Category Archives: Reluctant Triathlete

A Tough Day

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Jeff Mather


I have never wanted to quit a race so much in my life, and I wasn’t even a mile into the half-marathon segment of today’s Patriot Half 70.3 triathlon. My swim was really good—my best at this distance that wasn’t aided by a current—and I was really strong on the bike. So what was going on? Why was “DNF” crossing my mind after having what would have been a kick-ass aquabike?

After a few races where I wondered after finishing if I had given enough (including Hopkinton last month), I decided that I needed to work on strength—in particular, my mental strength. I had been finishing a bit too fresh, even though I felt like I just couldn’t go faster, and the gran fondo a month ago showed that I could bike faster. Either I needed more physical strength to get the job done, or (just as likely) I had untapped potential that I could draw upon. Either way, I sensed that I could go faster and needed to work at it; I just needed to be a little more willing to suffer, to be willing to go into the pain cave on the run and know that I would come out of it a couple hours later very satisfied with the result.

When I visualized the race last night and this morning, I could see myself focusing on my technique in the swim, working hard, and finding myself in a group of people with a good pace. After riding the bike and run courses last weekend, I figured I could put in some good effort on the bike and possibly set myself up for a PR. I also visualized myself being more deliberate during the transitions, attempting to speed them up. And that’s pretty much how the first three hours and 41 minutes of the event went today.

I was having more trouble getting excited about the run. I’ve run half-marathons (and longer) before, and I find them difficult but doable. Almost all of my long races have been urban—with lots of landmarks to show progress—but this course was extremely rural, yet it had very little shade. I tried to put that in a little box and just think about digging deep to go hard, but when I started out on the run course, it felt incredibly difficult—mostly mentally. Usually, I don’t have trouble running off the bike, but today felt slow, and I had some trouble believing that I could perform at the level I wanted/hoped. I wasn’t having fun, and two hours of running seemed like a very, very long time. The thoughts of a DNF started early, well before I started walking at the first aid station . . . right at the first mile.

But I knew I wasn’t going to quit. On Thursday, I decided that I would be racing hard in my TeamWILD kit for Mari Ruddy, the founder of TeamWILD and the Tour de Cure “Red Rider” program for people with diabetes. She had been missing since Tuesday, and I didn’t know whether I would be racing in her memory. Fortunately, that was not the case, and she’s recovering now. No matter how bad I felt—and I didn’t feel very bad, just soft—I couldn’t give in. Plus, I would know that I could have finished, that I should have done better. It was never really an option.

So, as I was walking out of the first aid station, I came up with “Plan B.” I would run to each aid station and then walk for two minutes before starting to run again. Coming out of the second aid station, I briefly talked to a guy in my age group who was also walking: “A run/walk is the only way I’m going to get through this half marathon,” I said. “You and me both,” he replied. Shortly afterward a funny thing started happening. I started passing people and making better time than during my previous 70.3. Of course some people passed me on the run—they were running, after all—but I caught most of them when I started running again. I was actually kind of amazed at how effect the technique was. By the time that I got to mile 6, I had a good thing going, and I was pretty confident that I was in a good place for a PR. I decided that I could run through the last three miles, cultivating some of that toughness that I wanted.

When I crossed the finish line in 5:38:42 with a new PR by almost 20 minutes, I felt like I actually had given almost everything I could access today. I wish that I’d had the strength to run the whole thing at a respectable pace, but I’m not sure that I would have been able to do better than today’s 8:56/mile (5:33/km) if I had tried to run the whole thing anyway. Thinking about the run/walk, I see a clear area for improvement, but I definitely see the value in it and will keep it in my arsenal for tough days like today.

I’m doing my next 70.3 (the Timberman 70.3) in August. This race promises to be much tougher because of all the hills. Hopefully I’ll be tougher, too.


Oh, and of course Lisa took some great photos, despite Patriot being a difficult course for spectators with cameras.

Posted in Cycling, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 6 Comments

Swim. Swim. Run.

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Jeff Mather

There’s just no getting around it: Today’s NE Season Opener triathlon was wet. After what felt like the longest time away from triathlon—August’s 70.3 was my most recent—I had been looking forward to this race for quite a while. It didn’t occur to me until yesterday evening, when we were watching the weather forecast on TV, that it was possible that we would get rain during the event. But rain it did. Sprinkles at first and then a full downpour during the bike portion. There were rivers running down the highway, and Lisa said there were several crashes on the big hill leading to the transition area. Fortunately, the rain ended right as I started my bike-run transition, and I finished with a time that was just off my best time from last year: 1:09:47.

I made a couple of good decisions today. First, I decided to bring Tommy V (my road bike) instead of Chrissie (my tri bike). Over open ground, Chrissie is a couple of miles per hour faster, but I’m a lot smoother and much more agile when out for a ride with Tommy. Given that I could barely see through the rain today and that some of the corners were tight, it was the right choice to pick conservatively. And yet I still was passing lots of people. In fact, my bike split felt good and was the strongest part of the event for me. I started to wonder whether I was pushing too hard given how many people I reeled in, but I had more than enough in the tank for the run. My other good decision was bringing a plastic bag to put my running shoes and socks into to keep them (mostly) dry until I needed them.

