Coach Kris: The Man With The Plan

Dear Coach Kris:

I have this little race thingy coming up. I'm told there's a 2.4 mile swim, a bike segment of 112 miles, and then a marathon, 26 miles 385 yards. I suppose one should have a plan for such as this.

My first time at this distance my plan was: finish. If you wonder whether you're going to hard, you probably are.

My second time my plan was: don't die in the frigid swim, bike too strong, and then run just fast enough to get a "13" in the finish time.

I am unimpressed with my planning ability.

So, how do I make a plan for this race, and what should it be? One lap swim, the home stretch of which is downhill with the current. Three lap bike. Three lap run. I hear it's hot, flat and windy.

Your most obedient and humble servant,

Greyhound

P.S. Does Tequila make an appropriate recovery beverage?

*************************

Greyhound,

I hope the 13 in your finisher time was in the hour column not the seconds one. Here is a sure fire Ironman strategy that has work for many athletes of all abilities. It comes in a three stage format.

Plan A

Swim solid, but not too hard. You can’t win the race in the swim, but you sure can tank your race. Stick to steady pace. Current does not matter, everyone has it, so it doesn’t give you a pass to lollygag it on the return.

Bike CONSERVATIVELY! Every Ironman race I have seen implode has been due to over doing it on the bike. Start off moderate and get settled in. Bike inside a box, don’t let others influence you. This is your race and your day, don’t blow it by chasing some guy who is going to blow up later. Eat and drink according to what you practiced in your training and goal for peeing at least two times. If you have gone too soft on the bike, prove it on the run.

Run according to your pacing plan you have been practicing. Start off easy and be sure to drink, drink, drink! Monitor your effort and shoot for consistency. If all this goes as planned, you will be set for a great finish.

Plan B

Something goes wrong, whether it is you lost your salt tablets or blew two flats. Before you leave for your race, think about what can go wrong and plan that it will. Pack your special needs bags as if your life depended on it.


If your issue becomes more biological, think what has worked for you in the past. A good rule of thumb is when in doubt cut the simple sugars like Gatorade or gels. Drink lots of water, the more the better. If you throw up, don’t force it, back things down and try to reset your inner clock. Don’t try to over eat to make up for what you lost, just keep up with what your doing. On the run Coke can be your best friend or worst enemy. It can give you that added bit of energy you need on the run, but hit it too soon and get ready to ride the sugar roller coaster for 26.2 miles. Broth is great if they have it, but not all races do.

Plan C

Everything is going wrong!

Wipe the tears and dig deep for what motivated you to get to where you are. Slow down and just walk it out. At the end of the day, only you and a very few tri geeks really give a crap about your time. The fact that you did it plain and simple is the big win. Don’t believe me? Ask any kid if their dad/mom does Ironman and they will brag all day about everything but your PR (they don’t care). Your co-workers think you're crazy, they don’t care, they are just amazed you are alive.



Plan ahead and your day will go better than planned. Stay calm and don’t panic. You don’t want to look like Norman Stadler in 2005 at Kona, swearing in German and blaming everyone but himself for not doing things the right way.

Enjoy!
Coach Kris

PR, Bitches!

Full race report to come, but I dropped 13 minutes from my half-iron PR.

And this course was WAY harder and hillier than my PR course or the flat, Ironman Cozumel course.

And my PR was set when I was 40. I am now 43.

And with the exception of about 8 miles at the end of the bike where I pushed a little harder, I was keeping Ironman heart rates all the way through.

Current Ironman pace at 43 years of age on a hard course = 13 minutes faster than old half-iron PR at 40 years of age.

**blink**

Coach Kris is a freakin' genius, riding with Coach Liz will make you fast, and Phil Shama will pimp your ride like no other.

I think I am seeing the light of possible at the end of this training tunnel.

Ask Coach Chris

And now we return to our regularly scheduled blog. Another in a series of tri-training Q&A called, "Ask Coach Kris" in which we get to propound our most bedeviling training questions to the big giant brain that is Kris Swarthout of SCS Multisport. This time we have two questions from blog readers.

First a question from Fe-Lady, an experienced, uber-fit, 57 year old Ironman finisher.

Dear Coach Kris:

I have missed a couple (just a couple!) of longer workouts (bike/run specifically) due to illness. Should I try to make that up during a rest week, or just continue with the program I have and call it a loss?

Thanks Coach!
Fe-Lady



Iron Lady,

I would ask what is the distance of your main goal race and how far are you out from that race? I will assume it is an Ironman (old detective skills still flow through my veins). As a rule I say missed workouts should never be made up. By trying to make up those missed workouts during a recovery week you can throw off the balance of your program. Since the key workouts are what you would have been recovering from, I would recommend repeating the workouts on your rest weekend at 70% of the volume and 100% of the original intensity prescribed. Be sure to recover well and think about getting a post workout massage to aid in recovery.

You were wise to skip the workouts due to illness. They would not have helped you and they could have drawn out your illness recovery time. Good luck!

Coach Kris




From Iron KT in the Woodlands, an experienced triathlete who came to triathlon through competitive swimming, and who finished her first Ironman (Wisconsin) last year:

Dear Coach Kris:

Why do you think my heart rate rises drastically when I run (average 178 bpm), when it stays reasonable (average 140 bpm) when I swim and bike (assume I am exerting the same output for all 3 sports)? Actually, I'm probably going [comparatively] slower when I run (9 - 10 min. miles) vs swimming and biking.

Thanks. I am so frustrated by this issue! I had to stop my run yesterday after 1 mile because I couldn't sustain my hr.

Thank you!
KT



KT:

HR rates vary between sports , i.e. your zone 3 for running will not be the same as your biking zone 3. Normally the levels are 5-10 beats per minute different. I would recommend having your zones checked by a professional exercise physiologist.

