Atomic Man Duathlon 2013

The Atomic Man duathlon is a local fixture and a must-do early season race. It's a run-bike-run format, with two distances available: Fat Man (10km-40km-5km) and Little Boy (4km-15km-4km). In case you're wondering about the names... yes, they are named after atomic bombs. The race is held in White Rock, New Mexico, which is a satellite town for Los Alamos (home of the Manhattan Project).

Transition towels for all participants!

This year I got involved with the planning of Atomic Man, and while I didn't contribute as much as some (or even most) committee members, I did enjoy some of the behind-the-scenes decision making and getting a much better insight into the job race directors have to do. One thing that doing this highlighted was the fact that my time management skills are not what they used to be, so I found myself missing training sessions to go to Atomic Man meetings. I also had some last minute travel come up, and with a week of illness in there too, I was starting to feel like my training was getting to be intermittent. Not my training for Atomic Man... no, even though Atomic Man was the USAT Rocky Mountain Region duathlon championships this year my sights were firmly set on a race 6 days later: Ironman 70.3 St. George!

About a week before Atomic Man I started an additional immunosuppressant (Tacrolimus), to supplement the CellCept I already take for my uveitis. Starting a new medication is always a little stressful, especially learning if/how it will affect my ability to train and race. The list of potential side effects is awesome: "Side effects can be severe and include infection, cardiac damage, hypertension, blurred vision, liver and kidney problems, tacrolimus nephrotoxicity, hyperkalemia, hypomagnesemia, hyperglycemia, diabetes mellitus, itching, lung damage, and various neuropsychiatric problems such as loss of appetite, insomnia, Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, confusion, weakness, depression, cramps, neuropathy, seizures, tremors, and catatonia."

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any noticeable side effects. Catatonia isn't really compatible with racing of any kind.

The weather on race morning was just about perfect. Considering we had snow for this race 2 years ago, having a not-too-chilly, sunny, windless day was just fantastic. Of course, this is New Mexico, so if it's cool at 8am it's going to be pretty toasty by 11am. I was hoping to finish faster than last year (where I went 2hrs 25min) and avoid the midday heat. If I'm honest I was hunting for a spot on the podium too! My "race plan", if you can call it that, was to run the 10km hard, absolutely hammer the bike, and then hang on for the last 5km.

Pre-race setup went well (for me, my road helmet ended up racing on a friend's head)... and I got a good spot in transition, right near the bike in/out, next to @FeWmnLiz (you can/should read her race report here and you can find out how my helmet placed higher than I did).

As we lined up to start the first run I put myself next to some guys that looked fast. We got off to a speedy start, largely because the start is downhill, then I settled into a comfortable pace. I could see the leaders slowly pulling away from me, but I was fairly sure I couldn't keep up so I stuck with the plan and hoped to pull back some time on the bike. After the first lap of the Fat Man run course, I was in 5th place and could see 4th ahead of me. The top 3 had disappeared in a puff of burning rubber. It's not a flat course and I could feel a little cramping in my side as I ran up the hill in the middle of the second lap. Very unusual -- I never cramp while running. Gritting my teeth and telling myself that if I ignored it the pain would go away seemed to work. As I got to the final 100yds before transition I started to slow slightly and I was overtaken by a good local runner who actually accelerated into transition.
My time for the first run: 40:11 -- a new PR!

Coming into T1

After a tolerable 54 second transition, I was out on the bike course in 7th place. The Atomic Man course is on roads I ride a lot. I know every bump and twist in those roads and I was determined to leave everything on the road in this. Within a couple of minutes I was already up to 5th place and pushing hard. About 5 minutes later I was overtaken by a really strong rider from out of town, and he was moving. Still, he was a bigger guy than me and I thought I might get some time back on the 6ish mile, 1000ft hill that makes Fat Man a real cyclist's course. As I got to less than a mile from the turnaround I was overtaken again -- "I never thought I'd see my bike from this angle" -- Clay, a local hero on the multisport scene and former pro-cyclist sold me his old TT bike last year and he'd caught me, on his way to the top bike split of the day. So, back in 7th and I was just about to see the leaders coming back from the turnaround.

