I was looking for a challenge to motivate myself to exercise again, little did I know I'd find a new passion for endurance racing.
How I Got Started
Back in college I was a D1 competitive rower training 20 hours a week from September through May. I loved that level of training and I’ve always been drawn to fitness and endurance sports like rowing, running, and swimming. After graduation I moved to Texas for work and, not surprisingly, rowing wasn't a popular in Dallas as it was in Boston. So, I started looking for a new sport to stay in shape and keep competing. I’d seen that Dallas had a big triathlon presence so I figured I would give it a try (no pun intended).
Between starting work, getting my master's degree online, and adjusting to life in Texas, I didn’t have time do any regular training for about 3 years and lost most of my fitness. I was looking for something to motivate me to start training again when some friends from college began preparing for an Ironman and jokingly offer that I should join them for the race. It got me thinking about triathlons again since I’d been talking about doing them for years now so I set my sights on completing a half Ironman that year.
I work best when I have something I’m training for. If I’m going to the gym on my own it’s all too easy to come up with excuses like “that was a long day at work and I’m tried” or “I’ll make it up tomorrow.” If I know I have to show up on race day then those excuses all go away because every day I skip makes the race that much harder. The half Ironman (70.3 miles) was the right distance to shoot for. I knew I could complete a sprint distance without training and it would only take a little bit of effort to be able to finish an Olympic (not necessarily a fast time but finishing the race). The 70.3 was far enough that I wouldn’t be able to finish it without some serious regular training, but not so ambitious as to start with a full 140.6, which was very intimidating.
I signed up for an Ironman 70.3 that was 8 months out and got the ball rolling. I started doing my research and found several triathlon stores in the area. After working with the staff there I got outfitted with a bike, wetsuit, and all of the training gadgets you could possibly imagine (smart watches, heart rate monitors, power meters, etc.) to track my progress. The next thing I needed was a training plan, I found a 6-month online training program with workouts each day to go from 0 to half Ironman. Using that as a guideline, I signed up for a sprint distance after 2 months and an Olympic distance after 6 months to build my way up to the full race and learn on the shorter courses, which was super helpful to dial in the transitions between the legs of the race, since that was something I'd never done before. I wasn't very fast during the sprint triathlon since it was my first race, but nonetheless it felt great to be exercising and competing again so it gave me a big motivational boost. I was shocked when I placed 2nd in my age group at the Olympic distance race and qualified for Nationals. That was when I realized I might have found my next fitness calling. That was solidified when I finished my 70.3 and placed 2nd again in my age group.
With that, I achieved my goal of finishing an Ironman 70.3 and was back to exercising regularly. The question was, what next? I was really enjoying triathlons and it turns out I was pretty good at them too, so I decided to keep going. Last year I had the privilege of competing at the Age Group National Championships in Cleveland, OH, which was an unbelievable experience. It was humbling to compete against so many accomplished athletes who'd raced at Worlds, the Olympics, were all American, etc.
I started mixing in road running competitions as well and have now finished three marathons (Dallas, Chicago, and Fort Worth). Between triathlons and running events I've completed more than a dozen races and podiumed in about half of them. I'm working my way up to my first full length Ironman, which I'll hopefully finish later this year. Beyond that I plan to continue racing and experience as many different courses as I can. Long term I'd love to finish the six Abbott World Marathon Majors (I've done one so far), and eventually race at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.
Fitness Testing
I've always been a data driven person, so early on I did the full suite of fitness tests to really dial in my training routine and set aggressive targets for my competitions. Here's a list of all the major performance tests I did along with the insights each one provides.
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) - determines how many calories your body burns when completely at rest. This provides a baseline caloric intake for daily nutrition and training, it's particularly useful when setting calorie targets to maintain or lose weight
Sweat Concentration - determines the sodium-to-water ratio in the individual's sweat, which can vary by a factor of 100x between people. This is used to build a personalized hydration plan and is very important for long course competitions (>2 hours)
Calorie Expenditure & VO2 Max (Bike & Run) - steadily increase exertion level while wearing a mask that measures the amount of O2 consumed and other gases exhaled. Used to determine the how calories burned at different heart rates and the breakdown of energy sources (ratio of carbs to fat) for creating customized nutrition plans for long races and competitions
Heart Rate & Power Zones (Bike & Run) - steadily increase exertion level while measuring the amount of lactate in the blood to determine your lactate threshold. Used for setting heart rate and power zones for training and competition.
Run Gait Analysis - capture video footage of your gait to understand your individual body mechanics, identify bad habits putting you at risk of injury, recommend stretches to help mitigate these, and determine the optimal shoe profile for your style of running
Swim Form Analysis - capture video footage of your form while swimming and work through a series of drills to address areas for improvement like: body position, hand placement on the catch, breathing, etc.
Here are some of the pictures and results from all of that testing. On the left is me hooked up to the machine that measures O2 consumption and gas exhalation. This was used for the run & bike calorie expenditure & VO2 max testing, as well as the resting metabolic rate test.
In the middle we have the data and results from the bike tests. The top is a summary of the final results, which were my target heart rate and power zones for different training workouts and competition lengths. Below that is the heart rate and power data from the test. At the start is a flat period, which was the warmup. Then we have the calorie & VO2 max test, which was steep the ramp in exertion from very easy through all-out effort. After that we jumped right into the heart rate and power zone tests, which was the longer duration incremental increases. Finally, we have a light cooldown at the end. Below that are some charts showing my left/right power balance and my power cycle while pedaling.
On the right we have the same heart rate summary table and graph for running. Since there wasn't a power reading taken during this test, I instead looked at how my cadence and ground contact time changed throughout the test. Here we can see the harder I was working, the higher my cadence and the lower my contact time, which generally means a more efficient stride.
Everyone Needs Someone to Hold the Poster
As the title suggests, every athlete needs a race support team. In my case, that's my wife, Vinati. She’s super supportive of all my crazy training plans. When I told her I wanted to do a half ironman out of the blue I fully expected her to try and talk me out of it considering the major time commitment; instead, her immediate response was “I’m going to make a poster to cheer you on.” She drew it herself with diagrams of each event, a place for my number, and has been at every one of my races waiting at the finish line with the poster in one hand and a Cliff Bar in the other. It also helps because while I’m busy racing, I can’t pay much attention to what the other competitors are doing, so she scouts out the fastest people and gives me the download of all their techniques at the end.
So, at this point I'm definitely hooked on triathlons and distance running. There are a ton of race courses out there and slowly but surely, I'll continue working my way through them.
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