On the other hand, I should have started farther forward in the swim. Evidently, I got faster over the winter, and I was constantly swimming onto people, slowing my forward progress. I could easily have been about 10% faster if I’d had fewer people elbowing me in the face or slowing down in front of me. On the plus side, I drafted on the swim! That was a first, and it was pretty cool.

My diabetes mojo is a bit rusty. I decided to try something different today, so that I could eat a bit more before the event. I was doing pretty well keeping my BGs down until just before the start when it started to go higher. Unfortunately, I went all the way up to 274 mg/dL (15.2 mmol/L) by the finish. Something to work on for next time.

It’s good to be back!

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, I am Rembrandt, Photography, Reluctant Triathlete, Running | 1 Comment

Crash and Burn

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Jeff Mather

Like a Sunburn: Two Mondays ago I had this conversation with my general practitioner.

“A few weeks ago I was sick, and then, a week after feeling better, I started having some pain in my leg. It felt as if all of my hairs were going the wrong way. Or as if my thigh had been scrubbed with steel wool. Everything on the left side of my body from my tailbone around my hip to just above my knee feels raw.”

“Kind of like a sunburn?” my doctor asked.

“Exactly, except that when I touch it or apply pressure it feels better. In fact, I feel best when I’m wearing bike shorts or swimming or running . . . or when my clothes can’t even brush against my skin.” By mid-week I was walking around holding my hip, which made the discomfort bearable. I could also be heard exhaling deeply from time to time to take my mind off the pain.

“But just on one side?”

“Yes,” I said. “That lasted all week, so it wasn’t just a run of the mill irritation. Then on Friday I noticed that I had a very swollen lymph node on the same side. At first I could feel it, but now I can actually see it, too.”

My doctor was starting to look like he knew what was wrong with me. What I didn’t say was that, after I found the lymph node, it was too late to get into the doctor’s office on Friday, and I kinda had a little freak out over the weekend. What was wrong with me? I didn’t have most of the symptoms of the few things I could think of. If it was a hernia, would my season be over before it started? What if it was more serious than that?

“And then I noticed a cluster of bumps on my back. They don’t really hurt, but they started around the same time. Now I have a few on the front of my thigh, too.”

“You have shingles. You’re the fifth person in the last week that I’ve seen with it. That’s really unusual.” And then he pointed to the poster from the CDC behind him on the door. It was the poster I had started to look at before he came into the exam room. On it, sad-looking, line-drawn people had shaded swaths on one side of their bodies. Then he gave me a prescription for the drug you get if you have herpes.

I was starting to feel much better a few days after starting to take the valaciclovir. I still feel a little pain just below the skin in my hip, and I’ve read that the neuralgia—which is what this kind of nerve pain is called—can last months. Yet I still feel fortunate that my shingles wasn’t as bad as some of the pictures I’ve seen or stories I’d heard.


BG Crash: Meanwhile, I was still swimming, cycling, and running. Swimming was going well, and I felt like I was getting back to my pre-illness form and speed. Running was . . . amazing! I’m still not super speedy or anything, but I noticed that at some point over the interminable winter my form improved, and as a consequence I seem to be able to run faster with the same amount of effort. Cycling is another story, since I found myself a bit off my form the end of last season. What I needed was time in the saddle. So about a month ago, I switched from mostly running to mostly cycling. I want to say that it’s been slow, but really I’m progressing pretty quickly, getting in a couple of 60-mile rides over the last two weekends. Hopefully, I’ll be speedy on Sunday for the first tri of the season and ready for the 100-mile Tour de Cure gran fondo next weekend.

One thing that has been completely different—and very frustrating!—compared to last year is my diabetes abilities in the afternoon. Almost every workout for a couple of weeks ended with me either 100+ mg/dL (5.5+ mmol/L) lower than where I started. That’s quite a drop, especially given that I had been working hard to keep my BGs in a “better” range. As a result, I was having a bunch of lows (or near misses) while exercising. No amount of pre-emptive eating seemed to fix anything. The worst was a span of three days where I had to stop cycling and running in order to treat hypos. I hate stopping.

It occurred to me that a few things were different. As I already mentioned, my BGs are bit better throughout the day, which (unfortunately) gives me less room for a drop like this. My training volume is also higher now, which means I’m more likely to use blood sugar, since my muscle glycogen might be slightly lower. And—this probably is the key—I had ever-so-slightly more active insulin in my system than last year. I remember being hungry in the afternoon everyday last summer and not eating because it would mess up my afternoon running or riding. Surely, there’s got to be a better way to balance the need to eat and the need to exercise. I should go back to my TeamWILD notes from last year to remember how much to lower a bolus for food depending on how far in advance of riding it is. Stay tuned.


