Recovery Protocol

As I've progressed through my approach to training, one thing that has slowly evolved over time and solidified in the past year has been recovery.  When I first started out, I simply thought of recovery as what you do in the day or two following a workout so that I could then be prepared for the next workout.  For a long time, what I did was nothing - simply waiting for time to do its job and make me ready again.  While at a high level, that is still what recovery is about - I've started to realize many of the nuances of recovery, and how to leverage it to optimize my training.

Another thing that has become more clear to me over the past 6-8 months is that while a solid effort workout is great, the benefits of a workout are only as good as your body's ability to absorb that effort.  Here is where I find many of the subtleties, and the real benefit of having a solid recovery protocol, is most valuable.  If I can execute a tough workout on a Saturday, but my recovery takes so long that I can't go through another tough workout until the following Saturday, then I am at a severe training disadvantage as compared to if I am able to do another tough workout on the Tuesday following the tough Saturday workout.  If I can absorb the benefits of Saturdays workouts more quickly, I can get more quality workouts in within a given period of time.

So, with that in mind, the following is what I've pretty much established as my recovery protocol (in no particular order of importance):

• Quality sleep and no interruption of REM cycle
  Yes, you've heard it a thousand times.  Get quality sleep every night.  Get at least 8 hours.  The big game changer that I've recently found is that if I wake up naturally, I am much better off.  An alarm clock that wakes me up does so when my body isn't quite ready to get up because it's either in a REM cycle or coming out of it.
• Nutritionally dense diet
  Over the past few years, I've slowly overhauled my diet from that of a typical western diet (high carbs, fat, meat, sodium, etc) with loads of empty calories to one where more and more of my foods are nutrient dense.  Oh, I still have the cookie now and again, and still end up drinking soda on a daily basis, but I've replaced white rice with things like brown rice and quinoa, reducing meat intake and replacing it with vegetables, and expanding the list of vegetables I am willing to eat.  I admit, I had to cheat a bit - like having bad-for-you cheese sauce slathered over broccoli until I get used to the texture of broccoli so that I could eat it by itself, but it was a process.  Along side with that, I try to consume a decent amount of protein throughout the day to provide a constant supply of amino acids to aid in repairing muscle tissue.
• Recovery drink
  Personally, I use chocolate milk, often with some protein powder added in.  I try to consume this within 15-20 minutes after I'm done with a workout, with the aim being to immediately start replacing carbohydrates that were lost during exercise, replacing electrolytes like sodium and potassium, and protein.  I like chocolate milk because it's cheap and effective for me, although many people prefer something like Endurox or similar products with less fat (the argument being that fat hinders some of the absorption of nutrients).
• Ice bath/raised legs
  This is something that I never knew about for a few years, but once I started the practice, the beneficial effect was immediate (as opposed to the diet and recovery drink above, which is hard to see the benefits of).  I started with cold water baths after any moderate or hard workout - 20 minutes in a tub of tap cold water.  Recently I've started an alternative of propping my legs up against a wall after every run - about 1-2 minutes for every mile.  In both cases, the idea is the same - reduce the pooling of blood in the legs after a run to help prevent Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS).  I've found this to be extremely beneficial, and do this at the same time I'm consuming my recovery drink.
• Cool down
  If a run contains any hard efforts, or an extended period of moderate effort - basically anything that will create soreness (which is separate from tightness) - a cool down period is essential.  Regardless of what various research says on the subject of whether soreness is a result of lactate accumulation or lactic acid, the simple fact is that I find that a period of easy running following a hard workout reduces soreness, which enhances recovery.  I usually try to make this cool down period at least a mile, but if it's been an exceptionally intense workout, either in duration or intensity, I aim for closer to two miles.
• Post workout stretch
  This is where I've been kinda stupid for a long time, as for a few years I neglected to stretch after a run.  Everything was tight, I felt like stretching wasn't going to help, and it might cause more problems!   I've come to realize a couple things: 1) yes, muscles are tight, but they are warm after a run and will stretch out rather easily, and 2) muscles seem to have a tightness memory.  If I don't stretch at the end of a run, then I'm encouraging the muscles to retrain themselves to a new normal that is a much tighter state than I'd like (and what is good for injury prevention).  It doesn't require much stretching - but hitting the hamstrings, calfs, quads and hip flexors makes a huge difference.  The standing bow pulling pose from Bikram actually manages to hit pretty much all those at once (except the calfs)!
• Yoga.  Weekly.  Whether I want to or not.
  This is no longer an option.  Over the summer, I didn't go to yoga for two months, for multiple reasons.  By the time that two months was up, I was feeling like my old self again - and not in a good way.  My knees were getting tight again and I was all-over achy more often.  I ended up taking about 10 days off running and going to yoga 4x in that period before I was feeling 'right' again.  It was settled - go to yoga once a week, if for no reason other than flexibility.  But beyond flexibility, I find it sort of cements in fitness gains made from workout sessions, dramatically enhances recovery, and works wonders for injury prevention.  I've unscientifically decided that one 90 minute session of yoga is equivalent to about 3 days of total rest in its ability to repair micro-tears and other things that one may not be aware of, but can lead to injury if left unchecked.
• Fueling during a workout
  Recovery from a workout actually begins with proper fueling during that workout.  When going any faster than a walking pace (~20 min/mile), you are going to put your body into caloric deficit - and you will do so more the faster you run.  Most people burn between 100-150 cal/mile whether walking or running (the number varies with weight) - and most people can only handle intake of a few hundred calories per hour while running.  Similar situation with biking (takes ~40 cal/mile, but you traverse more miles on a bike vs on foot, so the end result is similar).  So, if you are going to go into deficit, the best way to recover is to minimize that deficit.  So while you can certainly survive an hour long run without bringing calories with you - if you want to recover from that workout as fast as possible, calories should be consumed during the activity.
• Post workout food
  After the recovery drink (which serves as the immediate nutritional solution), proper refueling is critical to replace, en masse, everything that was lost during the effort.  I personally have gotten myself into the habit of a Chipotle chicken burrito (brown rice, pinto beans, lettuce, cheese, guac).  The wrap provides carbs and sodium, the chicken is lean protein, beans provide additional protein, rice for fiber and whole grain component, cheese for calcium, and guac for omega-3 fatty acids.  While such a meal may be a bit high on the calorie scale to have on a regular basis - after a workout where I've just burned 2000 or more calories, it fits the bill nicely as I'm not too worried about calories - and in some regards, calories are just what I'm looking for.

