Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Father's day

It was so much easier when my posts were titled "Such and such race week x / y"; now I actually have to think of something.

Last week Father's day in Spain fell on Thursday, which, as it was San José was also a Bank Holiday throughout most of the country. It was just as well because I felt like I needed a bit of breathing space to psych myself up for what I find to be a quite demanding workout: 2 x 5K at 3:38 with 3% incline. (In the past I have done as much as 10K like this.) It is psychologically tough because my training usually prepares me well for two types of suffering: long and boring or short and sharp. The problem with this workout is that 18 minutes is quite a long time to go without a break. The trick I found was to watch the video I recorded of running around London with "macarra" drum 'n' bass music in the background: this was just the right level of distraction as I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on anything more intellectual. And, by the way, I had a very enjoyable Father's day, thanks to my lovely family.

I have had to juggle my running shoes to manage the blister that cropped up on my foot from running a little too enthusiastically with my new shoes last week. Amazingly I managed to conserve the flap of skin which very conveniently attached itself back on to my foot while the new skin grew underneath (who needs Compex?) but it wasn't hardy enough to withstand much abuse. On the other hand, the discomfort from my Morton's Neuromas (what is the plural of neuroma? Neuromae?) came back almost immediately with the Vibrams, something to do with the extra compression around the metatarsal heads. It's a shame that I have to more or less abandon running in them, when I was going so well.

The plan for Sunday's brick was something shorter but more intense and close to race pace. I ran 25 minutes at 16 kph (3:45 /km) followed by an hour on the turbo trainer more or less in the aero position (more less than more) and 20 minutes running at 16 kph - although I have to confess that I found my heart rate climbing and I started to get out of breath, so I broke this last section into more manageable chunks of 5 minutes with a short break to get my breath back. The idea wasn't to "kill myself" but, of course, it would have been nice to have completed the workout as originally planned. Still, I was pretty happy with myself and felt correspondingly tired the rest of the day.

As far as my weight goes, I think I've done a pretty good job of shaking off the excesses of the festive period and getting down to racing weight, as my Withings scale shows:


You can also see how, in spite of the variability - in the case of "fat mass", due to measurement error, but in the case of "weight", due to water retention / sweating etc - that there is a clear downward trend. Apart from it being a nice gimmick to have your scales automatically record and upload your stats, it really is the only way to see if you are on track or not.

Monday, March 16, 2015

What a difference a centimetre makes...

Considering I have used my triathlon bike the least out of all my bikes, I was surprised to see that I had worn out one of the arm rest cushions already. I found a place on the web that makes cushions for a wide range of aero bars, including those that are fitted as standard on my Giant Trinity Advanced. Apart from being much more comfy, they have the advantage of being about 1 cm thicker which may not sound like much, but it makes a noticeable difference to my comfort in the aero position. Given that I don't really have any other options to raise my position (other than paying 200 € for a special piece of carbon or - it occurred to me - putting on some more forearm muscle) every little help is welcome. In any case, I feel relatively happy with the position now and was able to maintain it without any breaks on the turbo trainer.

Other workouts of note were the split 10K which I ran at 17.5 kph (3:25 /km) in sections of 1, 3, 2, 3, 1 km, with 1 minute rest in between each. Then the brick this week consisted of 2 hours on the bike with a middle section of 40 minutes at Half Ironman intensity, followed by a 12.5 km run (20 minutes at 13.5 kph or 4:27 /km and 30 minutes at 16 kph or 3:45 /km). I chose about the flattest course I could find starting from my house and took the triathlon bike - even thought there was less climbing according to my Garmin watch, the roads were more bumpy (making the aero position more tiring) and the hills were steeper and more frequent or, at least, that's how it felt.


Since I found the last brick I did with similar intensities to be so tough, I was a little bit nervous about how I would find the run. Perhaps it was helped slightly by a short break that I took in order to catch a bird which had got into the house and was causing quite a scene with the dog. I felt very strong, no wobbly legs and certainly no early onset cramps and, although I allowed myself the option to cut it 10 minutes short, I made it to the end without any problems. It looks like the training is starting to have an effect at last.

