Triathlon: What a Coach Can Do For You

I competed in my first triathlon in 2005.  It was a local sprint event in Colchester, Vermont.  At the time I was a serious rock climber;  I used swimming and running to stay in shape, but my sport was about pushing vertical limits.  I also sea kayaked a fair amount because it was more social and it rains a lot in the Northeast......the crags are not safe to climb when they're wet, but paddling in wet weather is no problem at all.

In the summer of 2005 I injured my back and couldn't climb for a while.  I found that swimming didn't aggravate my injury, nor did riding my mountain bike.  While I was recuperating an acquaintance, Rayne Herzog at the Shelburne Athletic Club, asked me to paddle my kayak at a Sprint Triathlon held in Shelburne, Vermont.  This race venue at Shelburne Beach is a beautiful place to compete in a triathlon and has become one of my favorite places to train, as well as to relax in good company while drinking wine, enjoying good food, and watching the sun set over the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain.

I had never seen a triathlon before and it was a great experience to paddle with the racers, giving aid when necessary, and then, after the last swimmer exited the water, move to Transition to guide bikers to dismount at the line for their T2 and then direct them on to the run course.  Basically at that point I was hooked.  I volunteered to work at the next couple of races and I studied what the top competitors did......I also started shopping for a road bike.

Over the next couple of years I climbed less and focused on triathlon more.  I read about it, developed training plans, bought lots of stuff, and raced in local sprints as well as a few Olympic distance events.  I got better, but not drastically.  In 2009 I raced my first Half-Ironman event, the Providence, Rhode Island 70.3 and at the end of that season I raced the Lobsterman in Freeport, Maine.  I did alright at my first half and I actually won my age group at Lobsterman, but I felt like I had reached the end of my ability to improve, I didn't know what to do next.

Up to this point I had been self coached, relying on books and articles by Gale Bernhardt and Joe Friel.  I think these were great places to start, but I felt like I wasn't peaking, or if I was, the timing of the peaks didn't coincide with my races. 

I decided I needed two things, better data and someone to help me interpret that data.  I bought a Garmin Forerunner 310XT GPS watch and a Garmin Edge 705 bike computer so I would have accurate running pace, bike speed, and distance travelled available to me while training.  The big investment, however, was in an SRM Power Meter so I would have unequivocal data of my output on the bike.

Technology accounted for, I began to shop for a coach.  I wanted someone based in the Northeast so we could actually meet from time to time.  I also wanted a coach that used the latest tools, namely power based data on the bike and Training Peaks or similar for delivery of workouts and review of data.  I did phone interviews with several prospects and selected Kurt Perham at Personal Best Multisport Coaching (www.pbmcoaching.com).  I chose Kurt because he uses the tools mentioned above, doesn't impose contact limits, is flexible regarding workouts and changing schedules, and he is experienced as both competitor and coach.

I hired Kurt to coach me in the Fall of 2009, and since that time I have steadily improved in terms of my fitness, my maturity as an athlete, and my performance.  I haven't always met my goals or raced as well as I expected, but in every race I have completed since starting to work with Kurt, I have improved, and in most of these races I set personal bests in one or more disciplines.  I turned 48 this year and I have been a life-long athlete.  Nevertheless, in the last 12 months I have run faster at every distance I have attempted than I have ever run in my life.  I am seeing similar gains in the water and on the bike, although I have less competitive history to draw upon in those realms.  In 2011 I finished 5th at the Providence 70.3, qualified for Age Group Nationals, and earned All-American Honors from USA Triathlon.  I was nationally ranked for the first time at 165th in the Mens 45-49 division.

I don't know all of the data that Kurt looks at, but I know he pays attention to the composite fitness index developed by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan, PhD called a Performance Management Chart, or PMC for short.  You can learn more about this chart and the data / calculations that go into it on the TrainingPeaks website (http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/cycling/what-is-the-performance-management-chart.aspx) (http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/triathlon/fitness,-fatigue-and-form.aspx), as well as from Joe Friel's The Training Bible book series.

I will summarize briefly and if I mess it up, I'm sure someone will let me know.  The PMC represents three aspects of training: fatigue, fitness, and race readiness.

Fatigue is technically referred to as Acute Training Load (ATL) and is a numeric representation of how hard you are training.  Increased training stress from longer and/or higher intensity workouts will show as upward spikes when graphed. 

