Wired Article and Photo Shoot

Photo credits: Talia Herman/Wired

Recently I had the great pleasure to participate in Wired Magazine's "Living the Wired Life" series.  +Christina Bonnington had contacted SF Tri Club about possible athletes to help in the process, and of course I jumped at the opportunity.  While I'm not an expert in the sense of DC Rainmaker, I've tried enough technology (and wasted enough money on bad things) to give a good understanding of what helps an athlete, and what is just throwing money away.

As the interview and subsequent email exchanges continued, I got a sense they were looking for something a bit more involved, and triathlete like, obsession.  Yes, the evil triathlete trait was being delved into.  I didn't have a problem with it, as many triathletes can tell you, we are obsessed to a fault most times.  As long as you can accept it, you can work with it to make sure it does not ruin your life.  As some of the commentators on the article have pointed out, the obsession is a means to ignoring larger things in life, and I definitely agree.  My journey started as a way to get back to a younger, healthier self, but also as an escape from breakup.  Luckily my journey transformed into a new avenue for both work and personal growth, but that is not always the case.

There is definitely more to this story coming very soon.  Triathlon gave me my health, some incredible friends, and professional growth I was searching for.  The great people I've shared my life with in the past, luckily stuck with me through this growth period and I couldn't be more appreciative as I probably wasn't emotionally, or physically "available" until I figured it out in my own head.  A big turning point came in meeting my wife Whitney.  While I'm still learning a lot about sharing my life, there is no other person I would rather take that journey with than her.

+WIRED did a great job with my story and I can't say enough about my appreciation for that.  +talia herman  was wonderful to work with as well on the photography.  Luckily my friend +annie gherini was around to help coach me, and try to get me to stop smiling so much in the demo workouts.

Here are more of the photo's that didn't make it into the shoot.  Running through all the equipment at +M2 Revolution was exhausting, but it was such a fun experience that I'm happy to be a part of.

Lazy, but motivated!

Wow, so the past few months have been a bit crazy and its almost time for a mid-season break after Wildflower.  I have a list of half finished blog entries that are not long relevant.  Two races with no reports, and a laundry list of training and life stories that have occurred with nothing to show for it!

The short of it, life is GOOD, but HARD!  Work has been a bit much, and training has progressed very well, even with my Achilles issues.  The biggest impediment to to my training was my beloved Jeep breaking down, twice!  A few thousand dollars later, and three weeks of riding my bike to work, and all is good again and he is cooperating nicely.


Car issues did throw my California 70.3 race off a bit, as the additional mileage took a toll on my legs for the bike.  Amazingly my run legs were ready and brought me back into the top 10 in my Age Group for the race which was a big early season boost.  Would have loved a better day, but I'll take it considering.

Pre Diablo Double

On to April and lots of fun.  My girlfriend and I ran the Presido 10 together and she did amazing for her first 10k!  Running the 10 miler I captured 8th place overall with a 1:02 on tired legs after doing our M2 Double Diablo climb the day before with 7,000 feet of climbing over 50 miles.  Brutal!

M2 and Virgilio dueling

Finally on to this past weekend where our M2 Training Group decided the amazing weather warranted a little visit to the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse.  This ride is a long one, with deceptive difficulty brought on by constant rollers, and extremely rough roads at times.  Add to that, some competitive personas going for Strava KOM's, and it can turn ugly quick.  Temperatures ranged from 70 degrees at ride start, down to 50's out at the Lighthouse, then back up to 90's on the road back to McInnis Park.  An epic day with quite a few battles performed for KOM's and City Limit sprints.  Total ride was 85 miles of near race day effort that will come in handy come Wildflower, but I'm not sure it helped for Sunday's Metro Triathlon.

Sunday arrives and my legs recovered nicely.  Calves were still hurting a bit from the last weekend's Presidio 10, but I was more worried about holding sustainable efforts on the bike.  The swim was cancelled due to some poor water quality readings in Lake Almaden.  I had always heard bad things about this lake and avoided swimming in it, but as I don't have my "A" race for the year until August, I figured I'd give it a try.  Guess I will never have to deal with swimming in that lake now.

Trying to look fierce, lol.

With a cancelled swim, they had all the 30-39 Males run a 1 mile leadout then onto our bikes.  I don't think there was more than 20 seconds of separation between the first 30 athletes, so lets just say it was a crowded first 12 miles of the bike into a headwind.  Knowing my run legs would not fully be there, I was hitting the bike hard and a significant pack was forming with a steady headwind.  Pushing over 350 watts, I couldn't escape the pack, and as they went through my draft, they would overtake and create a continuous circle, or illegal riding.  I made my best efforts to stay clear of drafting, pushing 400 watt blocks to try to escape, but it was impossible.  Motor bike pulled up, I was definitely behind someone, and DING, 2 minutes.  Was hoping they tagged someone else, but I can't deny I wasn't guilty, pretty much the whole front of the field was.


Finally at the turnaround it was time to drop everyone as we go to enjoy a tailwind, and no more drafting assistance.  My buddy Dan and a few others jumped at this chance and the field spread out nicely.  We had our climb, which Stefan finally came back to us on, and then the final assault back home.  Averaging over 28 MPH for the last 8.5 miles was fun!  Felt great about the ride averaging 342 watts and breaking an hour.

Running was a different story.  As expected, my calves wouldn't allow me my top end I was hoping for, so instead of risking something worse, I was subjected to cruising the 10k run at 6:30 pace.  Finishing up out of the podium was acceptable at 4th place, but it would have been nice to have made it.  Big congrats to my training buddy Dan!  He came in 3rd Overall while crushing the run this weekend.  He's on an incredible build looking to best my Texas race from last year and I wish him well.

