My coach Alex McDonald had a rough season last year with a pretty bad injury that kept him out of competition for most of the year. About a month ago, he came back to racing with Oceanside California 70.3 and had a pretty solid result for his first time in a year with a number on him.
Yesterday, he raced the Ochsner Ironman 70.3 New Orleans and had a phenomenal 11th place finish in a very competitive pro male field. He's back.
Check out his race report.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Pretty amazing kick
Great little video of 2004 Olympic triathlon silver medalist Devan Docherty (NZ) kicking at the end of an ITU race to take the win. Short-course racing is such a different beast.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Tucson Training Camp: Mount Lemmon
On the second full day of the training camp we decided to ride up Mount Lemmon, part of the Santa Catalina Mountain Range. Before we headed out, our "leader" Ryan explained that it would be a very steady climb with a pretty reasonable grade. We should expect a pretty consistent 8-9% grade for about 25 miles and that we'd end up climbing about 6800 ft.
The peak of Mt. Lemmon as viewed from Mt. Kimball
My thoughts at the time: "Well, that'll be a good, challenging and steady climb but at least it's not too high... we should be fine in terms of altitude."
We drove out to the base of the mountain in the Catalina Foothills around 1pm and got our bikes all prepped in the parking lot of a strip mall. Given the grade, we expected the ride to take about 3.5 hours and figured that 4 bottles of fluids should be enough to keep us going.
The first few miles out to the base of the mountain were a slight incline but nothing tough. Then, as we reached the beginning of the climb and I looked up, I realized that it was going to be a long day. Three hours of steady climbing with no free-wheeling was.... well, a long climb.
The climb consisted of a single long winding road that carried us through a valley and up along the mountain to the peak. Our group of four broke up pretty quickly because we all wanted to hold tight to our own power zones. Having ridden somewhat hard the day before and wanting to save the legs for the next two rides, I locked myself in at about 230W (80% of threshold) and just started pedaling away.
At the base of the climb, it was about 80F and at only 10mph I was pouring sweat pretty quickly. As I worked my way through the early miles, I saw between 30 and 40 cyclists descending the climb and gauged them at about 40mph... Grinding away at the climb, it was a little disheartening to know that they had already been to the top and were done with their days.
As I hit the 4000ft elevation marker about 25 minutes into the ride, I got confused. How had I already climbed 4000 of the 6800ft in only half-an-hour. And that's when I realized two things:
1) I had been incredibly stupid and we had actually started the climb at 2300ft, not sea-level (obvious....)
2) The climb would take us north of 8500ft and that meant that altitude was going to be an issue.
For the next hour or so, I just chipped away at the climb, passing a few riders along the way. As I hit interesting vistas, I took a few quick shots on the iPhone. The neat thing was to feel the temperature gradually drop as you climbed and the dusty terrain turn somewhat lush.
Around 6000ft, I caught up with a guy who lived up in Washington State and was on a training trip of his own. We held together for the rest of the climb and he told me about a number of the other great rides he had done in the area.
As we passed through 6700ft, we started seeing a number of fairly large snowbanks. And then, at 7000ft, the altitude finally hit me. I had expected the effect of altitude on my power output to be a steady drain, but it was really quite dramatic. I went from holding a steady 220W to about 185W in only the course of about 20 minutes. My VI stayed pretty steady around 1.01, but I just couldn't get anymore power out of my legs. My vision started to narrow just a bit. It was hard to describe except to say that I just felt weak. My legs weren't screaming, I just couldn't get any power out of them.
Power early into the climb.
Power near the peak. Notice that it's steady but much lower.
The road kept on winding but around 7900ft it seemed like we had approached the summit. We took a final turn and there we were at 8300ft! Fantastic. I pulled over to take a quick leak and then started pedaling again along a now level road. Unfortunately, this level road quickly turned into a fast 400ft descent. The problem was, we were still pedaling out along the road and I knew that we had to get back up to around 8500ft, so every foot we gave up, we'd have to climb again...