By the 20 mile mark I'd hammered the downhill, my neck and shoulders were aching from being tucked so aggressively on a rough road, and I could just see another rider in front of me. I caught them a quarter-mile from transition and entered T2 in 6th place.

Just hitting the dismount line

My split for the bike: 1:14:56.

Despite having a fairly speedy T2, 39 seconds according to the provisional results, I came out of transition in 7th place again.

Losing a place in transition... again!

I managed to hang with the guy in 6th place for about a mile, but the backs of my legs felt like they were welded solid and I was working so hard just to lose ground slowly. I hadn't seen anyone else behind me on the bike so decided that I had time and should just run to hold my place. Of course, that was when I started being able to see a new figure in front of me... for the last two miles I was slowly catching him, and that helped me keep pushing. With about a quarter-mile to go I moved to just behind my new nemesis and stayed on his shoulder. When we hit the uphill finishing stretch the pace slowly crept up, then he made his move: the sprint was on!

Sprint finish with Gage, a top bloke and strong competitor

It felt like forever, but was really only 200 yards. I crossed the line, hurting and not looking back, 2 seconds ahead.
My split for the second run: 23:53 (Officially 24:32, but the T2 times have been rolled into run 2 for some reason)

I needed a little lie down after all that

And that was it. Sixth overall and second in my age group (M35-39).
Final time: 2 hours, 20 minutes and 34 seconds.
All I had to do now was recover in time for the next race.

Big thanks to Frank, our race director, and all the other committee members for planning. Special thanks to the volunteers. It's a small race, but it still takes a lot of people and a lot of work to make it happen. Best of all, it's an awesome race and it's right on my doorstep.

Reflections on an Omnium

So it's been all quiet on the blogging front recently. Well, last weekend I rode in the Adoption Exchange Classic, a road omnium in Albuquerque. What's an omnium? It's a points-based, multi-event cycling competition. Typically omniums (omnia?) are competed at a velodrome, but a road omnium has all three "disciplines" of road cycling. The Adoption Exchange Classic is fairly typical and had the following events:

1. A 20km time trial (TT)
2. A criterium (aka crit)
3. A road race

I was competing in the Men's category 5 race. That's basically the lowest category of licensed racers, and to get upgraded to cat 4 you need to get 10 mass start races under your belt. So far, my bike racing career has included 3 road races only. So I'm stuck in cat 5 for several races more. The omnium gives me another 2 mass starts -- TTs don't count here as they're individual races.

In the cat 5 omnium, the crit was a 30 minute race around the NAPA speedway (a motor racing circuit). The road race was 31.5 miles (after a 1.5 mile neutral parade).

So how did it all go? I'm pretty happy to be honest.
The weekend was quite windy, but didn't get up past about 20mph, and that was only on Sunday. For the TT, which was an out-and-back course, there was a little headwind on the way out. There was also a sustained climb back from the turnaround point... about 2 miles at nearly 4%. Between that and the chipseal road, not a super-fast course. It was also 13 miles, not 12.42 (20km). However, my sub-standard time of 35-something put me 6th in my category. Next time I would ensure slightly more sleep and getting to the race start earlier, so I had more time for a proper warm-up.

6th is more important than the time, as in an omnium the winner is determined by who has the lowest number of points after all events. The number of points you get is equal to your position in each event.

A couple of hours after the TT we were at the speedway for the crit. That's basically a twisty-turny race where a bunch of people on bikes ride too close to each other, too fast, into corners, for a set time.  Anyone who gets lapped is out of the race. Our circuit was about 1 mile and our average speed during the race was about 24.5mph. My primary aim was to hang on to the front pack and not crash. My secondary aim was to finish (i.e. not get lapped).

