Ironman to Ironman

It has been way too long since I have posted on here. The most significant race since my last post was Ironman Louisville on August 30. I think the main reason I didn't post anything immediately after and kept putting it off was because I was more than a little disappointed with myself for my performance.


In racing, you put yourself out there. Especially with an Ironman, which are usually only done once or twice a year, there is a lot of build-up. People know I'm doing it, and that I'm excited and serious about it. For Ironman Louisville, this built up in my own mind significant expectation. I really wanted to do well, be at the top of my age group, and if not qualify for Kona (world champs, have to be top 3 in age group), then at least be pretty close behind the kids that did. I told myself this, and told other people this.

It didn't happen. In fact, I was way, way off. It wasn't from lack of training or preparation, it was an error in execution. As Christopher McDougall put it in Born to Run, long distance racing is "a series of binary decisions." To eat or not to eat, drink water or gatorade, push a little harder or back off a bit, try to keep up with someone passing me, or hold back. They are influenced by feedback you can get from yourself by asking questions like "is my stomach full?", "am i thirsty?", "how are my muscles, any cramping?". You end up with a decision matrix, where a feeling (or lack thereof) results in an action.

For me, I had a serious error in my decision matrix. I have experienced during racing before hyponatremia, where there is not enough sodium in my bloodstream, reducing the body's ability to bring liquids from the stomach to the rest of the body. The simple solution is salt pills. Replenish your salt supply, and your body starts functioning better pretty quickly.

In Louisville, probably about 5 miles or so into the marathon, I my stomach was feeling pretty full, so I took salt pills. Over the next hour or so, it wasn't feeling a whole lot better, so I took more salt pills. I had read about professional athletes taking as many as 10 pills (400 mg sodium) per hour, so didn't think I could over-do it, and figured that I would just sweat out any excess. By the half-way point in the run, I had taken probably 30 pills, and was feeling pretty awful. Eating or drinking anything, including water, only made me feel worse, so I stopped, hoping I had enough energy left to get me to the finish line. This worked fine until about mile 20 or so, though I was slowing down a bit, I was still running and on track for a decent overall time.

Now as I learned later (from a doctor in the medical tent while she was putting an IV in me), as the sodium balance between inside your stomach wall and outside your stomach wall builds, water tends to go to where the salt is. Tons of salt in my stomach drew the water from the rest of my body into my stomach, causing dehydration and, well, digestive issues.

I was managing this until probably mile 22 or so, when I completely ran out of energy and was force to walk, slowly. You can see in the run splits how this played out:

FIRST RUN SEGMENT	3.38 mi. (25:02)	7:24/mile
SECOND RUN SEGMENT	8.25 mi. (40:30)	8:18/mile
THIRD RUN SEGMENT	13.1 mi. (43:40)	9:00/mile
FOURTH RUN SEGMENT	15.33 mi. (21:27)	9:37/mile
FIFTH RUN SEGMENT	20.19 mi. (56:08)	11:33/mile
SIXTH RUN SEGMENT	25.04 mi. (1:24:51)	17:29/mile
FINAL RUN SEGMENT	26.2 mi. (24:09)	20:49/mile
TOTAL RUN	26.2 mi. (4:55:47)	11:17/mile

The last couple miles were terrible. I was taken away from the finish line in a wheel chair, given two IV bags at the medical tent, then curled into a ball in the hotel and passed out for a few hours.

Probably the most disappointing thing about the day was that I had worked quite hard to build a lot of fitness, but didn't really get to use it. This brings us to the new goal for Ironman Florida, tomorrow. I want to have a strong, even split race, where I run the whole way and finish strong at the end. I'm not trying to qualify, win the age group, or anything. I just want to have a well executed race. I will be eating a lot less throughout, and taking it a bit easier the whole way, with the goal of feeling good 8 hours in at the start of the second half of the marathon, and running strong the whole way. While my fitness was probably higher in August, hopefully it will be my execution (and refined decision matrix) tomorrow that makes the difference.

From Panama City, Florida, thanks for reading.

Training Injured, New Coach, and Stretching

For most of the Spring, I had a minor hamstring injury. It hurt the most while running, though I could feel it some on the bike. Assuming it was something running related, I cut back on run training, bought new shoes, and tried made several changes to my running technique.

