vEveresting, Part 1 - Training

“FIENDISHLY SIMPLE, YET BRUTALLY HARD.

EVERESTING IS THE MOST DIFFICULT

CLIMBING CHALLENGE IN THE WORLD.”

Those are the words that greet you when you first visit the Everesting web site. The concept is very basic: climb the height of Everest (8848m) on one hill during one activity with no sleep and no time limit, You ride up and down and up and down for as many times and as many hours as it takes to reach 8848m of ascent. Pretty simple, right? Like the site says, don't forget about the brutally hard part. 

Everesting has been getting a lot of press recently thanks to all the pro cyclists giving it a try. With racing canceled this spring and summer due to covid, more than a few of them took up the challenge as a way to try something new while keeping busy during lockdown. Mark Cavendish, known more for his sprinting than his climbing ability, took 10 hours to do it back in May, Alberto Contador knocked it out in under 7.5 hours a few weeks ago, and three days ago, a former elite cyclist in Ireland set a world record of 7:04. 

We didn't set out to Everest because the pros were doing it, but just like them, we needed something to train for after our 70.3 in Oman in September was canceled. We'd been riding together on Zwift and Zoom almost every day since the quarantine began in March, and when we heard our race was off the calendar, our motivation went with it. Sitting around at breakfast one day after a sea swim in early June, Matt and I started talking about what else we could do to keep busy during the summer and the idea of Everesting came up. I thought it sounded fun and tough and something I honestly didn't have any intention of participating in. I don't see myself as a particularly strong cyclist and I'm a terrible climber. Plus, could I really get physically prepared for something of the magnitude in just six weeks? I had my doubts. Still, I asked Trace and Barb to switch my training plan and told everyone I'd try a few climbs and see how it went.

Our first task was to acquaint ourselves with the rules for a virtual Everesting. They're basically the same as for Everesting outside with one key restriction: the difficulty on the trainer must be set at 100%. This is done to ensure you feel the pain of the gradients on the climb with exactly the same gearing that you'd be using outdoors. Next step required us to choose our hill. There are any number of hills and mountains in Zwift which can be used for virtual Everesting, with the two most popular being the Alpe du Zwift (8.5 laps) and the Epic KOM Reverse (~20 laps). The Alpe is longer, steeper, and more challenging, but it has one big advantage: you can get off your bike for about 10 minutes to stretch, eat, and refuel while your avatar makes the descent, no pedaling required. The Epic Reverse has two short and steep uphill segments on the way down which require you to get back on your bike and pedal. Your avatar can't freewheel all the way down, but the tradeoff is a shorter and less steep climb on the way up. 

Everyone else jumped straight to the Alpe as their chosen route. I opted to try both of them during training to see which one I thought I could handle better. Friday June 12th was the first test ride, consisting of 2 x Alpe du Zwift climbs. I was pretty terrified starting out. The Alpe du Zwift is a spot-on GPS recreation of the L'Alpe d'Huez in southeastern France. I've watched enough of the Tour de France to see the pros struggle up it time and again, and if they're having difficulty, how in the world was I going to get up it once, let alone multiple times back-to-back? Much to my surprise, I completed both climbs, the first in 94 minutes and the second in just under 91. My aim going in was to be cautious and keep my HR at or around 140bpm for the first climb because I had no idea how it would feel. In a word, it felt tough! 12-14% inclines at 100% trainer difficulty are no joke. I was in my granny gear nearly the entire time and still struggled to align my HR, cadence, and power in a reasonable fashion. During the second lap, I knew it was my last for the day and let my HR and power both drift up from my comfort zone. HR averaged 156 vs 139 during the first climb, power was 156 vs 146. I knew I couldn't sustain the kind of effort over 8.5 climbs, but it was a nice confidence boost to know I could get up the mountain twice in a row. 

I also learned I'd need more gears if I was going to attempt to Everest on the Alpe. The 28t in the back is not enough for me for that kind of climbing. Before making any changes, though, I gave the Epic Reverse a go the following week. As expected, this route was much easier effort-wise than the Alpe. Each of the six laps took about 45-47 minutes to get up and back down, and I could use more than one or two gears during the climbing. As nice as the Epic Reverse felt physically, I decided it was not the best choice for me for Everesting.

Not being able to get off the bike for 10 minutes to refuel meant I'd have to add an extra break after each 2-3 laps which would only serve to add more time to what I knew would be a very long day. The free time was worth the extra suffering during each climb of the Alpe, and if i could find a way to minimize the suffering, so much the better. The next day, I brought my bike and trainer to the Cycle Hub, where I'd found a guy who Everested on a local mountain in 2019. He knew exactly why I wanted to change my gearing and hooked me up with a 32t cassette and the long cage OSPW needed to make it work with my existing derailleur. 

Over the next few weeks, our big Friday rides became progressively longer with an additional 1000m of climbing added to each one. June 26th was 3.5 climbs and 3531m, and on July 3, three weeks before the big day, I made it to virtual Basecamp with 4424m ascent. Had only planned on completing four, but my friends convinced me on Zoom that an extra few hundred meters of climbing was no big thing. This was a big deal for me. Even if I tried and failed during the Everesting attempt, at least I'd made it halfway and gotten my first badge in the Hall of Fame.  

My peak training ride was on July 10th - 5 ascents of the Alpe which took almost 10 hours. During this last big ride, I focused on my strategies for fueling and making the most of the 10 minutes of the bike after each climb. My primary fuel source was Tailwind. I settled on drinking 1-2 bottles during each climb with each bottle containing 200-300 calories. During the descent, I supplemented the Tailwind with salted potatoes (a favorite from my ultra marathons), sliced smoked turkey wrapped around string cheese (a trick I discovered when reading about other Everesting rides), potato chips, Clif bars, and chocolate cookies. Basically, I tried to take in a mixture of carbs and protein in various forms because I knew that during the attempt, my desire to eat any one particular food will not always be guaranteed. 