They should run VO2 max test on you while you are running and biking. By doing this you will know for sure if your zones are correct. If you have done this with one of the two sports, then I would suggest returning to the person who tested you and doing the test on the other sport. If you compare the results and you still find a wide swing in your HR rates, I would seek the advice of your doctor to rule out any cardiovascular issues.

If you have acquired your HR zones by using the old 220 minus your age, you should know that scale has a rate of error of +/- of 20 beats per minute. The error balance should be enough of a reason to convince you to seek out professional testing.

If you wish to field test your threshold HR try this simple field test. Begin your workout at an easy pace, warming up for 10 minutes, then proceed to slowly increase your effort monitoring your HR and your breathing. Make a note when you begin to audibly breath (breathing loudly). Your threshold will be around 3-5 beats below that point. If you are doing this test on a bike trainer, increase the effort by increasing your gear ratio while holding a consistent cadence. For running, gradually increase speed and incline on a treadmill. Have someone with you who can listen with a non-partial ear. I hope this helps!

Coach Kris



If you have a question for the guru triathlete coach to the stars, feel free to e-mail me or leave it in the comments. Better yet, if you are thinking about where to get coaching next season for a big race or because you want to improve, hit the links for Coach Kris or SCS Multisport in the side bar.

Now, GET OUT THERE AND TRAIN!!!!. Make every day count.

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

Coach Kris tells me I need to train in the heat.

Which means that yesterday was a perfect day to train for Ironman Cozumel: hot, humid and windy as hell.

Niiiiiiiiiiiiice.

So, Coach Liz, my local IM COZ peep, and I went out for a two hour tempo ride in the middle of the day. I drank buckets. I sweated buckets. And it was the perfect conditions to simulate Cozumel.


Niiiiiiiiiiiice.


Nearly 90% humidity. Upper 80s for the temps. And winds gusting above 20 mph.

Niiiiiiiiiiice.

I'm so lucky to live where I can get such wonderful training.

yeah.

Love that.

Ask Coach Kris

**In the run up to Ironman Cozumel, I'm going to be asking my coach some questions, and publishing his answers here. If you have a question, enter it in the comments and we'll see if we can get the great and powerful Coach Kris to lend us his expertise!**

Dear Coach Kris:

When I am training in the heat, I notice that my heart rate gets higher and higher as the day goes on and as the temperature increases. I know sometimes "heart rate creep" happens when people are dehydrated and the heart has to work extra hard to pump thicker fluid. But this Saturday, I know I was super well hydrated because I . . . you see I was constantly needing to . . . well, trust me, I know.

But even when I'm well-hydrated, my heart rate really spikes when it is hot--like at Ironman Cozumel for example. Does my lactate threshold also go to the higher heart rate or does it remain the same? Specifically, assuming that my running threshold is 147, and I'm trying to keep it below threshold, does my threshold go up with the heat and "heart rate creep" or should I still stay below 147, even if my HR is 10 beats higher for the same pace?

Yours truly, Greyhound

Dear Greyhound: An excellent and very perceptive question my Iron Paduan. The answer is you'll have to run slower when it is hotter outside. DUH! (OK that was me writing, not Coach Kris).

Your Lactate Threshold remains constant. Your heart rate is increasing because your body is working harder to cool itself off. In the event you find yourself running in the marathon at Ironman Cozumel and you start to see your HR drift up while your pace remains the same, you should back your pace down to allow your HR to remain in it’s targeted area.

You can acclimate your body to work more efficiently by training in the conditions of your event, this will allow your HR to stay more in line. For you, Greyhound, it will be important that you do the majority of your training in the heat of the Houston daytime temps. This may be uncomfortable and against the vampire norms of H-Town, but it will allow you to adjust your body's response to the heat, and to practice HR control along with proper hydration technique.

Now get back out there and stop whining, Coach Kris

(OK, that last bit was mine, too.) If you have any thoughts or a question for Coach Kris, give us some love in the comment section.

Old School

This weekend is the Avia Austin Triathlon, an olympic distance race Coach Kris and I put on the schedule to keep me from getting sluggish and to get some practice "racing" (air quotes here) in the run up to Ironman Cozumel.

According the Austin peeps, it has been hot as balls all summer and they've had essentially no rain. According to the race organizer, this means that the Lady Bird Lake, the swim venue, is too warm to be wetsuit legal--i.e., roughly like swimming in your bath tub with a few hundred friends trying to beat you to death.

Of course, why you'd have a few hundred people in your bath tub trying to beat you to death, I wouldn't know. That's your business and I don't judge.

Well, that's perfect practice for Ironman Cozumel, which is also not wetsuit legal, but it also raises additional questions. I've lately shunned my square leg swimsuits and jammers in favor of the trusty, black Speedo briefs for my swim workouts. My belt is cinched one loop tighter. My skinny suit tapers nicely to the waist and is taut across the shoulders. I have ribs. I have some abs (at least a four pack). I even have that intriguing little crease that runs from the outside of the hip bones, tracing its erotic course . . . down . . . . to the . . . . well . . . just think Abercrombie & Fitch underwear model and that's TOTALLY what I look like, m'kay?

I can't prove it, but I can say it.

So, with no wetsuit involved, do I go old school with an homage to Ironman Dave Scott by rocking the Speedo on the race course? And maybe throw in some ginourmous sunglasses and dayglow gear and a Bud Light visor too?

Alas, that would risk Dave Scott old school looking a bit too much like Will Ferrell's Old School. SCS Multisport and Coach Kris, apparently believing that there's no such thing as bad publicity, have encouraged me to wear their gear. (I wonder what message this sends when a bedraggled looking athlete limps to the finish with a website URL on his kit?)

