Slow?

Its a funny thing but the more I train the slower I seem to get! Actually this seems quite a common theme when I start hitting the training a bit more. I guess it is just the cumulative fatigue that takes the edge of the training... I certainly see this most with my swimming which seems to almost regress as I increase the amount of running and cycling I do. Perhaps this is not so surprising as I tend to do all my swimming alone and the motivation to chase someone is not usually there... and it is probably my least favourite discipline.

The other factor is the improvements I seek come hard as all those training for IM know. Cycling form seems to creep forwards almost imperceptibly and yet I know with application I can suddenly find myself doing stuff that a few months ago was just not possible. The big question is whether I can resist the temptation to push just that bit too hard usually a bit of running speedwork (which turns into a monster session) which seems to always lead to a calf strain and then patchy further run training. I know what the consequences are likely to be and I know that some speed sessions is unlikely to benefit my 3.40 marathon time and yet I still get the overwhelming desire to do it! Rereading Friels bible the skill is to hold back and obey the 10% rule for increasing you training load. So why do I feel the need to do this session.

Probably it is all ego: the desire to show myself I can run fast(er) and the sneaking suspicion that if I just butch up a bit my running will magically come together..

Experience of 5 IMs suggests that I am not going to dramatically increase my speed without a radical change in my training.. but this time around I am going to try and see if I can get to the start line without any significant running injuries which must surely help.

Everything else is up for grabs tho' and somehow I am gonna turn into a fish! Oh and a new bike is clearly gonna make me 10 minutes faster (I wish).

Club Le Santa

Spent the last week in CLS. What a great break from the endless winter we have had.

Summary of training

Thursday 2 hr bike
Friday 9km hilly run 3km swim 2hr bike
Saturday 5hr bike ride 2.5km swim 1hr ballroom dancing
Sunday 2.5km swim 10 km run
Monday 2km swim 1hr 5 a side soccer 2.5 hr bike
Tuesday 3km swim 10 km run
Wednesday 2.5km swim 1hr ballroom dancing 3 hr bike
Thursday 3 x 15 min turbo then 4km treadmill run @ 4min/km


'bout 25 hours training and learnt how to dance the tango!

Flow

Thought I would write about something I really dont understand but recognise in my day job as a surgeon and my hobby as an ironman.

The concept of flow to me is what it feels like to be travelling effortlessly downstream in a fast moving river where you are in control and expending minimal effort. This not to be confused with flow of blood in an artery for instance which whilst important is something altogether different. I will try to expand upon this...

Complex operations can take 4-6 hours to complete and are not unlike an ironman (ok maybe a half ironman event) in many ways. There is always a lot of preparation involved in undertaking planned major surgery, there is the event itself and then there is the recovery period afterwards (both for me and my patient!). Leaving aside the patient side (although not to ignore it as there are plenty of things I can do for my patient before they undergo a procedure to improve there chances of a successful outcome) there are plenty of things I need to put in place before an operation in much the same way as you would plan your race before you do it.

Assuming the planning goes well and the organisation works I can sometimes find myself operating without stress or worry. Whilst the process is challenging anything that disrupts the progress can be rapidly circumvented and overcome and the operation seems to flow seamlessly through to a hopefully successful completion. Some people talk about being in "the zone" which I guess is much the same thing.

Experience tells me that this situation can be difficult to sustain. External and internal factors come into play. Most external factors can be controlled; keeping the environment quiet without unnecessary interruptions such as mobile phones, not having other activities requiring my attention planned into the same time period, having clear understanding of the working relationship and responsibilities of those around me. Internal factors such as self confidence, frustration, anxiety and so on are more challenging but again are overcome by familiarity with the procedure, planning for the unusual or unexpected and maintaining a sense of progression towards the goal of completion of the procedure all help to sustain the flow.

Now tell me there are not parallels in IM racing. The external factors are largely beyond your control by the time you start your race but will hopefully be accounted for by your preparation, training, equipment, nutrition plan and so on. Finding the flow or getting in the zone comes when you have got all this controlled and after 20 + weeks of focused training you find yourself in the race doing the things just as you planned. The challenge comes when things start to "get complicated" much like they can in a complex operation. It is how you respond at this point and how you get back into the flow that can determine your race. When the legs start hurting, the nausea kicks and fatigue starts to limit your performance how do you manage it.. can you focus adjust and then get back on track or do you splinter and come to a messy halt?

The resilience and resolve to stay on track is clearly crucial to my patients when I am operating and I think is enhanced by my knowledge of the physical and mental reserves I have developed through IM racing.

Thoughts on running and training for an IM marathon

The standard question for those starting out and to some extent those experienced IMers it would seem is:

How fast should my IM mara be if I can do a standalone mara in X?

