My Giant Bike Collection

My bike collection. Dusting them off to get the riding season going.

Planning to get my blog more active this summer.

How not to swim

It has been a little over a year since I had a video of my swim. So I took the swimfit people up on their video session last night.

While my swimming has improved tremendously over last year in July, when I took my first adult swim lessons with TI in Chicago, I still have a looooonng way to go to swim like Michael Phelps :)

The first thing that we noticed on my first run, was that I am making circles with my stroke, a big no no. You see this means that I am pushing down on entry and pulling up on exit. You want to make motions in a linear fashion like climbing a ladder, with all of your effort going to pulling you forward.

You could see bubbles coming off on my hands on my entry which indicated that I was pushing down. I see now how using paddles can be effective in helping to correct this. George told me that once I start to pull until I exit on my stroke, my finger tips should be pointed at the bottom of the pool.

Also my flexibility came up again, only this time in connection with my upper body inhibiting my ability to stroke properly.

In addition, I need to keep my hands consistently wide on my catch and stroke, plus I of course need to be overall more balanced in the water, and keep my legs together with shorter scissor kicks to improve my streamlining.

Oh yeah, I am keeping my head to low which is driving my feet down as well.

The fix - kicking with my arms at my side (with or without fins) and rotating side to side, breathing without stroking.

Time my hip rotation a bit sooner with my stroke

Catch up drill or some form of front quadrant swim drill

lots and lots of slow deliberate stroking with my elbows high in the water

Stretch, stretch and then stretch some more.

Hopefully a year from now I will be able to look back and see the same improvement that I have seen since last July and be swimming a lot less Rock like!

Until next time

Michael

Sport Legs!!

It has been almost 2 months now since I got out of my SHOE, and I have to say, my comeback has been suprisingly easy!

Not to say that my training has been easy, it has been filled with hard sprints, hard rides, being dropped by the group, low blood sugar, hills and thrills! (the usual) But my progress has been tremendous.

With one week until I start running again, I can look at a lot of inspiring accomplishments on the bike and in the pool over the summer.

Let's start with the water, since often I am less than inspired with my performance in this area,,,,, it is just disheartening to see a 90 year old woman swim twice the distance that I do in an hour :)

The positive side is that I did a personal best 50 last month at 57 seconds and seem to get stronger every time that I get in the pool. My kick is becoming more effective as my flexiblity increases and hopefully will continue to improve.

I swam twice in Lake Michigan this summer, not the amount of times that I wanted to plus I have yet to visit the Lake Monsters in Chicago, but wetsuit season is here and I plan to make the pilgrimage yet this fall before things Ice over up there.

Now for the bike. I modified my OCR2 road bike even more this summer, upgrading to Ultegra shifters, cassette (11-28)and rear derailer, Gore cables, Dura Ace chain and front derailer, saving a grand total of 1.25 lbs and turning my bike into a 10 speed rear.

But even before I did the mods, I noticed that I was riding faster, with more endurance and more importantly climbing stronger. The only thing that I am doing really that much different from my pre injury time is sleeping more, like 9-10 hours per night on the average it seems. Which has caused me to miss a few swim workouts as I usually don't get home from my rides until late.

Another thing that I am doing different is fueling. Instead of trying to start with a relatively high BG say 200ish, I am shooting for more in the 120 range, eating a meal a couple of hours before my rides and then eating some fruit just before the start. In addition I am fueling with Motor Tabs www.motortabs.com which has only 18 carbs per liter that I mix. Also, I have really been concetrating on eating live food (no I am not talking about chicken or beef :)) but fresh fruits and vegetable, I am taking tryptophane as a sleep aid after particularly hard efforts along with my ReLiv mix and Arginine and ornathine to promote deep sleep and recovery.

Yesterday evening, I tried a new product called "Sport Legs" that claims to be able to improve performance by 11% well one of 2 things happened, either these little pills worked some sort of magic with me last night or skipping that morning swim workout in favor of eye surgery, paid off.

I rode with the Killer B group out of Nebo Ridge and finished on the front after 30 miles for the first time ever, about 8th at the end which included a couple of A's that we picked up along the way that got shelled off from that group. My average speed was my highest ever 21.9 mph for 30 miles!!

Likely it is a combination of all of the things that I am doing, but another thing I noticed when I went to stretch out (I have been stretching a lot lately so as to prevent another broken foot)

So I can't wait to start running next week (very carefully, slowly and with carefully measured increases in distance, warming up, cooling down and stretching out) I am very excited.

Stay tuned

Michael

80 miles Saturday

So I lead my first official JDRF group ride on Saturday.

It started off a little shaky with me not being able to print out any of the maps or cue sheets due to outdated Microsoft products on my computer and then getting my signals crossed thinking that the ride started at 8am when it actually was scheduled to start at 7:30am. So my planned 20 minute early arrival ended up being 10 minutes late.

But we were able to get underway pretty quickly once I got there and were on the road by 7:45am.

It was a great morning for a ride with the temp hovering around 60 degrees. We had a couple of missed turns to start with, as I had to adjust to the way the cue sheet was laid out by coach Alex. I had brought one with me that gave mileage point to point, but the official sheet was laid out as miles from the start to each turn. The good news is that the route was originally to be 78.5 miles and ended up being 80.5.

Danny, Kate, Kelly, Lisa, Sam and Tony were mostly good natured about the initial missed turns :) and as we headed north, worked well together in efforts to develop some critical skills for our Death Valley ride, including straight line drafting in a pace line, echelon formations for drafting in a cross wind and dual pace line to keep the pace higher in shifting wind conditions.

All in all it was a great training ride with the gang, a few aches and pains (my left foot started that burning thing, but I think a little glide on the affected areas might solve this dilemma) but no belly aches.

What is really the Truth?

Yesterday, I took a rest day. Not a planned day, but I got up at 4:30 checked my Blood Glucose, it was 176 (perfect for pre swim) but my throat was a little scratchy and I was very sleepy even after 8 hours of sleep.

