"Don't Stop Believing" Journey to Ironman

Endurance Nation Value Vs. "The Other Coach"

I wrote the following in response to an athlete who is considering joining Endurance Nation (EN). We both used "the other coach" in previous years, and he wanted my comparison. It's such a ringing endorsement for EN, I thought I'd share it. I have been with EN for a full year now, and my certainty they are the most value-laden, effective training option out there just gets stronger every day.

Dear Athlete,

Happy to answer any questions you have re EN vs. "the other coach." I used "the other coach" for two years. I loved his approach of "strong before long," and the philosophy of lower volume tempered with intensity to maximize ROI in training. I made some gains, and completed my first Ironman in Florida. I'm not a Kona-qualifier level athlete, but I got the job done. I've met "the other coach" a couple of times, and found him to be a great, nice guy.

I had to leave "the other coach" for one very simple reason. The communication from him was so awful, it was almost criminal given the amount of money I was paying. Sometimes a week or more would go by before he would get back to me on a simple question. It just became intolerable. Perhaps he's changed his ways, but I know others who have had similar complaints. Granted, I thought the training was good, but I felt I was always in the dark. Should I be doing this? That? Run how far? Am I making progress? Getting faster? Am I ready? I went into IMFL with little direct evidence that I was prepared apart from time in the saddle.

EN turned everything on its head. When they first started up last September, I "took a chance" on their off-season program. (OS). I knew from "the other coach" that intensity-based training worked, and a strong off-season program was important. What I have gotten from EN is almost indescribable. Now riding with power, I test all the time. Since I started with EN, my power at threshold on the bike has gone up 40 watts! That's a 26% increase. In the OS season alone, I dropped 2' from my 10K PR, and running is my weakest sport.

Coach Rich and Coach Patrick keep saying this EN is for the "self-coached athlete." I think they need to change that! I get more coaching, more direction, more support, and more feedback in a week at EN than I did in two years with "the other coach." The forum will introduce you to athletes of such intelligence and experience, ready to share and advise. Rich and Patrick "drive the bus" overseeing all, posting daily, advising, helping. and correcting. I can't imagine how much service their 1:1 athletes got, if this is what they call "self-coached."

All I can say is that EN not only has gotten me faster, but will send me into IMFL this year with a renewed, solid confidence I thought was long dead. For me, this training not only got the physical in place, but changed my mental outlook to a place that is positive, focused, and a lot tougher. I can assure you, no matter what level athlete you are, this program will test you, and challenge you, push you to your limits and beyond. Hope you give it a go.

The EN Out-Season is starting up in October, November and December. Do it!

Stupid Weather--Riding Inside All Weekend

This picture may as well be me. What a frustrating, lousy weekend of riding since I ended up being trapped in the basement pain cave rather than being outside. The stupid weatherman, and the stupid radar totally lied on Saturday morning. I got up early to the sound of quiet. Wet roads, and dense fog, but no rain. By every assurance, the winds and rain of judgement day were about to be upon us so I stuck with the indoor plan I worked out with my coach Rich Strauss--run 30', crank the main sets on the bike for 2 hours, run 30'. So I ran in the fog, and got back home thinking I beat the rain. Keith and I have a summit, and he's not to keen on unstrapping the bikes from CT only to get dumped on, and have to come home because we get too cold. I agree, so down we go into the pain cave.

45' into the ride, no rain. 90' no rain. 2 flippin' hours NO RAIN!!!!  27' minutes into the second 30' run, buckets of rain. I could have gotten 4 hours in easily. Vexation. That said, I got in 7 miles of running today like cake. If I have to stay inside, the silver lining will be that by default I get in nice big milage running week. No injuries. All good.

By all reports, today was supposed to be dryer, and it looked likely we could get out by 8. At 3, it was still raining. I am not even going to describe how hideous it was riding in the basement again today. I can't pedal my Power Tap watts inside (much, much too hard), so do I go by the Computrainer watts? It's been so long, I can't remember what do in the winter! Anyway, what's done is done, and what isn't, isn't. I lasted 2.5 hours today. Enough! 7.5 hours of scheduled riding got whittled down to 4.5. Oh well.

