Honing in on homemade fuel recipe

Several months ago I wrote part 3 of a fueling for endurance events series of posts, and in that post I listed a recipe that I came up with that was pretty decent, as it provided a 50/50 mixture of fructose and glucose, as it was essentially invert sugar.

Since that post I've refined the recipe a bit and came up with what I think will be my base recipe from here on out.  Instead of having a 50/50 mixture of fructose and glucose, this recipe provides 66% glucose and 33% fructose, which is the 2:1 ratio used in Powerbars C2MAX formulation.  Part of my reasoning for wanting this mixture is that the Powerbar Ironman Perform sports drink product is currently the one being used by Ironman during their events, and since all Powerbar products use C2MAX, coming up with my own approximation seemed like a good idea.

Base recipe
2 cups water
2 cups maltodextrin (Carbogain - can be obtained from a GNC or Performance Nutrition type store)
2 cups sugar
1 TBSP acid (lemon juice or lime juice)
1 TBSP vanilla

1) Bring water to a boil. Add acid and sugar. Cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes.
2) Add in the two cups of maltodextrin and the vanilla with immersion/stick blender. The malto is much like corn starch upon contact with water - it doesn't dissolve easily, so mixing in by hand is a pain in the ass, if it's even possible.
3) Mix in flavoring, and any electrolytes (NaCl or KCl) if desired.

Result is about 3.25 cups of product.

For flavoring, I've used 1/4 cup of coca successfully, as well as one of those flavor packets for a 20 oz bottle of water. The flavor packet ended up making the batch a bit sweeter due to the artificial sweetener contained within, so next time I may try 1/2 tsp of kool aid powder.

It took me several uses before honing in on how much to take, and how much water to take it with. However, once figured out - it's easy to make, versatile, and very portable and shelf stable. The first major test was a century ride where I used this syrup for fuel exclusively once my 2 x 24 oz bottles of gatorade wore out. I specifically remember being at mile 94 and my legs still felt strong - a major difference from previous centuries where I typically bonked around mile 80-85. So it definitely works.

The geek-out info

The calorie content:

2 cups of sugar equates to about 1548 calories, and 2 cups malto equates to about 760 calories - so about 2300 calories total in the batch.
2300 cal divided by 3.25 cups is about 710 calories per cup. One cup is 8 fluid ounces, so each fluid ounce is about 89 calories.

Ratio of glucose/fructose:
Table sugar is sucrose, and sucrose is made up of 1 glucose and 1 fructose molecule bonded together. Molecular weight of 342 g/mol
Maltodextrin is 100% glucose polymers. Molecular weight varies depending on chain length, but I just went with glucose - 180 g/mol
2 cups of table sugar is 400g, or 1.16 mols of sucrose. Since 1 molecule sucrose = 1 molecule glucose + 1 molecule fructose, the end result of creating invert sugar is 1.16 mols sucrose and 1.16 mols of glucose.
2 cups of maltodextrin is 200g, or 1.11 mols of glucose.
Glucose composition = 1.11 mols from malto + 1.16 mols from sugar = 2.27 moles glucose
Fructose composition = 1.16 mols from sugar.
So, glucose to fructose ratio is 2.27:1.16 - about 2:1.

Patriot Half - 6/16

This was the second year I've done the Patriot half iron.  Last year was my first time, and as I was building back up mileage from IT band issues, my primary goal was to finish without further aggravation of the IT band (which I did).  My splits for last year were:
Swim (1.2 miles): 43:06 (no wetsuit)
T1: 5 min
Bike (56 miles): 3:10:07
T2: 4:43
Run (13.1 miles): 2:20:48
Total: 6:23:42

I was pretty happy with those results, even though the run was about 30 minutes slower than my normal half marathon time at the time.  But that was to be somewhat expected - I stopped for walk breaks every 1/2 mile, had no gas left in the tank towards the end, and it was really hot - so I really struggled.

This time, I figured I was good for at least 20-25 minutes of improvement.  I had refined my swim to include better bilateral breathing, going to a two-beat instead of six-beat kick, and I'd be wearing a wetsuit.  My initial thinking was that between those three things plus just better fitness, it wasn't inconceivable to knock about 10 minutes off the swim. 

For the bike, this time around I had actually put in solid training over the winter, so I knew I'd be in a much better position.  My thinking was that I could take 10-15 minutes off there.

For the run, I was figuring about a 20 minute gain.  After having recently discovered a nutrition regimen to keep the fuel stores topped off, in addition to just being able to run faster - I had high hopes of major improvement there.

So all told, I was thinking probably about 30 minutes better than last year.  And from where, who knows - maybe something would just click and I'd be able to knock off something more like 45 minutes.

Oh, the other thing to mention - this time I had number 345.  Sounds irrelevant now, but it needs to be mentioned.

The Swim

Our wave was number 6, and each wave was separated by 4 minutes, so we were 20 minutes behind the lead wave.  The water was nice, which means a tad cool initially, but perfectly comfortable after about 30 seconds.  However, it was choppy, with the wind coming in towards the shore.  Normally in swim starts I tend to stay towards the back, because I am often slower on the swim, and I'd otherwise have a bunch of people crawling over me.  This time, though, I had a pretty good idea that I'd be at least in the middle of the pack, if not towards the front.  My swim form is one thing I'm actually really proud of and not afraid to admit that (I think) I'm pretty damn awesome at.  I'm not quite as smooth as this guy, but to the laymen, I'm pretty damn close.  Anyhow, I allowed myself to be towards the front of the swim start.  

Keeping in mind my tendency to start fast, I started a bit slow to help stay smooth and relaxed.  A few hundred yards into the swim, I realized that there wasn't many people nearby.  Either I had gotten wildly off course (possible, but not probable that I was that off course), I had put distance between myself and the other people in my wave (yellow caps), or I had already fallen woefully behind.  I wasn't sure what the situation was, but I did some sighting and verified I was pretty much on course, so that was good.  Before too long, though - maybe around the 1/4 or 1/3 mile mark, I bumped into someone who was wearing a color cap (dark green) from the wave before us.  Although this person was probably the slowest in his age group, the fact that I was already bumping into groups that started 4 minutes before me was a good sign.  Or, at least, I took it as a good sign.  By the time we reach the first turn (1/2 mile), I had already passed a few dark greenies, as well as a white (the wave before the dark green) or two, so I knew I was probably in pretty good shape.  At that point, it was just a matter of keeping the head down, and swimming smooth and relaxed.

