Vacation-Surfing-Arm Coolers and Nutrition!!!

This past week was vacation week so you would think that with all that time off I would be rested and ready to hit the road on the bike and running. Well it sorta worked out that way.

What I will say is that we are all creatures of habit and we like our routines when it comes to training and I found out this past week that getting outside your routine can sometimes affect your training (and racing)

So this week while I was at the beach the winds were whipping and the rip tides and undertows were in full effect. I walked into the water twice with the intention to swim parallel to the shore but with questionable currents and nobody else to swim with, I made the smart decision not to go swimming. So what to do for a whole week to replace swimming?????

I got it! I was going to be surfing anyway so I took on the surfboard as a paddleboard and started stroking and it actually gave me a good workout. Not anything like a swim but similar and I had the fun of surfing back to short from time to time. Ok so I dealt with the swim challenge

Running…I only had one run planned and that was a long 11 miler in the middle of the week. Obviously, this was easier than usual since everything was flat and I was able to run a few of the mile son the beach, not too bad. Not too bad until the last 3 miles when I had this older guy pass me. Now I know I should keep my pace and not get drawn into the pace other runners are running…but this guy was a lot older and he had been out there running for a long time as well. Uhm, so I matched his pace not wanting to look like a chump. Well after a 3 mile ass kicking he stopped and used a shower to cool down that was on the street for beach goers to rinse off. It was the end of my run anyway so I stopped and talked to him briefly. Yep…lucky me this guy ran qualified and ran the Boston Marathon in 3:06:00. I will never get caught up in that one again!!!

Biking: My first ride of the week I had some problems. I went out about 23 miles to a turn a round so I could get my 45 miles in. It was hot and I had just finished up my water bottle and I reached back for the 2nd bottle and it was gone! Great! Now I have to ride the next hour with no water and no c-stores to stop in and get water. On top of this my bike computer went dead, so here I was no water and no idea how much further I had to go to get out of this heat and get something to drink. I finally made it back to the house and I have made some adjustments to my bottle carrier so that will not happen again.

My second ride of the week went very well and I covered a lot of new roads going through Shallotte, NC and then to Indian River, SC and then back to Ocean Isle, NC where I was staying.

I also had a chance on this ride to try out my new Arm Coolers (see picture) made by DeSoto on this ride. I am trying new gear to keep cool for Kona and I bought these to see if they worked. They actually do work, and pretty well. If you have an overcast sky, I wouldn’t bother wearing them but if you have direct sunlight they do offer relief and if you put water on them, you can really feel them cool your skin. They are made of an almost see through material so your skin can feel the wind while you are biking but very little sun gets through which ordinarily would be cooking your skin. I’m sold on them in hot weather when there is direct sunlight. I am also planning on wearing them on the run and putting ice in them as well to keep cool in Hawaii.

One last item I wanted to talk about was nutrition. I learned the importance of a solid nutrition plan on my last ride of the week. When I was on vacation, I ate (constantly), yes I had a few beers and essentially enjoyed my vacation. On Sunday, I had an 85-mile ride I had to do. I got back from vacation on Saturday and took off on Sunday morning to get the ride in. My poor nutrition habits had caught up with me!!!!!

I was about 60 miles into the ride and for the first time I thought to myself…I am running out of energy and I not sure about doing 85 miles today!! I was sucking on the water bottle full of Infinit nutrition mix…didn’t help. I grabbed a gu pack…didn’t help. I realize I could cheat on nutrition and like cramming for an exam in college, expecting to make it all up at the last minute. All I started thinking about was taking that next turn and heading home..ahhh. But then I thought if I started cheating on my training rides, what would I do in the race, and quitting was out of the questions in a race, so I hung in there.

My last 20 miles was S-L-O-W but I got through it! and vacation was over and I was right back on that nutrition plan!!!

Biking is Getting Long and a Running Tip!

A few thing to talk about today, but first I wanted to fill you in on Kristine Crane with the Charlotte Observer (remeber the suspense from last week's entry). Kristine had contacted me a few weeks ago and she had heard about my Lottery winning for the World Ironman Championships in Hawaii and wanted to do a story on me and my road to the race.

