Summer in Okinawa

Summer is here. We were lucky this year as we had a longer rainy season than we’ve had the last two years which created cooler temperatures until late June. Then we suddenly had 83 – 88 degree days with 90% relative humidity. Working out now outside is much slower and requires carrying a great deal of water to survive. Coming from spending my entire life in a summer environment where the night time temperatures drop into the low 60′s, I find opening our door at 5:30 AM to a blast of hot, humid air to be very peculiar. Actually though, 82 degrees now feels relatively cool compared to later in the day when the sun comes out.

The marine corps bases here have a system of calculating a head index that takes into account temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and sun light. From this data, they will post either no flag, a green flag, a yellow flag, a red flag, or a black flag. Most days this week have been black flag by 10:00 AM. That indicates that no physical fitness activities outside are to be undertaken. Even though the air temperature might be around 88, with the sun and humidity factored in, their system has registered a high of 120 for a couple of bases this week. Any number over 90 seems to generate the black flag. You can see what the current conditions are for yourself.

We have about a week left here before we leave for our summer travels. We will be heading to Washington for a couple of weeks, then going to Germany to visit a friend for a short week. After that, Gina travels to Los Angeles to visit with her sister while I go to Ireland for  photography workshop. I’m looking forward to all of it.

I’ve settled on my athletic goals for the upcoming school year. I will enter the Izena 88 Triathlon, the Tour of Okinawa 85k Road Race, the Naha Marathon, and the Ishigaki Olympic Distance Triathlon. Izena is close to a 70.3 or half-ironman distance and will be my first long course race. The Tour of Okinawa is a challenging bicycle race that I’ll enter to support a good friend of mine who wants to do well in it. The 85k course is very hilly and consequently very challenging. I will do the Naha Marathon in hopes that I finish strong rather than weak as I did in the Okinawa Marathon early this Spring. And finally, the Ishigaki Triathlon is one I’ve wanted to do for three years but haven’t been able to due to scheduling with work obligations. This Olympic Distance race will be my #1 priority race for the season. がんばって！

Posted in Health and wellness, Travel, Triathlon | 1 Comment »

My First Marathon

I did the Okinawa Marathon today. I finished with an official time of 4:02, but the course is 26.5 miles long and my Garmin 310xt says I did 26.2 miles in 4:00:38. I like the Garmin time better. My training partner finished with a 3:48 and a negative split. We stayed together for the first 18 miles and then I started having some difficulty and finally had major difficultly the last four miles where I spent more time walking than running. I don’t think I’ve experienced the level of pain I felt in my legs that last five miles ever in my life (and I’ve broken my pelvis in a bicycle race).

It don’t want to ever run a marathon that way again. I do, however, want to run a marathon again and in a such a way that I finish strong. That is the primary difficulty in running a race this long: figuring out a pacing strategy that gets you to the end without leaving too much time out on the road. I certainly was at the wrong end of the stick today for I was on schedule for a 3:45 until mile 18 and then it all fell apart. Aerobically, I felt fine but my legs were sending me pain signals I didn’t know existed. Even more interesting is that they were hurting in completely different ways that they would in my long runs during training preparing for the race. During those runs, my glutes would get very painful followed my my hamstrings. Today, neither of those muscle groups caused any problems. My knees and upper ankles were killing me today. Both IT bands acted up and created a great deal of irritation and I had cramps occur on the outsides of my lower legs above my ankles. I didn’t even know I had a muscle there because it’s never been an issue before during training.

I think the IT band issue cropped up because of my taper the last two weeks. Less running meant less stretching and they tightened up. For me, as long as I consistently stretch my IT bands after runs, they stay happy. Since I was running less, I was stretching less. I’ll remember to do more stretching next time during a major taper like this.

The course had a lot of hills and my training didn’t include any hill work. Consequently, I have some toenails in trouble tonight and I’m sure I’ll end up losing at least two of them.

As for the race itself, the organization and the fans were awesome. The Japanese do an excellent job of organizing sports events like these and this one was no different. Handling 11,000 athletes must be challenging and this organization did a great job. We had timely shuttle busses from the parking areas, clear staging pre-race, and smooth handling of medals and certificates at the conclusion of the race. Within two minutes of passing the finish line, I had a certificate with my name, finish time, active race time, and overall place in the race. They have the data handled very well.

