The good, the bad, and the injured

As of yesterday I have three calendar months until Ironman Wales. Today it is exactly 13 weeks.

This month is turning out to be really busy, so what are my good, bad and my injury?
Well, I'll start with the good, which was this weekend.

The good:
Yesterday was a gorgeous day. Slightly overcast, a light breeze, not too warm. I went down to Cochiti Lake with the tri-club and did some open water swimming. According to Google Earth, about 2 miles of open water swimming. Other than some residual soreness in my right shoulder (an old war wound from a motorbike accident in the mid-90s) it was great. I felt awesome for the first mile or so, then I still felt good but a fair bit slower. Afterwards a few of us ran (45 minutes easy).
Today was one of my "A-races": The Tour de Los Alamos! The race has a "citizens" category, for people who don't regularly race (and hence don't have USAC licences). So that's what I ride, and have done for three years now. Today was great weather and a great result.
The race started out fairly slow, and at the 'back gate' there were a dozen people packed together at the front. Normally there's a sprint to that point and then the top 6-7 is already decided. The rest is just placing. Not today... it was tactically conservative (=slow) for the first half. Then two guys made a break coming out of a canyon, and the rest of us didn't respond. Well, not exactly. I thought about the sprint to break with them, but decided it was too big a risk. Instead I upped my pace slightly and pulled about half the remaining group with me. Slowly creeping the pace up we came through White Rock and could occasionally see the leaders. As I started feeling like my pace was too high to respond if anyone else tried to break I sat back, hoping someone else would lead the paceline. On a couple of occasions that worked, but I had the choice of driving the pace or sitting back and letting the break get away, so I drove the pace.
The race finishes with a big climb (~4miles, >1000ft) that's not super-steep, but is just relentless. About 2.5 miles in I made my move and hit the power. Two people stayed with me for a while. Then we passed one of the breakaways. Then it was down to me and my "nemesis". Last year we sprinted for the finish together and I got it by about a wheel. This time I went for the gradual approach and managed to put down a sustained effort that bought me a 7 second lead at the line.
Second in the citizens category, and 1st in the 30-39 age group for three years in a row. Time was 1:19:56 - a personal best on that course by a good 5 minutes.

The bad and the injured:
Last weekend was the Valles Caldera "Run the Caldera" marathon and 1/2 marathon. I was signed up for 13.1 miles of trail running and was feeling pretty good. In fact, I ran the first 4 miles at about a 6:15min/mile pace and it felt great! Just before mile 5 we hit a giant, steep hill and the pace dropped to 15min/mile, but I was still gaining on the two guys I could see ahead of me. I'm pretty sure that they were 5th and 6th place.
So I crested the hill, blew past the aid station and started on the descent: which was rocks, rocks, rocks. Fist-sized pointy rocks and Fivefingers (Bikilas) do not mix, especially not at high speed. One rock bit the sole of my foot, there was a sharp stab of pain and I knew my race was over.
It was all I could do to keep moving - limping down the hill with people starting to pass me. I could barely put enough weight on it to limp and after a half mile I was almost ready to sit down, have a good weep and decide whether to quit or walk in. Another half mile later and I was back on a dirt road, so I experimentally tried to jog. Not a great plan, so I started a slow, limping jog towards the finish. Another half mile and my foot had quit screaming quite so hard at me, probably because the ground was softening up, so I started to move faster )and with a little less limp).
I pulled back a couple of places and finished 24th, in 2:00:29. Good, but not as good as the 1:40 pace I was on before I bruised my foot. Still, I should be thankful. I finished without serious injury, I ran well up to the injury and even though (a week later) my foot is tender and bruised, I am recovering and can still train.

No more rocky trails in Fivefingers for me though. I'd been bruised before, and thankfully nothing worse, but no trail injury had ever stopped me running before. I have increased my level of foot protection with a pair of Merrell Trail Gloves for my off-road adventures.


So what's next?

Well, the training continues and so does the heavy race schedule. Next weekend I'll be at Storrie Lake, NM, doing my first olympic distance triathlon. I haven't got room in my Ironman training schedule for a taper, so I'm looking at another big training week. Hopefully it won't get derailed by any eye stuff... I'm overdue for an implant in my left eye, which will keep me out of the water for a few days. Hopefully I can get that done in the first half of the week, or wait until next week.