I thought this was awesome and I looked forward to getting more exposure for the SOWF which is the charity I am racing for (see earlier entry).

I spoke to Kristine over the phone a couple times and she seemed to be on top of her game. She always had great questions and has really been thorough in her questions trying to really understand what this whole Ironman thing is all about. In part of our conversation I told her I was going to be racing in an adventure trace which took place last weekend and she asked where it was and said she may show up.

Not knowing Kristine very well I didn’t think she would travel all the way to Highlands, NC for part of the story, but to my surprise she did. I spent a while answering more questions with Kristine and all I have to say is she is very sharp and dedicated to what she does and she has great questions!

So now you know all I know about the evolution of this story in the Charlotte Observer and I will certainly have it in my blog when I think it will be coming out in the paper.

Now let’s talk about this past weeks training. I feel like it was all about the bike, bike, bike!!!! I put in about 155 miles this week. Wow!!! I still can’t believe I did that! It was broken up into 3 sessions that Coach Sonni had set up.

The first was a 1 hour and 15 minute session that had some speed work involved. This was during the week. The second and third session were on the weekend. 45 miles one day and 85 mile the next.

You may think this is a lot of miles to put in but the longest part of the course will be the bike and if the course is windy and hot like it usually is….the bike will be a big challenge and Coach Sonni is focused on getting through the bike before the cutoff time no matter the conditions. I am on board, because Coach Sonni knows all!

So what about the Run??? The thinking is that I have to make the bike cutoff in 10 ½ hours. So that leaves 6 ½ hours to run the 26 miles. So the run isn’t quite as important as the bike the way we see it. But don’t worry I am still working my long runs once a week on Wednesdays. Each week I have been escalating in two mile increments and then having a rest week the 3rd week. So This past week was 9 miles and this next run will be 13 miles and then I will have a rest week (relatively speaking).

Every week I try to bring something educational to the table. This week I have some advice for the male triathlete out there and it something that sort of an unspoken problem, nipples!!!

There is goes, I said it and actually you now have it in print and on line!!!. But this is a serious and painful problem. You may have seen the picture of the poor guy who has apparently never run a marathon before and was wearing a cotton shirt with streaks of blood…ok, enough said.

So recently I was out for my 9 mile run and it was pretty hot outside for a morning run anyway and I was sweating pretty heavily. I had the latest running shirt with the hi-tech material that was made for marathons. Ouch! I got back and still had this problem to a certain degree.

So with this problem unsolved, I went back to the guru, Coach Sonni! So I called Sonni and we had a lot to talk about and the last item was, uhm …nipples. However, I couldn’t really come right out and say it for some reason (my macho side coming out I guess) so I told him I was having issue with my running shirts causing chaffing and irritation. So Sonni being the consummate professional that he is, he zeroed in on the problem quickly and had a quick solution. He said that I had to wear a tight fitting running top on the long runs, A tri top would be perfect and it would help me avoid this whole problem. He said no matter the material if you have a long run and especially If your shirt is wet from sweat, it’s just like sand paper after a while. I will vouch for that!!!

Swim has gone well this past week. I haven’t mentioned it because it was really uneventful. I swam 25 yards, flipped, swam 25 yards, flipped and then repeated 50 times. Of course I have drills in addition to this which is the most important part of the swim session.

Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone who has e-mailed me and given me positive feedback on the Blog and I want to especially thank everyone who has donated money to sponsor me for this race. Keep in mind ALL money goes directly to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Go to www.firstgiving.com/daletweedy to find out more about this great charity!!!

Now There's a Reason to Race!!!

You will notice a new addition on the left hand side of this page about giving to a charitable organization. If you go to http://www.firstgiving.com/daletweedy it will give you a full explanation of what this is, and the story behind this foundation.

In short, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) is a charitable foundation that helps support the children of our fallen special operations soldiers in all branches of the military, attend college. This is a organization I have supported for years through the participation in an annual adventure race in Highlands, NC, where all proceeds go to this organization.

