Supersonic Quantum Breakthrough

Well.... not quite supersonic or quantum but I did improve my 30 minute power by around 2%. I finally broke the 375 barrier with a 382 watts average for 30 minutes today. I also set new 15 (393) and 20 (389) minute records. It was nice. I hope that I can continue to improve my power. In other news Heath, and everyone else at Power Tri, are Awesome. I brought my bike in to get a 55 tooth chain ring put on for the downhill sections of ironman St George. Heath not only did a great job of putting on my chain ring but he also did a brilliant piece of work mounting a bottle cage to the back of my saddle. He saved me a bunch of grams and I am sure he improved my aerodynamics. I bet it saves me at least 37 1/3 seconds at St George. Everyone at Power Tri goes the extra mile, sooooo go online right now and buy lots of stuff from them. Even if you don’t need it just do it because they are really great people and I am sure you could always use an extra wetsuit or two.

The Onion-Mushroom-Green Bean Diet

I weighed around 188 for World Championships. After Kona I adjusted my diet in hopes of getting to 180 or perhaps even lower than that. A good chunk of my food intake consists of a mixture of onions, mushrooms and green beans jumbled up with either chicken, shrimp or fish. (My family disdains this hodgepodge calling it “Dad’s concoction”). This Diet has caused changes in my body but it has changed my body odor more than my body weight. I imagine I am known by some people at the pool as “that guy who smells like rotten vegetables” and my Wife (who abhors mushrooms and onions) finds my odiferous aroma to be repugnant. BUT I have slowly lost some weight. This morning marks a major milestone as I broke 180 tipping the scales at 179.8. If I can get to 177 it will be the first time I have weighed that little since I was 2 inches shorter and 18 years younger as a zit faced 16 year old. If I lose those last pounds it will be due to the infinite patience of my ever enduring Wife’s olfactory sense.

Looking for marital tension? Get a Power Tap.

My wife is jealous of my Power Tap. It is the love of my cycling life. I think that training with power is the best way to improve your cycling. I would forgo getting the new bike or race wheels and get the Power Tap first. It makes workouts measurable and when workouts are measureable you can track progress and have an accurate assessment of your fitness. Because of my Power Tap I know that today was one of my best ever workouts. I was able to set 4 peak power records today. I started by doing 90 minutes all out and in the process set 40 minute, 90 minute and most importantly 60 minute records. I average 357 for 60 minutes. (I have a special place in my heart for the 30 minute average power. I wish I would have just gone after the 30 minute record from the beginning because I definitely would have got it with the way I felt today. My best 30 minute average within today’s 90 minutes was 364 which is only 11 watts away from my 30 minute record.) I recovered from the 90 minutes of pain and then did some max efforts and hit 1268 watts and set a new 5 second record with 1193. Without my power tap I would have no idea that today was any better than any other day, and I would not be able to see that my power has improved a lot since Kona. Since Hawaii I have set new records for 5 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, and 90 minutes. I would not know that I am improving without the Power Tap. Without the feedback from the Power Tap you really have no idea if your training program is or is not working. Sooo if you want to improve on your bike call Power Tri (866-601-4445) and get a Power Tap. They have a great deal on them plus give them the code “spencer10” and get another 10% off. Start tracking your progress. Just don't let it come between you and your spouse.

The 400 Watt Dream

I started riding when I got a bike for Christmas is 2008. After riding without power for two months I began riding with power on February 13th 2009. As I was new to cycling I saw rapid, improvement in my power. For a while I was setting new power records each week. It was nice to set records for the different time periods from 5 seconds all the way to 2 hours, but to me the most important record became the 30 minute average power. I saw it rise from 315 my first test on Feb 16th 2009 up to 368 on May 22nd of 2009. At that point I thought if I could get to 368 in three months then it was only a matter of time before I hit the big 400 for 30 minutes. But I stalled at that level. My power actually dropped for a few months. I matched the 368 again in October. Then on January 7th of 2010 I hit 375. In this past year my overall cycling has continued to improve and I have set new average power records for most of the designated times from 5 seconds to 2 hours but I haven’t improved on my 375 for 30 minutes. It looks like 400 watts for 30 minutes might never happen, and I will be fine if it never does but I really want to hit it. I have adjusted my training a bit and I hope the changes eventually translate to 400 for 30. In the whole scheme of things my power level on the bike doesn’t really matter, when I step back and look at how obsessed I am with my watts I am a little disturbed with myself, but to go down to my basement, get on my bike, have a 30 minute suffer fest, and then plug my power tap into my computer and confirm 400 watts for 30 minutes would be pure joy. The increase from 375 to 400 comes out to an increase of 6.68% ....I hope that it happens.

Christmas Eve Testing

I am quite the scrooge. I told my kids there is no Santa Claus, (the parents of my children’s friends just love me for that one), I don’t buy anybody but my wife and parents presents, and I am annoyed that the pool is closed Christmas Day. So to be true to my scrooge nature I decided to spend Christmas Eve doing some swim and bike testing to see where I am at. My swim speed and bike power have gotten better so I wanted to test exactly how much better.

At Masters I did a 1000 yard time trial in 14:46. That is the fastest I have ever done 1000 yards, but about 10 seconds slower than what I expected. I am lucky to have some great friends who have helped me to get my form better over the last few months. I need to cut another 3 seconds off per hundred before St George. If I can do that I should be able to do the swim in about an hour. I finished my swim with around 3500 yards on the day.