Options

I'm reminded of the Gomez song "... that's okay, at least I've got options".

As of yesterday I now officially have options back on the table. I went to Albuquerque to see a new uveitis specialist who only moved to the area late last year. The last actual specialist I saw was over in Dallas, Texas. Not that my regular quack doesn't know what he's doing, but he's a vitreo-retinal specialist and I'm his only uveitis patient.

So anyway, up till now I've been getting local treatment for my symptoms. Mostly that means some sort of steroid in my eyeball to control inflammation and bring down the cystoid macular edema (swelling in the central part of the retina). The doc in Dallas suggested immuno-suppressant treatment, which I eventually went on, but my local doc is unwilling to manage that. His consistent suggestion has been vitrectomy (surgically removing the vitreous jelly from the eye). So both I and my rheumatologist are getting frustrated with having no guidance. Until recently my best option for input was another trip to Texas.

That has all changed! The new uveitis specialist in Albuquerque (at UNM Hospital) is really good. She laid a bunch of options out for me, rather than just focusing on one. So here's a quick summary, split into groups:

Local:
- More ozurdex implants to control the swelling. I need these every three to four months currently.
- A retisert implant. Downside is that I'd probably need some kind of device put in my eye to help manage the pressure, since this is another steroid option and I 'respond' to steroids (i.e. my intra-ocular pressure shoots up). Brightside: lasts well over a year, can cause cataracts, except not in me since I already had one lens replaced and my other eye will be done soon.

Surgical:
- Vitrectomy. I don't like the idea of this since it's a 50/50 shot in the dark. One thing they usually do with this procedure though is laser the inside of the eye (in my case it'd be the pars plana) to help reduce the chance of inflammation.
- Cryotherapy. This sounds super-cool [/pun]. They freeze the pars plana from the outside, so it's non-invasive surgery. It has the same effect as lasering the inside, like they'd do in a vitrectomy, except there's no surgical removal of anything. The only downside is the local anesthesia, which is my "favourite": retro-bulbar injection!

Systemic:
There are a ton of options here.
Currently I'm subjecting myself to Methotrexate, which is used to treat various nasty things like rheumatoid arthritis and leukemia. It's been doing exactly squat for me. Well, it has taught me to inject myself on a weekly basis, which I'm sure is a useful life skill.
- Increase the methotrexate. I'm on a lowish dose right now, and I'm tolerating it well. So increasing the dose is a first step before thinking about anything else.
- CellCept. Apparently a much more potent drug that works in a similar way to the methotrexate. It's a twice daily thing, rather than weekly injections, but could work. Same issues as my current regimen, which means regular blood testing to check on my liver function.
- Other drugs. The only name I remember here is cyclosporin, but there were two other "categories" of drugs that could be considered. I also recall "T-cell inhibitors" being discussed, but I can't remember whether cyclosporin was one of those. Regardless (I can google that later), there are other systemic options that the doctor is happy to manage herself, which is a massive change for me.

I was also amused by the eye test where they checked for my best-corrected vision. They managed to correct my left eye so that I could read the giant E on the top line. Very exciting.

So my plan:
- Schedule another ozurdex implant for my left eye and then schedule cataract surgery.
- Go see my rheumatologist and double my dose of methotrexate.
- Review situation in a couple of months. If there's no clear improvement from the methotrexate then we'll try CellCept.
- Cryotherapy. Despite the retro-bulbar injection, this seems like a low-risk option for improving things. It might be on the cards later this year.

Mostly I'm glad to know that I've got options. I wasn't that hopeful about seeing the new doctor, but it turned out great. All I have left to worry about this weekend is a trail half-marathon that I'm running up at ~8500ft.

Someone stop the world...

My updating skills have failed me. I've even been falling behind on my tweets.

Perhaps, when the going gets tough, my inner technophobe comes out and takes control. Anyway, I've been so busy at work, and with trying to get my training done, that I've lost track of almost everything else. This is tough! Of course, I've let my training log slip, but I have been keeping my Garmin Connect calendar up to date. The main problem with that is that I've got a good idea of how my weeks need to progress, training-wise, but I've actually lost track of which week I'm in. In fact, I'm going to go check now...

...

Week 9?