So I told myself that I needed to take the morning off as I had done 2 swim workouts on Monday for a total of 3200 meters. I bolused for my BG and went back to sleep, waking up barely in time to make it to work on time with a 51 BG. Needless to say that after 11.5 hours of sleep, I did not completely wake up until I was all the way to work. (I ususally wake up pretty fast)

I told myself all day that I needed to get in the pool last night, but I had to help a friend with something that was not supposed to take long and I was going to swim right after that......wrong. No workout last night.

I stayed up and watched "Lost" the next to last episode, didn't get to bed until 10:30 after taking my night time, Reliv vitamin shake, woke up this morning on 6.5 hours sleep and had a great workout. 2200 meters in 1 hour 2 minutes. If I had not forgot my swim suit in the truck and had to make 2 elevator trips and crutch all the way back and forth twice, I would have had another 2-300 meters in the warmup. So I felt great.

We did ladders and I am getting a lot closer to making the times that they are asking of us. Even with my gimpy leg.

So what I did well this morning
1. Breathing was more relaxed
2. coughed under water when I choked while trying to breath. (getting good at that when it happens - it pays not to get rattled when you choke on water while swimming)
3. I seem to be getting a little faster.
4. good length
5. kept stroke in front quadrant
6. kick more compact

3 Things that I wish to improve on
1. Elbows high
2. Turnover
3. Less Splash in high turnover

my top 3 mental strengths
1. stayed focused on the short goal - every half way on the pool 25m
2. stayed focused through choking
3. visualized perfect stroke

2 mental areas that I would like to work on
1. not loosing focus on max effort at end of sprint - would like to intensify effort at that point
2. get out of bed with more of a can do looking forward to my swim attitude

One thing that I always no is that no matter how tired I may be at the end of any swim workout, I always am glad I did it. Every stroke brings me one step closer to my goals for swim times and makes me a better swimmer.

My broken foot always looks better after I am done swimming so, there must be some sort of therapeutic effect going on there as well.

Goal wise, I felt guilty taking yesterday off,, but I think that it really paid off today. I have been much better at taking my vitamins twice a day and am paying very close attention to my nutrition. Now if I could integrate my BGs into my BT training log so that I could have yet another visual to show me how I am progressing, life would be perfect (grin)

I am having a little trouble getting my stretching routime started back up, but it won't be long until I get that and mynew core workout in full swing.

Thanks for following and see you tomorrow ..... don't forget that you can check my progress by clicking on the title link of the blog

Peace

Michael

The Water Feels Great, Come on in!!

So, I took a week off after breaking my foot to let it get started on the mend before I jumped back into the water. While my ankle is a bit stiff from the swelling and feels like it needs the joint popped, the water was great and I think swimming is threaputic for injurys!

I keep track of my nutrition and training totals at Beginner Triathlete and I believe that you can view my progress and history just by following the link in the title. Please let me know if that does not work.

Part of my work with John Elsworth involves journaling and I am going to make this a part of this blog so that I can be consistent with both and kill 2 birds with one stone, same with the idea of linking to my BT training log.

So three things that I did well this morning were
1. got up with a positive attitude looking forward to getting in the water
2. did all of the intervals with the exception of kicks, with in the prescribed time limit
3. Good stroke technique

2 things to work on
1. effectiveness of kick - more compact, in box, point toes (tough right now) faster cycle, less flex in knees
2. turnover or stroke rate

Going Forward - tonight I am going to work on my stroke rate (I left my tempo meter sitting at the pool when I gathered my things, hopefully it will still be there or in lost and found tonight)

I was slowest in my lane again, but feel like all things considered I am improving, feel my grip on the water getting better, we did a few hundred meters of fist drill to work on using the whole arm in the stroke and I can feel that grip getting better all the time. I also have a tendency to pace instead of going all out and I am going to work on that as well tonight.

Well that's it for this AM.

I get knocked down but I get up again

It has been a long time since I have blogged. Sometimes it seems like this just gets put on the back burner of my priority list.

It has been November since I have blogged here and shame on me. I have posted my thoughts and notes on my Beginner Triathlete account in stead of this and from now on have resolved to just post a link to this blog and vica versa, to keep me accountable to those who have followed this blog (thank you)

Since November, I have broken my foot twice (the last time 8 days ago in the first mile of the Indianapolis Mini Marathon and the first time the day before Christmas. I have had 6 eye surgeries for Diabetic Retinopathy, lost most of the vision in my right eye in February, due to a hemorage. Developed tendonitis in my left ankle, and had my wisdom teeth removed. Had my training interupted for a solid 8 weeks due to that first foot break (the 4th metatarsel in my left foot.

Also, I have competed in one 15 K running event with a personal best time, one sprint triathlon, with a personal best time and one Olympic Triathlon with a personal best 10 K run and swim time in some adverse conditions. I also started my 4th Indianapolis Mini Marathon.

So here I sit with 2 broken bones in my left foot and planning my strategy for the summer. It has been said of 2 time heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, that he was the boxer that got knocked down the most, but what people remember about him is that he was the boxer who got up the most.

With this in mind, I am treating this current injury with a different view. First, I started by going to a Dr that gave me a lot of encouragement during my last injury about getting back on the run. Also I have in my plan more patience on the recovery along with some alternatives that should make me come back stronger. I will likely not compete in any event that involves running until 2011.

I have determined to focus on improving in all the areas that I am week (i.e. flexibility - likely the cause of my current condition, improving my swim, my mental race game...)

I also am going to blog on a daily basis and make that a priority, because if anyone is reading this it will keep me accountable.

My Dr has okayed me to swim as much as I like during my recovery, so I am sure that most of my posts will be swim specific during at least the next 4 weeks of recovery. I have drafted a plan that should help me to actually have a stronger more flexible core, by the time I start biking again and certainly by the time I start running.

My wonderful and lovely wife immediately came up with a brilliant Idea the day that I hurt myself, she said,"Honey, why don't you do Chi Walking for a few months to improve your form before you start running again, once you get out of the boot."

This is where I am, picking myself up from another knock down and going forward. Some of my goals have changed, in that thanks to the coaching of John Elsworth, my mental game coach, I can actually see myself on the podium when I come back, which by the way this injury is not a negative, it is a chance to come back better than I was before and to take what I have learned to make me a better competitor and athlete.