With July 24 as the date for our attempt, the next two weeks were spent tapering and resting up for the big day, 

Galveston 70.3 Race Report

The half Ironman at Galveston was my second race at this distance. I went into the race with two goals: learn how to ride and pace on the bike with a power meter, and complete the swim. The latter was really the the one thing I was sort of worried about. While I had a great swim at the ITU triathlon  in Abu Dhabi, I had never completed an entire 1.2-mile half-iron swim. The one at Rocketman doesn't really count because the course ended up being short after the buoys drifted out of position. I'm a fairly strong swimmer, though not terribly efficient since my stroke is stuck in the 80s, but I had this mental block over getting through the entire open water swim without completely exhausting myself.

The swim start is in the water off one of the piers at Moddy Gardens. You hop into the water, but unlike Abu Dhabi where you hold onto the dock before starting, you swim out a bit and tread water between two buoys until the horn sounds. I'm not a fan of the pushing, kicking, and elbowing that happens right after the start so I chose to move towards the right end of the line and let the chaos move along without me. I found it fairly easy going to swim towards the first turning buoy from an outside position. There weren't very many people around me so I had clear water and could focus on my stroke and my breathing. Shortly after making the first turn, I passed someone from the wave in front of me. To catch someone who had a 4-5 minute head start in such a short distance meant that either I was swimming really well or they were quite slow. I assumed I was doing well, and that gave me a boost of confidence and energy as I made my way down the long leg of the course.

I managed to have a clean line for most of the second leg, although there were a few spots where someone who couldn't swim in a straight line kept cutting across my line from right to left and then from left to right a few minutes later. A few sharp elbows into his thighs kept him from doing this more than once. Once I made the second turn onto the final short leg to the finish, things got a little more crowded. I was right in the middle of the slow people from the two waves in front of me, the decent people from my wave, and the really fast people from the two waves behind me. I tried to draft off one of the women going past me, but that was a futile effort. I lost her wake after 20 or 30 seconds, though any little bit helps, right?

I made my way out of the water and went straight for the wet suit strippers. There were people half out of their suits that kept running into transition, which made no sense to me. Why go right to your bike and have to step and stomp your way out of your suit when there are numerous strong young volunteers ready and willing to peel your suit off for you? A quick lie down on your back, a few pulls from the helpers, and you're out of your suit and on your way in 5-10 seconds.

My time in T1 was slightly better than my time at Rocketman. Officially, I was 3 seconds faster, but since Galveston had a much longer run to get to my bike, I think I managed to be quite a bit quicker in getting changed and on my way.

The bike course began with a few zigs and zags through the neighborhood near Moody Gardens before we made the right turn onto the road running along the beach and took off to the west. My primary goal for the bike course was to learn to ride a long distance with my power meter and keep in the 150-160 watt band that Mary set out for me. I also aimed to keep my heart rate in zone 3, preferably on the low end of the zone, because I've yet to learn how to prevent my HR from skyrocketing at the beginning of the run coming off the bike. I'm sure I'll figure it out someday, but for now, I'm using every race as practice and training for Florida.

The wind on the bike course wasn't nearly as bad as predicted. With a forecast of 20-30 knots from the south-southeast, I was expecting to struggle and slog through a headwind or crosswind most of the time, and thankfully the conditions were much more moderate. Heading west towards the turnaround point (the course is one long out-and-back loop), the wind was somewhere between a cross and a headwind with much less force, maybe 15-20 knots. A few strong gusts knocked me around a bit, but I held on and stayed upright, which is more than I can say for one of the guys in front of me. He swerved to avoid an orange safety cone marking a pot hole and went head over heels into the grass shoulder. Fortunately for him, he was unscathed, popped right back to his feet, and passed me again 10-15 minutes later.

Immediately after making the U-turn to start the second half of the course, I saw a woman laid out flat on her back on the ground, thankfully with a few volunteers from the nearby aid station warning the approaching riders so she didn't get run over. I couldn't figure out exactly what happened to her, but I'm pretty sure there's no way she finished the race.

To this point, my ride was tracking pretty much on plan, with my average power sitting around 145 and my HR in low to mid zone 3. Of course, that's when disaster struck. I felt my rear tire turning a little soft and squishy as I motored along in the tailwind. A few glances down and back at the wheel confirmed my worst fear: a flat. Now you must understand that I'm not really afraid of a flat. I simply happen to be absolutely terrible at changing them, a fact proven again during this race. I struggled to get the tire off the rim, struggled to get it back on once the new tube was in, and even struggled to get all my tools back into the bag under my saddle, though that's mainly because I was furious at that point. My HR track bears this out. I dropped down from ~145 bpm to 120 bpm during the first 10 minutes I was on the side of the road working on the tire, and then it gradually rose in direct correlation to my level of frustration. By the time I was up and going again, my heart was beating at 152 bpm, faster than it had been while I was riding. [on a positive note, all this unanticipated practice came in handy when I returned to Erbil and my pump ripped the valve off my training tire. I had that sucker back on and rolling again in under five minutes.]

Needless to say, my mental frame of mind deteriorated significantly during this period. I argued with myself for the next 25 miles about whether it was even worth it to attempt the run or call it a day and have a beer with Jackie and her friends. I also stopped paying such close attention to my heart rate and my average power. There's more enjoyment from mashing the pedals when you're mad than there is in calming down and sticking with your race plan. In the end, my bike leg turned out pretty well, not counting the flat debacle. Remove that lost time from my official record and I finished in 3:03, just a few minutes over the three hours I was shooting for. I am confident I would've been under three hours if I had kept riding and concentrating for the entire race and hadn't had to stop along the way. That, at least, gives me some hope I'll be able to handle the IMFL bike leg.