At least once, I realized that I slipped into my old six beat (or whatever it is) kick.  Not sure how that slipped in there - probably the distraction of swimming with others made me pay less attention to form and that was what ended up slipping through the cracks.

On the way back, we at least had some waves at our back, and the field had thinned out a bit - or at least I thought.  On the flip side, the sighting seemed more difficult - on the way out there was good contrast between the dark background and the bright orange buoys, but on the way back, the sun was creeping over the trees to the left, and the beach in the background meant it was harder to determine at a quick glance where exactly to head.  I must have not made a full 90 degree turn, because a couple hundred yards after the turn, during a time when I could actually get a good visual, I realized I was swinging a bit wide.  So I turned a bit back to the course, straight towards a buoy.  As I came in closer, I started bumping into people now and again - I think I was hitting the middle of the pack of earlier waves by this time.  It became common enough that I stopped really paying much attention - if I bumped into someone, I didn't bother looking up anymore - I just moved to the side a tad and kept swimming.

Unfortunately, one of those 'people' ended up being a buoy.  Yup, I swam right into a buoy.  Oops!

The rest of the swim was rather uneventful.

T1
I've never cared much about transition times, nor put any real effort or thought into them.  My goal this time was to try out an IM-like transition by having a specific bag of T1 stuff, and a specific bag of T2 stuff.  Outside of that, my only other goal in T1 was to see how quickly I could get my wetsuit off.  I managed to get it off decently fast - but in retrospect I probably should have started unzipping and rolling it down off the torso while running from the beach to the bike rack.  I'll have to keep that in mind @ LP.  The other thing I did was put my Garmin in my T1 bag because I didn't want to leave it on the bike where someone might steal it.  That was another thing that in retrospect I should probably do differently @ LP - either put it on the bike (realistically no one there will want a silly Garmin 305), or if I have room, in the bike pouch that sits behind the headset of the bike.  Finally, getting my HR strap, shirt and race number on took time as well.  I didn't want to pin my race number to my shirt before hand because I didn't want the pin to rip the fabric while putting the jersey on.  So I'll have to figure out an alternative to that.  Then, lastly, there was the HR strap.  Although I don't use the Garmin during the swim portions of the race, I may toy around with keeping it on during the swim anyway, figuring the wetsuit will keep it in place and prevent it from slipping.

Bike
The bike portion was the meat of my whole experiment of the day - execution before fitness.  My plan was to down 2 x 24 oz of Gatorade in the 90 minutes coming out of the swim.  I wanted to replenish the energy stores, and having two pre-mixed bottles available was an easy way to accomplish hydration, energy and electrolytes all at once.

My initial HR, when I looked, was in the mid to high 150's.  While not necessarily excessive, I really wanted to get it down at least into the 140's, because I wanted to make sure I didn't go out too fast on the bike and have trashed legs on the run, and I wasn't sure a HR in the 150's would allow that.  It took a couple miles, but it did settle down, and eventually got into the 130's, which I was happy with.  Although somewhat hard to tell, it looked like I was cruising along around 17-18 mph, which I was also happy with.  However, I was getting passed a lot.  But at long as my HR was in check, thats mostly what I cared about.

I got through the first 24 oz bottle just as I was coming up to the first bottle exchange around mile 11 - actually having to down the last 6-8 oz or so upon seeing the exchange up ahead.  After I tossed my empty, they were calling 'WATER!' 'HEED!', and I called out for a water.  I had 8 oz of my homemade energy syrup with me, so my plan was to start using that for fuel (supplemented with electrolyte capsules I had with me) after my gatorade ran out.  Then, about 1/2 mile after the exchange, my bladder started feeling like it was filling up.  Damn.  I was 12 miles in, and I wasn't sure where there might be a porta-potty.

Over the course of the next couple miles, it kept building and it was obvious it wasn't a situation where you are on edge for a long period of time.  This was a problem, because I needed to fuel up with the other bottle of gatorade, but I didn't want to take on any more fluids than I had to.  I was starting to pin my hopes on having a porta-potty available at the half-way mark.

Execution wise, I stayed pretty true - keeping the HR between 130-140, and staying between 15-20 mph - depending on terrain.  I mostly made sure that I didn't burn matches - or that if I did, it was very brief with quick recovery.

As I was getting close to the halfway point, the other bottle exchange station became visible.  Since I had slowed my water intake, I didn't need anything at this point, but again, I heard: 'WATER!' 'HEED!'.   Just then I saw a lone porta-potty, pulled over like I was 1/8 mile from an exit on the other side of an 8 lane highway, and said 'porta-potty!' to which a volunteer replied 'I can't help you with that!'.

Ahh.. much better.

The second loop of the bike was more of the same.  It seemed a bit windier, though, and my HR got into the 140's more often, and it seemed like my speed dropped more often as well.  Once again, around the 1/3 to 1/2 way point of the second loop, the bladder was filling again.  At least this time I knew where to stop, so I was able to maintain decent water and fuel intake without too much fear.

The biggest issue with the second loop, though, was that the IT band on my left leg was starting to feel tight, and my right foot was developing a hotspot right near where where it's most recent injury was.  I was able to adjust where the pressure is applied on the right foot to alleviate some of the pressure from that hotspot, and that helped, but at that point it was already aggravated so it was still a bit cranky.  It started to occur to me that this may be an after-effect of the initial ankle injury I had a few months ago on the inside of my ankle - to help alleviate pain from that I may have inadvertantly trained my foot to roll a bit to the outside, which may have ended up contributing to the issue on the outside of the foot that was to develop.  Something I'll have to pay attention to on future cycling workouts - distribution of pressure on the bottom of the foot.

