Hold Your Breath Until You Drown

Hi triathletes, and welcome to your 5am swim practice. Today we’ll start out with a nice 900 yard warm-up: 300 swim, 300 drill and 300 kick. Then we move straight into a set of 3x100, breathing every third stroke, followed by 3x200 breathing every third and fifth stroke (changing each 50 yards). Then we’ll do 2x300, breathing 3,5,3,7,3,9 strokes, again, changing each 50. Then you can do a 400, with a breathing pattern of your choice.

After grinding through this hateful set of headache-inducing splashing, watching my stroke fall apart and my lungs fill with water, I canned the workout, not even bothering with the last 400 and forgetting altogether about anything more than 3 strokes. The coach said “how was that” and I said “probably my least favorite workout”. He said “you looked good at the end” and the elevator doors closed and I went home. Had a really nice run later, which was just as well.

Relationship Advice from Uncle Pete

How easy is it to live with a triathlete or to be a “partner” to a triathlete? I guess that depends on what your requirements are in a relationship. If you want someone who will always be there for you, who thinks Saturdays are for mowing lawns and visiting Ikea and Sundays are for social gatherings and church, you may be out of luck. If you object to grease stains on carpets (and floors and t-shirts); if you dislike having a cupboard shelf devoted to water bottles and another devoted to nutritional supplements, similarly, you might want to look elsewhere for romance. To truly love a triathlete, you have to appreciate pasta and beer as cornerstones of a diet. You must see artistry in lycra, and recognize the wisdom of having three or four pairs or sunglasses for riding and running. You need to regard chlorine as your favorite cologne, and know that today’s sleep-in is tomorrow’s 4am start. You have to regard the term “vacation” slightly differently from your friends, knowing it means going somewhere beautiful and living like a monk for three days and a slob the rest of the time, with one day in the middle devoted to wandering aimlessly around the streets of some town you have never visited saying things like “great job” while you get thirsty, tired and sunburnt. You need to recognize that walls are for race posters, closets are for t-shirts that say “finisher” and wardrobes are for sweatshirts and bike jerseys with m-dots on them. Running shoes and bike shoes take pride of place, usually at the front door or, if they are unbearably fragrant, outside where sunshine may kill bacteria but probably won’t, and anyway, dead bacteria smell pretty awful too, just like live ones. You need to be able to admire race hats, and say things about the various race jerseys that indicate more than benign tolerance. “Whatever” is not an acceptable answer when asked to choose between the Ironman Canada top and the Florida top. You need to enjoy bikes as art, and be able to sustain long conversations about wheels, cassettes, handlebar positions and frame materials. You need to know that Zipp has two p’s and Hed has no a. Watching the Tour de France will constitute a romantic evening. Power Bars become a staple snack. White thighs are a mark of distinction. Shaved legs are normal, as are 8pm bedtimes and piles containing more sweaty clothes than a football locker room.

I offer these handy tips because I understand that not all readers of this blog have been fortunate enough to encounter full tolerance of what may flatteringly be called the “triathlete lifestyle”. I don’t know what to say, really. It all seems fine and normal when you lay it out like this. But relationships are complex and sensitive things, especially relationships with women. All I can advise is that you persist in the knowledge that true love always finds a way. If she really is special, if she really is the right one, she will love you as you are. She won’t mind that you have your own Venus razor, or that you can eat a monster burrito in less than 5 minutes, or that you think a stick of bodyglide is a nice present. She will love you for who you are, and if she has any taste, she will love you for your bike too.

Three Races

It is summer in Austin, which means the sun rarely hides anymore, and when it does it is still eighty degrees and humid and still capable of turning the inside of a car into an oven. The sun never hides and you can tell who hasn’t been hiding from the sun because they have bronze calves [or for the more pale-inclined, a darker shade of white] and if they’ve been out on a bike their back is a mixture of different browns and their arms look like they’ve been dipped up to the bicep in brown paint and their upper-thighs look so white that it almost looks fake. It is a good time to be in Austin because beer tastes better and more deserved when it is hot outside. There is no shortage of places to drink a beer outside in this city. Summer in Austin also means, among other things, that it is triathlon racing season. So at least one weekend a month, hundreds, perhaps a thousand people wake up early and drive to some spot and put on spandex and a swim cap and race while most people are sleeping in. They are local races, done by a local company, with mostly local participants. There is beer at the finish along with soda and fruit and water and music and burgers or tacos and everybody stands around and talks about the race and then they slowly disperse and volunteers start pack everything up so by two o'clock you wouldn't have known that there had been a race at all. In the last month, there have been three such races: Couples Triathlon, Marble Falls Triathlon, Jack's Generic Triathlon - in that order. I competed in all of them. Here is some of what I remember:

