Reminiscence: A Quilting of Goldfinches

My cycling distances increased through the summer in preparation for Mont Tremblant, and I felt pretty comfortable with the routes I’d chosen. Mostly oriented northward, they took me off the beaten path often enough that I felt relatively safe for most of the way and at times the seclusion was downright sublime. It was great riding, punctuated only by the occasional anaerobic chipmunk or indecisive squirrel, and that one time a couple of deer sorely misjudged my rate of descent on a steep grade, nearly swapping me my aerobars for antlers.

On a beautiful Sunday morning in July I zig-zagged through a familiar, old, quaintly mis-aligned rural intersection, and no sooner had I slouched back down into my aero position than a commotion rose up behind me to the right. It was the unmistakeable lilting four-beat contact call of the American goldfinch – what bird watchers have likened to them singing po-ta-to-chip, but this sounded more like a party-sized bag full of potato chips; I looked over and saw what seemed like hundreds of them (goldfinches, not potato chips) taking wing from the low bushes in the narrow strip of land beside me. I laughed out loud, thinking first of how unthreatening their quiet chirps were, then of how – aboard my yellow, black and white bicycle – I might have resembled that eccentric inventor in the film, Fly Away Home, trying to get these tiny geese to imprint me as their father by leading them on a flight.

photo by John Benson ibm4381/flickr

Instinctively riding the crazy roller-coaster hard-wired into their brains, the finches collectively resembled a giant yellow, black, and white quilt that had just been ruffled to spread out across some invisible bed beside me. This brief commingling with nature almost took a turn for the worse when the chirping quilt then abruptly tacked diagonally across my bow, so close that I instinctively clamped my mouth shut.

The finches then kicked it up a notch and promptly dropped me, as so many things do…

I hunched back down to work and got back up to speed. As my heart rate and breathing approached the pointy end of my Lactate Threshold, I recognized that while my smile was morphing into a grimace, my facial expression itself hardly changed - a smile is uncannily close to a grimace!

What has this got to do with triathlon, you may ask?

Just think back to every race photo you have ever been in.

If you look past the flushed skin, the head rolling to the side, the clenched fists and cramping muscles, the foamy lips, the sweat glistening and the tears streaming down, there’s actually a smile there. Clearly, on some level, we must really like what we are doing; there are finches flying beside us. They wear no number bibs, personal bests mean nothing to them, but all of us are celebrating the pure and simple gift that is the joy of moving.

IM Training update #2

I made my own gel on the weekend... and it worked! (I shouldn't sound surprised, right?)
Some details:
- I managed to stuff about 1500 cal. of mostly maltodextrin into a 20oz. bottle for a five hour ride.
- included a few tablespoons of Gatorade for flavour, a half teaspoon of sea salt, a teaspoon of calcium carbonate, and... not quite enough water to make it easy to squeeze (more experimenting needed)
- it tasted nice, nowhere near as sickly sweet as packaged gels, was a fraction of the cost, gave me a consistent dose of energy and, most importantly, it earned my GI tract's Seal of Approval.
- in order to ensure the gel's isotonicity with my blood I calculated I'd need to quaff about 1 litre of water/hour, which is more than the 750mls I often get away with in the garage on the trainer. Will need to see what being outside, in warmer weather, under the stress of a race does to that volume.

Now here's one for the books... the five hour ride I did was on the trainer. You heard me correctly. Trainer. Five. Hours.

Pros to doing this:
- I'd never be more than a few steps from home in case the new malto brew didn't work out
- avoided some nasty winds and rains as well.
- got to see a few feature films and numerous episodes of Top Gear on Netflix.
- confirmed my Castelli bibs are divine. No chamois cream, yet no shower screams.

Cons: other than the profound restlessness of being on a fixed bike?! Not too much; even then it was better than staring at a line on the bottom of a pool!

In all honesty, I can confirm my suspicions that riding a trainer is harder on the body - the core, especially - than being just out on the road and my theory is that it is the absence of what I'd call "micro-adjustments." When on a trainer, we have no reason to move besides pedalling, whereas I think the fluid nature of cycling outdoors would engage/relax all of our body's other muscles just enough to break up their monotonous tension.