The other thing I did during the bike loop was to make sure to occasionally breath deeply and rhythmically.  I found on my century ride during Memorial day that when I went for the run, my lungs felt.. compressed.  Like my chest cavity couldn't expand.  So I wanted to see if I could get into more of a habit of full breathing during the bike, and to see if that would help during the run.

Garmin bike data

T2
Coming off the bike, the legs felt pretty good.  I made the trod from the dismount line to the bike rack at a slow pace to allow my body to transition from being hunched over to getting into running position.  At the bike rack, I grabbed my fuel belt filled with water, took care of my bike stuff, threw on my running shoes and headed out.  Fortunately, stepping into the running shoes made my feet feel like they were on a cloud, so the hotspot from the cycling shoe didn't carry over - for which I was grateful!  Also, the IT band on the left knee didn't feel quite as tight either.  Good sign, but still early (as it turned out, neither of them gave a peep the rest of the day).

Run
My plan for the run was to simply do a slow, easy jog for the first three miles, at least.  If I felt up to it, I could increase the pace a bit, but that probably wouldn't be until mile 5 at least.  Everything felt great for the first mile as my legs got used to running, and the first mile came in just over 8 minutes and the HR felt steady and stable.  Unfortunately, even with Static Guard having been applied to my shirt the day before, the HR as registered on the Garmin was being erratic.  I have had this happen before, and usually it settles down around 2-2.5 miles, so I decided not to worry about it.

As the miles ticked by, the pace remained sub-8:30, but the HR was still being erratic - it would drive up, and then after fiddling with the chest strap, it would drop 20 or more BPM to a more normal range for my RPE.  As much as I like some of the shirts I run in - I may have to go back to the style I wore last year, when I never had any such problems.

Overall, the run was probably one of the best runs I've ever had, all things considered.  It certainly wasn't a half marathon PR, and I've run faster during some training runs - but the number of people I was passing was staggering.  I think I got passed twice in the first mile or so, and never again after that.  What I still can't quite figure out is how someone would be able to pass me during that first mile as easily as they were without having a better bike split than me.  The only reason I could come up with is that those two people may have been on relay teams - but even then I'd imagine the bike person on the relay would have been averaging a much faster pace than I on the bike - so how were they behind me?  Either that, or they went out really fast on the run and likely bonked later on.

The run was pretty much steady - take a sip of energy syrup every so often, wash down with water, pop an electrolyte capsule every 30 minutes or so.  I started running low on syrup around mile 8 or so, and decided to switch to using cola from the aid stations when possible.  I had also at this point decided I was feeling good enough to start putting in bouts of a faster pace every so often.  I still wasn't 100% sure I could maintain a faster pace for a whole 5 miles, so I didn't want to over do it - so instead I'd pick things up for a 1/4 mile or so, and then slow back down to 8:30-8:40 to let the body recover a bit.  Basically, start burning a few matches as I still had a number of them left.  As the miles got to 9, 10 and 11 - the distances of increased pace got longer.  At this point I wasn't really paying attention to the HR monitor because it was going crazy - bouncing between the 160's and the 190's.  At one point, it even went from 195 to the mid 150's.  Clearly, not reliable.

By the time I got to miles 12 and 13, I was pretty much steadily at a 7-7:30 pace, with the last mile being sub-7.

Crossing the finish line, the clock was showing a time of just over 6 hours.  Given that my wave started 20 minutes after the clock started, that put me at a total time of about 5:43.  This was a solid 40 minutes faster than last year - primarily all gained in the run.

Garmin run data

Final results from this year:

Swim: 36:20 (-6:46, using wetsuit)
T1: 5:20 (+0:20)
Bike: 3:12:18 (+2:11, but this includes appx 4-6 minutes of having to stop twice)
T2: 3:34 (-1:09)
Run: 1:46:21 (-34:27)
Total: 5:43:51


That race number of 345?  Reverse of the finish time of 5:43.  Just something that popped into mind on my ride back home.

Upon initial look, it would seem like I didn't change much of anything on the bike, and drastically improved on the run - and therefore one would conclude I need to work on the bike far more than the run.  While that may be true, the fact is that my bike time was very similar to last year, but the HR was about 10 bpm less on average, which made a world of difference in setting up the run.  Out of 595 finishers, I came in 135 on the swim, gave most of that away on the bike by placing 418, and gained much of it back in return on the run by placing 125, for a total placement of 244/595.  So yes, if I can get my bike time down that would be helpful - but this also shows the effect of not crushing the bike at the expense of the run, because the run is where many people end up burning out and racking up massive amounts of time by walking long stretches of time.

Update - 6/4 through 6/11

Been a while, but not a lot of activity until the past few days.

Last Monday and Tuesday I was travelling for work, and still extremely sore from the legs workout on Saturday.  I packed my running stuff with me just in case, but throughout the day on Monday I knew there was just no way it was going to happen.  So those ended up being recovery days.

Wednesday I went to yoga and had one of my worst workouts.  I ate a light lunch, but before I headed out the door, I had some chocolate milk with protein powder.  It had been a long time since my stomach gave me issues that I thought I'd be able to handle it, but partway through the standing series, I just found I had no energy, and my stomach wasn't feeling all that great.  My legs were still heavily fatigued, even though they were much less sore.  So the combination compounded such that I had to sit on the 2nd set of a couple poses.  It felt like all blood was going to keeping me upright that there was nothing left for digestion, so what was in my stomach just sat there.  And in those situations, taking in more water just makes things worse - so it was a perfect storm of a bad situation.

