Four States Race Report

A small group of Tri-OKCers went down to do the Regional Sprint Championship in Texarkana this weekend: Clint Honnoll, Bob and Jen Atkins, Travis Newton, and myself. Desiree Margagliano was the official for the race. To sum it up succinctly: I GOT SMOKED. The lack of training really came around to bite me...it really showed out there. To top it off, this was one of the fastest "front of the pack" races I've participated in. Just some ultra-fast guys at this one. Several guys ranked as SMW Elites didn't even crack the top 10, and a few pros were there.

The 650 yards swim was a clockwise triangle (my favorite layout). The chop wasn't too terribly bad, but the water certainly wasn't smooth. Distance seemed right on. We ended up going in 3 waves because of the # of participants, but even at that, I was jostled around more on this swim than I have at any of the other open water swim races I've done so far. Not enough to make me feel panicky, but more contact than I'd prefer. One great thing though is that I've been working on something to keep my core a little more rigid, and I've been swimming a lot straighter in the pool...now I don't even have to sight anymore in open water!! It was such a cool feeling. I just put my head down, and swam. For the first leg, I would glance up periodically just to make sure. But since I was dead-on with the buoy each time I just started trusting it. Not having to sight made the swim much more enjoyable. Swim time wasn't good, but I went pretty easy and was out of shape, so that was expected. Ranked 53 on the swim out of 153...not very good.

I wore my wetsuit since the water temp was 73, and I was worried about having a slow T1, but actually did pretty good: 15th out of 153. Out of T1 and onto the bike. Desiree and I drove the course on Sat. and found a broken beer bottle on the dam. We told the organizers about it and they cleaned it up. Unfortunately, by race time the next morning, there was another broken beer bottle at a different section of the dam. A final check and sweep through immediately before race time would have been nice. Both Travis and I went through it but came out lucky, but I heard through the grapevine that at least 2 guys flatted there. That sucks to have your regional championship ruined by something that could have been prevented. The bike course is about as flat as you can imagine, and a good section of it is on a lake dam. Wind was moderate, but nothing that we're not used to in Oklahoma. It was just a little stiffer wind than I would have liked. I was hoping to go in and drop a good bike split, pushing myself to the point of nearly blowing up, but I just couldn't seem to get it clicking on the day. My wattage output was pretty low...roughly the same as I put out for a 30 mile ride last week, but this was only 13 miles...still not sure what went wrong. Bike split was 15th out of 153 at 23.8 mph, which may sound good, but I have really high expectations on the bike this year. So I wasn't very thrilled with it. Had a good T2, 21st out of 153, then off to the run.

The run course was great. It's not flat, but there are no hills. It goes on a twisty-turny road through thick pine trees. It was mostly shaded, very scenic, and closed course so you could run tangents. My Polar HR monitor crapped out so I couldn't keep track of pace or split time, so just tried to keep up with some people. I saw my friend, Travis, with about 1.5 miles left. He was so far ahead of me that I lost a lot of motivation and pretty much put it on cruise control for the rest of the race. A pretty mediocre effort in my opinion, but my mind thought I could do one thing and my legs said another. Oh well. Ranked 46th out of 153, which is way lower than I normally am on the run.

Post race spread was incredible. All the pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, cookies, fruit, etc. you can imagine. Several kegs of beer (3 I think, which were all floating by the end), lots of Gatorade and water. And all the food was available to athletes and family/fans, which was very cool. There's also a really neat park for the kids to play on, so it would be a great race to bring the family. The announcer at the finish line was funny and entertaining. Many, many great things about this race. Ranks as one of the favorites I've done so far, just behind Rivercities.

My friend, and [used to be] close rival (he's now way faster than I), Travis, had a great race. He put together a phenomenal race despite the fact he had a swollen knee that had to have fluid drained off of it the week of the race. He couldn't even walk without limping, but despite not being 100%, he won the 30-34 AG and posted the 3rd fastest bike split OA. He added a very fast swim and a breakthrough run split to go along with that. He beat me by a good 4 minutes, whereas at March in Okarche he beat me by 4 seconds. He's getting a lot faster and I'm getting slower. I hope to catch back up to him later in the season as I start training again.

I ended up 29th out of 153 OA, and 4th out of 19 in AG with a time of 1:06:22. I wasn't thrilled with my splits or time, but I suppose it's all I could have done at my current fitness level, which has been sacrificed for the last month and a half due to career stuff. And I couldn't quite get my breathing under control for the race...I think it was the thicker air I wasn't used to. Despite my disappontment, I still had fun and overall was a great race.

