Two Days' Rest

I slipped a little. I took a break from workouts both Wednesday and Thursday of this week. It is so hard to stop the sliding! I will get back on the horse tomorrow. Shall I promise myself a double workout day? Yeah, I think I can do that. I promise to do two endurance workouts (swim, bike, or run). I will. To be honest I was tempted to do a weight workout as one of the two, but that's not "getting back on the horse." 

I'm pretty happy with TrainingPeaks. I bought a maintenance training plan that will take me through early December. Last year I was using TriDot, and though I soured on that company, one of the things that really worked for me was the weekly Tridot score.  If my score went below 80, it made me feel guilty! TrainingPeaks doesn't have that scoring system, but it does have green, yellow, and red boxes that form around the workouts I do to indicate how well I achieved the workout goal. TrainingPeaks also has the big, messy graph that shows the peaks and valleys of my training over time, and I DO feel pressure to keep my progress heading in the up direction. My two-day slide shows up as a tiny drop. I can use tomorrow to fill that in and get my training headed in the right direction.

The blue line shows my overall fitness level calculated by TrainingPeaks. The large mountain at left is what I built for IMMD in September 2018. A smaller mountain in the middle represents the training I did for the Air Force Marathon in September 2019. The slightly taller peak at right is the training I did for IMLP that never happened in 2020. I stopped training in late May when I learned the race was cancelled. Finally, the small but steep hill at far right is the progress I've made since the last week of August 2020 as I start working toward what will hopefully be IMLP 2021.

Oh, I forgot to say why I skipped a couple workout days this week. The answer is I expected to do an indoor bike ride in the evening. However, I spent time in the early evening reviewing a student paper that really needed attention due to an impending deadline. Then, late in the evening was the Vice Presidential debate and while I could have biked during that time, it was more fun watching it with my wife in the living room rather than downstairs by myself. When I spend part of the evening doing school work, I feel like I should spend the other part of the night with my wife. I have no idea whether she knows that these decisions are conscious calculations on my part. In sum, I spent the time doing other things besides a bike ride. Workouts at this time in my fitness cycle don't get first priority. 

As for today's skipped workout, I feel pretty burned out from a rough week (and it's only Thursday!). I just didn't feel like it. Besides, my choices were either get up early to do it (but that's not going to happen after staying up late to watch the debate!) or do it tonight after choir rehearsal. Nope. Too tired. Kind of depressed.

Tomorrow is another day. Middle finger to COVID. I can do this.

My first 6 miles in 3 months

I ran 6.0 miles yesterday. I was accompanying Geoff on his virtual Air Force Marathon. That's right--a full marathon, mostly by himself on the 5-Star Trail. Shannan was running a half-marathon at the same time, but the two didn't do it together, given their different paces. Anyway, Shannan was just finishing her 13.1 miles when Geoff came by the tent we set up at Huff Avenue. The timing was just perfect, since I ran to meet Shannan and place a 13.1 mile medal around her neck, say some words of support, and then join Geoff as he finished up the last 6 miles. He and I conversed easily during most of the run. Our pace hovered around 9:25, which was quite reasonable for both of us. Except, I hadn't run 6 miles since May, so I was out of shape. At my fifth mile (and Geoff's 25th mile), I knew that Geoff had a goal to meet (3:59) and he seemed worried he would miss it by a few seconds so I told him to go ahead. I felt sorry for abandoning him at the end, but I was in my top heart rate (178 bpm) and couldn't go faster. Geoff dropped to a 8:30 pace in the last mine, and as he left me behind, I had little incentive to keep going at our former pace and I inadvertently slowed to a 9:35 pace.

That sort of ending happens in nearly all my races. I don't have the mental drive to push at the end. Somebody, please help me with that! 

I guess it's a will-power thing. I'm actually really good at will-power in other aspects of my life. For example, I feel a little pudgy so I'm going to start logging my daily calories starting tomorrow. I'm usually successful at losing a few pounds when I do that. Maybe starting to pay attention to one aspect of health (food) will help me snap back into paying attention to another aspect (training schedule). We'll see.

What I've missed by not working out for 3 months

After taking three months off from traithlon training, I've started up again. At least, I've gone running twice this week. I hope to increase that to three workouts next week and four workouts after that, and five after that. But who knows. It's really hard to start again, and I don't know why. It indicates I don't really love it, right? If I loved this triathlon thing, I'd look forward to training. I would have missed it.

It's true that there are some things I've missed: 

1. I'm not fat and haven't gained much weight (7 pounds in 3 months; but I'm no heavier than last winter), but my abdomen is definitely softer than before. I worry about how I look in photos.

