If it Ain't Broke...

The saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is one I've generally adhered to throughout my entire athletic career...within reason.

You see, what may very well appear to be in working order might yet benefit from modification. In other words, just because something "ain't broke" doesn't mean it cannot be improved upon, Tex.

The operative word here, however, is one left out in the abovementioned commentary and that is "effective".

Truly, there is little point in modifying what works if results are more than satisfactory. But if said results can be improved upon---and, let's face it: what results cannot be?---then "fixing" them must be based solely upon effective modification (i.e., improvement).

In athletics, there is always something that can be improved upon, as the window of improvement is one that can never be completely closed. This is especially so in triathlon, the sport of sports where participants will never find flawlessness in its three distinctly diverse disciplines. Master one of the three and you're nowhere near a third of the way there; master two of the three and you're still just getting there. "There", of course, is unobtainable because in triathlon something is always "broke". (Compete in the sport long enough, as I have, and the word "broke" takes on a whole new meaning…)

The point is that things can always be improved upon. And if the point is ever reached where they cannot be…well then, perhaps it's time to move on.

Whether it's broke or not, consider ways to improve upon it.

Post Ironman Recovery

The following is written for a bad-ass mofo I coach who is competing in Ironman Lake Placid this weekend and then following that up with Ironman The Sequel in Louisville, Kentucky just thirty-five days downstream.

With two Ironmans knitted so closely together I've advised him of the following, all in the name of hastening recovery (one of the primary considerations of my coaching methodology)...

IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE RACE...
a) REPLENISH! As you're completely, totally and utterly depleted, you need to take in lots (800+ cals) of high-quality carbohydrates, along with some salt, protein (5-to-1 ratio of CHO to PRO) and, of course, liquids. Don't justify the intake of crap foods (burgers, fries, etc) but if you must, simple sugars (like caffeine-free Coke) are okay. As far as I'm concerned orange juice is the elixir of the gods following hard events, though its fructose content may cause some concern for the stomach; try drinking some with a small amount of protein powder blended in and see how it affects your gut. Avoid fat intake for 4-5 hours.
b) Fake the need for an IV if at all possible. (This, of course, assumes you don't really need one!) Pull out your best acting skills and see if you can get a liter or two of IV fluids into you. This will have the single biggest effect on your post-race recovery. As you'll beat the vast majority to the finish line there will be plenty of IV bags to go around and the medical staff won't be well-versed in actors and acting skills just yet. Now, if you're not acting, well...they're probably know that much.
c) Continue walking around in a spare pair of shoes or sandals. Do NOT sit down, lay down or stop moving for at least 15-minutes. As much as this might suck, it is VITAL. Look. You're an Ironman and such a distinction doesn't end just because the race has. Keep moving.
d) Get a light "flush" / massage. This is debatable as to what it can really do for you after completing an Ironman but it won't do any damage and you earned it. If you're lucky, you'll have TWO hotties rubbing you at once.
e) Put on the right amount of dry clothing and some compression tights if you've got them. If it's raining and cold, seek shelter.
f) Immerse your legs in a cool (not cold) bath or head back into the lake and gently move your arms and legs, ala old lady aqua-aerobics. This of course depends on body temperature and the conditions outside.
g) Put your feet up and lie down for a short while and then watch Stacey finish! Continue refueling with CHO and protein. Again, avoid fat intake until later in the evening.
h) Walk or flop some in the early evening.
i) Medication: avoid it. Squatting with your 'nads to the ground is also to be avoided.
j) Get to bed fairly early and try to sleep soundly. There's no need to watch the SMT (slow-moving triathletes) finish at midnight. You kicked their asses and they deserve NO respect!

THE DAY AFTER...
a) REPLENISH. All food is fair game now but do your best to take in some quality (i.e., real) food. Enjoy! Hydrate continually throughout the day...to help "flush" the sh!t from your system.
b) MOVE! In spite of the soreness and stiffness, get out! Go spin 20-minutes two separate times, each spread by a few hour's rest. DO NOT DO ANY TYPE OF MOVEMENT MORE THAN 20-MINUTES! Your immune system is shelled and shell-shocked, so you need to shell out some love to it. The rides are just spins at a 100-ish heart-rate, with a little effort put into cadence...80-90-ish. A warm-water pool flop is okay but do your best to avoid the introduction of any bacterial or viral infections. It's probably best to stick solely with the two bouts of light spinning and avoid disease.
c) Baby those legs. Compress and elevate and gently rub them. Show them the same love you show your poor immune system.
d) SOAK some. I'm not a big proponent of the post-Ironman ice baths that most coaches seem to spew on about. Instead I suggest a HOT-tub soaking or use of a dry sauna, as part of a long (multi-day) cooling-down process. Of course, this depends on blisters and post-race skin issues (blisters are a good sign of the ravages of an Ironman, but it's the damage inside that matters most). Research goes both ways on this one, so do your own here. My theory is that the cold water increases the risk to your immune system and to your hormonal system. Of course the possibility of cramping is also increased and we know there's little benefit to be had in this sense. If anything, you might consider doing some contrast baths. I myself try not to bath AT ALL after an Ironman or, for that matter, after any hard physical effort, as I like the way it makes me smell. You should've smelled me when I was on the PCT.