I strongly encourage you to go to their web site http://www.specialops.org/ to learn more about the success of this great organization. I also strongly encourage you to donate whatever you feel comfortable with to support the children of the fallen soldiers who help keep us free.

Adventure Race Hangover and Swim info!

As I sit here writing this entry I feel like I have been hit by a truck! Why…adventure racing! More about that in a minute, but first, I wanted to catch everybody up on this weeks training.

This week I really started getting in some serious lake swims. I am really a proponent of swimming in the environment that you will be competing in if you have that opportunity. I am very fortunate that I can walk out my back door in the morning and jump into Lake Norman and start swimming.

There are several reasons why I like my swim sessions in the lake, but before I explain those reasons, I would like to insert a note about safety. I do swim alone in the lake and I swim early in the morning when there is no lake traffic. I stay close to shore in my cove where we have very little traffic (no traffic in the mornings) and I always wear my swim safe belt. The Swim Safe belt is made by triads (http://www.triaids.com/) and it is a belt that you strap around your waist and it contains a flotation device that can be inflated by a CO2 cartridge if you pull the handle. This is a very streamlined piece of equipment and does not get in your way while swimming and I actually don’t notice it while swimming. Wearing this is about being safe if you catch severe cramping or if anything else goes wrong that could impede your swimming. For weaker swimmers or swimmers not comfortable in open water, these are USAT certified for triathlons

The first reason I like lake swimming is that you get great practice in swimming in a straight line. This may sound odd to you non-swimmers, but this is something you constantly have to work on in a race by “sighting” the race buoys every few strokes. For those of you who have never swam in open water before, everyone has a tenancy to veer to the left or right when trying to swim in a straight line. To keep in a straight line as much as possible you constantly have to pick your head up in the swim (ever so slightly) to see if you’re on course or not, make adjustments, and then swim for the next several strokes and check again.

Another reason I like swimming in a lake is that I feel fresh water swimming with no wetsuit is the most challenging. Salt Water provides much more buoyancy than fresh water when swimming so if you have any inefficiencies in swimming, such as body alignment in the water (body staying parallel to the surface of the water…most efficient position) then salt water can help. Most people have problems with legs dropping in the water causing drag, thus slowing you down and salt water helps buoy them up (making you more efficient…faster). To take this one-step further if you wear a wet suit (especially in salt water) it’s like wearing a flotation device. A good example of this was the St. Anthony’s Tri in Florida this year I raced in. It was wet suit legal and in the swim on several occasions, I could feel my feet coming out of the water when I was kicking because I was so buoyant.

So my thinking is swimming in fresh water with no wetsuit forces you to practice good form in the water so when you hit a salt water swim it will be much easier to maintain the good form. One last advantage I like about open water swim workouts is I don’t have to stop every 25 yards to flip turn. I like getting into a rhythm, uninterrupted, so I can concentrate on form, speed and sighting.

Very quickly, on the run side, I would like to talk about the “new running” session Coach Sonni has me doing. Many people know about the run/walk pacing in marathon races….well it’s apparently no different in training either. Obviously after a the 2.4 mile swim in Kona and the 112 mile bike ride, I really don’t plan on running 26 miles non-stop. The plan now is to run 10 minutes and walk 1 minute to reset my heart rate and this will give me much more endurance for the 26 miles I have to run. So my training has started to reflect my racing this week…from here on, my long runs on Wed. morning will consists of running 10 minutes and walking 1 minute. This past Wednesday I was only scheduled to run 7 miles, I usually do this with speed work intertwined, but now it’s 10 minutes on, 1 minute off no speed work at all. It felt strange to stop and start walking after 10 minutes but it’s something that will certainly help me out on the run.

Now, why am I so sore after an adventure race?