So, that's my latest.  Next up is Wildflower Long Course, and I will actually taper for this race and not do anything too stupid ahead of it.  I hope everyone's season has started off great as well, and good luck to everyone at Wildflower!  See you down there at the party!

Training Partners

While I'm sure there are plenty of "Lone Wolf" types our there, training partners are the unsung heroes of our training.  Be it for triathlon, running, cycling or anything, these are the people that help get you where you need to be for almost no cost except friendship and reciprocated support.  The one "rub" here is that it may take some time to find the right people who fit with your training philosophy. 

Friends are always great to try out first for this role, but their thinking on what a training session should accomplish is not always the same.  This isn't a bad thing, just not what a training partner is for.  Heading out on an intense hill climbing expedition with intervals may be your objective, your friend may just treat cycling as their social interaction for the day and dilly dally through the ride.  Not a great combination and ends with frustration either for taking too long for an expected ride, or not attaining the effort needed.

Searching outside of normal friendships is another step to take either through a training group or regular group rides.  These have a wide range of abilities and philosophies to take into account.  Putting a staunch Zone 2 athlete together with a minimalist high intensity athlete is a recipe for disaster in the long run.  Not saying either way is better, at least not in this posting, but to each their own, and training philosophies should be respected.  Once you find those with the same attitude towards training you'll find these become good friends in the end as well.

Skill is an elusive aspect to account for, especially with triathletes.  We were all once really good at one sport, and trying to catch up in the others.  Nobody can be perfect in all three, so some understanding is necessary when training with someone in the weak link.  Mine is swimming for the sake of this post.  I get lapped in the pool all the time.  While I do have the skills on the bike, I'm a good 20 pounds heavier than most of my training partners, so I'm last up the big hills, but not by much.  The real skills to be aware of are etiquette and proper pacing.  We covered Pacelining on my Coach's blog last month.  Other things to keep in mind is people's self sufficiency.  While training partners should and will always help each other out, with flats or injuries, there are instances where people get lost, or you just lose them.  I'll be the first to go looking for them, but knowing they will either be on their way, or trying to fix their problem on their own is much better than finding them stranded and having given up.  Riding with someone who is oblivious is just the worst as well.  I can take accidents happening, but not when someone rides into the road after a pull without looking.

All in all, when you find those people you can train with, you'll bend your workouts to fit theirs as well because the end result will be better and more enjoyable.  Adding some distance here, or pushing intensity there is easier with others around.  Climbing Tunitas this past weekend, every switchback I would see my buddy Mike.  I was pressing to close the gap the entire way up to as a result.  I love my toys, Heart Rate and Power Meter, but going outside those tools it was much more exhilarating turning the effort into a mini race and chasing someone.

In my group now, everyone seems to find their place to contribute.  Some organize, others lead by example, or just act as a rabbit to chase down.  Its a great group to be a part of and I'm looking forward to seeing great things from everyone this year.

Winter Racing Budget Time!

Its that time of year again, time to clean house and earn back some of that well spent dough on old equipment.  Well, the first set of stuff was snagged from my parent's house after my Dad upgraded to Di2.  Lucky bastard.

SRAM Red Controls - Bid on ebay here!

Great condition with minimal wear and tear.

Here's the cheapest I could find online, so any lower on ebay is a steal:
SRAM RED DOUBLE TAP Shifter Lever Brake Pair 10 Speed X 2 Carbon

Performance Tracking for 2011

You can see my goals for 2011 from my past posts, but I have been wrestling with a good way to track my progress in training to make sure what I'm doing is helping.  One of the hardest things is to keep a manageable record of what an athlete is doing, that can translate into tangible evidence of improvement.  One of the greatest things an athlete can have going into a race is a sense of confidence that what they did in training has helped them prepare for race day.  My buddy Dan came up with idea in general and I've workout on my own tracking to fit my training.

In finding my data points to monitor, I also didn't want to interfere with my normal training, so in setting my record points, I picked the ones that were most logical, and wouldn't require a major change in training schedules.

#1 - 1 hours cycling wattage:  This can be done in any of the 2-3 classes I take at M2 Revolution.  The total average of the class is taken into account, including warm-up, and rest periods in between intervals.  A 10 minute treadmill run is completed before jumping on the bike.  Noting the 5-Sec Max wattage as well to see if the squats I am doing are helping overall strength.  The goal is to see my watt/kg ratio improve, not necessarily total watts improve.

#2 - 20 Minute Treadmill run distance:  As a normal warmup to many cycling classes I run for 20 minutes.  5 minute warm-up and 15 minute increasing pace to 20 minutes.  Will track total distance.

#3 - 1 Mile Open Water Swim:  I have 2-3 swims a week and I try to swim in Aquatic Park as often as I can.  In cramming this workout in before spin on most occasions, there is limited time after work, so I push myself to get three buoy laps in (approx. 1 mile).

#4 - Weight: As with anything, speed should go up with reduced weight, but there is a floor to this improvement.  Last year I got sick when I hit 180 pounds, so I want to track this very closely to see if performance drops off as I get closer to it, and if that is my ideal race weight.  I've probably been having too much fun with my new toy doing this.


You can see a worksheet I made here to track all these metrics.

Training for events is a hectic thing to do.  Monitoring progress is a great way to keep yourself on track with training.  Hopefully creating my benchmarks in my normal training schedule will keep interruptions to a minimum, while allowing me the insight to change workouts accordingly along the way.