2010 Ironman 70.3 Taiwan recap

Done!

Want to get this written before too much time passes since the race and I start to forget stuff.  Where to start?  Some people have expressed interest in how the mini-van driving went.  I enjoyed the utility of the Chrysler Town and Country we rented.  It had seats that folded into the floor, making it easy to take advantage of the cargo room necessary for hauling my bike and our luggage.  The auto-open side doors were nice, and it was easy to get the boys in and out (unlike when you are stooping and bending in a car to do the same).  "If the sweatpants fit..."

Before the swim start

I'm out there somewhere

 As for the race, the swim course was unlike any I had seen before.  It was a two-lap out-and-back course in which you actually had to come back up on the shore and cross the timing mat between the first and second laps.  Originally it was supposed to be a triangle-shaped course (pretty standard for these types of races), but perhaps due to the currents they changed it to the out-and-back format.  Whatever the case, the first half (the "out" portion) of the first lap of the swim course was as bad as any I have experienced.  It was a mass start of close to 900 athletes, and it seems like the preferred swim stroke here is the breaststroke, with its attendant side-flaring arm pull and frog kick.  This stroke takes up a lot of room, and made for a much-kicked and struck opening leg of the swim.  Along with the "fisticuffs" taking place between competitors, the current also seemed quite strong, pushing back as I tried to swim out to sea.  It was only on the first "back" portion that I started to get into a rhythm, finally beginning to use bilateral breathing and getting some space around me to swim more comfortably.  The water was surprisingly warm (wetsuits were optional and lots of folks were wearing them, though I definitely think they were unnecessary in terms of water temperature) and pretty clear - I could see all the way to the bottom of the ocean for most of the course.  I came up on my first lap in the water at about 27 minutes and figured I would be able to beat that pretty easily on the second lap since the crowd had thinned out a lot and I was swimming much more comfortably, but perhaps due to fatigue or increased current, the second lap was actually slower, about 30 minutes.  My total swim time was 56 minutes 34 seconds. (By the way, full results [PDF] are at http://www.ironmantaiwan.com/editor_images/im-70-3-tw-final-res.pdf; do a search for my bib number, 391.)

"Quick draw" caught me going from the swim to the transition area

I was unconcerned about how long my transitions took and tried to stay relaxed.  The path from the beach to the transition area (TA) was long!  We had to go up a couple flights of stairs and then I had to transit the entire length of the TA to get to my bike.  I should mention the weather in Kenting, Taiwan, on race day - absolutely gorgeous!  Blue skies, lots of sunshine, and seasonally cool - about 80 degrees for the high temp.  I think that the cooler temperature in comparison to the site of my last 2 Half Ironman races (Hawaii, in June) really helped me (though I still got sunburned - one of these times I will learn).  There were some pretty gusty winds, which made the bike course interesting, but I will talk about that a bit later.


I felt really good on the bike course. (see above)  It was also a two-loop course, this time essentially circumnavigating the Hengchun peninsula in southern Taiwan.  The course was mostly flat, except for two uphills just after leaving the TA, and then one climb portion covered once per lap thereafter.  There were many parts of the bike course heading north along the coast where you basically had the ocean on your left side and mountains on your right side.  It was quite scenic.

Enjoying the scenery

The gusty winds were coming from the north - northwest, which gave a nice push coming back in on the second half of each lap.  I tried to keep from over-extending myself on the bike, which tends to lead me to excessive cramping on the run portion (I know from past experience), but still putting in a decent effort.  I think I struck the balance well, as evidenced by my run performance.  My overall bike split time was 3 hours 8 minutes 25 seconds (about 17.4 mph average).


Unlike in past Half Ironman races, I only had to stop due to cramping (hamstrings both times, first the right and later the left) twice, at 5 miles and again at 10 miles.  I was able to easily address the cramping with only 10-15 seconds of static stretching followed by 10-15 seconds of walking.  Then I was back on my way.  I ran all the rest of the course, with the exception of aid stations.  I stopped and walked every one of these, making sure to get the food and drinks I needed, as well as sponges to keep cool.  Once I was done, I ran again to the next aid station.  I believe this tactic, which gave me 11 short walk breaks on the course (there were aid stations almost every mile), along with my conscious effort to find and run with other competitors who selected a pace a little bit slower than what I would self-select to run, allowed me to be relatively cramp-free on this half-marathon. (You can see some photos of me using this tactic, as well as all the other race-sponsored photos [13 in all] at http://www.finisherpix.com/; go to "Select Event" - Ironman 70.3 Taiwan 2010; enter my bib number [391], press "Go".)  My run split was 2 hours 20 minutes 54 seconds (a pace of about 10 minutes 25 seconds per mile).  I actually did not look at my run time at all on the course - my pace wasn't important to me, finishing with as little cramping as possible was.  Mission accomplished!

