Pivot to Rock Climbing

My bicycle has sat inside a bike bag on my front porch since last October, unused other than during November's Laguna Phuket Triathlon.

I decided I wanted to try new things.  

And so I pivot to rock climbing

Jinquaio 8k, Shanghai

I traveled to Shanghai last week to join Namban teammate Charles Bergere in the Jinquaio 8k.  According to Chuck,  Jinquaio 8k is one of Shanghai's Big Two Run Events (along with the Shanghai Marathon). Jinquiao is an expat enclave in the newer Pudong area of Shanghai.  I feel a bit like I am in Orange County, California -- spacious McMansion-style stucco homes with red tile roofs, strip malls with smoothie shops and pilates studios,  blonde children along the course shouting "good job".  It feels like Tokyo's TELL race, yet even more expat oriented.

Chuck lives 2 kilometers from the race start, so jogging to the starting line makes for a pleasant warmup.  Getting to the front of the starting line is more challenging though - everyone, no matter their anticipated 8k pace, seems to be trying to cram to the front line.  I loop around the block, do some strides and then, with only 3 minutes until the starting gun, I dodge race officials and sprint back up and under the startling line rope.  There I join a group of boisterous, costumed Australians and a blond, grade school boy in a Superman outfit.  I am worried for the boy.  I can just sense the pent-up energy of the 2,000 inexperienced runners and school-kids packed into the narrow road behind us ready to blow out like a champagne cork.

Sure enough, when the gun goes off it is like some frenzied herd of crazed antelope dashing for their lives out of the gates of hell.  I am sprinting for my survival at my all-out, 400-meter pace.  I glance back and am relieved to see super boy is still on his feet, but then to my left a teenage kid goes down. I assume he is trampled by the stampeding herd, but there is nothing I can do to help him at this point.  I make it around the first corner, the crowd of runners around me begins to thin out and the pace begins to settle down. 

At about the 1-kilometer mark I settle in behind a tall American guy (Ben). I always like to race at an even pace, or even negative splits if I can -- this pacing makes the race so much more enjoyable.  The crazed, high speed start at Jinquaio means I am laboring at 1k and for the remaining, painful 7 kilometers of running I will simply try to hang on.

Also within the first kilometer I get an extremely dry, “cotton-mouth” feeling in my throat and felt it necessary to drink at every aid station – something I would never do in an 8k distance race. Was this because of the fast start? The surprisingly warm spring day?  Or because of the Chinese Airpocalypse?

I was worried about the "Airpocalypse" a dark grey miasma of coal-fired haze that has strangled China in recent months, but the air quality reading on Sunday morning was a relatively low 125.  Some of the Shanghai based runners told me how they had struggled to train this past winter with so many days over 200.

 I was coming off a week of high altitude training in Yunnan Province, which perhaps helped me survive the airpocalypse and hang on to Ben, and to ultimately finish 6^th place overall in a time of 29:57.   The top 10 male and female runners were showered with prizes and accolades at the festive post-race carnival.

Hiro 5k

Two weeks ago I had mentioned to teammate Hiro that hitting a 17:30 was my reach goal for the monthly 5k time trial.  Having not raced at all, or really trained well this year, I was keen to make a strong effort for this time trial.

I was not expecting Hiro to pay any attention to my fantasy musings, but to my surprise he immediately decided to pace me to a 17:30, and on Wednesday Hiro arrived at the track determined to maintain this pace on my behalf.  Oh no, I thought, all this obligation and pressure for such a fast time.  Well, I better do my best. 

So when the 5k started I I immediately tucked in behind Hiro and just hoped to hang on as long as I could.  Of course the first 1000 meters was easy enough, even though we were slightly ahead of pace.  But when we reached 2k at 7:00 flat, right on pace, and I was already starting to labor, I doubted I could hang on the pace much longer.  Just stay with Hiro to halfway, I told myself.  At halfway I told  myself I to hang on until 3k - that would be a respectable effort.  At 3k I told myself to just stay in moment and think about my form.  I hung on until 4k, at which point I had slowed to a 14:03 split, and a gap begun to open up between us.  Speeding up and breaking 17:30 seemed hopeless.  Hiro turned around to exhort me to catch up with him and the goal pace.  I gasped at him to go for it, in hopes he would finish at his own pace (and leave me alone), but he continued looking back at me so I dug down and sprinted back up behind him.  We now only had 800 meters left, and Hiro kept telling me we could do 17:30.  I doubted this right up until the final 200 when I somehow was able to kick to the finish ini 37 seconds and hit 17:26.  Thanks to Hiro.