T2 was far from speedy. I had no real sense of urgency because my personal goal of 6:15 or less was long gone. All I wanted at this point in time was to be done, making the 13.1 miles left to go that much less appealing. I've never quit a race, though, so as much as I felt like it, tossing in the towel wasn't really an option, especially since Mary was at the race too and I knew I'd hear it from her at the bar afterwards if I did. To be fair, going balls out to run as fast as I could wasn't really an option either. I chose a happy medium and ran when I could and walked when I felt like it.

As hot as the run course was, I did have a pretty good time. I ran into some friends along the run route who were kind enough to let me have a few sips of their beer to keep my carb level up. I tried chatted up people who seemed to be taking it easy like I was, but didn't have much luck. A few people talked to me about meeting up for IPAs and chip & salsa once we finished, but for the most part, triathletes aren't the conversational bunch that marathoners are. Sad. I'll have to do something about that at IMFL this fall.

While I didn't enjoy this race as much as I did Rocketman, I'm still glad I did it. I learned how to ride effectively with a power meter, realized my open water swimming is better than I thought, and reinforced to myself that it's better to keep going to the finish even when your flat tire and chain problems make you want to quit.

Abu Dhabi ITU Race Report

I signed up for the Abu Dhabi ITU because several of my friends in Doha went last year and told me it was a great event. That might have been true back then, but it sure wasn't the case this year. Parts of the weekend were good, but overall I was very disappointed in what's supposed to be one of the premier races in the region. I won't be going back.

I flew down to Abu Dhabi via Doha on Qatar Airways, a fairly uneventful trip. This was my first experience on their discount arm, and I hope I don't have to fly it again. The seats are pretty uncomfortable, there's no entertainment system, and the legroom is much less than on their normal planes. It's like flying on United, really, and I expect more from QA. After waiting what seemed like eternity for my bike to show up at baggage claim, I hopped in a taxi and was on my way to the hotel to check in and meet up with Alan. He wasn't too hard to find - at the hotel bar of course. We had a few beers, talked about the plan for Friday, and went off to bed at a decent hour.

Friday morning was the practice swim. The race organizers opened part of the course for anyone who wanted to get in to test the water, sight the buoys for the race, and loosen up after traveling. They let us swim the 500 meters the sprint athletes would be tackling the next day. This was good for getting used to the water, but not very helpful for learning where our course would be. The entire marina area was filled with buoys of all shapes, colors, and sizes. One of the race officers had to show me which tall orange buoy was the correct one for the Oly race, and it's a good thing he did. The other tall orange one near that one was for the elite course. Apparently more than a few people went the wrong way on Saturday. I opted not to bring my wet suit for the practice swim. I wanted to see what the water felt like in case it was deemed too warm for wet suits on Saturday. The verdict? Not too bad, definitely doable without a wet suit, but much preferred to have one.

Trying to get into the swim was my first view into how well the event was or was not organized, and it was clear they didn't think things through. In order to be allowed on the dock for the swim, you needed to show your wrist band. In order to get your wrist band, you had to pick up your registration packet. Registration opened at 10am. The swim was from 8-9. Presented with this dilemma, the organizers did not choose option 1 (allow people to swim without the bands) or option 2 (open registration early). No, they chose option 3, open everyone's packet to take out the wrist band and make them come back and stand in line again at 10 to get everything else. Not a huge inconvenience but definitely a bad sign of things to come.

Knowing we couldn't get our packets for over an hour or rack our bikes until noon, we walked back to the hotel to shower and get some breakfast. I think breakfast before race day has become my favorite part of a race. What's not to like about the freedom to eat as many pancakes as desired? Add in the masala omelettes the chef was making to order, and I had one delicious meal.

We met at 1230 to ride our bikes over to registration, which turned out to be not too much of a hassle. The volunteers at registration were able to keep up with the crowds pretty well, and aside from a line to get our bikes inspected before entering transition, things went pretty smoothly. One of the local bike shops was there doing free tune-ups, and not just the basic stuff either. They were tweaking the derailleurs, truing up the wheels and spokes, and cleaning and lubing the drivetrain too. Had I known they were being that thorough, I would've stood in line for one instead of making a mess of myself cleaning my chain while the bike was on the rack.

I spent the rest of the afternoon browsing through the vendors (picked up a nice pair of 2XU bike shorts for half price), visiting with people I knew from my novice tri camp last year (one of whom is doing a full this year like me), and drinking as much water as possible. The high 70s of Friday were forecast to be 80s on Saturday, a bit warmer than usual and not exactly ideal weather coming from Erbil.

With transition opening at 5am, race day came early, and then I got up. One of the very nice things this race does is keep transition open for athletes in later start waves. Rather than have all 2300 people arrive at once to set up, they allow you to enter transition when it's convenient for you, though they did close it at certain periods to let the swimmers from the maxi distance waves that started first exit the water and get out on the bike course free from interference. For all the things they got wrong over the weekend, this is one of the ones they got very right. Being able to show up at 7 for a 750 start sure beats getting there at 530 and sitting around for a few hours.

I used this race as practice for how I want to do things at Galveston next month, one of which was a new way of setting up my bike computer. Rather than having to remember to start it when getting on my bike coming out of T1, I tried turning on the auto-pause functionality, hitting Start, and leaving it sitting there on the bike. This worked like a charm. When I grabbed my bike to head out to the bike course, the unit detected movement and resumed operation. I use my Garmin to record the entire race, but I find it easier to see the bike computer instead of mounting the 920 to the bars and looking at the small screen.

Leaving transition on my way to drop off my bag at bag check, I noticed no line at the toilets (the UAE uses portable toilet buildings instead of the plastic ones used everywhere else) and decided to take advantage of the situation while I had the chance. Once inside, I realized why there was no line: there was no water and thus the toilets and sinks didn't work. The ladies toilet building didn't have any water either. How the race organizers botched this one up is beyond me. With a few thousand people entered, you'd think that restroom facilities would be near the top of the list of things to be sure were in place and functioning.