So how fast can you run and how fast should you run? A straw poll of tripetalk/slowbitch suggests about 30 mins add on is not unreasonable. Those with a faster standalone marathon time e.g.sub 3 may see less slippage whilst those with slower times may see more. Alan Couzens has written extensively on this topic and gives a lot of science behind this topic but still I some times find it hard to find the "take home message" in what he writes.

After 5 IM races I have a few thoughts on pacing IM marathons based on personal experience and observation. Sure I am pretty MOP but my performances are consistent with my training. Here are a few rules as I see it!

1. The stronger you bike fitness the faster you can run. The secret is holding back some of that speed on the bike in the race- which for most of us is nigh on impossible! I still find it hard to believe that if I finished my bike leg 5 mins slower it would have any other impact on my IM time than to make it 5 mins slower!

2. I train by doing all my runs at IM pace and almost none faster. I am older (42) and prone to running injuries. I find that by running at IM pace the fatigue of the rest of my training and life makes this plenty fast enough thankyou. Toying with speed sets incurs risk of energy and for what benefit. The only speedwork I might do is a HM or 10Km race. I would love to do more hill running as I think this is a great source of running strength but hackney is very flat! Having said that my best IM marathon has yet to happen!


3. You gotta get your calories right on the bike. I judge my bike speed by feel and the need to get the calories in. For a 5 hour bike I use 1 litre energy drink for first 45 mins then 12 gels 3 energy bars and water for the rest. If I am doing it right the food all goes down and stays down and I may be able to stick in that little bit extra calories in the last 10 mins of the bike (also helps to keep focus). If I start feeling sick, hot sweaty unwell whatever I tend to slow a bit and drink water until the feeling passes. In effect this means I keep my HR below 140-145as I know that when my HR exceeds this I cannot effectively digest food.

4. Setting out on the run I always feel crap with my HR jumping all over the place, by back is stiff and I cant get straight and any leg worries I have will be there! In spite of this MY FIRST 10 KM IS ALWAYS MY FASTEST! I use this knowledge in two ways now. Firstly I no longer worry about feeling slow so dont try and chase any athletes pushing past and secondly I settle on trying to find a comfortable rhythm before working out what I can eat and when.

5. Eating on the Run- Experience has taught me that the coke will be fizzy, the drink at IMCH gives me cramps, the cup will split and I will throw most of it up my nose, but the gels are usually reliable and predictable. I now carry six gels for the first 2 hrs. I try and eat a gel every 20 mins just before a feed station and follow this with water. I try and work out where and what gels are on offer and then plan my restocking when I am on my last gel (they do run out sometimes). Again this gives me a focus e.g. concentrate on timing of gel before aid station etc but also avoids the vagaries of cups of variably mixed "EZO" or whatever 'nergy drink.

6. When I am feeling good eat... a common mantra but a true one. So when I felt good at 15 km in IMCH I ate 3 gel in 30 odd minutes which carried me on to the last 10km (at which point I lost my discipline or reached the envelope of my fitnees) where I suffered for not eating and thinking I could start racing!

7. Hilly rides take longer and have a negative impact on your run split. Stands to reason that if you are cylcing for an extra 45 minutes at the same power output you are likely to run slower afterwards. I also prefer more temperate race conditions and have struggled in the heat (either that or the reason for performing slower in Lanzarote is that I have not been as fit!)

Managing an(d) IM

In spite of being back into training for three whole weeks my weight has still risen and I now stand a full 7kgs heavier than when I started IM Switzerland back in July.

Spent last Friday chasing Jevon's rear wheel around Hertfordshire for about 5 hrs in the pouring rain. This was mentally quite a challenge and demonstrated how far away I am from my peak fitness of July last year. I was also impressed at how hard Jev was able to go this early in the year and suggest he will be flying by the time we get to Zurich. Would like to be able to run more but I am nursing my achilles tendon again for reasons that I am not sure about (it flared after the most moderate of running sessions). I sympathise with anyone out there suffering from one of the many endurance sport injuries that afflict us hope you get better soon (Jo)

Have just started embarking on a few work projects and I am developing my skills as a medical manager and have started noticing how similar training for an Ironman and my role in management is. I guess it should be obvious but there are clearly a number of skills that transfer directly form one to the other.

In particular

Goal setting

For ironman it is obvious your goal is the next IM race, the race time, qualification. Some of these goals merge with people out there trying to seek some progress year on year and some (like me) seeking some form of life balance (?) through the whole experience. The clearer your goal e.g. I want to go sub 10, get to Kona .. the easier it is to target your energies towards that goal. Likewise in my work project the clearer the goal the easier it is to work out how to get there- but in medicine it is not as easy to for instance to change and improve the delivery of emergency care for trauma patients. This is not a single event but a whole variety of activities. However by having a strong goal or target the steps towards it can become clearer.