An Actual Crash: Last Sunday, I went out for a little ride. It was a beautiful day; Chrissie (my tri-bike) and I hadn’t been out for a long ride together for a while; and I was feeling pretty energetic. About 20 miles in, I decided to stop at the same park I did the weekend before to take a little “nature break.” The previous time, I accidentally punched myself in the face taking off my arm-warmers. This time I didn’t even make it into the park before starting the mayhem.

Turning the corner from the highway to the park at about 10 MPH, my wheels hit sand, and I slid to a stop on my right side. Two women walking down the street saw the crash and asked if I was okay. As I stood up, nothing felt broken, although I could already feel some pain on my right leg despite the adrenaline. I’m fine. The ladies seemed dubious. So I looked at my bike and saw everything was (thankfully) exactly as it was supposed to be. My insulin pump seemed unharmed. And then I looked at my knee and shin. Blood and scrapes, but nothing that wouldn’t heal or keep me from finishing the next 40 miles. Yes, I’m okay. Thanks. All things considered, I wasn’t badly hurt—just a little road rash—although I was bleeding pretty well.

I headed into the park to do what I’d gone there to do, and then I spent a few minutes cleaning out my wounds. The bleeding from my knee wouldn’t really stop in the 30 seconds that I was willing to give it, so I used my beanie (which I no longer needed on this ride) to blot the blood and headed back out. I think I scared a few people I saw on the remainder of my loop. When I got home, Lisa didn’t believe me that it was a wolverine attack, so I had to fess up that the blood was, in fact, my own and convince her that I was, in fact, okay. After a shower it looked much better. Now, about a week later, the scabs look a bit gruesome, but the injuries they cover feel fine.


It’s been the strangest two months since the New Bedford Half Marathon, and hopefully nothing else happens between now and Sunday.

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, Life Lessons, Reluctant Triathlete | 4 Comments

Back to the Pool: A Story in Four Acts

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Jeff Mather

I. Between being sick and the high school being closed for spring break, today was my first day back at the pool since the 10th. I had gotten a little used to sleeping in—all the way to 5:30—but I was still pretty happy about the chance to get my swim on. How would it feel? Pokey? Speedy? I had no idea. Frankly, I didn’t care; I was just happy to be back. Usually I have a plan, and today I decided to swim 2,000 yards continuously. Easy to remember.


II. I was glad to see Pat there when I arrived.

“How was your marathon?” I asked, and she made a face that was hard to decipher.

“I ran twenty-five and a half miles. I was feeling really good. It was so weird; we were all running, and then we literally all just stopped inches away from the person ahead.”

“Man, that sucks.”

“Yeah, but I still have my legs, so I can’t complain. I’m just glad my daughter met me at the 20th mile to run with me a bit, instead of waiting at the finish line.” I did the math on the way into work. At the pace she was going and the distance she had already run, she was probably less than five minutes away from the finish line when the bombs went off.


III. I have a little ritual I do three times a week at the pool. I sign in at the little table on the pool deck and then walk to the nearest open lane, where I sit and dangle my legs over the edge while I put on my swim cap and adjust my goggles. Then I look down at my watch and reset it before hopping into the water and convince myself to get going. Today, when I went to look at my watch, all I saw was the fur on my arm.

Oh dear, this could be a problem. How would I know how far I had gone? For a continuous swim, my pace is slow enough that I can pretty easily use the time on my watch to figure out my distance. “A little under 33 minutes swam,” I can say to myself, “means 33 laps. Only seven more to go.” No watch means no easy lap-counting.

Pat offered to lend me her watch, which I’m pretty sure is a water-resistant analog watch with a leather band. Not that there’s anything wrong with wearing a lady’s watch in the pool, but it’s an interesting sartorial choice. (Of course, Pat did wear sunglasses at the reservoir for a couple weeks before somebody suggested goggles with optically corrected lenses. And I’m glad they did, because I got in on that action really fast. Seeing where you’re going is a good thing.) I declined the watch offer, since I thought it would be nice to have a little bit of extra freedom, and the wall clock would tell me how long I took to do my 2,000 yards. I started at 5:45, almost on the dot.

Without a watch I had to pay attention to swim the right amount. I counted . . . en español on the way out and en français on the way back. Uno/un to bente/vingt twice. That seemed to work pretty well. Having a lane to myself also helped, since there were fewer distractions: I didn’t have to worry about anyone getting in my way, and the lane dividers made it harder to see what was going on in neighboring lanes.


IV. At the end of my swim, the guy one lane over (who was recovering between sets) asked, “Do you do triathlon?” Yes. Yes, I do. So we chatted a little bit about how much fun it is. He told me that he will be doing the same tri in Hopkinton that I will. “I guess the water is only supposed to be 60º.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that last year it was around 56ºF (13ºC). “Do you do a warmup swim?” Personally, no, but I never do a warmup. (It’s just another variable with with the pre-event diabetes management. Plus, that’s what the first couple minutes of the race is for, right?) “I’m just worried I’ll get out and be cold while standing around for the start.” Yeah, that’s a real possibility (and another good reason not to do a warmup), but the water will definitely take your breath away.

