Empowered Athlete Training Camp

For the last eight days I took part in a Denver-based training camp held by Melissa Mantak (Coach and Owner/Operator of Empowered Athlete). The camp consisted of daily swim, bike and run sessions as well as evening presentations and discussions on various topics related to sport, performance, nutrition, altitude, etc. The camp included nine triathletes (self included) with a mix of ability and experience. Most of the athletes have turned professional, but a couple are on the verge of earning their pro cards and moving on to the next level. We also varied in distance-discipline; most were focused on Olympic to HIM racing, but a few of us were long course athletes. Regardless of race duration, the training load of the camp would have progressed any athlete and I'm sure everyone walked away with better fitness (and new friends).

In almost every camp I've ever been to, someone falls ill. Unfortunately, this time, it was me. I came across some sort of stomach bug; I have no idea if it was from something I ate or something I caught, but it hampered the second half of the camp for me. Below, you'll see the layout of the camp with my missed sessions in ().

Day One: 30 minute easy run, 4 hour moderate ride with two tempo climbs of ~20-25 minutes of duration up Lookout Mountain. ~5K swim, short course yards, with a mixture of intensities.

Day Two: 13 mile run with the final 4K uphill (steep) towards the top of Red Rocks. 5K swim, Long Course, with some pulling. One hour recovery spin on the trainer.

Day Three: 5K swim, Long Course, challenging main set. 30 minute skills session with dynamic warm up and run drills followed by a 10K run on trails. Afternoon ride of nearly 2 hours at moderate, aerobic effort.

Day Four: 5K swim, Long Course, pulling and fast 50s. 10K run with a main set of 3x: 10 x 30on/30off. Afternoon trainer ride with threshold and vo2 main set (2 hours) with 7K tempo run off the bike (my choice, others ran broken tempo or aerobic).

Day Five: 5K swim, Short Course Yards, technique focused (skipped). 2 hour ride, aerobic (skipped). 45 minute aerobic run (skipped).

Day Six: 5K swim, Long Course, Aerobic/strength with fast 50s. Afternoon brick workout: bike/run/bike/run/bike/run. Lasted nearly 4 hours with a lot of intensity (skipped).

Day Seven: Morning run, aerobic/longer, 90 minutes (about 12 miles). 4K swim, Short Course meters, aerobic with skills.

Day Eight: 3.5 hour ride with 50-60 minute tempo climb (my choice, others rode moderate). 7K easy run in the afternoon.

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I find training camps with this structure to be highly effective. The camp is bookended with aerobic overdistance sessions, while the middle of the camp sees the highest intensity. When a camp follows this layout, I believe its easier for athletes to come in and out of them with little disruption to their personal training schedule they execute at home. Training camps need to push, not break, athletes and this camp will most likely do just that for everyone.

As with most camps, I walked away learning a lot. Each athlete and coach has their own story, own style and own way of doing things. Listening and absorbing all their perspectives goes a long way in helping progress all of us as athletes. Each evening we formalized various topic discussions, but we also exchanged lots of ideas and stories during the downtime between sessions. Sometimes, its those moments that really generate some of the most valuable insight for all of us.

One the athletes, Jackie Arendt, blogged about each day's training. If you want to read more details about the sessions, you can find them here.

I'll be spending the next couple weeks here in Boulder before heading to a two week training camp in Tucson with my coach, Cliff English. That will be followed by Endurance Corner's first camp of 2012 in Tucson beginning on February 26th.

cheers,

justin

Offseason

This year I made a goal of racing every month from February to November and I managed to do just that. As a result, I learned a lot of lessons and gained a lot of experience, but I was also in need of a good break once this season came to a close. Next year, and season, will be here soon and I've just started to look at the upcoming race calendar. The following is set in stone for the first six months of the year:

February 10-24th; Training Camp (for me) with Cliff English Squad

February 26th-March 4th Fifth Annual Endurance Corner Tucson Training Camp

May 19th; Ironman Texas

June 17th-23rd; Endurance Corner Boulder Training Camp

As you can see, I don't have a lot of race plans at the moment; other than Ironman Texas which is the only race I've committed to for the first half of the year. I will do my best to try and incorporate 2-3 races leading into IMTX, but my choices are limited based on some personal commitments. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it all happen.

