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. 



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

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:

________________________________________________________________________________

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.  

   

_________________________________________________________________________________


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: 

_________________________________________________________________________

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. 


____________________________________________________

*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.  

Embracing Strength Training

Speaking of biases.  For years when I passed by the weight-lifting gym on my way to a spin class or the pool I would glance over at the weight-lifters with a sense of superiority.  All these narcisstic guys in their muscle shirts and belts prancing around for hours staring at themselves in the wall-to-wall mirrors and occasionally straining to hoist some big weight.  I would congratulate myself on how I am meanwhile engaged in my much healthier sport of triathlon -- preparing for a great competitive endeavor with my triathlete community in the great outdoors.  

Being as scrawny and weak as I am though, perhaps I am just envious? And in any case my lack of strength seems to be my key limitation in triathlon. So this month I resolved to overcome my bias and embrace the sport of weightlifting  (at least for the off-season) especially given that: 

1. I increasingly hear that strength work is just as important (some argue MORE important!) than the triathlon type cardio/aerobic training for overall health (especially as you get older) 



 2. Like so many millions of people, I have been stressed over the thought that I am paying so darn much for my overpriced fitness club every month, and I am not adequately utilizing it



3. I crave quantifiable progress. With running and swimming it has been soooo hard to break out of my plateau - I long for the instant gratification of tangible improvement 

So my idea is to create more of a a sense of purpose around weight-training - instead of only half-heartedly going through the dreary motions of lifting -- I will try to lift a bit more every few weeks.  Like the Greek legend, Milo of Croton starting out with his newborn calf and lifting it everyday until he is lifting a full-grown bull.  Not that I am necessarily so concerned about being able to lift a bull.  Over 3-months of 3x per week progressive overload I just hope I can achieve some measurable improvement.  Perhaps it will benefit my running and triathlon performance.  Perhaps not.  Regardless, I embarked on my program a few weeks ago with a piece of notebook paper to jot my results and with great enthusiasm.   

And so far it is working!  For example with dips I add 1 more each session.  10 days ago I absolutely collapsed off the bars after 11, but then two days later I could do 12 before I collapsed.  Then 13.  Yesterday I did 16! 

It is so satisfying.  It seems the physiological benefit of progressive stress adaptation gets combined with the mental focus and confidence of doing just one more rep each session.  

It is like training for a half-marathon for me in earlier times before the plateau - every Sunday just add one more mile at like like 5:30 per mile. 






And I can admire myself in the wall-to-wall mirror 

  

High intensity intervals vs Longer, slow, steady runs

After my last post I have been told that I am living in a high-intensity-interval “echo chamber.” In other words, I am like a climate change denier who only seeks out articles arguing that climate change is not occurring, and becomes caught in an "echo chamber" continuously being only fed yet more such articles by social media, search and his circle of friends, and where competing views are screened out.  I am only reading that high-intensity is beneficial, and long-slow marathon training is somehow “old-school” and “ineffectual” and more likely to lead to burnout and over-use injury (see my last post below).  Moreover, when I lead my weekly high-intensity hill repeats or run Wednesday intervals and ask this self-selected group of participants, they all heartily agree that sprinting up a hill at a crazed level of exertion is the ultimate healthy activity.  

Maybe there is a whole world of evidence that sticking to 100% longer, easier, aerobic runs is optimal?   Longer, steady-state runs seem to be what most of my marathon-focused teammates do almost exclusively, most all the time. Maybe they know something I don't?      

So in my effort to break out of my narrow, close-minded gated community, I find another computer, log-in with a different name and seek articles on the merit of longer, steady exercise.  My search delivers an odd assortment of viewpoints --

• The Oatmail comic outrunning "The Blerch"
• The spiritual pursuits of the Marathon Monks, Christian runners, and Sri Chimnoy
• Paeans to deep, metaphysical, transformative powers of long runs 
• A very old book suggesting that Longer runs are more humane 
• This post arguing that cross-fit enthusiasts are wrong to “rubbish" long slow distance training, that high-intensity exercise is MORE likely to cause injury, and that most people are essentially best to stick to long, slow running 
• "Going Slower to get Faster" on the merits of aerobic “base phase” training
• Or similarly "No Substitute for LSD" chronicling the tendency of "adult-onset" athletes to steadily improve until they crash, and then struggle to return because of endless racing and lack of long recovery runs 
• Laundry lists of physiological and mental benefits of long training sessions
• Perhaps most representative is "Steady-state Cardio vs. High-Intensity-Interval Training" which contrasts "Jane" who only does steady-state runs and "Susan" who only does  high intensity workouts. The article goes on to tell us (not exactly a surprise) that the best program is a combination of both -- along with the customary emphasis on the importance of seasonality (periodization)

My quick reaction - 

1. Wow - there are people that do ONLY high intensity training?

Apparently there is this whole world of sedentary Americans whose only exercise is Crossfit and intense treadmill workouts.  My heart cries out - I feel such sympathy for them.  

2. For runners just 10-20% high intensity seems more appropriate 

3. My triathlete teammates scoff at this idea of long, aerobic base training as "just so 1970s" favoring "reverse periodization"

4. Importance of seasonality - Yeah, yeah, yeah,  see  my "off season" post among others below

5. Reading all these long paeans to the spiritual joy of really really long runs is even more boring than really really long runs

6. Ultimately my effort to be open-minded is an abysmal failure.  Alas, the most compelling data point I stumbled across was this article which largely supports my prevailing view (bias).  The US Military(!) -- that same institution that produced the original 1960s era data on the health benefits of long running — has decided to increase the intensity of their troop’s training and reduce the volume of running based on extensive evidence of over-use injuries and troop performance.