Lonestar Triathlon Festival report

When last year I organized a team of six runners from the Mid-Texas Symphony to run in the annual Beach-to-Bay marathon relay in Corpus Christi I found myself short one female runner. I wanted a balanced team of 3 guys and 3 gals, so my friend Liz Levin Pittel, an avid runner, suggested her stand partner and fellow cellist Dorian Ramirez.

I wasn’t sure what kind of runner Dorian was, but signed her on to the team. After all, this was just for fun. On race day we relayed reports back and forth amongst the team each time the baton was passed and it became apparent after Liz ran and especially after Dorian finished her leg of the race that we had a quicker team than any of us had anticipated. It turns out that Dorian was just beginning to stretch herself out as a runner and triathlete. She and her husband Fred raced in last year’s Capital of Texas Tri and this year they are biting into at least a portion of the inaugural Texas Tri Series. Here’s a report Dorian sent me on their participation in the Lonestar Triathlon Festival on April 1, in Galveston.

“Hi. I wanted to give you an update on the quarter Lonestar Tri we did last weekend! We were really worried about the weather. When we left Austin on Sat the storms had passed but of course as we were driving, we drove right into them in Houston. The folks who did the sprint on Sat had horrible conditions. All of their stuff in transition was floating in water when they got out of the swim, but everyone sounded like they made the best of it. Fortunately, the weather cooperated and we had no rain, but some nice wind :)

“We swam in the bay (not on the seawall side but the other side). Thank goodness! It was nice and salty and waves went over your head as you swam. It was a new experience for me. While swimming I thought...how do people do Hawaii and Florida where there are real waves??

“We were nice and salty when we jumped on the bike to ride down the coast and we had a strong headwind against us. It was really nice to make the turn and have the wind behind us on the way back!

“The run was curvy and there were plenty of aid stations. The race was really well organized and enjoyable. I finished in 3:09 and Fred finished in 3:20. We felt fine when we finished, other than being a bit sore and tired and headed back to Austin after the race.”

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Two a days

When I first talked to Zetta Young back in December I quickly learned she is not only enthusiastic about offering advice and help, but she also has the experience to know what she is talking about.

Zetta is accomplished in triathlon and also in the individual challenge of marathon. She has qualified for, competed in, and completed the Hawaii Ironman. Ditto for the Boston Marathon. I mention this not so much to brag about Zetta, though she is somewhat reluctant to do it herself, but to clarify that when Zetta offers advice, it is a practiced advice which has worked for her, and probably is something we who are just learning need to heed. In the course of that December conversation, I asked Zetta about her workout schedule.

“Oh, I usually swim a couple of times a week, bike three times a week, and run three times a week,” said Zetta.

I smarted off: “That makes an eight day week.”

“No,” she patiently replied, though she knew I was kidding. “Some days I will bike and run the same day, or swim and bike. And, of course, you take a day off to rest.”

The point of this is to remind us all that in order to train thoroughly for the challenge of a triathlon we have to do double disciplines now and then, especially once the training begins ramping up. Another accomplished athlete who contributes to this blog is Shelly Campbell. Shelly is a coach, an internationally competitive bicyclist and triathlete. She has kindly put together a training program for me as I work towards my first triathlon experience. Needless to say, there are days of double duty. And later in the training schedule there are days to practice the transitions from one part of the tri to another. It all makes sense, especially when you know it comes out of Shelly’s own experience of being competitive and successful as an athlete.

So let’s get with it, triathletes. Within the past week and a half I have practiced some of what Zetta and Shelly preach. It’s a different experience to run and swim on the same day, or to bike and swim as I did today. Sure, I will eventually put these into the proper sequence and also practice the “bricks” (biking followed by running) which I anticipate WILL be as difficult as everyone says it is. My experience so far is that it is a blast. You work out hard in one discipline, get the endorphins kicking, then leap into the next sport and get that endorphin rush. It feels good to work out hard and feel so great about it afterwards. You begin to get that taste in your mouth that Josh Davis once mentioned to me. Said Josh: "Nothing tastes as good as being fit."