You know, I used to ride in the rain. But after many years of--flatting in deluges, getting drenched by semis changing tires on the side of the road, being so cold and worried about my extremeties, spending too much time cleaning the filthy bike after--it has lost it's allure. Been there, done that, no fun. I think I've learned all I ever need to about riding in bad conditions. That said, seems I need a mental adjustment about riding indoors again.

After the chaos of the century last weekend, and the tedium of this weekend, I think the mental toughness part is in place. OK universe...enough already! Two more weeks of major training then it's time to taper down! Almost there. Pinch me, I'm so excited! Bring it on!

Seacoast Century Ride--Race Rehearsal #1

Seacoast Century, September 20, 2008
Mercury was in retrograde last week. Stock market meltdown, I cracked the bumper on my car, and it finished up with the Seacoast Century Ride. When training with Endurance Nation all Ironman athletes do two race rehearsal (RR) days--100+ miles on the bike followed by a quick change for a 6 mile brick run. Saturday was RR #1 in my prep for Ironman Florida. Let's the just that the Seacoast Century course and my RR goals were, um, not well suited to each other! Let's just call it the "WTF Ride from Hell."

My husband and I signed up for this ride because we needed a change of scene. It starts in NH, and wends through MA, and up into ME. Part of it is flat and windy, so that was a plus. I skimmed the website, but didn’t take in any of the details. Mistake. Note to self: Don’t ever, ever do this century as a RR.

I love a good yarn, so here goes:

WTF #1: It was 37 degree and windy. It’s Sept. 20! You can see your breath, and it’s cold. I had to start the ride with shirt, arm warmers, knee warmers, vest, jacket, headband, and mitts over my gloves. Everyone is dressed like it’s February!

WTF#2: About 10’ into the ride I realize my second 3-hour feed is bottle at home in the fridge! Uh, oh. I don’t have enough blocks or GU to make up the difference either. OK then, I’ll just have do the aid stations. I was going to have to stop to refill water anyway, so I’ll just have to keep my head and do what I can. (Vanilla Wafers rock, BTW!)

The first hour goes well, and I see that my watts are a bit lower than they should be. But it’s freezing, I’m still warming up, so I’m not worried. I am, however, feeling awesome, and ready to ride. First hour my normalized power is 118 watts (too low), 16.6 mph. Time to add a little pepper.

WTF#3: At about the 90’ mark I start getting dashes on my PowerTap display. Uh, oh.  I have not had one minute of malfunction with it. Not one. It keeps cutting out, and I know this is screwing up any data. But when the watts do show up, I’m see doing OK. Something tells me to dial in the perceived exertion of all this. I think I’m going to need it.

WTF#4: Once we head out from the beach, and have to start following the route, I can see that the paint markings in the road suck! They put the paint right AT the corner! People are yelling, “where’s the paint?” and going left, right, straight. Not good.

WTF#5: How many left turns can YOU fit into a century ride? Lefts turns on these little, tiny roads, major intersections with no cops, everywhere. Oh yeah, there are rotaries too. The web site did say “this route is not fast.” You will see as the hours go by how much I should have read the website!

WTF#6: Once we leave the beach, we head into the back roads of lovely Portsmouth, NH. Have you ever been on the back roads of a historic NE seacoast town? They are no bigger than alleys and about ¼-mile long. I was stuck in lines of riders, taking lefts, twisting and turning through these tiny, snaky roads. Oy. There are Escalades and pickups trying to get through too. My knuckles are white. I think of my coach Rich Strauss saying every rider is "Uncle Clem" until proven otherwise. I almost got killed 100 times on this ride. No wait…that’s only once a mile! It was waaaaay more than that!

WTF#7: Once we navigate out of the back roads we quickly come to the bridge in Portsmouth, NH. OK, you ready for this???? You have to flippin’ WALK YOUR BIKE over the bridge!!!  NO. WAY. That’s what I get for not reading the web site. But wait! Down the road there is another bridge! Yup, gotta walk over this one too!  I’m glad I did because the metal grating was like spikes. There were two guys on the other side changing flats from it. Off and walk again.