DURING THE WEEK AFTER...
a) ABSOLUTELY NO RUNNING or STRENGTH WORK WHATSOEVER!
b) Rotate between a light swim/flop one day and a light spin the next, for 7-8 full days. These are to be brief "workouts" (20-30 minutes at the most) done at LOW INTENSITIES (no more than 70% of LT). Aqua-robics (aqua-jogging) is also encouraged. Basically, you just want to take part in some LOW-IMPACT movement / rehabilitation.
c) SLEEP! Nap. De-stress. Avoid stress.
d) Continue with the leg compression and elevation and, of course, the massages...these should just be some light "flushes" and nothing too deep.
e) Nutrition: eat REAL (i.e., recently alive) FOOD in smaller amounts more often. Continue making salubrious smoothies and drinking more water than usual.
f) Don't sit during the drive home or at work for more than 30-minutes at a stretch. And speaking of stretch, do some VERY LIGHT stretching exercises when you can, to the usual culprits (calfs, quads, glutes, hips and hams). Feel free to stretch your imagination as well.

AFTER THE FIRST WEEK...
a) Introduce jogging (not running) but only on soft surfaces (grass, rubber, dirt, pillows, babies) and do so only by "feel". Keep it slow and easy, no matter how you feel!
b) Elevate the heart rate in safe manners (arm exercises, aqua-jogging, high-RPM spinning, short alactic sprints in the pool). This will get your blood going without doing more damage to your lower half, which by now is starting to feel "normal" (though this is really only a superficial feeling. Give yourself up to about 24 days after the race (August 19th-ish) to truly be back at a "normal" level; only after that can you start to "build" again and not just tear down. (Mark Allen says to give yourself about one day of recovery per mile run in a triathlon, so in the case of an Ironman that's 26 days until "normal" training should resume.) There is far more residual fatigue up to this point than one may otherwise realize. Respect your body and the effort the Ironman took! Of all the Ironmans, Lake Placid ranks among the toughest. (Now, with all this said, keep in mind that you are fit, and that the fitter you are going into the race the sooner you will recover.)

YOUR NEXT IRONMAN (Ironman Louisville)...
a) NO TAPERING ALLOWED, except for those last two days! Talk about a long taper, eh?

For us Underdogs...

An Open Letter to Alberto Contador

Alberto,
Huelga mientras usted puede. La Vuelta de Francia es una guerra. Si usted es de ser victorioso en su conclusión, usted no debe tener nada atrás durante cada batalla que coloca dentro. Su rival principal agarrará cualquier oportunidad que se presenta si es de beneficio a él. Permaneciendo en el ataque usted hace una vez y para toda exposición el mundo que él no es el jugador del equipo que él reclama para ser. Usted demostrará que él es sólo fuera para él mismo y no para "el equipo" o para el "conocimiento de cáncer" o para cualquier otra causa que hace no aún más su ego testosterona-accionado. En este punto la carrera estará en…justo usted y él, mano a mano. El más largo usted espera para hacer su movimiento el menos probable es que usted tendrá éxito viene 26 de julio, por esto usted no debe vacilar. Cuándo los caminos orientan hacia arriba usted debe subir con todo el corazón y todo su puede a llegar a la cima. ¡Tome a ningunos presos Alberto! El mundo merece su mejor. El Gringo debe bajar.

Su amigo,
-Carlos V

Altitude and Intensity

Because I'm currently residing at an elevation that is known to kill brain cells, and because I have so few to begin with, I thought I'd write down a few more of my lamebrain thoughts on the matter of altitude, specifically the whole live high/train low philosophy…

Though it's a pretty substantiated one a philosophy it all it really is, especially when it comes to true endurance performance (and not simply physiological acclimation). Remember, not all changes in physiology---even when positive---result in improved performance. For example, after all those surgeries, I'm an extremely good-looking guy, as my outward composition clearly proves in the photo above. But does all this good-lookingness make me a faster athlete? Of course not! Still, to me, it's a worthwhile trade.

