Bang Bang

Wildflower 2009 was an interesting race. I stayed in Atascadero the night before, which is about a 90 minute drive away from the race. That was due to poor planning, I waited too long and every hotel in Paso Robles filled up. This meant a 4:15AM wakeup call. Ouch.
Everything went fine in the morning, though we did get a little lost on the way to Lake San Antonio and wound up driving past Justin - one of my favorite vineyards. We got straightened out thanks to "Cathy", the voice of our GPS. I was getting nervous because registration was only open until 7AM, and it seemed like we weren't going to make it. In the end everything was fine, I made it to registration, put my numbers on and got ready to race.
The swim was uneventful. Wildflower is a wave start, with 5 mins between waves. It's also a very large race, so there are swimmers of all levels in each wave. I ended up passing a bunch of "grey" hats, which was the wave 5 minutes in front of me. That's pretty normal, I'm not a great swimmer but there's always some weak swimmers in every wave and I normally catch some of the stragglers. But then I spotted a green cap. Holy crap, that guy started 10 minutes ahead of me and I caught him before the half way point - he must be having a rough day. Eventually I even ran into some yellow caps, which means I was putting 15 minutes into them on the swim! Wow. Ultimately my swim time for 1.2 miles was 33:26, which was 7 minutes faster than last year. I'm pretty happy with that.
I raced up the boat ramp, into transition and got on the bike. T1 was very long (5:46) because I just couldn't get my clothes on. I need to work on that. Eventually I got going and turned on my borrowed Garmin 305 GPS device. I was using it because my PowerTap 2.4 SL is broken, hopefully being repaired by the manufacturer. I didn't like racing without my power meter, but what can I do? The bike was uneventful as well, I kept a moderate pace because I knew the second half of the course was tough. Somewhere between miles 34 and 35, my life changed. I ceased being one of the lucky cyclists who have never crashed. There was a sharp 90 degree turn at an intersection (corner of Jolon rd. and Nacimiento Lake Dr.), and I didn't make it. There were two volunteers standing in the intersection directing us to turn right. One of them was apparently bored, and decided to do right-handed cartwheels to spice up his motions. I guess I was paying more attention to that, I took the turn way too fast (25 MPH) and didn't approach it correctly. I ended up going wide, which was no big deal normally - except there was loose gravel which means the tires don't bite as much. Instead of trying to turn sharp and having the wheels slide out from under me, I made my turn even wider. Too wide. I hit the curb on the outside of the turn nearly head on, stopping my front wheel dead. I flipped over the handlebars and into the air - bike still clipped to my shoes - and landed on my shoulder in a ditch. Bang bang. I can't describe the terror I felt in that split second, or the pain (or anticipation of pain?) as I landed. I assumed the two volunteers at the corner would be there quickly, but I laid there and nothing happened. I crawled up the hill in the loose dirt, dragging my bike behind me, and collapsed into the road. I tried yelling for help, but my voice failed me. Eventually they spotted me and came over, and asked if I needed an ambulance. Until that point, I assumed my day was over. But I didn't want to ride in an ambulance, so my response was "give me a minute, I don't know if I'm hurt". I sat up, checked out my bleeding shoulders and my mangled bike - and decided to keep going. After putting the chain back on the bike seemed fine - though with carbon bikes you never know.

I got moving again (slowly) and fielded a lot of questions from other riders about the grass and blood all over my back. I never really questioned why I was continuing, my dad taught me that you finish what you start. Soon, at mile 40, we hit Nasty Grade - a 5 mile climb that is notorious for being tough. I climbed conservatively and didn't pass anyone. The hill wasn't as bad as I remembered from last year. But once at the top, you have to descend - and I must admit I was a bit gun shy to take the switchbacks after having just crashed. Last year I hit 50MPH while bombing down this hill. This time, I sat up and caught some wind, and I think maxed out around 43MPH, still with a lot of nerves. I finished the bike in 3:10:02, which was 15 minutes faster than last year. It's not a good comparison for a number of reasons, including:
- Last year I had serious mechanical trouble, and had to dismount and adjust the derailleurs 5 times.
- Last year the weather was much tougher, it was very hot
- This year I lost some time due to "extra curriculars" - e.g. laying in a ditch.
- This year my PowerTap was not functional, so I didn't pace myself the way I had trained.