2. I miss the weekly schedule and workout goals. I was using TriDot and it would suggest a workout for me each day, and of course sometimes I'd have to rearrange the days to fit all the workouts in. Training gave me a sense of purpose. These last three months I've forgotten how much I like to "worry" about my sports equipment and my diet in order to be the most efficient athlete I can be. Also, TriDot would give me an incentive to meet a numeric score for each workout, and I liked the "competition" with myself to earn those scores. I was often really, really good at getting high scores by having my pace and heart rate precisely match what was suggested by TriDot.

3. Obviously, I've missed the races. IM Lake Placid was canceled. Presque Isle triathlon was canceled. The spring olympic Mighty Moraine Man was canceled. Doing those virtually just didn't excite me at all.

4. When my family went to Lake Placid on the weekend when the race was supposed to occur, I saw at least one athlete all decked out in his trisuit, running along a highway. I expected to see more, but didn't. Anyway, this guy stared straight ahead, was clearing going at race pace, and was probably doing the whole race on his own. Since I had family with me on the trip, I didn't want to do anything like that, but ever since I returned home and realized that a couple of my closest people are still doing their races (wife Shannan and friend Geoff), I've put a lot of thought into the fact that I could do a whole Ironman on my own, and it would represent a considerable endurance feat in a unique way. To be honest, I'm actually more interested in this now than competing in the actual race planned for July 2021.

5. Time alone and independence. When I stopped training at the end of May, I was just starting to do the long bike rides and runs. These get me out of the house for hours at a time and take me to different places. Until just now, i had forgotten how much I like that. I get to make all my own decisions when I'm training. I still really love my independence, even after being married for 5 years.

So now, I have to keep it going. Three workouts next week! I'm also about to pull the trigger in signing up for TrainingPeaks. I won't go back to TriDot because it let me down during the pandemic by adjusting things to account for the loss of swimming pool access. Maybe I'm being unfair and giving it some blame for how life has changed. Regardless, it's time to give something else a try. I plan to sign up for the premium TrainingPeaks and then download a "maintenance" workout plan for the next 14 weeks (Phil Mosely's 20-week plan can be ended early). Then I'll start Phil Mosely's 32-week full length triathlon plan on December 1st.

And if the pandemic is still here in 11 months and I don't get to go to Lake Placid, I've got an idea for doing it all myself, using campus as a transition zone.

Middle finger to COVID-19

I have 11 months to train for my third Ironman race. I'm starting this week. Of course, the pandemic changed my plans to do it this year. If the worst happens again, and there are no races in 2021, then I'll figure out a way to do an Ironman virtually. I didn't consider a virtual race this summer because doing it on my own just didn't seem to push me forward in any way. I felt motivated to do my first Ironman in 2016 to see if I could do it (I did it!). I felt motivated to do my second Ironman in 2018 to see if I could do it faster (I didn't). I signed up for my third in 2020 to see if I could do a challenging course with lots of hills. Despite there being a lot of hills around my home, I didn't think a virtual race this summer would really accomplish anything. Perhaps I was wrong. I think doing a virtual race of 2.4 mile swim plus 112 miles on the bike plus a 26.2 run, done in sequence on the same day by myself, sounds like a different kind of challenge that I will do in 2021 if the real race at Lake Placid gets cancelled again. Doing it virtually won't give me the finish line experience of a real race, but it would give me a sense of accomplishing something which the pandemic can't take away. So here's my middle finger to COVID-19! You're not going to stop me anymore. 

By the way, here's a photo of Dan's cousin, me, Geoff, and Dan after the Presque Isle sprint triathlon in 2013. This is what showed up on my Facebook newsfeed and prompted me to write this post.

Review of Knuiman et al. 2015

Knuiman, P., M.T.E. Hopman, and M. Mensink. 2015. Glycogen availability and skeletal muscle adaptations with endurance and resistance exercise. Nutrition and Metabolism 12:59.

There isn't anything special about this article by Pim Knuiman and collaborators, but at some point I printed out a copy and read it because I thought it would be useful. It's a review article. It starts with background on what effect starting exercise with low amounts of stored glycogen (while fasting, weight loss diets, or just many hours since a meal) had on muscle adaptations following the exercise. In endurance exercise, studies have shown that mitochondrial biogenesis increases to a greater degree in this condition, but only when glycogen is only mildly depleated.

Also in the background material I found some interesting facts about the distribution of glycogen within muscle. There is glycogen stored within the sarcomeres (5-15%), within the myofibrils (5-15%), and between the myofibrils (75%). Each location uses the glycogen to fuel different molecular processes.