Next up is Rt. 66 Sprint, which is the OK State Championship. I'm hoping to have a much better showing, but there isn't a whole lot you can improve with your fitness in just 2 weeks. I'll give it a good try, though.

The give and take of life

This is something that every triathlete has to deal with. I'm usually pretty good about balancing life's needs, but I was just buried in April. As a result, I ended up sacrificing training for all of April and the first half of May in order to finish my Ph.D. and get out some manuscripts for peer-review. But what a great month it's been career-wise! I was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Award for the Dept. of Zoology, Oklahoma State University. I successfully defended my dissertation and graduated at commencement on May 2nd. And the best of all: I had one of my dissertation chapters accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, or PNAS for short. This was a major accomplishment that I can't even describe how good it felt. Of course, I think I've just hit the pinnacle of my career already!

So some really great things and proud accomplishments over the month of April and May, but now the downside. I didn't swim once, I rode my bike only 4-5 times, and ran maybe a half dozen times. I'm very out of shape and am about 10-15 lbs over my optimal race weight. This is a bummer because I have a string of races coming up that I wanted to do well in: Four States Triathlon (Regional Championship), Route 66 Sprint Tri (Oklahoma State Championship), and the Route 66 International Distance Tri. Four States is this weekend, so it should be really ugly! But I'm going to have fun anyway and try and hit training real hard in June/July/August to get ready for the big races at the end of the year.

Great sponsorship opportunity

In the ever-expensive sport of triathlon, it gets harder and harder to get the fun little goodies that help you get faster. With my big push this year to really have a good showing at the National Long Course Championships in Las Vegas in October, I started talking to businesses that have already helped me out through the years about some modest sponsorship opportunities. I'm excited to report that my local bike shop that I've used since starting multisport, Schlegel Bicycles, has agreed to support me in my efforts to improve my abilities this year. Steve, the owner of Schlegel Bicycles, is an avid (and skilled) cyclist who has really embraced triathlon here in Oklahoma City and is a big supporter of our local tri club, Tri-OKC. I've already received some really cool benefits from this relationship with his business, thanks to he and Ted...I'll be making a completely separate post on that eye-opening experience! My goal is to represent his store in a positive manner and hopefully increase his business through referrals; the growth of his tri-friendly store can only be a positive impact on the local tri and cycling communities.

Feel free to support his store by purchasing me a Cervelo P3C. :)

Schlegel Bicycles
900 N. Broadway
Oklahoma City, OK
405-232-4040

and

6066 S. Western Ave.
Oklahoma City, OK
405-634-8080

March in Okarche Duathlon race report

Well, first race of the multisport season, and a State Championship to boot. I wasn't too keen on having an important race as my first one of the year, but what can you do?

I was clearly rusty with even the basic stuff: preparation. I didn't get everything ready that I needed to on Sat., so I finished up the loose ends on Sunday morning. I normally like to get to the race about 1.5 hours before start; I showed up 25 minutes prior to start on this one. DOH! I barely had enough time to set up my transition area before they were kicking people out of transition. I thought surely I would forget something in such haste, but amazingly, I didn't. I went over to get my timing chip and they were already put away! DOH!...again. Desiree the race director saw I was panicking and offered her chip, so I got that set up. Then I had just enough time while everyone was on the start line to jog to the end of the block and back. Yep, a whopping 2-block warm-up! DOH!! Desiree found my chip and we quickly switched it out just before the gun went off. I really had given up hope for a decent race with all the fiascos thus far. But it was a beautiful day, great temperature, clear skies, and light wind...should make for a fast course.

Once the gun goes off, it's a great feeling. All sense of panic and worry dissipates and you just get into your groove and rhythm. I wore my Polar with a footpod pace sensor so I knew exactly how fast I should be running. It always amazes me how fast people start out. I was probably in about 50th to 60th place at the first mile. As everyone faded, I stayed constant and came in with a 19:44 5K split, which was good for me. It was about 30 seconds faster than I expected, so the course may have been about a tenth of a mile short. Was feeling pretty good on the run...stayed nice and easy the whole time and even chatted with Talbot Cox (a really fast 15 year old who has a lot of potential) for most of it. He knew I was gunning for my good friend, and big rival, Travis Newton. As we approached T1, he said go get him and we went our separate ways. I was in 29th place out of 121 coming into transition.

The start of the bike was where I could really tell I hadn't warmed up. I got settled in and ramped up to my target wattage pace and my legs were burning from no warm up. I eased off a tad until getting loose, then picked it back up. I was having a great bike split. My pace was right where it was supposed to be and I caught Travis before the bike turnaround, but then I started to get a really bad cramp in my right calf. Travis saw me at the turnaround and knew I was on him, so he dropped the hammer. I kept cramping and couldn't keep up with him, so he pulled back away. Then cramps started in my left calf too. I had to do a lot of coasting to stretch them out on the way back in, but they just kept getting worse. I turned in the 8th fastest bike split with an avg. speed of 22.3 mph. I think I was around 14th place at this point or so...not sure.