The lack of run training resulted in a disappointing 3:41 at Shamrock Marathon, though it didn't have a huge affect on my speed or endurance for the two half-iron distance races this year (1st overall in Gainesville, 5th overall at Kinetic Half). Still, throughout the course of the Spring semester, it was getting worse. I remember a couple days before Collegiate Nationals (which also went pretty poorly), going out for a run, getting a few steps outside my house and turning around and walking back in because it hurt so bad.

The week after Kinetic Half, I did the race ride here in town, and the next day could barely walk. Both hamstrings were worse than they had been all Spring, and I was completely off training for several days. It was then I decided to start looking for a coach, and get to the root of the issue. After having messed with my running for a couple of months, I was beginning to suspect it may be something bike-related, even though hamstring issues are not typically associated with biking. In the meantime, in an attempt to take some time off to get healthy, May was by far my lightest training month yet this year. Not good with Ironman Louisville at the end of August.

I looked back at my training logs, and the first time I had written about hamstring pain was literally the first day after I rode my new Quintana Roo TT bike which I bought back in January, and I recorded it regularly after that. Maybe I went to too aggressive of a position (too bent over for good aerodynamics instead of sitting up somewhat) too quickly?

Anyway, in the last month since Kinetic, I decided to get a little more help with the issue. I had been considering getting a coach for a while, simply to have someone to consult with on laying out a workout plan, but with the hamstring problems, I decided now was the time. I decided to go with a local gentleman who came highly recommended by two friends and excellent triathletes, Sam Froelich and Crystal Pruitt. Jim McGehee of One-on-One Endurance agreed to work with me, and has been helping me for the last two weeks or so.

After less than a week with Jim, after explaining in depth what I'd been doing that may have caused these issues, he hooked me up with T.J. Stites, a local physical therapist and pretty good triathlete himself (10th at Smith Mountain Lake, 1st in age group). T.J. came by my house, looked at my position on the QRoo, looked at how I couldn't touch my toes when I bent over with my legs straight, and immediately told me the problem was with my hamstring flexibility.

I've been stretching my hamstrings 2-3 times a day now for about a week, and can feel a huge difference. Biking yesterday, the only time I felt my hamstrings was while pushing hard bent over in the drops, in a pretty compact position comparable to my time-trial position. I'm confident that a couple more weeks or regular stretching and I'll be good to go again. Running has felt better too, and I'm up from a long run of about 20 minutes two weeks ago to an hour this week. Still a long way to go in the 11 weeks between now and Louisville, but being healthy, and with my coach to guide me, I should definitely be able to get that long run up there over the next month.

In summary, STRETCH! For cycling, you only using a limited range of motion of your legs, and it is very easy to lose flexibility with leads to injury. Trying to combine this with a stretched out time trial position led me to several months of training with an injury. (I am currently doing about four different hamstring stretches, each for 45 seconds to a minute, when I wake up, when I go to bed, and immediately after workouts.)

From Blacksburg, thanks.

4/16 and Triathlon, Part II

Hokies Memorial Marathon (2007 Marine Corps Marathon)

This is the second of a two part series in which I will discuss my experience on April 16, 2007 at Virginia Tech, and its influence on me. Part I discussed the shooting.

The couple of weeks or so after the shooting were not very productive in Blacksburg to say the least. Though class resumed the week after, there wasn't a lot of work given and most exams were canceled or optional. I remember playing a lot of golf with friends Billy, Cory, and FJ those first couple weeks, between visiting with friends and family who had come in to town. I was a terrible golfer, but it was relaxing getting away from Blacksburg and relaxing during those first hectic days.

In early May, during exams, I was talking to a runner friend, Liz, who told me how some people she knew were organizing a run called the Hokies Memorial Marathon, and they had 100 spots for people to run the Marine Corps Marathon in October 2007, and each person would raise $1000 to meet the minimum of $100,000 required by the Virginia Tech Foundation to endow a scholarship. I immediately contacted one of the organizers and expressed my interest. In fact, four of us from Dr. Librescu's class had all heard about it separately and signed up.

Now, it wasn't like I was coming straight off the couch into marathon training, but I certainly wasn't an endurance runner. The previous summer I had gone on a couple of longer runs with a friend, and had competed in a couple of local 5k's, but my longest run was still under 10 miles, and I'd only done that once.

