A New PR ... in the off-season?

I may have mentioned I'm not a runner. However, back in 2001 I was talked into running a marathon, to date it's my first and last, by a dear friend of ours who'd already run several. Living in the south at the time, we'd picked the Jacksonville, FL event. We trained together through the Summer and Fall. I was following Hal Higdon's book as best I could and she would modify it here or there. Going into the event, we had agreed that we'd run with each other.

At what seemed like the last minute, she found out her brother wanted to run it with us as well. Unfortunately, he really hadn't been training. Being my first one and not really sure how to approach it, I stuck with my promise to run as a group. The pace was quite slow as my training partner's brother wasn't really prepared. As a result, by mile 19, she told me that, while she appreciated that I was sticking to our agreement, I could go on by myself. So, I did, and finally finished in 5:06, 17 minutes ahead of my running partner and her brother.

My knees were killing me and I really didn't see myself running another marathon again -- I'd achieved my goal and could move on. Over the years, though, I did run several half marathons. Again, in all cases, I was committed to running with someone else. Up until this Spring, my fastest time had been a 2:18. Then, literally on a last minute whim, I decided to try to run the Madison (Half) Marathon with several of my sisters-in-law and my brother-in-law. On-line registration had closed, so we all hopped in the car and sped to Madison to try and beat the deadline for in-person registration. We made it with just a few minutes to spare and I believe I was the last one to register. My brother-in-law was doing the full event and the sisters-in-law and I were doing the half.

The next morning we managed to run what turned out to be a PR time for one of the sisters-in-law, a 2:05. Turns out it was also a PR for me, given how I'd been running thus far. I felt surprisingly good after that run, especially for entering without really training for it and doing the run at the last minute. I think I've already mentioned that the rest of this triathlon season went well for me, so I think I approached my training and fitness well. Later this summer, at the end of a 70.3 half Ironman, I managed to run the 13.1 miles in 2:01 for my new PR.

This takes us up to this past weekend. I've been running with a new running partner the past month or so. He's much faster than I am, having run a 1:31 half marathon just this past summer. Running with someone faster than you motivates you to keep your own pace up. As a result, I've moved from a sometimes I can run as fast as 8:00 pace to being able to regularly do so in our training runs. We run on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Tuesdays being shorter and Thursdays a bit longer.

This past weekend we also decided to run on Saturday. I told him that I'd like to go a bit longer, maybe for two hours. I was hoping that we'd come close to covering a half marathon distance, but that wasn't really my goal. So, off we go, settling into a nice pace right from the start and we start talking. I have a habit of starting to run a bit faster when I talk, especially if we're going up hill. We ran along the Mississippi river so there were several decent hills along our route. Around the eight mile mark, we started discussing how we'd meander on back towards home and I realized that not only would we be able to get in my 13.1 miles, but that we were running faster than my previous best of a two hour pace.

Cutting to the chase, we passed the 13.1 mile mark (using his Garmin GPS watch) and I hit a split on my own Timex heart rate monitor: time was 1:49:47 or an 8:22 pace, and I did it all with an average heart rate of only 148. A new PR, and I did it as a matter of course during a training run in the off season. It really felt good and I've been fine after the run.

I do have some slight concerns that I'm doing a bit too much a bit too early at possibly a bit too fast a pace. There's a chance I could burn-out or, worse, push myself to an injury. I am being careful with my rest and am still working in little microcycles of stress and relief, so hopefully I'm just building a really good base. I guess time will tell.

I can't help but note that if I extrapolate out that time for the full marathon at the end of the Ironman, it would be a 3:38 time. I realize that's likely not possible, given that I'd have also just biked 112 miles before-hand, but it is a nice confidence booster to realize that my running, my historic weakest leg, is truly getting better.

My Background

It's interesting to realize that I'm a triathlete. I think my story is somewhat different from most, mainly in that it's "reverse" of what I usually see. In conversations I've had, and magazines and books I've read, I've learned that most triathletes are recovering runners. Many of them have had injuries and needed to back-off their training and so possibly turned to cycling or swimming during their rehabilitation. As a result, most triathletes are best at the running portion of the event.