If you’re training for a competition, or just working to get fit, I hope you will chime in on this discussion. Let us know what you are up to. And by all means, let’s take advantage of having Shelly and Zetta on board to help us all out. Additionally, though I didn’t give a proper introduction to Jeff Campbell, he’s our cyclist and will be glad to address any bike related issues. Let’s use these resources!

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Swimming progress

I guess it must have been my dad who first taught me how to swim. He wasn’t a particularly good swimmer, so you can imagine what kind of swimmer he made of me.

Nevertheless, I spent a lot of time in a pool during the summer months as I grew up in Victoria, Texas. We lived just a quarter mile of so from what was the only public pool at that time in Victoria. It was called Pleasure Island; much of the pleasure was buying frozen candy bars at the concession stand with whatever nickels and dimes my brothers and I had managed to pull together. If you found one of us at the pool, you likely found all three brothers at the pool, and I guess in retrospect that is a remembered pleasure.

My first “real” job was as a basket boy at Pleasure Island, working for 25 or 30 cents an hour for Coach Gilstrap. Pool patrons were issued numbered baskets in which they put their clothes and other belongings. The basket boy took care of the baskets while the swimmers swam. It wasn’t a bad job. It was in the shade and I got to swim free on my days off.

You would think with this much early experience around a swimming pool I would be a swimmer. But again, the only instruction I had back then was from my dad. I never really learned a proper stroke, though I prided myself in swimming long underwater distances on my elastic lungs. I swam less in high school, maybe Pleasure Island had closed by then, so my next experience was a semester or two of swimming at UT Austin during my freshman year. The coach wasn’t much engaged, though we did come away with a vague understanding of a crawl, a backstoke, the breaststroke and the butterfly. Mostly we thrashed in the pool at the old Gregory Gymnasium playing a lot of water polo. Final exam was to swim a mile.

That was more than a third of a century ago (it’s scary when I think of it that way). During the intervening years I have rarely done more than swim across a pool now and then before opting to lounge at poolside. Thus my reluctance when this triathlon thing came up. How in the world would I manage even the relatively short distance of 750 meters in a sprint triathlon? The first few times back in the water brought to my mind the image of a turtle swimming with its head high out of the water, while the frantic thrashing of my arms was like a windmill. Be calm, I said to myself, and see what comes. I have gotten a few bits of advice (still need more) and have watched with interest other swimmers of varying abilities. I like to believe I have begun to print that mental image of the good swimmers upon the physical reality of my thrice weekly swims. My distances in the water have increased at an encouraging pace. Yesterday I duplicated that final swimming exam at UT all those years ago, and I suspect I may even know better what I’m doing today than I did in 1967. That’s some progress.

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Kitchen scales, or bathroom scales?

Let’s talk diet, chew the fat (as they say) about the somewhat contradictory nature of how we eat, why we eat, and what we should eat.

Although we all know some general rules, like cut down on the junk food, the fast food, the fat and calorie laden food, how many really abide by these general rules? Not many, from the looks of our general population. Come on, let’s dig in and resist the popular and hedonistic approach to eating. Without making this commitment, how are we going to achieve other related goals of fitness and discipline?

But I digress, for what I am really thinking about is the disparity between the non-athlete’s need to “diet” and the athlete’s quite different needs. To confuse the two can be counterproductive at best and debilitating at worst. When I think of diet, it’s the traditional rules which come to my mind: count the calories, read the labels, burn some calories. That’s it in a nutshell: don’t intake more calories than you burn, and take in even fewer calories if you intend to lose weight. But how does this apply to the athlete?

First, I love the definition given me by Shelly Campbell that we become athletes when we make the commitment to exercise and become physically active, whether it be swimming, running, biking, dance aerobics or aggressively walking (a saunter won’t do it). As athletes we now must adjust our ideas about dieting in order to insure we aren’t jeopardizing the fuel supply we need for our increased physical activity. Yet we are trapped by the old concepts, the basic dieting which is done by the less active. We do our best to practice calorie counting, portion control and resisting those tempting and harmless looking cookies which pack 150 calories into each mouthwatering morsel. We lose weight, or at least stabilize the situation as muscle begins to displace fat. But here the trouble begins for many of us.