Fitness comes as a result of our workouts.  Referred to as Chronic Training Load (CTL), it is a numeric representation of what the hard training has yielded.  ATL and CTL are complimentary, that is, hard training produces greater fitness.

Race Readiness is sometimes also know as form.  It is technically referred to as Training Stress Balance (TSB) and is a numeric representation of how rested we are, a measurement of our recovery following hard training. In order to be race ready we need to recover just enough from our fatigue to be sharp, but not so much that we lose fitness. Effectively balancing rest and training stress is a knife edge when it comes to fitness.

Shown below is my PMC spanning the last two years.  The first third of the chart shows my first season (2010) after hiring Kurt as my coach.  The blue line is my CTL, which as a reminder, represents fitness.  My fitness peaked for my main race that year, the Timberman 70.3 in August.  I did alright at that race, improving significantly over my first 70.3 the year before, but I was still way back in the pack, 345th overall and 33rd in my division.  My off-the-bike half-marathon run time was 1:48.

Two Year Performance Management Chart

The middle third on the chart is last season (2011) where I peaked for the Providence 70.3 in July, with a second peak for Age Group Nationals in August.  These peaks, and the associated ATL, are significantly higher than in 2010.  In my second year with Kurt I was able to place 88th overall and 5th in my age division at a major 70.3 event - I was on the podium!  My off-the-bike half-marathon run time had decreased to 1:36.  I didn't place as well at the Age Group National Championships in my hometown of Burlington, Vermont, but I did PR the 10K run and finished 28th against some of the fastest men in my division in the country, which was quite satisfying.

The final third of the chart is this season (2012). I raced Mooseman 70.3 on 3-June and didn't have the bike ride I was looking for, however, I ran off-the-bike in 1:34, which is a PR for me in a half-ironman event. To be fair, I have been focused more on getting ready for the Lake Placid Ironman. From the chart it is clear that my fitness is higher, but I may have lost too much of it for Mooseman due to an injury a few weeks prior to the race, which the chart shows as a decrease in CTL and a rise in TSB. Hopefully I am on my way to a good peak for Lake Placid next month and a faster race at Age Group Nationals in August.

This has been a long winded way of making a point, which is that I never could have made these gains in performance on my own. The chart shows clearly my improvements in fitness and I am absolutely convinced that it has been Kurt's patience with me, his knowledge of training and training tools, his well prescribed workouts, his willingness to adapt to my changing schedule and unforeseen issues, and his advice and tips on everything from race strategy to nutrition to injury treatment and recovery, that have made it possible for me to improve beyond what I thought possible.

I'm not saying such improvement can't be accomplished on your own, but I am certain that I couldn't have done it without Kurt's coaching.  I think the objectivity that a coach can have versus what we as athletes perceive day in and day out during training is invaluable. So my advice to any triathlete even moderately serious about the sport is to fore go the newest bike, the latest aero this or that, and consider hiring a coach.  The gains will be much more dramatic and measurable over time.

Summer Camp

When I was a kid I use to go to this summer camp in the San Jacinto mountains of California above the city of Hemet where I was born and raised.  The town was called Idyllwild and it was beautiful there, mountain meadows, fir trees that smelled of vanilla, Strawberry Creek for wading, hot days for playing frsibee and swimming, cool nights for campfire songs, star gazing and roasting marshmallows, all presided over by Taquitz Rock, a several thousand foot tall spire that I would return to climb much later in life.

I loved going to camp as a boy because of how much fun it was, then as a teenager because there were cute girls there and they were interested in me too.  Somehow it was different than normal life and we all played and flirted with much more abandon.  I think the first time I ever made out with a girl was at Idyllwild Pines after the nightly camp fire gathering.

When my daughters reached a certain age, they went away to a 4H camp, and later to gymnastics, field hockey, and dance camps.  I don't know if these made the same impression on them that my summer camping made on me, but I hope so.  As a grown-up our days of summer camp are far behind us and we can only feel envious as we drop our children at Art Camp or Farm Camp or Sailing Camp. 

However, last week I got to relive a little bit of my youth....I got to go to camp.  On Thursday I packed up my bike and all my other triathlon gear and drove over to Lake Placid for an Ironman Lake Placid training camp put on by Trimoxie Multisport and Personal Best Multisport.  The setting was absolutely breathtaking in a huge meadow a few miles outside of the town of Lake Placid, with 360 degree mountain views. 