Motivation

Having identified your goal it is helpful to look at your motivation towards the goal. Why am I doing a 6th and 7th IM this year? what will be different to 4 and 5? Why do I wan to keep going? For me IM is to a greater or lesser degree part of who I am and what I do. I fell better through what I have learnt from IM, I enjoy the process (see below) of training for IM and enjoy having a goal (see above) to help me through the short cold winter days. It also provides stimulation, sights smells and sounds that otherwise pass us by and the occasional special moments (I get to see a lot of Foxes as I cycle around London in the early hours). My motivation in work is different but also derives from a need for challenge and stimulation but also a desire to do things better and to do things my way ;-). A greater challenge is to transfer this motivation to others, and to do this you have to convince them of your plan and goals.

Process

I like process. I love the way that at the moment there is no chance I could race an ironman without serious risk of major physical injury and pain. However knowing as I do that by following a graduated system of training I am 100% (injury permitting) certain that in 6 months time I will be able to give a good account of myself. This is achieved by following a now familiar process- sure I can tweak it and might need some external input but given the time available and other life commitments I am more than happy with my performances so far. I like the fact that it is the knowledge coupled with belief in a incremental rise in training stress can lead to this change which is both reliable and predictable. I hope that some of the projects I work on will follow a similar path: the challenge is that this is more like my first IM and I have some mistakes to make and some knowledge to acquire- nonetheless the similarities are clear. Above all the doggedness in applying process to training and racing will hopefully transfer well to my work challenges.


Chunking

I am not sure if I have heard this phrase or just made it up. I find that if I am around management consultant types if you use the right sort of language in a bold and expressive manner they will often nod knowingly as though people always talk about "chunking"- No disrespect and I guess it is the same in any group that has their own language (tribars, bonking, diskwheels and gels anyone?).

So what does chunking mean? Well to me it means breaking things down into smaller chunks to make them manageable. IM training is all about that; think macro, meso and micro cycle, think swim, run and bike, think endurance, tempo, threshold. The breakdowns are endless but provide us with a way of coming to terms with what is otherwise potentially an overwhelming event. It also provides us with suitable staging posts along the way so that we can measure progress as we move towards our goal when hopefully we are able to get them all to work to their best ability on the same day. Similarly most medical processes are an immensely complicated interaction of different activities, involving complex equipment, complex skills and introduce the additional challenge of working with other humans.

Working or training, when it all works it is a wonderful thing to behold and can feel much the same whether you hit the groove in a race or training and everything just seems to flow or the team around you rises to the challenge and responds like a well oiled machine...

....when it doesn't happen well that's pretty much a normal day and it is how we respond to this that defines us. The good take stock, reflect learn and improve.

The rest, well they are the rest.

Beautiful swim

So yesterday was a "free" day with no pressures to do be or anything else. As it was frozen outside I decided the day would include an outdoor swim and an indoor bike ride.

The swim was in the outdoor heated paradise that is London Fields Lido. As I can see the pool from my house I waited long enough through the morning til the sun was shining onto most of the "fast" lane before heading round. The air was a chilly -2 degrees C and there was sheet ice around the edge of the pool. Changing in the outside cubicles to maximise the elemental effect it was mighty chilly. Amazingly to my feet the pool was as warm as a bath, and the forty odd other people using the pool seemed to be having a great time. Easing gently into the water the mixture of the yellow sunlight rising white steam and azure blue of the water was sublime. Quite simply it was the best swim of the year which was quite a shock since a) I am seriously unfit b) I have had some great swims this year in Zurich, Lanzarote and Cornwall and c) it was such a surprise.

It reawakened in me a bit that has perhaps been missing over the last few months which is a realisation of how enjoyable these endurance pursuits can be. Focusing on this aspect should enable me to see myself back into some more solid training as I recover from what would appear to be a pandemic of different injuries (calf, hamstring, back and now Achilles). I am not seeking any sympathy and understand why I have had injuries, but they do allow a bit of perspective into the overall pursuit that is ironman. The biggest conclusion I have come away is that I am genuinely happier and in a better place when I am training than not. draft

Starting Over

Training has not progressed in the last 3 weeks and I have logged my lowest hours of training in a 4 week period since about 2003! As a consequence I am now a full 7 kg heavier than prerace for IMCH in August.

I managed to strain a back muscle as a consequence of jumping back into the saddle, both literally and metaphorically, a bit too fast. This left me literally unable to train since running, swimming and cycling were just not possible. This was interesting as I watched my fitness decline still further and I had untold reserves of time to ponder in... except obviously work, family and sleep rapidly expanded to fill the vacuum leaving me wondering where on earth I plan on doing any training.

That aside I did reflect on what must now be declared a pattern of injury come autumn time. I think this reflects my pattern of autumn training which hitherto has been very goal orientated ie I will try and run faster longer etc and has not neccessarily been based on recuperation or consolidation. With that in mind I am hoping to focus on getting some strength back and may even join a gym for a few months to do a som core work and to mix up my sessions a bit. I hope this will then see me back and ready to train hard in the New Year......

written 2 weeks ago