Anyhow - that may all sound pretty complex, but it's really just a matter of habit:

1) Bring sports drink along with any workout
2) Cool down period at the end of the workout
3) Stretch, drink chocolate milk, raise legs, eat food

4) Go to yoga on Monday evenings

5) Sleep like a baby

Baystate Half Marathon - 10/21/12

This was my third time running the Baystate Half.  I originally signed up for the full, but due to the training and recovery deficit it would put me in at the start of the EN outseason (which begins on Nov 1, and is where the  real speed gains are built), it was highly recommended that I scrap the full and go with the much better option of the half.  Fortunately the folks at the event were able to switch me with no issues.

This is also right around the one year mark where I've adopted a more focused approach to training.  Somewhere around September 2011, I made the switch from purely a volume based regime to one that included some speed workouts, which goes against so much of the conventional wisdom that is out there on the internet.  Basically, once I had built up the durability to run a full marathon, running miles at a slow and easy pace just to log miles went pretty much by the wayside.  Not surprisingly, it's also been the past year where I've made significant gains, setting a massive PR in just about every race I've run.  At some point, that gravy train will come to a stop, but in the meantime, I seem to have moved from the middle of the pack much more towards the pointy end of my age group.  But training philosophy is a discussion for another post.

Leading up to this event, I wasn't sure what to expect.  My PR in a half was set in February 2012 at the Half of the Hamptons, where I ran a 1:35 flat, an average of around 7:12 min/mile.  However, not long after that event, I rolled my ankle at the dog park.  That made me end up losing a couple weeks of running time, and then in my excitement of finally being able to run again once it healed, I did 9 miles one day followed by 16-17 miles a couple days later (as it turned out, before I was fully healed/recovered) which sprained my peroneus longus or peroneus brevis tendon right near the fifth metatarsal on my right foot.  I ended up losing another several weeks of running on account of that injury as well - anything I did was minimal, perhaps 10 miles/week on average.  Fortunately it decided to magically heal itself one night, so Lake Placid turned out fine, but I was worried there for a while.  All I could do during those injury times was hit the bike trainer.  So thats what I did - a lot.

Once IMLP was finished, I started the EN Get Faster plan, which was an 8 week long plan comprised of mostly threshold workouts for the run and the bike.  Most of the workouts were around an hour long, aside from weekend runs that were often ~90 minutes, and weekend bike rides ~150 minutes.  That took place from August to the end of September.  Following that, EN season guidance is for October to be a preseason month, where workouts are reduced and the goal is simply to maintain fitness (as opposed to build it) to help dissipate some of the chronic fatigue leading up to the OS in November.  Having a half marathon was not in the plan, so I ended up taking extra days of rest to help offset those times when I'd do a run workout at a more intense level than prescribed.  I also prioritized the run workouts a bit more than the bike - I anticipate the winter being fairly bike heavy due to weather, so I knew I'd have plenty of time coming up on the bike trainer.

All of that is to say that run volume had been lacking.  So really, the only window I had into my potential performance was that at the end of the Get Faster plan, my threshold workouts were significantly easier, with less recovery required afterwards.   But those workouts worked up to 4 x 1 mile at threshold (which was dialed in as 7:05 - 7:20 min/miles), and were not 13.1 miles in succession.  I wasn't sure what to think - 8 months earlier I had done a half marathon at that pace range, yet in that 8 months I had done very few miles faster than that, and any speedwork I had done was at that same pace.  It occurred to me that perhaps I had lost some of that top end fitness as a result of a completely different type of event, such as the Ironman.

In the end, there was nothing to be done about it, and it wasn't a big deal anyway.  I figured I'd probably get close to 1:35, with an outside shot at breaking 1:30 if I got real lucky.  Pre-race prep was basically a few days off - I meant to get a 5 miler in at long-run pace on Friday, but my schedule didn't allow it.  Saturday morning I did my typical routine for the day before a race, which is to warm up, run at an all out effort for 3 minutes, and spend the next 24 hours consuming large amounts of carbs.  Typically those carbs were often sports drink or juice or some other relatively high glycemix index source.  After having gone through this routine a few times, I had started to notice the trend of frequent bathroom trips - and thinking ahead to IMLP next year, I wanted to get a start on figuring out how to minimize those bio-breaks if I was going to go from 2 bottles of sports drink/hr to 3 bottles/hr during that event.  Different topic for a different day but the point is that I had a purpose and reason for wanting to avoid bio breaks, aside from minimizing the hassle.  So, instead, I ate carb-heavy foods that were slower absorbing (than a mixture of simple sugars designed and mixed with a molality to obtain maximum absorption speed) - oatmeal, whole grain pasta, baked potato, etc.  The other benefit I was hoping for was that I wouldn't be wired come time to go to sleep.

On to the race - I lined up around the 7 min/mile marker in the starting corral and waited, remembering only about 10 seconds before the gun went off that I had my Garmin on indoor mode, so the GPS tracking was turned off!  I scrambled through the menu system to turn it on, barely doing so before it was go time.