On Thursday I went for a 10ish mile run.  For some dumb reason, it doesn't show up on my Garmin at all, and it's not in my logs (I've been slacking on updating immediately after a workout).  I must have deleted it unknowingly or something - very strange.  But the point is that it was 10 easy miles done at easy pace (around 8:40-8:45), and felt good throughout.  It was nice to get a decent distance in and start feeling like my old self.  I was a little surprised to feel some soreness afterwards - not used to feeling sore after 10 miles, but it has been a while since I've been able to run any distance, so it makes sense.  Had a brief scare the following morning when I was turning over in bed and felt a stab of pain on the outside of my right foot - but it didn't seem to materialize into much of anything, and I wasn't planning on running on it soon anyway.  I figured that 10 miler would be the last long run until the Patriot half the following weekend - so that'd give me about 7-8 days to heal up, minus one or two shorter runs I might do in the meantime.

On Friday I did the TrainerRoad Kearsarge workout.  I had been doing threshold workouts for the prior few weeks, so I thought I'd change it up and do an interval one, and this looked interesting.

The following day, about 12 hours later, I attempted the Brewer workout.  I figured this didn't look too bad - it's intensity factor was only rated at 0.84 while many of the other workouts I've done have been over 0.9, and most of it is right around FTP.  I also figured it looked like a good hill simulation as it gradually build up power.  I have to admit - I totally underestimated this one because it was a ball buster!  I could tell after the first interval that it was going to be tough, and after two, I could tell my legs were cooked and there was no way I'd be able to do all six.  Given that I couldn't keep up with the power numbers (and I've read that if you can't keep within certain percentages of intervals, you are not ready and should just stop and rest up), and that I also wanted to make sure I got another session of lunges and squats in - I decided to can the workout after about an hour.

On Sunday I did another long swim in the lake.  I could tell a huge difference in effort this time compared to last time - although I felt good the last time, on this day I really felt like I was swimming smoothly and with less resistance.  Last time I was kicking more than is necessary for having a wetsuit (something I realized last year, but forgot about), and I started out too fast.  On this swim, I started out slower, and as a result my breathing never got rushed.  And when it comes to swimming, where form is king and you have to be regimented about breathing - trying to avoid having rushed breathing is a huge, huge factor is staying relaxed.  I'm a little skeptical about the distance, though - first off, a friend who joined in the swim recorded almost 1/4 mile longer distance and second, the track makes it look like I did a bunch of dog legs and 90 degree turns.  At this point, I swim fairly darned straight, so the GPS tracking is still apparently a little glitchy.  As well as having it under the swim cap may be - with my head down in the water, it's probably prone to error and erratic readings, I figure.

This evening I did a brick session - giving Brewer another go, followed by a 6 mile run.  The trainer session still kicked my ass - I still couldn't maintain the higher power numbers, so I ended up settling for trying to stay around 300W for as long as I could once the target got to that range.  It would still be a much longer extended interval at that power (about 123% FTP) than I've done before, and it was getting the HR near 170.  Also, the description of the workout indicates that those sprint sections are to be out of the saddle, which I don't do on the trainer.  So if I could get my weight working for me, that probably would have helped.

The run felt really good - one of the best brick runs I've done.  I've noticed that brick runs after the trainer just aren't the same as brick runs coming off a real road bike ride for whatever reason - trainer brick runs are easier.  The entire 6 miles felt good, steady and strong.  This was encouraging, as I was trying to make sure I stayed well hydrated and fueled during the bike portion.  On most bike sessions, I've often not bothered with fueling during the workout because it is only 90 minutes in length - but in this case I wanted to see how my legs felt on a run after a pretty intense leg workout on the bike.

5/29 through 6/3

My last post was the century and 6 mile brick on 5/28.  I ended up taking Tuesday as a rest day because I was still fairly fatigued from the day before.  I debated going to yoga, but decided against it, planning to go Wednesday instead.

Then Wednesday rolled around and a last minute thing at work came up that meant I'd miss yoga on that day too.  Then I started thinking that I'd like to get an 8 mile run in - but by the time I was able to, it was dark out and I didn't want to chance rolling my ankle on a pothole or something stupid, so I decided to get up early Thursday morning before work.

Which I did, amazingly enough.  My plan was to do around 8 miles @ threshold pace.  Everything was going well until around mile 3.5, when I started noticing some discomfort in my right hamstring.  Since it was just discomfort, I kept going, but at mile 4 it got a lot worse, so I stopped.  Of course, I was on the dark side of the moon, so I still had to manage some way to get back home without making things worse.  I thought about continuing to run through it, but then realized I'd be pissed at myself if I further injured myself just for the sake of making sure I showed up to work on time.  So instead I hobbled back with a combination of walking and running.  It felt like either a very weird cramp, or a minor hamstring pull.  I'm still not sure which it was, but after icing it when I got home, and a day of sitting down and giving it rest, it was a lot better that evening.

Since I couldn't finish the run, that evening I decided to hit the bike and revisit Mary Austin, a workout I tried in the past but ended up bailing on the last interval.  This time I finished it, but still found it surprisingly difficult.  You'd think that if I can do 3 x 20 minutes @ FTP, this workout with some time under and some time over FTP would be a tad easier, but it wasn't.  I can only guess that the intervals right at FTP hit a comfortable steady state of exertion, whereas this one is changing things up every couple minutes, which keeps the body guessing.

On Friday I started thinking about the past few months.  I feel like I peaked in my long distance running endurance during Stu's 30k at the beginning of March.  After that, I've had successive soft tissue injuries for whatever reason - first it was rolling the ankle at the dog park, an injury which lingered for a few weeks, but I kept running on it for a while before finally taking a full week off.  However there were no long runs during that time because of the injury.  Then after that was healed, I did a long 17 mile run and hurt the same ankle, but on the outside.  That was feeling better about two weeks later, when I did an 11 mile run and blew it out again, requiring another two weeks of little/no running and certainly no long runs.  Since then I've been able to build up  'long run' distance to just over 8 miles by staying conservative - but all told in the end the past few months have been a major disappointment in terms of long runs.