Couples Triathlon had been billed by some as “the race of the year.” It was a re-match from the previous year, part two of the epic struggle of Experience versus Youth. Team “White Thighs and Mustaches” and their combined eighteen Ironmans versus Team “Young and Hung” and their combined one Ironman. Last year, experience had claimed the throne by thirteen seconds. Team Young and Hung had been reminded on a regular basis for the following 364 days that the margin had been thirteen seconds. Promises, bets, smack-talk, had all been delivered. Victories were guaranteed. Countdowns were started.

On race day, everyone was cordial, joking, as we usually are before races. No last second tire-slashes, no dropping of laxatives in water bottles. Joe and Dad looked like sex offenders with their dirty moustaches and skimpy speedos, so we kept our distance, as did all the mothers who had made the mistake of bringing their children to the race.

Team Young & Hung went off in the first wave. Team W.T.& M. off in the last one. The course itself was nice, though the bike had enough hills to be unpleasant, and the run was through mud and grass and had a long, steep hill towards the end of the run that got your heart rate high and made your legs burn. But it was a fun race and I stood at the finish line with Brogan, watching the clock, waiting for Joe and Dad. And Joe crossed and I knew it would be close and then a little later I saw Dad with his unmistakable gait, five hundred yards from the finish line and I stared at the clock and tried to figure out if we had lost and then he crossed and I didn’t know if we had lost or won but I knew it would be close. It was close. Fifteen seconds. This time, youth had won. Team W.T. & M. were gracious losers, saying that they had lost because we had cheated and because they had gone off in the last wave so it was hotter on the bike and run and because we had better spots in transition and other reasons that I have forgotten because there were so many of them. They claimed victory because they got first place in their category, and got to stand on a podium while we finished tenth in ours. [Our category had eight of the fastest ten teams in the race]. But despite their excuses and their attempts to snatch a sliver of pride from the humiliation of defeat, it was a good race. Made even better because next weekend was Marble Falls and that afternoon was Uncle Billy’s.

In 2009, Marble Falls had been the race of the year for me [other than Ironman Florida]. Joe and I had gone off in the same wave [which we never get to do because we are in different age groups]. We got out of the water together, I had ridden away from him, and then he had closed the gap on the run. For most of the 4.4 mile run I looked over my shoulder and saw his red visor and I put in surges and would look back and the red visor was still there and I was sure I would blow up and he would catch me because he always had caught me. But he didn’t that day. He finished twenty or thirty seconds behind me and it was a breakthrough race for me.

This year it was just as fun. A simple race, with transition in a parking lot, the run through residential neighborhoods, the bike mostly on the side of a highway. The water is warm and you got out of the swim sweating and the bike is hilly so you got out of breath on the bike and had your heart in your throat for most of the climbs. The highlight is the run, where it is quiet and paved. There are a few gradual climbs, but mostly it is flat, even downhill. It wasn’t as close as last year, because Joe had been studying for the Bar exam and had been avoiding his training as well as spending time with his brother or father, but it was still a damn fun race, and we still collected hardware. I got second in my age-group, as did Dad, and Joe pulled out third. It was also my best overall finish of the year. Ninth. It isn't until now that I realize how not normal that is. Three family members arrive at race. Three family members race. Three family members leave race with age-group prize. The bar is high in this family, I have come to realize.

Jack’s Generic shouldn’t take much more than an hour to finish unless you flat, which after Joe had found out that I had beaten him, told me he had three times on the bike. Last year, I had been hungover going into this race and did well [17^th], but knew I could do better. I registered for the open division instead of the age-group division for the first time. In the open wave, it is more competitive and you aren’t eligible for age-group awards but you get to go off in the first wave. I wanted to go with the big boys, see if I could hang with them. So I did.