After the descent, we climbed some more..... And then we entered into Summer Haven. The ski resort was another few hundred feet up, but I was satisfied turning around at this point.
Me, at the peak. Notice the snow in the background...
The whole climb had taken about 3 hours... My buddies were a few minutes ahead of me and as I turned around to start the descent I saw them whipping past. Wiped from the ride and low on fluids, I decided to keep it safe and not attack the curves aggressively. As you can see from this vista picture at 7000ft, it's windy and it's steep.
Words that describe the descent: fast, curved, cold! (Covered in sweat from the climb and with the peak in the high 40s, I was shivering for the first 2000ft of the return trip.)
I hit the bottom about 40 minutes later (the longest continuous descent I've ever done in my life) and cruised back to the car. I was pretty beat and low on calories and food so I jumped in the car, kicked back a huge recovery drink and nodded off.
Definitely my toughest climb to date but an absolutely awesome ride. Challenging, steady and great views. If you're interested, here's someone else's video of various parts of the climb and descent.
The peak of Mt. Lemmon as viewed from Mt. KimballMy thoughts at the time: "Well, that'll be a good, challenging and steady climb but at least it's not too high... we should be fine in terms of altitude."
We drove out to the base of the mountain in the Catalina Foothills around 1pm and got our bikes all prepped in the parking lot of a strip mall. Given the grade, we expected the ride to take about 3.5 hours and figured that 4 bottles of fluids should be enough to keep us going.
The first few miles out to the base of the mountain were a slight incline but nothing tough. Then, as we reached the beginning of the climb and I looked up, I realized that it was going to be a long day. Three hours of steady climbing with no free-wheeling was.... well, a long climb.
The climb consisted of a single long winding road that carried us through a valley and up along the mountain to the peak. Our group of four broke up pretty quickly because we all wanted to hold tight to our own power zones. Having ridden somewhat hard the day before and wanting to save the legs for the next two rides, I locked myself in at about 230W (80% of threshold) and just started pedaling away.
At the base of the climb, it was about 80F and at only 10mph I was pouring sweat pretty quickly. As I worked my way through the early miles, I saw between 30 and 40 cyclists descending the climb and gauged them at about 40mph... Grinding away at the climb, it was a little disheartening to know that they had already been to the top and were done with their days.
As I hit the 4000ft elevation marker about 25 minutes into the ride, I got confused. How had I already climbed 4000 of the 6800ft in only half-an-hour. And that's when I realized two things:
1) I had been incredibly stupid and we had actually started the climb at 2300ft, not sea-level (obvious....)
2) The climb would take us north of 8500ft and that meant that altitude was going to be an issue.
For the next hour or so, I just chipped away at the climb, passing a few riders along the way. As I hit interesting vistas, I took a few quick shots on the iPhone. The neat thing was to feel the temperature gradually drop as you climbed and the dusty terrain turn somewhat lush.
Around 6000ft, I caught up with a guy who lived up in Washington State and was on a training trip of his own. We held together for the rest of the climb and he told me about a number of the other great rides he had done in the area.
As we passed through 6700ft, we started seeing a number of fairly large snowbanks. And then, at 7000ft, the altitude finally hit me. I had expected the effect of altitude on my power output to be a steady drain, but it was really quite dramatic. I went from holding a steady 220W to about 185W in only the course of about 20 minutes. My VI stayed pretty steady around 1.01, but I just couldn't get anymore power out of my legs. My vision started to narrow just a bit. It was hard to describe except to say that I just felt weak. My legs weren't screaming, I just couldn't get any power out of them.
Power early into the climb.
Power near the peak. Notice that it's steady but much lower.
The road kept on winding but around 7900ft it seemed like we had approached the summit. We took a final turn and there we were at 8300ft! Fantastic. I pulled over to take a quick leak and then started pedaling again along a now level road. Unfortunately, this level road quickly turned into a fast 400ft descent. The problem was, we were still pedaling out along the road and I knew that we had to get back up to around 8500ft, so every foot we gave up, we'd have to climb again...