Anyway, the key point here, besides shedding some light on my devastatingly handsome (albeit yak-like) appearance, is that positive changes don't always bring about positive results. In the case of altitude, there needs to be further research to show a direct link between altitude and athletic performance. While I believe there's benefit to be had by living at altitude (as it relates to race performances) it has yet to be "proven". (Please disregard the throngs of Olympians and World Champions living and training at altitude, this is NOT proof!)

Proof, of course, it tough to find in sports. Proof of drug use, proof of training methodology, and proof of what brought an athlete to the top (or to the bottom) are all hard to, well, prove. And while I tend to think that proof is as simple as looking at the final race results (i.e., the bottom line is the finish line), there will always be something else to prove long after the fact.

But back to the live high/train low thing and its relationship to us endurance types. One of the key points always mentioned in the live high/train low studies is the intensity of exercise, in particular, the "fact" that an athlete is unable to train as "intensely" up high as he or she would be able to at a lower elevation. This is controversial at best and I'll get to that shortly. First, a primer on "intensity".

Not only is "intensity" a relative term (for example, one can train intensely long or, and this is perhaps a better example, one man's intensity may be another man's yawn) but it is also vital to understand that, no matter how high or low we live or train, we, as triathletes, are ENDURANCE athletes. Our training must therefore be geared toward training our endurance, not our short-term capacity. Training intensely, despite all its merit to scientists, is secondary to building a motor (and chassis) that can last. Training intensely can help with this, of course, but first comes basic endurance (i.e., the ability to endure). Long and strong baby!

Okay, with that in mind, we'll move on. If it is believed that there is benefit to living high, there must certainly be some benefit to training high. Logic tells us this, since the same effects of living high occur when training high since both involve being high. The altitude doesn't suddenly change its tune because you're sleeping or training; its effect is the same. But let's say for a minute that there's NO benefit whatsoever to training high (a silly notion for a number of reasons but let's just imagine for a second that there could indeed be no benefit to training high, as is essentially suggested by these "studies").

Would training at altitude therefore be a detriment?

Again, the answer for the endurance athlete is no. N-O, no. If, however, you're an athlete who's more or less required to train intensely due to the nature of your goal event (e.g., a middle-distance runner or perhaps even a sprint-distance triathlete) then perhaps training up high would decrease your capacity. (We certainly know it can decrease your capacity to recover quickly, but that's not what we're talking about right now.) This is because these athletes are not only required to work at higher percentages of their maximal heart rate (a maximal heart rate definitely qualifies as intense) but also produce high work rates---not just high heart rates---while doing so. Because of the cruel nature of altitude and the physiological cost of simply being up high, the body cannot also work hard enough to deal with yet another stress, that being the effort involved in generating high power outputs or fast paces. You see, altitude allows you to think you're working intensely, and to be sure you are, but you're not producing the same results at that intensity.

Intensity, besides being a relative term and hard to define, is pretty easy to understand. If you're training intensely, you will know. (One sure sign is that you won't cope for long without having to ease back…) And you can do this anywhere, whether you're at sea level or sucking air atop Mount Everest. If you're still not sure about this just book a flight to Kathmandu and start walking east-northeast. As you ascend you'll understand what intensity really is, when taking a single step is an ordeal in and of itself. And yet the scientists say it isn't so. Perhaps they too have starved their brains of much-needed oxygen.

In a future blog I hope to touch on why altitude training might be bad for the endurance athlete. Whether I actually get to it or not depends on my inherent laziness and my endless---and often unsuccessful---quest for free wireless. Off the top of my head, all I can come up with is sunburn and delayed recovery. Oh, and those damn yak attacks. Just look what those damn animals did to me!

PS: If you're looking to perform better at altitude, here's a little secret I'll let you in on. Take Viagra. I kid not. Basically, it'll vasodilate the blood vessels in your lungs. This in turn allows for greater oxygen saturation of the blood, which generally decreases a bit when at altitude. Try telling your doctor that.

What Goes Up...

In most facets in life I can be considered a non-responder. For instance, I do not respond to the majority of my e-mails or telephone calls. Nor do I respond to knocks at the front door, unless it's the UPS guy delivering some more Rudy Project schwag. Oh yeah! But when it comes to living or training at altitude there is little doubt that I am a responder. You see, there are what scientists call "responders" and "non-responders" and I fall into the former.