There’s been a crusade against carbohydrates and I suppose there are some valid arguments to support squeezing back on carbs. That is, unless you are a practicing athlete. Higher levels of physical activity require carbohydrates as the fuel source. If you run as exercise, you need to insure you are getting enough carbs in your diet. Yes, it’s one more thing to have to count, and one more listing we must seek out when reading labels on packaged foods. We also should become familiar with measuring portions when we are preparing our foods from scratch. I admit that I don’t, and that’s good reason for us all to add this additional layer to our dietary control. Let’s discuss this sooner than later within the context of this public forum.

Another huge concern which probably also requires dietary scales in our kitchens is the issue of protein. So maybe an Atkins style diet has it at least partially right for the athlete by emphasizing the importance of protein in the diet. The latest I have read, in an article titled “Protein Power”(by Matthew Kadey) in the March-April 2007 edition of Geezerjock magazine, presents yet another formula we have to consider in designing our proper diet. According to the article, if you are into a program of heavy endurance training, like marathon running or long distance cycling (and I guess triathlon would qualify), then you ought to be consuming 0.6-0.7 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. We are all going to need to revisit our daily diets and insure that we are not penalizing ourselves and our performance by getting too little protein. And when we get that protein is also of some importance! I have seen studies which indicate we have a 45 minute window of opportunity after exercising to intake a combination of carbs and protein, this window allowing the most efficient opportunity for the body to put these dietary items to use. According to the article already cited in Geezerjock, “it’s recommended that one consume at least 12-15 grams of protein within 30 minutes after exercise.”

As you can see, dieting is an altogether different beast once you begin training for the big event, or for the rest of your life. Let’s get together and begin using the kitchen scales, not the bathroom scales, as the measure of where we are headed in this exciting adventure of fitness and discovery.

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Runner's high

All who exercise, especially those who exercise vigorously, come away with a sensation of elation: call it a runner’s high, a biker’s high.....

(and I’m not talking about the high those guys on the Harleys sometimes have), whatever. If you exercise, you know what I’m speaking of. If you don’t, you likely believe we are simply delusional, or just dishonest about this sensation which accompanies the measurable benefits of lowered heart rate, improved blood pressure, etc. Olympic gold medal swimmer Josh Davis once told me how he just enjoyed swimming laps, training, training, and more training. There’s sometimes a perverse pleasure athletes get from the hurt, but I would bet what drove Josh and drives all other athletes, at all levels, is that endorphin high. And there’s such a sense of accomplishment, too. Combine the high and the satisfaction during and after a workout and we get at the essence of why we exercise and why those who do so wish everyone else would too. We guarantee there would be a lot less workplace stress, probably less crime, never a cloudy day, everyone would find the gold at the end of the rainbow (well, I guess I've gone overboard here) and we surely would all live longer.

See Can Exercise Make Me High?

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The myth of swimming

Runners are an opinionated bunch. I know because I am a runner, and I am opinionated.

When we as runners chose running over other exercises each of us had our reasons. For one thing, it’s pretty economical. Shoes are the main expense and most can get themselves on the road with an outlay of under $100. Although running itself is not so easy, getting there certainly is, as long as you don’t mind running on pavement. Just suit up, go out the door, stretch for a few minutes and run. Assuming you have no skeletal or muscular injuries and are not prone to such, running is one of the most effective ways to get a very good cardiovascular workout.

Of course we as runners more than likely considered some other exercise disciplines, primarily biking and swimming. Now isn’t that interesting? They are the other two-thirds of the triathlon! So why didn’t we start out with a mix of the three, or maybe a focus upon biking or swimming? Putting aside for a moment the economics of the decision many, like me, passed on the other disciplines because we read or heard that although they are great exercise they are nevertheless less workout than running. The argument goes something like this: the better you get at swimming, the less workout you will achieve. Efficiency comes at a price, and that same argument can be applied to biking. You often hear that an hour of biking is NOT the same workout as an hour of running, and that’s quite possibly so. I’m no authority on this, just opinionated.