I'm just the opposite. I started swimming at age 6. My mother signed me up for the local summer swim team in my home town. I hated it. A lot. I cried and told her I didn't want to do it. She insisted I stick it out, at least that summer. Long story short, I did stay with the team and it turned out I was something of a natural. I was no Rick Carey (my idol, since I was primarily a backstroker) or Pablo Morales (another idol, as I did the IM, too). However, I did win our state championship in the backstroke in High School, took second in the IM, and had another win doing backstroke for the medly relay team. Thanks, Mom, for making me stick with it!

Starting college, I had a very difficult decision to make. I was being recruited by universities to swim for them. However, I wanted to study electrical engineering which takes a lot of time. On top of that, I needed (a lot of) financial aid, which came partially in the form of work-study grants. So, I needed to work, near full-time, to pay my way. I couldn't do all three, so I decided to drop the swimming. It was a hard decision.

Luckily, I had another sport that I'd recently discovered and was falling in love with. I was one of many people to be captured by the successes of Andy Hampsten, Davis Phinney, Eric Heiden, Bob Roll, and, of course, Greg LeMond in the 1980s cycling scene. I also fell in love with the movies Breaking Away and American Flyers. I'd managed to buy an old road-style bike, I can't even remember the brand name, from a garage sale with paper route money. My father helped me drill holes through the frame so I could use standard bolts and nuts to secure a water bottle cage to the down-tube. At first I was just riding out to one of our local attractions and back, a whopping total of 10 miles round-trip. Then I pushed it and started to bike to the next town and back for 22 miles of riding. I had no idea, then, just what I would end up doing on a bike.

I moved from my home town, where I started my undergraduate work, to Madison, WI, where I was enrolled at the University of Wisconsin. Though I was quite poor, I managed to scrounge together (and borrow) enough money to buy a Cannondale touring bike. It was the first bike I'd ever purchased new and it rode like a dream. Unfortunately, that bike was stolen from the porch of the house I was renting (with seven other guys). Luckily, I was able to make an insurance claim against it and used that money to purchase a Cannondale R600 racing bike. It was entry level, but it was the best bike I'd ever been on. I made the jump to clipless pedals (I still ride Look today) and paid to have a professional fit on the Fit Kit at my local pro cycling shop.

With that steed under me, I started riding more and more around Madison and the surrounding area. I then learned of a fledgling student organization, the UW Cycling team. It was a club sport, not a varsity sport, and had just started a year before, but I went to the organizational meeting they were holding and signed-up. I was scared to death. I'd never actually raced a bike before, but now I was on this team. We went to races all around the mid-west (as not many other schools had collegiate cycling teams at that time). I did decently well, never winning a race, but frequently placing in the top 10. Needless to say, I was hooked and continued to ride and race even after graduating.

One other event at the UW-Madison is worth note. During my last year there, I took a physical education course titled "Introduction to Triathlon." An old high school friend of mine who went to the Air Force Academy had gotten into doing triathlons and I thought I'd give it a look. The class was excellent, in terms of learning exercise physiology, something I'd already been studying heavily from my swimming and was the approach I took to my cycling. Class was mostly training, either group rides, runs, or swims, along with some classroom work.

Our final exam was an Olympic distance triathlon, swimming in the pool (for insurance reasons). With about 300 meters to the finish line, I was leading the class, but was passed by the best runner in the group with just 50 meters to go and couldn't catch him. So, I took second in my first Olympic triathlon by just a couple of seconds. I'd managed to do the whole event in 2:02 (hours:minutes). I had no idea at the time how fast that was. All I knew was that I was absolutely spent. I told my partner, who helped in the transitions, that she may have just witnessed my first and last triathlon.

After graduating, my partner and I moved, life changed, and for almost 10 years, I only got out on my bike for occasional rides, some organized. I also had a job sitting behind a desk and started to put on some weight, though never going higher than 95 kg. Along the way, my sister-in-law started getting into triathlon. She was still here in the midwest and was talking about all the events in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She knew I was a cyclist and swimmer and that I'd done the one Olympic triathlon "back in the day," and asked if I wanted to get back into it.

I should qualify that statement. By this time in her growing triathlon career, she was ready to jump into doing an Ironman. Her question really was wondering if I'd do it with her. I dithered for far too long and then gave a tentative "Yes." I had no idea that you had to sign-up a year in advance. I also had no real idea what level of exertion would be involved. I started going out for short runs and found that even just 2-3 miles was very hard for me. I hadn't been in a pool swimming for "real" in 15 years. About all I had going was my cycling, which was my most recent activity.