I went off three minutes before Joe and Brogan did and I was out of the water in six and a half minutes. It was a short swim and I ran to my bike and started riding as hard as I could because I had fears of Joe or Brogan riding past me. I rode hard and my bike computer told me I was riding hard but my legs felt weightless, hurting for only brief moments on climbs. I knew I felt good when Paul Terranova, a 37 year old badass triathlete who routinely finishes in the top three in all the local races, rode past me and I was able to keep up with him. In fact, I passed him and then he would pass me and we did this for most of the ride – this game of pass, then recover, pass, then recover. I felt good and had a blazing second transition [four seconds faster than Joe] and I started the out-and-back run with Paul Terranova beside me and as we passed a volunteer he yelled “thirty seconds to second place!” and I smiled because I’d never been third in a race before and I don’t think Paul Terranova smiled because he is always that high up. The run went well, I saw Joe and Brogan and they yelled at me and I yelled at them and they said to keep it up and I tried to but I ended up finishing in fifth and cursing people who weigh 160 pounds. And I never thought I would get so excited about finishing fifth. And after locking himself indoor to memorize volumes of statutes and exceptions to rules, Joe finished 14th. I'm going to have a hell of a time holding him off at Longhorn.

So there you have it. Three races. All of them finished. Combined, all three of them shorter time-wise than an Ironman bike ride. But still a hell of a lot of fun. And still plenty of time to hurt.

What you think

In a beautiful post, Joseph looks at what you think in a ride. Read it and enjoy. It is a classic.

What I think is a little different, and is something like this:

You click into your cleats and begin rolling and make sure you are in the right gear and look around and feel the first pressure of a pedal stroke and it feels good and your legs start to respond with the easy fluency of legs that have turned hundreds of thousands if not millions of times over countless miles on roads in different countries and different races and on a windtrainer. You look at your legs like old friends who have come to visit and you wonder how they will be today, because even after all these years and all these miles, you never really know. They might be strong and get stronger, or they might feel strong and fade, or they might start off weak and get strong; you never know. The legs turn, and you wonder. You pass cars and hope they don’t do anything stupid like open a door without looking or turn right without indicating, and you think of all the times you have thought this, and how rarely it has happened that you have had to swerve to avoid an opening door or brake and roll around a corner glued to the side of a car, and maybe it’s a miracle that it hasn’t happened more often or maybe it’s a curse that it’s happened at all. Who knows? Today will bring what it brings, and you will take it as it comes, because there is no other way to take it unless you want to stay home and worry that you might die out there somewhere, hit by a drunk or side-swiped by a truck, and today could be that day, or it might never happen, and the only way you know is by going out and riding. You start to feel the sweat on your face and back, and your whole body now is cycling, the way it should, Five miles, you think, 90 to go. How will I go. We’ll see. It is always different and always the same. You always wonder, and you always get home. It is what it is. Deal with it. The miles go by. Friends. Work. Cars, What would it be like to live out here? Lonely. I’ve been lonely before. Is it a good or bad thing? Are there good or bad things except that I make them so? Blank it out. Just ride. You are here to ride, not philosophize. Let the road unwind in front of you. Feel the wind, feel the sun. Time to drink. Maybe a snack; you never know. Better early than late. Legs still OK. Ten miles. Twenty miles. All in order. Why do I do this? Why the long miles? What am I looking for? What’s out here? Why do I feel good when my legs hurt? What is it about hills and character? Hope my legs feel this strong at Longhorn. God, I will never forget Canada, coming up of that son of a bitch Yellow Lake. Never feel like that again, never. I feel good now. Easy. Strong. The way I should feel. If this were an Ironman, I’d have four hours left. Relax, hotshot. This is nothing. Not even a warm-up. When your ass hurts and your feet hurt and your back hurts, tell me how you feel. Then it’s a real ride. Nancy. Fifty miles. Water, Cool. Is it cheating to stand under the air conditioner in the gas station? How did the woman get that fat? She must eat and do nothing else? Wonder what she looks like naked? That’s beyond horrible. Erase the thought completely. Back on the bike. Legs feel tired but OK. This will end OK. I’m fine. Pacing is key now. Go as hard as you can but check it, check it all the time. You can fade quickly in this heat. Pace it. Measure it out. If this were an ironman, you’d have 26 miles to run after this. How do you feel now? Feel like getting off and running 26 miles? No way. On the day I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine? What is fine? Fine is an excuse, fine is average. Fine is one inch above collapse. Last words. But I don’t have to get off and run, do I? Just as well. A hill. No need to get silly. Nice and aerobic. Nice and aerobic? How bad do you want it? Will nice and aerobic get you to where you want to be? At mile 90 of an ironman, will this nice and aerobic hill be there to help you? Nancy. Ride. Ride like you mean it. Your legs will recover. Your body will recover. Your spirit will never forgive you if you dog it now. Just you and the road. Nearly home. Then it’s done, and you get to put the bike away and eat and drink and relax. And live with yourself and whether you were honest out here, or weak. Who the hell are you? Maybe you should find out.