Check back periodically as I'll be staying on top of updates through the winter.

Also, check out www.endurancecorner.com to read some of the 1000 articles in our database (including mine).

-j

Ironman Florida 2011

Following Louisville this year I decided to race Ironman Florida. Around 6-7 weeks out from the race I wrote down my goals for the event: Swim: 51

Bike: 4:31

Run: 2:50

Transitions: 5:00 combined

Gives you 8:17:00

What really happened:

Swim: 54:45

Bike: 4:29:52

Run: 2:48:33

Transitions: 4:50 total (2:50 and 2:00 for T1 and T2)

Total time: 8:18:02; good enough for 3rd overall on the day.

The finishing time was almost exactly where I wanted it to be, but the execution of getting there was a little off. I started the day with a mediocre swim. I made some tactical errors in the first 10 minutes of the day and found myself having to swim in no man's land. This resulted in starting the bike around 3-4:00 down from the group of people I wanted to ride with. I was a little concerned as the IMFL bike course tends to favor strength in numbers, but I felt good from the get go and started to chase.

We had somewhat favorable conditions on the bike because the majority of the wind would be in our face for the the first half of the bike. The second half of the bike has a tailwind about 40% of the time with the last 10K being into a headwind. They made some changes to the course last year and it was my first time riding it, but the bike course still utilizes much of the same course and I'm quite familiar with how things play out since I have raced here 5 times before (03,05,06,07,09).

I made some headway through first 40K of the bike and moved up about 3-4 places. The wind wasn't terrible, but it was noticeable and I tried to keep the pressure on all the way to the turnaround of the first out-and-back (about halfway). This was my first chance to see what was going on: Basically a group of three at the front (with Ronnie S), another group of three (with Eduardo Sturla and Maxim Kriat), then 2-3 more athletes peppered between myself and the second group.

I hit the turnaround and was pretty excited to finally have an extended tailwind. I did my best to keep my head down and kept hammering away. With Ronnie, Eduardo, and Maxim up the road, I knew I had to keep the gap as close as possible.

The course offers a new out-and-back just before the 100-mile mark so I got the chance to see the groups again. It looked as though the first group had gained time on me (they had), but the second group was still within the same range. At this point I also realized I was riding in 7th so I had moved up pretty nicely since finishing the swim.

I came into T2, transitioned as quickly as possible and started the run. The first few miles splits had me right on ~6:20/mile (or even a little quicker), but I wasn't making up much ground on anyone at that point. I kept things rolling along and around mile 9 I saw Brooke and she told me things weren't really changing. The gaps were holding as everyone was running well.

I finally moved up one place around mile 11 and I could see that 2nd-5th weren't totally out of reach at the turnaround (halfway point). It was right at this time that I crossed paths with one my AG buddies on the run. He quickly asked me how things were going. Honestly, I hardly ever respond to anyone when I race (even my buddies), but this time I said: "I'm going pretty well... ...but so is everyone else." I realized that all these guys were racing tough and they were not going to roll over so I could move up.

I caught 5th place around mile 16, then I caught 4th around mile 18 and I could see 3rd place up the road when I entered the park. As I closed in on mile 20 I was within striking distance of 3rd, but I was also hurting. The gap had been coming down pretty rapidly, but the last 50 meters seem to take me nearly a mile to finally close down. With less than 5 miles to go I moved alongside 3rd place and he started to match my pace, but I eventually broke free and started to move onto the home stretch. I had hopes that 2nd place might be somewhere within reach so I did my best to keep the hammer down.

As I went into the final couple miles I knew 2nd place was nowhere near, but I could see I still had a chance of setting a new run PR so I did my best to stay on point and I eventually made my way across finish line in 8:18:02. I was just a few seconds off that 8:17 goal, but I felt totally spent; I had nothing left. It was great to finish the season with an 11 minute PB and a new bike+run split PR. I was also happy to post my second Ironman podium finish of the year.