Here’s why, it started with a 1 hour, 15 minute mountain bike (gravel road and technical trails), 4 hours of trail running, over 4,000 ft elevation mountains (plural as in more than one of those), back on the mountain bike and over two hours of the nastiest mountain biking trails I have ever been on in my life (not sure If they were really trails now that I think about it), and then a 2 mile run to a rock cliff to do a 120 foot repel and then 1 mile run back to the finish line. Oh, did I fail to mention I had to carry a backpack this whole time (on the run, bike and repel) that included all the water and food needed for the entire race and, helmets (biking and repelling), biking and running shoes, climbing harness, maps, compasses, first aid packs and other smaller items. I’m really not sure how much this all weighed but it was probably 25 lbs.

SOAR Highlands Adventure race ( http://www.soarhighlands.org/ ) is the name of the race and it’s a race I do every year with my business partner, Jeff. We raced this last year and came in 1st in the masters team division. (Masters meaning over 40). Our time last year was 6 hours 23 minutes, not bad and we were one of the top ten teams last year overall. With the competition this race has, I felt pretty good about that placement overall. So this year Jeff and I were planning on moving up in the overall rankings a few slots which we knew we could because we had made a 30 minute mistake last year.

This year was no different except the course being different every year was a much, much harder course this year and the lead pack which we were part of for the first 90 minutes ended up going off course. There were six of us in the lead pack and time lost going off course was about 60 minutes and it was on the run so we got an extra 5-6 miles added to our race. Nice eh?

The long and short of it was that after wrecks on the bikes (Jeff over the handle bars on one occasion and me slamming into a tree) torrential rain downpours during the race, numerous 2000’ + elevation changes throughout the course, we made up the time and both Jeff and I finished strong with a time of 8 hours and 19 minutes to defend our Masters team 1st place spot.

Afterwards we joined the rest of the finishers for a hamburger feast at the VFW lodge and while eating, Kristine Crane from the Charlotte Observer was going from table to table asking people where she could find me. I overheard her asking at the table I had just gotten up from and went over to introduce myself.

Stay tuned…I will explain the rest of this story next week.

Hot Weather Sets in, Let's Deal With it!

Another week under my belt, and a lot more training under my belt as well. My week consisted of a couple of long swims in the pool, I missed my Wednesday swim session due to work. Missing a swim is not a big deal but I really try not to miss the runs and the bikes because they are critical.

The heat this week started to get very intense by the end of the week. By Saturday and Sunday, the heat was getting up to 100 degrees. Even though I was going out early in the morning, by the time I got to my 60-mile ride on Saturday it was scorching. I finished my ride when it was 89 degrees and it was very hot.

I mentioned in another posting I was planning on using Endurolytes to help with electrolyte replacement, well, they STILL have not come in!!!! So I went to the bike shop and they had something called ELIXIR. This was supposed to do the same thing. Just pop one in a 24oz bottle and it fizzes like an Alka Seltzer and you’re ready to go.

This ELIXR stuff is not very tasty, it has a putrid lemon flavor which after a while you get use to, but really isn’t that bad after a couple of hours. The last thing you want after 3 hours on a bike is anything very sweet tasting. This worked ok. I took in a lot of water during the ride and this mixture helps me reduce my sweat rate, but not efficiently enough. If I were to stick with this stuff I would probably use 1 ½ tablets per 24oz bottle for my needs. However, I still have faith that one day Hammer will actually send me my order of Endurolytes so I can just take a couple capsules and not have to put up with the bitter lemon taste of ELIXIR.

A couple lessons learned this week. The first is about supplements on the bike. I was talking to Sonni and told him that my Infinit mixture I had made was too sweet later in the ride. When I used the web site to make this mix I set the levels of flavor as medium. This is too much for long distance training and racing. I will be reordering this shortly and I will reduce the flavor by 50%-75%. However, Sonni brought up a great suggestion, he said to put 3 hours worth of supplements in a single bottle and mark on the side of the bottle hr1, hr2, hr3 and put lines around the bottle designating the 1/3rds and then drink 1/3 of the bottle per hour and water the rest of the time. Excellent! After 2-3 hours, nothing tastes better than just pure water. I used this on Saturday and it worked perfectly. I will need to greatly reduce the flavor of the Infinit mix next time because it was very sweet in this concentrated form.