Only three more weeks. I can hardly wait!

Posted in Reluctant Triathlete, Swimming, This is who we are | 1 Comment

January 2013 Recap

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Jeff Mather

We can close the books on January:

  • 31 workouts (8 swim, 8 bike, 13 run, 2 Nordic ski)
  • 215.9 total miles
  • 26 hours, 34 minutes
  • 16,700 calories
  • Farthest swim: 1.3 miles
  • Farthest bike: 44 miles
  • Farthest run: 12.6 miles

Plus, one shoulder injury that had me away from the pool for a week. (More about that later.)

Posted in Cycling, General, Historical Record, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 1 Comment

The Announcement

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Jeff Mather

This morning I did an extra-long, pre-holiday endurance swim of 4,000 yards. For the curious, that’s 2.27 miles and just short of an Ironman swim distance. Had I known beforehand, I might have done the extra 250 yards to get me to there. When I was heading back to the locker room, Pool Guy called out, “Great Swim!” It was indeed.

Speaking of Ironman, it’s been years since I rode 112+ miles on my bike, but I rode over 100 miles twice this year (in the Twin Cities and Death Valley) and they felt pretty good. Just like this morning’s swim, they were shorter than the full Ironman distance and they weren’t races, but the distance is in my legs for sure.

One thing I’ve never done is run a marathon. I have run a couple half marathons and 18.6 miles around Hamilton Harbour, but I always balked at running a full marathon. At first my thinking was “26.2 miles is a long way, and I’ve never raced half that.” During my first half-marathon, I distinctly remember thinking midway through that “two hours of pain is more than enough, thankyouverymuch, and I can’t imagine racing hard for a full marathon.” After my first half-ironman, where I raced hard for almost six hours, that complaint doesn’t hold up very well.

26.2 car decalAnnouncement #1 — the small announcement: After years of saying that I didn’t want to run a marathon—all of those protestations were true, by the way; I wasn’t just being coy—I’ve decided that next year I will run my first marathon. For one thing, I’m pretty sure that I’m at the point in my conditioning where I could race one and not just run it. I mean no offense to the people who run marathons with the primary goal of finishing them, but when I toe the line at the start of any race, I’m in it to finish as high in the standings as my body and mind will let me. I wasn’t in the right place mentally to do this in the past, but I am now.

I’m still mentally preparing myself to run uncomfortably fast for an entire half-marathon next March. I’ve been changing how I talk to myself during my tempo runs and mile repeat workouts on the high school track. Gone is the self-doubting question “Will I be able to hold this tempo for 13.1 miles?” In its place during each lap is “Here’s another quarter mile at 7:00/mile pace. I can do ten seconds slower than that for ten more miles.” Even if my brain is not completely sure I can do it now, I know that my body can. I’m going to fake it ’till I make it, and I’m going to keep visualizing success over the next three months until it’s time to do it for real.

Also, there are a couple of marathons that I would like to do someday (“bucket list” stuff, if you will, although I hate the term). One of them is the Boston Marathon, which I’ve watched every year but one since 1998. (Here some photos and reminiscences from 2006, 2007, 2011, and 2012.) The day of the race is my favorite of the year, and each time I watch it I get a little twinge of envy, wishing I were running with that crowd. But usually, it’s just that: a twinge. That all changed one day after work last summer during my long run, which took me along the Boston Marathon route. As I was running past the Natick Common, which is where I almost always watch the race, the church bells started ringing. Instead of drawing everyone outside as the lead runners approached, they were simply announcing the hour, but they might as well have been tolling for me. I’m pretty sure that was the moment when I actually decided to make the jump to a marathon. (The other is Big Sur, which just looks ridiculously beautiful.)

Despite a few people trying to convince me to run Boston next year for charity, I knew that I didn’t want Boston to be my first marathon. I want to enjoy Boston when I do it. Well, as much as you can enjoy a multi-hour throw-down. I also kinda want to see if I can meet the qualifying standard. Plus, I plan on doing more triathlon next year, and I want to focus my training appropriately. So I’ll be running the Bay State Marathon in October—a couple months after the end of triathlon season—in “scenic” Lowell. (Why do I sign up to do long-distance running events in blue-collar, post-industrial cities? Why not?)

Ironman M-Dot logoAnnouncement #2 — The BIG announcement: Now we come back to the beginning of this post. I have improved my swimming. I have a solid base for cycling. I’m moving up in distance to marathons. Moreover, I had a good half-ironman experience; my diabetes is in a pretty good place; and the idea of doing triathlon for 12+ hours doesn’t really bother me.

I’m going to do an Ironman . . . in 2014.

As much as I would love to do a full iron-distance event next year, I’m just going to have to accept the fact that the age on my calf will read “40″ when I finally do my first. I’ve thought long and hard about when to try it. As with the marathon, I want to do well. That’s going to involve some additional endurance and strength work over the next two years. I will be racing next year, and those races will mostly be longer distance events, but I’m saving the big one for a bit longer.