Along the route, a multitude of Okinawans lined the course offering water, tea, brown sugar, salt, otter pops, soba noodles, candies, oranges, lemons, and bananas. The official race support had water every 5k, but there was plenty of water to be had from individuals along the course in between the official areas. Plenty of spray cans of an ‘icy hot’ type material were available for help with sore muscles. Unfortunately, the overspray sometimes would get in your eyes as you ran by and that stung (and not in a good way).

It was mostly fun but I’m looking forward to doing another one that is completely fun.

Posted in Triathlon | No Comments »

Happy Holidays

I write this a couple of days after Christmas and hope that everyone had a good holiday. I’ve had a week off from school and am just now starting to feel recovered and have been thinking about getting going on several projects. Some of them are related to school and others are more for fun.

I’ve gone on my long runs with another guy training for a marathon that last two Sundays and I’ve done well on the 10 mile run last week and we did the 11 mile run today in 1:39 (actually 11.5 miles). That’s about 7 mph average which is good enough for a 3:45 marathon pace. Of course, that’s assuming constant speed to the end which is unlikely. Nonetheless, I’m starting to think I could do a marathon. He’s training for one here in early March and I’ve decided I’ll try it with him. Should be interesting and different from my previous bike race or triathlon training. I’ll continue with biking and swimming of course, but the focus will shift to distance running. It should be good for me as long as I stay away from injuries. So far so good on these last two.

At school, I’m co-chairing the lead of the Far East Music Festival this year which means I have a thousand little details to coordinate and take care of before the week of the event (the last week in April). I’ll be happy when I can tie up all the loose ends from that project when we get to May.

At home, I’m trying to catch up on my back log of photo editing from the last few events like the Kyoto trip in November. I’ve also finally gotten all my printer settings dialed in on the new Epson 3880 and my two favorite papers. Upgrading to Snow Leopard was a hiccup in the process, but now everything seems to be working out well and I’ll start churning out some of my newer photos to put up around the house. I’m also firing up a new photo-blog that I’ll post my better shots on to share via the web. This blog is a little different focus so I’ll publish the photo blog at another location. Check back for the link when I get it done.

New Year’s Eve is just around the corner and I hope the new year brings health to everyone. I intend to be more frequent about updating this blog as well as my new photo blog. After living here a couple of years it’s difficult to remember that what seems normal to me will likely still be interesting to people who don’t live here.

Posted in Health and wellness, Sports | No Comments »

Torii Fall Triathlon Results and Review

Last Sunday, November 15th was the Torii Fall Triathlon. My first ever tri was the Torii Spring Tri in March of 2008. I had heard they usually do two a year but either missed it last fall or they didn’t run it. I’m not sure which. This course was the same as last Spring’s course which was significantly different that my first experience. The swim was 1000m in the ocean (two laps of a 500m U shaped course with a run up the beach between laps), followed by a LONG transition to the bike. We had to jog up the driveway to the gate area. My TI time was around 5:00 minutes and that wasn’t because I was slow getting on the bike; it was mostly the jog to the bike. We rode 8 laps around a course that included the eastern perimeter road, but it cut through the center of the base on the northwestern side rather than following the perimeter road like the first time I did this event. Finally the run was an out and back affair along the northwest perimeter road.

I think I prefer the old course for several reasons:

1. The bike leg was 5 laps instead of 8. It’s challenging to keep track of 5 laps let alone 8. Also, the old course was faster; perhaps a bit more dangerous though.
2. The run leg was three mini out and back loops which gave you three opportunities to gage your progress against your competition. This course only lets you see them once and also is one great big climb and then decent.
3. The long run in T1 is a pain. I didn’t feel it at the time, but my feet were bruised up from that. I could’ve thrown on some shoes but it just isn’t worth the time and you don’t notice the pain while in race mode. I did the next day though.

My results were good. I finished 5th overall, 4th for individuals, 2nd for 40+ age group. I was beat by 17 seconds in my age group. I was about 150m behind Mat Lubbers the entire run. If I’d known that was for first place I might’ve dug in a little harder. However, my training wasn’t race specific leading up to the event and I was just happy to be in such a good position. I figured I should just hold on and keep from blowing up and I had fifth place locked up. Looking back at it, I had some issues in T2 and a slow start to the swim that could’ve easily made up that 17 seconds, but hindsight isn’t very effective race strategy.

This course was the same as last spring so I was able to do some direct comparisons. My swim time was way better and this swim was in big swell and chop. Some people turned around at the first bouy and went back in. The DoD has a system of signals regarding safety for getting in the water. On the morning of the race, it was only one level below condition RED (when nobody is even allowed in the water). The wind and waves made it fairly dicey. Also, the wave action stirred up the sand so there was no visibility a the start, lap, and finish. I hit a rock twice (once during warm up and once in the race) that was only inches below the surface but I couldn’t see it due to the silt. All in all, my swim must be way better. Gina says I was 4th or 5th out of the water.