So, instead of potentially causing a riot with the Speedo briefs, this is what I'll be wearing the one piece tri suit pictured below:



Look for me and give some encouragement out there. I'll be the one at the back of my swim wave trying to make up at least a little time on the bike and run.

Put me in, Coach!

I thought last week was easy.

But Coach Kris has taken recovery to a new level. I have even less training this week than last.

C'mon, Coach. **tap** **tap** **tap**

Is this thing on? After three weeks of living above 9000 feet, I feel like a super hero with my freakish extra red blood cells. I'm ready to pour it on. Let's DO this Ironman thingy.

MORE recovery? Only 5 and a half hours of training this week? I ought to be doing that on Saturday alone. It's less than 15 weeks away now. Shouldn't I be smashing myself?

OK, yeah, so I had 19 and a half hours in one week in Colorado. I rode about 300 miles in a couple weeks and climbed 15,000 feet on the bike and scaled a Fourteener.

But . . . but . . . BUT . . .

I'm sure Coach Kris has an evil plan and is ever so much more expert than I am, . . . .

BUT . . . .

Put me in, Coach. I'm ready to play.

Lollygaggers

The Almighty hates Texas triathletes

Anybody out there a fan of "Bull Durham" like me? Do you remember the scene in the locker room where the coach starts to berate the players for their lack of effort?

SKIP

    What're you laughing at?!

  
      SKIP
    You guys lollygag the ball around
    the infield, ya lollygag your
    way to first, ya lollygag in an'
    outta the dugout.  You know what
    that makes ya
     (beat)
    Lollygaggers.

That's one of the big differences between me with a coach and me without a coach. When I was following "Coach Greyhound" I lollygagged for a week or two after a race effort. Coach Kris is not so down with the lollygagging.

Apparently, he's all about the gagging without the lolly part, because yesterday I had the Eurobrick from hell on the schedule, and this only a week after a long half-iron effort.

Why "from hell" you ask? When it is well over 80 degrees in your garage before you open the door at 0530 in the morning, when you start riding your bike before sunup in hopes that you'll be running before Satan quits for the day because of the heat, when you are dripping down onto your top tube one mile into your ride in the dark, when your heart rate jumps into zone 5 while running at 10:00 pace, and when the dogs that usually bark at you don't even lift an eyebrow because it's too hot to give a sh!t, you are in hell.

Or, perhaps it's just Texas.

But hey, our Starbucks will stay hot in the car all day long. So, we've got that going for us.

Which is good.

Why "Euro" brick, you ask?

Well, it's not because "Le Tour" is on, although I am again addicted to the spectacle, suspecting all along that much of the athleticism I am watching is about as authentic as professional wrestling. (Side note on stage one: I have serious reservations about anyone who beats the best cyclists in the world by more than 20 seconds in a 15.5k time trial. If you see a performance far outside the bell curve, you should suspect pharmaceutical intervention. Just as Barry or Roger.).

But I digress.

My brick Saturday was a Euro brick because I was in metric, not by conscious choice.

My Garmin Forerunner 305 went missing over the Buffalo Springs half-iron, and I did not want to replace it before the Garmin Forerunner 310xt comes out on July the 20th. I spent all this effort to hook my old Polar up to Delilah, my new road bike, so as to have data to crunch, because every good triathlete knows that if there are no numbers on Training Peaks, the workout did not happen and it provided no physical benefit.

In all that effort, I somehow got all the units set in Euro numbers instead of good ole American miles per hour. (Of course, we know that's why Lance won all those Tour victories. He trained in miles instead of doing baby Euro, metric centuries. Ever hear of a Canadian tour winner? Non! Coincidence? I think not.)

Anyway, there I am sweating over my bike and riding the first 45 minutes of my ride before the sun even peaks over the horizon, and I'm just waiting to see what my pace and distance are like. I'm giving it my all, trying to maintain a good cadence and level of effort, just anticipating first light when I can see the pay off. Then, all I see is . . .

KM/H

Ugh.

And after two hours of incalculable, metric suffering, I pull back into the garage, and throw on my running shoes. Last minute, I reach into the bento box on Carmen Tequilo, my tri-bike, still crusted with mud and ill-used from her half-iron effort, in order to grab a spare gel pack for the suffer-running to come. Low and behold, what do I find?

Il y a Monsieur Garmin, n'est-ce pas?

Oui. C'est vrai.

So not only do I not know how I rode in the Gulf Coast Stank we call "air," I know exactly how slowly I ran for the last 55 minutes, and exactly how high my pathetic little heart rate was for all that.

I decided to take a "heat discount," by walking in the last five minutes, for which I received the "no lollygagging" e-mail from Coach.

Okay, I get it. Mexico in November=Hot. Houston in July=Hot. Pefect bank of Ironman I have here. Seems like I should at least get a toaster or something for opening up an account in this blast furnace.

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

I haven't mentioned this lately, indeed I haven't mentioned much lately, but Coach Kris rocks.

This is easily said in a week like this one where I have gone down to 6.5 hours of pretty easy training--as compared with last week when I was at 15.5 hours of training. Grownups, much like toddlers, are happy and compliant when they are well-rested and fed.

That is me right now. Unlike some of the training plans I have followed in the past, Coach Kris takes recovery very seriously--maybe making a special issue of at my advanced age. My training is less than half what it was last week and I get two--count 'em TWO--days with no training at all.

Now if only I could get the psycho triathlete side of my brain to remain asleep past 3:30 in the flippin' morning. Seriously, I have done two Ironman training programs with key morning training sessions without ever being awakened by an alarm clock. I never use an alarm because I never need one . . . because I always wake up.

Always.

Even when I don't have to.

Even when I don't want to.