Who knows what will happen after that?

Well . . . I have goals. . . . But that’s all I will say on the subject. Let’s get through one Ironman first.

Posted in Cycling, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 4 Comments

Triathlon Tools for MATLAB

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Jeff Mather

Recently I got tired of continually writing the same equations at the MATLAB command prompt to convert my swim, bike, and run times into paces in the format we’re used to seeing. Temporarily putting aside my laziness, I wrote a handful of tiny helper functions to do the conversions and display them. Voilà, Triathlon tools for MATLAB (ver 1.0). In the ZIP-file you’ll find a bunch of basic functions:

  • Convert swimming times to 100m or 100 yard paces
  • Convert a running time to pace/mile or km
  • Compute cycling speeds from time and distance
  • Pretty-print the output of these functions
  • Convert running paces to treadmill speeds

Each one comes with help and examples. As you can see below, these pretty much dwarf the actual computation code.

function [m100, s100] = swimPace(distance, varargin)
%swimPace   Convert swimming lengths and times into 100 pace.
%   [M100, S100] = swimPace(DISTANCE, M, S) computes the "100 pace" (time
%   per 100 yards or meters) given a particular DISTANCE and the number of
%   minutes M and seconds S needed to swim it. M100 is the minutes part of
%   the 100 pace, and S100 is the seconds part. DISTANCE should be either
%   in yards or meters, and the pace will be in the same units.
%
%   [M100, S100] = swimPace(DISTANCE, TIMESTR) computes "100 pace" given a
%   DISTANCE and a string representing the time needed to swim it (for
%   example '5:18'). It is more natural to use this syntax to specify times
%   longer than one hour (for example, '1:10:37').
%
%   Examples
%   --------
%   % Example 1 - Pace for a 300 yard swim.
%   [m,s] = swimPace(300, 5, 10);
%   paceString(m, s, '100 yards')
%
%   % Example 2 - Michael Phelps's 400m IM world record time at the
%   % 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
%   [m,s] = swimPace(400, '4:03.84');
%   paceString(m, s, '100m')
%
%   See also bikePace, runPace, paceString.

% Copyright 2012 Jeff Mather
% This code is licensed under a Creative Commons "By Attribution" license
% (CC BY).  See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ for more details.

[m,s] = getTimeParts(varargin{:});

totalTime = m + s/60;
unitPace = totalTime / distance;

pace100 = 100 * unitPace;
m100 = floor(pace100);
s100 = (pace100 - m100) * 60;

By the way, here are the answers from MATLAB for the examples shown above.

ans =

1:43/100 yards

ans =

1:01/100m

Happy swim/bike/running!

Posted in Cycling, Fodder for Techno-weenies, MATLAB, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 3 Comments

True Confessions… Monday, 5:00AM

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Jeff Mather

I have a confession. I don’t really like getting up to go swimming. Usually my displeasure is just a normal part of the transition from sleeping to waking, but some days—as I’m standing in the waist-deep water adjusting my goggles and convincing myself to put my head under the water—I don’t even really like the idea of swimming until I’ve gotten a few hundred yards of water behind me. I’ve gotten past the point where I was a few years ago when I couldn’t wait for the swim to be over, but there are still days that I’d rather not be doing it, even though I like the way I feel afterward. Basically, swimming doesn’t bring me the same pleasure that riding my bike for hours or running through the woods and suburban neighborhoods does.

This morning as I was getting ready to put on my swimmers and the rest of my clothes before heading to the pool, I had to do that whole “goal-oriented” thing that I seem to be drawing upon a lot recently. Why do we go to the pool? Because the only way to get better at swimming is to swim, and the pool isn’t going to swim itself. That’s right. Now go do it! But I swear that if I hadn’t paid for my swim classes already and been seeing some improvement from them, I’m not sure I would have dragged myself out of bed on Saturday at 4:15. And if today weren’t the only day the pool is open this week, I might have gone back to bed for another half hour (even though I would have been awake for a good part of that thinking about how “bad” I would have been for not going to the pool).

But I did get up on Saturday to drive to Worcester, do some drills, learn some pointers on the high-elbow pull—which I had learned about on the flight back from LA—and get a really nice compliment from Patty, the coach, as I was leaving the pool deck. (“Hey, your technique looks really good.”) The rest of the day I could tell that I was doing the pull correctly (at least with my right arm) since my deltoids and triceps feel like I’ve been lifting weights.

And I didn’t go back to bed this morning. Instead I went to the pool and swam 2,050 yards in a delightfully cold pool. I had only intended to swim 40 laps, but I lost count somewhere in the 20s and finished with one extra. Usually I count laps—in Spanish on the way out and French on the way back—and do a new split timer on my watch every 10 laps. In the recent past, when I was averaging a minute per 50 yards, it was easy; I could just look at my watch, and if it was closer to 9:00, I had one more lap. If it was near 10:00, then that was another 500 yards. That’s all changing, and I have to pay more attention to my lap count. Now if I see something near a 9:00 on my watch in the first three-quarters of a mile, I know that’s probably 10 laps. (I still slow down a fair bit near the end of an endurance session . . . which just means that I need to do more speed and strength work on the other two days that I go swim.)