I rode the bike within 10 seconds of last year’s time, but I did it with much less effort this year. Because hadn’t done any race simulations or bricks leading up to this event, I worried about how my legs would do after the ride so I took it a little easier.

In the run, my calves were twichy for the first kilometer and I worried about cramps. I settled into a comfortable rhythm that had me holding a 4:10 pace at 162bpm. For me, that is very fast at a very low rate. I typically lose a lot of speed in my runs after a hard bike. However, I’ve been focussing on speed work in my run training for the last 3 months or so and I think it’s really starting to pay off. I ran the whole leg under 165 (typical race pace rate for me is 175 – 180) and still ran a 20:15 5k split. In training, I’ve hit 19:15 for 5k on fresh legs and at a much higher rate in training so I’m very pleased with that result. I also have been lifting consistently this fall and that is helping me with my endurance and effort. I’ve gone from 2 pull ups to 10 and my hip flexor work has improved my form in the run even when tired so I’m keeping more efficient to the end of the race. My overall time was within seconds of last spring’s, but my overall effort to get there was easier (except for the swim…I had a much more challenging swim this time as did everyone). That time got me around 10th overall last year and 5th this year. Part of that is because turnout was a little lower, but also part of that was the swim was likely a lot slower for everyone.

We had good weather and the Torii Station MWR folks did a good job of hosting. I usually leave fairly quickly after a race so I missed out on the food. I would’ve stayed if they would’ve mentioned that there would be food. Also, I wish the race brief would come far earlier so we get an opportunity to warm up before starting. Virtually every tri I’ve done wants to do the briefing right at the time I want to be warming up. That’s frustrating because the beginning of the swim is hard enough with a proper warm up. It’s truly intimidating when you are overwhelmed from the sprint start because you couldn’t warm up.

I’m not sure when my next event will be. I found out that Ishigaki is the same day as the start of Far East Music so I’ll be working. I have some time to train and choose something starting next March though.

This was my second event with the Garmin 310xt and it performed very well. Unfortunately, the GPS doesn’t work well in the water. I figured open water swim would track but the water must mess up the timing of the satellites. Also, it’s not quite as accurate with altitude as my 705 (I think it’s calculated rather than pressure based) so the climbing stats in my log are way off. I do like the auto-multi sport feature for the race though. You just hit the lap button at each transition and it automatically knows to go to the next sport in the que.. The display can be programmed specifically for each sport. Currently though, there is a bug that doesn’t allow for auto-lap to function at the same time as multi sport. Too bad because counting those 8 laps on the bike automatically would’ve been nice.

Torii Fall Triathlon Full Results

Posted in Okinawa, Triathlon | No Comments »

How to WIN a triathlon.

Those of you who follow my blog regularly know that I had post from June this year called “How NOT to win a triathlon”. This post will be a fitting counterpoint and end to the summer as it appears that I’ve got my health issues under control and finally put together a quality race effort. Of course the title gives away the drama of the post, but the details might still be interesting for you to read.

Yesterday was fourth annual Camp Kinser Reverse Triathlon. Many of the Marine Corps bases here on Okinawa host these ‘reverse’ triathlons. They all start with the run, then the bike, and finish in the swimming pool. The pool is the reason for the reverse aspect of the race because starting 200 athletes all at once in a single lane of a pool would be quite chaotic. By reversing the order, the racers are usually spread out quite a bit by the time they hit the pool and that alleviates the potential for crowding.

The race was a 5.2 k run, followed by a 15.5k bike, then 8 laps in a 50m pool (400m total). Kinser is a long skinny base with a section down on the ocean and a section up above on a higher level. The run and bike both climbed a short hill straight away, then the rest of the course was long straight stretches of road among warehouses with the occasional turn to another long straight stretch. The roads were open to traffic but most of the intersections had crossing guards. The run was one lap and the bike was two laps. The transition zone was ideal for the race. It was a long narrow parking lot that paralleled the race course so you entered and one end and exited out the other. The racks were clearly marked and there was plenty of room for gear between the bikes. Overall, this was the best organized MCCS Triathlon I had done.