It took a couple minutes for the Garmin to find itself, so I had no idea of my pace other than via RPE and in relation to people around me (which is always a bad idea), but I figured I was in the 7:10-7:20 range.  By the time my Garmin figured itself out, I saw I was going around 6:40-6:50 min/mile.  Definitely a bit faster than intended, and considering how I felt after the 5k VDOT test a few weeks prior (where I averaged 6:45's), I had serious doubts about its sustainability.  But I felt good enough to continue, and so I did - because I live on the edge like that.  I was going to be putting a lot of trust in my fuel belt loaded with gatorade, being one of the few folks that actually had a fuel belt, nevermind 48 oz of sports drink contained within.  Most people were going to be living off course - certainly possible, but not something I like to do unless the aid stations of frequent and at regular intervals.  That trust in the fuel belt was going to start with trying to maintain an unsustainable pace.

The Baystate Half is a fairly flat course - there are a couple minor hills, but they are gentle and not long lasting.  For the most part, I allowed myself to slow up a bit on those uphills, because I was already pushing the edge trying to keep a HR between 165-170 - I didn't have any real reserve to crush it up the hills.  So the uphills certainly slowed me down a bit, but I often made up decent time on the down hills, and was operating pretty steady state during the flats.

Around the half way point, a timing clock was shown, and a quick self-assessment told me that the 1:35 was pretty much in the bag - at that point I could slow to marathon pace (~7:40) and hit that.  A finish of 1:30 was certainly possible, but I'd have to maintain my current pace, which I felt like I might just be able to do.  I felt like I had to decide then and there whether I would shoot for it or not, as there was little/no wiggle room - I'd have to push it pretty much the entire second half, maintaining my pace even though my legs would start to tighten up, and I was dealing with a minor stitch in my right side.  I decided to go for it - but first I would have to deal with the stitch, so I backed off ever so slightly.  Fortunately, terrain favored me, as I was able to back off on a slight downhill, and by the time I reached ~7 miles, the stitch was working its way out.  Also helpful was doing a quick body positioning scan and identifying that my form was suffering slightly - I was pulling myself along rather than being positioned appropriately to push my torso forward.  This sort of thing is something I've been practicing during my runs - the ability to do a quick self-scan and determine where my form is breaking down when I fatigue.

During the last 3-4 miles, I got passed by a handful of people during the uphills.  I figured either these people were just stronger than I, or they'd be burning themselves out and I'd catch them.  Most ended up being stronger than I, but a couple did end up coming back to me.  As long as I wasn't slowing down noticibly, I had to be ok with being passed - and from what I was seeing, I was maintaining a ~6:45 min/mile pace, so I was at least steady.  As I approached the end - the last 1.2 miles, the last mile, last half mile, etc - I was paying attention to my watch and knew I'd end up real close to 1:30, but it was going to be close.  Certainly, a difference of 10 seconds between my watch and the official clock could be the determining factor.  That alone kept me pushing, with the last mile being consistently in the 170-175 range for a HR.  Not something I want to sustain for long, but I was decently comfortable with those numbers for relatively short duration (ie, a mile or less).

As I came around the final turn and saw the finish line, I saw 1:29 and change - it wasn't far away, and I knew I'd break 1:30, for a 5+ minute PR!

In the end, my stat line showed I was 6/87 in my age group, 60th overall (out of 1322), with a net time of 1:29:24.  Full results here.

Garmin results.

Ironman Lake Placid 2012 - Recap

So, here I am, the Tuesday morning after Sunday's Ironman, finally getting around to typing up a recap.  Last night was the only nights sleep I've gotten in the past 5-6 days that was better than 'decent'.  However, I must still warn you that even though I'm only two sentences in (well, three by now) - this recap may be somewhat jumpy.  There are a lot of things I want to convey, and I'm not sure of the best way to do so without rewinding the whole story a few years, and that would just be crazy (as opposed to 140.6 miles)!

The trip to Lake Placid started last Wednesday.  I took the latter part of the week off work so that I could give myself plenty of time to pack, get to Lake Placid, and figure out if I missed/forgot anything would need to be purchased or remedied once I got there.  My anxiety level leading up to the event was actually rather calm.  I've heard of people starting to get butterflies in the days and weeks leading up to the event - as the effect of the taper starts to kick it is easy to think 'just one more workout' will make all the difference, or you start to go bat-shit crazy sweating all the details like the exact number of electrolyte capsules to consume per hour based on how many degrees above the ideal 65F temperatures are expected.  Hell, three months prior to the event, people on the beginnertriathlete.com Lake Placid race forum were concerned about water temperatures due to the relatively warm winter.  I'm not kidding - one person had even been in contact with someone at Lake Placid to take weekly temperature readings 12" below the surface of the water.  Apparently 'the masses' tend to believe that water temperature is some sort of magic heat retainer which only absorbs heat and doesn't fluctuate up and down based on air temperature.

Anyway, my mental attitude in the weeks leading up to the event was that I'd save all my worrying and check-list compiling until Wednesday.  Part of the reason for that was that I was planning a simple-as-possibly strategy with as few moving parts as necessary, and I felt like if I started over-thinking things way ahead of time, I'd only be adding more moving parts. Another reason is that I was going to depend on nutrition available on-course as opposed to bringing my own.  Many people bring their own for various reasons, but for my first time I wanted to prioritize simplicity in execution.  I'd have enough to keep myself busy with - like, avoiding crashing into or being crashed into by any of the other 3000 participants while coasting downhill at 45 mph for 5 miles on a bumpy road.  For those reading who haven't done the IMLP bike course - yes, that is a valid concern and that is a realistic speed to reach without pedaling.

Truthfully, though - the biggest reason I was going to use on-course nutrition is that during my own long training rides, I often found I would fall into a groove and forget or lose track of time and fall behind on caloric intake.  Knowing the aid stations would be every 10 miles, this gave me a constant reminder to swig the provided sports drink on a regular basis.  If I over-drank and had to stop to use the porta-potty quite a bit, I was OK with that.  Better too much than not enough.