I’m not going to say that I’m fast yet. I swim at a very fast pool. Between 5:45 and 6:30AM the lanes fill up with fellow triathletes, former collegiate swimmers, and a whole bunch of very speedy high schoolers. I’m not the slowest person at the pool under 50 anymore, but I’m a lot closer to keeping up with Jennifer and Dara and the girls’ swim team. I know it’s not a competition, and I spend most of my swim focusing on my technique and pace, but I find it’s good to be reminded that I can get faster and to have a whole bunch of people faster than me nearby to spur me onward.

That’s why I go to the pool at an unreasonable hour: to practice and to get faster. I feel like I’ve broken through a plateau where I had been stuck for about a year, and every morning swim is a chance to continue progressing. It’s probably going to take a bit longer before I eagerly hop out of bed to go swim . . . maybe even until summer when I go to the lake again. Nevertheless, here’s hoping a week away from the pool, with some extra sleep along the way, refreshes me enough to make it to Christmas.

Posted in NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2012, Reluctant Triathlete, Swimming | 1 Comment

Cognitive Dissonance… Saturday, 5:30AM

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Jeff Mather

Charles and I were hanging out on the pool deck waiting for our 5:30AM Saturday swim class to start. Since there were a bunch of us in the class, we decided to share a lane together (along with Dan, a guy that neither of us knew). Patty, the instructor, was banging on a locked box with her tennis shoe. Inside the box were a bunch of swim fins we would be using in practice.

“Okay, why don’t you hop in? Here’s how it works: The faster people are usually in the middle lanes, and the slower people on the outside.”

Charles and I looked at each and then at our pull buoys and fins, which we had plopped down in front of lane 3, a fast lane. “I guess we’re going to need to move this stuff.”

We are both members of the Landry’s tri club and swim together in the sumer. In the couple of races that we’ve both done, I have been slower than him on the bike and run, but he’s always chasing me at the lake. (Even though I’m definitely mid-pack during those summer open-water swims.) Neither one of us considers ourselves especially fast.

Patty stopped us, “Based on the class you took last month, you’re in the right place, Charles.” We looked at each other, shrugged, and hopped in for about five minutes of warm-up swimming.

“You’re faster than me, Jeff. Why don’t you start, and we’ll circle swim.”

And I was off. A few minutes later I caught Dan, passed him at the wall, and then was holding myself back to keep from swimming into Charles. Somehow I was in one of the fast lanes and had lapped my lane mates.

“What is going on?” I wondered. “Why am I one of the slowest people at my pool in the morning and during races and one of the fastest people whenever I go to a swim clinic? I’m here to become more efficient and powerful—and I’m sure I will—but I’m having the worst cognitive dissonance right now.”


This paradoxical fast-but-not-fast thing has been going on with me for quite a while.

If you’ve talked to me about my races—whether running or triathlon—you know that I’m almost always happy with my results. I race as fast as I can go, and (depending on the competitiveness of the event) I often do very well overall. I don’t beat myself up for not being able to go faster than what my abilities will allow me. Far from being envious, I love the competition that comes from having faster people around to push me to my best results.

Of course, from time to time you’ll also encounter my frustration or impatience. Just because I do well doesn’t mean that I’m completely satisfied. Even though I’ve progressed a lot over the last couple of years in every athletic area, I sense that I can keep improving. I’m happy with the accomplishment, but I want to do better next time. “What do I need to do to be faster next race or next year?” It’s a question I ask myself all the time, and the answer is usually to keep putting in the hours and doing the workouts. I’m a firm believer that—no matter how innately gifted you might be—you can’t begin to approach your potential without lots of hard work. I’m fine with that; the race is just the tip of the iceberg, and I find all of the training deeply rewarding.

The one place where I’m rather impatient, though, is swimming. It’s true that three years ago, I could barely swim, and two years ago I was swimming more efficiently but not very quickly or very far. I’ve come a long way since then—swimming in open water and the ocean, racing, and generally getting faster—but I’m still nowhere near as fast as I know I can be. Worse, I fear that I’ve plateaued, hanging out around 35 minutes per mile at the pool.

It’s worth saying again that I’m very happy with my results. I’m just very eager to continue progressing, and I’m trying hard to rise to my potential.

So I’ll be waking up at 4:15AM on Saturday mornings again for a little while longer. And I’ll be putting on the fins and doing the streamlining drills on weekday mornings. And learning how to kick better and transfer power from my core to my arms and . . . Let’s just say I’ll be working hard.