I dropped off my bag, sat down in an empty chair, and delayed stuffing myself into my wet suit for as long as possible. To pass the time, I chatted with a guy across the table from me from Finland. He had flown in for his very first tri, leaving behind sub-zero temperatures for the warmth of Abu Dhabi where it was already in the 70s. Poor guy was already a lot more uncomfortable than I was. Finally, around 730, they called for my wave to report to the dock. The time had come to get into the suit. Thanks to plastic bags on the feet and Body Glide on my wrists and neck, I managed to put my wet suit on, and after a few minutes of rolling the material up my legs to my waist and up my arms to my shoulders, my new friend zipped me up and I was on my way.

They held us on the dock until the wave in front of us made the turn at the first buoy, at which point we were asked to slide into the water and hold on to the dock until the start. Even with a few hundred people in the wave, most of us were able to grab a piece of the dock. The rest put their hand on one of our shoulder's and floated until the horn went off and away we went. I started at the very righthand end of the dock with a straight line to the first buoy that would hopefully keep me out of the scrum in the middle. I took off very quickly. I blame the extra buoyancy from the wet suit and not my inability to pace well during an open water swim. Before too long, I settled into a routine that seemed to work pretty well for me. Swim 3-4 minutes, switch to breaststroke to catch breath and see the buoy, lather, rinse, repeat. I felt I was working hard, maybe too hard, and liked having the 10 second break to calm down and relax. I got pretty mentally discouraged when the buoy I thought was the turn for shore wasn't. I'm not really sure what it was for. It could've been there to guide us along the course to the real turning point, but there were enough people swimming to either side of it that make me question that assumption. Either way, when I realized I wasn't able to turn left and swim hard for the finish, I started doubting whether I'd ever be able to get through an Ironman swim. It felt like I'd been out there forever. Finally, I made the last turn and swam towards the dock. Or as much of the dock as we could see. The arch that we thought was marking the swim exit was off to one side, making it difficult to judge exactly where the exit was until you were close to shore. For evidence of this, look at the nice curve in my path and you'll see almost the exact spot where I figured out the exit was to the right of the arch.

Coming out of the water, I felt tired but good about my swim. I didn't get run over, managed to draft for a while off the people around me, and didn't get caught by anyone in the wave that started behind me. Turns out I had a 30-minute swim, much better than I thought I did, and was 19th out of the water in my age group. Needless to say, I didn't remain in 19th for very long. I took my time in transition to make sure everything was in place and ready to go. I know Mary is going to fuss at me for taking so long, but while I'm still learning how to do this, spending an extra few minutes is worth the peace of mind of knowing I'm ready for the bike.

The bike course was two loops along the Abu Dhabi Corniche. Quite scenic and very flat, though without a lot of shade. The roads were closed to vehicular traffic, so for most of the course, we had plenty of room to ride. There were a few places where it narrowed down to one lane and got fairly congested. It was almost comical listening to people coming up from behind shouting "On your left," and trying to pass in those sections when the riders were already three or four abreast. No collisions occurred between bikes or between bikes and cones, but more than a few "Fuck off and wait" were uttered. As my bike handling skills are barely beyond the novice stage, I simply held my line and let everyone else get wound up.

My instructions from Mary were to keep my hear rate in zone 3 and try for a steady and even ride. I think I managed to accomplish both goals, especially since zone 3 felt way too easy. I was clocking along at 18-20mph and had a mental discussion with myself over slowing down to be in low zone 3 or to keep motoring along in the 3.8-4.0 range. I opted for the latter. I kept up with my fueling the whole time, drinking one bottle of my Powerade and most of one bottle I picked up at the aid station. They planned the course very well to locate the aid station on a slip road so the main course didn't get dangerous with people slowing down and bottles in the road. I ate a piece of Clif bar every 20 minutes, kept my head down out of the wind as best I could, and yes, I took advantage of the draft of some large clumps of riders in a few of those narrow one-lane sections. Technically against the rules, I know, but I wasn't about to intentionally slow down while 15-20 people went by.

The end of the bike course was extremely dangerous - a hairpin u-turn followed by the dismount line 30 yards later. It was too far away to slow around the turn and just coast to a stop. I saw one woman ditch her bike and slide across the line so she didn't crash into the other riders who were braking and getting off their bikes. I nearly did the same thing because it really was a quick slow->u-turn->pedal->speed up->halt kind of sequence. Not very well thought out at all, like a lot of the small but important details during the event.

T2 was another more-leisurely-than-truly-necessary happening. Not all of the wasted time was my fault, though. When I got back to my towel, I saw the guy who was racked on the other side of the bar from me had stuck his bike on top of all my stuff and there was no room for my bike. After trying to find room for mine somewhere near where it belonged, I gave up and stuck it on his side on top of his gear. A few sips of water and a change of shoes later, I was on my way. It was really hot by this point in the morning, and I knew constant fluid intake would be the key to a good 10k run.

My first mile was sub-9, probably a little to fast for the conditions, but I couldn't slow my feet down. The legs just kept turning over rapidly as if they were still on the bike. At each water stop, I walked while drinking a cup or two of water, poured one over my head, stuffed ice down my shirt if they had any, and started running again right away. There was no Powerade, Gatorade, or sports drink at either of the aid stations. They only had Red Bull, helpfully in both the regular and sugar-free varieties. Or not. Needless to say, I didn't see very many people choosing to drink Red Bull in the middle of a race. I held a pretty good pace and routine on the entire first lap and most of the second. The wheels fell off at mile 5 when the aid station ran out of water and ice. The mental letdown of looking forward to a cup of water on your head and then coming up empty was significant. I began walking and ended up run/walking the rest of the course until I got to the finishing area. No walking allowed then; have to look good for the crowds and the photographers. Not that any of my race pictures ever come out with me looking good. I've always got the worst expressions on my face, my form has gone to shit, and I look like I'm dying.