Actually, one of the biggest questions I had leading up to the race was whether or not to use my newly purchased (off eBay) wheel with a PowerTap.  For those who are unaware, a PowerTap is a specialized hub in the rear wheel that measures torque forces applied, and can give you instantaneous readout of how much power you are delivering to the wheel.  Whereas heart rate lags and is affected by a myriad of factors - power output never lies, and is the preferred metric for cycling that many of the other training statistics are based off of.  My concern was two-fold: 1) it was a used wheel that I had only personally put 14 miles on at this point, and thus couldn't be fully sure it wouldn't blow out and self-destruct on me and 2) I wasn't sure what my power numbers should be.  During the winter, I had been using a software program called TrainerRoad which uses the published power curve for various trainers to estimate power output, but once I got the PowerTap hooked up, I realized there was an offset between the PT and TR, and I didn't know if that offset was linear or not.  So, in the end, I decided to bring both my standard rear wheel in addition to the PT wheel.  Hooray for putting off another decision!

Also, this was in addition to the other new item - a set of short aero bars that I had just picked up the week before.  I had avoided using aero bars for months because I was concerned that the different position could cause problems without a refit, and I was hesitant to use them for race day because there would be no acclimation period.  However, upon the advice of Coach Rich, he suggested using them, as the position is not that different than being in the drops.  Plus, I was really liking the idea of not having to bear my weight on my hands during such a long bike ride.  On previous long rides, they tended to get real tired of helping to hold my upper body up.

I also got a huge boost of good luck on Wednesday.  For months I had been fretting about one particular logistical challenge - the battery life of my Garmin 305.  It is reported to be 10 hours, but I knew I'd need it for longer than that for both the bike and the run.  And I'd need the HR feedback so that I could tell when I was overexerting, especially on the hills on the bike.  My plan was to rig up some sort of recharging system - but the combination of using the cradle while on the bike, and running wires and what-not was really adding up to be a pain in the ass.  I could keep the unit on the cradle and out of sight, but then it'd be pointless.  If I kept it in sight, I'd have to figure out where to put it (especially since real estate got tight with the powertap computer and the addition of the aero bars).  So it was really looking like a 'pick your poison' problem.  But then on Wednesday afternoon I decided to give a shot to seeing whether the Powertap computer would pick up the HR signal.  Woot!  It did!  This meant I'd have HR, speed, cadence, and power information all on one unit.  I'd not have the GPS tracking from the Garmin, but I was ok with that in the grand scheme of things.  As a result, I would just use the Garmin for the run.  Perfect!

I finally rolled into Lake Placid around midnight on Wednesday because I left an hour later and got stuck in traffic for an hour.  I slept in a bit on Thursday then went to the expo to see what was there.  It didn't seem like it was in full swing quite yet - but there were still a good number of people there.  I had been warned about the expo before - stay away from it.  It is full of nervous energy and all kinds of stuff you can buy that you don't need.  I had been to expo's in general before, and with a realistic hat of 'nothing I get now will make me faster on race day' attitude (plus it's all so damn expensive!), I just perused through casually.  More just a way to kill some time, but I did end up getting a few IM cowbells to give family members who would be spectating the event.  I also went to the grocery store to pick up a few staples I'd need over the next few days - mostly carb loaded things like pop tarts, orange juice, peanuts, raisins, m&m's, apples, etc.

Thursday evening was the Endurance Nation dinner.  EN is an online long-course triathlon team that I joined about 4 weeks before the event.  Being a late-comer to the group, I obviously didn't take part in their training programs, but based on my own experience and their philosophy, I was convinced that it was the place I wanted to be due to the wealth of good information about training and execution strategy they have available.    One of the (numerous) benefits of EN is the showing at each IM event - and this was no exception with nearly 50 team members participating.  It was really nice to meet some people in person beforehand, and one person was even nice enough to lend me a spare EN jersey for the race (thanks Steve!).  Not ever having done a full IM, and having missed the deadline for ordering EN gear, I wanted some EN identification so I could take advantage of the support of other EN folks during the race, especially on the run.

Friday morning started with an EN group swim in Mirror lake, followed by Coach Patrick's 4-keys talk. Actually, before his talk I caught a bit of the Inifinit nutrition talk as well. At some point I'd like to try their product out - I've heard a lot of good things about it, and a lot of the EN folks use it as their primary nutrition during race day.

Later on Friday I did the official check-in thing - sign HIPPA and release weavers, get weighed-in (and feel like an MMA fighter or a pro boxer), get tagged with the blue bracelet that identifies you as a participant. At least I got a really cool IM backpack. I went back to the hotel and started packing up my transition and special needs bags - cycling helmet, shoes, socks, sunglasses, extra contacts (in case goggles got knocked off and I lost a contact in the swim) in T1 bag; couple small bags of potato chips, spare tube, spare CO2 inflator in bike special needs; running shoes, socks, hat and Garmin in T2 bag; couple small bags of potato chips, extra shoes, extra socks, extra contacts, massage stick, dental floss and mouthwash in run special needs bag (hey, at that point of having sugar-laden fluids in your mouth all day, something that simple can make you feel rejuvenated).

Saturday morning I woke up around 7am and did my carb-load routine - go run for about 5-10 minutes to warm up, followed by 3 minutes at an all out effort. Enough to cause the body to want to store carbs, but not enough to stress the body. Then, eat a butt-load of carbs for the next 24 hours. Seriously. Like 750g of them. So that basically meant a lot of orange juice, pop tarts and anything with sugar. After the run I took my second ever ride on the new PowerTap wheel - I wanted to see what it would do on hills and what it would be like holding a constant power output on a hill. So I rode the first 5 or so miles of the bike course and then turned back. Based on what my HR showed, it seemed like a power of about 150W would be a good number to stick to as it kept my HR in the low 130's. It may have been a tad low, but I'd rather be a touch low on the bike than too high and sacrifice the run. Plus, if it was obviously too low, I could fix it on the second loop. So with that information all in mind, I decided to definitely go ahead with the powertap wheel for the race. That afternoon I checked in my bike and transition bags, and hung out with my friend Dave for a bit.