After the descent, we climbed some more..... And then we entered into Summer Haven. The ski resort was another few hundred feet up, but I was satisfied turning around at this point.
Me, at the peak. Notice the snow in the background...The whole climb had taken about 3 hours... My buddies were a few minutes ahead of me and as I turned around to start the descent I saw them whipping past. Wiped from the ride and low on fluids, I decided to keep it safe and not attack the curves aggressively. As you can see from this vista picture at 7000ft, it's windy and it's steep.
Words that describe the descent: fast, curved, cold! (Covered in sweat from the climb and with the peak in the high 40s, I was shivering for the first 2000ft of the return trip.)I hit the bottom about 40 minutes later (the longest continuous descent I've ever done in my life) and cruised back to the car. I was pretty beat and low on calories and food so I jumped in the car, kicked back a huge recovery drink and nodded off.
Definitely my toughest climb to date but an absolutely awesome ride. Challenging, steady and great views. If you're interested, here's someone else's video of various parts of the climb and descent.
Tucson Training Camp
Just got back from a 5-day training camp out in Tucson with some racing buddies. Weather was fantastic--sunny, mid-80s every day, dry--and we all got in some solid training. The goal of the camp was to focus on cycling volume and to train like pros (i.e. lots of rest, lots of food, low stress).
We stayed in a beautiful house to the west of downtown Tucson, tucked away in the mountains that had a number of bedrooms, a really awesome kitchen and an outdoor pool and grilling area. Worked out perfectly because we had tonnes of room to spread out, cook, relax and tinker with our bikes.
Pool at nighttime
When we weren't training, we spent most of our time lying around doing very. Oh, and eating. A lot. I figured that we'd have a lot more free time since we didn't have to go to work or keep up with the day-to-day of living in New York, but between training, prepping for workouts and cooking/eating all of the necessary food, the days went by pretty fast.
One of the interesting adaptations that I had to make was to increase my food intake dramatically. Normally, I go a little calorie-deficient on weekends in the spring and this helps me get down to race weight. But with five really tough days of training back-to-back, we all had to spend most of our free time putting food and fluids down the hatch. A typical day included:
6am: Wake-up, eat a giant bowl of cereal and fruit (~500 Cal). Drink 3 bottles of water to get back all of the fluids lost while sleeping (since we're in the dessert). Coffee!
7:30am: Get to the pool and put down 1.5hr swimming (burn about ~800 Cal). Drink 1 bottle of Gatorade Endurance sport drink (~100 Cal) while swimming.
9:00am: Finish up swimming and drink another bottle of water on the drive home and eat a banana (~100 Cal).
10:00am: Breakfast time. Granola, fruit, yogurt (~400 Cal). Large plate of chicken and rice with a high dose of salt to carry us through the day (~800 Cal). Drink 3 more bottles of water.
11:00am: Nap / watch TV. Nurse a bottle of water.
1:00pm: Head out for 3.5hr bike ride (~2400 Cal). Go through 4 bottles of sport drink and CarboPro (~800 Cal).
5:00pm: Quick 30min transition run (~500 Cal).
5:30pm: Drink UltraGen recovery drink (~300 Cal) on the drive home.
6:00pm: Back at the house, drink 4 bottles of water. Eat lots of dried fruit and nuts (~300 Cal).
6:30pm: Cook some dinner.
7:30pm: Eat dinner, e.g. pesto whole chicken grilled on BBQ, mushrooms sauteed with bacon, asparagus, rice. Eat two more servings. (~1500Cal + ~250Cal in beer)
8:30pm: Sit around and pass out in food coma.
So at this point, I've eaten 3600 Cal, drunk 1400 Cal and used 3700 Cal on top of the 1900 Cal from my base metabolic rate. I'm exhausted from all of the food I have to eat and I'm still short about 600 Cal. Anyway, 5 days later of running between -600 Cal and -1000 Cal and you start to run low on energy. I left for Arizona around 174 (read: winter fat-ass) and returned home at 170 (read: well on my way to race weight). If I could do it all over again, I'd try to eat even more so that I didn't dog it so much on my last few long workouts. In any case, I now have a whole new respect for the caloric demands of being a pro cyclist or pro swimmer.