While some of the injuries can be explained by my own stupidity (running 17 miles 48 hours after running 9 miles), I'm starting to think a large part is also the lack of leg strength work I've been doing.  All last summer as I was building up volume, I was hitting the P90X Legs & Back routine on a regular basis.  Over the winter, I did it more.  If I recall, I stopped when I got the bike trainer, thinking that my time was probably best spent on that rather than the strength training.  That may have been a bad assumption, because the strength training may be a critical component to my staying injury free.  Not entirely sure, just a theory for now.

So with that in mind, I decided to resume leg strength work.  After a short 3.5 mile run on Saturday - half the purpose was to exercise the dogs, but the other half was to just start accumulating some time pounding pavement - I did a series of lunges and squats.  I didn't go with the full P90X routine because I knew from past experience that if I've slacked from that and go back to the full thing, my legs are sore and useless for like a week.  So I just did some balance lunges, deadlift squats, single leg squats, calf raises, sneaky lunges step-forward lunges and step-back lunges.  Even with that workout load of about 15-20 minutes, the day after I'm pretty sore, and I'm glad I stopped when I did.  It'll allow me to recover faster and then a few days later I should be able to do another 15-20 minute session.

In an attempt to help get the blood flowing, I did a quick spin - the TR Geiger workout.  This is a 1 hr sweet spot intensity workout.  I didn't want to do anything too intense since my quads and glutes were already tight, and further tightening would start to go down the road of ITB issues.

Also, kind of an afterthought - it appears the hamstring has healed up - at least enough that I don't notice it when walking.  Yesterday during the short run, I felt it while walking, but I felt it more during the run.  At this point, depending on schedule and how things shake out, I may try for something like 10 miles easy on Monday or Tuesday.

2.4 mile swim and century plus 6 mile brick - 5/27 and 5/28

On Sunday (5/27), due to family obligations, the only workout I could manage was to get a swim in - and that was only because my parents live on a lake.  So I got there a bit earlier than everyone else to squeeze it in before the main festivities.

Practically all my swims at the pool in the past.. year or so have been a mile and a half in length.  I chose that distance because it's long enough to be effective, but not so long that I can't stand the boredom.  Also, the ironman swim would be done in a wetsuit - so while it is longer, some aspects of the full distance would be easier.  Anyway, my plan was to start increasing distance from 1.5 miles - something like 1.7 or 1.8 miles, then a week or two later go up to 2 miles, and build up from there.

I know from experience that straight shot up and back through the middle of the lake is about 1.2 miles.  Going around the perimeter adds a bit - maybe 0.3 miles.  So I knew that I'd have to follow the perimeter and add a bit.  At one point in the past, I had made a partial double loop and it turned out to be 1.7 miles - so I figured I'd do the same thing.  Then, in the middle of the swim, I decided to extend it from there, thinking that I'm in the water already and I mine as well suck up the mental boredom and maybe I'd get to like 1.8 or 1.9 miles.

When I got out of the water, I was pretty surprised to see a full 2.4 miles.  Not only that, but it was in 75 minutes - just about on target for what I've been thinking I'd do during the event.  A couple factors could change this, though - one, I didn't have to contend with other people like you do in the mass swim; two, I've been figuring on swimming the outer edge of the mass of people to avoid the chance of getting a busted face from a random kick.  On the other hand, I've also heard that the drafting effect is pretty significant.  I've even heard that there's a bit of a whirlpool effect.  I suppose I can see that - 3000 people swimming in one direction, I can certainly see where there'd be a slight current being created.

On Monday (5/28), I did what is likely my only century training ride this year.  I did a few last year, but always finished them being pretty wiped out.  Although I knew that I'd be better fueled during the event thanks to the aid stations every 10 miles, there was still the mental concern of having to do 112 miles on the bike and not having at least one ride of similar length during training that went extremely well.

Today's ride was primarily focused on being able to finish the ride, feel strong at the end, and avoid the bonk I've experienced around mile 80-90 in the past.  To prepare for this, I stashed some water along the course the night before so I'd be able to make sure I could stay hydrated.  Also, I switched up and used a new formulation for energy gel that I could bring along.  Actually, it's more like energy syrup with its consistency - but being thinner than a gel meant that I could load a few 8oz fuel belt bottles with it, strap it around my waist, and have over 2000 calories worth of glucose and fructose (in a 2:1 ratio - mimicking the C2MAX carb blend that Powerbar uses in their Ironman Perform drink that will be on course at IMLP) at my disposal.  That left the 2 x 24 oz water bottles available for water plus a Nuun electrolyte tab.  And with the water stashed at the 25 mile mark on the out & back course, plus the halfway point being at my parents - I knew I'd be able to refill every 25 miles.

I left in the morning with the water bottles filled with gatorade (mine as well take advantage of the starting point and save the syrup).  As I mentioned, I just wanted to finish the ride strong, so I kept the pressure on the pedals a bit light.  I discovered after several miles that my HR was hanging around the 120 mark, so I thought that maybe a good thing to shoot for would be to try to keep it under 130 for the trip out.  It was morning, and thus pretty cool out still - so it should be doable.  I'd allow myself to get up to 140 on the return trip.  Not only would it be getting hotter - but it'd also simulate the fatigue from doing the first loop of the IMLP course.  And by keeping the HR in total below about 140, I stood a better chance of having strong feeling legs for the run portion of the brick workout I was planning (at the time I was planning on an 8 mile run).

Everything went really well for the trip out.  HR stayed in range, only popping above 130 a couple times during ascents - but the legs still felt strong.  Strong enough, in fact, to not need a break at the halfway point, which I've done in the past.

On the trip back, it started warming up quite a bit, but I was still able to keep pace and keep the HR under 140 for the most part.  By this time, though - it started becoming more apparent that the energy syrup and water I was drinking to dilute it was not hitting the right concentration.  In retrospect I think I was starting to get dehydrated.  I knew at the time during the ride that I wasn't drinking water at the pace I was planning on - but my stomach also felt like it wasn't absorbing things too awful well, so I was concerned that adding to it would just make it worse.  As best as I can figure, I might have taken on too much syrup at once, which started a downward spiral chain reaction.  Ideally, I'd have taken a small amount of syrup, a couple swigs of water, and been on my way - but with the syrup on my fuel belt, handling it while moving was a bit of a challenge, so when I did have the bottle free, I tended to take more than I probably should have at once.