Posted in NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2012, Reluctant Triathlete, Swimming | 5 Comments

Anchors – Friday, 5:45AM

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Jeff Mather

. . . In other news, my legs are beyond worthless when I swim. It’s been ages since I swam with a pull buoy (which you put between your thighs for flotation and to move all of the effort to your upper body), but I used one this morning at the pool. Imagine my surprise when I saw that my time over 100 yards was consistently 10 seconds faster when I didn’t use my legs. Those ten seconds might not sound like much, but they turn into more than three minutes over a mile, which is a big deal.

And just to prove the “My Legs Are Anchors” point, I also used a kickboard this morning for the first time. Those 50 yards were so slow and not pretty. Not at all. I’m very glad there were only three of us at the pool for most of the morning, so that no one got to see my shame.

Well, tomorrow is a brand new day. Hopefully, Patricia the Swim Instructor will whip me into shape. I’ll be channeling my inner Céline for sure.

Posted in NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2012, Reluctant Triathlete, Swimming | 3 Comments

Racing into New Territory

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Jeff Mather

Halloween is over, but I’m still kinda scurred.

Yesterday, I updated my running plan to account for the fact that I haven’t really done many of the long runs that my plan said I should. I could probably manage the 10 miles slated for this weekend, but the longest I’ve run recently was the 7+ miles a couple weeks ago when I went hypo on the trail. Ten miles might be slightly too big of a jump to do without risking an injury. The 8 miles prescribed in my new plan seems more reasonable.

The distance isn’t what has me nervous, though. It’s the speed. After running a 5K in 21:11 in the middle of September, the computer is predicting a 1:33:26 for my next race, the New Bedford Half Marathon in mid-March. [1] That’s a 7:08/mile (4:26/km) pace. Dang! I know that I can run that fast over shorter distances—it’s 20 seconds/mile (12 sec/km) slower than my 5K speed—but it still seems pretty aggressive for a long-distance race. [2]

Nevertheless, the plan is actually quite reasonable, with one speed session/week at paces I can already manage, one long run, and two or three other recovery runs—which I might substitute with a bike workout and/or some exercise to improve my running form. Along the way, it gradually increases both the distance and speed. I’m just having a little trouble believing the idea of running so fast for so long.

But that’s the whole purpose of speedwork and training: to get faster, know what it feels like, and be ready to give a similar effort during a race. A good coach—even a virtual one like mine—is supposed to provide a plan that spurs an athlete into territory where he or she had always hoped to be but wasn’t sure it was possible to go. And that’s definitely where I am right now; I can run the speed I need to, but will I be strong enough (mentally and physically) to do it for 13.1 miles? The plan says, “Yes.”

Off we go!


1 — I also ran a slower (but equally intense) trail 5K a few weeks after setting my post-high school PR. It rained before and all throughout the race, and the air was windy and cool, too. Basically, it was perfect cross-country running weather. The wind had blown lots of leaves onto the trail, and the rain made them quite slippery. I had an exciting moment early in the race when the lower half of my body started sliding to the right as I was trying to lean into a left-hand hairpin turn. I don’t know how I didn’t fall down, but I’m sure it looked amazing as my arms flew up into the air for balance. [Back . . .]

2 — My target pace of 7:08/mile is about 0:10/mile faster than Boston qualifying pace for someone my age for a full marathon, after all. Just saying. (Not that I’m looking…. *ahem*) [Back . . .]

Posted in Life Lessons, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2012, Reluctant Triathlete, Running | 1 Comment

Swim Lessons

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Jeff Mather

This was in my inbox yesterday.

Hello Swimmers,

You are registered for the 6-week Tech Swim Class that begins this Saturday, November 3! I am looking forward to seeing you in the pool.

Here are a few details: Please arrive between 5:20-5:25 (doors open at about 5:20), and on the pool deck by 5:29. We will start promptly at 5:30. You need a swim cap in the YWCA pool; these will be provided. If you have a pair of training fins, please bring them to every class. If you don’t own them, I have plenty to share in all sizes. Also bring any other training tools you may have, such as pull buoys, hand paddles or gloves, etc. If you don’t bring your own fins, you should grab a pair from the coffin on the pool deck before you get into the water.

That’s 5:30 AM, y’all . .  on a Saturday . . . in a town 40 minutes from where I live. OMG, what have I done?! Well, I want to learn how to swim faster. whimper

Posted in Life Lessons, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2012, Reluctant Triathlete, Swimming | 4 Comments

Kona

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Jeff Mather

Because it’s Halloween, my Spanish class was rescheduled. What am I going to do with my new-found free time now that all of the kiddos are at home with their sugary loot?

I confess that I’m watching the two-hour Hawaii Ironman World Championships recap show . . . again. And I’ll probably watch it another couple times before deleting it from the DVR. I love this sport!

Posted in Reluctant Triathlete | 1 Comment

Just Do It… No Matter What

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Jeff Mather

For some reason, stories like this one about BethAnn Telford, who ran the Marine Corps Marathon with brain cancer yesterday just two weeks after competing in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, are really getting to me lately.

I guess I’m just a big softie after all.

