Steve Miller’s Training Blog

This is the story of my participation in the Racing For Recovery Sprint Triathlon at Sterling State Park in Monroe, MI on Sunday June 7,2009.

The day started for me when my Alarm went off at 3:45. I rolled out of bed and began getting myself ready. I ate a bowl of cereal and then drove through McDonald’s for a cup of coffee (and a Cina-melt but that doesn’t really count). The drive to Monroe was pretty easy because there were practically no other cars on the road. I was early enough that I drove most of the course I would be riding on my bike just to see if there were any surprises. Thankfully there were no surprises. I then went to the State Park and found the site where I would be setting up. I got a great parking space.

Upon arriving, the first thing I did was go to the registration tent and pick up my race number and event T-shirt. I was a little offended when the person who was checking me in asked for my 2X shirt and the person retrieving the shirts said “I didn’t know we had that size”. I then went over to pick up my timing chip and get body marked. I am not sure of the point of body marking when the clothing I was planning on wearing for the race would cover almost all of the markings. Except the race type and age they marked on my calves. Body Marking may sound sophisticated, but really someone with sloppy handwriting uses a Sharpie to write the race number on both upper arms and both quads. I suppose it is to prove that the race number hasn’t been swapped and prevent cheating, but it did seem and feel kinda silly.

The next step was setting up my transition area, this would be where I would make necessary equipment changes for each part of the race. The first step was to place my bike on a rack. I notice most people hung their bikes up by the saddle, but when I tried this, by bike seemed like it was going to fall off so I put my handlebars on the rack and it was nice and stable. I then had a bag with cycling shoes, gloves, helmet, sunglasses, socks, running shoes and a hat that was placed under my bike. Of course just as I am getting this set up, the announcement comes that there were thunderstorms in the area and we should take shelter in our cars until the storm passes. 20 minutes later the all-clear was announced. Because of the storm, the race start was delayed by 30 minutes.

Now it was time for the pre-race meeting which was held by the swim start. Since my race was starting 25 minutes after the Half-Ironman race started, I went to the meeting and left my wetsuit in the car. The pre-race meeting went over all the rules, blah, blah blah, then the microphone was handed over to Todd Crandell. Todd is the founder of Racing for Recovery. The mission of Racing for Recover is “preventing substance abuse in adolescents and individuals and offering a positive alternative to those currently battling addiction.” Todd’s personal story is quite compelling too. You can read about it at the Racing for Recovery Website. Todd then introduced someone who’s name escapes me but also had a compelling story. He had a point of very profound wisdom that really struck me. The race itself was not the hard part, it was the victory lap for all the hard work put in the training for the event. He then lead the group in a very touching prayer.

Fast forward to the race start. We walked out to the first bouy in about 5 feet of water. We would swim north 750 meters parallel to the beach then turn around the last bouy and swim back 250 meters to the swim finish. I was reminded of a scene from Finding Nemo. Not the one where the sea turtle says to Marlin “Don’t hurl on the shell, I just had it waxed.” The one where the Salmon are caught in the net and in order to escape Marlin urges them to “Just Keep Swimming”. That was my plan, to “just keep swimming”. It almost went like that. I had purchased a book and DVD about Triathlon swimming and one of the big recommendations was to learn to breath on both sides. This was a lesson I wish I had taken more time to practice. The water was rather choppy and my natural breathing pattern had be breathing with my face towards the oncoming waves and the occasional mouth full of water. Once I made the turn around bouy, these problems went away as I floated up the waves instead of having them crash into my open mouth when I was trying to breathe. Much to my relief, my hand finally hit the bottom as I was headed towards the beach and I could stand up and start taking the wet suit off.

I peeled back the wetsuit to my waist and ran up the beach towards the transition area. My family was there cheering me on. Stephanie even ran with me to the transition. I managed to peel wetsuit the rest of the way off and put on my cycling gear. Then I was off to my most comfortable and strongest event, the bike. I then just started riding as hard as I could. I had forgotten to put my heart rate monitor strap on under my wetsuit, so it was now locked in my car. I felt a little nervous not having my pacing tool, but decided it would probably hold me back. I did have my gps and it was giving my my 1 mile splits. I was riding at about 3:03 per mile which put me just under 20 miles per hour. I was feeling good and strong at this point. All too soon, I was back at transition.