And that's all she wrote for 2011.

See you next year,

Justin

Pocono 70.3 and IMFL

A little over two weeks ago, I made a last minute decision to race Pocono 70.3 in upstate PA. It was last minute only because I was trying to apply a lesson learned from IMTX. Following Texas, I put in a couple races early in the summer, but neither panned out to much. I just simply didn't recover very quickly from Texas. I'm not exactly sure why, but it seemed to be a consistent feeling among a few other finishers I spoke with. The heat, concrete run, etc just added up to a little longer recovery time. ANYWAY, I opted not to commit to any race following Louisville unless my training gave me positive feedback. I decided that the training was 'good enough' post-Lou to give the race a try and I flew off to Philadelphia.

Unfortunately the race had to cancel the swim two days out from the event. Apparently the river was too high following their constant rainfall and was deemed unsafe to swim in. I'm not sure what the river usually looks like, but the current was MOVING and it would definitely make for an interesting swim since the course is not entirely down current.

As a result, we had to do a bike/run TT start with 30 seconds staggered between each professional. Aside from the flooded river, we also had cold temperatures and wet roads. I was wearing a skinsuit, bike jersey, arm warmers, tall socks, toe covers, and full-fingered gloves. And at no point was I too warm.

I was one of the last athletes to go off so I was going to have to chase from the get go. The bike course was very hilly, technical and challenging and I felt this would play to my favor. As the race got going, I settled into a nice rhythm and I thought things were going pretty well as I moved through the first 20 miles of the course. However, I really didn't have the gearing for some of the steep hills and I was getting pretty worked as I climbed these short, steep grades over and over again. At any rate, I had caught up with two athletes and the three of us were moving along the course trying to catch as many other athletes as possible.

Unfortunately at the 60K point I could tell my front tire was going flat and I had to pull off and make a change. I got the tired off, replaced and inflated in about five minutes and got back out onto the course. Stopping for that long had really stiffened me up with the cold weather and I lost some mental mojo now that I was riding along solo again (and lost a lot of time). I also blew through a turn at one point and lost a little more time. I was starting to race fairly sloppy, but as I approached T2 I got a second wind because, if nothing else, I wanted to try and run a fast split off the bike.

The run start with a pretty convoluted first mile, but then we went out onto the meat of the course. Once again we were treated with some nice hills, but the rise and falls were moderate grades for extended periods of time. I found these hills to be challenging, but also very 'runable.' I managed to start to run some people down and I thought maybe I could actually get back into the money.

I only managed to get back into 6th place and finished one minute out of 5th (the last money spot). I had the second fastest run of the day, but only by a ~60 second margin over several other athletes. I felt like my effort on the run was good, but I still was hoping for 60-90 seconds quicker in the end. I didn't hit my half marathon goal of the season (sub 76) and that will just have to wait until next year.

My final race will be Ironman Florida in a little less than three weeks. Even though its only been a couple weeks, the training after Pocono has been encouraging and I believe I still have one day of fight left in me for 2011.

-j

Ironman Lou Podcast and race this weekend

Chris, Marilyn and I did a podcast together shortly after Ironman Louisville. I prompted most of the questions, but I answered them as well. If you want to check out what we experienced on race day go here: http://www.endurancecorner.com/IMLou_podcast

I'm heading out to Pennsylvania this weekend to race Pocono 70.3. I penciled this race in some time ago, but I only decided to race late last week. I thought that training was starting to go well again and that I might have good enough legs (and arms) for a race. It looks like its going to be a bit chilly for me, but it might be a welcomed change from only racing in hot conditions.