Which brings me to another point--the flip side of rest week. Unlike toddlers, psycho triathletes aren't happy unless they are hungry, exhausted, and on the move. That is me in spades. I'm a midget when it comes to racing, but I am a giant in training. I LOVE to train. So the flip side of Coach Kris, during the build weeks, suits me just fine.

Other plans I've followed had one rest day ever week, which always kind of annoyed me. Sure, I need reset, but I want to DO something. Coach Kris uses his Ouija Board or Magic Eight Ball or Divining Rods to give me something every day during the build weeks. I get recovery by Coach Kris' mix of intensities and the mix of swim/bike/run. And instead of piling all the key workouts into the weekend, I actually have some key sessions during the week, meaning more key sessions and better recovery between the sessions.

I think our only problem, Coach Kris and me, is that I don't speak "swim." He does speak the polyglot swim dialect, and he doesn't always stick to the glossary of "swimming terms" that he sent me. I'm not sure what kind of alchemy goes into swim coaching, but instead of saying, "swim longer and faster than last week," you get a lot of numbers and "@" signs and "s/dr/k by 50s" and "desc 1-4." I usually get the gist of it, but sometimes you just gotta e-mail and say, "WTH?"

He hasn't laughed at me.

Yet.

To my face.

All this is making me better, I can feel it. However, I have yet to show it in a performance.

But, Ironman 70.3 at Buffalo Springs Lake is a week from Sunday. It is a hard course that I have raced twice, but never very well. I'm starting to feel like I am a hard athlete. I'm starting to dream crazy numbers. Do I dare even say them out loud? Write them down?

Hmmmmmmm.

Race Ready--if I can walk

I can totally tell that my fitness is getting sharp, because the fitter I am, the harder it is to get out of bed in the morning, pull myself out of a chair or haul my carcass out of my tiny car. By that measure, I'm the second coming of Dave Scott, because I'm stiff, sore, cranky and tired.

I blame Coach Kris (and I can only assume he will want some credit if I PR). He has not increased my training volume, but the volume and intensity of the running has ramped up, presumably getting me ready for the Cap Tex Olympic Distance Triathlon on Memorial Day. With Coach Kris' permission, I'll give you a little taste of the running of the hounds this past week or so.

Begin with Thursday night's track workout--nothing too crazy, just warmup, striders and then 8x400m above 5k pace with 200m recoveries. But add in the wussy factor, the liquid heat of Houston air, and the fact that I only max out at 185+ beats per minute on my heart rate, and the torture session looks something like this:



Two days later was the brick workout plus Mother's Day Mall Shopping in the jungle that I described here. Running off the bike in 91+ humid degrees is a unique pleasure here in the Gulf Coast.

Then was The Mother's Day Massacre--twice around the Rice Campus/Hermann Park Zoo loop with an added out and back to tack on time.



The workout was supposed to be 1:40:00 of long running with 3 to 4 times 6 minute intervals up into heart rate zones 4-5a. There are Five Zones? Sersly? Who knew?

When you're a long and slow diesel like me, that translates to "run harder until it kinda sucks a lot." Here's what that looks like:



I elected to do the intervals near the start of the run, relying on Scuba Steve and Coach T to join me for the last 45 minutes of the run to pull me through to the end.

Then, this morning was another rumble in the jungle. The weather was so schwetty in the Bayou City that my shoes were flinging water by the end of what I'll call the "Wonky 10K." The Holy Prophet of Training Peaks described the workout as "BT: Surges. Warm up. On a 10k course run 2 minutes (recover for 1 minute), 1 minute (recover 30 seconds), 30 seconds (recover 30 seconds) at ~5k pace. Repeat for entire course. Cool down."

Uhm, yeah. Cool down. This is Houston. Cool is not going to happen again until October.

I used a modified out and back on Buffalo Bayou:


And the data looks like this:


Scientifically, all those lines and the high heart rates translate to, "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" By about the 5th or 6th 2 minute interval, I was suffering acute booty lock when I tried to pick up the pace. And with an average heart rate above my anaerobic threshold, and a max hear rate in the 170s, it was a painful way to start the day--and not even that fast.

But I am told that that which does not kill me will only make me stronger. Apparently, Coach Kris is willing to test the hypothesis, although I am not yet sure whether I am getting the actual therapy or whether I am the "kill 'em" control group.

Thank goodness the taper has begun.

10 Risks Of Swim Training At L.A. FATness

Long time readers will know that I used to swim in the beautiful, outdoor, saline pool at the Woodlands Athletic Center. I joined as part of the masters group, but I also had privileges to swim any ole' time I wanted. Alas, the WAC is no more. True, the local school system has built a natatorium that would exceed the facilities at many a university; but, I can only use that when the masters are practicing, not for individual swim practice.

When the WAC closed, I was forced to join yet another gym in order to have access to a pool within a reasonable distance of my house. Apparently the "Think Method" of swim training--wherein you just imagine you are a really good swimmer--does not work. Who knew?



The pool that is closest to my home is the local "L.A. Fitness" a/k/a L.A. FATness. It has an adequate, 25 meter, indoor pool, and it opens at 0500 in the morning, so it has become logistically very easy to get in the swim workouts before work. That said, there are certain dangers and risks to swimming regularly at L.A. FATness, and I thought I would put them out there, sort of as a public service. No need to thank me, I'm just here to help.

1. STEROIDS: Apparently, steroids is a danger amongst the population of middle-aged, hairy, iron-pumping, 40% body fat male clientele because there is a "STEROIDS WARNING" posted in bold type in the locker room warning me that my wang might shrink and my boobies might grow. Again, who knew?

2. Heat prostration: While it is definitely easier to slip right from bet to the tepid waters of L.A. FATness than it was to brave the cold pool deck at the WAC, swimming a couple of sharp 100s will make you sweat--inside the pool.