See you tomorow

Michael

into the spin zone

No, I have not entered profesional politics :)

I am encorporating spin classes into my winter/off season training.

Definitely learning some interesting things, such as
1. you should not feel your legs burning at 50% effort
2. you should not feel your legs burning at 60 % effort
3. you should not feel your legs burning at 70 % effort
4. you should not feel your legs burning at 80 % effort
5. you should just start to feel your leg muscles burning at 85% effort

Guess who thought his legs should have that burning sensation starting at say.... 60%,,,,,??? If you guessed Michael Schwab, you would be 100% right. Now that I have that figured out, I will probably still try to kill myself in every class (provided it is not on a recovery day) just because that is the kind of guy I am (grin)

After the spin class, I showered off the 3 gallons of sweat that came out of my body and jumped in the pool for an hour. I used the first 20 minutes just kicking and working out my balance, rolling to sweet spot to breath (sort of like freestyle only longer breath and no rythem to a stroke.

Then I used the rest of the time to work on my stroke at tempos ranging from 1/second to 1/1.3 seconds. A world of difference, believe me.

Some things I did well today on my swim include

1. balance better every time
2. better glide in tempo
3. improved grip on water
4. kicking from hips more
5. elbows higher on entry
   
   For improvement

1.higher elbows on entry

2.more patient front hand on breath stroke

Prudence is the better part of valor

Some times knowing when to quit is as important as sticking it out.

I woke up this morning feeling my heart beat from my left ear all the way down to my hip. I started out trying to tell my self to get up and get into the pool anyway and it turns out that I did the right thing by laying in bed and working to get my BG down from a good morning high of 458
Seems I have swimmers ear again and an infection on top of that. Melissa gave me a couple of Naxproxin and called the Dr for me to get me in Before work. .... Yes I still went to work, a brother needs to get paid :)

The Dr put me on Z packs and some ear steroids, along with a drying agent to clean up my left ear, which she said had a bulging eardrum from the infection. The good news is that as long as I wear my tight ear plugs, I can get back in the pool tomorrow.

I didn't run today as it was pooring down rain and I really felt awful all day.

On a positive note, I raced the metal man for 10 miles last night on the CT and only finished about 100 feet behind him. Woo Hoo

Good things about last nights ride
1. I improved my spin

2. I learned the importance of my spin for producing watts

3. I found out how much compression tights can improve your workout and recovery, plus the importance of graduated, zone compression. This apparently speeds muscle recovery, improves blood circulation, reduces lactate acid and allows me to perform at a higher level with decreased risk of injury!

4. saw the positive results from stopping momentarily (coasting in the real world) and allowing my muscles to reset for more continuous power output

5. got some good work on my aero position riding with a proper/more efficient spin

Areas for improvement
1. my spin especially at higher work loads. I need to involve the muscles in my inner back quads more for a stronger more sustainable spin. This will be a tremendous asset not only for raw power for extended sprints and climbing but for overall endurance, particularly on rolling courses.

2. my flexibility, so that I can stay aero more comfortably and spin more efficiently in that position, taking advatage of reduced resistance and still putting watts to the ground

Somethings new

OK so first of all, I am setting some goals, one of which is to post here, every day.

It can be time consuming, (mainly because I talk a lot and don't know when to stop :)) but I think it is an important part of my discipline to do this and have at least some sort of accountability to do this.

Some goals I have set for the week (started Friday actually) out of bed by 5:30 (yes that is AM) - which means I have to be asleep by 9:30Pm or sooner. So far so good, up at 4:30 on Friday (also part of the goal as I have a meeting at 6:45 on Friday mornings and I want to swim before hand every time.

Some other goals for the week, swim M-F for 1 hour before work. Run every single day with a long run on Saturday, Long Bike ride on Saturday, Computrainer workout M and W, and don't miss my vitamins on any day, twice per day, post every day here and include a daily log in a format provided by my mental game coach John Ellsworth http://mentaltoughnessnetwork.ning.com/

So far pretty good!

I went swimming this morning and first some positive things!

1. elbow height on entry improving

2. first time using my new tempo trainer and that was really swell, right on beat every stroke, with my rate set a 1 sec and 1.15 secs!

3. good balance even at the higher stroke rate, and LS breathing continues to improve

4. kicking is improving with a better feel for kicking from the hip, every time that I get into the water

5. reaching for the end of the pool consistently, while maintaining early entry on the catch

Good swim overall, I just need to ad to my goal of getting up at 5:30.....get out of the house by 6am M-T and by 5am on Friday, so that I have time to swim for a whole hour.

For improvement

1. Balance on right side (when breathing left on sweet spot drill)

2. Patient hand out front at all times, for improved length on my vessel, with more consistent front quadrant swimming

next workout focus (tomorrow)

1. Drill 200 yards (4 laps) on left side sweet spot with my goal to keep my head back (low in water) to maintain balance and not drink/breath in water. Will likely be able to accomplish this more efficiently by starting on the right side and paying attention to my position and how it makes this work.

OK so at lunch, I ran 3.1 miles and my Garmin Forerunner, (which I could have sworn was fully charged last night) decided to give me the dreaded battery low message, as soon as it fired up and locked in on the satelites. This gave me an opportunity to try to adapt and recover, from an unanticipated problem. I did good, but there is definitley room for improvement in this area.

I did my extimated (probably a little more than 3.1 miles) in 27 min 45 secs. What I actually calculated was 27 min 15 sec, but given that I did not decide to adapt until 2:30 into the run, my accuracy on this is up for debate. Plus the 17mph wind factor out of the east could not have done much for my actual time. So regardless pretty good run.

What I did well

1. did not get shook up when my Garmin checked out and did a little bit of premptive work to be able to have a record of what my performance was

2. kept on the beat like a machine for the second half of my run (85 BPM) used my gears to keep my pace up even when going directly into the wind. Was able to stride out long at the end and not rev it up

3. loose arm swing

4. good foot strike - felt right in the middle the whole time

5. Good linear rotation on my hips - maybe that fast time was totally acurate

Things to improve on.