j

Crescent Moon Triathlon

I got back out onto the racing scene yesterday with a short sprint race at the Cheery Creek Reservoir. I did this race last year so I thought it might be fun to come back and give it another go. I took a couple weeks pretty easy (one nearly off) after Louisville and this week has been the first actual week of structured training. I haven't been feeling tip top (pretty normal) so I wasn't really sure how I might feel yesterday. All I really wanted to do was try and ride as hard as possible since I've felt as though my last few races had fairly passive bike rides. The race itself went pretty well. I swam alright, but I fumbled with my wetsuit in T1 and really lost some valuable seconds there. I came out onto the bike course about 40 seconds down from the lead and that is quite a lot to make up in 19K. I tried as hard as I could to move up, but I only made ground on second place and lost time to first (Dave Scott's 21-yr old son)

I started the run and I could see second place just up the road. I took a split about 1/4 mile into the run and I was about 24 seconds down. I kept taking splits and I brought it down to about 11 seconds with 1 mile to go, but I think he got a second wind at that point because my progress stagnated and I ran the last 2K with about the same distance between us. I finished in 59:44; my bike was about a minute faster than last year (though I missed a turn last year) and my run was 17:14 this year instead of 17:42. That gave me an overall finishing time that was about two minutes faster than 2010. It actually went much better than I thought it would and I had a lot of fun racing. It also keeps me on track of my goal to race at least 1x/month from Feb-Nov. this year.

Ironman Louisville

Last weekend I made the trip over to Kentucky for Ironman Louisville. The final weeks leading into the race had gone really well and I was looking forward to racing long again. The race director told us at the pro meeting that the water temperature taken that morning was 86 degrees. That meant the swim would have similar conditions to swimming a hard set at many YMCA pools that I've frequented. I struggle a bit in warm wetsuit swims and usually non-wetsuit swims avoid this problem entirely, but 86 degrees is warm even if you could do the swim naked.

Nevertheless, I wanted to start the swim at a fast pace to try and hold feet to the turnaround (800m) while the swim went up current. Unfortunately I only made it to 400 meters before my head felt like it was about to explode. It might have come from the heat or it might have come from Ambrose's pace. At any rate, I slowed way down to the turnaround and had to spend a little while regrouping as I started the swim back to Louisville. Unfortunately this allowed Chris (eventual winner) to have nearly two minutes on me as we headed out of T2. Not the race start I wanted.

I started to roll out of transition and within about 10K of riding Patrick Evoe (2nd on the day) caught me and we proceeded to ride together. At IM Texas, Pat and I shared a lot of pace making on the bike and I had hoped we might do the same given the situation we were currently in. However, I was really struggling to keep up and after 30 minutes or so I simply let him go. Once again, not the start of the day that I wanted.

At this point in the day I was struggling a bit to keep my head in the game. Basically, I was having a difficult time dealing with my level of discomfort. That's the best way I can describe it. So I turned my power meter off and proceeded to put my head down and ride. I just rode along by feel and did everything I could to try and ride as smart and as fast as possible.

Coming into town I could see Romain which was the first sign of life (from the pro race) I had see in several hours. That perked me up a little bit. At least I caught someone before the bike was over.

I transitioned quickly and headed out to run. The run starts with a short out-and-back so I was able to get a glimpse of what might be happening up the road. As I approached the first turnaround I could see Pat running strong, but I was feeling good and I thought that a 3-minute gap was within my reach.

The miles started ticking by and as I approached the next turnaround I could Chris in 1st, Paul in Second, and Pat in third. At this point, not much had changed and everyone looked pretty good.

As we got back into town (mile 14) I moved into 3rd and Pat had moved into 2nd since Ambrose had decided to call it a day. I kept running to my best ability and I was trying with all my power to break Pat and move into second. As I neared the mile 21 marker, I got a final split of 2:44. With 21 miles I'd essentially only taken a handful of seconds out of him. At this point, I figured that my chances of moving up were likely gone and I was now just running for myself (and for time).

I crossed the line in third in 8:34:35. All I could do. I can't really look back on the race and find a lot of time that I could have made up. Chris and Pat both raced better than I did and my hats off to them for their great races.

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There were a lot of notable performances from Endurance Corner athletes, coaches, and camp veterans.