The run portion was just what I expected - living hell. Nothing I've ever done hurts like the run course at WF, it's hilly and hot and just plain miserable. Plus, this year the course was marked wrong. The run was 13 miles in length, but the "Mile 8" marker was placed where the "Mile 7" should have been. When we got to "Mile 12" we actually had 2 miles to go - most people were not entertained by this trickery, though my watch had given me the heads up on the deception.
After the race I found KT and gave her a hug (trying not to get too much of my grossness on her), then went to medical to have them check out my bike wreck injuries. Turns out I was fine, just cuts and scratches which they put some alcohol on and kicked me out so they could attend to people who really needed it.
One race, one bike wreck, one hell of a weekend. I was about 40 minutes faster than last year, making up 7 minutes on the swim, 15 on the bike, and 17 on the run. Not bad, but I have a date with this course again next year - and I plan to smash the 6 hour mark.

"Shoot from the back,
take good aim,
Make sure I'm dead
Bang Bang"

Dead Confederate - "The Rat"

Feed the Disease

I love racing. I haven't done it since IMAZ in November, and it's so much fun! The adrenaline gets you through the 4AM wakeup, then you go through your ritual gear prep, breakfast, and head to the venue. I train because it's fun, I truly enjoy the workouts and I don't think about the races that often. But when race day comes, it's like living someone elses life for a few hours. I feel alive. No more 3 month hiatus's from racing, I need to get out there more - even if they are just training prep for other races.
I participated in the Bulldog bike Race this weekend, and it was lots of fun. This was my first bike race, and quite a learning experience. Some things were expected: drafting, close quarters, accidents, and machismo. Some things were a surprise: all the trash talking, strategy, and d-baggery.
To my surprise, I did OK in the 26 mile race. The first 8 miles are flat, and the whole 100+ rider peleton stayed together and at an easy pace - I even found myself at the front at one point! It was cool to be "winning" a race, but it was really bad strategy - as everyone else was saving their legs for an attack on the upcoming climb. My friend Cory told me later - "If you're going to be dumb, you have to be strong". I agree, and I think that might be my racing style! Riding in the pack was easy (though a bit dangerous) and honestly it got boring. I was chatting with my adopted team (I have lots of friends from the Moment Cycle) and thought the whole race would be nothing but a group ride with a sprint at the end. Wrong. I got dropped like a bad habit on the first climb, which is where all the teams attacked. I lost sight of the leaders, and never saw them again. I hooked up with one of the chase groups and we went pretty hard - we picked up a lot of the stragglers who fell off the lead pack as the race went on. The chase pack was cool, but there were a couple of d-bags in with us. One guy who kept swerving wildly 10 feet or more to the left - he did it deliberately whenever he felt someone was crossing up his rear wheel. What an ass. There was one guy who kept taunting another rider about how poorly he climbed hills - apparently they had a verbal exchange early in the race, and kept jawing for the whole hour. Then there was a weak ass rider from some LA cycling team who kept trying to win with strategy. He would get to the front of the pack and pull for only about 10 seconds, then go hide back in the pack - sometimes skipping his turn up front all together. I decided to punish him a bit by getting behind him and forcing him to take a real pull - he got pissed, doing the roadie elbow wave, which I ignored, and it lead to him getting pretty pissed - which was the point. I kept trying to push the pace by attacking off the front, but even at 32 MPH on the flat stretches the group kept covering all my moves, and we all ended up finishing together.
I raced hard, but not all out. I knew I still had a short run, followed by another 60 minutes on the bike, and a second run scheduled for the day. After the race I put the bike in my car, put on my running shoes and took off. The d-bag cyclist attitude showed itself again, as several people gave me a hard time for running after the race - one guy yelled "if you can still run, then you didn't ride hard enough". It's not a particularly mean comment, it was the way he said it - like he was angry at me for not taking the bike race as seriously as I could have. Funny, I was running past him as he exited the finish chute, after having completed the race, checking the results, chatting with coach, packing my bike away, and changing into running gear. Maybe he's the one who didn't go hard enough?
My results were pretty good (I think). I was 4 minutes behind the winner, and placed 14th (of 24) in my age group, and 105th of 578 overall. If I had gone 2 minutes faster, which I think was easily doable, I would have been in the top 50. Wow, I've never been that high up on the list before - maybe cycling races aren't so bad :)
Bike racing seems much more social than triathlon, which was cool - unfortunately there seems to be a lot of a-holes in the bunch. I'm going to stick with being a triathlete (good people those tri geeks), and I'll venture over to road racing when I need an ego boost :)

