Toyama "race report" (or Lost Horizons 2)

So we travel to northern coast of Japan for the Toyama Triathlon last weekend.  Sunday’s race sees us swim in 29C. degree water, cycle up a mountain in sweltering 35C degree heat and run up and down the slopes of a ski resort in pouring rain.  

And that was the easy part of the weekend. 

We decide, "hey why not ride part of way back to Tokyo?", and on Monday morning we head out on a 145-kilometer journey over the spine of Japan’s central mountain range.  

We ride through beautiful mountain scenery, gradually ascending over 1,000 meters in the hot weather to the 100k mark of the ride (note that this is still the relatively easy part).  

It is at this point that we begin to climb the steep mountain pass and at this point that rain begins to fall.  At first the rain is a pleasant cooling drizzle, but as we crest the high mountain summit it turns into an absolute deluge (we learn later that trains and highways and factories are shut down throughout the area because of the massive amount of rainfall).  

I am really not adept at descending in any conditions.  Now I find myself riding in what has essentially become a fast-moving stream - more than an inch of water pouring across the road in places.  As I zig-zag down the brutally steep, mountain switchbacks, my arms begin to ache with the constant braking.  

And then I started getting cold.  Really, really cold to point that I am shaking uncontrollably as I struggle to steer my bike.  I am growing a bit concerned about simply surviving, and hope that maybe by some incredible luck a car will happen to go past that I could flag down.  But there are no other signs of life on the secluded, lonely mountain road.  

Suddenly, in the darkest deepest forest, with rain bucketing down, we round yet another sharp corner and if by magic, a luxurious hot-springs resort materializes on the hill-side in front of us.  

Are we seeing a mirage?  "Perhaps this is a dream?" we ask ourselves as we slam on our brakes and then stagger up steep stairs to the magnificent building looming above us, hoping the guardians of this ethereal mountain retreat will take pity on us and allow us to warm up.   

The resort is otherworldly luxury and it all feels like the Shangri-La of Lost Horizons, especially as the resort's "High Lama" greets us warmly, ushers us into the spacious entrance hall and escorts us across the opulent, high-ceiling lobby to the cliffside, hot-springs baths   — all the while minions faithfully follow along behind us with towels mopping up the trail of puddles we leave behind.    

We soak in steaming hot outdoor baths, gazing out over a stunning view of high mountain ranges that disappear in the distant horizon  

Later we roam the tranquil grounds of the retreat and memories of the dark mountain ride fades away in transcendent calm of the mountain sanctuary.  We start to lose track of time (perhaps time passes differently in this parallel mountain realm?), until Mark recalls vaguely that he has a job and a family back in the other world below. We reluctantly bid farewell to the “High Lama” and the postulants seeking enlightenment at our remote alpine oasis.   

Maybe like the characters in Lost Horizons we should have chosen to just stay and live out our days in the idyllic peace  and comfort of our isolated Shangri-La onsen resort, far removed from the danger and turmoil of the outside world.  

Because more danger and adventure lay in our paths -- the downhill stretch of highway into Matsumoto is punctuated by long, narrow tunnels.  We need to ride quickly to reach our destination before dark, and we race down the busy, wet highway.  Soon we find ourselves riding through seemingly endless tunnels with buses and huge trucks screaming down the mountainside behind us, the roar of their engines echoing throughout the tunnel and the vibration rattling off the walls and road.  We cycle at breakneck speed  to stay ahead of the buses bearing down on us, knowing that even the slightest mistake would instantly result in a grisly, violent death.  This goes on for miles until the highway emerges into the rice fields surrounding the town of Matsumoto and we coast to our destination. 

Oh, yeah... the triathlon event itself....it was a bit disappointing again...  I seem to have totally overheated in my wetsuit, and then I lamely struggled through the ride and run.  I think I was like 33rd place out of 200...  

Just Swim Faster

When I was a kid we would go to a nearby lake on hot summer days and, as boys would do, race each other.  Racing for me then simply entailed kicking my legs and swinging my arms faster (swimming with a “higher cadence” if you must).  Swimming faster was intuitively obvious.

Fast-forward three-plus decades to the start of my triathlon life: upon arriving at the pool for my first day of swim training, the coach took one horrified look at my frantic, gasping effort to swim the 25-meter length of the pool and told me emphatically how I needed to slow everything down and fundamentally streamline my swim stroke.  Over the next few years I did my best to learn to glide through the water like a fish with a strong, smooth stroke.