Here are the splits Hiro recorded:

400m:   1'23"00(1'23"00)

800m:   2'45"60(1'22"60)

1,200m: 4'10"36(1'24"76)

1,600m: 5'35"52(1'25"16)

2,000m: 7'00"66(1'25"14)

2,400m: 8'23"41(1'22"75)

2,800m: 9'46"30(1'22"89)

3,200m:11'10"80(1'24"50)

3'600m:12'37"71(1'26"91)

4,400m:15'26"16(2'48"45)

5,000m:17'26"79(2'00"63)

Caveman Diet for Runners

My unhealthy breakfast (on left). Healthy caveman breakfast (right)

A remarkable number of my teammates have adopted the "caveman (Paleo) diet" in recent months, touting its fat utilization benefits for endurance events.  The idea is that you teach the body to use fat by adopting a high fat diet, and then during a race you rely less on carbohydrates. Reducing the body's reliance on carbohydrate stores will delay fatigue.  The other piece of this, which you are probably familiar with, is the argument that humans existed as hunter gatherers much longer than as farmers and we are more genetically adapted to the diets consumed during the paleolithic era.

So I am lectured about my high carbohydrate meals. My Paleo teammates criticized my choice of breakfast: “How can you eat that unhealthy, sugary, high carbohydrate breakfast of muesli, fruit and yogurt!  You should be eating bacon and sausage."

Really?

Granted the caveman diet does not seem totally unreasonable to me in general -- eating less processed food would be an improvement on all the breakfast cereal and sports bars I eat. Plus eating less calories is good for anyone, even me, a person not at all concerned about their weight.

But seriously, eating bacon (lots of bacon at that) is more healthy than eating fruit?

And eating this enormous quantity of bacon and sausages at a single meal is justified by the argument that cavemen would have gorged on a wild pig or woolly mammoth after hunting and killing it, implying that this is a natural and healthy pattern of eating?

Above is a shot of my teammate's caveman breakfast consisting of an order of bacon plus an order of sausage (one of several)  vs. my "less healthy" fruit/muesli breakfast.

Chiang Mai Half-Marathon

I return to defend my title in the Chiang Mai half marathon.  In 2011, I finished first overall in 1:22:00 on a 22k course.

I feel I am in about the same condition as a year ago, so a repeat victory would depend on what caliber of field materialized on race morning.  Sure enough, it took only minutes for a dozen guys to burst out ahead of me.  Within a kilometer the flashing lights of the lead pace car were far in the distance.  I run with teammate Arnaud and young Bangladeshi, Omar, and we overtake 7 of the guys by the 3k mark running 4-minute per kilometer pace.  At that point I decide to take a shot at the leaders - on the remote hope that they might fade.  I pick up the pace to around 3:50 and do manage to catch a couple other young guys, but at the halfway turnaround I see the 2 leaders are still light years ahead of me.  I manage to hang on for 3rd overall and 1st in 40-49 age group, in a time of 1:28:11 (for 22.6k course).

Here is Arnaud and I with trophies for 1st and 2nd in age group:


The Chiang Mai event is great fun and one I would recommend despite the organizer's continued indifference about the precise course measurement (an issue we bring up with the race director after the race, telling him that an accurately measured race would draw runners from all over South-East Asia seeking a PB in the cool weather on a flat course).  




This year the half marathon was primarily an excuse for low-budget backpack journey to Mae Hong Son for trekking (last year the race was an excuse to travel to Laos).  Very low budget as you can see from adjacent picture of our accommodations.



Also the trek is fine triathlon cross-training as you can see in this picture of me swimming in the waterfall near the Burmese border

Laguna Phuket Triathlon

I think it was the mango I received in my breakfast box that did it.  After waking up hungry and eating a few slices at 2am I felt queasy, and by 4am I was heaving into the hotel toilet.  When I threw up again at 5am I was doubting I could even walk to the starting line (let alone race).  But right around this time my mates, Jenny and Chris knocked on my room asking if I was ready to go and I felt for the moment that I had purged my system and was getting stronger.

However by the time we gathered on the beach for the swim start an hour later I felt nauseous and rushed into the bushes to throw up yet again and then used the toilets.  Again I felt slightly better afterwards.  I was debating in my mind whether to start the race.  Common sense suggested I go lie down and rest.  But I had come so far and the warm, clear Andaman Sea looked so beautiful and inviting at sunrise - perhaps I could just do the ocean half of the swim segment then drop out?  I was still undecided as my wave gathered for the start and I was surprised and unready when the gun went off.  I stood there frozen for the longest time trying to assess my condition to swim (throwing up in the water would be gross and disgusting and unpleasant, but drowning seemed improbable).  Suddenly the crowd of hundreds of supporters lining the beach-start noticed me standing there alone, the other 200 guys in my wave having already sprinted into the sea.  I must have looked like such a sad and pathetic figure—pale, shivering with cold, staring anxiously at the ocean—and I am sure they all presumed it was my first triathlon and I was absolutely paralyzed with fear and scared to death to enter the open water.  The spectators next to me erupted with shouting, trying to exhort me on: "you can do it!" "c'mon, it will be OK, you will make it".