I dismounted my bike and then all hell broke loose. Both calves and both hamstrings started to cramp. I used my bike as a crutch to support my weight and came into transition. I took my sweet time in T2, debating whether or not to take my very first DNF. I didn't feel like continuing, but I decided to give it a go. With about a mile left, I saw Talbot going the other way; he saw Travis in front of me and said "there he is, go get him!" I sucked it up and made a huge push to close the gap. He seemed so close that I could have thrown a rock at him (maybe I should have), but I just couldn't close that last gap. The only good thing working for me was that I paced the 1st run and the bike so well, that even with cramps in my legs, I turned out a decent 2nd run: a 20:43, but that was only good enough for the 17th ranked 2nd run.

I ended up 13th overall (out of 121), 3rd in age group (out of 20), with a time of 1:31:48. Our age group was tight: Trey Cone won it and he passed Travis and I with about a quarter mile left (Trey's a superb runner). I closed the gap on Travis, but just couldn't make that last push. So Trey took first in AG (11th OA) and beat Travis by 8 seconds. Travis took 2nd AG (12th OA), and beat me by 4 seconds. Tight finish! It was fun!!!

All in all, I can't complain. The start was a fiasco, but I did what I could do with it. I haven't trained much this year, but still turned in a decent performance and didn't embarrass myself. This year's race was ultra-competitive...one of the best fields I've seen in a duathlon in a long time. I finished close to people that used to crush me, which was encouraging. Such a good outing on so little training makes me think that I may be able to surprise myself this season, and maybe even surprise a few other people along the way.

rTSS part 2

My friend, Lee Robb (who tends to see things more clearly than I do at times), had the following comment regarding my unhappiness with running TSS in WKO+ (see previous blog post for my take on it):

"Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Daniels defines T-pace as a 50-60 minute effort, that which elicites a steady state of lactate accululation. 10k intervals for a 30' runner is a vo2max workout (I-pace), wherease 10k intervals for a 60' runner is a threshold workout (T-pace). Threshold pace for a 30' runner is closer to their 20k race pace. "

Initially, I was irritated...not because of what Lee said, but because immediately after reading it, I knew I was wrong in my "logic" somewhere. His point made sense, and worse yet, was right. So I re-evaluated my position and tried to figure out where I went wrong and why despite the above being true, I still didn't like how rTSS was calculated in WKO+.

Physiologically, I have no problem with the threshold pace being set as an hour. LT is usually defined as lactate accumulation over a period of about an hour, regardless of sport. Many swimmers judge their training paces based on their 3K swim time (about an hour), which sould be their approximate LT pace. Okay, so I'm at peace with the idea that WKO+ uses a 1-hour pace as threshold. But there is still something that doesn't sit right with me, and that's what I had to put a lot of thought into.

I finally figured it out. I don't like it from an aesthetic standpoint. I'm planning my season based around TSS for each sport, not time or distance (here). What I would like is to have TSS broadly comparable among the 3 sports so that a TSS of 80 on the bike feels like a run TSS of 80 feels like a swim TSS of 80. But with threshold run pace as a function of a 1-hour time, they aren't that comparable. In my opinion, WKO+ still underestimates the "true" TSS for running. For example, a TSS of 150 on the bike feels nothing like TSS of 150 on the run. The latter would have me taking several days rest, whereas the former would require 1 day rest max. So, I finally figured out why I don't like it...turns out I have to eat crow about it not accurately reflecting a good LT pace, but I still think I'm right on how it underestimates rTSS.

Planning a training season around TSS

I know I just posted yesterday, but I've been kicking these ideas around for a few weeks and wanted to get them down while fresh in my mind. I'm completely revamping the way I train this year for two reasons: 1) out of necessity. I don't have as much time this year due to career stuff, so I have to find a way to get faster with less time. I ran across these articles (by Mark van Akkeren and the other by Terry Kerrigan and Phil Skiba). They really made me think about how to train to get faster. And 2) I think I can train more effectively on less time using a training plan based on TSS (see TrainingPeaks WKO+) rather than distance or time. Overall, the goal is to get faster without putting in 20 hr training weeks!