Chlorine and the Brain

Swim coaches have to be peculiar people, and if they weren’t before they chose a job that requires endless 4am starts and dealing with high-school kids and breathing in chlorine and being indoors all the time, I suspect the environment would make them peculiar after a while anyway. Whatever, as my daughters would say. Swim coaches are peculiar, and a bit vindictive too. I see shadows of this malevolence too often in the training sessions laid out so cheerily by the various coaches I deal with. Take yesterday. After a decent warm-up, we went into 400 yards of kicking. This hurts my legs, which are always tired from riding and running. I hate kicking. That’s one reason I wear a wetsuit, so my legs can trail behind me, floating effortlessly, preserving their energy for the remaining 130+ miles of slog ahead, instead of burning off by making bubbles and froth behind me, with no apparent gain in propulsion. Maybe that’s why I am so lousy at kicking, or maybe I don’t like kicking because I am lousy at it. Again, whatever. I have made my peace with myself. Never will I go one-on-one with Flipper in an aquatic kicking contest and teach him a lesson (Flipper was a boy, right? I never thought of that until now). A new coach once thoughtfully offered a few comments on my stroke, kindly avoiding use of words like “clunky” and “splashing”. He said “you don’t kick much” and I could only agree, and continue not to kick much, seeing the hope and optimism slowly vanish over the coming weeks as he realized he was engaged in a pointless battle of wills with someone on whom he had absolutely no leverage.

After the 400 kick, which I did, saying things to myself about the coach and his parents that were, at best, unkind and at worst actionable, he chimed in with a set of 200s, which were to be done with a variable breathing pattern of 3, 5, 3 and 7 strokes, switching each 50. Now much as I dislike kicking, I have grown quite used to oxygen over the years. I find it improves my athletic performance when I can breathe. I suspect this is why god gave me a mouth and nose and lungs, so I would be able to take in oxygen and function as a human being. The only benefit I have ever seen from these absurd “breath control” exercises in the pool is that I get a nasty headache for several hours afterwards, and I swim like a box jellyfish while my eyes go red and I think unkind things about the coach. So, as with the useful advice on kicking, I adjusted the set to be 3 and 5 strokes, with an occasional 2 strokes tossed in when I felt the blood pressure rising in my ears. “How did it go?” he asked in his bright voice. “Good,” I replied, adding “but I didn’t do it the way you wrote it because I kind of like oxygen.” Shattered, he mumbled something about how we should all do whatever we can, or something of equal emptiness, and walked off to bestow wisdom on some other oxygen-deprived sap.

Then, it was stroke time. I love this part of the workout. Years ago, I actually did all the strokes, bouncing wildly from lane-rope to lane-rope as I backstroked my way up and down the pool to the eternal bemusement of those people who had actually learned this stroke and saw how ugly it could be in the hands of a real amateur. I would breast-stroke like an enthusiastic frog and in my butterfly I always tried to make up with strength what I lacked in fluidity, which is a serious mistake in the water. But those days are passed. Now I just do freestyle, and when the coach writes up complex workouts that involve different strokes, I ignore it completely and just do freestyle. Occasionally, a new coach will suggest that I “try it” and I respond with something like “nah, not any more” and off I go, unbalanced, legs barely kicking, breathing every two strokes. I can almost hear the sobs.

The other day, there were just two of us at a 5am masters workout, and just two lanes (not that we could have used more, obviously; even someone who had just completed Intro to Math could tell you that). The coach, who was preoccupied with six lanes of high school swimmers who kick and breathe every 25 strokes and do IM like it’s nothing, suggested that we do a long warm up, and he’d come back with a workout then. I suggested that if we did a long enough warm-up, we could go straight into a warm-down, and then hit the showers. His face tightened a little into one of those smiles you used to see on the front of a 1950s Buick, and he said yeah and sidled off to be with the kids. Not much point in arguing with someone old enough to be your father who is standing there in speedos and goggles at 5am. He knew he had no chance.