I did not get lapped.
Actually, this is where the points I scored don't reflect my position. More than half of the field got lapped out and the officials were having a hard time keeping track. I finished well off the back of the main pack, but with a few people behind me. However, I initially was scored at 100 points, which is a nice way of saying DNF. I appealed and was given a place... 23 points, making me the official last finisher. I think it was really 16th or 17th, but thankfully it makes no difference to my final placing.
About 10 minutes after the race I noticed that my front tyre was soft. Not long after it was totally flat. There's a lot of debris on the corners of a racetrack, so I'm guessing I ran over something sharp. Thankfully my tyre stayed sufficiently inflated for me to finish, although it may explain why my last couple of laps felt so hard. No, wait, it really was about the hardest ride I've ever done. EVER. Regardless of the pressure in my tyres.

Still, at this point my Saturday was done, so it was back home so the gf could get to her roller-derby bout, then back to Albuquerque to sleep... Next morning: the road race!

I like road racing. I actually thought this would be my strongest event, despite being a triathlete and primarily training for time trials. We had a full field again (cat 5 is limited to 50 riders) and we set off at about 9:15am. The ride was uneventful, relaxing even, until about 8 miles in... where we hit Heartbreak Hill. It's short, but steep, and the field fell apart. The leaders had made a small gap before the hill and disappeared right there. I was with a couple of people at the top of the hill and we formed a 3-man paceline to try to chase down the leaders. At one point that went up to 4, then down to 3, 2 and finally just me pushing ahead. Near mile 19... right turn, straight into a 20mph headwind. 10 minutes later I was caught by a 7-man paceline, so I jumped on the back. After sitting out for two turns (to recover), I took my turn to pull every few minutes and we must've been going twice the speed I could do by myself into that wind.

The paceline lost 1 person a few miles from the finish, but otherwise that was where we all stayed, slowly closing on the leaders, but not fast enough.

At 1km out, people stopped taking their turn to pull...
At 500m out, everyone got really twitchy... the paceline was now more of a loose pack.
At 200m out the pack exploded into a sprint.
Apparently I can't sprint very well. I finished in the middle of my pack, putting me 11th in the road race and 7th in the Men's cat 5 omnium.

My best position was in the TT, but I think my best performance was in the road race. I definitely worked hardest in the crit, and learned the most there.
I highly recommend bike racing for anyone who loves to ride. It's super fun, social and a much better workout than any solo or group ride. Races also require thinking, which is a cool extra dimension you don't get in training, or even TTs.

(I'll update this with pics when I get the chance... watch out for sexy, sexy bicycles!)

Endurance training with autoimmune disease

A lofty title for today's post indeed. There seems to be precious little information on the web for endurance athletes (or those who want to compete in endurance sports) with autoimmune disease. I can't provide much general insight, but I can share my experience.

My own slice of autoimmune joy is uveitis. My eyes have an inflammation in the middle eye, which causes swelling on the retina. This leads to severely compromised central vision when the swelling is not controlled. Mine is controlled by slow-release implants of corticosteroids that get injected into my eyeballs every 4 months (ish). In an effort to beat the disease into remission I'm also on a regimen of immuno-suppressants (currently CellCept, usually used for transplant recipients).

Right now I'm training for my first big race of the season: Ironman 70.3 St. George. It's a race consisting of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run. As you might imagine, this sort of distance requires a fair bit of training. Just to give a little better idea of how much training someone might do for this type of event (and I am trying to get closer to the front of the field in this sport), here's how much training I've done so far in 2013 (and I'm currently starting to build my training volume).
Bike: Approximately 30 hours. Largely spent on my indoor trainer due to weather. A good fraction of this has been high intensity training.
Run: Assuming I run as planned later today, about 14 hours. This has been split about 9 hours trail running (mostly in snow), 4 hours road running and 1 hour on the treadmill. My running is lagging a little behind my plan.
Swim: Well, least said soonest mended. I just started swimming again after my Ironman triathlon last year.