Once I got home, I left the fuel belt and took the last 24 oz bottle of Nuun water.  I also downed a GU quickly, and brought another with me just in case.  My HR was showing as being erratic nearly from the start, even though I was going at an easy pace and perceived rate of exertion was low.  But then I'd fiddle with the HR monitor strap, and it'd plummet from the 160's down to the 140's - so I figured it was just static from the tech shirt.  Normally this goes away after about 1.5 miles - but even at the three and four mile mark, it was acting up.  I eventually got fed up with dealing with it and just left it, and decided I definitely have to get some static guard.  Pace was 9 min/mile for a few miles, which I was pleased with, but now the dehydration and screwed up fueling from before was catching up with me.  I let myself take a walk break at mile three to try and get regrouped, which helped, but then an incline between mile 4 and 5 took its toll and I took another walk break.  I took the other GU, and it seemed to help - but then I realized that I would have to wash it down with electrolyte drink, not water.  And what my mouth really wanted to taste at that moment was water.  Finally, I was running low on liquid in general - so I decided to cut the planned 8 miles short and go with 6.  Part of it was that I screwed up the fueling and hydration, part of it was that I decided that I'd rather save the miles (on account of the ankle) for later in the week, and part of it was that I started thinking that due to my lack of running volume recently I was probably behind the 8-ball in trying to knock out a longer brick run.  One thing I did learn though was that even amid the fixable mistakes, I'll still go with my original plan during the event of walking the aid stations every mile.  I don't mind taking walk breaks regularly, even though it might drive up my average pace to 9:30 or 10 min/miles - as long as it keeps me from having to walk large portions from mile 13 on - because if that happens, the clock will really start to accumulate time.

Week of 5/21 - 5/26

Monday
Monday is typically my yoga day, but I decided to not go for a couple reasons.  One was that my work schedule had me driving out to W Mass on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I knew the commute would make getting a bike workout in pretty rough - so I wanted to get one in on Monday while I could.  The other is that the legs just didn't feel quite ready for yoga.  As helpful for recovery as it is - I have found that in some cases its usefulness is diminished if I go to class too soon after a tough workout.

So the bike workout was called Smith.  With nine weeks to go before Lake Placid, I figure the time for workouts being primarily intervals with a focus on FTP boost is over, and now it's time to extend that out a bit. As a result, I am starting to opt for more threshold workouts near FTP.  However since my FTP value just bumped by significantly, I didn't want to start with some workout with lots of time @ FTP, so this workout comprised of 10 minute segments @ FTP, seemed to fit the bill pretty nicely.

I definitely feel the effects of the higher FTP.  The power numbers are closer to target, and I don't have the excess energy to float my power numbers above the target by 5-10W like I did before.  So, whereas before I didn't want my average power for the interval dropping below target - for the time being I'm ok with it as I get used to the increased FTP.

Tuesday
Throughout the day on Tuesday, I planned on it being a rest day - especially in the morning when my legs felt like they were dragging.  When I got home, I succumbed to the trap of over-training, and felt like I was being lazy if I didn't do something.  So I picked another threshold workout called Mary Austin.  Turned out to probably be not a great idea.  About an hour into it, I could tell my legs were still cooked.  I felt as though I could manage to finish the workout, but by the time I got halfway through the last interval, I decided it was time to pack it in.  I was having more and more difficulty hitting and sustaining the target power, and the HR was getting higher and higher.  Although I hate to abort a training session, the fact that I was having a hard time with the power numbers told me there was little to gain by continuing, so I bailed about 15 minutes early.

One of the toughest things is to moderate workouts and avoid over training.  This usually takes the form of not doing enough easy workouts to allow recovery, as you get into the mindset that every workout must require some effort.  So sometimes it's best to swallow pride, cut a workout short and just admit that rest is necessary. Wednesday would be that day.

Wednesday
After a few days of my ankle continuing to feel normal, I decided to give it a brief test with a 3 miler with the foot taped up.  Keeping in mind that today is supposed to be a rest day, I kept the pace nice and slow (plus, I had the dogs with me) to keep the HR down.  Fortunately, the ankle felt perfectly normal afterwards, which is a very good sign.  My plan is to do another bike workout tomorrow, and then do somewhere around 6 miles or so on Friday with no tape.

Thursday
Today I repeated a workout I did a few weeks ago - 90 minutes on the trainer with 3 x 20 minutes @ FTP. Once again, it was a pretty tough workout, this time especially since the FTP was recently raised.  However, like last time, I also found that the first couple minutes of each interval was the worst - after a few minutes, the legs and cardio system seem to get into a steady state and the burn in the legs subsides a bit.  I don't recall from last time, but I definitely felt as though the heart and lungs were fine - the bottleneck was more the strength of the legs.

The other thing I looked at, just for comparisons sake - was the heart rate zones from this time and last time.  The first time around, 45% of the time my heart was in the VO2max zone, and 16% of the time it was in the threshold zone.  This time, it was more even - about 33% VO2max, and 30% threshold.  I'm sure much of it can be attributed to the increase in LTHR from the most recent power test (I forget the numbers), as what was VO2max would have fallen into the threshold category.  However, in a sense that doesn't matter - the fact is this time around my fitness had increased enough so that the exertion demanded by this workout decreased.

Friday
This was just an easy 5 miler, mostly to see how the ankle was feeling.  I originally thought about doing six, but opted to go a little more conservative (although at the end I felt like 6 wouldn't have been an issue).  I had a brief moment around mile four where I felt like it might be getting a little bit more, but that went away.  Still, I soaked my foot in ice water for 10-15 minutes afterwards.  As good as my ankle has been feeling, it has been varying between 95-99%.