The race started at 8:00 AM with dead calm air. Normally that would be a good thing, but when that air is 85 degrees and 80% humidity, a little breeze goes a long way for some comfort when running or spectating. That’s a heat index of 97% if you are wondering. Very uncomfortable, but typical August weather here. There were just over 200 racers this year, up quite a bit from previous years. Only the first 100 got tee shirts (I was 106).

My goal was to run as hard as possible, then do whatever I could on the bike. I had done a stand alone 5k two weeks ago at 19:45 without maxing out, but the conditions were less brutal when I ran it at 5:30 AM. At the race, my goal pace was 4:00 minutes per kilometer to end with a 20 minute 5k. My new Garmin 310xt allowed me to see my current pace at any time, and it recorded my pace for each kilometer as I ran. I strived for a negative split so I tried to take it easy at the start. My heart rate for 5k at race intensity is usually maxed out at 175. I was above that before 200m had gone by, but I felt fine so I kept going. My first split was 4:06 with the hill so I was pleased with that. The next three splits were all around 4:12, a little slow but my heart rate was at 178 so I knew that was all I should put in at that point. The people I had been pacing with started falling away after 3k. I was well behind a group of about 20 that pulled away from everyone early on, but I ended up running the last k at 4:05, so I accelerated to the end instead of fading. That was good. I usually fade hard on runs. My heart rate for the final k was 182 and I felt great. Normally 182 is above the redline for me. I finished at 21:22

I tried leaving my bike shoes clipped on to my pedals for the first time in this race. I did practice several mounts and dismounts last week and felt very comfortable doing it. During the race, it worked great. I didn’t have to run in my bike shoes and it was a snap to get my feet into the shoes after getting some speed on the bike. My total transition time was only 60 seconds. That’s a huge bonus in a short race like this to get through that quickly. I’ve since figured out a couple of ways to shave another 10 – 15 seconds off that time.

The bike went well. In the race simulations I had done leading up to the event, I found out that my cycling legs took a while to come around. My first 4 or 5 k typically felt awful, but after that I regained some strength as my legs adjusted. During the race I didn’t notice being heavy at the start of the ride though. I was able to power up the hill and catch up to some of the leaders pretty quickly on the first lap. I didn’t see anyone in front of me on the second lap so I knew that rest of the guys up there were keeping clear of me. I averaged a heart rate of 172 on the bike, which is great for after the run. I typically can’t get that high of a rate on the bike after a swim or run. The race director setup several water stations for the bike leg, but they were all in the middle of straight flat sections. I wasn’t interested in slowing down from 28 mph for a cup of water. They figured out throwing the water on you worked too. However, I found out that a cup of water in the face hurts like hell if you keep your eyes open. After that first one, I closed my eyes for each one after. I’m not sure what my split was because a software bug in the Garmin locked it up during this part of the race and corrupted the data file. Hopefully a firmware update will fix the problem. I know that I had good speed and I didn’t fade either. At the end, I took my feet out of the shoes about 500m before T2 and had a smooth jump off the bike and run back to the rack. I grabbed my goggles and ran to the pool to discover three guys all getting in the water right in front of me.  So much for being spread out at the pool.

In the pre race brief, they did tell us to stay to the left side of the lane and pass on the right in the pool. We had to swim 8 laps by going down in one lane, then moving over and coming back in the next. You end up zig zagging through the entire pool this way. The swim has historically been my weakest leg. It’s also the one that is easiest for me to redline on and get freaked out. When you can’t breath and you then can only breath when the stroke lets you, panic can set in quickly. I also have found that my steady, smooth, strong pull technique will often times be faster than when I try to sprint. Today, all my practice time in the pool paid off because I found that immediately I was faster than the three guys in front of me. That’s great, but passing in the pool is tricky; especially when two or three or four of you arrive at the wall together. I was able to rest a bit behind them after the first turn and sprinted around two of them before the second turn. I chased down and passed the next guy after the fourth turn. At the next turn, I looked around the pool to see that the next closest guy was two lanes away so I just settled into a steady rhythm to the finish. I couldn’t believe that I actually passed guys in the pool. I’ve never been faster than someone else in the water. That was exciting.

After finishing, I looked around and didn’t see very many guys in the finish area and it finally occurred to me that I might have had a high finish. Gina confirmed that she thought I was fifth and after looking at the pictures she took, I agreed. This morning I found out from the organizers that I was fifth overall, and first in my division. Regardless of my finish, I was pleased with the race because I finally got everything right. I maxed out my heart rate without blowing up and didn’t fade on any section of the race.