Saturday afternoon the family showed up. So we spent some time walking around town and driving the course so they could see what was in store, and scoping out some spectating venues. When I got back to the hotel, I did the final review of what was in the special needs bags to make sure everything was all set.

Even up until this point, I wasn't really feeling nervous. It was just a long training day ahead of me. I tried to go to sleep around 9PM, but, of course, had a hard time. I still didn't feel nervous (I was far more nervous for my first ever triathlon a few years ago), but all the carbs were keeping me awake. Perhaps it was nerves, but next time I might try front loading the carb intake in the morning and early afternoon instead of consuming so many in the evening. I spent from about 9:30 until 1:30 drifting in and out of sleep, but I did manage a couple solid hours between 1:30 and 4:30, when my alarm went off.

Race day is here!

I woke up, gathered my things and headed over to the oval. Gave my bike tires a quick dose of air (I deflated them the day before to about 80 PSI to keep them from popping in the hot sun the previous afternoon) and finished final bike and transition bag preparations. I brought my special needs bags up to the drop-off location, grabbed my wetsuit and dropped clothes into the morning clothes bag and headed over to the swim start around 6:30. After a few minutes of milling around, people started funneling through the swim start gate and into the water.

I made my way over to the far beach, about 5-6 people back from the start line. I wanted to seed myself out of the scrum that would be following the buoy line, but I knew my expected swim time of about 1:15 would be pretty decent, so I didn't want to be way in the back either, because that would cost me at least 5 minutes of waiting, nevermind the fighting through people. The pro's went off at 6:50, followed by a singing of the national anthem and Mike Reilly promising all us first timers (900 some-odd) that we'd all be ironmen by the end of the day. Then, suddenly.. BOOM.

Here I was. It had begun - I was in the middle of doing an ironman! Holy crap! The swim started off as expected - lots of people around, arms bumping into legs and incidental contact. Definitely more than I've noticed on other tri's, but not bad. I tried to find a pair of feet when I could that I could draft behind, but mostly it was just concentrating on form and making sure to keep my arms extended to minimize the chance that an errant foot would come bop me in the face without any sort of warning. I figured that was my best defense. When things started to get more congested, I suspected we were probably near the first buoy, and sure enough, that was the case. I swam wide to avoid the scrum again and continued on.

For the most part, the swim was actually rather uneventful and about as good as I could have hoped. I swam wide for the most part to avoid contact and allow me to concentrate on keeping form, knowing that I'd be missing potential effects of the draft. Before too long, the bottom of the lake rose and I was climbing myself out of the water - already halfway done with the swim! I didn't see the clock on the first loop, but I did see a number of people in front of me going through the gate - it seemed like there were probably 3-5 people going through per second - so if I was ahead of the main pack of people, it certainly wasn't by much. The second loop was a bit more spread out, and much of the same. I did have a moment in the first couple hundred yards where I got a bit of a kick in the left goggle, but it just pushed the goggle tighter and wasn't more than a slight annoyance for a few minutes.

At the end of the swim, I got out of the water, saw the clock flip over to 1:14 as I ran under it, and located the wetsuit peelers. There was one person in line in front of me, so I figured I was in a good spot - assuming that once the bulk of people arrived, some people may not even have a chance to take advantage of the peelers. I took Coach Patrick's advice and kept my goggles and cap on to keep my hands free for wetsuit handling, then I plopped by ass on the ground and the peeler grabbed the wetsuit, yanked it off and handed it back to me. 'Thanks!' I yelled as I rolled it up, tucked it under my arm, and headed to T1.

Why do I always have my eyes closed!?
(Picture taken by Scott Dinhofer)

T1 at Lake Placid is somewhat of a long run, probably 1/4 mile, and as a result, most people have a hard time getting out of it in less than 5 minutes. I got to the transition bag rack, found my bag, grabbed it and headed to the tent. I heard my wife Laurie yelling (she was volunteering at T1) and I managed a 'oh, hey!' and kept going. Inside the tent was pretty full. There were seats to be found, but it was probably 80-90% full. I ran towards an empty seat in the back, grabbed my helmet, glasses and shoes, put my wetsuit in the bag and ran out, repeating to myself Coach Rich's mantra - "slow is smooth, smooth is fast." On the way out were people helping to apply sunscreen - I grabbed some of that (I had applied spray earlier in the morning, but I didn't want to chance it coming off in the water and then being burned to hell throughout the day). Even though they'd apply it - I still felt like applying sunscreen is like doing laundry - I don't want anyone else doing it for me. Seems.. wrong. I was thankful for the help in applying it to the back of my neck, though - I'd probably have forgotten.

I ran over to where my bike was, and someone helped me get it unracked and before I knew it, I was at the bike mount line.  The clock read 1:22 - I had spent 8 minutes in T1 - not bad at all!.  After having seen the cluster that was the bike mount line last year, my plan this year was to minimize time at the line - and that meant throwing one leg over and clipping in, and coasting down the hill with one leg clipped in and deal with clipping in the other leg afterwards.  As I was clipping in, I heard Coach Patrick yell 'Nice job, Endurance Nation!' and I yelled back 'Thanks!'  I dunno, makes no sense in retrospect, but it was all I got out on short notice.

After a few turns to get out of town, I could settle into the bike ride.  Not even a mile out, another EN person passed me, saying 'good job EN, watch those watts!'  I replied with 'yup - thats why I'm going slow!'.  The first portion of the bike out of town is a little bit of flat ground, followed by a few miles of climbing.  I was being passed left, right, up, down, forward, back and center.  Every which way people were passing me.  Granted, many of these people are stronger cyclists than I, but I stuck to my watts and it would just take as long as it would take.  I started refueling with a bottle of gatorade I put on my bike that morning - I wanted to make sure I had plenty of calories in my system, because once the descent into Keene came, I wouldn't be able to drink anything for about 30 minutes as I'd be busy enough with negotiating a hill with patchy pavement, with hundreds of other people, that was steep enough to go 40 mph while coasting.