I'm not sure I know the final count, but there were about 20 of us there for camp, which started on Thursday evening with an hour swim in Mirror Lake on the Ironman course.  I rode over with a few other campers, got into my wetsuit and swam two loops of the course.  Unfortunately the course as laid-out was for canoe racing and was longer than the Ironman course.  My two laps was probably more like 6000 yards and took me an hour and a half.  When I emerged from the water, everyone was gone.  I lugged my wetsuit and towel to the car, only to find it was gone too, with my phone and wallet!  I trudged through town and eventually found my group on their way to dinner.  So much for an auspicious start to camp.

On Friday we rode the Ironman course, 112 miles and then ran off the bike.  I did a 5 mile run, others went a little longer or shorter depending on their coaches instructions.  Saturday we did a timed swim on the course, had a late breakfast, then an easier ride and run than on Friday, complicate somewhat by summer thunder storms that pelted us with hail and soaked us with downpours.  Camp finished Sunday with a long run on the course, the blue sky above and the Olympic ski jumps in the background.

I could bore you with the details of my rides and runs and swims, but that's not why I'm writing.  I went to camp excited, but also with some trepidation about whether I would make it through the weekend.  My confidence about Ironman Lake Placid has not been high lately.  After spending the weekend on site with other people who's goals and training are similar to mine, and having survived the workouts my coach assigned, I can report that training camp was great for me and I have a renewed confidence that I will finish Ironman Lake Placid.

I should mention that my fellow campers were predominantly women.  There were two other guys at camp and all the rest of the attendees were amazing, beautiful, accomplished, funny, talented Ironwomen.  Unfortunately for me there weren't many who were single, so it wasn't like camp in my early teens, but I enjoyed the experience and their company immensely.

I think what made the deepest impression on me was just being around a group of people who came from all over, had a variety of careers and were at greatly different points in their lives, yet we all had Ironman triathlon in common.  Beyond that, we all shared coaches and so our workout prescriptions and training plans were also very similar.  I didn't necessarily swim, ride, or run with my fellow campers, but we were all doing the same workouts, which we planned ahead of time and discussed afterward.  The common, shared experience was a serious jolt for my solitary habits and I loved it.  I came back home thinking about how to have more of that kind of training and camaraderie in the future.

I would like to thank my coach Kurt Perham of Personal Best Multisport Coaching for recommending the camp and for being there to help run it, push us through the workouts, and for all the advice he gave to me and the other campers.  Similarly, Mary Holt-Wilson of TriMoxie Multisport Coaching deserves a huge thank you for organizing and running this camp. 

I don't know if I am truly ready for Ironman Lake Placid, but thanks to Kurt, Mary, and all my fellow campers, I am a lot more ready than I was.  It wasn't like Idyllwild Pines in my youth, but I loved summer camp circa 2012 just as much, even if I didn't have the energy to play Frisbee all afternoon.

Memory Lane

I had an interesting experience this morning at work.  I was asked to go back and recreate a series of events that occurred last year on the project I was managing at the time.  I am not a copious note taker in my daily life, so in order to help out with the request, I had to go back through my e-mail from that period.  This was last August and September, and at that time I was still in the 4-year relationship that ended suddenly at the beginning of this year.

As I scrolled through all of the e-mail exchanges searching for the ones that were necessary to describe the relevant programmatic milestones, decisions, issues, and responses, I couldn't miss the personal exchanges between me and my partner that were interspersed among the work stuff.  Not being of sound mind, I allowed myself to take a little trip down memory lane and read through these.

I'll tell you right now, I am a letter writer and that means that I also tend to write longer e-mails to people that I know well and care about.  Obviously I am a modern man and I blog, text, tweet, and instant message.  But I also miss the days of my youth when the only way to stay in touch with someone was to write to them, assuming of course, that your parents were like mine and wouldn't let you stay on the phone for hours, fiddling with the cord to keep you hands and arms and feet busy. I like putting my thoughts and feelings down on paper or an e-mail.