Oh yeah….and I didn’t feel like I was having a stroke during any section of the race. That’s always a bonus

Posted in Military Culture, Triathlon | 4 Comments »

Snorkeling at Okuma

Gina and I were invited for a weekend at Okuma with a friends of ours. Steve and I rode the 50 miles up to the Okuma Resort (run by the Air Force for DoD personel) while his wife and Gina drove up. Steve and I rode long rides of 40 – 60 miles every morning and Gina and I explored some snorkeling just off of one of the two beautiful beaches there.

Posted in Okinawa, Photography, Sports | No Comments »

I just found the ultimate “rain” bike

For people who are serious about bicycling, a rain bike is a luxury item that actually has some tangible benefits. Such a bike is used for rainy days so you can still train but not get your $15,000 unobtanium gold plated carbon fiber kevlar laced super deluxe Schwinn all wet and rusty. I suppose you could just upgrade all the bits that rust to titanium and not worry about it, but I don’t know if you can get titanium bearing races or not.

At any rate, most rain bikes are simply lower end model race bikes so that the expense of replacing rusted out parts is less painful. I wanted to pursue something even more efficient by using a internally geared rear hub and no derailleurs.  This arrangement is very clean (looks like a single speed) and at the same time fairly water proof to the tricky little expensive bits (like integrated shift levers and $300 + a pop). So I was going to build up a bike based on a single speed frame and use a Shimano Nexus rear hub. In the process of doing my research, I found that someone had already built my dream rain bike. The only problem is that they only sell it to walk in customers. Since I live in Okinawa and their shop is in West Newton, Mass., it’s unlikely I’ll get there. Hopefully I can talk them into selling it to me over the Internet.

My dream rain bike

Posted in Health and wellness, Triathlon | No Comments »

How to Not Win a Triathlon

…or “How to mess up your hydration so bad that you can’t run and you lose your balance”.

This is a very detailed, lengthy blog entry about my experience at the Gamagori Triathlon last weekend. Make sure you have some time to read before starting.

Several years ago while taking band students on yet another bus trip I realized that something was always going to go wrong during the trip. It was usually one thing and once that one thing went wrong I could relax because I knew the rest of the trip would be without incident. I developed this theory after many years of teaching and dozens of trips. Sometime the thing that went wrong would be huge (a student disappearing from the hotel in the middle of the night) and sometimes it would be fairly insignificant (forgetting to bring my tuner). To this day on a band trip I still wait nervously to discover what will go wrong so I can get past it.

I now know that this theorem applies to triathlon racing as well. One bit of wise information I received from a very successful triathlete friend of mine was that “Something will go wrong. Deal with it and do what you can with the rest of the race.”

Yesterday was the culmination of five months of training under the direction of my coach with my first JTU (Japan Triathlon Union) Olympic Distance race. I booked a flight and set up hotel reservations in April for the Gamagori Orange Triathlon. This venue has been the site of the ITU World Championships in past years so I figured it would be a classy event. Translation issues notwithstanding, I did manage to make in time for event registration day before yesterday and was comfortably set up in the transition zone well before start of the race.

It wasn’t clear until sometime after the race what went wrong. It’s stunning what a simple single mistake can do to months of preparation. Here’s the mistake:

My time trial bicycle water bottle is smaller than I thought it was.

That seems innocent enough of a mistake, doesn’t it? It’s better than your bike getting broken by the luggage handlers or forgetting your shoes or breaking the strap on your swim goggles (and the backup goggles). All those kind of mistakes are deadly because you know your done before you even start. My mistake still allowed me to race, but was ultimately very costly. Here’s what happened:

As per the advice of my coach and other sources, I wanted to carry a dilute solution of sports drink with me on the bike. Using straight water is good too, but having some calories and some salt replenishment is a good idea. Diluting the solution is critical because too high of a concentration of carbohydrates will cause your stomach to cramp because it can’t digest it properly. I don’t remember the details, but it has something to do with osmosis and strength of a solution dissolving into another solution. It also makes you feel more thirsty and you have to drink even more water than you would normally need in a race in order to dilute the solution in your stomach to a level where it can digest it. I practiced during training (never ever try something new in a race…a basic axiom of endurance racing) with different solutions of sports drink and found a level that worked very well for me. When I packed for this trip, I measured that precise level of sports drink powder into a ziplock baggie and mixed it up right before the race and put it on my bike. I didn’t think anything of it again.