1. faster turnover

2. keeping head up and focused attention ahead instead of down.

Focus next time - bring BPM up to 86 from the start - better preperation with Fore runner :)

The Week in reflection

So, I had some great swims this week, my form gets better every time that I get into the water.

The TI program that I took this summer really helped me and is helping me a lot.

When I am having difficulty, I am now able to analyze what is happening, figure out the problem and make adjustments to improve my stroke, posture, aerodynamics and breathing.

I made some real headway, my last time in the pool, even though it felt like an aweful workout. I was only able to get 1500 yards in an hour. I did spend most of it doing drills and made a lot of laps breathing only on my left side to try and figure out how to make my left side breathing smoother.

I finally figured out that the big difference between right and left was that I need to really breath over my left shoulder instead of to the side. That is what I do right and it keeps my head down, my body balanced and allows me to keep my right hand on target and avoid over rotating and ultimately sinking.

But what made me feel the best about this workout was that I swam a couple of laps at the end and did 49 second laps (lightning speed for me) it is very encouraging to see that kind of improvement.

Ok so I'm ready to R & R

No I'm not talking about rest and recover, I did that last week.

Only ran 4 miles and drilled in the pool Saturday for an hour. (not like with a drill, but I did drills).

Yesterday, I swam 1500 yds in an hour and today ended up crunched for time and only ended up doing 1000 yards but I did it in 37 minutes. I am getting a lot better feel for balance in the water. You want to be teetering on your armpit (read leaning on your armpit) because that is the fullcrum of your balance. I can tell that is getting better when I breath left as I am not sinking after I breath (near so much as I was a short time ago anyway)

I am still picking my head up instead of totally rolling for air on the left side but I am getting it right about 50% of the time now. My front quadrant stroke is getting much more consistent as well.

My focuses in the swim today were to

• keep my head down when breathing (I did great on the right and got better on the left)
• faster recovery on stroke (went very well)
• feeling my weight on my armpit (better all the time)
• anchoring my hand (first day I started trying this and did it about 25% of the time)
• drive relaxed hand to target ( about 90% on this and getting better)

Whew, that is a lot to think about! Also I usually rest and reset every 25 yards and today I felt the need to start building my swim endurance so I stretched that to every 50 yds. This should also allow me to get more yards in during the time that I have available. The trick is to imprint and not get myself so tired that I get sloppy.

Also I ran a little over 5k on my 30 minute lunch break today and that went really well.

My foot has been swollen for a couple of months now from my PF and even though the pain seems to be diminishing, it concerns me that I still am experiencing inflamation. My foot looked and felt a lot better today, before , after and during my run than it has in a long time.

My average pace was 9:26 and that included my warmup, plus I did a negative split with the second half coming in at 9:11 and my best pace 5:21. Never cracked zone 4 either so this was a pretty easy effort run.

planning to stretch out real good tonight after 30 minutes on the eliptical and icing and stretching for my left foot as well

So I am now ready to Rock and Roll Baby!!

Back in the swim

Ok, so I have had a little break after my DV ride. Thursday I ran 4 miles along the tow path starting at Hinkle fieldhouse, I was planning to run with Indy runners but apparently forgot to learn the secret handshake or something because I could not find them. So I ran by my self with several groups of college age people passing me and letting me know that I need to start picking it up if I am ever going to find my youth again. (grin)

I had come to the conclusion after the DV ride that I must be deficient in magnesium and that is the cause of my cramping episodes as well as the night cramps that I have had in my calves for over... a year and a half. So I did some online sleuthing and discovered that my best source is dark green vegetables.

Great,,, who has time for that, (i do my best to eat my greens but convenience, seasonal availabitlity of quality product and time can make the best of my intentions go south)

So I decided to find a supplement that would make things easier. It occured to me if dark green vegetables are the ticket then perhaps liquid Chlorophyll was the answer. I did some research and found that the vitamins and minerals contained in LC must be a deep dark mystery, as all of the websites that I found googling, "Liquid Chlorophyll nutritional information" only produced manufacturers sites making wonderous claims about the benefits one could gain or claiming that LC is as close to red blood cells as you can get...... like I want to drink blood!!

I finally found the following site http://www.energiseforlife.com/wordpress/2009/02/11/health-benefits-of-liquid-chlorophyll/
that was quite helpful and verified what I thought I would find, LC is an excellant source of magnesium. So I bought some and started loading my Reliv (multi vitamin, fiber, health food shake that I take) with the gross tasting green liquid.

Suprise, my legs felt better with in 24 hours and I am not having night cramps in my calves for the first time in .... a long time.

Oh yeah, back in the swim

So today, I went swimming for an hour, spending my time working on some focuses that I really need to get imprinted in order to take my swimming to the next level.

Key focuses

• balance - the ability to keep my body level in the water with minimal kicking
• staying long - pointing toes while kicking, keeps my kick powerful and efficient, and stroking in the front quadrant, never letting both of my hands come back lower than the top of my head at the same time, in fact keeping them out as far as I can while stroking
• breathing - breathing out through my nose continually while my head is under the water, to promote normal intake and expulsion of air, plus keeping my head down when I roll to breath, so as not to upset my balance.

So how did I do?

• I swam about 1100 yards total either 25yds at a time or 50 between short breaks
• I did 150 yards just kicking to warm up and get myself centered on my balance and posture
• I swam the rest in underswitch (not pulling my hands above the water) and over switch (hand out of water but fingertips dragging)

I was able to improve on all 3 of the above points and learned that I need to improve on or do the following.

1. I need faster recovery on my stroke - I will stroke down to my deep pocket position (picture the Michael Jackson crotch grap) which serves well to propel me along with my 2 beat kick. The issue is that I am slow to bring my hand back on top for the entry and catch. I need to finish my stroke instead of stoping at MJ position.
2. when I breath left, I need to keep my head down. I have to rotate a little farther for this, but I keep lifting my head, which throws off my balance, causes me to sink, and makes it difficult to keep my mouth clear long enough to breath and bleeds off my momentum. I was getting better at this by the end. I think it will take a lot of hours to imprint keeping my hand on target and my head down for that left breath, but I am committed to making it a no brainer
3. I need to make an hour per day 5 days a week my minimum and 2 hours on Saturday until I can accomplish the above.