I learned that in general, moderate intensity endurance exercise (30-65% VO2 peak) is predominantly fueled by fat, whereas exercise exceeding that degree of intensity is fueled more by carbohydrate. I had heard that before, but somehow in my mind I reversed it until reading it again here. An interesting note is that this is just a general rule, and that well-trained individuals will have different abilities to use fat and carbs at different levels; they have "greater metabolic flexibility."

The article later addressed resistance exercise and confirmed the general rule that exercise + protein ingestion = muscle hypertrophy. This is not as true for endurance exercise, only because the protein gain (which is real) is simply replacing the protein lost during the exercise (known as the "interference effect"). In any case, protein consumption with a small amount of carbohydrate is important following exercise of all kinds, either to increase or simply maintain muscle mass, strength, and efficiency.

There is a general understanding that when one does both endurance and resistance exercises in one day, the endurance exercise should be conducted in the morning at a somewhat depleted glycogen state, and the resistance exercise should take place in the afternoon (since depletion wasn't shown to be important), followed by a high-protein meal.

Second Marathon

Race: Air Force Marathon
Date: September 21, 2019
Location: Dayton, OH
Time: 4:55:54
Overall Rank: 567 out of 1331
Age Group Rank: 39 out of 81
Results: http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=69832#racetop

"This was probably my last full-length marathon apart from the one that comes at the end of Ironman Lake Placid next year." My reasoning is that my body is getting older and in training there is always some joint or muscle issue that keeps me from doing enough training. At least, this is what I told my friend Dan and wife Shannan the day after the marathon. Today is different, though. I dream of a marathon where I am running for the vast majority of miles, even at the end of the race. I didn't have that kind of day here, and if I can keep my body healthy enough, maybe I will try a marathon again.

I didn't do poorly this year. In fact, I was well into the run and going at a good pace when my body rather quickly bonked.

Miles 0-10: I ran with the 4:20 pace group. It felt easy with a pace in the upper 9s and some scattered conversations to listen to, though I was expecting more from my pacer in that regard. The 4:20 pace group was a little faster than my desired pace of 4:30, but there wasn't a choice for 4:30 finish time. I had to choose 4:20 or 4:35 so I stuck with the faster group, maybe to my eventual detriment.

Miles 11-17: The pace started to seem fast to me, though my watch denied it. My pacer said several times "we're running a minute or two ahead," and I began to get frustrated that not only was I running with a group that was a bit faster than my choice, my pacer was running faster than the group's choice, too. Looking at my heart rate output, at mile 12 my heart rate abruptly jumped from 145 bpm to 165 bpm and stayed there. This section of the route was at least more scenic, as it winded its way through the neighborhood. Around mile 15 is when we started running through downtown Fairborn. There were lots of spectators with signs and noisemakers and even some bands playing. My pacer swept through the crowd, trying to high-five as many people as he could. His energy was contagious; I did my best to follow his lead, but I was starting to feel unwell. I felt thirsty. I also had to urinate. I started to think about walking when I got to the next water station. The water station came too soon, though, and I didn't want to start walking while still downtown with all the crowds. So I ran on, promising myself that I'd take a walking break at the next porta-potty.

Mile 17: I finally got to an aid station with a porta-potty. My watch tells me I only took 1 minute to use it, and then, as a reward for getting to this point, I planned to walk for a minute before starting up again. But a minute came and went, and I couldn't get myself started again. My head wasn't right. I was sort of woozy. I delayed for another 3 minutes, and then delayed again until my watch hit a certain time, and then I told myself I'd start running at the next bend in the road. After 9.5 minutes I was finally able to get started.

At this point I wasn't panicking. I had been at this place before on my training runs. I started up a 5-min run + 1-min walk strategy that could be adjusted depending on my condition. For instance, the first 5 minutes of running went by, and I didn't feel like I needed to stop, so I committed to another 3 minutes, and then another 1.5 minutes. I then walked for a minute. But I couldn't start up again, so my walking interval turned out to be 5 minutes. I was starting to do math in my head. I knew that i could take 1-minute walking breaks and still beat my goal time of 4:30, but more 5-minute walking breaks would not be helpful toward that goal.

I ran another 5+3=8 minutes and stopped to walk again. I walked 5 minutes again. Ugggh, I still thought now that I would still finish around 4:30, and even if it was later, I would still beat my personal best of 4:54.

I ran another 5 minutes, which was followed by a 12-minute walk. I don't remember when the back cramps started up, but at this point I probably had them. I remembered that this had happened before at Ironman Maryland during the run; I started to get cramps, starting with my back and diaphragm, and then my legs. Indeed, now at this point in my marathon, my calves were starting to feel crampy and I was afraid they would lock up. I did a few spurts of running to see if the feeling would go away, and it didn't. My running pace at this point was in the 11s. I reasoned that a run-walk of 11-14 min/mile pacing could still get me over the finish line with time to spare, but I noticed that even my walking pace was slowing. I covered my last couple miles at a 15 min/mile pace, which still seemed ok, because I knew that I'd run the last half mile at the end.