Properly paced CP30 test

Earlier this month I did a CP30 test to help me determine my Functional Threshold Power. My average power was ok, but as I pointed out previously my pacing was pretty much shit. Coach scheduled a bunch of time trials this week, including a cycling test of CP30 so I headed back to Fiesta Island for a new CP30 test.
Last time I went out too hard on lap 1 (of 3) and was struggling by the end. My goal this time around was to negative split (get faster each lap) by hitting these wattage numbers for the three laps: 245, 250, 255.

First, here are the overall test numbers:
Duration: 32:28
Distance: 12.34 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 507 258 watts
Heart: 134 186 144 bpm
Cadence: 63 152 95 rpm
Speed: 14.3 29 22.8 mph

This is slightly faster than last time (33:33, 22.1 MPH) but that doesn't really mean anything since the wind conditions were horrible on the previous attempt. Wattage was increased from 245 to 258, now that's progress! In fact, it's a 5% improvement - and I'm certain that pacing is responsible for those results.
My lap wattages for this test were: 246, 251, 276
That is fantastic, I hit my target wattages on laps 1 and 2, and used up everything in my tank on the last lap. That's good pacing, and the results speak for themselves. I also felt better - my average heart rate was actually lower than the last time. Lower heart rate and 5% more power? Fantastic!

Finally, here's the FTP calculation, using the CP20 that WKO+ gives me (266 watts):
FTP = CP20 * 0.95 = 266 * 0.95 = 252.7 watts.

Wow, last month was 242 watts. Did I just have a good test, or am I really improving? It's hard to say, but I'm trying to be optimistic :)

If you'd like to see my data for yourself, here it is:
http://www.trainingpeaks.com/sw/M72323HSR3JR5YZWGTUFR6FLRE

If you need me...

... this is where to find me for the next couple of hours:


Update: It hurt.

Darwin's 200th

Sorry for the foray away from triathlon and training, but today is a big day for the "geek" side of my personality.
Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, and this year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of his most famous work "On the Origin of Species". I'm a huge fan of Darwin, I am one of the many who count him as possibly the most important scientist in all of human history. I once heard the distinguished biologist Richard Dawkins speak about Darwin's idea of evolution through natural selection and he said something along the lines of: "it explains everything about the natural world, and requires almost no pre-supposition to do so". Natural selection is easy to understand - you don't need a degree in biology to grasp the idea. You could explain it in a few sentences to anyone and they would get the concept. Compare that with Einstein's theory of relativity, in which a great deal of knowledge is required before you can even begin!
Darwin's theory is so powerful because it explains who and what we are. There are literally millions of pieces of evidence corroborating the theory, and in 200 years not a single piece that disproves it. It's as close to fact as anything in science. In 1859, for the first time in human history, we knew our place in the universe. How glorious is that?! Of course natural selection blows all of the Creation Myths out of the water - including all three of the world's major religions - which I'm sure is unsettling for some. Especially for those who think of humans as elevated above other creatures in the world. They didn't want to hear that we as a species just got lucky and our naturally selected advantage was the ability to out-think our competition. This makes us unique, but not special - we play by the same rules as all of nature does. For the most part the world has gotten over their distaste for the world Darwin revealed, and even the Vatican has recognized evolution through natural selection as a scientific fact. Hell, if they can get over Copernicus and Galileo revealing that the Earth was not the center of the universe, then they can get over anything.
There are a handful of truly great scientists in western history: Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Watts and Crick, and in my opinion Hawking. For me, Darwin takes the prize as the most important. He took mankind off of it's pedestal, and placed it in it's proper place among all of it's cousins. He revealed the largest Truth ever unveiled to us - and that's pretty damned cool.