So if we’re so darned sure of the superiority of running, why do we shake in our boots when we decide to (tri)athlon? Well, for one thing, the boots will definitely sink us when we try to swim in them. But aside from that, we are insecure about learning a new skill, especially swimming. And a few sessions in the pool certainly convinced me that this was some hard work ahead. Truth is, we runners who are just taking to the water have a long way to go before we become so efficient in our swimming that we minimize our one hour workout. In fact, until I got some recent feedback from a couple of efficient swimmers, I had about concluded that the running world’s snobbery about running being better exercise than swimming was contrived. But this weekend I spoke to a friend who swims but doesn’t run who opined that she gets less benefit as she gets more efficient in the water. Hmm. Then I got an email from Zetta Young, a strong and efficient swimmer.

Zetta wrote: “It is so much harder for [the beginner] and personally it p***es me off because they burn more calories than I do and swim less!”

So…..I guess we runners, in our opinionated way, have got it right about swimming being a lighter workout. Problem is, we have months, if not years, of drills and laps to swim before we begin sliding onto the downside of the curve. I have to say, my hat is off to the swimmers (and the cyclists). The embarrassing truth is that they could probably beat me at my game of running long before I will keep pace with them at their sports.

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Capitol 10K: a fun experience

As I have stated before in this blogspace, I am not a particularly fast runner and 5 and 10k races are often a struggle for me. Nevertheless, I had a great time at this year's running of the Capital 10K over in Austin.

Despite the efforts of race organizers to sign up 30 thousand participants, this 30th running of an Austin tradition found around 15 thousand takers shoulder to shoulder, curb to curb up and down Congress Avenue. I couldn't resist looking back as I reached the Capitol grounds in order to marvel at the spectacle of all those runners and walkers in the early stages of the race.

The Capitol 10K is really several races rolled into one. First, there are the wheel chair athletes. Then the block of several hundred "rabbits" who sprint away with intentions of prize money, ranking or crossing the finish at around half an hour. Following are the serious runners who train year-round and race in pursuit of new personal bests or just for the thrill of being in shape. And finally there are those who participate in the Capitol 10K for the tradition of fun, costumes and being a part of this Austin tradition.

A course record which had stood for 10 years was bested by Nicodemus Malakwen, a 25-year-old from Chapel Hill, who won the race in 29:42. The winning woman was Austin's Albina Gallyamova who finished in 35:28. It's difficult to not admire these elite runners and my hat is certainly off to them. But my hat's off as well to the humorous, sometimes odd, costumed runners. My personal favorites were a fellow in a business suit, carrying a briefcase, and the lady who ran in a colorful Flamenco outfit.

Friends asked me if I wore a costume. I suppose I masqueraded as a runner. Nevertheless, the bottom line was I had fun, as did most all of the runners, walkers and strollers in this years "run." With lots of future events coming up in the San Antonio/Central Texas area, maybe you too will consider a 5 or 10k in your future.

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Prisoner of the blue lines

Joni Mitchell sings of becoming “a prisoner of the white lines of the freeway” and I can’t help but relate this to the “prisoner of the blue lines of the swimming pool."

I really should be thankful for those blue lines because they at least keep me from swimming in circles, something I have been assured is a possibility once I get into the open water of Boerne City Lake or Austin’s Town Lake. Those blue lines at the pool also alert me to the approaching wall at the end of the lane, the opportunity to grasp the edge and catch one’s breath or to simply touch, do whatever degree of turnaround you can manage, then retrace that same blue line to the opposite end of the pool. I haven’t been at this long enough to despise the blue line, but I would guess there will come the time to liberate myself from the enclosure of a pool and try my stroke in open water. The thought of that still leaves me breathless, so for now I am quite content to continue as a “prisoner of the blue lines of the 25 meter pool," at least for the time being.

