One more time

I just signed up for the Lake Tahoe Ironman in September 2013.  A friend sent me an email and once I started imagining myself doing a triathlon near Lake Tahoe, I was done.  There is a pretty good chance that I won't be able to finish this race.  After finishing Vineman in 2009, I spent the next few years getting into progressively worse shape.  Along the way, I injured my knee and haven't been able to run on it for nearly two years.  So it's a long shot, BUT...

I AM excited about having some motivation to take better care of myself.  It's nice to have a big goal to shoot for.  Even if I don't make it, hopefully I can regain a healthy lifestyle and have fun trying to get into Ironman shape.

This month, I'm starting pretty small since I haven't been exercising regularly. My goals for the month are:

• Lose about 5 pounds to drop my weight below 170 lbs - I'm hoping this reduces the impact on my knees and gets me closer to my 2009 Ironman weight (~165).  I know that's light for someone who's 6"1", but I have a hard time putting on any muscle... anything over 165 usually just winds up being extra fat.  
• Start to build some foundational strength:
• Do at least 50 straight pushups (I can do about 25 today)
• Do at least 5 straight pullups (I might be able to do one today... losing a little weight should help) 
• Carefully do squats and lunges every day without weights to get my leg strength built up.
• Do small, short runs with a goal of being able to run 200m consistently by the end of the month without any knee issues. 
• Swim at least 3 times (any distance) 
• Ride at least 3 times for a total of 50 miles 

Ironman - I Did It!

After 11 months of training, I completed my Ironman yesterday!

Here's the run-down:

T-3 days: Felt nervous, anxious. Had I trained enough? Wish I didn’t miss that weekend workout while I was in Maryland… would that affect me?

T-2 days: Focused on the pleasant task of eating lots and lots of food... Packed all of my gear, reviewed packing lists several times. Nerves slowly fading away, getting replaced by focus and determination.

T-1 day: Big breakfast. Dropped kids off at school and had a lot of teachers wish me luck. Drove up to the team hotel in Windsor and made final preparations. Missed our team lunch, but was able to get lunched packed for me by the hotel staff thanks to Nevelle. Met Shell and Mena for a light dinner. Felt ready, no nerves. Tried to sleep early, but wasn't tired enough. Finally got to sleep around 9:00.

Ironman morning: Woke up at 2am to get some more calories in. Had trouble going to sleep again but finally did before waking up at 4:20am. Got ride to start from TC. Other folks in the van also seemed relaxed and focused. A little surprised that I wasn't feeling more nervous. Got dropped off near Johnson Beach in Guerneville. I was in heat #2 which was set to start in 40 minutes. Spent most of that time standing in line at the bathrooms, which left me 5 minutes to get ready. Yikes!

2.4m Swim:
After getting into my wetsuit, I ran down to the start line just as the horn went off for our heat. I dove into the water and started swimming. No time for nerves now - just the way I like it. The swim area was beautiful - a narrow river with big trees on both side - very green and lush. Water was the warmest I'd ever been in. Very comfortable. At many points, the water was shallow enough for me to stand in!

As I got out of the water, I was tired, but happy to have completed the swim. My time was 2 hours and 2 minutes. Before the season, my father told me that I could die swimming and encouraged me to pursue other hobbies. So it was a bit of a mental victory just to survive. At the end of the day I would find out that I finished next to last on the swim. That's right - I was literally 599th out of 600 participants. When I got out of the water, however, I was blissfully ignorant of this... and the fact that most of the other racers were already 30-60 minutes into the bike ride.

112 mile Bike:
5 minutes in transition, getting my wetsuit off and getting my bike gear on. As I pushed my bike out of the transition area, I realized that I'd dropped my sunglasses....somewhere. Wishing that I'd taken 10 more seconds to simply put them on, I started my ride without sunglasses. Wind was tough on my eyes, but hey – it’s an Ironman.

I rode slowly, spending the first 15 minutes riding out of Guerneville getting adjusted to using different muscles. Stunning views of the vineyards – must come back in a car. Started to take in some much-needed calories to recover from the swim and began to feel normal again.



I’d trained with a heart rate monitor, which helped me to understand that it was important to train at lower heart rates in order to maintain endurance. Goal was to keep my heart rate around 140 on the bike –lower than I’d ever trained with, wanted to make sure I had enough left over for the run. Struggled a bit to keep my heart rate that low…it was tempting to push a little harder when I knew that I could easily cut 30 minutes off my time with just a little more effort.