The swim was in nasty brackish (half salt, half normal) water in a lagoon that was literally swamp water. It was nasty green and you couldn’t see more than about two feet around you in the water. Also, it reeked of sulfur. This alone might prevent from ever coming back to this venue. Beyond that though, I had a very good swim. I focused on good long strokes and stayed away from people. I stayed strong throughout and passed several fading folks on the last of the second lap. Unfortunately  I breathe to the left and tend to swim toward the left while the race course turned to the right. I kept finding myself outside the mainline of swimmers a bit more than I would’ve liked and probably added 50 meters or so to my swim.

The transition zone was one great big long alley way lined with about 500 bikes on both sides. Just running from the entrance to the exit without stopping to get the bike probably took about two minutes. I didn’t run very fast, but I had a fairly clean transition at the bike and took off for my four laps around the technical 10k course. There wasn’t a race clock so I don’t know how long my swim was (I don’t use a stopwatch in the water, just my Garmin 705 on the bike and the run) and the results weren’t posted yet when I left.

Now I worked hard on relaxing on the bike. I have a habit of going far too hard on the bike and I really wanted to achieve a negative split for the bike leg. A negative split means you go faster on the second half than on the first half. This requires a great degree of patience on the first half because you don’t feel like you are going as hard as you should be. About 1000 meters into the bike ride I took a sip of my sports drink and knew right there I had a problem. I didn’t know how serious of a problem until later, but I knew that the mix was WAY too strong. This meant that with every drink I would get thirstier. That was my only thought about it at the time. I’ve never had issues with stomach cramps so it didn’t occur to me that I would be paying for the mistake with cramps on the run later. I did look for a water station. If they had one at any point on the route, I would’ve stopped and filled my bottle with water. So I was at least looking for a solution. Despite that problem, the bike leg went well. I held 23.3 mph average speed for the entire leg and never deviated lower than 23.2 or higher than 23.4 for any of the four laps. Interestingly, my heart rate descended from 165 to 158 over the course of the four laps as well. I was relaxing more and more (by design because it had started too high) and yet maintaining speed. Toward the end I actually wanted to bring it back up for the negative split effect, but I was unable to do so. This was likely symptom number one of dehydration.

I ran out of sports drink before the end of the leg. So, not only was it too strong and it made me thirsty, but I also ran out. It was warm in the race, but not overly hot. I knew I was sweating though. Other than being thirsty, I actually felt good and was excited to see such good speeds overall with such a relaxed heart rate. The course had 19 right angle turns and 4 hairpin turns per lap. It was highly technical and I could tell that many, many riders weren’t comfortable with the turns. I made up a lot of time in those turns going around other riders as they slowed down more than they needed to.

So, I felt good, had a good swim and now a good bike leg. My goal time of 2:15 seemed within reason as I approached the transition zone for the run. Then something horrible happened: I thought my bike was disintegrating underneath me because suddenly (very suddenly) I had no control of the bike. It was weaving all over the road seemingly independent of my control inputs. I immediately had my feet out of the clips and was looking down to find the source of the issue as the bike meandered out of control to the side of the race course. After coming to a stop, I could see that I had no flat tires and the frame and wheels were intact. I figured that perhaps a weird wind had hit my tri spoke wheels in a peculiar way and that must’ve been the problem. Winds do create some odd effects to the front wheel of this set so it’s not unheard of for this type of issue to occur. Problem was that there wasn’t any wind. I clipped back in and started to pedal off again only to steer my bike straight left into a wall. It was at this point that I recognized the problem was with me and not the bike. I didn’t feel odd at all other than I obviously had lost all sense of balance, and lost it in a very, very sudden way.  It was so sudden that once I realized the problem was with me and not the bike I assumed I was having a stroke. I was scared, very scared.

I set the bike down and sat down next to it wondering what was about to happen to me. Two race course officials came toward me and asked me if I was okay (in Japanese). I indicated to them that I was dizzy which wasn’t quite accurate but I don’t think they even understood what it was I tried to say to them. I did start to notice that my arms seemed somewhat disconnected from my brain and I felt a little woozy. At best I figured my race day was done. At worst, I figured that I would start going blind in one eye or lose control over one half my body. Like I said before, I was scared. After a few minutes of rest (I stopped my timer just in case I did race more; I didn’t want the down time to count as part of my high quality bike effort), I started feeling more connected to my body and I tried standing up and succeeded. I wouldn’t have been able to stand when it first happened, I basically fell off my bike when I stopped. I slowly started walking the last 500 meters to the transition and with each step felt better and better. I got back on the bike and carefully peddled in toward the transition and maintained balance throughout. Thank goodness my body and brain started communicating again.