I'm still not sure whether it's the peroneus longus, or possibly the peroneus brevis tendon.  The two are very close to one another.  Also, if you look up peroneus brevis tendon eversion, you can find hits that describe how I can move the ankle to test it, as there are times it feels ok normally, but putting strain on the tendon (via eversion) highlights a sore spot, indicating that it's still not fully healed.  Performing this motion had always produced soreness until last Sunday, and when/if I do feel anything now, it's isolated to where the tendon is kept in place just below the bump on the outside of the ankle.
Fun fact - it's the peroneus brevis tendon that Curt Schilling had sutured during the 2004 post season.

Saturday
I had kinda planned on a bike workout, but had too much stuff around the house going on.  Although it doesn't count as a workout, between mowing the lawn and walking the dogs, that accounted for about 5 miles of walking throughout the day.  Normally nothing to write about, except that the fact that my ankle still feels no worse for wear is a good sign.

Reach the Beach Relay - 5/18 and 5/19

Pre-race:
This was the first relay event I've participated in - I had been asked to fill in at the last minute for a relay in the past, but work scheduling didn't allow it, so ever since then I've been excited/waiting for the possibility to join in one.  To make it better, our team joined with the Alzheimers Association to raise money for the local charity chapter.  Aside from things like fundraisers for boy scouts and band in high school, this was my first charity/fund raising event.

At first, knowing that I've built up my distance for a marathon in recent history, and that this was going to be coming up only a handful of weeks before Lake Placid, I wanted to do one of the longer rotations, and initially I was seeded into one that put me at about 19 miles.  The plan was that I would treat this as a long run - even though it'd be split into three different legs, the fact is that there would only be several hours between legs - so I couldn't treat it like individual runs with normal amounts of rest in between.  However, in the weeks leading up to it, I ended up being plagued with successive soft tissue injuries.  As of two weeks before the event, I was thinking I might have to drop out entirely because the 11 mile threshold run caused visible bruising and swelling (though minor), and I saw no way I'd heal up enough to be able to do all 19 miles.  After some emailing back and forth with the team captain, and after a couple days of reasonably encouraging healing results - I switched slots with someone, and ended up with the first two legs being in the 4-5 mile range each, with the last being 7.something miles.  By this time, I was pretty certain I'd be able to run the first leg, which made me feel much better - had I paid my own entrance fee, I'd have been ok with losing the money and having to drop out.  But after having raised nearly $700 in charity, I felt like I'd be letting people down if I didn't give this race what I could, while still considering other events like the Patriot (four weeks out) and Lake Placid (nine weeks out).  By being able to run at least one leg, it set my mind at ease a bit.  Around a week or so before the race, it was starting to look pretty good for my being able to run the second leg as well.  The third would have to be played by ear.

On Thursday night I met up with the rest of the team - only two members had I met previously, everyone else was new to me.  So after work, we went out for dinner & drinks at a local restaurant and chatted briefly as the few people who hadn't met introduced themselves and met face to face with people who had been just about spamming their email inbox over the past two weeks.  This group had a tendency (and I include myself in this) to let the emails fly fast and furious.

On Friday morning, we met up at Mt Wachusett, the start of the race.  Our team was slotted to start at 9am.  We gathered around 7:30, attended orientation, got our team picture and all the normal pre-race stuff.

Van 1 rotation 1:
At 9am the gun went off, and our first runner took off with about a dozen other teams that were starting at the same time (the first wave started at 8am, and the faster teams were to start later at about 2pm).  We watched the first leg for a bit, then his van mates had to get going to meet him at the end of his leg and switch runners.  The first leg was only 2.8 miles, but it was virtually all uphill, going to the summit of the mountain.  I was in van 2, and we knew we wouldn't be up for a few hours, so we went back to one of our teammates houses to hang out for a bit.

Around noon or so our van headed to the first van transition area (VTA) at Assumption College.  This is the transition that marks the last leg for one van and the first leg for the other, and it's an opportunity for the whole team (minus the person running) to get together and chat a bit and exchange any pertinent information.  But mostly it's an excuse for goofing around and making fun of each other, and check out how other teams have decorated their vans.

Van 2 rotation 1:
After the exchange, van 1 headed back to our teammates house to shower, eat, and rest up before their turn would be coming back around again.  As for our van, we had a system going - meet the person running about halfway through their leg (usually around mile 2.5 - 3 or so), make sure everything is ok, ask them if they need anything like water or gatorade, and then head to the next transition area, wait around for a bit while the next participant gets ready to run their leg.  Rinse and repeat 6 times, and with around 10 miles left in the rotation, call folks from the other van and let them know that it's time to head to the next VTA so they can take over.

My rotation was 2nd to last in the six person rotation for our van.  By this time, we had already passed a number of teams (and keeping a tally on the side of our van), but one team in particular was our main target - a team of women who were wearing tutu's.  I believe they started at 8am, so it took us a while to catch up to them, but in the legs leading up to mine, we were gaining a lot of ground.  Since I knew I'd likely only be doing two legs, I decided to do my first leg waay too fast to catch up to them.  After putting out a 6:40 first mile, with the HR jacked up to 170, I knew I overdid it - but I also felt that I could likely sustain that intensity for the distance.  I ended up catching up to the tutu around the 2.5-3 mile mark, and for the rest of the leg, continued adding distance - I didn't want to take the chance that this was their slow runner and that they'd catch right back up.

Almost immediately, my legs were getting sore, so I knew that my next leg (at night) was definitely not going to be as fast - I'd have to keep the HR at a more reasonable level.  Also, since our van's last leg was at Hopkinton State Park, I took the opportunity to soak my legs in the cool water of the reservoir.  Not quite an ice bath, but it was something.

Van 1 rotation 2:
After we were finished with our first rotation, our van headed out to get some food, and back to our teammates house to rest up a bit, such as it was.  We handed the baton off to the other van around 5:30, and by 9pm we were alerted that the other van had about 10 miles to go - so when you consider about an hour and a half of back and forth driving time, some time to eat and shower - it left maybe 30-60 minutes for any sleep.