I finished probably half the bottle before coming up to the first aid station, where I switched out for a bottle of Perform and a bottle of water, which would last me to the next aid station.  After that, the descent came.

I'm not a terribly great handling cyclist, in comparison to some others.  And being a triathlete, I'm already behind the 8-ball in that regard as compared to cyclists.  My main paranoia of the day was crashing on the bike during the descent, and specifically being part of a pileup where someone ahead of my crashes and I can't avoid crashing as well, or being clipped going 35 by someone going 50.  I was more than willing to lose a few minutes of overall time to ensure that I didn't need an airlift.  So, following Coach Patrick's advice - if not comfortable on the downhill, I stayed to the right and signaled via body language that I was not looking to cook down the hill.  This mean sitting up (there was no way I'd get into aero position on those bumpy roads anyway), not pedaling, and feathering the brakes as necessary.

Fortunately, while the descent was crowded, it wasn't as bad as I had feared.  My concern was that there would be loads of people all going different speeds - but as it turned it, so many people had passed me by that point that it wasn't a big deal.  Also, I still had the rear-view mirror on my bike helmet, so I kept an eye out for people who were behind me and bombing down the hill.

Once on the flats, one of the first things I noticed was that my speed was much higher than I anticipated for the power output.  I stayed right around my 150W, but I was cruising at nearly 20 mph.  Before too long, I found that when I went to go pass someone, the wattage would go up 15-20W as soon as I was not behind them anymore.  It's not like I was drafting aggressively - it was more incidental as I was still 15-20 feet behind them.  Not that you could really space out even more - there were just too many people.  The end result is that it was like a 20 mile long peloton - there's definitely a drafting effect even though you're trying to be aware of the drafting rules.  The rest of the flats were much the same - I ended up stopping at just about every aid station to use the porta-potty and get a new bottle of Perform.  It sucked having to stop so much and lose time for bio breaks, but for the first one, I had no problem overdoing hydration and electrolytes - better too much than not enough.

Once at the turn around in AuSable Forks, I realized another factor that contributed to the speed - wind.  We had a nice tail wind all the way out, but as soon as we turned around, the speed dropped.  But I stuck to the 150W, stayed in aero as much as possible and pressed on.  It was going to be a long day - no reason to be aggressive now.

The turn to Wilmington starts the climbing, and much of the rest of the loop was going to consist of climbing.  Once again, stick to the watts, find the easiest gear and go at whatever cadence is necessary to either keep the watts in target, or keep the HR in check.  Some of the inclines were steep enough that even with a compact chainring up front and a 12/27 cassette in back, I still had to drop to a cadence of 60, and the wattage would go up into the 170's.  But they were relatively short, and I paid attention to keep the HR from spiking into the 140's for too long - a HR of 130-135 for the first loop was my goal and I had been doing pretty good keeping to that.  At this point, I was still being passed a decent amount, even on the downhills, although not as much in those cases. But once again - it was a long day.

The last 20 miles back into town was rather uneventful.  Stop when necessary, get more Perform at every aid station (on the last one, I got the Orange Mango flavor, and decided immediately I wasn't a fan), sit on watts, monitor HR, grabbed half a banana and ate a GU for a change of pace in nutrition, and just press on.  I did find myself passing a few people during some of the flat sections in between the major climbs back into town, though.  Once we got in sight of the last major hill (papa bear), it was pretty cool seeing the huge crowd there.  One thing I can say for sure - I was much more exhausted doing those hills in training last year than this year.  This year they were just slow, but they weren't hard.  Last year I was completely beat after climbing them, even though both years it took about 3.5 hours per loop.

Coming back through town, I stopped at special needs, and sat there for a few minutes and ate my bag of chips and reapplied sunscreen.  Right after special needs I saw my family on the side and pulled over to chat with them for a few minutes.  Turns out they were concerned about me because I was 'late' (based on positional text updates they were receiving) - even though they knew the first half was fast and the second half of the loop was slow and uphill.    Oh well.  I headed out and continued on for the second loop.

End of the first bike loop
(Picture taken by Scott Dinhofer)

Coaches Rich and Patrick talk about what I was just about to experience - a tidal change in the field of athletes. All during the first loop, I was being passed and only very occasionally passing someone else (and most of those times it was a stupid move because it was spiking watts). However, on the second loop, it was totally different. We didn't get 100 yds into the first climb and I overheard someone say something to the effect of 'They are definitely more challenging the second time around'. I looked at my HR - mid 130's, right where it should be, and realized I was breathing nice and easy. I was still well fueled and doing things easy-peasy. On the other hand, here was someone who blew themselves up too early and was starting to feel it with 56 miles to go on the bike, and a 26 mile run to do afterwards. So again, I kept to my watts, and I noticed I was passing people a lot more. Not blowing by them, and I wasn't passing nearly as many as had passed me (by now I was at the back of the back, so there were fewer people to pass), but there was definitely a change.

The descent was a bit better the second time around because the field was less crowded, so I was able to coast a little more aggressively - if that makes sense. Basically I didn't sit up as much. I still didn't get into aero position because then I'd not have the ability to brake immediately because the brake levers would be out of reach, but I was in the drops and got down as low as I could (which was effectively aero position) and let it fly. There was no point in pedaling because even in the highest gear, it would spin out at around 30 MPH, and I was kissing 40 MPH easy.

Once in the flats again, I noticed it was definitely warmer. Not only that, but the draft effect from the first time around was gone, as there were fewer people. However I did continue to notice the trend of passing people at a slow, but steady, pace. I also noticed that I wasn't needing bio breaks, so I needed to start upping my hydration intake. Unfortunately, virtually every aid station I stopped at was handing out the orange-mango flavor Perform instead of the Lemon Lime for whatever reason. Considering I didn't really like the flavor of Orange Mango to begin with, needing to drink it out of necessity wasn't very fun. I eventually got to the point where my stomach really didn't want to ingest more of it, so I switched off the Perform for a bit, taking a banana and a GU with water instead, and let my stomach ride it out for about 15-20 minutes. It seemed to help, and the final climb back into town was fine from that perspective.