In the time frame at the end of last summer, I didn't write any deep or substantial e-mails and she wasn't a writer, so even if I had, there wouldn't have been any reciprocation.  But what struck me as I read through 6 or 8 weeks of conversations is that I didn't miss or skip any opportunities to make sure she knew how I felt about her.....if I had died suddenly in a car crash, she would have known that that I loved her and that I was thinking of her.  Beyond that it was also clear that I was actively engaged in living a shared life with her, that her thoughts and dreams and kids and health and plans mattered, from the mundane details of daily life to helping her improve her running skills to planning future vacations to shopping for homes to buy together.  I listened, I cared, I participated, I gave of my love, attention, time, and money.

My conclusion from this little sojourn into the not to distant past is that I know how to be a good partner, I know how to have a relationship.  I worry about this sometimes as relationships seem to be few and far between for me, and holding on to them often seems as difficult as trying to hold onto water.  But the truth is, I know how to show up and I know what it means to share a committed life with another.  I don't know how to save a relationship that's slipping away, how to convince someone that we do in fact have a future together, how to keep them interested when they're drawn to another, or what to do when they believe relationships shouldn't take much effort. 

I may not be ready to fall in love again, but when I do, my quick study of how I functioned in my last relationship is at least reassuring that I have the tools to serve me in the next.  I find that vaguely reassuring and affirming at this point in my life.

Mooseman Half-Ironman 2012

My first triathlon of the 2012 season was this last Sunday, the Mooseman 70.3 in Bristol, New Hampshire.  I picked Mooseman because I raced there last year and had a great day, and it is just the right amount of time before Lake Placid Ironman to get a good read on fitness and adjust training targets if necessary. My goal for Mooseman was to go 4:45, hoping to be on the podium with a qualifying spot to the 70.3 World Championship in Las Vegas on September 9th.  I had a good race this year, but didn't reach my goals.

Mooseman is challenging race.  It's early in the season, so Newfound Lake is often frigid. The bike course is very difficult with a steep ascent that has to be done twice followed by a harrowing descent on the opposite side.  And the weather conditions tend to vary widely from year to year.  In 2011 the lake temperature was 59 degrees and the air was a chilly 41 when I walked into transition. However, it was clear and the sun soon warmed the venue to deliver a great day weatherwise.

Not so this year.  I arrived at Newfound Lake on Thursday and stayed at a sweet little cottage right on the shore.  The weather was fantastic and when I checked in for the race on Friday I had a bounce in my step and a lightness in my heart.  I was quite happy with my transition spot, which had fast, direct access from the swim to the bike, and from the bike to the run.

Mother nature had other ideas, however. By late Friday it had clouded over and by the time I awoke on Saturday morning the temperature had locked onto 50 degrees and it had started raining.  I did a quick swim off the beach where I was staying, went for an easy spin on the race setup for the bike, and headed out for my high glycemic index breakfast at the Tilton Diner.  The Mooseman Olympic Distance race was on Saturday and as I drove along 3A in Bristol I was able to see the racers on their bikes, miserable in the pouring rain.  That could be me tomorrow, I thought.

It rained all day on Saturday and the wind was blustery and fierce.  I rested in the cottage Saturday afternoon until my daughter Nicole arrived, then we went to dinner with some other athletes and turned in early, hoping the weather would be subside.

On race morning it was still wet outside, everything was water logged, but the wind had abated and it wasn't raining.  I arrived in transition to find my perfect spot under 6 inches of water!  I racked my bike and just stood there trying to figure out how this was going to work.  Eventually a race official came by and told me I could move to the periphery, where they had erected more racks and tables for us.  The photo below shows my transition spot, just beyond the partly submerged orange cone.

My new spot wasn't very central and the only way to and from it from the bike start-finish was via a winding path over roots and moss, right past the portolets, and through a tangle of other bike racks.  It was dry, but I couldn't run with my bike as I am used to doing in transition.

I got all setup, grabbed my swim gear, and started my warm up.  The air was cool and damp, but the water in the lake was maybe 65 degrees, warmer than last year and more comfortable than the air. My swim wave was the very last one and included all male athletes 45+ years in age.  Being in the last wave gave me plenty of time to warm-up, then I got myself to the front of the pack for the start.

Last year I did not have a great swim at Mooseman.  I sprinted at the start, went hypoxic, and then had to swim easy to catch my breath.  I meandered a bit and had trouble staying on course.  I was cold.  Given all that my time of 30:25 was not bad.  This year I dropped immediately onto a fast pair of feet, swam within myself for the sprint, and settled into a good, strong rhythm. 