Sue Aquila sets a new PR and runs the fastest marathon in her Age Group.

Tom Goth finishes 2nd in his Age Group and qualifies for Kona.

Jeff Shilt finishes 4th in his Age Group and qualifies for Kona for second time this year.

John Shilt sets a PR, breaks 10 hours, and breaks 4 hours on the marathon for the first time.

Brady DeHoust runs a 3:07 marathon and finishes 2nd in his Age Group.

Paul Linck finishes 2nd in his Age Group.

Coach Marilyn McDonald returns to Ironman after a four year break and finishes 7th Overall.

All in all, it was a lot of fun to race alongside these other great athletes and I just wanted take a moment and say congratulations to all of you.

-justin

Ironman Louisville

Since Ironman Texas I haven't ventured too much into the racing scene. Following IMTX, I had a conversation about the remainder of my season with Cliff and we eventually decided to focus on a late summer Ironman. We tried to pick a race that might suit me a little better than others and eventually we came up with the idea of racing IM Louisville. Essentially, IM Lou is a warm, non-wetsuit swim, a rolling bike and flat, warm run. Its also an easy trip from Denver which is always nice. I only managed to get out once to race this summer (Muncie 70.3) and it didn't amount too much (14th overall). IM Texas took a lot out of me and in hindsight, I simply wasn't training fast enough before Muncie to race fast in Muncie. Nevertheless, the trip gave me the chance to check out Louisville the day after the race and I tailored my training routes simulate the course as best I could.

Outside of that, this summer has primarily revolved around running a couple Endurance Corner Camps and training consistently in between them. I treat each camp I run as a 'race' in terms of stress, recovery, etc so I opted out of extra racing before Lou so that I could train appropriately.

Now its race week and I'm easing into the 'sit and wait' mindset that it requires.

See you on the other side,

j

Muncie 70.3

I'll be racing on Saturday in Muncie, Indiana. It took a little time to recover from IM Texas (at least to the point of training well again), but the last 3 weeks have gone quite well and I'm looking forward to racing again. Check out www.ironman.com on Saturday @ 8:00 EST and follow along.

Cheers,

j

Ironman Texas

Ironman Texas. I remember hearing rumors about an Ironman coming to Texas nearly ten years ago, but it didn't actually happen until a couple weeks ago. I had some doubts about the venue, the timing, etc, but I have to say that WTC and The Woodlands got it done. I thought it was a great place to host a race and many athletes and spectators have said the same thing. Sure it was warm, but no more so than many other North American Ironmans to date. Race Day.

I was a bit concerned that they might call wetsuits for this race since they said the water was hovering at 76 degrees the day before. Fortunately on race morning it had warmed to 78 and wetsuits would not be allowed. Even though I don't come from a swim background, I still prefer to race without wetsuits; particularly when the water is that warm.

I hopped in the water about twenty minutes before the start and proceeded to get a nice warm up in. I eventually made my way to the line and got ready for the day. After the gun went off I tried my best to get out quickly and position myself in a group. I wasn't able to hang with the likes of TO, Llanos, etc, but I got out in front of the group that eventually swam 52-53. They came around on my right and I slotted in on their feet. Seemed like I was in the perfect position, but I was struggling to hang on. I kept yo-yoing off the back and somewhere about 1500 meters into the swim a gap opened up in front of me.  I kept trying to get back on, but I just could not make it happen.

This was not really the way I wanted to start my day. I swam the remainder of the swim entirely solo and I've never had to swim by myself for that long in an Ironman. That was not a preferable experience so I'll do whatever it takes in the future to avoid that happening again.

I exited the water very far down from the front and started hustling through transition. As I was making my way towards my bike, I could hear that a small group of guys had exited the water shortly behind me (one minute or less). With that in mind, I decided to ride steady until they caught me and then go with them. This worked out pretty nicely because I had about 30-40 minutes of riding to sort myself out before they rolled up on me. At that point, I linked up with all them and we proceeded to chase as best we could.