A marathon was one of those things that you always say "Yea, I'd like to do that someday." Well, after my experience, it was blatantly clear that "someday" was now. In Lance Armstrong's first book, Its Not About The Bike, he talks about how a cancer survivor wrote to him shortly after being diagnosed saying "we're the lucky ones," and that he did not initially understand what that meant. I do.

Through the group I got my hands on a 20-week marathon training plan and set out. I spent that summer working at a naval base at home in King George, VA, and did most of the early runs in my neighborhood. I would run a six-mile loop two or three times a week, and swim other days as cross-training. Weekends were for long runs, and I jumped right up to about 14 miles to start with. A local coach, James DeMarco, was volunteering for the group and put together our workout schedule and provided support during the long runs, which I would drove back to Blacksburg for several weekends that summer. Training continued like this into the Fall semester.

Meanwhile, I reached out to everyone I knew to do the fundraising. A reporter at the King George Journal, my hometown paper, was more than willing to help out and published a couple of articles talking about my training and fundraising. People from all over the county and my naval base donated money, but by far the largest pool of donors were alumni of my fraternity, Pike (Pi Kappa Alpha, VT Pikes). I was able to get a message out on our alumni listserv, and a good friend, Tom Tillar, helped me contact numerous other alumni of Pike from the 70s and 80s and members The Cotillion Club (became Pike at VT in 1970). Through this support, I was able to raise just over $14,000, and our group as a whole raised over $140,000, far exceeding our goal. To everyone reading this who helped or contributed, thank you so much for your support. In writing this, I went back to the spreadsheet I had kept of donations and it brought tears to my eyes.

The last six weeks or so before the marathon I started having IT-band problems and had to significantly cut back my running miles and increased cross-training. The marathon was an incredible experience, and I was relatively happy with my time, 4:00:02, given my injury.

The very next weekend, back in Blacksburg, I stopped by the Pike house late Saturday evening where we were hosting a Halloween party. I had been at another formal event earlier and went by to say hello to some folks I hadn't seen since the marathon. In the downstairs hallway, I ran into Doran Bosso, and Brian Schoenberger, both of whom had been doing triathlons for a couple of years, nothing longer than sprint and olympic distance (1 - 2.5 hour races). I was telling them about the marathon, and Doran comes out with "I think I'm going to sign up for Ironman Florida tomorrow." Not to be shown up, Brian agrees, "if you do it, I'll do it."

(Note: An Ironman is a triathlon involving a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run.)

I ponder this a moment: I've just run a marathon, and I've been a swimmer my entire life, I'd have one year to learn to ride a bike. I trained for the marathon while keeping up with school work and everything else. There was no reason to hesitate. "If you guys do it, I'll do it."

From Blacksburg, thanks for reading.

Ironman Florida 2008

Ironman Florida 2008 Race Report
by Frederick Cook

After three days of sitting around Panama City, Florida condos, half-heartedly attempting to contain nervous energy, Saturday, November 1, 2008 arrived much quicker than any of us imagined it would. These three days of on-site preparation, checking and re-checking bike tire pressure, tightening every bolt on the bike, packing and re-packing transition bags and special needs bags, seemed of paramount importance to us, though we all knew deep down that the only thing that would matter come race day was the years of athletic training, and 12 months of Ironman-specific training that had brought us to this day.

The high was a balmy 70 degrees, a far cry from the frigid temperatures we left behind in Blacksburg earlier in the week. For Virginia Tech triathletes Brian Schoenberger, Doran Bosso (an ‘08 alum), and myself, it was exactly what we were hoping for after spending the final two weeks of preparation bundled up for ever bike and swim. Waiting for the first crack of sunlight to break the horizon, which would occur minutes before the gun would go off, none of us had any idea what to expect from what we hoped would be the most significant accomplishment of our young lives.