Anyway, I crossed the line in 3:01, barely missing my goal of coming in under three hours. Those lazy transitions killed me. Once across the line, I expected to be given a medal (nope), some water (nope), and maybe a snack (nope). There was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, for the finishers. They had run out of everything and no one was taking the initiative to ask for more supplies. "Go to the registration tent," was the default answer of every person there, including the race officials with the formal ITU passes. Like any of us were in the mood to walk all the way through transition and back to the registration area to get a medal and some water. I ended up talking to the very friendly guy who was announcing people coming across the line, and he was able to reach someone who showed up about 10 minutes later with a shopping cart full of medals. It really shouldn't be that hard to have all of the boxes of medals stored at or near the finish line along with several hundred cases of water too.

My next trip was back to the tent where we had dropped out bags off before the swim. I figured I'd pick up my bag, go back to transition and pack everything up, and head to the hotel to shower, change, and have a beer before the pros started their race two hours later. Good plan, right? Too bad it didn't work out that way. The bag drop tent was woefully understaffed by people who had clearly never organized numbered bags before, and the line to get into the tent had a 45 minute wait because they couldn't figure out how to efficiently retrieve people's bags. I decided not to wait around because in a surprise turn of events, the race announcer began telling people that everything had to be out of transition, except the bikes, by noon. So much for the race program telling us that transition will be open for our use from when we finished until 6pm. Once again, their desire to cater to the pros made things complicated and difficult for the rest of us.

Carrying my wet suit, bike shoes, and other gear along with my bike wasn't easy, but I managed to get it all sorted and out of the area with 15 minutes to spare. By this point, the line for bag drop had decreased to a 25-minute wait. Still a long time to be standing around in the sun, but better than it was before. Finally, I made it into the tent and understood exactly why things were taking so long. The woman at the table looked at my number, pointed to a pile of bags, and said "yours is over there. Go and get it." Fortunately, my bag was a grey transition bag and was very easy to find. The participants trying to find their blue race-provided bag amongst the sea of blue race-provided bags weren't so fortunate.

All told, I had a really good time seeing my friends from Doha and Dubai, and with the actual race  segments themselves. The organization surrounding the race was abysmal, though, and I'll never do this event again. I doubt I'll be living here a year from now, but if I am, I'll go race at TriYas which got glowing reviews from everyone who had been there the weekend before the ITU race.

FTP Test

Mary had me do my very first FTP test the other day. It's a test to measure how much power I can put out while riding for a set amount of time. Basically, you warm up and then go as hard as you can for 20 minutes and record your average power over those 20 minutes. Your FTP is roughly 95% of that average. Technical explanations are here for those so inclined.

The test was the hardest riding I've ever done on a bike. I felt like I was going to fall over at the end, which I probably would have done if the bike wasn't on a trainer. I'm not sure how people do the same test outside. After looking at all my data, Mary gave me two important pieces of information. One is my FTP, 193 watts, which I guess is not bad for a beginner cyclist. The other, more crucial bit is that the test showed that my hear rate zones for the bike were not set properly. They'd all been too low. Now I know why some rides felt easier than I expected them to for a workout in a given zone. Those days are over. To quote Mary, "alas, now we know, so things are going to get markedly harder for you on the bike from this day forward. This is good news for your future performance, good news in terms of my assigning specific workouts for you that target what they should, and bad news in that you are going to have to work much harder going forward."

Lucky me

Sunday Summary

I'm going to try to get in the habit of posting a summary of my training for the past week every Sunday night. If nothing else, it'll give me something to look back on as IMFL gets closer this fall. Maybe I'll also get back in the habit of writing more and more often. Maybe.

Swimming: 52 minutes, 1960 meters
Biking: 2:11, 36.5 miles
Running: 2:10, 13.1 miles

I had a hard time getting out of bed at 530 to workout last week. I ended up doing most of my training in the late morning before lunch or once I got off work in the evening. That's not a sustainable habit going forward seeing as most weeks of the year are not as light as the one between Christmas and New Year's.

I really enjoyed my biking this week. I discovered a really well done online cycling "game" called Zwift. You can ride a simulation of the world championship course in Richmond, set up your own workouts, and even race against people around the world if you're so inclined. They even have jerseys like the Tour de France that you can earn if you're faster than everyone else riding at that time. Today, by some miracle, or more likely a computer glitch, I took home the green jersey.

Zwift keeps me focused better during the interval workouts that Mary gives me, but for longer endurance-type rides, I think streaming movies still wins out.

Rocketman Race Report

This was my first attempt at a half-ironman distance triathlon. Holly made me promise to do one with her since she had run Comrades back to back with me. I thought that was a fair trade, and we started looking around for a race to do together. I looked at a few in the Philippines figuring that would be a nice place for a destination race, but most of them were either sold out or had rather hilly bike courses. For the most part, I've got nothing against hills but they're really tough to train for on a turbo trainer in my living room. Unless I upgrade my trainer. The fancier ones have an electronic mechanism that apparently will adjust the resistance of the trainer to simulate climbing hills. Food for thought if I continue this triathlon adventure beyond the end of next year and am assigned to another garden spot. Anyway, back to the search for races...Holly found one in Croatia with no date attached other than TBD 2016. Finally, at some point after Comrades this summer, while going up and down various Internet rabbit holes, I stumbled across a race called Rocketman. After a quick read of their web site, I knew this was our race. It's small, flat, and only 25 minutes from Heather's house in Florida at a time when I already had tickets to go visit. Plus it's held at the freaking Kennedy Space Center and has rockets for medals! What's not to like?