3. Objects are slower than they appear: If you swim at L.A. FATness, you can quickly develop a distorted view of your swimmy luciousness. Yesterday, for example, I was fingertip drilling across the pool in my slowest, easiest and most efficient glide and I went right by someone flailing out 25s at about 30 strokes per length. My tiny brain, for a moment, thought, "wow, I rock"--until I remembered that the better measuring stick is the masters group, where it often appears that I'm swimming in super slo mo as others glide Phelps-like to and fro.

4. Swimming in disinfectant: L.A. FATness has developed a prophylactic measure to be taken against swine flu. Swim in their pool. It has the taste, smell, clarity and viscosity of a bottle of Clorox. If you have any living organism on you, it will die upon entering the pool. If you swim more than three time per week, you will fade, more than 5 times a week, expect to completely disappear.

5. Hair Dryers: I don't use a hair dryer. The only hair it is appropriate to blow dry is the hair on one's head, and mine is cropped so short it needs neither drying nor coming. At L.A. FATness, however, there are two problems: 1) John Edwards wannabees with copious feathered locks c1985; and 2) hairdryers are apparently used to dry hair folicles in nooks and crannies of all sorts south of the Mason-Dixon line.

And just FYI, the crop top muscly girls that are in the L.A. FATness artwork, or the incredible butterfly swimmer dude--never seen them at the club. Never.

6. Simulated Open Water Swimming: I suppose I should thank swimming-trunks-IM-guy for the excessive turbulence he creates when heaving his prodigious girth through 5x100 IM on the 5:00. His butterfly, in particular, turn the little L.A. FATness pool into a terrifying ocean swim. But the L.A. FATness water tastes like a combination of bleach, rubber and White Rain hairspray. I need to improve my open water skills, but would prefer to do so without choking on eau d'jazzercize.

7. You ain't all that: Like speed, your perception of duration will be warped upon swimming at L.A. FATness. If you swim a 60 minute workout, some of the other lanes will empty twice before you're done, as the L.A. FATness crowd swims their 500 meters of floaty breast stroke and head-up length of freestyle. Before you throw out a shoulder patting yourself on the back, Greyhound, remember that the transition area is still devoid of bikes when you emerge from the water.

8. Elevators: I know it is probably required by the American With Disabilities Act, but L.A. FATness has an elevator to the second floor loft where the cardio equipment is. And every time I am there, I see people taking the elevator up one story -- avoiding the stairs on their way to do "cardio." HUH????


9. Showers That Save The Earth: L.A. FATness is doing its part to save the planet, in this case by using the aerating shower heads that turn a dribble of water into a dribble of water and air. Corporate Fat Cats and Robber Barons like me, however, cannot make it through the day if we have not pillaged the earth by pasting ourselves to the other side of the shower with a fire hose of hot shower water.

10. No Excuses: If it is too easy to skip masters, it is also too easy to swim. There is NEVER any excuse to skip Coach Kris' swim sessions. It shows up in your e-mail box, and you know it must be done. L.A. FATness calls.

Now, this is an interactive medium. Some of your favorit gym training risks go in the comments.

Man On Wire

"This is your life, and it's ending -- one minute at at time."
--Fight Club

What a whirlwind the last couple of weeks have been. I'm usually pretty good at balancing training and working and family, keeping all the plates spinning and keeping all the balls in the air. But the thing is, when you live like that, there is very little margin for error. If the work creeps up ever so slightly, you start not to eat quite right or you lose a little sleep, and you miss a snack, and all of life starts to feel anaerobic. You never quite recover before the next interval. Everything starts to hurt a little more, you lose all intensity, your hobby starts to feel like a job and your job starts to feel like a sentence.

My job ramped up--in a massive way. One court hearing before the MS150 (brought about by bush league, chicken shit lawyering on the other side of the case) resulted in them spilling their guts on the courtroom floor when they realized the supposedly damaging document they were using as a prop was actually the wrong contract.

Then race home to fix quinoa and black beans for the peeps who were riding the MS150 with me.

Then watch a horrible looking storm front roll through and wonder whether Saturday was going to be rideable.



Then get up at o'dark thirty to fix breakfast for the peeps and see if we can ride.




Then drag them out to a ride start that did not occur because the lightening started just when we arrived--and I'm stressing about getting everyone out of bed and not showing them a good time (as if I can control the weather).


Then drive to Bastrop and settle for mere trainer rides when I wanted to ride across Texas with the peeps.

Then have the awesomest time ever with Terra Castro who came out to provide massages for the peeps. Best dinner conversation and smiles all around. Peeps are happy. Greyhound host is very happy.



Then ride through some of the toughtest wind ever on Sunday to finish up the ride.

Then race back to Houston so I could prepare to fly out on Monday morning to San Antonio for ANOTHER court hearing

Then two days of preparation and more bloodletting on the courtroom floor with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals actually laughing at the other side's argument.

Then back to Houston where I missed my swim workout. (But thank God its a recovery week)

Then got three more appellate cases to put on the docket.

And I've got another brief due this week and two next week.

And all the while trying to be helpful (or at least not unhelpful) as Superpounce prepares for a very stressful piano performance

And looking at a full calendar of things to come

And it starts to feel that I'm not only a man on a hire wire doing a balancing act, but that I'm joined with a squad of ADD Spartan Cheeleaders bouncing up and down on my balancing pole while looking for their next hit of methamphetamine.

But at least I haven't spiraled into a multiple personality alter-ego bent on "project mayhem" or some other such stunt aimed at sticking it to the man and finding that primal man-ness that my generation has lost as nature's "middle children."

Oh. Wait.

Who is this guy who's life feels incomplete if he doesn't do 3 swims, 3 runs, 3 bikes and 2 strength sessions every week? What's that all about, Mr. Tyler Durden?