And it worked.  I went from being absolutely last place out of the swim in my first triathlon to more respectable middle of the pack position   

Well it worked up to a point.  Eventually my swim progression hit a plateau, and then inexplicably went into reverse (see previous blog post) The swim coaches have continued telling me to “relax”. Problem it seems is that now I am relaxing way, way too much during the triathlons.  Relaxing so much that I have become really, really slow – losing all sense of even trying to “race” – forgetting what was obvious to me at the age of 10.  

The swim is the shortest portion of the triathlon, but it costs me a huge 10-minutes off my goal pace.  I decide that I have to do something to get back to swimming 2-minutes per 100-meters, but what?  And why do I keep tying up 5-minutes into each swim session?   I asked my teammates and coaches and spent hours searching the internet and watching youtube swim videos.  I tried various adjustments to body position and hand position and hip rotation.  And then one day I saw some boys playing at the pool and in a blinding flash of deep insight it hit me - "I will just swim faster!"
 

So swim training the past month has been a short-term experiment --  an experiment with higher cadence, an experiment in  "damage minimization" --  Can I will myself back to a sub 2-minute per 100-meter race pace that I was swimming 3 years ago? At the start of each interval I just tell myself to stroke fast. Forget the drills and the science and any progressive adaptation.  Every training session I do 2-minute per 100-meters intervals on short rest.  I add another 100-meter each day (like adding one push-up per day).  Mentally and physically I want myself to register this pace as my swim speed.   For the moment I abandon my bilateral breathing and really abandon any focus on swim technique (hopefully there are no swim coaches reading this blog post). 

I have not completely forgot all the coaches advice to “relax”.  What  I do is to just tell myself that I am relaxed.  As I churn my arms with higher cadence, spiking the water, rapidly catching, driving forward and breathing harder, I blow out the words “I feeeeel reeeeelaaaaaxxxxxeeddddd”  into the bubbles as I exhale into the water.  I really do this.  I am not kidding.  Every interval.  And I swear it actually works -- reconciling some of the annoyingly conflicting swim advice I have received – I do feel stronger and more relaxed and that I can maintain this rapid cadence. 

Last week I entered the Hayama Open Water Swim to test if my little experiment was working at all

Giant waves pound the beach, and the race officials cut the race from a 3k double loop to a 1.3k out-and-back.   I am a little freaked out.

But I remember to be like the kid on a lake on a hot summer day. I leap in the water and start chopping rapidly through the surf. I strive to “spike the fish” (make short, choppy strokes) as I climb over the waves.  As I plunge over some big swells, get kicked, and struggle to sight the buoy,  I blow out words into the water --  “I feeeeeel soooooo reeeelaaaaxedddddddd” “haaaavvvvving fuuuuuuuuun”   “could do this allllllll daaaaaaaay”  

Ultimately my time of 26:30 is a faster pace than any of the swims I have done over the past 12 months.  And that is not even taking into account the waves and my poor sighting.

It is really satisfying to realize this rebound in swim performance and for the moment it is fun to power through my workouts with my eyes trained on the clock. But don't get me wrong - I am the last person that would advocate any swim technique.  And I look forward to the end of my triathlon season and going back to "zen swimming"  

Surely the swim will be canceled?

Dark, angry, waves crash on the pier in front of us.  

Surely the race officials will spare us swimming in these perilous seas?  I stand on the shore waiting for the announcement that the swim is being canceled and replaced with a 5k run. 

When the starting gun is fired I am still in denial - you can see me in this picture gingerly hobbling out over the sharp rocks and into the roiling ocean - I am in no hurry to plunge into the rough currents. 

Funny thing is, the Oshima race is touted as being welcoming for first-time triathlete. Welcoming because of the lack of cut-off times, not because of swim conditions. Swim conditions were certainly not welcoming.  On this day dozens of participants did not make it through the swim - some 20% are listed as "DNF" on the results.  Most of these poor newbie swimmers seem to have piled up in front of me when I arrived at the second buoy (the race's first turn). It felt like the sinking of the Titanic with the previous waves of swimmers in different colored caps, back-stroking and treading water.   

You can actually see my own struggles at the second buoy -- the squiggle in the upper left corner from this GPS image where the powerful waves pushed me back as I tried to get around all the drowning, flailing beginners and sight the buoy.
  

I begin to grow concerned myself that I would join all the DNFers being plucked from the seas. But I managed to calm down and remind myself that I have finished numerous open water swims and some were in even worse conditions. 
















After the slow swim I feel I am just absolutely blowing past these beginner triathletes around me on the bike - "Wow, be careful at such incredibly high speeds"  I tell myself, "I am soooo fast, I must be setting a land speed record"

But apparently I was really not cycling at incredibly high speeds.  

When I check my split after bike I am 3 minutes slower than my bike time at Oshima several years ago in similar conditions. 

