Back in the '80s, none of my triathlon buddies would have ever accused me of being fast in the water. Never a competitive swimmer while young, like most triathletes, I dipped my feet into the wet world of triathlon's inland lakes and ocean bays by learning how to swim competitively in order to be a triathlete. A land animal, my only hope in most triathlons was to get out of the water not too far behind the top dogs and try to bike and then run down as much of the competition as possible. This was a fine strategy in local and sometimes regional races, but it worked less well whenever up against the top talent. In Hawaii in '84, I had top 10 bike and run splits, but my swim time (57 minutes and change) placed me 72nd overall, more than seven minutes back on most of that day's eventual competition. Indeed, the more I relied on the bike and run, the less confident I became as a swimmer, especially in races against the best. And despite getting into the 54 minute range at Kona, my swim remained through my mid-1980s life as a triathlete a pale, some would say pathetic, pretender to the triad.
Twenty-five years later, now with 40,000 miles of running in the body and much of it done on hard surfaces, the body was less willing to run well in training, never mind far. In particular, chronically sore achilles precluded the possibility of training long or hard on hard surfaces. Sure, the body could still churn out a sub-18 minute 5K and get in the 3:35 range for the marathon leg of an ironman in a competitive moment when it had to. But the requisite proper training, especially for the Ironman distance, seemed out of reach, the 50 year old body variously unwilling or unable to undergo the training I'd remembered in younger years.
So, as I made the decision to Go For Kona in November of 2010, and given that I was training in Saudi Arabia, where you could go a lifetime and not see anyone running outdoors, the decision to complete most of the running training on treadmill, indoors, made sense, especially in the summer months leading to Kona, after I'd qualified in Port Elizabeth at Ironman South Africa. Treadmill workouts didn't leave me nearly as beat up and sore. They also connected me to a gym workout world that I'd always avoided but at 50, and losing muscle mass and flexibility, now needed.
Thus began a calculated decision, a risk really, to run sparingly outside while building the lion's share of base miles and eventual speed indoors on the treadmill. While I'd never even dreamed of this kind of approach before, over the years I'd read of a number of top runners who, for various reasons, had used treadmills in their training. Besides, my body and the local weather weren't giving me much choice; in the end, the decision was perhaps inevitable.
All told, about 90% of my running mileage took place on a treadmill. Going into IMSA last April, I'd run a dozen or so times outside, the longest of which was slightly over two hours and 18 miles in duration. I had a good but not great run in South Africa yet knew that the stakes would be much higher in October. But the running road to Kona was more complicated, the half-century old running body seemingly less willing to abide long outdoor runs, in part due to our whistle-stop six weeks of traveling in the U.S. during June and July, when all training became catch-as-catch-can, and in part due to the insanity of training outdoors in Saudi Arabia most any time in August or September, once we returned.
Perhaps knowing where all this was headed, I focused where I knew I could and must: the bike, and especially the swim. The few swimming folks on our compound took pity on me. An Australian woman, already a swim coach on campus, met me regularly to deconstruct and gradually reconstruct my stroke, while an Englishman, and the only guy on campus who swims daily and well here, took apprentice-me on as a project, giving me the regularity of brutal interval workouts and the clarity of someone always just a bit ahead. Gradually, the swim came around, so much so that by the end of September I felt in as good a swim shape as ever, possibly minus a smidgen of the raw speed of one's 20s.
If anyone would have predicted my 2nd fastest swim time among the top 10 in the 50-54 age group at Kona this past October, just a few minutes slower than Krissy Wellington (who didn't have to contend with the age-group multitudes) land-lubber-me would have called them crazy! Similarly, if anyone would have said I'd run only the 7th best run split of the top 10, I'd have thought them more crazy. Yet changes to one's body during aging are difficult to anticipate; knowing how these changes will play out in the "Kona heat of competition" are even more difficult to predict.
Be that as it may, on October 8, 2011 I knew I'd be playing my two best cards on the swim and the bike, so it wasn't a tremendous surprise when I got off the bike in third and by mile 15 had moved up to second, less than 90 seconds back, and about 15 minutes ahead of my Kona PR pace from way back in '84. And then, perhaps predictably, the years of running, a 2:29 marathon PR, and a personal triathlon history of always moving up during the run met the mid-life reality of insufficient preparation combined with world class competition. Nine hours into racing, pedigree didn't matter, the auto-pilot of survival kicked in, and the late-race Darwinism of out-lasting others in the age group, all in similar stages of delirium, became the only imperative. That I was able to hang on for 5th place remains a mystery, just like life itself. Okay, I suppose I should thank my swim!