OK, so maybe I am a little "Fight Clubby" if you peel back enough layers on this triathlon thing. But you know what is not adding to the stress? This is the first year that I have someone doing the thinking for me. Someone else is watching the numbers and charting the workouts, and it is so much easier just to open the e-mail or sign onto Training Peaks, see what Coach Kris has on tap for the day, and just do it.

I used to think age group coaching was oh-so pretentious, or only for the fast kids, or not worth the money. Boy was I wrong.

If you really want to enjoy this sport to the fullest, get a coach.

Get.
A.
Coach.

Did Clark Kent Take Naps?

This week, Coach Kris must have decided that I don't shower near enough, nor do enough laundry, nor change clothes with enough frequency, because today I get a lot of practice in all of these disciplines.

Coach Kris bellied up to the Ironman bar and ordered me a drink, saying, "make his a triple." The day started at LA FATNESS for a swim that left my ears ringing--work set consisting of 2x700m negative split each and descend. The fat, hairy, swim-trunk-festooned late-sleepers must have wondered why the skinny, hairless little man was weeping on the side of the pool. Then . . .

Shower, change clothes and repeat.

Mid day will be strength training with the Serbian Overlord, MIKI, whose kettlebell routine was rejected by the Obama Administration because it did not meet the guidelines for humane interrogation under the Army Field Manual. Then . . .

Shower, change clothes and repeat.

AND, in the evening, it will be time to bike a little. Not too much, just enough to get another set of clothes really sweaty so that I can . . .

Shower, change clothes and repeat.

Meanwhile, I am turning an Audi into a locker room, because there are no more telephone booths in which to change back and forth from Clark Kent to Superman, I'm getting frequent flyer miles on my washing machine, and I'm wondering where I can get back that hour of sleep I lost this weekend in switching from normality to Daylight Sleepiness Time.

Do you think Clark could nap in those telephone booths?

Half-Fast

If you take up triathlon, you will find that the sport has a way of regularly humbling you. With three sports involved, hardly anyone starts the sport being stellar at all three, and no matter how much you improve, there is always something to work on. Yesterday was a day of humility at Trigreyhound training central. To explain:

The picture set out above shows what a good triathlon coach and a nagging spouse have in common: both will zero in on your weaknesses ( a coach may call them "limiters") and they'll just pick pick pick pick pick. I can already tell that Coach Kris is going to be a good triathlon coach for me because he's been picking on my swimming.

Good swimmers are tall, lithe people with looooooonnnnng arms and legs, ginourmous hands and feet, broad shoulders, with power and muscle memory born of staring for long hours at the black line on the bottom of the pool from the time they were 6 or 7 years old. I am the opposite of all these things. I am a short, stiff person with stocky arms and legs, tiny hands and feet, narrow shoulders and a lack of power and muscle memory born of neglecting pool practice until I was 39 years old.

As a result I swim the opposite of fast--that is slow, or maybe half-fast. And in the past, I have typically avoided sets and time trials that put a stopwatch on exactly how half-fast I am swimming, because swimming fast is hard. It is anaerobic and it makes the whole body burn. Pain might be just weakness leaving the body, but I am pretty comfortable in my weakness.

But Coach Kris dislikes comfort and abhors weakness--at least that is what I gather from the pick pick pick pick pick pick at my swimming. Having completed three seasons of triathlon races and two Ironmans, I have never EVER put myself through a time trial in the pool. Coach Kris, however, has put me through two sets of time trials in the last four weeks. The second set of time trials was the evil surprise he had for me on Thursday: 800m TT and 400m TT

So, Thursday morning I girded my loins, ate a good breakfast, channeled my inner-Michael-Phelps (sans bong) and did my best. I thought I could be slightly faster than twice the time for the world record at each distance, even swimming short course without a flip turn, and I was. But you swimmers would be shocked at how much effort it took to go even that half-fast. Suffice it to say that there was much weakness leaving the body during that effort.

And then, just to add a side of indignity with my sadness bowl, Miki--the Serbian Strength Coach--decided he wanted to take the calipers to me to measure my body composition. He was grabbing horrifying amounts of adipose tissue to measure with the calipers, and it is sad to say that I am no longer the fat free salad dressing that I was three years and six pounds ago. Sure, I probably have some more muscle mass too, but according to the numbers, my midriff has been injected with four pounds of Baconnaise. According to John Stewart of the Daily Show, this is a uniquely American combination of bacon and mayo for the slacker who wants heart disease but is just too lazy to make his own bacon.



I can't wait to sign onto training peaks and get my program from Coach Kris for the next four weeks, because this has got to stop.

Progress Report--Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger.

Ahhhhhhh. Recovery week. The first three weeks of training from Coach Kris are in the books, and today the Training Peaks God e-mailed that I'm supposed to recover--no exercise, maybe get a massage, put my feet up.

Let it be written. Let it be done.

The Training Peaks God has something awful planned on Thursday, but I'm trying hard not to think about that today. I'm just going to glory in the late-sleeping, fully hydrated luxuriousness of no two-a-day workouts, and super easy training throughout the week . . .

With the exception of the workout that shall not be named on Thursday morning.

But that's not today.

In the last three weeks, Coach Kris had me switch out of post-marathon recovery and into three-sport training. The running has continued to be light, with only one quality workout per week. The swimming has mostly kicked my butt--awesome sets that really targeted my weakest discipline. And the cycling has gone from ez spinning up to a 50 mile ride this past Saturday. Coach took me safely from zero up to 13 hours of training this past week.

I've completed all the workouts with the exception of two that were scrubbed the day I did some VO2 Max testing. And I mostly hit the training goals and levels of effort prescribed by the Almighty Training Peaks. And it all happened during a very busy work season, including an all day court hearing with no break for lunch. So, I give myself somewhere between an B+ and an A-.