How does autoimmune disease affect my training?
 - Most of the time my vision doesn't interfere substantially with training or racing.
 - When I have injections in the eye I can't swim for 3 days afterwards. Last year I also had 2 eye surgeries that kept me from training for longer.
 - Immunosuppressants have the biggest impact on my training. Methotrexate (which I no longer take) gave me nausea that made quality training impossible for 1-2 days per week. It feels like I'm tolerating the CellCept better, but it occasionally messes with my GI tract. This means that I have days where long training sessions are impossible, and I also find it hard to eat sufficient calories to sustain my workouts. Yesterday I had to stop a 1.75 hour ride on the trainer early, after taking two breaks.
 - Immune suppression, well, suppresses the immune system. So does intense exercise. This makes me susceptible to catching whatever is floating around out there. Thanks to a good diet and some healthy paranoia I've been able to stay healthy for the last couple of years with only one real dose of man-flu.
 - Alcohol. This isn't highly recommended for folks taking immunosuppressants. I got out of the drinking habit when I started on methotrexate and I'm typically having one drink a month these days. It's brilliant. No hangovers. More of my calories are nutrionally valuable. I just feel better. I can train better. My mind feels generally sharper. In this respect starting systemic medication has been awesome for my training.
 - Muscle growth and recovery from workouts... these are made more difficult by my medication. Sometimes I just don't have the strength that I know my muscles can provide. I don't feel weak, per se, I just can't hit my potential some days. Recovering, like healing from wounds, takes longer than it used to. It still happens, but I'm still getting used to just how slow it can be at times.
 - Blood monitoring. I actually have a doctor watching the state of my health closely, and I get blood tests done every month or two. I know what my body is doing, long term, and I have a doctor watching it all. This is surprisingly useful, if you take a little time to understand what all the tests mean.
 - Mental health. This is a biggie. When I see my vision slipping away in one eye as my condition flares up, it makes staying positive about everything harder. It makes work harder, since I need my vision to work, and that raises stress levels. When I'm coping with side-effects from medication, same story. Mental toughness and the ability to stay focused and positive under extreme conditions are vital for endurance athletes. I just get more opportunities to develop that toughness than average.

In short, dealing with autoimmune disease often includes "performance-reducing" measures. By accepting that changes will have to be made to get the best out of your body it's totally possible to participate in, and be competitive at, endurance sports. Listening to your body is key, and training has to be smart. At the moment my body doesn't respond as quickly as it used to to training, so I have to think more about how to manage the physical stress I place on my body to get the training I need. There are no shortcuts, and I'm still learning just what I can get away with.

There are some real inspirations out there too... folks dealing with autoimmune diseases that are competitive sportspeople with great attitudes.
Some well-known sportspeople with auto-immune diseases:
Sanya Richards-Ross, sprinter; Venus Williams, tennis player; Phil Mickelson, golfer; Novac Djokovic, tennis player
Triathlete Angela Durazo also keeps a great blog about racing with rheumatoid arthritis. Check it out.

2013 Race Calendar

So what does 2013 look like? Well, this isn't set in stone yet, but it is the plan...
As always, life can (and most likely will) get in the way of some of this and so the plan is open to change. 

April: 

 - Adoption Exchange Classic Omnium

 - Atomic Man duathlon

May:

 - St. George 70.3

 - Jemez Mountain Trail Run 1/2 marathon

June:

 - Billy the Kid Tombstone Olympic Tri

 - Run the Caldera trail 1/2 marathon

 - Tour de Los Alamos road race

 - Storrie Lake Olympic Tri (maybe... depends on travel schedule, could be replaced by Mona Vale Cold Water Classic 1.2km ocean swim)

July:

 - Taos Gran Fondo

 - Cochiti Lake Olympic Tri

August:

 - Boulder 70.3

 - Los Alamos Triathlon (Sprint)

 - The 505 Triathlon (1mi swim, 40mi bike, 9.5mi run)

September:

 - XTerra Dread Mon Tri

 - Trinada del Muerto (70.3)

And a fall marathon with the girlfriend...

Then I'm going to sleep until there's enough snow to take the board out. Or take the car out for a track day. Or something that doesn't involve swim, bike or run.

But for now, Happy New Year to all! All the best for 2013.

2012 in summary

This has been quite a year. It's hard to know where to start to summarize it...

So here's a picture of some of my haul from events this year:

So what were my race highlights?
Obviously doing the toughest Ironman course in the world as my first is a highlight, especially having raised a good chunk of change for Olivia's Vision. Going under 5 hours at Boulder 70.3 is probably the result of the season. To be honest though, performing pretty consistently well through my packed season is marvellous. Not bad for a first season dedicated to triathlon, even though 2011 was my first tri season it was more about cycling until I decided I wanted to do a half-ironman...