We headed out to the next VTA (Bellingham High School) to wait for our other van.  This started becoming the point in the whole event where you doubt the wisdom of signing up.  Having been up all day, not necessarily having a great nights sleep the night before, it being dark out, knowing that the next 4-5 hours there will not only be no rest, but you will have to run a handful of miles as well - it all adds up to 'why am I doing this again?'  But once the baton is handed off, it's back to business.

Van 2 rotation 2:
The night legs are interesting.  On one hand, they are definitely creepy because there are long stretches of little/no light - if you are on a major road, there are street lights, but there are also more people on the road who may or may not be drunk or obscene.  If you are on a minor road, you don't have the traffic, but you also don't have as many street lights.  For guys, the bigger concern is drunk drivers or people not paying attention, but for females this can be a dangerous situation.  We saw a group of three people running together, which made a lot of sense for safety reasons.  In our teams case, we just closely followed our female teammate in the van.  On our way to one of the transition areas, we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts to fill up a bucket of ice in anticipation of my needing to ice my ankle after my leg was finished.  Every other place was closed (it was around 11:40 at night), and the DD was closing up - so we had to go through the drive through and explain that we had a bucket, and just wanted ice because we were in a race and were a bit banged up.

My second leg was just over 4 miles, and began at about 1:30am.  I settled in to a 155 HR, which ended up being just a tad faster than 8 min/miles - just about right for marathon pace.  By this time in the event, we were seeing very few teams ahead of us, or very few teams in general at all, so I had little external motivation or reason to increase the pace at all.  About 1.5-2 miles into the run, I started feeling the ankle.  It was minor, but I also knew from experience that it was only going to get worse.  By the time I got to 3.5 miles, it was building and I realized that if I was feeling it this much being on two advil, that there was no way I could trust it for the 3rd leg of over 7 miles.  It was at this point that I knew this was to be my last leg.  My only hope was that I'd finish and not set my recovery back significantly.

Van 1 rotation 3:
When I got back to the van, everyone was passed out.  The other van was notified that we were close to the VTA (Oliver Ames High School), and after the transition, our van headed to the next, and final (for us) VTA at Apponequet Regional HS.  Once we pulled in (probably around 3:30 or so), everyone tried to get some sleep.  I somehow managed to get a couple hours' worth even though I was sitting in the front seat of the van - just barely enough to feel somewhat refreshed, but not enough to avoid general grogginess for a bit after waking up.  The way the course was laid out, the 3rd legs for both vans were the longest, and the 2nd legs were shortest - so whereas we had a super-quick turnaround the night before and didn't have a chance to sleep - this time we had probably an extra hour or so while waiting for the other van.  Then around 7:30 we got the call from the other van to get ready.

While we were waiting, we noticed that there were some transitions already happening - and these people were cruising.  The ultra's.  We were wondering when they'd show up - those who started at 2pm the day before.  Apparently in the past, they'd show up and pass the team during the night legs.  However we (at least us in the 2nd van) hadn't really encountered this yet at all.  We had an earlier start time, so that accounted for most of it - but we knew at some point these teams would be showing up and our +/- ratings for passing people would start to show some minus's.  Apparently now was that time.  But, before too long, it was our turn again.

Van 2 rotation 3:
As I mentioned, the third legs were the longest - generally between 6 and 7 miles for each person.  So it just meant a bit more time waiting.  When it came time for my leg, my replacement had already been made aware that I wasn't going to be able to run, so he put my number on and forged ahead.  Technically, thats against the rules - if someone drops out, the next person is supposed to run and the slack gets taken up by whoever it falls to (in this case, it would have been runner #1 in the first van).  However, with this being the last leg, the rule could be skirted by simply saying that no one was available to run, so the ball kept dropping until it got to our designated replacement.  We had a brief scare that morning because in getting out of the van, he managed to twist his knee a bit, and at the time he wasn't sure he'd be able to do his own leg, nevermind add an additional 7 miles.  However, ironically, I had twisted my knee similarly a couple weeks ago, and in my case I just found that although it didn't feel quite right, the knee was still stable and as long as it was kept moving, it sorted itself out in pretty short order.  During his first leg, we checked in and all indications were that his knee felt fine - so all was good.

At the end of the race - the whole team gathered up a few hundred feet from the finish, so when we saw our last runner, we all joined in and crossed the finish line together and then posed for pictures.

Post race:
All in all, this was a real fun event, and I'd definitely like to do this kind of thing again.  I feel as though I have unfinished business to take care of, since I wasn't able to run the last leg.

Here is where things got wierd, though.  The rest of that afternoon, I was careful with my foot because it wasn't feeling all that great.  I figured I set my recovery back at least 3-4 days - I was glad I bailed after the 2nd leg in terms of recovery, because I felt like I was at a point where if I continued on much more, the setback would have grown exponentially.  I was even limping/hobbling a bit that afternoon.  Later that evening, I looked into things more, trying to find out more precisely what part of me was injured - and once again it came up as some sort of strain/sprain of the peroneus longus tendon (most likely), cuboid syndrome (many symptoms, but not the incipient injury that leads to it), or a stress fracture (not likely, but can't rule it out).  What I did find, though, was something called low dye taping, to help stabilize the cuboid.  I gave that a shot, and it felt ok - but then again, I had a couple advil at that point.  I called it a night and went to bed.

Eleven hours later, I woke up on Sunday morning.  I put my foot down and it wasn't perfect, but actually felt a bit better than I was anticipating.  I hobbled around on a crutch for a bit that morning and got my bucket of ice water and a bucket of warm water, and alternated 5-7 minute soaks between the two for about 30 minutes or so.  I retaped the foot, and it felt.. really good.  Throughout the day, I did the alternating soak thing 3-4 times, but continued with my typical errands and walking around and realized that my foot was feeling better than it had over the past 4 weeks, even through range of motion spots where it had previously been feeling tender.  Somehow, even though it felt like it was on the verge of blowing out again 24 hours before, now it was suddenly feeling 100% healed.  This actually pissed me off a bit - why couldn't it have done that a few days before hand!?