But while I'm giving out grades I have to single out two persons seen "on the road" in Houston for a special edition of "Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger."

Hall Of Fame

For this training cycle, my nomination to the Hall Of Fame goes out to Grampa Grocery Rider, seen yesterday at the HEB on I-45 and Rayford Road. I don't know his name, but this dude makes the hall of fame easily. Grampa walks with a cane and must be 70 years old if he's a day, but he rode his three-wheeled pedal cruiser to the grocery store and put his shopping in the back basket where the two American Flags were attached. (Meanwhile the parking lot was filled to capacity with SUVs driven by people who obviously need the extra horsepower to cart around their prodigious girth.) Gramps had a bike helmet for safety, but his kids need to get him some proper kit. He wore a red, windbreaker jacket with the word "STOP" stenciled on the back in black, magic marker. But he's in the game. Good on you, G-man. Tip 'o the Greyhound's chapeau.

Hall Of Shame

This training cycle, my nomination to the Hall Of Shame goes to the worst, post-race bling violation I have ever seen. It was one of those moments, out running one Sunday morning, when I did a double take and wondered, "Did I really just see what I think I just saw?"

I did.

There is much discussion about the written and unwritten rules for proper usage, time, place and manner for finisher's medals and other post-race bling. There are some things that are black and white (e.g., "Thou Shalt Not Wear A Finisher's Shirt For A Race In Which Thou Didst Not Participate Or In Which Thou Didst Not Finish Unless You Are Homeless And Said Shirt Was A Donation") and there are some that are shades of grey (e.g., "Do you wear your finisher's medal from the Disney Marathon in the park to exchange knowing glances from the other participants, or does that make you a git? Only the day of the race? What about the next day? Only if it's your first marathon? hmmmmm.") What I saw, however, falls outside the lines.

I was running in a swanky neighborhood, early on a Sunday morning, when I saw a portly man riding a mountain bike approaching me on the road. "Fine," I'm thinking. "At least the sedentary man is out moving, even if he is spinning a mountain bike on the streets around his neighborhood at 10 mph. Good for him. Don't be an elitest jerk."

But then I see that below his visored helmet, his facial hair and his double chins, he's wearing

A Finisher's Medal.

I kid you not. The elitest jerk in me wanted to blow a whistle and throw the flag for flagrant race bling violation.

He was wearing his post race bling--not a technical fabric finisher's shirt, but a finisher's medal, which has no training purpose.

Not after a race.

Not at the race site.

Not even at the post-race feed during which mandatory war stories and tales of daring do are customarily exhanged.

But wearing a finisher's medal. On Sunday morning. In the neighborhood. On a mountain bike, which was not being ridden on trails, but on a suburban street at 10 mph. This is the suburban equivalent of beginning every casual conversation with the words, "Hey, baby. Did I ever tell you that I did an Ironman? Wanna see my tattoo?"

Not that I would ever do such a thing. That would be wrong.

Wag of the finger.

Clap Your Hands!!

If you looked at my training log or surveyed the 590 posts that make up this blog, you could very easily come to the conclusion that I, like Peter Pan, don't want to grow up, that I'm running a futile race against Father Time and old age.

You'd probably be right. If you think I'm infected with a wee touch of the Peter Pan syndrome, I might have to plead guilty. Strike that. I know I'd have to plead guilty. I am not exactly "old" and I know a lot of accomplished athletes much older than I am who regularly ridicule me when I talk about feeling old. But it stung a bit when Coach Kris was interviewed on Episode 18 of the Tac Boy and Bigun Podcast. He described me several times with a variety of euphemisms that connote "aging man trying to recapture the athleticism of his youth, which never really existed in full flower except in his mind."

OK, it wasn't that bad, but I genuinely loathe being 42 years old. Well, that's not exactly true. I love having a 42 year old's job and income and station in life. It rocks not having to work in a warehouse or bus tables, both of which I have done. And I love being stable and established and having an 11 year old daughter who's as cool as the day is long.

But I wish I had more time. I wish I'd been doing triathlon in my 20s and 30s. I missed out. And I prefer hanging around with younger people rather than losers my age who waddle around the golf course and talk about the miserable state of their 401k's. I want it all--youth and fun and time to live it up combined with maturity and experience and money to live it up with. Is that asking too much? Apparently.

So, Peter Pan? Yes. Guilty. But that's not the reason I put Peter Pan at the top of this post. I chose the picture because of what's in his hand: Tinker Bell.

I thought of Tinker Bell during Coach Kris' interview on the podcast, not because Coach Kris is a fairie--not that there's anything wrong with that. The podcast interview kept talking about how an athlete has to believe in the coach, have faith that the coach knows what he's doing and that he'll get you to the goal. All I could think of was that portion of the Broadway musical, Peter Pan, where Tinkerbell is dying because no one believes in fairies anymore. Peter coaxes the audience to bring her back to life by "clapping if you believe in fairies."

Well, I believe. I question and needle and probe and make sure that I understand what's going on, but I'm clapping while I do it. I believe. If Coach Kris says 1 hour in zone 2, Coach Kris gets one hour. If he says 30 minute ez run, and time runs out six blocks from home, I'm walking the rest of the way.

Coach Kris writes it down. I do it.

Makes the whole Ironman thing a lot simpler and less stressful. Now if I could get my rapidly-approaching-teenage-years daughter to fully appreciate the beauty of "because I said so."

Well, just every once in a while. She wouldn't be any fun without the spirit.

Anyway, I've done it on my own before, and it ain't all that special. I know my body, but Coach Kris knows Ironman. So, I am clapping. Because I believe.

Slippery When Wet and Reader Poll

When I woke up this morning I thought I had the flu.

Or maybe I had been in a prize fight and had been pummeled so convincingly that I had no memory of the event.

