – 1.92

            -Heart Rate - I have always been fascinated to hear how low the resting heart rates of top performing athletes are.  Training your cardiovascular system, through aerobic activity, to operate at a lower heart rate helps the body to be more efficient in transferring oxygen and nutrients while conserving the necessary energy needed to perform at high intensity or for long amounts of time.

:

                        -January 2012:             50 Beats/Minute

                        -June 2012:                  45 BPM

            -Weight – A fear of mine was that I would be burning a ton of calories and not be able to sustain myself given the foods that I would be eating.  It turns out that we can glean every vitamin, mineral, and macronutrient (protein, carb, fat) that we can from meat and dairy (with an exception of B12) from plant based sources all the while being more bio-available upon consumption.  I made an effort to incorporate foods that contained amounts of each macronutrient as to not be deficient (avacados – fats; nuts – fats and protein; potatoes & fruit – carbs; & lots of fiberous plants).

                       

-January 2012:             133.5 lbs

                        -June 2012:                  132 lbs

            -Happiness – This one is somewhat controversial.  How might one accurately track their happiness?  I guess the best answer is that if happiness is something that you are dedicated to perusing in your life then you will likely find a way.  For me, I qualified each day at the end of the day by giving it a rating (borrowed from Sammi J) and assigning each symbol a percentage:

                       

‘J’ is 100%

                        ‘+’ is 75%

                        ‘=’ is 50%

                        ‘-‘ is 25%

                        ‘x’ is 0%

            Then at the end of the month I would average these values out into one number.  This gave me the results below.  I began to notice that such things as not exercising enough, exercising too much (low energy and little time for other things), eating poorly, not getting enough social time, improper balance of work and personal time all played a roll in predicting this score.  I drew from the book ‘Thrive’ in determining just what aspects of life influenced my happiness.  

-Jan 2012:                    57%

                        -Feb:                            74%

                        -Mar:                           61%

                        -Apr:                            78%

                        -May:                           69%

                        -June:                           88%

Happiness was an important aspect of training for me mostly because if I wasn’t in a good mood I was less likely to train or eat according to my plan.  Focusing on this helped me to be consistent and predict feelings and emotions which correlated almost directly to my training schedule.

The dedication I have placed on Ironman nutrition and mental preparation laid the foundation on which I was able to build a house consisting of three rooms: swimming, biking, and running.