With the entry fee paid, it was time to get started on the training. With recovery from Comrades plus my general post-major-event-laziness coupled with a dive trip to Indonesia in July, it was probably early August before I began training again. Thanks to an email or two from Mary expressing her concern for my ability to finish, I got my ass in gear and got serious. Erbil was a pretty crappy place to train for Comrades because all of my runs were on a treadmill, but it's not quite as bad for tri training. The pool is designed for splashing around, but it's 20m long and not bad for lap swimming early in the morning. As mentioned above, my bike is on a trainer in the living room, so while I don't improve my bike handling skills any, I also don't fall off and get to watch lots of movies and TV shows. The treadmill is still the treadmill, but I can handle a two hours on one much better than the three or three-plus hours that Comrades required.

Over the next few months, I realized why people (usually spouses, I think) complain how expensive this sport is. Not that I spent a ton of money, but a little bit here on a front-mounted water bottle (the best purchase I made since I have minimal control of the bike on the road when I try to pull a bottle out of a cage), a little bit there for a set of Flo wheels, and a new top and shorts all made it look like Christmas when I arrived in Florida 10 days before the race. Side note: on the subject of traveling home, Emirates now has a flight direct to Orlando from Dubai, making life so much easier. Too bad they didn't start that flight four years ago when we first moved to the Gulf.

One of the race sponsors is Bob's Bicycle Shop in Indian Harbor, about 20 minutes south of Heather. I brought my bike in the day after I arrived so they could install my new wheels and race tires, give it a tune-up, and have it ready for the race. Really nice little shop with great service. They had the bike ready the next day, giving me over a week to practice out on the road.

Doesn't it look nice all cleaned up with new race kit?

I got in a 50-mile ride the weekend before the race and a couple of shorter rides during the week, enough time to make me not confident in my biking skills - that's a long way off - but at least semi-comfortable that I could make it through the race without hurting myself or anyone else. I also learned that cranking up your heart rate the last 20-30 minutes before getting off the bike and going for a run does not lead to a very successful or enjoyable run. In my defense, I was trying to hit 50 miles in the time Mary gave me for my workout because I'd never gone that far in one ride before.

Holly flew in on Friday from Houston, and after she put her bike together that night, we dug into our favorite end-of-the-week meal: pizza and champagne. It's a tradition that began when Heather and I would go visit her in Dubai. We'd stop in duty free on the way out of the airport to buy wine and champagne for her (it's the cheapest place in Dubai to get it) and always end up having a bottle or two with a pizza for dinner that night. We've been doing ever since. It might not be the most nutritious meal, but it works.

Saturday, we went out for a quick ride and run before heading up to the race site to pick up our packets and check in our bikes. All the lines were short except for the one to purchase a one-day membership for the national triathlon organization. People had been waiting in that one for ages because the race organizers couldn't find the forms. I gave up after 15 minutes, whipped out my phone, and paid for the full year membership online. Score one for modern technology, although it still irks me that I had to pay anything at all. One more reason to prefer running: there's no individual fee to a nebulous national body. The rest of the day was spent having a beer or two while watching college football, checking lists and packing everything into a bag for the race, and having a light pasta, pesto, and garlic bread dinner. I'm sure there was a salad in there too. Unlike me, Holly has a salad with dinner almost every night. I get mine at lunch at the restaurant at work.

Of course, as is common before a big race, I had a hard time getting to sleep. I wasn't nervous like I was before Comrades, but I did wonder in the back of my mind how I was going to do. I knew I'd be able to finish one way to another, and felt fairly sure I'd be under the stated time limit of seven hours. I think I was mostly questioning my ability to swim the 1.2 miles. I've swum that distance or more in the pool quite often, but in open water during an event? Never.

Hanging out in transition before the start

Like with most races, Dublin and Stockholm excepted, the alarm went off way too early. I straggled out of bed and wandered into the kitchen to eat a Clif bar. Mary wants me to eat something three hours before a big race, but a Clif bar when I wake up is about all I can handle. I have a hard time eating first thing in the morning. I did manage to follow my liquid fueling plan and sipped on a bottle of Powerade Zero while driving to the race. We arrived at 535 and found a parking spot with no trouble at all. We seemed to have arrived right after the early birds and right before the masses because there was no line at body marking or chip pick-up either. With both of those activities out of the way, I set about pumping my tires and setting up my gear. I hit the porta potty, talked with my parents, and stalled as long as I could before stuffing myself into my wetsuit. Wetsuits are never flattering in the base case, ones designed for tri swims even less so, and the extra pounds I was carrying didn't help matters either. Good thing Holly and my dad were there to help with the zipper. Before too long, we heard the call for the half distance people to line up for the swim, and off we went.

The entrance to the swim was down a narrow set of stairs to the water. There were only three waves for the half (men under 45, men over 45, and all women), less than 250 people in total, starting four minutes apart. In order to alleviate crowding on the stairs, they sent the first wave into the water, kept us on the stairs, and had the women wait at the top until we went into the water.

One of those green caps is me

Finally, the first wave started and they let us into the water. I began the walk out to the start buoy with the water barely getting over my knees. The river was much shallower than I expected. We could walk for a good portion of the swim (and had to in several areas where you'd touch bottom with your hand while swimming) and touch our feet down to catch our breath if we needed to. Which I did once or twice. The swim was missing the argy bargy kicking and hitting that are common in larger races. We were able to spread out easily, and I had no real issues with being kicked or hit by other people. With 15-20 knot winds, the chop was pretty stiff and not something I was prepared for. I swallowed a lot of water heading out to the first buoy. The second leg was better as we were a a less severe angle to the waves, and third leg was a fast combination of swimming and body surfing back to shore. Glancing at my watch as I reached the shallows and could walk faster than swim, the numbers looking back at me were 19:xx. I'm a decent swimmer, but I am nowhere near that fast. I chalked it up to good fortune and went on my way up the stairs to the wetsuit strippers and T1.