I never did end up signing up for the Ironman and I never did a triathlon during that time. However, my sister-in-law did and she completed Ironman Wisconsin with nearly the whole extended family there cheering her on. I thought it was incredible! What really got me at the end was hearing this booming voice announcing each runner as they came into the finishing chute and declaring, "You are an Ironman!" Again, I didn't even know enough at the time to know that this was tradition.

By this time, we had moved back "home" to the midwest. With the closer proximity to my sister-in-law, and being in the area where she'd done a lot of her preparatory events, I finally signed-up for my first sprint triathlon in May of 2009. I managed to do three other sprints and two Olympic events that year. In 2010, I added a half Ironman 70.3 to the mix and did decently well. For the 2011 season, I did several sprints, Olympics, and another 70.3. Each year I was getting better and faster. Instead of being a mid-pack finisher, I noticed I was placing higher and higher. In my second-to-last event in 2011, I managed 4th place in my age group and discovered that I'd been shadowing the guy who took 3rd through the whole run, losing to him by just 19 seconds.

Finally, in my last event in 2011, I managed to place 3rd in my age group and get on "the podium" to bring home some "real hardware" (not just a finisher's medal). It was a great feeling of accomplishment. It was partially while I was riding that wave of feeling good that I made my decision to jump in and go all the way for the 2012 Ironman Wisconsin.

Committed to Ironman

On Monday 12 September 2011, at 12:00 local-time, I was anxiously clicking my mouse over the "Register" button on the Ironman Wisconsin page. I had made the decision about whether or not I was going to try to sign-up just the night before, in a final conversation with my partner as we were getting ready for bed. I had already also made the decision that I was going to risk the possibility of not getting a spot by signing up on-line as opposed to driving down to Madison to sign-up in person.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I was hoping I'd get a spot, or find that registration was already full. However, I'd made sure that I was logged into my Active.com account and had all my information ready to go just in case I really was able to register. I even tried clicking "Register" a few times before 12:00, just to see what would happen. Of course, I was told that registration wasn't open yet. I was also testing the responsiveness of the site, wondering if it would lag too much and prevent me from getting in.

As the computer ticked over to 12:00, I clicked the mouse with a surprising amount of force. I guess I really did want this. Unfortunately, I received the same message that registration wasn't open yet. Perhaps the registration servers were using a different Internet time source than my computer. Going back a page in the browser, I immediately clicked "Register" again and the same thing happened. Getting somewhat frantic, I repeated this process several times, noting, each time, that the site seemed to be lagging more and more: others like me were doing the same thing.

Finally, about a minute past 12:00 by my computer's clock, and after a fretfully long delay, I was taken to the real registration page for Ironman Wisconsin 2012! I was amazed at how long the registration form was. They wanted to know all sorts of information about me (including why I wanted to do this, what my "story" was, where I worked, and the like). It took me much longer to fill out the form than I had planned, but finally completed it. Frankly, I hurried through it, again fearful that if I took too long, by the time I was actually going to register, all the other on-line sign-ups would have beaten me to it and I would have a spot anymore. I'm not at all sure if that's how the system works, but I was nervous about it.

After I submitted that form and was asked for payment information, I started to relax a bit, thinking that they wouldn't ask for my money if I really wasn't going to get a spot. Finally, after what felt like an hour, though likely was only 10 minutes, I completed the registration and was looking at a page saying, "Congratulations! You are now registered for 2012 Ironman Wisconsin."

Wow! I'd done it. I'd actually committed myself to doing an Ironman!

It didn't take long, amazingly, before the doubt surfaced. Thoughts like, "What did you just do?!" and "I'm not ready for this!" and "You just paid money to do this?!" floated through my head. I sat at the computer, somewhat stunned, for a few minutes, just looking at that web page. My email flashed notifications as well, showing that I already had a receipt and a confirmation email. I'd really done it. I was locked-in at this point (there are no refunds).

Well, since I'd made the commitment to myself, I might as well make it to the rest of the world. The next morning, I went ahead and publicly posted my recent folly to Facebook and Twitter. I also sent an email to family members. I guess if I was going to do this thing, I may as well create a little extra motivation to really train and do well in the event by making my intentions public. I just hope it works as I expect.

So, now I'm signed-up and looking forward to Sunday 9 September 2012. All that's left to do is train. :)