That last climb was obviously tough for a bunch of people.  There was some out of the saddle pumping even on the flats, some huffing and puffing, and mashing of gears.  Once again, I sat on my comfortable wattage  of 150-170W, but my HR stayed in the desired range.  In fact, it was around this time that I was thinking that perhaps I actually held back a bit on the bike, because during these elongated climbs, keeping the HR at or under 140 for a power output of 170W was not too difficult.  In the end, though - I was ok with that, because I'd have a chance to make up any lost time on the run by being fueled and ready to go.  The graph below shows my HR during the bike ride (disregard the 80 mile distance - I think that is off due to the long descent where no power was being recorded) - and it is incredibly consistent in that 130-140 bpm range.  Power is awesome - when you start doing something stupid, the feedback it provides to allow you to stop being stupid is phenomenal.

Getting off the bike, I handed it to a volunteer who took care of racking it, and I went to the transition area and grabbed by T2 bag.  I ran into the tent, took the helmet and shoes off, put on my compression pants and donned the hat I got from the Patriot Half last month.  I mostly used it to keep sun out of my face and to soak up sweat, but it turned out to be a very good choice for another reason (which I'll get to).

As I left T1, I saw two other fellow EN members - Paul and Cary.  After a brief chat, we decided that we were all aiming for similar paces in the first 6 miles, around 10 to 10:30, so we ran together.  It was difficult at first because of the downhill, but we managed to get pretty close, and once it flattened out, it was easier to go at that pace as opposed to something more like 9:30.  It felt pretty comfortable as we headed out of town, and as we passed the ski jumps and turned onto River Road (around mile 4 or so, I think), I gradually started to find my running legs, and my HR settled to around 145 - just about perfect.  During those miles we saw a lot of folks in EN kits - everytime one would pass us, we'd see another on the horizon.  I couldn't have swung a dead cat without hitting another EN member.  At what was probably the 5th aid station, I grabbed a cup of ice, took off my hat, dumped the ice into the hat, and put it back on - and it was absolutely magical.  Whoever thought of that idea is friggin brilliant.  It's a bit cold at first, but it is... wow.  It's just really, really nice having a trickle of cold water to cool you off.  Around mile 5.5, I was feeling pretty good and picked up the pace a bit - between 9:30 and 10 min/miles.  The HR stayed in check and everything was feeling solid.

Whose too cool for school?
(Picture taken by Steve West)

On the way back into town, all those hills that I came down I now had to go back up. My plan the whole time was to conserve heartbeats and walk them. In a normal open marathon, maybe not - but I had no problem at all with walking up those inclines because in order to keep my HR in check, I'd be running so slow that it would make very little difference. It was all about pushing the line back and delaying the uncomfortable.

Everything was smooth as could be - walk the aid station, grab some nutrition (coke, GU chomps, water, whatever), ice under the cap when they had it available, body scan to make sure form felt good, etc.  There was just one little thing wrong - I had stopped with the Perform when I got off the bike.  All that was available on the run was Orange Mango - and it wasn't that it was warm that bothered me - it was the flavor.  So that is why I switched to alternatives.  However, those alternatives don't have much for electrolytes.  This occurred to me, and a few times, I stopped to have some pretzels.  The problem was that pretzels were very dry.  I did the best I could by drinking water at the same time, but I wasn't convinced it was enough salt.  This was somewhat concerning, and every aid station I hoped they'd have the chicken broth out, but no luck.  I hit the run special needs, had some potato chips, did a quick roll of my hamstrings and quads with the massage stick, and put my sunglasses in the spare shoes I had in the bag - no need for them anymore, and I didn't want them in the finisher picture.

Around mile 13 of the marathon
(Picture taken by Scott Dinhofer)

Coach Patrick and Rich talk about the line - the point where your body comes up with a very good argument for you to stop. I had hit that line before in my first marathon back in October, and it sucked. So I fully expected it to hit me hard on this day. Well, I never got a huge argument from my body (I think it got to scared to complain - it knew that the only thing that could get to me is me, and I was on my side), but I didn't count so much on my stomach being the problem child. Right around mile 16, it decided to get a little uneasy. The legs felt fine (a little fatigued, but not bad), feet were fine (a bit achy, but no big deal) - but the stomach didn't want to settle down after taking in calories. I was still far enough out that calories were required, but anytime I ate anything, I'd have to walk a good 5-7 minutes for my stomach to settle in enough to start running again. At first I decided I was ok with that - better 5-7 minutes now than 20 minutes later on. However, the trend continued where I'd eat something and have to walk for 1/3 mile before I could run the rest of the way to the aid station. Surprisingly, my pace was still in the 12-13 minute/mile range - slow, but actually not that bad in the grand scheme of things. At mile 18, I started counting people I was passing, and I got to around 50 by the time I hit mile 20 before I lost track at an aid station. The trick with counting people is used to keep yourself engaged, and I didn't have a problem keeping myself in the game - I was having a problem keeping my stomach fully settled down. I was nowhere near throwing up, but I didn't want to get there either. So in the end I decided not to bother with counting people - it wasn't really necessary on this day.

Eventually, the aid stations started having chicken broth, which I happily took.  However, by this time I had already had combinations of coke, water, Perform, pretzels, half a banana, etc.  So I'm not convinced that the combination of different foods, plus possibly having too many calories, was not a contributing factor.

Around mile 23 I started running with someone - at this point the little motivation of having a temporary buddy was helpful.  Also - at this point I gave up on the aid stations - there wasn't much to go, and I was tired of screwing around with my stomach to try and appease it.  We ran to the bottom of the last big hill and walked up it.  At the crest of that hill, the course takes a left turn and goes up just a little bit more.  He decided to run up that last little bit, but I continued walking.  In my walk, someone else started to walk with me, and at the top of the hill we started jogging together.  As we passed special needs, I took off my fuel belt and handed it to someone to put back in my bag - I didn't want it in the finisher photo.  My running buddy and I stayed together until the turnaround (around mile 25) when he dropped back.  By this time I was feeling good enough to pick up the pace a bit - with so little distance to go, there was no point in conserving heartbeats or making sure I had enough calories.  Right around this time I also passed my first buddy who kept running up the hill.