I stayed on course and passed a lot of people from the earlier swim waves.  My wave was wearing white caps and after the first turn on the rectangle I didn't see any more white caps.  Nearing the finish my shoulders and lats were hurting from the effort and I felt I had delivered the swim I had worked for all winter.  Unfortunately there are just too many variables to account for and my time of 30:36 surprised me.  I was 7th in my age group out of the water, but I was already behind my goal race pace by two minutes.

The water was so cold in 2011 that I did not function well in T1, taking nearly 4 minutes to get going on the bike.  I wasn't stellar this year, but I got out onto the bike in two and a half minutes, which is acceptable.  The bike course was wet, so I rode more conservatively than normal.  Not everyone took this approach though, and on the long descent following the first major climb there were three riders down against the guard rail, bikes twisted, and blood flowing.  All three riders were hospitalized.

I changed the gearing on my bike for Mooseman, choosing to use a compact crank with a 34 cog chain ring.  This allowed me to climb very efficiently and even though some very fast riders caught me on the first lap, I was able to gap them going up the big climb the second time.  I was unable to hold that gap through to the end of the bike leg though.  Compared to last year, I felt like I had a better ride, but like the swim this was deceiving and my time of 2:53 was actually 3 minutes slower than in 2011.  I averaged 184 watts over the 56 mile ride, which is lower than it should be and slightly under my power output from last year. Cadence of 85 rpm was also not as high as I normally target. The good news is that for the first time ever I was able to pee while on the bike, a skill I have never before been able to use.

I had a good transition to the run but entered the 13.1 mile course having fallen to 12th place in my age group.  I settled into my pace of about 7 minutes per mile and enjoyed both the scenery and seeing other athletes.  The Mooseman run is an out and back, 2 circuits, so you see a lot of people coming and going.

I was able to hold my pace, but my left hamstring was threatening to cramp the entire way.  I was taking in fluids from the aid stations, mostly through my mouth, although I did dump quite a bit of Ironman Perform on my white tri suit, as drinking from a cup is a skill that eludes me when I'm running. I also took some in through one eye when I mistook it for my mouth, and let me tell you, energy drinks with lots of electrolytes do not mix well in your eye.

For the 2nd loop of the run I targeted a guy from my age group that passed me on the bike that I could see up the road from me.  I caught him with about 3.5 miles to go, passed him in an aid station, and then tried to dial up the speed a little.  My hamstring did not agree with this decision and the guy ran alongside me for a little bit.  I figured out that he was slow going up inclines and I used that to gap him at the turn around.  With two miles to go he was no where to be seen.

I ran hard the last couple of miles, faster than my goal pace.  It hurt, but my coach always says that we train long hard hours just so we can go deep into the pain cave during races.  I was making serious noise with every exhale as I chugged toward the finish.  This weekend I met another athlete that is also coached by Kurt Perham at Personal Best Multisport.  Her name is Mary Holt-Wilson and I saw her on the run course a couple of times and cheered her on.  As I neared the finish there was Mary in front of me, so I sprinted in and we finished at the same time. 

I ran a personal best half-marathon in a 70.3 race of 1:34, but my overall time of 5:02 was only a couple of minutes faster than last year, earned me 8th place in my age group, and was not good enough to earn a qualifying slot to 70.3 Worlds.  Nevertheless, it was a good first race for 2012 and it highlights the areas of focus for Lake Placid Ironman in July as well as for any future 70.3 races I pursue.

Thank you to my support crew in Burlington, Vermont including the folks at Green Mountain Rehab & Sports Medicine and Jenn O'Connor at Sustainable Wellness Massage.  Also thank you to Chris Coffey for loaning me his Flashpoint Powertap rear race wheel and to Gary Snow for all his advice about training faster to go faster.  A huge thanks to my coach, Kurt Perham, I've come a long way as a triathlete and I owe most of that progress to Kurt and his wisdom regarding training for multi sports.  Finally, a special thank you to my daughter Nicole who acted as pit crew, cheer leader, and photographer.  I appreciate your help and support, it wouldn't be nearly as fun or rewarding without you, and the photos you took are awesome.

   Next stop -Lake Placid Ironman - July 22, 2012