The other reason I was a bit nervous about the run was because I had managed to rub a piece of skin off the side of my big toe the size of my thumbnail while doing my split 10K. This was because I had just taken delivery of my new Merrill Trail Glove 3 shoes to replace my already worn out Trail Glove 2. The important thing to note here is the change from 2 to 3. While the new version looks a lot more sturdy and has what looks to be a more stone proof sole, they weigh an extra 30 grammes each (at my oversized EUR 50 / UK 14 / US 15) and rub in new and different ways. I went for a very big size (only available in Germany) so that my toes would have ample wiggle space, particularly my bunion, and it was my bunion which got rubbed raw. As usual, the endorphins coursing through my veins meant that I didn't notice it until it was too late, although I did manage to conserve the flap of skin which I considered supergluing back on. I thought that this might put a temporary stop to my running but I discovered that I could run without problems in my Vibram SeeYas which I had stopped training in, just reserving them for races. 

Monday, March 9, 2015

I won!

Yes, for the first time in my life I actually got to break the tape in a running race! It's not that I have never won anything outright before, it's just that in a rowing race there is obviously no tape to break...

The race was organized for the shareholders of the company I work for so, seen in those terms, I was first out of over 3.2 million people. Perhaps it is slightly more representative to say that I was first out of 100. If I were more paranoid, I might suspect that there was a conspiracy against me taking part because, in spite of the race taking place in the nature reserve built by my employer just outside the campus, I found it difficult to get any information about the race and, when I tried (several times) to sign up for it, I got no reply. In the end, I just turned up and managed to snag race number 100.

The park was designed for employees to be able to go running and cycling and enjoy the wildlife; I prefer to run around outside the park because I don't like feeling hemmed in and, besides, there are too many hills. Talking of which, the course of the 5K race was quite tough with said hills, lots of switchbacks and sandy paths which my trainers had very little purchase on.

I almost didn't take part in the race as I had to accompany my wife to the hospital for a minor operation that afternoon and the timing was very tight. So I decided to stick to my original training plan the day before of 7K at a pulse rate of 172 bpm (which I did in 26:41 or a pace of 3:40 /km); normally I would have taken it a bit more easy the day before a race.

As people get ready you can often tell who the main contenders are going to be. The first clue is their body composition (i.e, how lean) and the second is their body language (i.e., how mean). Someone asking about the course gave away their attitude and it turned out to be his breath I could hear chasing me over the first half. I lead from the start line to the finish but this guy made me work hard; on the other hand, as long as I didn't get lost, I had it in the bag. I was following a little buggy which sometimes had to go ahead to move some of the tape marking the course: in fact, I actually had to jump over the tape before entering the final straight as I got there before the buggy. As I crossed the finishing line I instinctively raised my arms to an appropriate height somewhere in between "this was easy" and "this victory is the best thing that has ever happened to me".


I now had to worry about my next race, the race against time to get home to take my wife to the hospital, but I wasn't about to miss my first ever podium for overall winner in a running race! A nice surprise was that I not only won a trophy but also a bag of goodies including a portable DVD player with two screens for the car as well as some waterproof headphones and armband for listening to music while swimming. I didn't quite make it home in time so my wife went in the car and I ordered a taxi with the last few seconds of mobile battery I had left. The whole day seemed to just fit together by the smallest of margins: I got home just as the taxi was about to leave, I arrived at the hospital at the exact moment that my wife was checking in and we got sent home just in time to get to the car as the parking ticket ran out. And, most importantly, my wife's operation went well.