Here's a picture from the web site of one of the bridge crossings. Is that not unreal? Don't get me started on the people who got stuck when the drawbridge went up!

WTF#8: I pull into the rest stop at mile 40, and there is my husband Keith sitting in the grass. If there is one thing this man can do, it’s ride one steady, good century. Uh, oh. As it turns out, he was just waiting for me. “Do you want company?” he asks. I don’t want to ruin his ride, but he says, “This is totally effed. It’s a cross between a tour and a commute. I’d rather just ride together.” I am so grateful.  Good thing too, because lack of paint for the rest of the ride would have found me in Montreal! My DH is a terrific navigator.

WTF#9: About 10’ after I link up with Keith, my Power Tap screen goes completely blank. Blank!  We just changed the batteries not too long ago. Oh my head. Keith does some mental calculations, and figures out what he’ll ride to make it “match” what I need to do. I just have to stay with him, and I should be close. For him, this is like riding with a toddler. Do you love this man or what?

WTF#10: We head inland into the hills (not bad hills at all compared to what I ride on all the time). The turnaround is scenic climb to a lighthouse. Want to die today????? OMG, every grampy tourist is driving up there. One Crown Vic is right on my hip trying to drive through the riders! Truly, it was scary.  I turned around early to get away from it. Then it was back into snaky, windy roads in pretty York Harbor.

WTF#11: Shifting on a hill, my chain comes off.  Not once, not ever has my chain come off this bike. At this point, Keith and I just start laughing. It is so ridiculous, it’s just funny!

FINALLY, at about mile 60ish we get some “clear” roads.  There’s still plenty of traffic, but by comparison it feels calmer. But first, we have to go over those bridges AGAIN!!!  In the turn off for the 100, there is suddenly NO ONE. K rides “my watts” and we just ride steady. Felt awesome. Coming to the end, I channeled another EN athlete, who said his legs couldn’t wait to run after the bike in Ironman Wisconsin. My legs felt GREAT. I kept thinking, “fresh as a daisy.” I was ready to get off and run!  I have felt WAY more taxed on the four hour EN training rides, than I did on this day.

In the end, the bike was 104 miles. The data Keith has shows us averaging 17.5 mph from mile 40-104. I can’t even imagine how we did even that much. I have no real data for this ride, but what I do have is a new mental place. On the way home, Keith asked me if I wasn’t “further down the road mentally” than I was 12 hours before. The answer is YES! The entire day I “stayed in my box” as best I could. I focused, dealt with the circumstances at hand, and tried to find the humor in it all. Every time I jumped out of the box to freak out or be frustrated, I jumped back in. I didn’t do what I set out to do physically on this ride, but it turned out to be a mental bonanza. Throw anything at me in the Ironman.

The Run
Here’s where I channeled my girl peeps who have done some awesome stuff this year—Gina, Nemo, Marianne, Collen, KrisF, Heidi, Verna, Paula, Michele, Leigh, Helen, and the rest! Felt fantastic the entire hour!!!! I have to slow it down though. Not that it was fast by any means, but it was way too fast for the IM run. I tried to jog the first mile, but it was still too much. I have to dial this is better next time. Miles were 10:01; 9:50; 9:41; 9:40: 9:37. The last one I just let myself run by feel and I did 9:09. I will crash and burn if I do that on IM day. But at least something went well!

So that’s the whole enchilada! I still feel I need to:
Dial in the nutrition
Next time, focus on the physical pace of the RR now that the head space is better
Get a fit correction on my bike. Not that I spent much time aero, given the circumstances, but the fit is off.
Ease off on the brick run
Continue to be so excited and HAVE FUN! 

17.5 Hours Last Week--One of My Biggest Training Weeks Yet

With 53 days to go, I am now neck deep in Ironman training. Since I'm feeling so much better physically these days, I am having so much fun with it all! This was the last week of a major three week build, and I went into it with some residual fatigue from what had come before. But I ended up having a great, great week. Here's how it went.