After that last turn around, it's pretty much all a slight downhill to the finish line, and it is awesome.  The crowd lines the streets, you can hear the music and the cheering of the crowd at the finish line, and I was just thinking to myself 'Holy shit, I am about to finish an Ironman!'.  Of course, at that point, endorphins kick in and you feel no pain.  I ran into the chute just about in a full-on sprint and went nuts - I ran along the outer edge of the oval giving high fives to spectators, screaming and hollering, hands in the air during the last 100 ft to the finish.  Hearing the crowd and how loud it was.. it was just.. awesome.  I don't think you can help but to feel like a rock-star.

Once I crossed the finish line, I got my medal, finisher hat and t-shirt.  It felt odd.  Was I really done?  Did I really just finish a flippin Ironman?  I then realized that I never heard the magic saying - I never heard Mike Reilly say 'Ryan Miller, you are an Ironman!'  What the hell?!  Then it dawned on me - in my excitement and desire to get the crowd cheering, I couldn't hear anything over the PA.  I thought ahead about the fuel belt and the sunglasses and anything that would ruin the finisher pic, but I didn't think about the crowd noise and trying to hear those words.  I was a little bummed about that, but decided I still liked my finish.  Maybe they would have cheered just as loud if I didn't make a scene - but in my mind I whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and I'm a fan of that kind of finish.  Besides, I signed up for next year - so I can listen for it then :)

Here are the unofficial results:

RYAN MILLER

Rank: 197

Overall Rank: 1264

BIB:	1538
Division:	M35-39
Age:	36
State:	FRAMINGHAM MA
Country:	USA
Profession:	Consultant

Swim:	1:14:08
Bike:	7:24:04
Run:	4:49:19
Overall:	13:44:56

CONGRATULATIONS, RYAN, ON YOUR FINISH!

Swim DetailsDivision Rank: 162

Split Name	Distance	Split Time	Race Time	Pace	Div. Rank	Overall Rank	Gender Rank
1.2 mi	1.2 mi	35:04	35:04	1:48/100m
2.4 mi	1.2 mi	39:04	1:14:08	2:01/100m
Total	2.4 mi	1:14:08	1:14:08	3:50/100m	162	1016	817

Bike DetailsDivision Rank: 251

Split Name	Distance	Split Time	Race Time	Pace	Div. Rank	Overall Rank	Gender Rank
30 mi	30 mi	1:36:07	2:58:37	18.73 mi/h
56 mi	26 mi	2:09:17	5:07:54	12.07 mi/h
86 mi	30 mi	1:38:13	6:46:07	18.33 mi/h
112 mi	26 mi	2:00:27	8:46:34	12.95 mi/h
Total	112 mi	7:24:04	8:46:34	15.13 mi/h	251	1703	1375

Run DetailsDivision Rank: 197

Split Name	Distance	Split Time	Race Time	Pace	Div. Rank	Overall Rank	Gender Rank
3 mi	3 mi	31:47	9:27:24	10:35/mi
8.2 mi	5.2 mi	55:56	10:23:20	10:45/mi
12 mi	3.8 mi	42:36	11:05:56	11:12/mi
16.1 mi	4.1 mi	37:22	11:43:18	9:06/mi
21.3 mi	5.2 mi	1:04:08	12:47:26	12:20/mi
25.1 mi	3.8 mi	47:46	13:35:12	12:34/mi
26.2 mi	1.1 mi	9:44	13:44:56	8:50/mi
Total	26.2 mi	4:49:19	13:44:56	11:02/mi	197	1264	1016

Transition

T1: SWIM-TO-BIKE	8:22
T2: BIKE-TO-RUN	9:03

So, clearly, the bike needs the most work. The swim I'm just about content to almost ignore improvement, aside from maybe trying to figure out what in my form tends to go south after about 1.25 miles. There's a solid 15 minutes of bike time that was spent in and out of porta-potties, special needs, and stopping to chat with the family, but I'd still be over 7 hours. I think with a full season of a lot of the right bike workouts, I can get closer to the 6:15 mark on the bike.
The run can improve a bit, but I'm not too worried about that.  If I can tweak things a bit to keep the stomach under control, that would likely be worth about 25 minutes alone (3 minutes x ~8 miles at 9 min/mile pace vs 12:30).  And then with additional speed workouts over the next year, I think it's conceivable to get pretty close to the 4 hour mark.

But next year is next year.

For right now, it's still settling in that I actually finished this.  Even though I've done it, the idea of running a marathon after a 112 mile bike ride still seems looney, nuts, and impossible.  I just think of the grind a long run of 2.5 hours is - and to think that repeating that, PLUS however long it takes to finish the 26.2 miles after a 112 mile bike ride.  It still seems inconceivable.  But it's not.  I've decided it's more mentally challenging to grasp than physically.  From a physical stand point, you just keep going until your done.  Everyone out there at miles 15, 20, 24 - they're all in the same boat.  Some are hurting more, some are hurting less.  But for me, knowing that I've been out there for 13 hours and everyone around me has been as well - it definitely helped keep me going.  That is something you can't replicate in training.

I'm still not done celebrating this internally.  I want to put something together with the medal, with the bracelet, with a finisher photo (once those are available), and hang it on the wall.  Supposedly you can get video of yourself crossing the finish line - I want that.  I set out with the goal of beating 14 hours, and I did that.  I knew it was somewhat conservative, but I was ok with that - I wanted it to be an experience I would enjoy and be smiling at the end of because you never know what might happen in the future.  Actually racing an Ironman?  That'd be for another day.