So on the run I am just trying to maintain some effort, some intensity, some focus on the present ... though lamentably, I have largely given up on today's event and cannot keep my thoughts from drifting to future races..  

At this point, as you can see,  I have plenty of energy to high-five my fans  

I do manage to summon the will to at least break 40-minutes on the run.  

Splits:
Swim - 36:34
Bike -  1:13:22
Run -   39:45

2016 Training - The Zen of Swimming

 

In 2015 I was so diligent about swim training. 

So diligent, and yet my whole swim experience was of near-drowning, oxygen-deprived agony.  

I would desperately struggle to stay with my teammate for 100-meters, gasping and sputtering the whole way.   

And before I could recover, we would do another 100-meters.   And then another, and another... 

I lived in constant dread at the prospect of the next horrific, nightmarish swim session.

My whole life deteriorated into a miserable, joyless slog -- I would go to bed dreading the thought of having to do a swim workout the next day, suffer through nightmares about swimming, and awaken to a wave of fear and dread at the prospect of that day’s workout. 

And I didn't improve.  

In fact my swimming got slower.  My time of 43 minutes for the triathlon swim in Korea was far longer than the  38 minutes it took me to cover 1.9-kilometers at Frankfurt and the 36 minutes it took me in Taiwan. 



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So this year I just do 20-minute relaxed sessions at my Spa

I use a big, buoyant pull buoy.  I focus on a few simple mechanics — chest down, stomach in, hips up.  Follow-through.

I don't worry about the clock or competitive concerns. Rather I simply try to stay in that present moment.  

Much of my focus is on breathing.  Bilateral breathing —  stroke, stroke, breath left, stroke, stoke, breath right.  

During these swims I start to realize a state of blissful placid calm.  I find that I am even achieving some of the meditative serenity and mindfulness that has always eluded me in yoga 

I am at one with the water surrounding me.  I am the water. The water is me.  There is no separation.  (Okay, I am starting to exaggerate, but only just a bit.) 

Anyway, I am not certain that there exists any relationship between these swim sessions and the tumultuous swim legs of my upcoming triathlons. We will see. But no matter -  my 2016 training is much more consistent with my training philosophy  

Spring 2016: Short, frequent workouts vs. fewer, longer sessions

Here is a snapshot of my early triathlon season training from Strava: 

Notice all these little tiny bubbles - each bubble represents one of my numerous, very short workouts.  On many days I do 3 workouts:   A quick 30-minutes run perhaps.  A brief 20-minutes swim. A fast 15 minutes on my bike trainer.  And these aren’t warm-ups or cool-downs - each bubble represents the whole session.  (The number of minutes on the bubbles is the combined total workout time for the day). 

Evidence suggests that short, frequent workouts are better for improving efficiency/economy (versus fewer, longer workouts).  The triathlon training program I loosely follow  is very insistent about avoiding "inappropriate training volume --which is primarily referring to the tendency of weekend triathletes to exhaust themselves doing "epic workouts".  A well-known run training rule is to try not do more than 25% of your weekly mileage in one session.  

So I assume these arguments in favor of frequent workouts for enhancing race performance are somewhat accurate and certainly I hope to improve my race times. But actually the main reason for this program is that I have simply felt like doing shorter workouts. I am really just lazy. It seems easier for me now to do short sessions.   

• Especially easier when they are pleasant swims in the tiny pool at the luxury spa in my apartment building.  
• Or a quick 15-minute trainer ride first thing in the morning before shower and breakfast.  
• Or short runs around MidTown park, or on treadmill.  

I have managed to arrange my schedule around these short, intense sessions, though it is occasionally inefficient time management, and I would acknowledge I may be compromising some training quality. 

Of course most of us weekend athletes cannot maintain such a schedule (that’s why we are called weekend athletes, right?)  

And even for me this training regime won’t last long, as the season progresses I anticipate shifting into longer, more race-specific sessions. 

2016 Fuji-Susono 10k

I return to Fuji-Susono after a six year absence, this time running the 10k race rather than the half-marathon.  









Before the race, as always, our team stays at the nearby Gotemba Resort. 




My teammates drink themselves into oblivion that evening, 





enjoy enormous, lavish buffet breakfasts hours before the run, 





and lounge in the warm spring sunshine right up until race-time. 




Meanwhile I am trying to bring a modicum of seriousness to the event since it is one of my only races of the season.  





The infamous long climb from the 1-kilometer to 5-kilometer is far more dramatic when only doing 10k.   In stark contrast to most any other race, the most brutal moments of the event for me are very early on, particularly around 3k...  (elevation profile below looks like a pointy mountain peak) 

....I hit the turnaround in 22 minutes, do the U-turn and then push downhill to finish under 39 minutes. 