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Hot weather means hydrate, hydrate, hydrate

Congratulations to the (by my quick count) 69 finishers of last weekend’s Prickly Pear 50K, put on by the San Antonio Roadrunners. The Prickly Pear 10 miler, which I thought about running but didn’t, was finished by over 300 runners.

It’s a reminder that there are plenty of distance and trail challenges right here in the San Antonio area. Also, the Spring racing season gets off to both a highly competitive and zany start with the Capital 10K this coming Sunday in Austin. I do plan to run that race, but with no fast time goal. It’ll be just for the fun of it, and an excuse to run with the huge pack of thousands. In fact, race organizers claim to be shooting for 30 thousand runners for this, the 30th running of the Capitol 10K.

I know the 10K is supposed to be sort of a benchmark for assessing your running, but since I pretty much found my “comfort” zone with longer distances it has been easy for me to write off 5K and 10K distances as too short for a slower runner such as me. Truth is, I hate doing wind sprints and other speed work, though I will do them when they come around on the workout schedule Shelly Campbell has given me ;-). No, really, I’ll do them ;-) This darned keyboard…..I can’t seem to turn the emoticon lock off ;-)

Spring arrives officially tomorrow, on the 21st, but in reality it’s been with us for about the last 4 weeks or so. This means the outdoor workouts are going to entail dealing with warmer and then hotter temperatures. With the recent rains humidity is also a growing factor which will work against us pretty much the next 6 months or more. Good hydration, always a factor, becomes even more important.

A friend in Austin just wrote: “Today I did a brick and didn't do as well as I had hoped on the run because I was too dehydrated.” The veterans say drink before you become thirsty. By the time your body lets you know, it’s already too late. And I have become more and more a proponent of hydrating with products such as Heed, from Hammer Nutrition. This is a good electrolyte replacement and is IMHO superior to water alone. There are some other manufacturers of similar products, so we are no longer limited to Gatorade or Powerade. I would encourage novice athletes to investigate these various “aids” to running, biking and other strenuous exercise.

This brings me to a thank you to Carroll Voss of Fleet Feet San Antonio, who has been generous in sharing his experience in triathlon with me, and has also given me generous samples of the Hammer products to use during my training run up to the Capital of Texas Triathlon on Memorial Day. Thanks, Carroll!

You may have noticed I didn’t list swimming with the strenuous exercise which demands proper hydration. This is because I am ignorant in this sport and would encourage my co-contributors, or any readers with knowledge on the topic, to inform us on the when and how of hydration when one is swimming. And while someone hopefully picks up this topic, I am off to the pool to swim some laps.

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And now there are three

I know some runners who swim, not with intentions of adding triathlon to their goals but merely as a less-stress workout. And I know runners who bike for much the same reason: they want to spare their legs and joints the pounding of running while still getting in something of a workout. So the three disciplines of triathlon would seem to complement each other since each activity requires different muscle groups and entirely different repetitive motions.

However, what I am finding in the early going is that the bottom line, how hard are you training and how tired are you one day to the next, indicates considerably greater expenditure of energy at the end of a week juggling all three activities. I say to myself, oh how I would love to trade in a day of swimming or a day on the bike for a nice 12 mile run.

At the pool finally, I remarked that swimming, in these early stages anyhow (the last time I swam with any regularity was [gasp!] 35 years ago) seems much more difficult than running. A swimmer replied that he detests running and loves the fact that the water and not your legs support your body in swimming. I guess its obvious that all is relative.

When I think back to three or four years ago, when I restarted a running regimen after many years off, the first jogs were extremely fatiguing. I kept myself going with the promise I could stop and walk after a couple of hundred yards; but the other promise I made myself was that I would return day after day to run more. This deal-making went on for weeks. The success I eventually had is attributable to the fact that all the deals were made, none were broken. So my conclusion now is that succeeding in the water is going to require of me the same deal-making I used for making myself into a runner.

Are you a runner reluctant to dive into the sport of swimming? Or have you made the transition successfully? We would sure love to hear from you and learn what worked for your success.