All in all a really good work out! Every time I get in the pool, my goal is to become a better swimmer and I can definitely say, Mission accomplished this time arround

Well they don’t call it Death Valley for nothing.

If I didn’t learn anything else this year, I came to the realization that no matter how many times I ride this route from Furnace Creek to Jubilee Pass it will be hard and potentially dangerous.

I had been having stomach issues for a couple of days leading up to the event, with some pretty serious cramping on the tune up ride during the climb to Zabriskie point the day before.

Needless to say, I was not totally on my game when we lined up at the start Saturday morning. My BG was higher than I wanted it to be (327 from a 125 when I woke up) so I was a little on the queasy side.

We staged to far forward, the backed us up we staged again and they took our pictures, we waited, sang the national anthem and finally as the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, we took off.

I left in the first wave and tried to latch on to the Novo Nordisk Rocket train for the 18-mile ride to the first checkpoint at Badwater, but they went out and up a little too fast for me.

I had some severe leg cramp issues 3 weeks before on a training ride at Morgan Monroe, so I had decided that I was going to do my level best to stay out of my zone 4 until I started the climb to Jubilee. (For me this means less than 137 heart rate)

Needless to say, when the train split into 3 groups, I was in the third. At first it was me and three Novo riders Chuck, Bill and Rob, but just before we got to Badwater, I looked over my shoulder and said to them, “Either we have a real fast rider coming up or we have a motorcycle back there.” The next thing I knew, Bonnie had joined our pace line, pulling away as we pulled into Badwater.

A quick fuel, dehydration break, grabbed some GU and checked my BG now down to 91 and we were back on the course. I got gapped a little bit out of the CP but I was soon able to make it up and caught the group again on the first descent.

I had heard on the radio at Checkpoint 1 that they had 22 people through the checkpoint as we were arriving and we soon found one of them on the horizon that had been dropped off the NN B-group. It was Tim from Wisconsin.

We reeled him in and now we were 6! I realized in the rollers that to stay out of zone 4 and hang on to this group, I was going to have to be very careful not to pull to long or at the wrong places, as they were cooking along pretty strong. (Still a 19+ mph avg at Mormon Point.) So I became a major wheel sucker.

Somewhere along the way, Karsten, another Novo rider joined the group We were still looking strong heading to the Ashford Mills check point at the bottom of the climb to Jubilee pass, when the wind began to kick up and slow us down a bit. That was the bad news; the good news was that we would hopefully have that same wind at our back part of the way home.

We talked it over heading into Ashford mills and decided that we were probably going to get spread out on the climb to Jubilee, so we tentatively planned to regroup at the top and run on back in. I was the last one out of the check point, due to checking my BG and so set out to chase the group up the hill.

I caught Rob and Bill right out as they were turning back to fix a mechanical issue with Rob’s bike. I could see Tim and Karsten a couple of hundred yards ahead and figured they would be out of site before long. So I put my head down relaxed my upper body and concentrated on the spinning and keeping my cadence up. I was looking just a few feet in front of my wheel, avoiding looking towards the pass, which seemed an impossible distance away.

Next thing that I knew I was passing Karsten and Tim. It was more survival than anything that allowed me to get by them, as I had to keep my cadence up for this climb so I kept on with what had allowed me to catch up in the first place. I focused on the task at hand which was to keep those pedals turning focusing on the moment and not the goal.

Much to my surprise, I was actually able to do some of the climb in higher gears. Last time I did this event, I had to climb the whole way in granny and that was with a triple front. Last year I switched to a double and this year to a compact double, pretty much with this event in mind. I knew it would be a challenge and figured to be in my lowest gear the whole way up. Imagine my surprise when I saw the speedometer climb above 14 mph a few times.

With who knows how much farther I had to go my left inner quad (thigh muscle) began to cramp, so I was now having to alternate sitting and spinning with up shifting and standing to relieve my leg.

Finally I saw the sign that said the checkpoint was only 1 more mile away and almost at the top. I met one of the coaches (I think John from Wisconsin) who was working the last part of the hill making sure that riders were holding it together or to see if they needed assistance. He rode beside me for a little bit and let me know that I was the 25th rider up the hill (provided I could make the last ½ mile without being caught that is) a couple more minutes and I could see that checkpoint, which I had forgotten was so much short of the summit. So I rode past and shouted to Chuck (who was already there, Bonnie, I had met coming down a little earlier) that I would be right back.

So I pedaled on up to the summit and made the narrow, left hand U-turn to get back. This resulted in violent cramping in my left leg as I pulled it up to turn left,,,, ouch.

I zipped back down to the CP where I was greeted with ice cold wet towels for the back of my neck and someone took my bike for the rack and my water bottles to be refilled. I slathered on the reverse age sunscreen (which unfortunately failed to reverse my age) Jumped on my ride and went rocketing down the hill.

While not the fastest that I have ever been on a bike, it was a great ride down and there is probably nothing that I enjoy more on the bike than a nice speedy descent. While it took me right at 54 minutes to go from Ashford Mills to the CP at Jubilee, I was back at the bottom in just over 14 minutes. The only problem was that I discovered as the hill flattened out towards the CP that I was now having serious cramping problems in both leg now, any time I got pointed just a liiitttle bit up hill. It was serious enough that I was climbing very minor grades now in my lowest gear. I kind of had this idea that I could ride it off, drink my way out of it, magic would happen, but alas, no, I had to ride all the way back to Furnace Creek dealing with this issue.

Well I did a real quick stop just to top off my water one more time and was able to get Karsten and Tim again as ride partners (I think they took a shorter break at the top)

So we headed as 3 back to Mormon Point (don’t you love the excitement that the names ad to this ride???) We had another rider Jeremy chase us out of the CP and the next thing we knew there were 4 of us. Karsten was concerned about my cramping (what with me being Type 1 and in the middle of Death Valley), so he told me that he was going to stick with me as long as I wanted to keep going on. I think he thought I was going to need to be SAGed back especially after he realized that I really could not maintain speed on even the slightest grade when in the draft.