I had noticed a little stiffness in my neck when I lay down last night, but upon waking, it was seriously one of those "WTF?" moments.

(For those readers of a more refined and gentle nature, "whiskey tango foxtrot" or "wow, the flubber")

I didn't have any of that awful disc pain referring to arms and legs etc. from when she who shall not be named sabotaged our SOMA bet by goading me into over training and rupturing my widdow neck disckies. But all the stability muscles that hold up my gigantic brain-filled dome, along with the lower back, were in painful seizure and rebellion. It was half-way through my swim this morning before I even figured out why. The puniest, most inconsequential little bike topple had given me a mild case of the whiplash.

Yesterday morning, doing an easy spin around the park, I forgot to keep the rubber side down. Actually, there was a very thin sheen of water on the road, enough to bring the oil to the surface, so that the smoothest parts of the pavement had the friction coefficient of black ice. Combine that with some fairly slick, high mileage tires and an effort to slow prudently at a stop sign, and there was nothing to be done.

I was slowing and probably moving at less than 10 mph when the back tire came around, cut in line, and decided it would like to proceed first down the road--sideways. The bike, Jessi S. Cannondale, and I slid down in a delicate heap. I landed on my bum and side, pretty well kept my chin tucked, and skidded along the slick roadway for a bit. No cars were behind me (thankfully) and if my head hit the pavement at all, I don't remember feeling the blow through my helmet. In fact, it was so inconsequential, I just picked myself up, remounted, finished the ride, and thought nothing more of it.

Until this morning, halfway through the swim when I finally went, "DUH. Neck hurts. Bike wreck. Nobel prize for medecine."

But I finished my swim.

And I hit my splits.

Because Coach Kris wrote it down in the plan; let it be written, let it be done.

Because that's the Ironman way.

Or at least it's the highly anal, lawyer-guy way.

To be completely safe (and to keep doing my bit for the economy) I should probably replace my skid lid, just in case it did whack the pavement as my head snapped back. So, again, if you ride a bike, it's time to weigh in:

What's the awesomest, iron-worthy, most legendary, bitchin' bike helmet on the planet? High viz is a plus because many of my rides during the week are before dawn.

Iron? Pfffft.

So, yeah. There's a bike leg in Ironman. And I haven't ridden since, oooooohhhh, October. So I got out on the bike for the first time in the last couple of days, and although they say "you never forget," my legs were not down with the whole bike thing. It wasn't so much that they hurt, but more like they had a "Scotty" moment.

"Scotty, we need more power."

"I cannaugh dooooit, Cap'n. Thah't's uhllll she's goht. The dilythium c-r-r-r-r-r-rystal-l-l-l-ls r-r-r-r-r-r dooon."

The pain involved with biking this week was not "Peter Pain," but you're in the right zip code. After biking Wednesday morning, Coach Kris had me on the trainer this morning, and my arse did NOT like it one bit.

Owie.

I used to be a hardass. I rode both my Ironman races in tri-shorts. You could say that ALL of THIS MAN was made of Iron.

Now? Not. So. Much.

So, yeah, the MS150 is in 72 days, and I've ridden a fraction of the distance with no great comfort. This is going to leave a mark.

Preseason

What? Was there a sporting event of some kind yesterday?

Oh, that.

The end of the football season with some kind of contest with a ball. Yeah. I remember. I think I saw some of that.

But when you live in a house with two girls, neither of whom are football fans, sitting alone in your living room with your light beer and teams you don't follow in a sport you generally don't watch loses some of its allure. Great game, sure. But for tri-geek-hound, this weekend was the beginning of preseason, not the end of football season.

Ironman Cozumel is now 299 days away. And this time it's going to be different.

This time, I want more than just to survive the distance. I want to race, if only myself. I want to be in the fat part of the bell curve, not a tail end Charlie. And I want to maximize my potential in all three disciplines, swim, bike and run.

So, I've gone and hired me a coach and volunteered to be the lab rabbit on the Tac Boy and Bigun Podcast. And already its changed things. Why? Well I'm glad you asked.

Things have changed because I hired Kris Swarthout of SCS Multisport, which you can find at SCSMultisport.com. (You can find a link to his website and for his e-mail in the sidebar)

And let me tell you, Coach Kris at SCSMultisport.com is a freakin' genius. My workouts started on February 1, and just look how Coach Kris from SCSMultisport.com was able to improve my swimming with just one swim workout.

Here is actual video of me at the natatorium before being coached by Coach Kris from SCSMULTISPORT.COM:




Greyhound Before

And here is video taken this morning after completing just one, remarkable swim set from . . . .










(wait for it)










SCSMULTISPORT.COM

(subtle, non?)






Greyhound After

I mean, just look at me go! I totally rock now, thanks to Coach Kris at SCSMultisport.com. He has guaranteed that I will PR my Ironman, and shoot, I'll probably qualify for Kona on minimal training.

'Cause I totally rock now that I have a coach.

OK, so actually, most of that is not true.

I have to train.

And actually, I still only rock when compared to the long-trunk-wearing-one-length-at-a-time-wildly-kicking-morbidly-obese-New-Year's-resolutionists who are currently visiting the pool for the first time.

But I have hired Coach Kris, and I do think he rocks. This is the first triathlon coach I've ever had, and even in two workouts, I've already noticed a difference. The difference is significant enough that I'd already recommend a coach to anyone doing an Ironman. I'm no longer working out in a vacuum. I feel more accountable for hitting my marks and doing my sets. The details are important, and good enough isn't good enough.

With Ironman as with many other things, the devil is in the details. You don't get to the start line of an Ironman by making a resolution or a leap of faith, but in the daily grind, one stroke at a time. I'm glad to have someone else planning those strokes and holding me accountable.