Posted in Reluctant Triathlete, Running, This is who we are | Leave a comment

How the Race Was Run… and Planned… and Practiced…

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Jeff Mather

I’ve been working on this post in one form or another for almost two months. That’s how long it’s been since I did the Rev3 Maine triathlon, my first 70.3. In an earlier post I wrote about the event itself: how it went, what I felt, how I pushed myself, and my happiness with the result. This one is about the journey and the practical parts of the tri.

Literally minutes before leaving for the airport to go to Barcelona with Lisa last March, I signed up for an 18-week training plan with TeamWILD. Previously I had been my own coach, mixing swim and bike training sessions around a standard 5K, 10K, or half-marathon training plan. The running plan was sensible, but everything else was quite ad hoc. I was eager to try something a little more holistic and which would provide a bit more structure in my bike and swim workouts. I also knew that I was going to need to have my nutrition and diabetes management dialed in as I upped the distance, otherwise four months of training would be wasted and leaving me wondering “what if?” The TeamWILD plan looked like it would give me what I needed.

I’m so pleased with how everything turned out. I trained hard, worked on developing a race plan, experimented with different nutrition and insulin dosages, and ultimately executed my plan almost exactly as I had hoped. I also learned some important lessons from experience (i.e., mistakes) during races last year and earlier in the season. These are the kind of things that you don’t expect to happen but still have to prepare for. Sometimes I was better at working around the problems, but I always tried to incorporate what went well and what didn’t into my next race plan.

On the big rides I did during the summer, I had been lowering my basal insulin rate by 30% about a half-hour before heading out, eating right before starting, and giving a tiny bolus of insulin along with it. This seemed to work. I didn’t manage to follow this plan for the Olympic-distance NYC Triathlon, and the experience left me with high blood sugar, dehydration, and a tough run at the end. In Maine, I was actively patient on race morning, watching my CGM and waiting to eat, bolus, and give Lisa my pump until the very last moment before my swim wave went out. (My backup pump was waiting for me with my bike in transition. I used it during the rest of the triathlon.)

The swim was tough; it’s definitely my weakest discipline of the three. There was a lot of churning water and bumping swimmers. Someone next to me almost knocked off my goggles with his elbow. The waves didn’t really bother me, but not being able to see very well because of the small swells had me anxious. Halfway through the swim I had that recurring, whiny thought: “I don’t really like swimming.” But then I reminded myself that I was only twenty minutes into the race, it was a bit early for those “Are we there yet?” thoughts, and it would be a long day if I kept up that line of thinking. So I thought about my form and buckled down.

A bit more than 45 minutes after dashing into the water, I was high-stepping my way out, unzipping my wetsuit and running up the main street of Old Orchard Beach into transition. I tested my blood sugar before hopping on the bike, and it had actually fallen a little bit. I wasn’t low, but I was heading in the direction where I knew that I needed to start eating right away.

The bike portion was pretty good. My training consisted of longer, low-intensity rides eventually up to 56 miles, which is the distance of the bike leg of a half-ironman triathlon, along with shorter high-intensity interval and tempo sessions. I had gotten pretty used to what it felt like to ride at my target heart rate during training, so it was easy to get into groove. In fact, it felt a bit too comfortable, and I go back and forth in my mind about whether I should have been a little more aggressive. During the race, though, I was worried about saving enough for the run, so I held back. It was probably the right decision, but it was hard to do.

I tested my BG on the bike, which is something that I had been practicing on my afternoon and weekend rides. What I didn’t take into account, though, was that my jersey would be a bit wet when I went to test. Water is the enemy of BG testing. It makes it hard to get a nice droplet of blood, and it fouls the test strips. I was only able to get one good test in, but it told me that my nutrition plan of eating about 25 grams of carbs every half hour in the form of energy gels and blocks was working well. 2:57 after heading out on the bike, I was back.

The run was the toughest part of the day for me. After almost four hours of swimming and cycling, I was starting to get tired. But it was at this point that I started to think about whether I was in a place to achieve my stretch goal!

My primary and easiest goal was to finish. Next, I hoped to have a good diabetes day and have a smart race where I executed the plan that I laid out in the previous couple of weeks. Then there were the time goals that I hoped to meet. Conservatively, I was estimating 6.5 to 7 hours to complete the 70.3, but I knew that if everything went right, I might be able to go under six hours. Having had an okay swim and a solid bike performance and seeing good blood sugar numbers, I was in the place to start pushing myself for that sub-6:00 finish.

All things considered, the run was quite difficult. By itself, running a half marathon isn’t too hard, but after swimming and biking, it took on a life of its own. Having the time goal really helped. It kept me motivated and prevented me from walking a few times where it would have been easier to relax for a bit. I ran hard but not fast (for me) as I plodded through the 13.1 miles.

But in the end I finished with a combined time of 5:58:36!

Training for the Rev3 Half was incredibly rewarding. Even though it took up a lot of time, I feel much stronger physically and mentally, and my diabetes skills are much better, too. I am definitely going to do more 70.3 races in the coming years.

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 2 Comments