In this race, I believe I learned that doing this type of race and not being completely destroyed at the end is possible for me, IF I race smartly and don't overly concern myself with the amount of time I am running it in.  This is the first time I crossed the finish line on a long-course triathlon and felt like it would be possible for me to extend my effort out over a longer course...

I didn't really have a good idea of what my finish time was as I crossed the line (like I said, I hadn't really been keeping track very closely, unlike in some past races when realizing I wasn't going to be able to make whatever time goal I had set before the race my morale began to flag).  In all, it was 6 hours 35 minutes 50 seconds.  I had forgotten all but my most recent Half Ironman finish time (Hawaii, 2008), and I knew that I beat it by a fair margin (about 20 minutes, as it turns out), so I was quite happy with the improvement.  Later, I looked up all my Half Ironman times.  I have developed quite an interesting patter of doing these races, at least in the past 3 iterations.  My first race was actually my fastest by far, the 2002 Pigman long-course race in Iowa (5 hours 37 min 34 sec).  Then I raced Half Ironman-length events again in 2006 (Hawaii, 5:50:19), 2008 (Hawaii, 6:54:53), and now 2010.  I fear I will not keep the pattern going forward, though - I have my eyes on another Half Ironman race in the spring (March 2011) in Singapore, which will set me up for the ultimate goal - the full Ironman China race near Tianjin, People's Republic of China, in May 2011.  There's no time like the present to do it, and I believe it's time.  Who's with me?

I have a couple criticisms of the race.  First of all, there were no port-a-johns on the race course or even in the TA.  The only restroom facilities I am aware of near the TA were at the beach, near the swim start, very inconvenient if you need to use the facilities while transitioning.  I did notice two "rest area"-type areas along the bike course that evidently could be used by competitors as needed, but this seemed quite inadequate to me.  I pulled off in the bushes along the side of the road during the run about 4 hours into the race for a quick pit stop, since no facilities seemed forthcoming, but what about the women doing the race?  This needs to be addressed in future iterations of the race.

Second, the race course and even the host hotel changed several times before race day.  I understand that this was the first year of the event, but it's pretty inconvenient to have to keep adjusting your plans for the race as the organizers sort things out.  I figure this will be less of a problem during future iterations of the race.  I actually am glad the bike course was changed.  Originally, it was going to be an out-and-back course that went from Kenting down around the southern tip of Taiwan and back up the east coast a ways.  I drove this area the day after the race and the terrain was much more challenging there than it was on the actual (Hengchun peninsula) race course.  That and out on the east coast, the winds were absolutely WAILING.  I felt like I was about to be blown over as I stood and looked out over the Pacific Ocean.  I am glad I didn't have to bike out there for the race.

The wild, windy east coast of Taiwan

I'm glad to be writing this some 9 months after I basically wrote off being able to run triathlons and other races again due to lack of training and deconditioning.

GJS

P.S. I found this additional account of the race, from the fellow who finished 2nd overall: http://www.triathlontribe.com/blog/post/show/id/77-Jamie-Whyte-Blog-My-best-Ironman-70-3-result.  Looks like I am not the only one who thought the winds and current were challenging.

Reflections on a sedentary lifestyle

Finishing a triathlon, Kansas City, Missouri, ca. 2003

Odd title for a post, wouldn't you say?  Especially from someone like me who enjoys running marathons, triathlons, and so forth, right?

That was the old me.  Let me tell you about the new me.

This post was catalyzed by a little 23 minute jog I went on this morning, my first run in quite some time.

How long had it been?

This topic has been simmering in my head for some time now, really since about mid-November, my last run (!) prior to my little jog this morning.

I don't really have a god excuse for being so lazy, it just kind of...happened.

I didn't feel good about it, far from it.  I felt constantly tired and irritable.  I ate whatever and drank a lot of coffee.

One day while classes were still in session, bored during a seminar, I decided to write up a draft chronology of how I got to this point (i.e. not exercising).  It was hard for me to figure out, I mean, for such a long time (over 15 years, since before I joined the Marines in 1994) I was all about being physically fit.  I even chose exercise science as a major in college because exercise and fitness was so my thing!

So if this can happen to me (becoming sedentary), it really can happen to anyone!