I ate a lot of food and waited about two hours and then I got on my bike. I did a 5 hour bike ride. I warmed up for a half an hour then I started with a 10 minute interval then I did my test interval, 20 minutes all out. I had good power. I was able to increase it throughout the 20 minutes. My first 5 minutes were 369 watts and my last 5 were 399. I averaged 380 watts over the 20 minutes which is my most ever by a few watts. The real good news is even though it was very tough it was not overwhelmingly difficult. My heart rate reached only 173. That is 5 beats lower than my max. This gives me some hope for the future as I think I have room to push myself harder. After my 20 minute test I continued for a total of 2 hours of intervals. Including rest my average power was 310 for 2 hours and my normalized power was 325. Those are good numbers for me considering I started with the hard 20 minute test.

I have major mental problems as this is the stuff I think about all the time. I wish I were more like Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa and thought about how I could make the world a better place. I do think about that stuff as well, but for some reason I am just compelled to think about getting faster, maybe I just need a triathlon intervention.

Ironman World Championship Race Report

Swim
Good: I got really lucky on the swim. I put myself in the middle pretty far back and I didn’t get too caught up in the thrashing. I took a few elbows but I felt like I was able to get some room pretty quick. I took both of the right turns as tight as I could right around the buoy and very strangely everyone else was taking the turns wide so I gained some time and missed the trashing scrum. On the way back in I got on a guys feet and just hung with him for a long time. Then a girl came whizzing by me and I wondered if I should jump on her feet, I decided to jump and hung on her slipstream for dear life till about 100 meters to go when the arch of my left foot cramped and seized up. I just thought I was very lucky it did not seize up earlier. Time 1:10. I’m happy with it.

Bad: Despite my lucky swim it still put me way, way behind.

Ugly: My torque swimskin helped me swim faster. Unfortunately it tore the skin of my arms and lats up pretty good as well. I would recommend anyone thinking of getting a torque to get the pro version not the elite like I had. The elite’s Fabric is closer to sandpaper and the Pro is closer to neoprene.

Bike
Good: I felt in control and under my limit the whole Bike. I think I rode the right pace. The last 2/3rds of the bike were very windy. A lot of people were really struggling to keep their bikes upright. I was bombing down a hill about to pass a guy when we got hit by a huge gust of cross wind. The guy in front of me came very close to biffing it on the bike but pulled out some evasive maneuvers to keep himself up right. If he had gone down I would have nailed him and we both would have been really jacked up. I biked a 4:51 slower that what I thought I could do but considering the wind I am ok with it.

Bad: It felt very hot and I got stung by a bee. The bee got stuck in my race bracelet and stung me. It hurt…Bad.

Ugly: I normally POUND the calories on the bike and I did that in this race also but it was hard. My stomach did not want anything in it. I had to force down the Gu and Ironman’s new drink called perform. My stomach bothered me a lot and kept telling me to stop putting things in it but it was so hot that I thought I really needed to drink a lot in order to keep from dehydrating. I ended up taking in too much and paid for it on the run:

Run
Good: I felt great I was able to run fast and my heart rate was lower than what I expected. I was able to cruise a majority of the time (other than the steeper hills) at between 6:30 and 7:30 miles. The Heat didn’t bother me too much. My time was just under 3:27

Bad: I had some major Gastro Intestinal distress. At mile 3 I stopped at a Porta potty. After that I was ok until around mile 12-14 I suddenly had to go again. I was between aid stations and I slowed way down to see if I could keep myself from going but then it just came. I diarrhea’d myself right there on the Queen K. I walked for a little bit and thought about what I should do and then I thought “Duh stupid” I better just keep running. A few miles later it happened again. I was close to a porta potty but didn’t make it. I got about half in my shorts and half in the porta potty. I kept running and I think it happened one more time… maybe not...I can’t remember for sure. Looking back I could have pushed myself harder on the run. I had gas left in the tank at the end and I guess I paced myself too conservatively. I would like to have changed two things on the run. First I would have liked to push myself to my limit and held a faster pace. Second I would have been wiser with my calorie intake on the bike thus avoiding the GI problems on the run. I think with these two changes I could have had a better run time.

Ugly: My shorts and Socks. I started the run with white socks and ended it with brown socks.

Overall My time was just under 9:35. It was an awesome experience. Racing against the best in the world was really cool. It was neat to be here with my friends. Keena, Jay, B.J. and Doug all had great races. Sean and Michelle also came to support us. It was great to have the support from all my friends at Power Tri. My final overall feeling when it was done is that I need to improve. I hope that I can get better at this whole thing.

Kona Outlook

Body Weight: I have been eating a lot of cucumbers and green beans and I’ve lost some pounds. I’ll try to lose a bit more before the race.

Bike: I am in good bike shape. I had a good indicator workout Friday the 24th, I did a ride with a two hour average power of 335 w.

Run: Hooray, my calves are not injured. I have gotten in 3 months of solid running so my run is looking better than before either of my other Ironman races. I had a good indicator run Saturday the 25th, I did 10 miles in 60:45.

Swim: Please pray for lightning because I will probably be 1,756th out of the water. Unless I suddenly gain Michael Phelps type ankle flexibility I am going to be way behind.

Overall: I have a broad expectation range. I think that if things go my way then I could have a good day. If I can minimize my losses on the swim, really hammer the bike and deal with the heat ok on the run then hopefully I’ll do good.