....sprinting madly the last 800 meters, paranoid that an age group competitor is looming right behind me  (turns out the guy I saw is a decade younger)








I suppose it was worth the painful effort - look at all the prizes and glory showered on me for my age-group victory:

Trail Run Tour in Northern California

This past week I returned “home” to California and arguably the most spectacular trail running anywhere:

Dipsea 

I had never run the Dipsea Trail - site of a renowned trail race which dates back to 1905.  



The thought of climbing and descending hundreds of stairs and the trailhead's inaccessibility had always deterred me.

However now I find myself staying in Mill Valley, just blocks from the “trailhead” (672 stairs), and I follow the steps with the idea of  using the well-marked path in order to connect to nearby trails circling Mount Tamalpais for a moderate afternoon workout.    




After climbing the stairs I follow the signs through a residential neighborhood and around hordes of tourists visiting Muir Woods.  


I catch up with two runners who look like intense trail runners and ask if they have suggestions for the most “runnable, scenic trails”.  They look puzzled — "of course you want to follow the Dipsea Trail don’t you?" they ask me.  


So I continue upward through the long meadow climb to what is apparently called "Cardiac Hill".   


It is a gorgeous spring day, and the trail is thronged with hikers (and a few other hardcore runners), and frequently people shout encouragement to me.  They all seem to be loaded with gear and appear to be following the Dipsea Trail in some quest to reach the Ocean.  It is starting to feel like a pilgrimage of sorts.  After cresting what I believe is called 'the Swoop" and see the panoramic sight of the Pacific Ocean  spread out in front of me I just had to keep going.  

I descend through more groves of redwoods, through a ravine and alongside creeks, and down yet more stairs.   

Ultimately I found myself running in the deep sand of Stimson Beach amidst crowds of sunbathers, and the sun-dappled waves of the Pacific Ocean:

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Marin Headlands Run 

Two days later I run through the breathtaking open spaces of the Marin Headlands.  


I can’t imagine there could be a better place to run.  I have run spectacular trails in Hawaii (Na Pali, Volcano), the Swiss Alps, Seattle, the Rockies but none offer the terrain, the logistics and the spectacular sights provided by today's run. 



Wide smooth dirt paths roll for miles across sweeping hillsides - on my left is Sausilito, to my right the Pacific Ocean and in front of me the Golden Gate and shimmering San Francisco skyline.


 I hardly see another soul during my 2 hour run.   


You can see my course here starting at the Miwok Stables. I would certainly recommend this route but next time I will create more of a loop course by following the Miwok Trail out toward Pacific and connecting to Rodeo Valley Trail:







On this day I follow an out-and-back route along the SCA trail down toward the Golden Gate Bridge for the obligatory selfie.  

   

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Santa Cruz 

I travel farther south, and my teammate  Caroline leads me through her favorite course -- Santa Cruz's Wilder Ranch State Park. 



Our trail winds up through coastal terraces into forests and then across meadows, and again I enjoy expansive views of the Pacific. 


The hillsides are unusually lush after the heavy winter El Nino rains, and we descend through the meadows blooming with wildflowers: 

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GooglePlex Intervals and Compression Technology Recovery

I join long-time friend Glen for a lunch run from the Google headquarters in Mountain View, and again my expectations of an easy session are dashed.  The Google employees are a fast and determined group of athletes and are doing hard 1.5-mile intervals on the Bayland trails.  I am trashed by the intense effort, especially after starting out with too much zeal to show the other guys that I am still in top shape.  

Not to mention all my recent training and travel. 

Fortunately, as you might expect, the Googleplex fitness facility offers an array of the latest technology including the NormaTec Pulse System - which describes itself as a “dynamic pulsing system to effectively mimic the muscle pump of legs and arms and greatly enhance the movement of fluid and metabolites out of the limbs after an intense workout”.   So we lay in reclining chairs, zip on these large inflatable leggings, and then hook the leggings up to the air compression control unit.   When I flip the high-tech gadget on it begins to compress around my feet and then pulse and deflate. This process  gradually progresses downward from my elevated feet to my hips -- kneeding and massaging my sore legs.  

I am skeptical that compression gear and technology actually improves blood flow to muscles and boosts performance (the latest research fails to find evidence of improved performance), but I always feel somehow better (and faster) when I wear compression tights.  

And the NormaTec System dynamic compression system certainly does feel extremely pleasant after all the training, and seemed to genuinely reduce soreness - even if only a placebo effect, I felt markedly better. 