By now the temp was somewhere in the neighborhood of 104 but I think it felt hotter because of the black pavement we were riding on. They were giving us Ice towels at every CP, which was a good break, but the dry heat was taking a bit of a toll on all of us.

When we got back to Badwater with only 18 miles to go, Tim decided he needed to rest a bit longer than the rest of us and so we left without him after a slightly extended (like 13 minute) break.

Karsten and Jeremy by this time would drop me on the up hills hanging back so that I could catch them on the down hills. It was a rolling 18 miles that we had left back to Furnace Creek, and I was thankful not to have the 30 mph headwind I had faced in my first ride here. I really felt pretty good, my legs were just not co-operating.

We stopped for less than 3 minutes at the halfway water point, topped off the bottles and I dropped a Motor Tab in one as I had forgotten to do that at the Badwater CP and was afraid I was going to under fueled, even though I had been running a little on the high side all day. It only takes 30 minutes to blow away 100 points of Blood Glucose headroom.

Finally, we made it to the Hotel California turnoff, back to the ranch. We could see it for miles, which really was no encouragement, because it never ever seemed to be getting any closer and it was as if we were being teased.

Karsten and Jeremy had waited for me to make sure that I was able to get up that last grade and so we all bombed down the last mile to the ranch peaking out at somewhere well over 30 and it felt good.

We rolled through the finish at a little over 20 mph amid enthusiastic applause from the volunteers and the riders who had already finished and were hanging around. I sat up and did my Mark Cavendish phoning it in imitation and rolled through no hands. We ran out of room a lot quicker than I thought we would so that didn’t last long and I crammed on the brakes and circled back, where I was greeted with an ice towel and a medal.

I was having a great time talking to some of my new friends that I met this week (who obviously ride faster than I do) Lars with Novo from Denmark, Frank from Frankfurt and Karsten, when everything started looking blurry and I got kind of weak like my BG was dropping. They took my bike and hustled me on into the medical check out (everyone has to do that at the finish of this ride) where I discovered that my BG was 144. So I have to assume that I was suffering a heat stroke, because when I got in the air conditioning and they put yet another ice towel on me, I started feeling better immediately.

OK, so you would think that this is the end of the story, but the lesson was not over for me. I had cut my basal rate back on my pump at the beginning of the day. This means that I was taking less insulin all day than I normally would have. I did this because at the managing type 1 diabetes meeting the day before, Bob Hanisch had asked me a question when I told him that I never did a reduced basal but fueled up to my insulin rate instead.

He said,” What are you going to do if your stomach is upset and you can’t eat?” Point well taken, especially since my stomach had been messed up for a few days already. Well here is the other side of that equation. I am used to having to fuel a lot more after an event due to increased insulin sensitivity along with having a bit more on board. In any event, it is standard to be more worried about lows after than highs. I am not sure exactly why this happened but I started running high, like between 300 and 480 between an hour after I got off the bike and the end of the evening meal 3 hours after that, even doing full boluses (I usually would have cut them back but I was High) as a result of this I had a domino effect of unfortunate things happen.

The high BG made me dehydrate, my kidneys using onboard water to try and scrub the excess sugar out of my blood. I was thirsty and knew that I needed to hydrate and with the high BG I didn’t want to drink sports drinks and aggravate my BG with more carbs, so I drank a bunch of water, which served to flush electrolytes out of my system.

The net result was that when I at last was able to get back to my room all packed up to leave the next day and relax on my bed a terrible thing happened.

I layed down and was relaxing watching a little TV wishing it wasn’t so hot so that I could put my compression tights on and help my legs recover faster. I checked my BG which was finally down to a reasonable 180 and decided to read for a few minutes and then give in to what I thought would be a wonderful but short sleep, when I felt my hands starting to curl back in cramps. I didn’t really think a lot about that but my legs all of a sudden started to feel kind of tweeky along the hamstrings. The next thing I knew, I had full on cramping down the entire back of both of my legs. I jumped up exclaiming a colorful metaphor, thinking that standing up would make it go away…….. It didn’t, in fact the next thing I knew, the front of my legs were cramping too.

Quads and hamstrings co-operating in a perfect symphony of pain, with me doing the vocals. (Screaming at the top of my bloody lungs like someone was killing me) I am sure that my room mate Bob Karnack was a bit freaked out by this, it took him a few seconds anyway to figure out why I was acting so crazy, He was still getting ready to go to bed so that we could get up at 4:30AM to catch the airport shuttle when my legs went mad.

I have no idea how long this went on, but Bob went to get the Brock the EMTIC and my legs did not decide to release until he was well out of the building. By the time they got back, I was starting to go into shock and was freezing. I was able to get my hooded sweatshirt on and was afraid to try for the tights as my legs felt like they could go back to the dance at any moment.

Short story is that Brock figured it out immediately, got me under the covers talked me out of my hyperventilation and got electrolytes in me. OMG, I won’t make this mistake again. I am really thankful for Bob and Brock getting me taken care of, I don’t know what would have happened without them.

I almost forgot the most important part..... we raised $710,000 for research for the cure!!


I will do this again next year!

Death Valley Awaits

Ok, so I am getting close to my ride in DV and have been spending my time on the bike and writing fundraising letters instead of blogging.

Also In the last month, I have developed or discovered plantar facittis and so my running is on hold at best right now. I am alternating very short runs (5k) with several days of rest.

The good news is that my PF seems to be slowly healing and my run fitness does not seem to be suffering.

I have been doing long bike rides (60-75 mile) alternated with short (30 mile) fast bike rides 1 1/2 hour or less. THe long needs to be longer and the short needs to be faster, but my bike fitness is continueing to improve

I have not been in the pool for the last week as I have been working on fund raising in the mornings and riding every night. My long ride of this year is still only 90 miles, so I intend to build my endurance off of the DV ride and by spring be doing at least one 120 mile ride per month on my hill loop.