The swim start was a spectacle. 2,300 people - athletes - simultaneously charging into the water, knowing that the harder you can push the first 500 yards, the less likely it will be to get your goggles kicked off your face. The 2.4 mile swim was two laps - a half-mile out, a couple hundred yards across, then a half-mile back. A brief run on the beach, then back out for a second lap. Being from a swimming background, I quickly pushed ahead of the main pack and found myself with a group of fairly talented swimmers. It was easy to stay on someone’s feet with so many of us out there, and I was able to draft most of the first lap. By the second lap our group had thinned out significantly, and I spent a good part of it out by myself. The last half mile in to the swim finish I pushed pretty hard, passing several people who had been out in front of me for the better part of it. Charging out of the water, I had no idea what my time was, but I knew I had swam hard and would be one of the early ones out on the bike.

After quickly pulling on a pair of bike shorts over my triathlon singlet, I grabbed my helmet and sunglasses, trotted out to find my bike, and sprinted out of the first transition. I remember at least one professional male passing me in the first couple of miles. The pro field had a 10-minute head start on the age-groupers, so this confirmed for me that my swim split had been a pretty healthy one. I let him go by, knowing that I had a very long day ahead of me and pushing it this early would be disastrous. The 112-mile bike was a single loop, contrary to most Ironman bike courses that have you do multiple laps of a shorter distance. The Florida course is known for being extremely flat, and it absolutely was. Except for maybe 3 rollers, the entire race course was on a single plane, which for a Blacksburg kid was not pleasant.

The first 25 miles I was largely by myself, occasionally being passed by a rider or two. About 35 miles in, a large group of riders began passing me. Drafting isn’t legal on the bike, but there is still an advantage from riding the legal distance of four bike lengths behind the person in front of you, so after a long, single-file group of about 40 riders passed me, I jumped in behind the last guy and found a good tempo. This lasted until about the half-way point, at which point the group got broken up coming through to pick up our first special needs bag (which athletes prepare themselves before the race). The entire rest of the ride I was more or less on my own, passing people and being passed only occasionally. Around 70 miles in, I started to feel my stomach rumbling. After assessing my food situation, I realized I was significantly behind on what I had planned on eating during the ride, a consequence of pushing myself a little harder than I had planned for. I slowed down for a bit and tried to eat a bit more, but the damage was done, and I finished out the ride with a slightly upset stomach and with a several-thousand calorie deficit.
Second transition was a blur. The amazing race volunteers really pamper athletes, and in T2, they take your bike from you as soon as you get into transition, find your bag, and help you with any equipment you may need help with. I basically dropped the cycling shorts and slipped on my running shoes and was out.

Starting the run I wasn’t exactly sure where I was in my age group, but I assumed I had to be top five at this point, having only seen one person from my age group pass me on the bike. My run and bike splits were both very good, and I knew I had the potential to run an amazing race, though with a marathon in front of me, clearly nothing was certain.

The 26.2 mile run course was an out-and-back affair, to be completed twice. 6.55 miles out, then back, then out, then back. The first 6.55 was miserable. My stomach was screaming at me the entire time, and I pretty much just took in water to keep it quiet. After making the first turn-around, I was feeling good enough to try to put some food in me, and I had a couple gels on the second leg. This felt great, and as I approached the second turn to begin my second lap, I was feeling very optimistic about the last 13.1. My legs, however, had different plans. Right at the turn, a year-old IT-band injury crept up on me, and I knew these last two legs were going to hurt. Still, I had had a great race up to this point, so as long as I ran the entire time, I would still have a decent finish, and barring some disaster, I would make my 11-hour goal time. Well, disaster sure made a grand attempt. The second half of that marathon was spiritually painful. IT-band, stomach, quads, everything hurt. It seemed as though every time a new pain came up, a mile didn’t go by before I forgot about it as something else started to hurt more. The last three miles, however, I truly pushed myself, realizing that I was so close to finishing and thinking about all the people who were cheering for me and supporting me.

Crossing the finish line was very emotional, and the atmosphere there was incredible. With friends and family to greet me, and thousands of cheering fans, the sense of accomplishment was complete and overwhelming. I’ve put the results of the three of us below, but those simple numbers that are the public record of our event do not do justice to what each of us sacrificed to stand at that finish line. Though Ironman was an extremely humbling experience, all three of us have signed up to stand at the starting line of at least one Ironman in 2009, and this sport will likely shape each of us for the rest of our lives.

From Blacksburg, thanks to everyone for their support.

Links:
Virginia Tech
VT Triathlon News Article
VT Triathlon Results Page
Ironman
Ironman Florida