Suffer. Sacrifice.

When 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis was asked what the best advice he had ever been given, he replied: "Suffer. Sacrifice." I always liked that - and I thought of it often during my first season of training. As I was pushing up Torrey Pines for the 10th time one Sunday morning, as I took off into a 30 MPH headwind for the first half of a century ride, as I rode through the snow on Mt. Laguna in bike shorts. I liked the idea of suffering now, with the reward coming later. During that first year I woke up every day so sore that I didn't know if I could complete the 2 mile bike ride to the pool for Masters. After the swim I made myself breakfast, spent the day at the office, did my evening workout, packed my lunch for the next day, then went straight to sleep by 9pm. Often times I went to bed hungry, since I tracked my caloric intake closely and ate just enough to fuel my workouts. I had a ritual, and it worked for me. I enjoyed the spartan lifestyle, the simplicity of single-minded focus.

My second season of training was different. The distances were so huge, that I had no choice but to moderate my effort, and to rest before a big event. I learned to be efficient, and to exert measured effort over long periods. It was different, and the long periods of quiet caused me to lose some of my single-mindedness.

Lately I feel like my life has gotten complicated, and I've been getting soft. Sure I have tough days, but I still end each workout with a smile on my face. I go out each day and train because I choose to do so - because I'm having fun. I wake up every morning feeling refreshed. I'm training smarter now - I actually have "recovery workouts" which are good for recovering from a hard workout without getting too lazy. I'm seeing better results now as well. I certainly would not recommend my old "punish myself everyday" training philosophy to anyone looking to get faster - it's a horrible way to prepare for a race. But I liked it. I liked the simplicity of "do whatever I can today... and then a little bit more." I liked the suffering because I knew I had a higher tolerance for it than the guy next to me.

It occurred to me that I was getting soft a while back, when I realized I hadn't vomited during a workout in over a year. Not that I enjoy the taste of vomit, but I've found that if my breakfast isn't working it's way up my esophagus, then I'm probably not redlining. During this Sunday's ride I demonstrated my mental weakness. I cut the ride short due to rain. Rain?! Are you kidding me? What kind of f'ing pansy have I turned into? I can't believe how psychologically anemic that is - it's embarrassing, which is why I'm writing it down. I need to toughen up, and get back to where I was a year ago. I still want to train smart, and go easy on recovery days. But the intense days need to be more intense. I need to stop being polite during my group bike rides and staying with the group. I need to stop being a wuss when it comes to running hard. My hard days need to be hard. I need to finish workouts when they are uncomfortable, when they hurt, when I don't want to be there. I need to re-learn how to Suffer during a workout, and to Sacrifice the things that sabotage my plans.

Weekend Update

Friday:

• work
• swim
• bars

Saturday:

• sleep in! raining, so no cycling - trying to keep bike clean.
• run
• ice ankle
• Ironman meetup
• drinks at Blarney Stone

Sunday:

• Bike/Run/Bike/Run on Fiesta. It rained - bike is filthy
• ice ankle

My filthy bike


I am not going to have fun getting the sand out of there! Was I doing Xterra?

Weekly totals:
Volume: 11 hours
Swim Distance: 4.7 miles
Run Distance: 26 miles
Bike Distance: 63 miles

It seems pretty light on cycling to me, but then again I tend to over-train when left to my own decisions. I did mess up one bike workout this week and had to cut it short. Also, I didn't do a long ride on the weekend which has always been a staple of my training. However, 26 miles running is the longest I've done in any week since IMAZ - and I feel pretty good about it. Metronome running is very effective - too bad I can only keep it up for a few minutes at a time. I'm running well (for very short periods) and without injury. The ankle is still sore, but it's certainly not getting worse - it may even be improving.