I decided to meet up with Dani for the Sunday brick. He lives in a nice flat part to the South of Madrid, on the way out to Toledo, very near to where Alberto Contador is from. The idea was to try out the triathlon bikes and stay in the aero position as much as possible. Dani, very sensibly, has his bike set up with a fairly comfortable position, although I was surprised that his seat was lower than mine in spite of him being noticeably taller - maybe he has longer crank arms or something. I was a bit worried about not having trained much in my much more aggressive aero position but the relative absence of hills, wind and bumpy roads meant that it was quite tolerable and I noticed the speed advantage for perhaps the first time. We got passed by a bunch of road cyclists who - as Dani put it - were going at that perfect speed that would mean we would be foolish to try to overtake them but that was just a bit too slow for us to have a decent workout. They also had the demeanour of those kind of cyclists who don't take well to being overtaken and would have surely seen it as a guantlet being thrown down. Eventually they went left and we went right and had a nice stretch of flat open road with hardly any cars. I had to drive about 40 kilometers to get to the start of the route but it was well worth it and something I may repeat even if I don't have the additional benefit of Dani's company. We rode for about 70 kilometers and then left the bikes propped up, slipped into our running shoes and set off for a 9 kilometer run. It's days like this that make me remember why I like cycling. I also gained a lot of confidence in the aero position, getting out of my head all the fears and ideas of trying to change the position.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Bricking it

Another week, another lame pun on the word "brick".

I had a double headphone fail on Friday: not only did I manage to lose my wireless bluetooth Jaybird headphones, but the Sony wired headphones I bought in Malaysia (to replace the pair I accidentally left lying by the pool) decided to crap out on me. I know that it is completely irrational, but these kind of things really annoy me. The Jaybird headphones have had quite an eventful life. I bought them in New York as a bit of retail therapy to compensate for the cancelling of the Marathon in 2012. Only a few months later they stopped working but, as they were "guaranteed sweat-proof", I sent them back to Jaybird. I'd lost the receipt but, thanks to Best Buy where I bought them, I was able to phone up and get them to send me the till receipt by email! However, the headphones never made it back. Even so, they were good enough to take my word for it and they sent a brand new pair which I had  to pick up from a friend's house in New York, which has lasted until now. More recently, I lost one of the little ear-hooks for which replacements can only be sent to an address in the United States(!) but, as I was due to go to New York a week later, I again had them sent to my friend's house. So three trips to New York just for them to disappear without a trace. Anyway, I decided to try a new brand of wired headphones - the Yurbuds - which are "guaranteed not to fall out". So far the results are very positive, after sweating just under 4 kilos they had no problem staying in running at 16 kph. The sound quality is also much better than I experienced with the Sony ones.

Too aggressive? Maybe, but difficult / expensive to do much about it
Those 4 kilos of sweat were produced doing my "brick" on Sunday. My wife was away in Morocco so I had to do the whole thing indoors while "looking after" the kids who were playing GTA V on the Xbox (you can just about make it out in the photo). I kept myself entertained between watching the latest series of "House of Cards" and occasionally watching the kids antics on GTA: a few times I nearly fell of my bike as watching them doing backflips on their motorbike.

I found the brick a lot harder than the one I did the week before. I'd only added 10 minutes of Half Ironman intensity in the middle of the bike leg and tacked on 10 minutes running at 16 kph at the end. My ex-coach used to equate an hour on the turbo trainer to 75 minutes on the bike (outside) because you can't coast (free-wheel) and it is a lot more monotonous. I'm not sure that there is such a difference but, between this and the fact that I am suffering from the cold that my kids have kindly passed on to me, my heart rate was climbing to 175 on the run, 10 bpm more than in the previous brick. To be honest, I had to stop a number of times and I felt my legs tensing up. As I got tired, my running form became less elastic and more "brute-force" and - in spite of the compression I decided to wear for the first time in ages - I could feel the threat of cramps knocking at the door. I felt pretty wrecked for most of the day but, in my experience, there is usually at least one training session in the build up to a race which feels like a failure and yet, I reckon, that these are often the breakthrough sessions. The danger is that stopping even during a hard workout has a negative psychological price, so it is important to minimize this. In general, the key is to set workouts which are in that sweet spot between being too easy and too challenging.