So this season:
Atomic Man duathlon (10km run, 40km bike, 5km run): 8th overall, 7th male, 4th M35-39.
Run the Caldera, trail 1/2 marathon: 24th overall, 23rd male, 14th M30-39
 - in 7th place at 7 miles before injuring foot...
Tour de Los Alamos (27 mile road race, Citizens class): 2nd overall, 1st M30-39
Storrie Lake olympic triathlon: 23rd overall, 5th M35-39
Cochiti Lake olympic triathlon: 14th overall, 3rd M35-39
 - PODIUM!
Ironman 70.3 Boulder: 192nd overall, 33rd M35-39  TIME: 4:59:30
 - Swim: 35, Bike: 2:33, Run 1:43
Los Alamos triathlon (20km bike, 400m swim, 5km run): 6th overall, 4th elite
 - yup, got my first Elite wave start!
Ironman Wales: 453rd overall, 96th M35-39   TIME: 12:15:10
 - stuck on small chainring for last 50 miles of the bike
 - windy, hilly, cold and absolutely fantastic
 - Swim: 1:07, Bike: 6:55 (grrr), Run: 3:46

I also got two century tours in... the Santa Fe century and the Day of the Tread century. Sadly I had to miss my favourite tour - the Enchanted Circle century.

Also in 2012:
Continuing uveitis and cystoid macular edema
Right eye, lens replacement (cataract surgery #1)
Left eye, lens replacement (cataract surgery #2)
Several slow-release corticosteroid implants in each eye
Chondritis on left ear
Countless injections of immuno-suppressant methotrexate (now thankfully discontinued)
Giant horse-pills of CellCept (immunosuppressant)

Hopefully the new drugs will push my uveitis into remission, and with it the macular edema that causes most of my vision problems. With the new lenses, that'll mean clear, cataract-free vision. Okay, so I'll need some YAG-lasering of the eyes to clean up the new lenses sometime, and no medication is 100% side-effect free, but I'm hopeful. 2012 went well, despite two eye surgeries and copious performance-reducing drugs.


So now it's time for that christmas thing. So have a good one. Eat, drink, be merry and watch out for zombies...

Horse Pills and Off-Season

As usual I've left this too long between postings, but I'm back with new medication, new goals and new off-season training fun...

Horse pills

Apart from local treatment for my vision problems, which usually involves some sort of injection in the eye, I'm also taking immunosuppressants. Previously, I was injecting myself with some nasty yellow stuff called methotrexate. It was/is used for various cancer treatments, as well as autoimmune disease. In my case, it also led to significant nausea as my dose was increased. Unfortunately, it still didn't seem to do anything for me (apart from giving me a good 24-36 hours of feeling sick each week).

No more! Now I have giant pills to swallow. My doctor has taken me off the evil yellow stuff and started me on CellCept - a drug usually used to suppress the immune system of organ transplant recipients. Three weeks in and all is fairly good. In fact, I got a new steroid implant in my right eye this week and the vision cleared up in just a couple of days. If I didn't know better I'd say that the new drugs might be helping already!

The biggest problem so far is that I have to take the (giant) pills on an empty stomach: no food for 2-3 hours before the pill, no food for an hour afterwards. Really? When in the day do I go 3-4 hours without food? Needless to say, I'm having to adjust my feeding schedule and it's going to be tricky fueling big training days with this constraint. Still, if it means remission then I'm all for it.

Off-season

The best laid plans of mice and men... So that early March marathon? Not happening. The girl was the driving force there and she had to interrupt training for a number of weeks. We talked about it and came to the conclusion that she could train to get around the marathon, but it might be a miserable day running a marathon under-trained. So now she's committed to doing a marathon in 2013, but later in the year.

How does this affect my plans? Well, it means that I won't build my run distance as much over winter. Since my last run was 6 miles on snowy trails I can't say that's all bad.

