Friends,

I hope this email finds everyone doing well; for those in the States: Happy Thanksgiving.

I traveled down to Tempe, Arizona this past weekend to race the final North American Ironman of the season (IM Arizona). I felt good about my preparations going into the race and I had hoped to improve upon my recent finish at Ironman Canada in August.

The swim started out nicely and I found myself near the front of a large pack of swimmers. Near the halfway point I hit a bit of a wall and found myself with some calf cramps, but I soon recovered and tried to hop back onto the pack. I never regained contact, but I was only 20-30 seconds off pace so I planned to hurry through T1 to make up some ground.

I headed out on the bike course feeling as though I had put myself in a decent position and I started to plug away at the second leg of the race. The first lap (of three) went by pretty nicely, but the second lap began to feel like a bit of a struggle. I tried to preserve all the energy I could on the fast sections of the course, but by the time the third lap came around I really just felt off. I knew I was starting to slow down, but I started to focus more on the upcoming run instead of burying myself to get an extra minute or two on the bike.

Unfortunately, I could tell at the start of the run that things weren’t quite right. I really felt quite awful to be honest, but I decided to just get through one loop of the run and take it from there. I eventually started to feel a bit better, but I knew that my goals at the start of the day were simply not going to happen. I told Brooke “no more splits” and just plugged away doing the best I could. I actually managed to move up 4-5 spots in the last hour and finished up the race in 11th place with a time of 8:40.

I missed out on a few goals I set for myself this past weekend, but I still got a lot satisfaction from the day. There is a certain sense of accomplishment that comes from sticking things out even when the day is not what you hoped for. It makes it easier to push yourself on the days that are going your way.

I have one more race before putting my feet up for an offseason. I will be traveling down to New Zealand to race Challenge Wanaka on January 17th.

I’d like to personally thank John Fell with Advantage Packaging for stepping in as a title sponsor for IMAZ. I’d also like to congratulate him on his 12:22 finish on Sunday.

Happy Holidays,

Justin Daerr

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A little over two weeks ago I was racing the Soma HIM down in Tempe. I made little mention to the details of the race (other than that it didn’t go so well), but I should mention that I had a crash… …on the run.

At the start of the run I clearly realized that I was WAY out of contention so I just decided to run at an IM effort in order to save my legs. As a result, I was occassionally running on the dirt/grass that paralleled the bike paths/sidewalks we were running on.

About 3/4 of the way through the first mile I was cruising along enjoying myself.

About 3/4 +.001 miles into the run I was on the ground.

Apparently they set porta pottis fairly close to the sidewalk, but they are even closer when you are running on the dirt. I came cruising by at the very moment that some dude swung the door open. I slammed into so hard that I fell backwards and actually did a somersault. I was left with a nice bruise/cut on my face as well.

All I could think was:

“That’s about right.”

This moment made me think back on things that have happened to me over the past 8+ years.

In 2002 I was racing a HIM in a speedo. I crashed on a chip sealed road.

I don’t wear a speedo when I race any more. I suspect anyone that still does has not crashed while wearing one.

In 2003 I was on my way home from a ride in College Station, Texas. I was stopped at the train tracks (I spent about 967 hours on either side of these trains in college). As the train passed, the railroad crossing barriers rose. I began to ride across the tracks. Then the barrier cranked at its hinge and fell directly on me… …like a tree falling in the woods. This did not happen in the middle of nowhere. This was one of the busiest intersections near campus (Wellbourne and G Bush for those in the know) and traffic kind of stopped in shock and people came over to see if I was ok (such humanitarians). I was OK because of my helmet.

Wear your helmet because something might fall on you.

In 2006 I was racing in Lake George, New York. The race director had invited me out to race and do a presentation the evening before the event. Its a lot of fun to do these sorts of things, but you definitely get the feeling that you_cannot_race poorly.

I came out of the water in 2nd and came out of T1 in first. Good deal.

The bike course began with a climb that went up a narrow bike path. I had my bike shoes on, but somewhere on the bike path I decided I needed to adjust the strap. I reached down to fix them.

Then I was on the ground.

I had managed to edge my wheel off course and I slammed down on the ground HARD. I thought about how awesome it would be to crash out of this race (that I wanted to win) in a single athlete collision… …while leading the race.

Fortunately I didn’t wreck my bike (or myself) too badly and I was able to roll on to victory.

In 2008, I crashed into a porta potti.

jd

A few days ago I was chatting with my friend about what I consider to be ‘acceptable fatigue.’ The conversation stemmed from talking back and forth about how tired we were.

The first question is: when does ‘being tired’ become detrimental to your goals?

I’ve spent a lot of time asking this same question and I usually don’t get the answer until I’ve overdone it and find myself fairly shelled. This is not to say that I intended to wear myself out, but rather, I underestimated the cost on certain training blocks and/or sessions. Over time I accumulate enough real world data (by this, I mean, how I feel) to know how to place workouts appropriately.

This past round of training I have experimented with new sessions in an attempt to breakthrough on various levels. While the sessions themselves went well I found myself needing nearly 72 hours to fully recover from them as opposed to the 24 or 48 hours that I had anticipated. While this might not seem like a big deal, I find that it is. Something that takes so long to recover from cannot become a weekly staple in your training plan. It might become something you do monthly or every few weeks knowing that the cost will be high (but the return might be worth it). Trying to make it a weekly staple will cost you too much fitness loss when compounded week after week.

Another question: when is it ok to train tired?

This question is a bit complicated because we are almost always somewhat tired. I see two primary thinking patterns amongst folks I know:

1. Do the best that you can every day. Some days will be better than others and that’s ok.

2. Only train at the prescribed power, pace of the session or shut it down.

My own line of thinking falls somewhere in the middle of those. There are certain days when I know that my level of fatigue from past sessions might not allow me to execute workouts perfectly based on the intensity guidelines (i.e. goal pace/power). In my mind, being off by a couple percentages is ok. Being off by huge margins (and subsequently feeling awful) is not.

A practical example:

1. I am planning to ride long intervals continuously between X and X+30 watts with a target of sitting around X+15. I had hard training the 24 or 48 hours beforehand and can only really manage hanging around in the X to X+5 range. In this case, I roll on. I might also take more breaks/recovery intervals to try to keep power up. I adjust the workout so that I can still manage to hit the target numbers. (For ex: I might ride 8 x 10 minutes on 5 min rest instead of 4 x 20 on 5 min rest).

2. I am planning to ride long intervals continuously between X and X+30 watts with a target of sitting around X+15. Getting anywhere near that range is a massive struggle; my legs burn, my HR is depressed (or elevated) and I’m cranky. The only option is to ride easy. In this case, I go home or cut the session short.

It takes time to know when you are simply tired and need a longer warm up (or an adjustment to the session); and when you really need to shut things down to regroup. I never do things perfectly and I’m constantly trying to learn how various sessions and training blocks affect me. All this is in hopes that one day, when there aren’t many seasons left, I might just get it right.

jd

We sat down with five-time World Champion Simon Lessing on Friday. You can access the podcast here.

You can read more about Simon at www.bouldercoaching.com.

jd