This transition was much simpler. Take off the cycling shoes and put on running shoes and start running. Oh wait, take the pump out of the jersey pocket, It is hard to get a flat tire in running shoes. About a half mile out, I realized the other thing I forgot. I really did not have a need for cycling gloves either. So I ran 3.7 miles looking like a dork with my gloves on. Really my gloves had nothing to do with me looking like a dork, I do that pretty well on my own. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, I could see the finish line and ran across to be greeted by Todd Crandell. He shook every finishers hand, which was very cool.

I found the results online after I got home. I had completed the race in 1:47:48 which was better than my goal of 2:00:00. I completed the swim in 28:00 then took 4:42 to transition to the bike. The bike was complete in 39:04 which was a 18.4 mph average. The transition to the run was 2:02 and I finished the 3.7 mile run in 34:01 which was an average mile pace of 9:12. I placed 68th overall out of 110 and 5th out of 10 in the Clydesdale class (200 + pounds).

I am very pleased with my performance and am ready to set my sights on my next goal, the Detroit Free Press Marathon.

I start the last week of training for the Racing 4 Recovery Sprint Triathlon. My rental wet suit is out on the truck for delivery and I am expecting it today. I ran 9 miles this morning for my long workout, and I hope to get 2 – 2.5 hours in tomorrow on the bike, then I will start tapering for the race. I am still a bit frustrated that I have not been able to get my weight under 230, but I feel strong and am starting to have to consider buying new clothes, especially pants. I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Now I need to start doing things like preparing checklists and start planning/organizing the day. I just received the information letter from the race organizers that tells me everything I need to bring that I wouldn’t have thought of. 10 buck for the USA Triathlon one-day membership, a “reusable” bag for the SWAG.

I am looking forward to this race to test the last 6 weeks of training I have been doing.

I have just crossed the three weeks to go line for my first outdoor triathlon. I have ordered my rental wetsuit which should arrive next week. Last night, I took my road bike off the trainer for the first time in a long time and got in 20 miles. I did have 2 minor mechanical issues. The first one is when I dropped into my smallest cog, it spun right off the cassette. Since this is not a tool someone would normally carry on a ride, I had to improvise and managed to get everything back on and tightened down so I could get home. The other issue was one of my bar end plugs popped out. It felt great to be out riding and the road bike was very comfortable for the 20 miles I rode it. According to Motionbased I averaged 17.6 miles per hour when I was moving. I am very pleased with that, because I have not ridden the road bike outside very much. It is also looking like I am going to shift my rest day from Sunday to Monday, so I can run and bike outside on the weekend. I think this will work out well.

Unfortunately this weekend is becoming typical. I have the best of intentions of getting in my long workout and something happens that prevents it. It is usually very easy to get in the weekday workouts at 4:30 am, the real trick is to get the weekend workouts in. This weekend started with a 10:30 soccer game for my daughter’s team (I am one of the assistant coaches.) After the game, we had the day planned out so if I wanted to get my long workout in, it would have to be first thing in the morning. The last thing I wanted to to was get out of bed at 4:00 am on a Saturday. Guess I would have to put off that workout until Sunday. Sunday morning started off normal. I got up and made my coffee and sat down at the computer to check email and catch up on news. Then the pager went off and Sunday was shot. Work would keep me busy from 7:00 am until 7:00 pm. A long workout after 7:00 pm would have pushed my bedtime and made Monday’s workout that much more difficult. So instead, I held off and did my normal Monday workout. I swam 1600m this morning. It was a really good work out, I can still feel the burn.

I missed reporting on yesterday because it was a rather busy day personally. I came home from Soccer Practice Tuesday night on my spare tire, so the first order of business was getting the flat tire fixed Wednesday Morning. As routine, I do my cycling workouts on my trainer at home instead of using the stationary bikes at the gym. I do this because the stationary bikes are just not designed for cyclists. Wednesday morning I used the Carmichael Training Systems (CTS) training video called relentless attack, It consists of 2 sets of intervals followed by a high intensity steady state. The workout lasts just over an hour. When I finished, I entered the data captured by my Garmin Edge 305 into my training tracking programs then started to head upstairs to shower and get ready to go to the tire store. This is when a sudden wave of nausea hit me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it upstairs without throwing up. I quickly realized that I actually needed food and grabbed a PowerBar. The PowerBar did the trick and I was able to continue to function and get myself ready for the tire store and work.

This morning was a swim workout. Swimming is definitely my weakest of the 3 triathlon disciplines and the one I need to work on the most. I swam 1600 meters this morning in about 40 minutes. Definitely won’t be competitive with anyone at that speed. I don’t know how much I can improve in the 6 weeks prior to the triathlon, but it is fun to try.