Anyway, my training volume is just about on track, even if I'm deviating from the plan I'm on in terms of exact workouts. I've had a bad swim week (or two) as well. The pool keeps rather short hours, and I haven't always been able to get out of work in time for more than a 20 minute swim. Of course, I didn't take the 20 minute option, I just did something else. That needs to change! I must swim more often and I must increase my weekly distance. The running is going well -- I have a trail half-marathon next weekend that'll be a litmus test for progress there. The cycling is going well too -- I'd been missing bike volume, but I've been upping that well and really I have no worries about the bike.

Which reminds me... since the last entry here, I rode the Santa Fe Century. That's a really nice ride. This year was great weather. There was a headwind for the first 50 miles or so, but not as bad as previous years. I also ran into a few people I knew, so I started feeling a bit more of a local! I rode the century with a friend from work (whose training consisted of mountain biking at lunch a few times a week), and we took it easy with some generous breaks. Still, we got round in about 7hr25 (for 102 miles), and had a "moving time" of 6hr17. Now, that's slower than I would want for an Ironman bike leg, but we took the ride fairly easy. Also, the Ironman is still 15(?) weeks away.

Now all I have to do is try to schedule something to regain a bt of vision by then. My left eye really isn't doing anything for me any more. My cataract is taking my vision (in that eye) down to 20/200 and there's some macular edema coming back that's making it even worse (past a certain point it doesn't make much difference though). So I need to get a new implant to control the edema, then I need to get another cataract surgery. Oh Joy! I do get to see a specialist in Albuquerque next week though, so hopefully she'll have something useful to tell me. I have to say that my expectations are currently quite low.

Anyway, time for breakfast and work...

Race report: Atomic Man duathlon

I raced last weekend.  It was my first race of the year, and my 4th multisport race ever.

It was the Atomic Man duathlon, and I competed in the Fat Man (long course) event. That's a 10km run/40km bike/5km run. The out-and-back bike leg featured an 1100ft climb out of a canyon to the bike turnaround, among other small hills. There's also a sprint event called "Little Boy" (4km/15km/4km). Yes, races named after nuclear bombs...

I've done this race twice now, and each time the course has been altered due to special circumstances. Last year the ride through the canyon was cut because of snow (making the ride a 2-loop out-and-back). This year the transition had to be moved because of roadworks. Given the move of the transition, everything was pretty smooth. There was a little confusion about the entry/exit/bypass at transition, but the volunteers were great and sufficiently vocal that I had no problems getting to the right places.

The weather started out perfect: clear skies; cool (but not cold); slight breeze. Then, just before 8:30 we lined up for the start and on the half hour we started running. The first run was a double loop, and we spread out pretty thinly from the start. Not surprising since Fat Man only had 48 racers (Little Boy had 43).

Anyway, for the first half of the run I had a guy running right on my shoulder. I mean serious personal space invasion! Every time I moved, he drifted back to my shoulder. If it wasn't for the seriously laboured breathing I probably wouldn't have cared. Anyway, I made a little ground on him somewhere on the 2nd lap and then got into transition

The transition was pretty smooth, and I think I've learned from having done a few races now. Straight out of the Saucony Hattoris and into my bike shoes, swap hat for helmet, put CO2 pump into jersey pocket, then gloves on and get moving out of T1.

I liked that bike leg. The wind shifted a little and started picking up through my bike ride. The riders who were still heading out as I was heading back would've got more trouble from the wind than I did. Anyway, I was fairly restrained when I started out on the bike. No hammering the hills, and no out-of-the-saddle climbing. I was careful to stay in the saddle and spin as high a gear as was reasonable for the terrain. It all worked out as I made a decent speed (I know that bike course really well) and overtook a three people on my way up the monster climb. By this point I was feeling pretty invincible (with the possible exception of my legs,which I was ignoring), and then I heard a bike behind me. It was shortly followed by a shout of "I should've known that was yours! Beautiful bike.". Cue the other Englishman racing appearing to overtake me - him on his time trial bike, me on my Boardman SLR road bike. That spurred me to work a bit harder, so I didn't lose too much time, but I was still trying to tread the fine line between racing hard and frying my legs for the last run!

The way back was relatively uneventful, but enjoyable, and I rolled back into T2 feeling pretty happy. One quick change later I was running out of transition and realised too late that I still had my CO2 in my tri-top pocket. Still, I had a fast transition and while it was a very real effort to run I got moving at a pace that I was happy with. Mile 1: 7:30ish... Mile 2: 7:30ish... Mile 3: Oh my god was this hill here before?!?!