One response is the constant---albeit mild---headache I've had since dropping anchor in Park City (elevation: ouch) about a week ago. Another response I've noticed is that I don't possess the desire to deal with the inevitable hard breathing that accompanies doing anything remotely challenging, like getting out of bed or walking to the bathroom or heading to the refrigerator for another cold one. Don't even get me started on what gaining more altitude does to you! A simple six-tier flight of stairs invokes a response much like a trance song reverberating inside your skull. Scientists don't know this, but this is actually your heart pounding inside your brain. (And to think they think the heart is located in the chest, the poor saps!)

Park City sits at a lofty 7,000 feet above Earth's current sea level (current, because we're all assured by Al Gore, the politician, as to what global warming is capable of) and I reside above that, near a place called Deer Valley, the fancy ski resort that still refuses to allow access to those passionate snowboarders. Dude, that's totally (expletive) bogus…

Deer Valley's namesake, of course, mocks the very thing the "valley" helped to eradicate (or at the very least, displace) upon its construction. Nowadays, Deer Valley contains more SUVs and high rises than it does deer or any other wildlife, so while we call it construction, the deer, I'm sure, call it a different type of 'struction. Anyway, enviro-rant aside, it's a pretty nice place for training and it's no wonder why so many athletes come here to train. All one must do is get out of bed, head to the bathroom and then the fridge and the workout is complete!

Check out the high-tech graph above…it's only my second one ever on this blog and it shows what living at 7,500 feet will do to your heart rate, or at least what it did to mine the last time I was this high for more than a couple of weeks. My normal morning resting heart rate hovers near 33 beats-per-minute at sea level, where I take up residence most the year…despite those rising oceans (sorry, Al: I like living on the edge). But up here near the marmots and glaciers it hovers closer to 48 beats-per-minute, though I'm slowly seeing it go back down to normal as the days roll by. From experience, I know that when it gets back to near normal I am good to go. (By the way, the phrase "near normal" is a description some might say I nearly fit. Oh yeah, and what's with the saying "good to go"? If you're good enough to go, you ought to be good enough to stay or do whatever the hell you want. One thing is for sure: the poor deer were good to go.)

PS: For those who do respond to altitude, here are some of those responses (with my responses to them in parenthesis)...

• "Sh!t!" (not so good)
• An increased resting HR (not so good/neutral)
• An increased sub-max HR (not so good/neutral)
• A decrease in stroke volume (the amount of blood pumped with each heartbeat) (not so good)
• Increased blood pressure (not so good if high to begin with)
• Hyperventilation (esp when ascending) (definitely not good)
• A decreased plasma volume (neutral)
• An increased hematocrit (via EPO!) (good!)
• An increased hemoglobin (good!)
• A decreased VO2max (not so good)
• An increased capillarization (good!)
• An increased mitochondrial density (good!)
• An increase in myoglbin (good!)
• An increased reliance on glycolysis (not so good)
• A decrease in body mass (good for some athletes, not so good for others)
• Body composition changes (good for some athletes, not so good for others)
• A change in psychology (good for some athletes, not so good for others, depending on the psychology!)

Now, whether all of the above improves your athletic performance, well, I'll just leave that to the experts.

But do I think altitude is a good performance-enhancer?

Yes. It's only logical.

And here's one guy who backs my opinion (...and he is not alone).
Meanwhile here's one who does not (...nor is he alone).

A Week in the Life...

To give you an idea of how a pro trains...

Naeth July 6-12 ...

Mon, July 6th:
Hard Swim (1+hr; MS: 6x400s @ 101.2%)
Weights (3 x 20 of the usual exercises; no cheating)
Long Ride (Bald Mtn Pass: 6hrs; Gather time @ IMT)

Tuesday, July 7th:
Strength Swim (1hr; MS: 40 x 75 Pull w/ankles tied)
Long Ride (Coalville, etc; 5hrs+/-); Gather time @ IMT.
Easy Jog @ PCHS Infield (:30) w/barefootedness.

Wednesday, July 8th:
3 x 1hr(+/-); walk/jogs (Do what running you can).
Nap, if possible.
2 x Swim Practices (@ 1:15 & 30-min ... all @ BP).
Optional Easy PC Spin, by feel in terms of length.

Thursday, July 9th:
Swim (1+hr; MS: 8-10 x 300s, @ 101.3%).
Weights (3 x 20…bring boxing gloves & desire).
Nap, mandatory.
PC Spin (3hrs, by feel. Feel hard).

Friday, July 10th:
Strength Swim (75-minutes); I'll join you.
Hard Hike up Ski Run to 10K; (take lift down).
Floptional (:30) (Backstroke mostly: 10 x 75s, etc).
Spin (1hr).

Saturday, July 11th:
TBD, but likely a chill day.
Nap/Massage.
Le Tour Spectating!