Life Advice From Uncle Pete

Various studies have observed that strange things happen to your brain when you are in a long term relationship. For instance, you actually cease to recall some things, apparently because your brain has ceded this territory to your spouse/other and you have subconsciously decided that your brain space can be better utilized thinking of other things or storing other memories. In passing, have you ever wondered why your subconscious has all the fun and gets to make all these big decisions for you? The same part of your brain that creates dreams about topless dancers being eaten by sharks also determines the focus of your thinking and your underlying values. Peculiar, but maybe explains why people do things that make no rational sense, like swim, ride and run in a huge circle or watch soap operas or have children. Not that I have anything against children, just that they are a profoundly illogical choice to make: expensive, disruptive, attention-demanding... and yet, we all have them and croon over them and think it is a good thing that we have them. Or maybe we just rationalize the decision because there is no legal alternative, except boarding school. At any rate, I mention this about brain focus because today I rode off to work without my sandwiches and without my helmet. There is not a lot to remember when you ride, and yet I always forget something. It is a game I have with myself: what will I forget today. The fact that I have games like this suggest that parts of my life are emptier than they should be, but that's another discussion. The fact is that, helmetless and sandwichless, I rode to work. I suppose I had hoped in my selective memory that my dear wife, who made the sandwiches and who wished me goodbye and watched me ride off without a helmet, would have taken responsibility for that part of my brain and reminded me. I am not sure what conclusion to draw from today except that (a) my wife is to blame and (b) people should warn you of these hazards when you get married. I could have starved or died of a head injury. Fortunately, I didn't, because my bike-handling skills are superior, and I had a debit card with me. But the risk remains real. So, for those of you of marriageable age, especially my sons, I would counsel the following:

1. Ensure that the woman you are dating has at least partial vision and a basic command of English. Otherwise, her fascination with you may be on a sandy foundation;
2. Think first: would I trust this woman with part of my brain;
3. Write a list of things to wear bike riding.

Remember, a lesson learned is a lesson saved.

More Gems From Uncle Pete's Mailbag

"Framed" of Florida writes:

I recently raced at Ironman Florida, and was penalized for “drafting”. I put the word in quotation marks because I wasn’t really drafting at all. Let me relate the facts:

I rode up on some guy’s wheel and a course marshal yelled at me and told me I had been drafting, and that I had to report to the next penalty tent, where I was sentenced to spend three long minutes wallowing in feelings of guilt and personal anguish. Actually, I added the bit about guilt and personal anguish, but he might as well have said it because I could tell he was a hateful person, better suited to extracting fingernails during the Spanish Inquisition than dealing with triathletes, but I digress. My apologies. My emotions are still raw from this run-in with officialdom – if “officialdom” is the right word for such a vindictive, noxious specimen of moral decrepitude and putrefaction. Swine official.

Anyway, as I was standing at the side of the road while the official (let’s just call him Adolph) put a slash through my number and wrote down my details, I explained how he was making a mistake. My defense rested on three crucial points:

First, the rules specify that you must retain not less than seven bike lengths from the bike in front. I told him I was at one bike length, which is actually less than two, not seven. He seemed not to understand the significance of this point, so I moved on.

Second, it was a windy day, and the field normally bunches up, and I wasn’t doing anything that lots of other people weren’t also doing, and anyway the rider in front slowed down. I told him I have lots of experience with headwinds. I experience headwinds wherever I go. It doesn’t matter if I ride on the indoor trainer, somehow I’ll find myself plowing into the teeth of a gale. I have ridden out and back courses, and had headwinds both ways. On a circular course, the same thing. I explained that he thought he was dealing with a simple “drafting” call; in fact, he was dealing with a human being in need of exorcism, so cursed was I when it came to headwinds. This point also failed to register with Adolph, so I moved quickly to what I thought would be the knockout blow.

I explained that since I had just entered the so-called “drafting zone”, I was technically in a pre-drafting phase, which cannot be treated the same as drafting. Pre-drafting is what you do before drafting can be said to have taken place. Drafting is different. Adolph got back on his loud motor bike and left, my penetrating legal arguments having been wasted on his cretinous intellect.

So, my question is: how can I have this verdict overturned? Is there some court of appeal to which I can present these arguments, somewhere where they understand the difference between drafting and pre-drafting, between a simple triathlon misdemeanor and the tribulations of a spirit stalked by headwinds? I have another race in a few weeks and would appreciate your guidance.

Uncle Pete replies:

Dear “Framed”,

In dealing with a situation such as this, I always recommend the three-step process for handling difficulty:
1. Deny all personal responsibility
2. Find someone to blame.
3. Seek sympathy.
You seem to have all the bases covered, so there’s not much I can add. As a wise friend of mine puts it, the challenge in life is learning to make lemonade from a silk purse. I’d suggest you just get back on to your bike and feel victimized.