Started with a race rehearsal (RR) swim in Walden pond with two other Endurance Nation athletes on the Labor Day holiday. The 2.4 miles went like clockwork, and I know I'm ready for the race swim. In training I like to get over what I call the "swim hump"--getting to that place where you are certain the swim is in there. All the pool workouts I've been doing so religiously, capped by the RR tells me I'm good to go. I swam 9,000 yards this week all tolled. Here we are getting ready for the swim.

It was a big run week with a total of about 35 miles. My longest run this week was 16 miles in about 2:30. Not bad, and that's a LOT for me. I'm quite sure that nagging injuries kept me from even coming close to that weekly total last time I trained for IMFL. That's reassuring mentally and physically. I still have some work to do in the run training in these final few weeks. Mainly I need to make sure I stay consistent and keep up the frequency.

It was a big bike week too. A total of 9 hours on the bike with a ton of interval work. The EN bike training is incredibly productive, but it is tough. My last four hour ride on Sunday was a major mental challenge. Physically, I was holding up fine, but I think knowing I would get a rest week as soon as I was through with the ride was a big incentive for me to git 'er done. Here is a sample of the four hour ride I did. Trust me, this is a good one! In a few weeks the Functional Threshold intervals go up to 2 x 20'. Ow, that's going to be rough.

Warm Up: 45' @ 65-70% of functional threshold (FT) watts
Main Set: 2 x 40' (5') @ 80-85% FT
10' @ 65-70% FT
3 x 10' (4') @ 95-100% FT
Remainder is 80-85% FT, as you feel.

So all tolled it was:
Swim 3:30
Bike 9:00
Run 5:00

I am entitled, and entirely deserve every single minute of this step down rest week! And I'm taking it!

As my Endurance Nation friend Marianne says, Runnin', Ridin', Swimmin', and having a blast!

Blood Doping from an Interesting Perspective--Me!

I knew that would get your attention! I’m obviously NOT blood doping. I’m not even quite sure what that is entirely, but I have resolved a physical issue that might be useful for others to know about.

I posted this about my low iron issue a few months ago. Here's an update:

A number of months ago, my lady doc did some routine blood work. She checked my iron stores (ferritin), and it had dropped to a level 29. The range of normal is 30-300. She said, “that number isn’t even adequate for someone who sits on the sofa, never mind someone like you. Get thee to a hematologist.” I got lots of resistance from my PC, but fought and eventually got a referral. The PC was awful about it. I’m switching docs.

The hematologist, who turns out to be a marathoner, said he could not imagine how I was even remotely doing what I was doing given this depletion. He said, “you are three quarts low, plus some.You need help.” After some details we had to work out re insurance, I started on iron infusions six weeks ago. I get 200x the oral dosage in each bag of iron. I’ve been going once a week. I likely have 2 infusions left. The doc wants my level to be at about 150. (I sit in the infusion center with all the chemo people—very sobering, let me tell you.)

About three weeks ago, I started to feel better. Now this week I feel SO MUCH BETTER I honestly could cry. It literally brings me to tears to think about how for the past several years, I have struggled and struggled and gotten so down on myself. I’ve fought with my PC about this before for many years, and she kept saying, “you just run low normally. This is nothing to treat.” I knew that wasn’t right, but didn’t know what to do. Not only did I feel bad training, but I was zonked in so many aspect of my life from being tired all the time. It all got translated in my head as being incapable.

I came **this close** to dropping out this triathlon season entirely, including bagging my IM coming up in November. In March I could barely run 45’ without stopping. I kid you not. Now fortified, I am doing so, so well in my training, and feeling much better. For years I felt I had more in there I just “couldn’t get at.” I just knew it.

My message is, what we do here asks a lot of us body and soul. But sometimes, if you think something is off physically in your training, it may NOT be in your head. We owe it to our bodies to be as fit as we can be on every level. Get yourself checked out thoroughly, and fight for what you need. Not only am I training better, but I am just have more to give everywhere in my life.

PS—I joke that now I can understand why the pros dope. If I feel this good just training in a “normal range,” those guys must feel like Superman!

Hope this helps a person or three out there struggling with the same issue.