We will see how that works out, today I raced the metal man on the Timberman 70.3 course and he kicked my butt. I out climb him but for some reason, he can go down hill a lot faster. NO matter, when I can beat him, I will just have to turn up his power, so that he is a challenge again (grin)
Got my road bike all packed for DV so likely for the next few months all of my outdoor riding will be on my Cyclocross TCX0

I guess I'm just a B

Sometimes, I think I lack the killer instinct when it comes to riding with Killer B s. Perhaps, I should try killing something that is not so tenatious and deadly, like butterflys or catapillars.

Then I can move up to wasps and hornets and try for Killer B s again :)

Seriously, I continue to ride with this group and when I get to the point that they no longer drop me will have to move on to something faster. A great group of people to ride with who put me in a considerable amount of agony every Thursday.

Earlier this week, I had a great ride with the Monday group at BGI south. It was pretty speedy and I ended up finishing in the first 3, then on Wednesday totally bonked (due to not paying attention to what my body was trying to tell me) and got dropped by a much slower paced group.

I am planning to do 2 100 mile rides this labor day weekend, so we will see how that goes. Tomorrow, I am going to try for 9 - 15 mile hilly loops down at the Morgan Monroe State forest or 6 hours, which ever comes first....... likely the 6 hours. Then on Monday am planning to ride with some of my JDRF team in the tour de loops in Brownsburg, IN.

I have been in the pool pretty regularly this week and it seems like 3 strokes forward and 2 strokes backward sometimes, but never the less every time that I get in the water, I am able to improve on something.

My plantar fasciitis is hopefully in control ($500 and a lot of pain later) and I hope to be back to running by Tuesday.

RIding for a Cure for Diabetes

I hate getting old! was supposed to be the title of this entry but, when I put my link in I had to change the name so that no one would think it was some website telling you about a fountain of youth super fruit pasta smoothie

Ok so now I have Plantar fasciitis and not only had to buy expensive orthotics but my running is temporarily impaired as well :( Apparently you get this from being inflexible and growing older. I have never been the most flexible guy in the world.

Well, I've worked through my IT band syndrome, I am sure that I can work through this.

The good news is that I hit 15 strokes in the pool this week!! Yeah!!

My bike is getting faster too! I had a guy give me some great tips during the BGI group ride last night and I am sure that they are going to make me faster and more powerful. I am planning to ride at least 100 miles every Saturday between now and when I go to Death Valley in about 46 days.

Now if I can only get my fund raising for my Death Valley ride in gear.

Last Tri of 2009

As I mentioned before, today was my last tri of the season.

I was regretting doing this as I waited for the start this morning and hoping for any excuse not to go through with it. I felt sick, it was cold, I knew the swim was not going to be easy and on and on and on.

Most of today's issues were brought on me by me. Last night some dear friends of mine who happen to be of another culture and for some reason really love me, invited me to go to dinner with them for their daughter's 14th birthday. I have begged off on so many invites that I really would have felt awful adding last night to the list. So I went and the meal was huge, plus filled with dairy products. But I not only ordered something that I should not have, but then I ate the whole thing.

Then of course, I did not want to be rude and refuse an invitation back to their house for Tres Leche cake and chocolate milk. So I end up waking up in the morning feeling ill and with a 360BG and who do I have to blame??

None the less, my swim which felt like the slowest I had ever done, was a Personal best for the distance by 2 seconds. I had moments of realization, that I was finally getting on to how to move through the water quickly, followed by I wish I had more prep time with this.

I was actually able to draft off of a couple of other swimmers for a short time, but my control is so poor that I kept running up on the back of them, so I backed out and let them go. Finally I found footing and staggered out of the water into the transition and prepared for my favorite leg..... the bike!!

I had a little trouble getting going as the Transition area at Eagle Creek is a long sand, stick and gravel filled parking lot and running bare foot is pure torture. But it gets easier every time that I do it. I made a spur of the moment decision to go sockless and had not really prepared my shoes for that but I still think it was a good decision.

I had a little trouble getting up on my bike as I had someone dodge in front of me as I first got up on my pedals and shoes, so I had to slam on the brakes, stop and start again.

I'll have to say, I was so worried about getting my feet into my shoes that I didn't exactly charge up the hill and Eagle Creek is one of those places where I think you need to do that on every one to make good time.

I had some difficulty again getting into my shoes and I think I was probably 2 miles into the course before I finally got them snugged down.

The bike course was different for the third time in a row for me on the course so I am not really sure how my ride stacks up other than not being as fast as some previous. Also we were fighting a pretty strong headwind for about 2 miles or more on Lafayette road.

I thought about clipping out and running with my bike shoes on in T2 and I should have done that as I got passed by a bunch of people who were not wearing clipless shoes and did not have the same gravel and sand issues that I had with bare feet. So this was a bit of a slow transition due to the ouchy factor alone

Anyway my Zoot Shoes gave me a little bit of a problem as I did not put glide on them so I had to yank extra hard to get them on over my sockless feet and then apparently did the same with the speed laces which left the plastic pull hitting the ground and going clack clack clack as I left the transition. it took me about an eighth of a mile before this was driving me crazy and I stopped to fix it...... didn't get it fixed so I stopped again and just re did them.

Then it was off to the races :) I passed some people and got passed but I was sure that I was keeping a sub 9 minute pace. The stops must have cost me more than I realized as I ended up with a 9:30 minute per mile average. I finished strong and was kind of disappointed in myself that I didn't run a little faster and harder.

Noodles and Company put on a great spread at the end of the race and Michelle (will put name of place she works later :)) was giving free chair massages. Mine was great!!

It was a little bit of a cold day for August...errr... I mean.... this wraps up another successful event for CAPTAIN TRIIIAAATTHHALON!!

16 Strokes!!

Well training this week has been less than spectacular in a number of ways.

Equipment issues,my Garmin Forerunner quit working Sunday, but decided to fire up again last night, I put a speedometer on my road bike and didn't have time to get it set up properly for 3 days so rode with no idea of specific speeds or distances, had 2 seperate low BG instances, lost strokes on my swim at the begining of the week, blown out the back at 15 miles on the Nebo ridge bike ride, etc...