Who needs race chips and official timers when you have GPS

Last Sunday's Koga 10k was my Winter 2016 "A race"   --- the test of whether my additional run training volume over the past 3 months would enable me to get my 10k time back down by a minute to where I feel I should be running when I am in proper condition.

The race was going pretty well - I tucked in behind a pack of college runners who were hitting a consistent pace, and at 6k my teammate Hoel caught up with our pack, further inspiring me to maintain my goal pace. 

Unfortunately the pack took a wrong turn at 8k. I had been very focused on staying with my pack and had no recollection of seeing a turnoff.  Even as we approached 10 kilometers on my GPS watch, I continued to cling to the delusion that I was on course, and I  searched desperately for the turn that would take us into the stadium and the finish line.  It was only at this point that it begun to dawn on me that we were doing a 3rd loop of the 2-loop course.  

I slowed down after covering 10k and jogged through the 3rd loop as a cool down.  I felt livid - in my mind I cursed the race officials (even though our pack were the only runners who seemed to have missed the turn).  My one best chance for fast a 10k was lost!  All the training wasted!  All my dreams turned to dust (okay, okay I am exaggerating a bit -- at this point in life I have a little more perspective, but still I was distressed). 

Distressed until I uploaded my splits onto Strava and saw that the GPS technology had credited me with a 35:54, my fastest 10k in several years and faster than I had dared hope for.  Granted, during the race I had noticed that my Garmin watch was buzzing with a split about 2-3 seconds before we reached each official kilometer split sign.  But I tell myself that even if I add 30 seconds then subtract a bunch of time for the furious kick I no doubt would have unleashed in the stadium finish, I still would be close enough to round down to 36 minutes. And so I declare victory.    

Who cares that in the official race results I finish near last place.  I decide to focus on the more favorable GPS time.  Which you can see in this lovely screen capture of the Strava splits: 

Embracing Strength Training 2 - Paradox of choice

Which strength drills should I actually do?  

I have been paralyzed by way too many choices.  I have viewed countless You-Tube videos of different drills - along with practically every week receiving some email article of Top-5  exercises for runners, for cyclists, for swimmers, for people with weak hips, for people with weak hamstrings, for people with weak achilles, for the aged, for the busy executive, for the lame. 

I have exercises that a pilates instructor highly recommended to me, drills a physical trainer implored me to do, and poses my yoga teacher said were absolutely, absolutely essential. It seems I could do different exercises all day and all night and not repeat a single one of them.  

Moreover, I occasionally watch someone else in the gym do some new exercise and I think to myself - "oh, wow, that's what I should be doing" then I surreptitiously try to imitate them.

So most evenings I would sit and ponder all these possible different exercises that I am supposed to be doing until I grew exhausted just thinking about it and then just crack open a beer.  
For the purposes of my 3-month quantified test, I resolve that that I need to narrow down my strength session to a reasonable number of basic exercises that fit into the time I have after my swim and that I will stick with for 3 months.  I take advantage of the abundance of equipment at the fitness center to do some drills I normally would otherwise never bother with. 

- I select 4 of the simplest, most traditional, tried and true lifts (and I can quantify)
- I choose basic core body drills
- I pick some exercises that are addressing specific run/triathlon weakness issues:

• Bench press
• Dumb-bell military press
• Concentration curls
• Lat Pulldowns 
• Calf Raises

• Pushups (with plank drills)*
• Superman
• Dips
• Exercise ball pass 

• Single-leg deadlift
• Bridge with leg lift
• Crab walk with elastic band
• Lunges (in swimming pool)
• Burpees 

I would also do squats.  But I simply can't.  Not correctly.   I fall over backwards. 


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*My core exercise (core in several senses of the word) is still the push-up.  

I posted before about the reputed merits of the humble push-up -- how it is the ultimate barometer of whole body fitness, and about my effort to be able to exceed the benchmark for my age group (27 push-ups at the time).  

So now as part of my 2016 resolution to embrace strength training and enjoy seeing actual improvement, I revisit my push-up performance metric.

In the years since the earlier post I had settled at around a maximum of 50 push-ups (on a really good day).   But I am not even sure if I can really credit myself with 50 push-ups.  You see I have developed my own system of "resting" (or "cheating" essentially) in plank and downward dog (the inverted V yoga pose).  I like my system because it incorporates these other basic, valuable core muscle exercises as the "easy" part of my goal-driven push-up effort.

I google "push-up rules"  and while I cannot find a definitive ruling it seems clear that I must keep my body straight at all times, meaning no resting in downward dog.  

So for purposes of my Spring 2016 program I keep my back straight and work my way back up, adding 1 more push-up each day - a few weeks ago I collapsed after 39.  Yesterday I completed 58.