In fact when I did then reluctantly trudge into the ocean and start swimming I felt better—somehow being vertical rather than horizontal seemed to help, the tropical water warmed me up, and my swim pace was so slow I was not exerting much effort (especially after catching a big slow guy who I drafted behind).  When the later wave in red swim caps started passing us I picked up the pace slightly, and decided to swim the lagoon swim section, but felt weak again during T1.  Again I tortured over whether to drop out or do some of the bike course.  I knew the first section of course would take us through spectacular scenery and I kept thinking about how I had dragged my damn bike on such a long, circuitous journey.  So after a languid 6 minute transition, I biked off after the stragglers.
A diligent bike marshal seemed to be constantly riding alongside me.  I found this terribly odd - 'who cares if people this far in the back of the pack are drafting?' I kept thinking, having already mentally dropped out of any "race" and still fully intending to DNF.

I have placed a high value on maintaining adequate nutrition/fueling before and during endurance events of this distance.  I am convinced that in previous events I bonked - failing to eat enough. Yet it is difficult to imagine I could have much less in my system than at this point on Sunday.  After throwing up 5 times and the several bouts of diarrhea, I must have been running completely on empty.  I did manage to ingest a single Espresso Love gel (of all things) on the bike.  I guess the gel helped.

Upon finishing the bike I decided I would jog/walk part of the run.  I ended up running all of the 12k run course in 57 minutes, which surprisingly was the 79th fastest run split on the day.

At the finish line, a friend rushed up to congratulate me and talk.  "Thanks.  I am going to be sick"  I replied.  I staggered away, desperately looking for a quiet out of the way spot.  But it was too late, my stomach was already convulsing and I could not wait.  The next thing in my path was a white tent.  Which turned out to be the medical tent.

Needless to say, throwing up on the medical tent is a good way to generate a great deal of immediate and concerned attention. An absolute army of staff descended upon me.  Doctors and nurses and people with stretchers and people with various medical apparatus. "Um, it was just a bit of bad fruit" I kept telling them.  But all the young Thai nurses were lovely.  And it was nice to get an IV - my appetite is only now really coming back as I write this two days later. One of the doctors suggested to me that generally in the future if one vomits so many times he would probably not recommend immediately doing a triathlon.

For what it is worth, my time was 3:47:10, placing me roughly in middle of pack.

2012 Run Mileage

Here is my 2012 run mileage chart from Running Ahead:

Wow, I really did not run much distance again in 2012. The 42k
marathon run during Ironman in July jumps out as a significant portion
on the bar chart.

So efforts to gradually increase mileage in 2013 is starting from a low base.

Taiwan

 I am impressed by Taiwan's network of bike paths. A local explains to me how the large domestic bike manufacturers (notably Giant) decided a few years ago that they shouldn't just be building bikes for export, and so these companies lobbyed the government to create the bike paths which has helped to fuel a huge boom in cycling within the country.

The adjacent picture is from David and I cycling a 70-km loop around the southern tip of the island on Sunday.  Then on Tuesday I cycled 80-km around the city of Taipei. I am amazed and delighted that all of my Taipei ride is on dedicated bike paths with the exception of three short stretches where I had to cycle with automobile traffic and one short stretch of path construction.  I recall my first visit to Taipei some 18 years ago when it seemed difficult to even walk a few blocks amidst broken, cluttered sidewalks and rivers of screaming traffic, let alone cycle for miles on smooth, unobstructed paths.

Saturday's ride at the Ironman 70.3 event was also enjoyable. But the triathlon run was simply a disaster. For reasons that I cannot begin to figure out I felt completely drained overall and my legs ached. I had been on pace to hit my goal times coming off the bike.  My total time at that point was about 2 hours 25 minutes.  I felt a little off in the T2 bike-to-run transition but assumed that, as always, I would start to gain strength after about 1km of running.  But then things just spiraled into darkness. I  could barely walk/run from 4k to 14km – my half-marathon run time was over 2 hours.

This was supposed to be my big "A" race for 2012.  I had diligently logged more training over the past few months including some strong brick sessions.  Plus I was coming off July's Ironman.   But I did much better last year (Vineman 70.3) off very little training (on a borrowed bike, and in worse conditions).