I've picked up some ideas on message boards and kicked around a few of my own on how to train most efficiently with the above two limitations. Here's what I've developed so far:

General progression

• Workouts with TSS greater than CTL provide stress stimulus.
• Workouts with TSS = CTL are maintenance.
• Workouts with TSS less than CTL are recovery.
• Increase CTL 5-7 points per week (bike), 3-5 points per week (run), and 3-5 points per week (swim)
• Increase CTL using stress stimulus workouts until I reach a threshold CTL, at which time I'll incorporate more of the 2nd and 3rd types of workouts to avoid overtraining.

Bike workouts

• If 3x per week: 1 at FTP, 1 with VO2max intervals, 1 in L2 (endurance; my long ride).
• If 4x per week: the above, plus 1 FTP/tempo.
• Replace intervals with maintenance/recovery if bordering on overtraining.

Run workouts

• If 3x per week: 1 at threshold/10K pace, 1 speedwork (VO2max intervals at track), 1 in L2 (long, endurance run).
• If 4x per week: the above, plus 1 threshold/tempo.
• If 5-6x per week: the above plus recovery run(s).

Swim workouts...well, I haven't quite figured those out yet.

Really the goal of all the above workouts is to achieve the right stress to show consistent improvement without progressing too fast (injury) or too far (overtraining). I'll do that by continually monitoring CTL (fitness) and managing the amount of stress using TSS. After I start to get that figured out, then I'll next be figuring out how to maximize TSB (training stress balance) on race day!!

Running TSS

For those of you who use TrainingPeaks WKO+ software, it's a great tool to analyze data and train efficiently (and if you don't use it, you should!). I'm not a long time user or fan of TSS (training stress scores), but have recently adopted using them after I got a power meter in November. I'm finding that for the bike, it has been quite useful and I'm growing in support of the idea. As I started to really embrace it for the bike, I found that I longingly wished for it on the swim and run. While I waited for the latest version of WKO+ to include a running TSS (rTSS), I made my own spreadsheet that calculated it in the interim. It worked well. But now, WKO+ does have rTSS (still no swim yet), which is supposed to make my life easier since I don't have to calculate it on my own, right? Well, I can't get over a hump that I see as a fundamental flaw in how it is currently designed to calculate in WKO+.

I don't really have any particular issues with the bike TSS. In short, it uses the quotient of your normalized power (NP) output from your functional threshold power (FTP) to calculate an intensity factor (IF), where IF = FTP/NP. FTP is defined around a 40K TT, so they use a general time of an hour. TSS is then calculated for each workout using the formula (workout duration * IF^2 * 100). The "100" standardizes the score to 1 hour. For the bike, I'm okay with this. Really fast guys may do a 40K TT in 55 min, and slower guys at 1:05, but that's still pretty close to an hour. Probably not enough to drastically change TSS one way or another, or worse yet, change training zones (based on FTP) to less efficient ones.

But I do have a problem with the run TSS. Instead of using FTP to calculate IF, it uses Normalized Graded Pace and Threshold Pace to calculate IF. I'm okay with this part...it's the same concept, just a different metric. But the formula is identical to the bike TSS from what I can tell: duration * IF^2 * 100. In my opinion, it shouldn't be standardized to an hour! Here's why: in the bike scenario, fast/slow people don't differ much from an hour for 40K TT. In a running scnerio, using a 10K as the surrogate for the 40K TT, there is a huge difference between fast/slow people, with faster runners being in the low 30-minute times and slower being near an hour. So if you are a faster runner and use your 10K time as Threshold Pace, the current formula of rTSS in WKO+ severely underestimates your stress for the workout. If you wanted to solve for this, all you have to do is change your Threshold Pace to be your 1-hr run pace. However, there are problems with that, too. Since running/riding near threshold is *supposed* in target LT the most, running at a slower pace for intervals doesn't seem to be as effective at improving LT than it would be to run near 10K pace for the intervals. Entering a Threshold Pace based on a 1-hour run completely changes the training zones to ineffective ranges. Entering your 10K pace underestimates your rTSS, inhibiting your potential to maximize training/racing.

It seems that rTSS is a good idea in principle, but it was designed by people that think like cyclists, not like a runner. In my opinion, the way to solve this is to change the "100" in the formula to calculate rTSS. Instead of a fixed 100 value (= 1 hour), it needs to adjust to a specific 10K time. This would be very easy to do. Just replace the "100" in the above formula for rTSS with "(60 / (threshold pace * 6.2)) * 100" if you use min./mile or "(60 / (threshold pace * 10)) * 100" if you use min./km. The resulting formula for min/mile would be "rTSS = duration * IF^2 * ((60 / (threshold pace * 6.2)) * 100)." Sure, I could do this in a spreadsheet and then override the existing values in WKO+, but then what's the point of having the software calculate rTSS in the first place?