Finally, I saw Shannan and her dad Jim at the half-mile point. I started to run, and of course I did get one last spurt of energy and motivation to do it. I was watching my watch the whole time, because I thought maybe I would beat my personal best time after all...and I did, according to my watch. However, my watch was telling me the duration of actual time spend in motion. It shut off when I was in the porta-potty, and I didn't think of that until it was too late. My official finish time was 4:55.54, just a minute slower than in 2015 when I ran it in 4:54.47.

I really wanted to beat that old time, so I spent some time last night exploring whether the new route used in 2019 was easier or harder than the old route used in 2015. The race site seems to suggest it is easier now because they took out some hills. However, when i compare my finish time against my 40-44 age male peers, I actually did slightly better in 2019 than in 2015 despite the slower time. So, either the competitive field was greater in 2015, or I was more competitive in 2019. By a smidgen. Jim, why do you care??? Statistically speaking, you tied.

Anyway, I really have to figure out how to prevent the bonk during my long runs. The most obvious solution is to do MORE long runs prior to the event. This allows me to tweak my nutrition and hydration strategies. I simply didn't do enough this summer to prepare for this marathon. My longest run was 18 miles, and some of that included walking. Research shows that men need to run 20+ miles in preparation for a marathon to limit the chance of "hitting the wall." (Rapoport 2010). I might also learn to supercompensate my glycogen stores in leg muscles by doing an exhaustive workout and then delaying carbohydrate consumption afterward (Rapoport 2010).

Indeed, for this race, I don't think I consumed enough sugar. I'll have to do some computations here, but I think maybe in total I had 10 Dixie cups of Gatorade, one cup of cola, one Gu packet, and one half-banana during the race. I consumed plenty of fluid and took supplemental salt licks 4-5 times.

After my race was finished, I almost immediately felt nauseous, I was pale, and I think I was overheated. Uncharacteristically, I insisted on laying on the ground for 15 minutes and pouring water on my head. Even after I got up and started walking, my vision was over-sensitive to bright light. My pupils must have been inappropriately dilated for the sunny conditions. I've looked into the vision issue and it seems that low blood glucose can cause that (but not dehydration), so this also points to insufficient fueling.

So let's calculate my carbs now. One Gu packet is 100 calories. One half banana is 45 calories. There are 50 calories in each 8 ounce serving of Gatorade and most cups given to me were only half full, so that's 25 calories x 10 cups = 250 calories. A half serving of cola is 52 calories. In sum, I consumed 447 calories during my marathon. Meanwhile, my Garmin says I burned 3,387 during the event (around 675 calories per hour). A rough estimate of calories stored by the liver glycogen is 2,000 plus whatever I had stored in my leg muscles. Actually, I'm finding different values for liver storage, and of course I can't know how much glycogen was stored in my leg muscles, nor whether or not my stores were full at the time I started the race. Plus, there is data that show that muscles don't give up their entire storage of glycogen. All this is to say there are too many variables to get an accurate calorie count, but it looks like I was fueled for only about 4 hours of exercise and not 5. At the 4-hour mark of my race, I had covered 23 miles, so had I properly fueled, I could have run at least another 6 miles than I did. Duh. Why didn't I pay more attention to caloric intake? Rookie mistake that I seem to keep making.



...bonk continues, runny nose, vision weird.

AMYMSA Edinboro

Race:
Date: September 15, 2019
Location: Edinboro University

The start of swim season! I've been concentrating on my running, plus work has been busy, plus I had a cut on my finger (squirrel bite), so I haven't been swimming much. That's pretty much what everyone else at Masters said, so I fit right in. No pressure today.

100-yard freestyle: I didn't beat my seed time, but was close. My turns were not explosive at all; my legs are tired from a 12-mile run yesterday.

25-yard backstroke: It took almost the whole length to get my legs up and finally get into a good rhythm. I feel like I might be kicking too hard at first, causing some kind of drag on my legs.

50-yard freestyle: I beat my seed time by almost a second, coming in at 29.18 seconds. This is not bad at all for the start of the season. It felt good; I concentrated on NOT fishtailing the whole way and took limited breaths.

25-yard butterfly: Felt good, but not fast at all!

Overall, a good time. I have just recently signed up for Ironman Lake Placid (July 2020) so I'm going to take my swimming more seriously this year. And my biking. And my running. And my protein intake. And my lifting. And my blogging! It's going to be my last full-length triathlon so I want to get the most out of it. We'll talk soon.