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Legal or illegal bikes?

My friend Mary Dell recently left the following comment/query:

I was wondering what the specifications are for the bike part in a triathlon.I've been introduced to folding bicycles, and although they look a little funny, they are fun to ride. Are there officials checking the bikes at the beginning and ending of that segment to insure nothing 'funny' is going on?

Surely one of our true bicyclist/triathletes will know the real answer to this.
Shelly? or maybe Jeff Campbell might want to respond?

I would say that Pee-wee's bicycle, especially when he kicks it into overdrive,would not pass muster. It's just a little too cranked up.

And that ET bicycle, how in the world does it take off like that? There's something beyond people power propelling it through the air! If not, I'll take one of 'em.

Now I'll admit that I'm thinking of tricking out my bicycle too with the old cards in the spokes trick. I'd say that one would be legal.

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Black Gap 50K on iExercise

I just published a new segment of iExercise which recounts the January 2007 running of the Black Gap 50K ultra-run in Big Bend National Park. The race is organized very professionally by Carroll Voss of Fleet Feet San Antonio.

Check it out. The segment is called, quite logically, iExercise021 – Black Gap 50K.

James

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Bumps and bruises

It looks like we're off and rolling on this blogging and triathlon experience. And I'm also off and rolling. After years of locomotion purely on my two feet, I now am peddling madly my sporty red Trek bicycle.

I've always said that red makes cars go faster, and I am about to believe the same about bikes. First, let me admit I'm no stranger to two wheels. I ride a motorcycle. It's not red, but it goes fast. Still, this has proved no preparation for the nimble and fast bicycle you see pictured on this page. I'm still getting the hang of it, but I must say this bicycle is the fastest human powered machine I have ever ridden.

My two coaches, Shelly and Zetta, can surely tell you more about biking than I will ever be able to relate, but I can give a few observations which might help those of you who have never ridden a bicycle intended for speed. First, the cleated shoes which lock to the pedals take some getting used to. Most of you, more coordinated than I, will perhaps master the art of unlocking at least one foot from the pedal before braking to a halt. I'm getting better at it, but my irregular learning curve has made me thankful for riding with a helmet and gloves. Of course, you all are riding with helmets, aren't you?

Today's riding surprises were twofold. I am getting better at unlocking the cleats from the pedal and making more or less safe stops (I don't claim any gracefulness just yet). But today I was working myself up a steep hill and had to stop just short of the top. How to keep the bike moving forward as I wrestle one foot free of the pedal is a mystery to me. Down I went, looking somewhat like a Monty Python caricature falling off one's bike. I tackled that same hill several times, but with an alternate tack which avoided the tricky dismount. I'll go at it again soon.

As they say about being thrown from a horse: get right back up in the saddle. So far, I have been able to remount. However, at a moderate rate of speed I hit a drainage grate in the road. This caused what was practically an end over end crash which left me licking some superficial but nevertheless impressive looking abrasions. I expect I'll have a few bruises glowing by tomorrow. But again, I got back on the horse that threw me, like the good cowboys at last month's rodeo. Who says it's not tough to ride a bike?

What are your experiences at riding or being thrown from a speeding bicycle? Post a comment and let's talk about it.

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Bike, Helmet, Run shoes, goggles and time to TRI!

With the list of basic equipment complete you are now ready to go!

Thanks for taking all of us on this exciting journey with you. Zetta and I look forward to helping you along the way and watching you conquer the course in Austin (Capitol of Texas Triathlon) on Memorial Day! How appropriate as it will truly be a day to remember:-).

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Go James Go! Shelly and I are both excited to watch James finish his first Triathlon. I am delighted for him to start seeing all the enthusiasm we share in all of the disciplines of the sport. I hope he doesn't become to overwhelmed with all that we "tri geeks" feel the need to have to participate in our races! We can certainly get caught up in all the gadgets that we want to! I know that with Jame's mental and physical discipline from his Ultra running that triathlon training and racing will be a piece of cake for him!

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