The end of the run was pretty brutal. My thought process devolved to "Don't walk. Don't walk."
I didn't walk.

Final result:
Despite shooting for a time of 2hrs30 I missed, and had to make do with 2:25:46!

So overall I placed 8th. That was 7th male, as there was a female pro competing who placed 6th. My splits, in case you were interested, were:
10km run - 41:41 (6:43/mile)
40km bike - 1:17:24 (19.22mph)
5km run - 24:27 (7:53/mile)

Transitions were 1:15 (T1) and 59sec (T2). So that was good.
My major gripe for the day isn't even about the race itself. It's about the timing. While the final times and positions seem to match up properly, there are some problems on the results sheet. Two people I know that were racing came in just behind me on the first run. I know this. I saw one of them run into T1 just as I was unracking my bike. The other I didn't see until the finish line. Both are logged as entering T1 before me. I've talked to them - they know they didn't. Even weirder, they both posted very long transition times (2:18 exactly for both) which is unrealistic for those two. Now, my splits match up with my GPS watch so I'm not going to complain too hard. Nor did it affect anyone's placing, but it's annoying to realise that the splits aren't accurate and that's what's preserved for posterity on the internet.


Lessons learned:
1) I didn't run enough before the race.
My weekly long runs were topping out just short of 9 miles. Other run training was hour-long trail runs and occasional bricks or other short (2-3 mile) runs. When the race is a 9-mile run with a hard bike in the middle, that's not enough for a fast effort.
2) I need to train more specifically on the bike.
My bike training is basically me going for a ride and just riding however I feel. I did intervals once. So I've got a new CycleOps Fluid2 trainer and I'll be doing some rides at home. At least one ride a week will be on the trainer and will be following my training plan. I also need to do a threshold test on the bike so I can get a better idea of how hard I can ride without overdoing it.
3) Saucony Hattoris are a phenomenal racing shoe.
I've done a lot of running in my Vibram Fivefingers. I love to run in them. They're a little slow at transition though, and I figured that I'd use my occasional substitute shoe. The Hattoris still have good ground-feel and with the tiny bit extra padding are easier on prolonged, fast downhill stretches. Best of all, they're a hair lighter than the VFF Bikilas! (Now to work out whether I can run sockless in them...)
4)


Overall, I surpassed my expectations and am happy that I'm on track for the big one in September.
Atomic Man was a phenomenal race and I'm happy to have been able to take part. The guys (and gal) that finished ahead of me are all real champs and everyone who got around that course did an amazing job. It's a course with some hills and it's at high altitude. To all Atomic Men and Women... you are athletic studs.

Week 4

There'll be a race report coming soon, as week 4 of my training plan was rounded off by the Atomic Man duathlon, where I surpassed my expectations and placed 8th overall!

Anyway, the week in summary...
Swim: Good session on Monday with just under an hour in the pool. I got 2500yds in, and it was a good quality workout. Swam again on Saturday, when I got another good 2000yds.

Bike: This was a mixed week for the bike. I know I haven't been emphasizing the bike enough in my training yet, but I've been building up my running base as I really neglected that until really late last year. As usual, I rode the bike to and from work every day. On average I'd say that's about 20-25 minutes each day. On Tuesday I had a nice half-hour ride at lunch. That almost made up for the guy who nearly ran me over on my ride into work.
On Wednesday I made the mistake of taking a spur-of-the-moment MTB ride with a colleague. He's a phenom on the mountain bike and I am, well, not. Long story short: I crashed. Moving from hard singletrack with pebbles embedded in the dirt, to 2in deep pebbles is probably okay if your tyre pressure is lower than 45psi (I was pumped up for the commute) and if you're expecting the surface change. Anyway, it's now Sunday and the "fresh hamburger" look on my right side is fading.
On Thursday I took the road bike to work again, only to see the winds get up to about 40mph, gusting 55. I took the long way home so I could ride through a fairly sheltered canyon. Saturday I rode the MTB to 4.5 miles to packet pickup for the race, and back, thankfully event free.

Run: Wednesday was my weekly trail run with the Triatomics triathlon club. We did 55 minutes, but I'm not sure of the distance. It was monstrously hilly though! Then my next run was Sunday, in the race.