At the transition area, I took my time getting some plain water and getting my race shoes on and started off on the run. It all felt quite normal, just like all my training when I did rides followed by runs. I started easy to get my ‘running legs’ under me and then start stepping the tempo up. My goal was to run the first two laps around 160 – 165 beats per minute (heart rate) and the last two laps around 165 – 170, with the range being dictated by how I felt. However, as soon as I hit 158 my stomach knotted up into a painful ball, cramping that I’ve never experienced before. I had to stop and walk. Throughout the first three laps, my stomach would cramp up painful at anything above 155 or so. That heart rate is a light jog for me and it was incredibly frustrating to not go faster. I felt like I had good strength and good legs, but my stomach pain just wouldn’t allow it. I drank as much water as I could handle at each of the aid stations. Here’s where the problem with sports drink compounds itself. When running, you are limited in the amount of water you can drink because too much will make you uncomfortable from all the sloshing in your stomach. I needed to drink to dilute down the concentration, but not to much or I’d have stomach pains from too much liquid. It was an evil catch 22 that is to be avoided at all cost because the only solution to the problem at this point is slowing down until everything balances out.

For me, it took about seven of the 10 kilometers to get the water/stomach situation resolved and I finally was able to pour on the power for the last 2.5 k of the course. This felt good to finish strong after wrecking the rest of the event because my miscalculation with my bike water bottle.

And then BLAM….down I go onto the street. The same thing that happened to me on the bike hit me again on the run with about 500m to go (just before entering the stadium). Once again, I had no balance and couldn’t stand or really direct my limbs very well. As before though, some rest and slow walking got me out of it and I was able to enter the stadium and finish the race in a light jog.

For the next several hours, I had light nausea. I found someone who spoke good English and he translated my issue to the medical team. They took my pulse and noted that my heart rate was fluctuating  up and down but they had no prognosis otherwise. I felt like I likely needed to eat. I had been drinking tons of water on the run, but I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast some six hours and a race earlier. I was worried that I was just bonking while sitting in the chair.

I ate a clif bar and it helped a bit. After going back to the hotel, I improved a bit over the course of the next several hours and finally was able to eat dinner and feel somewhat more normal about 10 hours after the end of the race. After doing some research on line, it appears that I had classic symptoms of dehydration, so I don’t think it was a stroke.

So what happened? Well, it turns out that my time trial bike water bottle is smaller than my regular bottles and I had prepared sports drink mix that would’ve been correct for the larger bottle. Also, even without the drink mix, because the bottle was small I still didn’t have enough to drink and likely would have still had hydration issues separate from the sports drink issues. Kind of a bummer to make one little miscalculation destroy the whole race.

I guess that means I’ll just have to try again to get my 2:15 finish at another race.

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Camp Schwab Aquathon 2009

This morning I participated in my first aquathon. An aquathon (or sometimes called an aquathlon) is running and swimming but it comes in different variations. This one was a 2.5k run, 1000m swim, and another 2.5k run to finish. it was a unquie experience compared to triathlons. I was concerned about how to do the transitions and how to properly warm up. Turned out that I did fine in those areas, but I didn’t run as hard as I should’ve and I had an issue mid way through the swim that I hadn’t experience before.

The event started at 9:00 AM and mid tide and it was a beautiful morning for an athletic event. It’s been an unusually cool and comfortable spring here in Okinawa and this morning’s 68 degree temperature was a welcome race weather report. Many athletes involved either ran or rode to the event because they are getting ready for Ironman Japan in three weeks and this is the last big weekend for some heavy miles for those racers. There were also a few families, some marines, and a few youth swim team members involved.

My goal was to run a negative split from the first run to the second run by monitoring my heart rate and holding it under 166 for the first leg, then letting it rise on the final leg up to 180 by the finish. In my last race, I went out so hard that I was incredibly weak by the end and had no kick. In my training, I’ve been working on pushing harder paces and heart rates as the run progresses to get use to going hard at the end. It has helped considerbly as I managed to run a 40:03 10k in training a couple of weeks ago which is way faster than anything I ever thought I’d be able to do. I did the first 20 minutes at a 165 average rate, and the second 20 minutes at a 175 average rate with a final rate of 182 at a full sprint (trying to beat 40:00 flat…not quite yet though). The plan worked, but I didn’t let myself go as hard as I should’ve. I had plenty of speed and stamina left when I finished and my pacing showed it. I averaged 8.97 mph for the run legs compared to 9.3 avg in that 10k training run from a couple of weeks ago. Of course I had a 25 minute open ocean swim in between, but I still think I could’ve gone harder. I didn’t realize how high I had let my rate raise in that training run and was worried about going to hard again like my last race. This time, I went too easy. Live and learn. Maybe I’ll hit it just right in Gamagori in two weeks.