When I reached my bike, I took my time to make sure I went through things calmly and carefully. I washed the dirt off my feet to make sure there was nothing under my sock that would cause blisters later, put on some sunscreen (missed more than a few places I found out later in the shower), and prepared to head out. I kept checking to see if Holly was close behind so we could bike together. With the course being shorter than expected and the four minute gap between our starts, it would've been hard for her to catch up, so off I went.

Heading out of T1

The bike course was in the Merritt Island Nature Preserve and on the ground of the Kennedy Space Center. Aside from a small drawbridge and a few on and off ramps, it was about as flat as you can get. I really, really liked the bike leg. I know, I know, I'm not a cyclist and never will be, but it really was a blast. Not a huge fan of the wind, though. Zooming along at 25-30 mph in the tailwind was great fun. Crawling along at 14 in the headwind? Not so much. I especially enjoyed the benefits of an aerodynamic tri bike. Blowing past people upwind and downwind sure kept me motivated the whole way around.

Right after leaving transition. Not entirely comfortable on the road.

The guy I enjoyed passing the most was on a bike with 90mm rims in front and a disc wheel in the back. I'm sure he would've dusted me in calm weather, but in the wind, he didn't stand a chance of keeping his bike under control. I wonder why he didn't change to rims with less windage. It's not like the breeze was a surprise. It was blowing all day on Friday and Saturday, and the forecast wasn't any better for Sunday. Anyway, we had a good chat as we approached one of the u-turns together, and then I was gone.

Taken about 6 miles after the first one.
I almost look like I know what I'm doing.

I started in with fluids at 15 min as per Mary's plan. My bike was loaded with three bottles filled with a mix of Powerade and Powerade Zero, and I emptied all of them by the time I was done. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade at mile 48 and drank maybe 1/4 of it too. There was supposed to be an initial bottle exchange at mile 14, but I never saw it. I did see the guys from Bob's out there helping people fix flats and deal with other mechanical issues. Really nice of them to spend the day riding around to make sure we all made it back in one piece.

I ate 1/4 of a Clif bar (thanks to Holly for the great idea to cut them into little pieces the night before) at each of my feeding times. About 20 minutes before I got off the bike, I had two Clif bloks to get ready for the run since I was tired of the bars. I also swallowed a salt tab every hour. I probably should have had more had I bothered to look at how much salt was accumulating on my shorts and sleeves. The temperature was not all that hot, thankfully, or things could have been a lot worse.

I only nearly killed myself once or twice during the 56 miles, usually when I was trying to wipe the sweat off my face or grab one of the bottles out of its cage. Damn twitchy tri bikes. Otherwise, my bike handling was decent. I stayed in aero the whole time except for when I sat up to open the bag and get something to eat. Parts of the course were so extremely rough, I felt like my fillings were going to fall out. The out and back to the north gate of the KSC was the worst. Carbon bikes with race tires do not seem to be very forgiving. My wrists, neck, and shoulders really got sore from being so tense on that stretch of road. Biking through the rest of the Space Center was really fun, though. I loved seeing the assembly building, the Space-X building, and all the other NASA stuff they have on site there. I even managed to look at the camera for the iconic race picture.

Smiling for the camera while plodding upwind.
Small improvement in bike handling skills.

The last few hundred meters of the bike got a little interesting. We had to make a sharp lefthand turn across the road where the runners were heading out for their last leg. I wanted to keep a decent speed so they could get back to running (they were held up while we crossed), but I also wanted to slow down enough to be able to dismount without falling over or crossing the dismount line on my bike. Fortunately, I survived and had no issues, but I bet there's a huge spike on my HR monitor at that point in time.

Once in T2, I was a man possessed. I racked my bike, changed my shoes, grabbed my number belt, put on my visor, and left as fast as I could. No, this wasn't because I was racing. I had to pee. Bad. Those three bottles of fluid and the brackish swim water went right through me. I really really had to go while on the bike but wasn't going to stop. Thankfully, there was a bank of porta potties right before the timing mat that starts the run with no line. Two minutes and half my transition time later, I was on my way.

The first mile or two of the run were good. My legs felt like jelly but were turning over a good quick pace. I ate a gel after 20 minutes or so, and that's when my day started going downhill. My stomach wasn't thrilled with that, and I didn't have anything else except fluids the rest of the run. I ran between the water stops, and walked for a bit after each one. I hoped by doing this that I would a) start feeling better, and b) let Holly catch up so we could run together. I began to feel better once I stopped drinking Gatorade and used just ice water. Thankfully, the aid stations between miles 5 and 9 had Coke so I drank a cup at each one. That really made me feel better. The pain of chafing in places that should never chafe prompted me to take two salt tabs at the mile 7 water stop. Apparently the water I'd been pouring over my head coupled with the ice melting down my shirt mixed with the large amount of salt dried on my shorts to create a really uncomfortable mess.

Holly caught up at mile 10 and we ran the rest of the way together. She knew my first half was rough when we saw each other on the out & back and ran faster so she'd reach me. She's a great running spouse.

Overall, I had a great time. I still can't believe how much I enjoyed the bike. Maybe that's because I loved passing people. Tri bikes sure do make a difference. I am sure I could've gone faster on the bike and pushed more during the run, but my main goal was to finish upright and happy. Mission accomplished.

The medal is a miniature Saturn V rocket!

Results:
Swim:  19:23
T1:  4:10
Bike:  3:10
T2:  5:19
Run:  2:25
Total:  6:04



Postscript: Thanks to my parents for some of these pictures and for volunteering during the event. It was pretty funny to hear the race announcer say "John Senger, hurry up and finish. Your mother is looking for you." as I approached the line. Turns out they had missed seeing me come in on the bike and weren't sure where I was. Mom was the person holding back the runners as we crossed in front of them and Dad stood at the dismount line so we knew where to stop. How all three of us missed seeing each other is beyond me.