Race: 10km run, 40km bike, 5km run.The bike course featured an 1100ft climb (among other climbs), but the runs were mercifully not so hilly. A race report will follow, but the short review: great day, nice weather, good people, 8th overall. I was hoping to get close to 2hr30 and ended up with a 2hr25min.

Two things I learned from the race:
a) My training is on the right track.
b) I need to get more run endurance (my long runs have been too short)
The rest of my learning experience will have to come when I do the race report.

Until then, have fun and enjoy whatever you're training for!

Weeks 2 and 3

Well, there have been disasters and some successes. It's been a long couple of weeks...

To start with, the day after my last post I went out for a brick with the local tri club. I was supposed to lead the brick, and it was lucky that I'd invited a friend as it was just the two of us waiting as 10am rolled by (Omen #1). So 16 relatively easy miles on the bike, then we put running shoes on and set out for a 3.5 mile run. Of course, I took a wrong turn (Omen #2) and we ended up running an extra quarter mile...
Then I put my bike back on the car and headed for our local co-op market for some lunch, where I noticed that my car had been damaged: someone must have pulled away around the front of my car and scraped the driver-side corner. They would have to have noticed, so to just drive off is pretty much the height of dickishness. Disaster number 2 struck when I got home, still fuming about the damage to my car and forgot my bike was on the roof. :-( Yes, I have a carport. I was going very slowly and stopped quickly, but too late: the race bike has two small tears in the carbon on the seat-stays. Frame = dead.

All that and the vision in my left eye has been getting steadily worse over the last couple of weeks. I'm down to 20/200 on that eye, thankfully reading better than 20/25 on the right. It may well be time for more cataract surgery...

So how has the training gone? Better than everything else!
Without my fancy carbon steed I have been riding my '94 steel Eddy Merckx race bike. It's heavy by comparison, but it's still a nice bike. I even took it out on a hilly 30 mile ride in winds that started around 20mph and got up to 40ish mph. That was... The. Hardest. Ride. Ever. This week has blasted the legs too, but I've done 7hr45min of training, plus my daily bike commute, and I actually feel good.

Anyway, without taking up too much space here, suffice to say that my training plan is pretty well on track. I need to just keep working to the plan and all will be well. My first race of the season is next Sunday, and my replacement bike has arrived - hopefully the insurance company will pay for some of it, but if not then I'll have to take it as an expensive lesson in paying attention.

Still, better to get the stupidity and other disastrous happenings out of the way early in the year, instead of having them stack up just before Ironman Wales.

Week 1

Nearing the end of week one of my training plan and I can't say that it went all that well. There's plenty good to take away though. The week in review:

• Last weekend was my intensive freestyle clinic. Wow! Lois Daigneault is an awesome coach. And 12 hours at the pool, 7.5 in the water... is intense. I've learned a million things but am picking two main points to work on. Bring on free speed!
• My shoulders were fried on Monday, and I'd been cultivating a nasty sore throat since Thursday, so I rested. Rode to work, got a lift home as there was a fair bit of snow.
• Tuesday was a near write-off, just a 45min unstructured swim session. Saw the rheumatologist in the morning, so I drove to work. My blood-work looks good though. I'm going to be watching this carefully to also monitor physiological changes from my Ironman training.
• Wednesday afternoon I had an implant in my right eye to bring my macular edema back under control, so no swimming until next week. Evening workout was supposed to be an easy trail run, but I missed the group and went for a frustrated road run: 5.5mi (avg pace 7:18) and somehow I kept increasing speed all the way through the run. It's looking like a good run season, but I need to scale back the speed and run longer.
• Thursday and Friday were fairly useless training days. I did my bike commutes, and that's it. Except that on Friday I signed up for Ironman 70.3 Boulder. Hurrah!
• Today (Saturday) I went for a super-slow 30 mile ride with a friend. Felt good to get moving again, and I can see much better from my right eye. The left is a worry though - the cataract is getting worse so I may have to have surgery again soon.

Then tomorrow is a "no-drop" group brick (bike-run), where I'm supposed to be leading the thing. So it'll be a fairly easy pace 16mi ride, then a 3.5mi run. The cold/sore throat is starting to feel a bit better, so next week I'll try to get back on track with the training (and treatment - when illness strikes I have to stop the immuno-suppressants).

Happy training (and Easter)!