Took a salt tablet every 15 minutes to make sure I was replenishing sodium lost in my sweat. “Food” came in the form of a powder called ‘Carbo-Pro’ that I’d mixed with my water. I had two water bottles with 750 calories each, which sustained me for about 5 hours. I also ate a turkey sandwich I’d made myself the night before and a powerbar. Overall, I consumed roughly 2200 calories on the bike.

Fortunately, the ride was uneventful. Course was mostly flat, and the hills were pretty minor compared to ones I’d trained on. Aid stations every 13 miles… I stopped at many of them to quickly use the porta-potty. Also nice to chat with the volunteers there and pick up a bit of their positive energy. Ironman is a pretty solitary pursuit – nice to get some words of encouragement along the way.

Towards the second half of the ride, started passing more people. Good sign. Felt strong as I passed 100 miles, making it my longest ride ever. Knew I’d put myself in a good position to succeed on the run, but the idea of doing a marathon was still daunting. A huge cheer erupted as I arrived at Windsor High School to complete the bike stage – my family and friends!

26.2 mile Run:
I took my first steps out of the transition area and saw my cheering section. My parents, wife, kids, relatives, friends… a ton of people were there for me. It was a beautiful sight. Stopped to give them high fives and started the run.

The run was three out-and-back loops. Each leg was about 8.8 miles, so the distance to the turn-around point was roughly 4.4 miles. Goal was to maintain a heart rate around 150 BPM with a steady pace throughout. Also planned to walk up the biggest hills, saving energy for the tougher miles later on.

Crowds thinned out quickly once I left the school area, leaving only the runners. I drank as much Gatorade as I could take, assuming I was probably mildly dehydrated. Thought of my Army days where we would do group runs at a slow “Airborne shuffle” pace. I used to hate running that slow… now it was my goal to maintain it.

First loop felt good. Came back to the high school and slowed down to take a better look at my cheering section. They had made half a dozen large signs for me and were just screaming their heads off. My dad jumped out to give me a high five and as I started my second loop, Irene, Sony, and Kevin ran alongside me shouting encouragement. The Team in Training group was also there, cheering me on. It was awesome to see the enthusiasm on all of their faces – and a bit humbling. They were all there – at that moment –cheering for me. I drew on that energy into my second lap, and felt good throughout.

As I completed my second lap, I started feeling tired. “Uh-oh”, I thought. “Here’s where it gets hard”. Coach Dan ran next to me along the sidewalk near the high school telling me what a great job I was doing and before I knew it, Sony, Irene, Stan were running alongside me as well. Sony started running behind me telling me how good I looked in my tight shorts, and made me laugh. “It took 11 months of training to get that Sony!” I told her, and temporarily forgot about the mileage.

If I thought everyone was excited before, my cheering section really went crazy as I started my third lap. My kids were there cheering, and I gave them a quick kiss as I headed off to do my last 8.8 miles. I was definitely tired physically, but the outpouring of energy from everyone plus my own adrenalin rush kept me feeling very fresh. All I kept thinking about was getting back to them and hearing their cheers. Amazingly, I ran the third loop at the same pace as the second loop. As I came back up to the high school and then across the finish line, I was...well, words don’t do it justice. Happy, elated, relieved, inspired, appreciative, pumped… all of those things. After 11 long months of training, and 14 hours and 31 minutes of racing, I had just completed an Ironman!

Almost final words
Huge thanks to everyone who contributed to my participation in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training this season. Together we raised over $6000 to fight cancer! I also want to thank my family - Irene, Simryn, and Vishal - for supporting my training and putting up with fewer bed time stories and foot rubs. And to my cheering section - dad, mom, Mark, Jayme, Jeff, Aly, Nazima, Chirag, Sauna, Dharti, Chirag, Sai, Sony, Smita, Sunita Auntie, Kevin, Stan, Puna, Shell, Mena, Irene, Simryn, and Vishal (plus the teachers at the Woods who helped with the banners and cheered me on Friday morning) - I will always remember your support.

Final words
Okay - gotta admit that I'm thinking of doing it again. Come on - 599th out of 600 on the swim? Who'd be happy with that? Even if I just got an AVERAGE time, that would shave 40 minutes off my time. And what would another year of training mean on my bike and run? There's easily room for me to cut off 30 minutes in each event, right? Which means a goal of sub-13 hours isn't unrealistic??