Looking forward to my first bike TT of the season this evening, a 20k route in a quiet area with a few good hills. It is nice to be able to sprinkle some events into the schedule to keep it exciting and intense.

Running's gone very well (knock on wood) and I must even say that the moments of good swimming "feel" are occurring more frequently and lasting longer. It doesn't mean I am getting faster, but if it means arriving @ T1 as less of a basket case than I was expecting to, I will be a happy camper.

Random thought that occurred to me as I sat today scarfing down a bowl of my favourite blend of GORP: once the IM is over I am going to be lost if I can't eat like a horse any time I want to. Oh, and the GORP blend? Salted peanuts, roast almonds, raw sunflower seeds, raisins, and dark chocolate chips. Come to think of it, I haven't had any for over an hour... excuse me a minute, will you?

First Ironman Training "Progress Report"

This IM training is difficult to schedule! I mean, I knew it would be, but being already at upwards of 15 hrs/wk, I find the impact on family time is remarkable compared to even half distance training; I'll clearly need to take more care scheduling things as Build & Peak stages arrive. Up before 5 this morning to squeeze in my first ever 4 hour ride - the 1st hr was in the garage on the trainer due to darkness. Something like 727m elevation change in the 3hrs outdoors. It was only about 4*C (39F) with a fair windchill, so I felt the full brunt of numb, frozen toes & hands... I could tell I was still pedalling because I wasn't falling over, and my shifting was a crapshoot! I know I may regret wishing for warm days come June and July, but this "Dude can't abide" with the way my feet thawed in the shower - not since childhood when we'd stay out 'til dusk on an icy pond curling with frozen dog turds have I felt such a burning sensation as I defrosted.

I'm lined up to do IMMT as my first, this August. I've done several sprints, an Oly, and a HIM in prior years, with numerous running events from 10ks thru marathon distance. I am lucky enough to have dodged injuries so far, and ungifted enough to have dodged the podiums (by a wide margin) as well. I'll be in the 50-54 AG @ Mont Tremblant.

Currently wrapping up my 7th week of following Matt Fitzgerald's Essential Week-By-Week Training Guide. I chose this 24-week plan because I had good success (for me) using his HIM plan to prep for the hilly Muskoka 70.3, so I figured if it ain't broke...

For those familiar with it, I am using level 4 for the swim and level 9 for the bike & run. My reasoning is that given how much I dislike swim training (though my attitude is improving in lockstep with my endurance in the pool) I don't want to invest the amount of time that would be needed at this stage to improve significantly. It's a bang for the buck consideration; I see my late-onset swimmer "style" as something of a finger print that I won't radically alter in the next few months, so while I will still keep up with my coached club swims and work on drills, I'm resigned to focus on increasing my distances to build up fitness & I'm pretty satisfied with that.

I will be looking to up my bike mileage whenever possible. I came to triathlon from a very modest biking background.

And since running has been on a steady rise through my three years in multi-sport - picking up speed & endurance without any injury (knock on wood) - the level 9 distances are not intimidating given what I've been used to in the past year+.

I splurged on a Castelli Free Aero Race bib - very nice... the Progetto X2 pad was absolutely "invisible." Thanks to folks on the Trifuel forum advocating bibs from their first-hand experience, this is now one less worry as I approach the longest of training weeks. After the ride I felt excellent - no screams in the shower when water hit the Joy Zone, and I never once had to do the R&R (Rise & Reposition) thing at any point in the four hours.

I'm not using a power meter - not that I am opposed to it, just can't justify the cost right now. I have had excellent results in the past three years solely based on RPE, with a touch of HR now and again as my version of a poor man's reality check. Fingers crossed I can carry this sense through the 140.6

Simple Pleasure this morning: I was reminded of that extreme feeling of thirst quenching I get from a glass of plain water ~ 20 mins after the initial recovery drink & shower. It's like the perfect moment of desire meeting with satisfaction.