The second lesson learned, or really product that I tested that worked absolutely great was the Sweat Gutr (see picture). I have had problems as I mentioned in earlier post with sweat getting into my eyes while riding in warmer weather. I grabbed two different kinds of sweat bands and the Sweat Gutr worked flawlessly. It is also clear and very small so it’s hidden under your helmet and you don’t have a true sweat band on that would get hot during a ride. This was a great find and you can get these on-line at http://www.sweatgutr.com/ .

Since I am posting this on Monday instead of Sunday I may as well talk about my swim this morning. I was scheduled for a 2300 yds swim (about 1.4 miles). I have started swimming in the lake now to get the open water feel for the swim down and the swim today was ok but not great. I didn’t sleep very well last night and when I don’t sleep well the night before I can really feel a drop in performance the next day. So I am hitting the sack early tonight!!!

Mileage Starts to Increase!

This week was really he first full week that I have felt the increase in miles in training. There is no doubt that my training has now changed. Up until now (aside from Tri Camp) I have really been doing the training that reflects my typical training sessions and maybe a little bit more but this week my training elevated even though on my schedule it was looked upon as a Rest Week.

My weekly workout consisted of a couple swims one of which was a 2400 meter swim with paddles and buoy which started to get a bit boring after about 1600 meters, but nobody ever said swimming by yourself in a pool for 1.5 miles was going to be exciting. In addition to the swim, I also got in a 60-minute run and a 90-minute bike ride in during the week. Good solid training and nothing too intense. The weekend cranked up the endurance side though.

I didn’t get my ride started until about 9:30 in the morning and hit the Lake Norman Tri loop in Davidson on the bike. The first loop I did with my business partner, Jeff, and the remaining 2 laps I did solo. It took me about 2:45 to finish the ride and I got in right at 50 miles. The conditions were hot, humid and windy and matched the conditions in Kona almost perfectly.

I am trying to hit my training sessions at a time of day where the temps are in the low to mid eighties on the last half of my training session to emulate conditions in Kona. On Saturday, the weather in Kona, Hi was 84 degrees, 75% humidity and 12 mph trade winds. In Davidson it was 87 degrees when I finished, 60% humidity and 12-15mph winds. Right on!

The winds don’t sound like a lot but anything approaching 8-10 mph can really be felt on the bike, a breeze feels good on the run, but not the bike unless it’s behind you pushing you along and when that happens you rarely realize you have a tail wind, you just think you’re having a fast day!

These conditions took a lot out of me towards the end because I have not yet gotten my endurolytes order in which will significantly help me out here in the heat and I am still tweaking in my nutrition and fluid intake for the hot weather.

To follow up on hydrations, I was testing out a new water bottle that fits on my aero bars. Looks great, works great, neat concept but it comes with a plastic tube to drink out of and you have to trim it so it will fit you on the bike to enable you to drink while in the aero position. My mistake was that I cut it way too short and it did not work for me on the bike. So now I am looking for plastic tubing to start over. The smallest details can drive you crazy.

Calculating your sweat rate during training in the heat is critical! For instance, on Saturday I lost 5 pounds in 3 hours of training (2:45 on the bike and a 0:12 min transition run) way too much to lose. So working with Sonni we will formulate endurolytes, possible salt tablets and I am sure I will be increasing my fluid intake because losing 5 lbs/3hrs and my race in October will probably be 14 hours…those numbers just don’t work. So that’s what training is all about, getting all systems dialed in before you get to the race!

Sunday was a bit easier day, a 90-minute run which I got in 9.5 miles. Nice easy pace and I did it in the early morning when it was still relatively cool. My legs were still very tired from the day before. After the run though I was beat after the two days of training and not getting a good not sleep Friday or Saturday. Good solid deep sleep is very critical!!! You will feel like a different person in training when you have a solid night’s sleep.

Everything else is clicking along well and it just comes down to putting the time in and tweaking everything in as I go along!