Some bright spots however

I did get some great training time in, started my strength training again on Wednesday, and the top story of this week happened this morning.

I had decided after my Sunday and Monday swimming results to only do one more Triathlon this year (the Eagle Creek Sprint on Saturday morning)

I did a Total Immersion Swim Clinic about a month ago and one thing that they did not really want me to do was actually swim for about 6 weeks afterwards, in order to imprint the new and somewhat counter intuitive swimming technique that I had learned in 2 days at their clinic

The clinic took me from taking 30 strokes to cover the length of a 25 yd pool, to only 20 strokes in 2 x 4 hour sessions

The idea is to do drills (which include some actual free style drills) to imprint, aerodynamics, balance, etc... on your swimming so that you make the movements in the way they are supposed to be made - automatically - with no forthought or malice :)

If I find my form slipping when freestyling, I am supposed to stop, catch my breath and then start again, even if I am in the middle of the pool.

So a 1500 meter swim when I had not done more than 300 consecutive yards for since the Mores Triathlon in June was a formula for poor form at some point as soon as I got tired.

Monday morning, I started drilling again and did my test at the end of my workout and I had gone from 18 strokes (my improvement subsequent to my TI workshop) to 24 :(

So I drilled the rest of the week and today for grins and giggles thought I would just do a lap and count my strokes. Imagine my suprise when I came up 17 strokes :-) at first I thought I must have miscounted, so I did it again. ..... still 17 strokes.... one more lap just to be sure.... 17 and then..........16 strokes!!!!, now that had to be a fluke,,,, one more time just to be sure and I had a little unco-ordinated mishap mid pool and still came up 16 strokes!!

I did one last length just to get back to the proper side of the pool for exit and 16 strokes again!!

I have to swim 500 yards in the morning and hopefully can hold my form together for most of that, so I am expectling my final sprint of the year to be another personal best!!

Tri Indy - my worst equipment day

The water looked great for the swim as Melissa and I walked the canal on our way to the start line near 16th street.

I had been running high Blood Glucose levels all night and with a 299 when I got up at 4am and then 198 with double down arrows on my CGM at shortly after 5am.

By the time I got my transition set up (about 7am) I seemed to be slowly dropping at 105 so I ate a gu pack to give myself a little boost to get me through the swim.

The water felt nice at first but with the wind picking up and having to wait a long time for my turn to go. (I admitted that I swim slow, so I went in the last wave) I was wishing that I had worn my wet suit.

Finally my number was called and I got to go. Melissa said that I was swimming pretty good at first but the farther I went the worse my body position became. I was lifting my head to breath, instead of just rolling with it.

My right calf started cramping about half way through and I had to stop and stand up finally about 20 yards from the finish after some chick put a hand on my head and shoved me to the bottom of the canal. The seconds ad up :)

Anyway, I finished the swim in 48min 28 seconds, a full second ahead of the year before (which makes me think that last year was actually a lot slower than I thought, unless the wet suit really makes that much difference.) Also, in order that my CGM maintain wireless contact with my transmitter, I had stuffed my pump in a ziplock freezer bag and then clipped it to my suit through the bag. While this did serve it's objective of protecting the pump and keeping me in constant contact with my BGs, it did wear a nasty sore on my waste, so I am rethinking that idea currently.

So I had a relatively fast transition 2 min 16 min 8 secs, I was fumbling a bit and should have probably done it about a minute faster, but way better than last year.

Finally I was on the bike and after an initial problem with my pump (I somehow managed to break the clip off of it during my mount and shoved it down in my shorts, which proved to be a problem latter, then getting my left foot located in my shoe, I began passing people.

I did not get very far however before I realized that the route was much rougher than last year as the first hard bump that I found on Washington street just about launched my water bottle clear out of my Aero bars and spilled sports drink all over my bike.

But I stayed down as much as I could and just made watts. The course goes up to the velodrome and back with 2 loops required to go 24 miles. Aside from my water bottle wanting to launch almost the whole time, the only real difficulty that I had was when I stood up to make a small climb and my pump began to slide deep into my shorts. Feeling like an idiot, I remembered that I have pockets in my shorts, so I pulled it out of my pants and shoved it into the pocket closest to my GGM transmitter.

This course is semi open so I had to pass one car and keep an eye out for traffic all the time. I passed a lot of people, had a total of 2 people that got by me but I had a respectable time 1 hour 17 min and a 19.4 mph average (1.4 faster than last year and this year there was a definitel wind factor)

When I rolled into T2 I had a picture perfect dismount, hitting the ground at a full run, just in front of the timing matt and then running right past the bike entrance, right through the orange cones and having to do an about face to get back into T2 in spite of this faux pax, I still managed a 1 minute 38 second transition and headed out on the 10 k run.

I had bought a new set of Zoot Tri Running shoes, which were great in transition, but I have had a few issues getting used to them as they have put some sores on my feet.

They are mean't to be used with out socks, which would have been preferable for faster transitions, but I wore socks today as the following photo indicates,,,,, I had a little bit of a problem during the break in period.

I anticipate getting beyond that and enjoying faster transitions all the time. They were great to run in but I still had a slow run as I was aparently closing in on a low BG when I started the run, but my CGM was showing mid 100's so I didn't catch on to the cause of my lack of running enthusiasm until about 5 miles when I had a 134 with down arrows. I ended up having to walk for about 10 minutes to get that all sorted out and took off again trying to make up for the walk in the closing mile.

I made it across the line at a full sprint, but had another crash almost immediately afterwards. In addition, I had gotten a bit dehydrated so I am definitely rethinking my bike fuel and hydration stategy for improving my run.

My run split was better than last year, but still way slow over what I am really capable of with 1 hour 12 minute 0.7 seconds my final.

Total time was 3 hours 21 minutes 21.3 seconds - not what I had hoped for, but still about a 15 minute improvement over last year.

Next week will be my last tri of the year at Eagle Creek as I am going to really work hard on getting my swim stroke imprinted and getting my swim conditioning up before the spring, so that I can ride with the faster cyclists in the in the coming year.