Sunday, July 12th:
Strength Ride (2.5hrs), if all goes according to plan this week.
Nap, mandatory.
Jog/Walk (1hr)...with the usual barefootedness, etc.
Hill Repeat Ride (90-min); I'll join you. Bring power meter.

Some notes: volume is more important than intensity right now. Eat, sleep and breath volume. Once fully acclimatized, we'll worry about upping the ante. Massage on Saturday and Sunday is mandatory. Eat while training, less so at rest.

A Pro, an Anagram, a Palindrome

Recently, I "signed" another pro triathlete, one whose name can be rearranged to spell "Crash Mortar Grind". (It was a peace sign, lest you wonder.) Anyway, after some digital dialogue I asked Crash what he knew to be his sport-related strengths and weaknesses. (Please note: I refuse to use the pussified word "limiter" in place of "weakness". As a professional athlete it is not a limiter that will limit you, but rather, quite honestly, weakness.) Anyway, below are his responses...

Weaknesses: sweet tooth; slightly limited on time; took a 3-month break; don't train well without sleep; need more self control on the run; poor swim form; no kick; slight muscle imbalance in hips leading to some crooked movement on bike and run; can't ride the trainer; I NEED to train.

Strengths: able to train solo; patient; not injury prone; can eat a ton while racing; able to focus through fatigue and low spots; I need to train.

Based on this I agreed to take him on. Why? Because he is honest. (Of course, it doesn't hurt that he's also young and full of motivation and potential and all those other nifty-sounding requisites in reaching your potential.)

As for my plans with Señor Grind, they must first become our plans. There will be things to work on and things to work out but these things will work out if he works out. (Chuckie Training Rule Number One: Things will work out if you workout.)

Now, to be sure, the sweet tooth is a tricky one, and a hard habit to kick. That said, training allows for us to eat a few treats, right? (But be careful: justifying too much self-destructive behavior is not a good thing. Sweets are sure to lead to heroin, I'll tell him.) The time limiter (there's that word, dammit) is indeed limiting, but he has enough time to get the job done, both now and in the long-term future (if that makes sense), since he's relatively young by pro triathlete standards, at 27 years of age (Earth years, I believe he said). The fact he simply cannot ride indoors does not bother me in the least since he lives in a reasonably benign climate and has easy access to low-traffic roads, meaning he'll be able to open it up like he might otherwise do when riding indoors. (Indoor riding, as tough as it is mentally, can offer a physical challenge like no other type of riding.)

The poor swim form is where we'll have our work cut out for us. Since he resides where I do not, this will be especially challenging. To combat this, I'll simply have him hop into the Atlantic Ocean and swim, by way of the Panama Canal, to the Pacific Ocean, nearer to my home...a man, a plan, a canal: Panama. I should be back in California by the time he makes it. Oh, and if this doesn't improve his poor swim form, at least I'll be able to check it out a little closer and offer some pointers before he makes the swim back.

Never Mind Neverland

I don't know about you but I kind of feel sorry for all the Michael Jackson mourners. Freaks, they are. My domicile is just down the road from his old Neverland Ranch, the same sprawling parcel that sits a mere mile from the start of my favorite climb, The Fig (AKA: Figueroa Mountain Road)...9.3 miles of sheer agony (not to mention sheer cliffs). For a short while this week there was talk of turning the ranch into a sort of Graceland, where fans could flock to pay tribute to the man (or whatever it was) and also pay for tee shirts, candles, ash trays and mugs with his ugly mug on them. That of course would've forever ruined my favorite bike ride, since droves of worshipers would obviously come. Figueroa Mountain Road usually sees about three or four cars a day this time of year.

It's been more than a week since Jackson moonwalked his way into The AfterLife and the entrance to Neverland is only getting worse and worse, which made my decision to leave that much easier. And beat it I did.

Angela and I piled all our belongings into a midsized rental car and drove 818 miles back to Park City, Utah, where we'll base ourselves until it gets cold. Not cold like Jackson's current rigor mortis-ified state, but cold like aspen-changing autumn. We'll then pile everything back into the car and head back to what I hope will be sleepy old Los Olivos, population 1,000 (excuse me: make that 999).

For now, I'm helping Angela get back into a training rhythm that Brett Sutton and I have ironed-out on her behalf. Her fractured leg is 100% healed but a pronounced limp still occurs every time she attempts to run. To combat this we have her ride and swim a bunch and hike in place of running. At nearly 7,500 feet all efforts are deemed hard, so the intensity of training is pretty much already taken care of. All we have to do is get out there each day and avoid the throngs of holiday travelers here now. I won't dare complain about all these people, however. At least they have a good reason to celebrate life.