Bike training is going well though. It's officially too icky and cold for outdoor rides, so I'm on the trainer three times a week. TrainerRoad is my new best friend. If you haven't heard of it, and you like to ride bikes, then you should check it out.

Swim training has been patchy, but I did another freestyle clinic with the excellent folks at Santa Fe Aquatics Club and feel like I made some good progress. Now I just have to spend some time in the water to work on really cementing my improved stroke. It's just so hard to motivate myself to swim in winter.

New-season

I have goal races! Of course, I haven't signed up for anything, but that'll come.

My season will open on April 28th with a race that I'm helping out with this year: the Atomic Man duathlon (2012 race report), which is the USAT Rocky Mountain Regional Duathlon Championship. There's a great local race series put on by Chasing3 too...
However, my big 3 for the year (subject to me changing my mind):
1. Ironman 70.3 St. George, Utah (US Pro Championships) -- May 3rd
2. Tour de Los Alamos, New Mexico (this year's race report) -- TBD (June 16th?)
3. Ironman 70.3 Boulder, Colorado (this year's race report)

Then a marathon in September/October time with the girl to round out the season. I'll make a decision closer to the actual race season whether or not I'll be racing bikes in Cat 5 in 2013, aiming to cat up ASAP. Question of the season: can I get fast enough at 70.3 to qualify for the World Championship?

Winter is where I will lay my foundation. I think I stand to gain the most from investing time in the bike.  By the end of January I should see my bike fitness way up on my lazy, couch-potato, post-Ironman form and hopefully start seeing real gains from structured training too. You can track my efforts on my trainerroad page.

New Challenges

So the USA, the country I live in, made it's choices yesterday about how to handle the challenges of the next 4 years. Being too foreign to vote here, I found myself wanting to make choices about something and my mind naturally drifted to my new challenges.

2012 saw a lot of challenges faced... this year I had cataract surgery, on both eyes. I've spent much of the year with decent vision in only one eye. I've been dealing with the effects of drugs to suppress my immune system. The biggest challenge of the year took up most of my time, which was racing at Ironman Wales. Training for the challenge of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run takes time - a lot of time. Knowing that the course in Wales is one of the hardest out there certainly provided motivation. Best of all, I got to use this challenge to raise money for Olivia's Vision; they're a UK-based charity that provide support for sufferers of uveitis (many of whom are children), they also provide specialist training for doctors and support research.

So what now?

Well, first of all, I've been sufficiently lazy since the Ironman that I have to do something. Fortunately the girl has stepped in with a plan for the winter! She wants to run her first marathon in early March; she has the race picked out and is starting her training. Oh, and she wants me to do it too.
So I'm running my first stand-alone marathon in March and I get to finish and cheer the girl over the line for her first marathon, which takes care of the next 16 weeks of training. Along the way I'm going to try to throw some snowshoeing and snowboarding in as cross-training.

From March 2013 onward I still have a blank calendar. I still want to race triathlon, and I'm looking forward to improving my ranking - both in the New Mexico open water tri series and in the USAT age group rankings. There's a choice to make about the Tour de Los Alamos too. I've won my age group in the Citizens category for the last 3 years, improving my overall position from 8th to 2nd. Do I man up and cat up, as the race director tells me I should, racing with a USAC license in the Category 4/5 Men's race? I want to do another half-Ironman too, so I've choices to make there.

None of this seems like a BIG challenge. I've done all of this before, to some degree. Well, after Boulder 70.3 I think I can improve to the point where qualifying for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas is possible! I covered the distance in under 5 hours at Boulder and I know I could have been faster. All it needed was a taper into the race and not sandbagging the run because I was "training for Wales". Can I get over 20 minutes faster? How about 30 minutes? That's the sort of improvement I'll need to get to Vegas. Now that's a challenge.

It probably won't happen this year, though I think I can get close. The other thing that's missing is a cause. Sure, endurance racing is kinda selfish and I do get a lot out of it, but I want to have something to race for too. I'll still support Olivia's Vision, but since everything will be in the US this year I want to do something here. Stay tuned for an update - I have a good idea about who I want to support, and when I have a plan I'll put it in words so there's nowhere for me to hide.

What are you challenging yourself with?

- Steve