Stay tuned...

Napa Valley Half-Ironman

What a day!  I was up at 4am to drive to Lake Berryessa near Napa.  I'd never been up there, and was struck by how nice it is up there.  This has actually been a recurring theme during my training - seeing places for the first time and wondering why I've never seen them before.

The event was very small - I'm guessing there were 300 people there, which was a nice change of pace.  Here are the highlights of the race:

* I swam with the 'slow' group, and realized that I'm one of the slowest people in that group

* It rained hard all day long.  At several points, the rain was actually HURTING my face

* I felt very comfortable on my bike and really enjoyed using the aerobars I recently had installed. I'm getting much better - especially on the hills.

* Good pace - my speed on the bike and run was reasonably fast, and I had plenty of energy left to finish

* The athletes who do this are in INCREDIBLE shape.  It's hard to describe how fast and strong these people are, but it's pretty inspiring to see.

* These events are staffed with a lot of volunteers, and they do an amazing job in supporting the races.  During this one, I stopped at an aid station to use the bathroom, and one of the volunteers saw my water bottle/gatorade weren't full and filled them up for me.  

This is my second time completing this type of event, and this one was far easier.  Now it's time for the home stretch - getting myself to the point where I can do twice this distance!

Half Ironman

This Saturday, I completed a half-Ironman training event near Lake San Antonio. It feels fantastic to get to this milestone. I've spent the past three weeks trying to recover from a nagging cold, which forced me to do very light workouts. That might not sound like a big deal at first, but here's an example of the impact of this. A couple weeks ago, the team had a "boot camp" weekend, which consisted of two 7-hr days of biking, running, and swimming. Meanwhile, I did two 30 minute workouts at a light pace because I literally didn't have the energy to do more. Missing three weeks is huge.

One of the nice things about this weekend was that the entire team went up and camped out together. This is one of my favorite things to do, and watching the stars on Friday night, I was reminded that I hadn't done it in a long time.

I was feeling mostly recovered on Saturday morning. The morning was beautiful and clear. Swimming the 1.2 miles in the lake was a different experience than my other swims. The water was warm and clean. This should have made for a relaxing swim, but I didn't feel as buoyant in the freshwater. This preyed on my mind during the swim, and I never really felt relaxed. The other issue was that I'm terrible about being able to sight in the water and figure out where I'm going. Seriously - I wind up swimming a LOT more than I need to because I'm constantly zig-zagging back and forth instead of swimming in a straight line. Eventually, I happily finished the swim - dead last in our group of 30 or so people. Need to get better..

I walked over to the transition area to change for the bike ride. What's funny is that after all this training, I still haven't figured out the right way to change my clothes over from the swim to the bike. Part of the reason is that I'm always the last one getting out of the water and can't watch other people transitioning! This time around, I grabbed my clothes, walked over to the bathrooms next to the transition area, and changed. I know some people wear their bike shorts under their wetsuit and then are ready to go once they get out - maybe I'll try that next time.

The bike ride was 56 miles long with a big hill around the 40 mile mark called "Nasty Grade". I felt slightly weak, but good for most of the ride. For the first time, I was very careful of my nutrition plan during the ride (solid food, water, and salt tablets) and as it got increasingly hotter (eventually up into the mid 80's), this made a big difference. The hill turned out to be tough, but short, and as I cruised down the other side, I was feeling pretty confident. Unfortunately, I could feel myself tiring during the last 6 miles and started wondering for the first time whether I was going to be able to do the run.

Coach Dan had suggested to me that I take it easy since I was coming off an illness. He specifically mentioned that if I didn't feel good, I should do the run the next day. As I took my first steps, I was thinking that running the next day was a pretty good idea. My legs felt heavy and totally unresponsive. There was a short rise coming out of the parking lot and it was so hard to get over that I started thinking "there's no way". If I couldn't run 100 yards, how was I going to do 13 miles?

As an aside, my observation is that I'm the only person on our team who ever seems to say anything remotely negative about physical obstacles. Or maybe even think anything negative. I'll say "Wow, this sucks" and everyone will sort of look at me with a blank expression on their face, probably thinking "Gee, listen to Mr Whiner over there." I've never been around people like this - even in the Army. These Ironmen/women are a different breed altogether.