The first 60K of the bike had a few fast sections, but after spending the last three Ironman bike rides solo, I was determined to stay with a group no-matter-what. Contrary to the swim, I was doing well in the group and I took my turns setting the pace at the front as well. WTC had a lot of officials for this race and I can easily say that we had an official watching us for about 80% of the ride. This kept everybody honest and allowed for clean racing.

I was expecting the second half of the bike course to slow down with typical southerly winds, but they never really came. As a result, you'll see the bike times for the pro race (and the AG race) to be on the faster side than usual. This was definitely welcomed as I knew the run was going to be tough with the warmer temps (high of 90 and high humidity).

We got into T2 at 5:30ish  race time so I knew I had ridden close to 4:30 (4:31 official time) which is the fastest bike time I have yet to post in an Ironman. I've come close to posting that before, but I haven't backed it up with a good run on either occasion.

I wasn't quite sure where I was in the race, but it sounded like I came off the bike just inside the top 15 so I thought a top ten was doable with a good marathon. Patrick Evoe and I started the run together, but he quickly put a nice gap into me. I would say it was at least 30-40 seconds by the time we hit mile 3. However, I was ok with the mile splits I was seeing on my end so I decided to not worry to much about racing for the first couple laps of the run.

With the high heat and humidity, I was really trying to take my time at each aid station. I would slow way down and try to consume as much fluid as possible while also putting ice and wet sponges everywhere. This resulted in slighter slower mile splits, but by the second loop of the run it was starting to pay dividends as I moved into 8th place. At that point, I wasn't too sure if I would be able to gain any more spots because Evoe was running strong and maintaining the same time gap he had established earlier. As I started the final loop, I was actually more focused on simply trying to finish under 8:30.

Just as the final loop started I could see the gap to Evoe start to come down and right around the mile 20 marker I got across. I never take anything for granted late in Ironman so I kept doing my best to push to the finish line. I held my 7th place and crossed the line 8:29:44 so I managed to break 8:30 in the end as well.

I felt mostly good about everything that happened that day. I was quite disappointed with how the day started, but the bike and run both went well and I managed to make up a lot of the ground I gave up at the beginning of the day.  I had the fifth fastest marathon of the day (2:56:xx) which was more satisfying that anything else. 2010 saw my fastest marathon to date and it also saw my longest stretch of poor marathons. It really meant a lot to me to get back on track.

Additionally, I had more friends and family along the course than probably every race I've ever done COMBINED. It was so much fun to race in front of the hometown crowd and I'm definitely planning to get back there next year.

cheers,

j

Galveston 70.3

Not the race I wanted, but it ended on a good note. For whatever reason, I just didn't seem to be firing on all cylinders on Sunday. After a subpar swim to start the day, I got on the bike and it felt like I was already in the middle of an Ironman. I just lacked that freshness that I usually feel at the start of a race. Nevertheless, I rolled on hoping to warm into the day. Things never really improved and somewhere between miles 30-35 I realized my front tire was flat. I stopped and pulled the wheel off to find a tack/nail in the tire. I changed the tire and got back on the road. At this point I was probably the last male pro on the bike course or at least very close to that. I rolled along at an easy effort for a little while and decided that I would try to get something out the rest of the day. I decided that I would ride 4:30 as hard as I could followed by 30 seconds easy (we had a cross/tail wind now so I could float a little) all the way back to T2.

This gave me something to work with and I rolled the last 15+ miles of the course following this pattern. I got into T2 and changed into my running gear. I had planned to just run a steady pace and finish off the day.

I started running and I actually felt ok which was the polar opposite to how I felt at the beginning of the swim and bike. I took a split and saw I was running a little faster than 6:00/mile and it seemed like trying to hold this pace to the finish would be a good challenge to end the day.

I managed to do just that and even though I didn't catch very many people, it still felt good to feel like I was racing again.

This brings my four week racing block to a close. I got some nice experience out of the three races and I definitely think I can take what I learned into Ironman Texas. Now its time to start training again and move my fitness up before May 21st.

until later,

j