So naturally in the hours right after the race I can't help but wonder why on earth I am spending the epic amount of time, money and energy lugging my wetsuit and bike so far, riding for hours, and dealing with all the triathlon logistics. (In dramatic contrast to the easy glory and simplicity of the 10k run events of the previous two weekends -- see earlier posts below..).  

But on Sunday, cruising along those bike paths around the scenic southern tip of Taiwan, I remember how great it is to experience the world on a bicycle and why I don't just run 10k races.  

     

BBQ 10k

I capture a second glorious 10k triumph in consecutive weekends -- I win the Namban BBQ 10k in a time of 38:11 last Sunday.

It was a tactical race - I hang behind 3 other guys until 8k and then surge on the final turnaround.

My triathlon teammates are horrified that I am expending energy on what they deem frivolous events with my "A" race -- the Taiwan Half-Ironman -- coming up this Saturday.  I had been concerned about this myself.  But then, (1) I don't think the taper matters that much, (2) I didn't expend 100% effort on Sunday, and (3)when I stand back and think about it - the "frivolous" races have been more gratifying than eeking out improvement on my middle-of-the-pack finishes in the big triathlon events. The events I have enjoyed the most this year (the Fussen Fun Run, Dawg Dash, Namban BBQ Run) have all been "frivolous"

That said, I do really hope to execute well at Taiwan. The half-ironman distance should be good test for me now, and it seems I could improve on my 5:17 PB to-date.

Dawg Dash 10k

I run inexplicably well at the Dawg Dash 10k last Sunday -- 36:11, first place in the 40-49 division among 110 runners and 15th out of 1,200 overall. 

I did not wear a GPS watch and I have to suspect the course was short - but in any case I felt fast and strong and believe I ran a legitimately strong time on the fast section from mile 1 to 4 -- here are the mile splits that I did manage to record --  

1st mile - 6:02 -  Uphill 

3 mile - 16:50 (5:24 per mile) - Gradual downhill

4 mile - 22:28  (5:38) - Flat

6 mile - 34:50 (6:11 per mile) - Hilly, winding, narrow, crowded 

6.2 mile - 36:11 - The last section winds through chute absolutely packed with 5k finishers 

The Dawg Dash is a popular Seattle area race on a course that winds around the University of Washington campus. As suggested by the event name, many runners brought along their dogs to run along beside them.    I decided to participate in the event at the last second pretty much entirely for social reasons -- in order to meet my friend John and his family for breakfast afterward.  As I warmed up on the freezing cold Seattle morning I was wondering why I didn't just skip the run and go straight to breakfast and save myself the $40 day-before-race entry fee.  I was dreading the prospect of struggling on a windy crowded course to run some lame time - I was expecting around 39 minutes.  

So I went out very slowly on the long, uphill start trying to take it easy and find a good pack to run with.  I found myself behind some guy with an Ironman 70.3 backward baseball cap.  Maybe it was the cap that prompted me to chase after this guy and remain with him as he picked up the pace.  After cresting the hill and hitting the mile mark we just screamed down a series of long, gradual downhills.  I kept thinking to myself that I really should just slow down, but at that point I felt committed (and not so tired).  Also I knew the course would slow us down dramatically on the last 2 mile section.  This last section winds around the campus - ostensibly to give the runners a scenic tour of the college.  Also at this point we intersected the 1,000-odd participants running the 5k. The primary challenge was dodging all the dogs straining at their leashes. I had dropped the guy with the Ironman baseball cap around 3-miles (unintentionally), and now at 4 miles I managed to tuck behind some, tall, college-aged runner who blazed a trail through the horde of slow, 5k runners by bellowing out "move to your right! move to your right!"  The college kid did not sound happy.   In contrast, at this point I was quite satisfied with my 4-mile split, the sunny weather, and the prospect of a nice breakfast. I was surprised when we reached the 6-mile marker (maybe this section was short) where we started to enter a narrow, crowded chute which made any sort-of finishing kick impossible.  So I remained 1-second behind the frustrated college kid and the 16th place guy remained only a second behind me.  I crossed the finish line and congratulated the angry college kid who exclaimed "I will never, ever, ever, do this race again, what an outrage!"  

Once again my racing performance seems to have no correlation whatsoever with any objectives, periodization, training plan or race-day strategy that I might have tried to formulate.  

And once again I find that tapering is over-rated (I was coming off a week of heavy triathlon training - 6 hours on Thursday plus spin, yoga, and swim session the day before).  

But unlike the college kid I could do the Dawg Dash again - it was fun and scenic, and my performance was encouraging after my recent mediocre triathlons.