I’ve done four triathlons in the last 16 months and three of them were open water swims. Each of those had guide bouys the entire distance for easy course finding. The open water swim in this event was the first race I’ve done where there was no guide rope with bouys, but only three main marker bouys designating the corners of the triangular course. This caused some problems for me. Keep in mind that I swim in the open water once a week in the bay right outside of my apartment so I’ve done hours and hourse of swimming in the ocean. What I didn’t realize though is how intimidating the water can be when:

1. The water is deep; very deep.
2. You are a long, long way from the shore.
3. Racing right at your limit is challenging.

After I turned at the first bouy into the prevailing chop I started feeling like I couldn’t get enough air. So I backed way off on the intensity to recover a bit but it didn’t make a difference. This cascaded into a panic attack. I started thinking about waiving down a kayak for help. I stopped, cleared my fogged up goggles and relaxed for a while and then was able to get some composure. After rounding the second bouy, I decided to really pull back and treat it like a training swim to keep my emotions under control. The swim was two laps and the second lap went much better, and much faster. I ended up blazing by people ( I also got passed by 4 or 5 teenage girls on the second lap…swim team members) as they ran out of gas and I finally settled into a groove. By the time I got out of the water I was finally comfortable and was gliding fairly smoothly. It’s highly likely that the swim was more like 1400m because of the times we turned in. It sure seemed like a long swim, but anytime you are worried you might drown it’s going to seem like a long swim.

So, I learned a great deal at this race. I didn’t go hard enough on the run, but I did go too hard on the swim. I really need to learn how to relax going into the water. The next triathlon I’m doing will compound this issue as it will be a mass start and the issues of people swimming on top of you when you first start are quite challenging.

I’ll post results when they come out, but I might’ve gotten into the top 3 for my age group. I was much closer to a couple of colleagues of mine than I’ve ever been in other races so my swim (even with it’s issues) has improved. I could’ve easily trimmed 1 – 2 minutes off the run if I’d maxed out my rate better. Overall, it was a great event and I was able to use it to gain some valuable experience for my next A race.

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Torii Beach Triathlon 2009 – Full Results

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my conversion from roadie to tri-geek. I had high hopes as I’ve been training pretty consistently since January with a new coach and my swim and run times have improved dramatically. Unfortunately, my ability to remain calm at a race hasn’t improved.

The course changed significantly this year so comparisons of times go out the window, but I finished 8th overall for individuals (10th counting the two teams that finished in front of me) and 4th in my age group (30 – 39). The third place guy was more than a simple sprint ahead so I didn’t get beat by a simple margin.

I didn’t warm up correctly and paid for it in the swim. I never ever felt comfortable after the sprint. I felt on the edge of panic the whole way and the chop and current created issues too. Every time I looked up I was swimming in a different direction than I expected. That took a lot out of my intensity when I wasn’t certain if I was going the right way or not. I still came out of the water in around 10th – 15th position. This is significantly better than last year. Then we had to do about a half mile jog to T1. With that jog, my swim time was as fast as last year without it. That’s a good thing. The chop, current, and drinking of too much ocean was a bad thing.

The bike went well, even though we had to count 8 laps of of 3.8k course. They had volunteers counting laps and they missed some people and made them do nine. I’m glad they kept mine straight. Fortunately, the guy counting my laps is the father of one of my students and a big fan so he made sure he always counted my laps on the way by.

I was in fifth when I got off the bike and my legs felt good. Unfortunately, I went out too hard and the lactate made me feel pretty ill all the way to the turnaround. It kind of feels like you’re trying to run when you have the flu. My whole body just felt weak. Finally at the turnaround, things settled down and I got into a good groove for the way back. I got passed by four guys (all but one in the first half) on the run and finished in 10th. Last year, I was 13th but I did the run 4:00 minutes slower. I did it this time in 20:30 (it’s a true 5k), which is definitely off from my training runs so I messed up the pacing pretty badly. I left my Garmin on my bike so I didn’t have a heart rate monitor. Going by feel was a mistake.

I’m pleased with my fitness, I’m not so pleased with my inexperienced racing tactics. That’ll come with time.

Gina took some great pictures with the good camera. Check out the gallery here.

Here are the full results:

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