The biggest lesson learned last October may just have been that in every one of us there is this tremendous ability to adapt in order to compete. I still wouldn't consider myself a swimmer per se, but I can say this recent flirtation with aquatic success has sparked a new interest in swimming on a somewhat regular basis, possibly as a cornerstone to a second half-century of healthy living. I may not love swimming the way I long first-loved running, but 31 years after completing my first triathlon I can now hold my head high in the post-race analysis, a bit amazed that for once it wasn't the swim that held me back!
Twenty-five years later, now with 40,000 miles of running in the body and much of it done on hard surfaces, the body was less willing to run well in training, never mind far. In particular, chronically sore achilles precluded the possibility of training long or hard on hard surfaces. Sure, the body could still churn out a sub-18 minute 5K and get in the 3:35 range for the marathon leg of an ironman in a competitive moment when it had to. But the requisite proper training, especially for the Ironman distance, seemed out of reach, the 50 year old body variously unwilling or unable to undergo the training I'd remembered in younger years.
So, as I made the decision to Go For Kona in November of 2010, and given that I was training in Saudi Arabia, where you could go a lifetime and not see anyone running outdoors, the decision to complete most of the running training on treadmill, indoors, made sense, especially in the summer months leading to Kona, after I'd qualified in Port Elizabeth at Ironman South Africa. Treadmill workouts didn't leave me nearly as beat up and sore. They also connected me to a gym workout world that I'd always avoided but at 50, and losing muscle mass and flexibility, now needed.Thus began a calculated decision, a risk really, to run sparingly outside while building the lion's share of base miles and eventual speed indoors on the treadmill. While I'd never even dreamed of this kind of approach before, over the years I'd read of a number of top runners who, for various reasons, had used treadmills in their training. Besides, my body and the local weather weren't giving me much choice; in the end, the decision was perhaps inevitable.
All told, about 90% of my running mileage took place on a treadmill. Going into IMSA last April, I'd run a dozen or so times outside, the longest of which was slightly over two hours and 18 miles in duration. I had a good but not great run in South Africa yet knew that the stakes would be much higher in October. But the running road to Kona was more complicated, the half-century old running body seemingly less willing to abide long outdoor runs, in part due to our whistle-stop six weeks of traveling in the U.S. during June and July, when all training became catch-as-catch-can, and in part due to the insanity of training outdoors in Saudi Arabia most any time in August or September, once we returned.
Perhaps knowing where all this was headed, I focused where I knew I could and must: the bike, and especially the swim. The few swimming folks on our compound took pity on me. An Australian woman, already a swim coach on campus, met me regularly to deconstruct and gradually reconstruct my stroke, while an Englishman, and the only guy on campus who swims daily and well here, took apprentice-me on as a project, giving me the regularity of brutal interval workouts and the clarity of someone always just a bit ahead. Gradually, the swim came around, so much so that by the end of September I felt in as good a swim shape as ever, possibly minus a smidgen of the raw speed of one's 20s.
If anyone would have predicted my 2nd fastest swim time among the top 10 in the 50-54 age group at Kona this past October, just a few minutes slower than Krissy Wellington (who didn't have to contend with the age-group multitudes) land-lubber-me would have called them crazy! Similarly, if anyone would have said I'd run only the 7th best run split of the top 10, I'd have thought them more crazy. Yet changes to one's body during aging are difficult to anticipate; knowing how these changes will play out in the "Kona heat of competition" are even more difficult to predict.
Be that as it may, on October 8, 2011 I knew I'd be playing my two best cards on the swim and the bike, so it wasn't a tremendous surprise when I got off the bike in third and by mile 15 had moved up to second, less than 90 seconds back, and about 15 minutes ahead of my Kona PR pace from way back in '84. And then, perhaps predictably, the years of running, a 2:29 marathon PR, and a personal triathlon history of always moving up during the run met the mid-life reality of insufficient preparation combined with world class competition. Nine hours into racing, pedigree didn't matter, the auto-pilot of survival kicked in, and the late-race Darwinism of out-lasting others in the age group, all in similar stages of delirium, became the only imperative. That I was able to hang on for 5th place remains a mystery, just like life itself. Okay, I suppose I should thank my swim!
The biggest lesson learned last October may just have been that in every one of us there is this tremendous ability to adapt in order to compete. I still wouldn't consider myself a swimmer per se, but I can say this recent flirtation with aquatic success has sparked a new interest in swimming on a somewhat regular basis, possibly as a cornerstone to a second half-century of healthy living. I may not love swimming the way I long first-loved running, but 31 years after completing my first triathlon I can now hold my head high in the post-race analysis, a bit amazed that for once it wasn't the swim that held me back!
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