Ironman Lake Placid Training Week 21 Update

YTD Training Stats:

My 21st week of Lake Placid training was a recovery week. This was much-needed after a pretty intense weekend of training in Lake Placid and the end of a 3-week build phase that started with the Rev3 Quassy Half. One thing I noticed different about this recovery week was that I didn’t feel as crappy as I usually do during a recovery week. Not sure if that is good or bad. One thing that points towards the good is that my Heart Rate Variability has been steadily trending upwards(see bottom of post). I would expect that that would go down as the training volume goes up, but apparently this old body likes it. Despite that, this was a recovery week, I still have the long swim, bike and run on the weekend. With all that time training there are always some little funny things that happen along the way. This week was no different.

Oops! I Crapped My Pants …Almost!

Warning: If you are not comfortable talking about “poop” then you may want to skip this section. Sorry, but “poop” talk is a pretty regular occurrence with triathletes.

On Friday I headed to the pool for my long hour swim of the week. I listened to part of an Endurance Planet podcast episode on “Poop Problems When Running…” on the drive.  It was quite entertaining. Little did I know how relevant this subject might become. After having swum in Mirror Lake last week, I was not real excited about having to do this swim in a pool. I had to work this particular Friday, so I didn’t have time to venture over to Dutch Springs. Anyway, I sucked it up and eventually settled into a steady, but slow rhythm. My long pool swims are so slow, compared to my open water swims. I think it is just the boredom of going back-and-forth that feeds the laziness in me. Part-way through my hour, some dude just jumped right in my lane without warning and I almost swam right into him. I then had to share the lane for the next 30 minutes or so, but he swam well and I really didn’t even notice him after that. Eventually, he left and I then had the lane to myself to spread out a bit. It is amazing the amount of people that come and go during an hour swim.

With about 10 more minutes to go, I started to feel a bit of pressure in my lower regions. I continued on, figuring it would pass. It didn’t. Instead it continued to intensify to the point of a cramping feeling in my abdomen. I had already made a turn towards the other opposite end of the pool for another 50. I was now committed. As I made the turn back towards the start end of the pool, It was now to the point that I feared I could not make it back another 25 yards. My abs were cramping so much I was afraid I could not get out of the pool and walk to the bathroom. The panic that set in just exacerbated the intensity, but I pushed on. I did make it and was able to shuffle to the pool bathroom in a hunched over fashion. Fortunately there wasn’t anyone on the pool deck to see me. Whew! Crisis averted.

This all led me thinking about the Ironman swim. What if that happened during that swim? With a wetsuit on yet? Yikes. Imagine the wetsuit strippers getting that big surprise! Lol!

Hey Bud Let’s Party!

Saturday was forecasted to be a little warmer and more humid than the earlier part of the week had been, so my plan was to get out on the bike 9am. I had a 5 and a half hour ride to do, so I wanted to try to save some of the day for cutting the lawn when I got back. I decided to ride the Quad County Metric course again and then fill in whatever time is left with loops around my immediate area. The Quad County Metric is only around 50 miles, so that would only take up about half of my 5:30 ride. I live just off the course around the halfway point, so I usually just hop onto it at St. Peters Road and head towards Quakertown area from there. There are a few good climbs I have to do to get to it, but that warms up the legs fairly well.

I didn’t get going until around 10am, so it was started to get warm already. I did a short loop around my usual local roads and then made my way up Hensingersville Road to St. Peters  Rd. I road the downhill from St. Peters Rd. all the way to Rt. 29 crossing just before Zionsville. A short climb into Zionsville and then I was cruising downhill again onto Kings Highway. At the end is a short, steep little hill that ends at a church were I turn onto Geisinger Road. As I approached the turn, I could hear a vehicle riding slowly behind me. I thought how nice it is to have motorists that actually slow down before passing me. The car slowly began to pass by me, which I then identified as a later model Jeep Cherokee. When it was almost past me, the tinted black backseat window rolled down and out came an arm holding a rather obscure looking bong in my direction. I burst out laughing. I almost could not make my turn I was laughing so hard. I think I was chuckling to myself the rest of the ride. You just never know what you are going to run into on those long rides.

The remainder of the ride was nice, but really uneventful. I stopped back home to refill my water bottles with another 1:30 to go. I then headed up towards New Smithville and then cruised down RT 863 from there. I unfortunately got a later than planned start, so I didn’t finish until later afternoon and then it was time to shower and go out for dinner. Oh well, no grass cut today.

Hot and Humid on the D&L Trail

I decided to head up to the D&L Trail on Sunday for my long run. I needed to do a 3 hour run, so I figured this was a good place to rack up that much time. Last time I did this trail I started in Northampton and was out of water on my 2-bottle Fuel Belt before the ~10 mile turnaround in Slatington. So instead I decided to start in the middle at the Cove Road trailhead and do two out-and-backs from there. It turned out to be a good call. The 8 miles to Northampton and back was a bit more exposed to sun, so it was good to get that over with first. 8-10 miles seems to be a good distance for my 4-bottle Fuel Belt with the mid-80 degree, humid temps. I ended up ditching my shirt after 4 miles, so I apologize all those bike riders that were exposed to my pale, flabby flesh bouncing all around. It was so hot, I really didn’t care at that point. Of course, with some of the beer-belly clad, bikini wearing women I saw going tubing at the Cove Road-Lehigh River put-in I don’t think I was that bad. Yikes! Honey, I don’t think you need another beer!

I stopped at the car after the trip to Northampton and back to refuel and scarf down an Amrita bar, then I was back heading north towards Slatington. The Cove Road parking lot was now starting to fill up with people tubing the river and biking. The D&L trail from Cove Road to Slatington is very shady and I could not have asked for a better section trail at this time of day. Regardless, it was still crazy hot. I was sweating profusely and my shorts were dripping wet. Despite the heat I was still feeling ok. My legs were a little stiff from the 90+ mile ride the day before, but tolerable.

I approached the homemade sign and skeleton on bike pictured below with about 5 miles left to go. Little did I realize that this was a real warning. With about 3 miles left to go I started to cramp up a bit. I started picking out landmarks to run to to keep myself going. I took a couple opportunities to stretch and walk a bit. It was pretty brutal. I had run out of my standard Skratch Labs hydration mix and was using some Nuun tablets instead. Nuun tablets are very gasey and they contain Sorbitol, which I am not keen on. I was burping away the whole time and my water bottles looked like they were ready to explode. I don’t think I will be using that again.

I ran the last mile pretty consistently, albeit slow. When I reached the overpass of MacArthur Rd, I immediately made a B-line for the river.  I took off all my gear and submerged myself into the cool water of the Lehigh River. Ahhhh…it felt so damn good! I just soaked for like 20 minutes until I felt my body temperature come back to normal.

Training Adaptability

Looking at the biofeedback data, it appears that everything is responding to the increased training load quite well. My HRV continues to increase. Granted it was a recovery week.

Thanks for reading!