Today’s workout was a run. My coach wanted me to run for 30 minutes with a few accelerations thrown in. I felt so good, I did most of the accelerations at 10 mph. I didn’t even know I could run 10 mph.

Tonight is soccer practice so I may get a 1 mile fun run in with my daughter, if it stops raining.

Today was a swim day. I swam 1600m in 41 minutes. I am hardly what anyone would call a fast swimmer, but I hope to improve at least a little before the race on 6/7.

I forgot to mention the 2nd goal in yesterday’s post. My goal is to finish the 2009 Detroit Free Press International Marathon on 10/18. As soon as I finish the Triathlon, marathon training begins.

I now have 2 goals, in the short term, I will be competing in my first outdoor Triathlon. I will be racing in the Racing for Recovery Sprint Triathlon in Monroe, Michigan. The Training Plan I will be using for this event is a 6-week Crash Course for an Olympic Distance Tri. I actually am a little ahead of the plan in terms of where my fitness is right now so this should work out well.

Here are my obstacles. 1. I have a job that puts me on call 24×7. I could get a page at any time and need to work. I try to schedule my workouts in the lull times where we don’t usually have a lot of calls. 2. My job is normally 45-50 hours per week a lot because of the on call times. 3. I am an assistant coach of my daughters Soccer team. We practice 2 times a week and typically have 1 game a week through the middle of June.

I have already laid out my clothes and put together bag for the Gym tomorrow. I will be swimming tomorrow morning, if all goes well I will be in the pool by 4:30 am. The scheduled workout is for 10 reps of 50 yards. My previous workouts have been swimming 1600 yards, so I will probably do a little more than the scheduled workout.

I use 2 web sites to track my workouts, although I will probably cut it down to 1 soon. I use weEndure because of the ability to track running, swimming and cycling as well as providing monthly summaries. It is also public so everyone can see. I also use Active Training because this is where I found the training plans I am using.

Stay tuned for more changes coming to this blog, including the look, as I intend to give it a freshening.

First the results and then I will talk about the individual segments. I was very pleased with the results and how I performed. I still have room for improvement, but I feel like I did very well all things considered. I finished tied for 8th overall with a tie for 34th in the swim, 6th place on the bike and 14th on the run. In the Masters Mens division I was 3rd overall with a tie for 5th in the swim, 1st on the bike and 6th on the run.

This is how my race day went. My start time was 7:00 am so I arrived at the Gym at 6:00. I registered and picked up my T-shirt, then proceeded to set up my locker. I had already developed my plan for the race. I set up my locker with the shirt, cycling shorts running shoes and heart rate monitor on top, with a bag containing my cycling shoes and running shorts. My plan was to ride in cycling shorts then run to the mens room and change into running shorts for the run.

First up was the swim. I did an extremely light warmup, because I know swimming is not my strength and would be a good warmup for the bike portion. At the start whistle, I started a little fast for me, but soon settled into a groove. The ten minutes went by very quickly and I was somewhat shocked to learn that I got 17 lengths (425m) in. In all my preparation I was pushing to get 16 in, so 17 was a great number that got the try off to a good start.

The first transition also went off without a hitch. I was the first person from my wave up to the bike and I had time to adjust it to my comfort. I set my heart rate monitor where I could see it and planned to keep my heart rate as close to 160 as I could. This would be a pace I could maintain for the full 30 minutes. This was a point where I could look around and see how others were doing. I could definitely tell I was riding at a faster cadence than everyone else. In the end, I put 13.4 miles on the cycle computer. There was no way to know how that would stand up, but I felt like it was a good number.

The second transition was a run to the mens room to change out of the cycling shorts and into the running shorts. I made it to the treadmill with a minute to spare.

The strategy for the run was simple. Set the speed to 7.5 mph and run till I couldn’t run anymore. This speed would put me at my goal of 2.5 miles. With about 5 minutes to go in the run, I had the thought to run at 8 mph for the rest of the run, so I bumped up the speed. 2 minutes later my heart rate hit 185 and I couldn’t hold that any longer. so I slowed back down to 7.5. When the time hit 20 minutes I was at exactly 2.5 miles and had made my goal.

I couldn’t be more thrilled. I had my significant improvements on my performance from 2 years ago and had gone from middle of the pack to a top 10. It really felt great. Hopefully it will be a good start to the other events I intend to do this year.

I’m not the only one competing in a Lifetime Fitness Triathlon. Although mine doesn’t happen until April 5, here is a blog entry by someone who will do better than me and is competing in Minnisota.

Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!: I’m SUPER Excited (For 3 Good Reasons).