Back to the run.... I soon realized that I could run when the trail was flat or downhill, but needed to walk when there was a hill because of the way my legs felt. So that's what I did for the first 7 miles. There were some other runners near me that were doing the same thing and this made it a little easier to deal with the heat and lack of shade. At mile 7, I stopped at an aid station where they had oranges, watermelon, pretzels, ice, cold water.... beautiful! After pigging out, I found myself starting to feel stronger, and picked up the pace very slightly. Still wasn't powering over any hills, but as I continued knocking off miles, I realized that I was actually going to be able to finish. And as I got to the finish line and received my medal from the dollar store (thanks Christina), I felt pretty proud to have gotten through a very tough day.

The next day I felt perfect - no sickness, no issues. Not even sore. Unfortunately, the next day, I had a fever and finally decided to call the doctor to see what was going on. It turns out that I have a sinus infection. Now I'm on antibiotics, but hopeful that this will finally get me healthy enough for the four month run-up to Vineman.

Road ride with Chirag

Proof that I'm crazy... I just completed a 63 mile bike ride -my longest yet. Wait...that's not the crazy part. The crazy part is that this comes on a day when I was supposed to ride about half this distance according to our training calendar.

Why would I choose to do this? I could blame Chirag - my riding partner for the day - pressuring me into riding longer than I wanted to. He's training for the Solvang Century and is trying to build up his mileage. The story of how I met Chirag is an interesting one, but has nothing to do with Ironman training so I won't go into it... suffice it to say we're probably related in some way.

Anyway, that's not the reason. The real reason is that I'm completely inadequate on the bike when it comes to riding longer distances. My butt starts hurting, my neck and shoulders start to ache, I imagine that my hands are going to fall asleep and slip off my handbars... you get the picture. And while I'm eventually going to be doing a lot more long rides, it's driving me crazy that I constantly feel crummy after getting off my bike. The solution? Miles....lots of them.

So we rode from Chirag's house near Rancho San Antonio up to Sawyer Camp Trail. The day was beautiful (reinforces my earlier thoughts on living in California) and we covered the 31 miles pretty quickly. I was feeling great - really strong. In retrospect, I credit my enormous breakfast at IHOP that morning. The boost from that breakfast started winding down on our way back. By around mile 45, I started feeling restless and knew that my body was starting to tire. The last 10 miles, all I could think about was getting done. Actually, that's not exactly true. I was also wondering how I was possibly going to keep that up for 115 miles in a race.... and then run a marathon. By the time we got back to Chirag's house, any enthusiasm I felt about finishing had pretty much been killed off by my worry about how I would ever do this in an event. It didn't help that on the ride we met a guy pulling his baby in a stroller who told me that the race portion of Vineman (my event) was tough. Or that even with a stroller, he was going the same speed as me. Or that it had taken about 4.5 hours to cover this distance, which meant that I was on target for a 9 hour bike ride at Vineman.

So back to additional proof that I'm crazy.... I complete my longest ride ever and I can't even enjoy the accomplishment.

Louie Bonpua Triathlon

I just complete my first Olympic distance triathlon on Treasure Island, near San Francisco. The event itself was a lot of fun, but it was also a very real reminder of why I've joined Team in Training. In the days before the race, I received this email from the coaches:

Team,
Obviously you know Louie's name, as we are racing in the event named for him this Sunday. But in case you don't know his story, here's a brief overview. Also, check out our team webpage, for Louie's inspirational tribute video.
At the age of 32, Louie was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Chemotherapy was able to keep the cancer in check. He was able to live his life, but was forced to stay on maintenance chemo. After building his strength back, Louie joined TNT in 1999 as a participating honoree for the Pacific Grove Triathlon. Even though he was still on chemo, Louie completed the triathlon and became an active part of the Team, raising money, and becoming a spokesman for himself and all honorees.
Louie's health went up and down. The chemo was not working as well, and he lost a lot of weight and became very weak. Word came out of a new "wonder drug" that was in clinical trials. Always the fighter, Louie talked his way into the phase 3 clinical trials for what would later be called Gleevec. The effect was immediate. Louie gained weight, strength, and health. With this new strength, Louie set his sights on IronTeam.
Louie joined IronTeam for the 2001 season. He originally was going to be an honoree, but signed up as a participant. He went through the same training and fundraising as you. Throughout the season, his health started to falter, but he stuck with it. In August 2002, Louie finished Ironman Canada in front of a huge crowd of screaming fans.
Following the Ironman, Louie was chosen to carry the Olympic torch when it passed through San Francisco. At the same time, his health continued to fail. He started to get pain in his joints, and went in for a checkup. His cancer had reached the "blast crisis" phase, which meant that he had a few months to live. One week after entering the hospital, he was scheduled to carry the torch. The doctors only allowed him to go when they realized he would not take no for an answer, and would break out if they didn't give him their blessing.
It was a cold but clear morning at Fort Point. As the sun rose, hundreds of Louie's friends, fans, and teammates came to cheer him on. He arrived in an ambulance, and expected to be pushed in a wheelchair. But when the time came, Louie stood from the wheelchair, held the torch high, and walked (followed by about 300 cheering people).
That evening, Louie went back to the hospital, and after celebrating with his family, fell asleep. Louie never awoke from that sleep. He held on for about 3 days, but died early on the morning of Jan 22nd, with his family by his side.
The first annual Louie tri was held the following weekend. The tri had already been scheduled, but was immediately re-named in his honor. And we continue that tradition today. But the Louie tri is not just about Louie. It's really about our honorees, past and present. It's about those who we have lost, those who have beat cancer, and those who are still fighting. And most importantly, it's about making sure that in the future, we won't lose any more of our friends and loved ones to cancer.

It was a beautiful morning. As I stood in my wetsuit, listening to Louie's friends talk about him before the race, I felt very calm. It's funny how when you're focused only on yourself, events like this can seem intimidating.... but when you're thinking about someone else and the challenges they faced, your insecurities seem fairly minor.

It was with this mindset that I got into the San Francisco Bay for the first time in my life. My previous attempts have involved putting a foot in the water and running out screaming. For those of you who don't know, the Bay is really really cold. Even in a wetsuit. But as I started stroking, I realized that I actually felt really comfortable in the water. The cold didn't bother me after I started moving, and it was nice that the water didn't have the same marshy taste and smell that the lagoon had. I stroked at a slow and steady pace, and occasionally looked up to make sure I was headed in the right direction. I could tell that there were a lot of swimmers ahead of me, but wasn't sure how many were behind me. When I got out, I looked back, wondering if I was the last swimmer (my usual position). It turned out that there was at least a handful of swimmers still in the water... progress!

I ran down to the transition area, peeling off my wetsuit on the way. I was wearing tri-shorts, which I could wear through all three events, so once I got my wet suit off, pulled on my bike jersey, and got my shoes on, I was pretty much ready to run out of the area with my bike. The 25-mile ride should have been fairly easy - it was a flat course a course that twisted and turned through the streets of Treasure Island. In reality, the streets were bumpy, my shorts didn't have enough padding, and my legs were more tired than I thought from the swim. My transition from the bike to the run was quick, and then I was completing the last 6 miles of the event. My run was slow, but felt fine. When I crossed the finish line, I felt (for the first time) that the Ironman might actually be possible.

Holiday Training

I found myself in Maryland during the holidays. It was great to see my parents, but the 15 degree weather quickly convinced me that my training would be done in the gym. And as I trained on varous exercise machines trying to get a decent workout, I gradually came to a realization which can be summarized as "This sucks". People like to complain about the cost of living in California (particularly people who don't live here), but the truth is that it should actually be WAY higher than it is... like maybe 10x the cost of living in places like Maryland. We get 4-5 months more of spending time outdoors and don't have to deal with cold weather / snow and all of it's associated problems. Now, I can accept that spending time outdoors isn't that big a deal to everyone. Some people really love indoor activities, like watching TV (which come to think of it, I did a lot of as a kid). But to me, the difference translates into the difference between doing activities I love like running marathons and training for this triathlon and watching "The Biggest Loser".

Fortunately, part of my vacation was spent on a cruise ship in the Caribbean (thanks Mom!). With the weather being a non-issue, I thought it would be easier to get some more intense training in. It turns out that cruise ships are not conducive to that. I did get daily exercise from training on machines while the ship was at sail. Also, Irene and I had a great run in the rain on St Kitts and I swam for an hour in the warm water off Grand Turk. All of that was easily negated by the vast quantities of food I did such a poor job resisting.

I've returned back to California now. I trained a lot, but I'm probably in somewhat worse shape than I was in before I left. The good part is that I'm definitely mentally fresher and happier after having a great vacation. I'm also more excited than ever about getting back into my training.