All in all, the trip ended up being fantastic and although there was a significant build-up of fatigue as the week progressed, I definitely came back to New York feeling a lot stronger. Highlights included riding Gates Pass, Mount Lemmon and Madera Canyon; lots of outdoor swimming; and running the Sabino Canyon. As I have more time, I'll probably put up a few posts on specific rides and runs that were really awesome and include a few pictures.
Totals for the week:
22.5hrs
~15,000 yd swimming
~230 mi cycling
~30 mi running
We stayed in a beautiful house to the west of downtown Tucson, tucked away in the mountains that had a number of bedrooms, a really awesome kitchen and an outdoor pool and grilling area. Worked out perfectly because we had tonnes of room to spread out, cook, relax and tinker with our bikes.
Pool at nighttimeHouse from the outside
Tour of kitchen and living area
When we weren't training, we spent most of our time lying around doing very. Oh, and eating. A lot. I figured that we'd have a lot more free time since we didn't have to go to work or keep up with the day-to-day of living in New York, but between training, prepping for workouts and cooking/eating all of the necessary food, the days went by pretty fast.
One of the interesting adaptations that I had to make was to increase my food intake dramatically. Normally, I go a little calorie-deficient on weekends in the spring and this helps me get down to race weight. But with five really tough days of training back-to-back, we all had to spend most of our free time putting food and fluids down the hatch. A typical day included:
6am: Wake-up, eat a giant bowl of cereal and fruit (~500 Cal). Drink 3 bottles of water to get back all of the fluids lost while sleeping (since we're in the dessert). Coffee!
7:30am: Get to the pool and put down 1.5hr swimming (burn about ~800 Cal). Drink 1 bottle of Gatorade Endurance sport drink (~100 Cal) while swimming.
9:00am: Finish up swimming and drink another bottle of water on the drive home and eat a banana (~100 Cal).
10:00am: Breakfast time. Granola, fruit, yogurt (~400 Cal). Large plate of chicken and rice with a high dose of salt to carry us through the day (~800 Cal). Drink 3 more bottles of water.
11:00am: Nap / watch TV. Nurse a bottle of water.
1:00pm: Head out for 3.5hr bike ride (~2400 Cal). Go through 4 bottles of sport drink and CarboPro (~800 Cal).
5:00pm: Quick 30min transition run (~500 Cal).
5:30pm: Drink UltraGen recovery drink (~300 Cal) on the drive home.
6:00pm: Back at the house, drink 4 bottles of water. Eat lots of dried fruit and nuts (~300 Cal).
6:30pm: Cook some dinner.
7:30pm: Eat dinner, e.g. pesto whole chicken grilled on BBQ, mushrooms sauteed with bacon, asparagus, rice. Eat two more servings. (~1500Cal + ~250Cal in beer)
8:30pm: Sit around and pass out in food coma.
So at this point, I've eaten 3600 Cal, drunk 1400 Cal and used 3700 Cal on top of the 1900 Cal from my base metabolic rate. I'm exhausted from all of the food I have to eat and I'm still short about 600 Cal. Anyway, 5 days later of running between -600 Cal and -1000 Cal and you start to run low on energy. I left for Arizona around 174 (read: winter fat-ass) and returned home at 170 (read: well on my way to race weight). If I could do it all over again, I'd try to eat even more so that I didn't dog it so much on my last few long workouts. In any case, I now have a whole new respect for the caloric demands of being a pro cyclist or pro swimmer.
All in all, the trip ended up being fantastic and although there was a significant build-up of fatigue as the week progressed, I definitely came back to New York feeling a lot stronger. Highlights included riding Gates Pass, Mount Lemmon and Madera Canyon; lots of outdoor swimming; and running the Sabino Canyon. As I have more time, I'll probably put up a few posts on specific rides and runs that were really awesome and include a few pictures.
Totals for the week:
22.5hrs
~15,000 yd swimming
~230 mi cycling
~30 mi running
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