You really wouldn't be able to tell that I wasn't working out by looking at me, though -  it's not like I am sporting a big beer gut or something.  I'm still "skinny" - probably too much so. (I haven't stepped on a scale lately, so I don't know how much I weigh.)

See, what happens to me when I don't work out is that I get "soft" - muscle atrophy.  I can really tell that I have lost a lot of muscle tone.  There just isn't nearly as much muscle under the skin.  It's sad, really.

Anyhow, here's what I discovered about what led me to where I am at....

It all started in late 2006 - early 2007.  This was the time I was deployed to the Philippines.  I was working some really long hours and was finding it very hard to get much exercise in.  When I got back to Hawaii, I tried to start running again like I had been before the deployment, I discovered that I was having some Achilles tendinitis.  No way to really fix that besides rest, so I rested, even though it was the last thing I wanted to be doing.  I wanted to be running!

In mid-2007, I started another high-demand work position, which allowed only a little time for exercise.  I didn't run much in 2007.  In early 2008, I decided enough was enough - I couldn't handle not running anymore and I gradually started getting back into it.  I ran a couple triathlons in Hawaii that spring, and even entered and completed the Honu Ironman 70.3 Half Ironman race on the Big Island that June.  It felt to me as  though I had bested the Achilles tendinitis and that I was "back in the saddle."  In fact, that was my last triathlon (at least to date - possibly forever).

When I left Hawaii, it was for yet another time-intensive assignment - learning Chinese.  From July 2008 - July 2009, this was my full-time job.  I decided to curtail running triathlons while near the cold waters of California's Central Coast, with an eye on resuming training for races a bit later, like after getting to Taiwan (I learned that I was going to be assigned to Taiwan in spring 2008).  I really wanted to take advantage of my location in Taiwan as a "jumping off point" to run some of the cool-sounding long-course triathlons in the region, especially the Ironman China race.

While spending most of my time studying Chinese, I managed to pack in training for a half marathon in the fall of 2008 and then a full marathon, my fifth, in spring 2009.  The training I did for the spring 2009 marathon was, up until the last month prior to the event, when I sustained a slight knee injury during a long training run, the best of any marathon preparation I have ever conducted.  I felt like I was running well again, for the first time in a long time.  The marathon itself was a hard one and I planned to take a full month off from running afterwards.

The problem was that I was never really able to get back at it again.  In early June, I attended a training course in Virginia at which I sustained a painful (although not serious) soft tissue injury to my left knee.  I was unable to run again in California, and the time demands of the language training did not decrease, all the way until the end of the 13-month course in late July 2009.

This was followed by home leave and making the international move to Taiwan.  Once in Taiwan, I began a very gradual conditioning program to try to get back into running.  How gradual?  I started off in August only by walking.  Pretty sad for a guy that less than 6 months before was conducting 20 mile training runs most weekends.

I got on a decent roll for training in September and started to think that I might be able to train back up for racing.  I wasn't far into the school semester, which started in the middle of the month, before I realized that I was in trouble, though.  I did not anticipate that the demands of graduate school here would be essentially equivalent to the workload I sustained for over a year in California.  Bummer.

My workout frequency fell dramatically in October and November, and was completely absent in December and January.  This was a tough period for me - I don't really feel well when I don't work out.  I am irritable and don't think very clearly.  I tried to counteract this by drinking more and more coffee.  This method is a poor substitute for actual energy and vigor.

I had to run a Marine combat fitness test (an annual requirement) in December and it was a lot harder for me than it should have been.  I passed, but my average performance left me extraordinarily drained.  When I ran it, it had been a month since the last time I worked out.

I face another fitness test sometime in the first half of 2010.  Unless I can create some consistency in my workouts starting now, I fear that my performance on this test will be even more sub par.

The problem is this: I have less than a week until my next semester at school starts, so the brief respite (and extra time I have for working out) will soon end.

And there will soon be a new baby in the house.

Time to get tough on my schedule - I just have to get it all done.  I have to have time for a workout most days, I have to make it a priority, otherwise I will spiral back down where I was at before (a place that I, a single workout into my "comeback," am still too close to for comfort).

Being physically fit is a huge part of who I am, and I really feel less than whole when my fitness level is low (like now).

Right now, my goal is just to keep the workouts coming, not going for long stretches without doing something physical, bending but not breaking if I miss a planned workout, etc.  Then perhaps I can look at doing some races - maybe not the Ironman China race I had hoped for (held in March each year), but Kaohsiung hosts a marathon (Feb 28 this year - could run it next spring) and there are various triathlons held in Taiwan throughout the year.  Start small...

GJS