P.P.S. I'm really glad I have this picture of Holly and me at the finish. It came in handy on my way back to Iraq. Due to a flight cancellation by Emirates, I had to fly from Dubai to Amman to get a Royal Jordanian flight to Erbil. While going through transit security, my medal was confiscated by one of the officers. He tried to tell me it was forbidden because it looked like a weapon. I think he just wanted to take it home for himself or his kids. I protested and argued and pleaded my case with him and four other people, using up over twenty minutes of my one hour connection time. Finally, when talking to the head guy who came out from the central office at the other side of the airport, I explained again what the medal was from and showed him this picture of us at the end of the race. He relented, handed me the ribbon, and I was on my way straight to the gate. The race sent out an email the other day offering to let finishers buy one of the leftover medals. If I knew how to reach the guy who first grabbed my medal, I'd forward him the email and offer to bring one back for him.

Brave New World

After years of poking, prodding, and not-so-subtle pressure from my wife, my coach, and my running spouse, I finally dipped a toe into the world of triathlon. I have no one to really blame for this except me. I set out to buy a bike and a trainer to bring with me to Erbil so I'd have a way to workout for Comrades that didn't involve sessions of 4+ hours on a treadmill. I figured sitting on a bike and watching a movie for a few hours would be more tolerable. While we were home in Florida over the holidays, I picked up this beauty, got a professional fit from one of the top fitters in the country, and left the store with all the gear and crap I'll need to ride it. Side note: Adam, the guy who did the fit, was eternally patient with me. He knew I was a new biker and took his time to help me get my cleats into the pedals (apparently Speedplay are great once you're using them; they're not so good for novices like me to learn to clip in and out of), explain all of the measurements he was taking, and talk me through the whole process. As a former engineer, I was fascinated by watching all the sensors hooked up to me show their data as a little cartoon stick figure pedaling away on the screen.

It took less time than the car ride home for Heather to inform me that after spending thousands of dollars on a bike and gear, I had no choice but to start training for a tri. Within an hour of posting a picture of the bike on Facebook, Mary emailed to tell me she was adding swim and bike workouts into my schedule as soon as I returned to Dubai. I landed in Dubai on 1/19, set the trainer up a few days later, and learned very quickly during my first workout that indoor riding is hot and sweaty. I was far more drenched after an hour than I am running outdoors for the same period at this time of year.

A week later, I found out about a beginner's triathlon training camp that some volunteer coaches from Tri Dubai were offering nearby. Needless to say, I signed up immediately. We spent the weekend at a really eclectic and oddly entertaining resort in Ras Al Khaimah, a few hours north of Dubai. This is the email I sent Mary about what the experience was like.

1. Wet suits are awesome! They keep my legs up.  

2. My stroke is stuck in high school. Not enough glide, hands cross in front, big S curve during my pull, hands enter angled with thumb into water first, all of which combine to make my hips wiggle. And we haven't even watched the video yet. It's clear to the coach that I was trained for racing and not for longer distance endurance swimming. She swims an Ironman in an hour or so, so I'm assuming she knows what she's talking about. :)  

3. Tri bikes are very twitchy and squirrelly. You probably knew that, but it was quite a surprise to me. It was all I could do to keep my balance when moving my hands from the aero bars to the handle bars. Getting my bottle out of the cage was an adventure to say the least. And let's not mention how I kept weaving all over the road every time I turned my head one way or the other.  

4. Speedplay cleats are great when I'm clipped in. They're a complete pain in the ass to get clipped in. I spent the first 3-400 meters of each lap during our transition training just trying to get them in and hear that lovely "click." Speaking of clipping in, I fell over with one foot in and one foot out before we even started our first ride of the weekend. In the parking lot. In front of the whole training group. Sigh.  

It really was a fun and enjoyable weekend. Lots of great swimming and biking drills, coaches who knew a ton about their best discipline, and a helpful and friendly bunch of people there with me.

Thanks to all the support and advice I received from everyone, I decided to go whole hog and enter a sprint tri the following weekend. It helped knowing that I'd be riding up to the race with one of my fellow campers who could show me how to get everything set up in transition. I knew the swim would be fine and the run wouldn't be a problem, but I was just a bit nervous about getting on the bike in a race given my dismal performance with clipping in at the camp. Turns out a generous application of dry lube on the cleats, springs, and pedals can help even a rookie like me get clipped in within a 50-100 feet. Recycling my email to Mary once again, here's how the race went:

I had a great time! Best part was kicking ass and passing people on the run. :)  

Swim - not bad for my first one. Total chaos in the water because they had to swim both the sprint & Olympic on the same short course when the fog rolled in. I never got kicked but gave & got a few elbows along the way. Was breathing very hard by the end. Definitely took some serious effort to get my heart rate down coming out of the water. 

Trying to get my cap off while unzipping the suit. Not smooth.

T1 - slow. Not smooth in running while peeling off my suit. Shoes & socks on pretty fast. Helmet strap came out of the buckle so I had to stop & rethread it before starting my ride. Ate some bloks while leaving to avoid having to try it on the bike.

Bike - clipped in fast for me. Yay lots of dry lube. Managed to keep a decent pace for all three laps. Had to learn to downshift coming into the uturn so as not to struggle coming out. Only made that mistake once. Passed some people and happy about that. Learned that a tri bike & aero bars are really much faster than a road bike when it's windy.

T2 - unclipped okay. Hard to run in bike shoes. Fast shoe change and out on the run. 

Run - Legs just wanted to turn over quickly coming off the bike so I let them. Started around 7:30 and settled in at 8. Total focus on sub-25 time. Made it by 5 seconds. :) Legs felt really strange. Not like jello, more like they were tired but still going fast. Does that make sense? It was like "jeez, I'm barely going" with "wow, how can I be this fast"

Had a blast overall. Tons of work but really fun.