Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon or BUST!: January 2010

Ran across this article on classic mistakes in training and thought I'd share w/ you all. :)

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Source: Every Man Tri

Just to keep it honest, I must admit that I have countless years of experience at sucking come race day. So please note that these top ten tips don’t just come from your Average Joe DNF. No they don’t! Indeed, if they offered a technical degree in RDS (Race Day Suckage), I would not only be the student, but the professor, dean and trustee of the USDS (The University of Race Day Suckage).

10. Try something crazy just minutes before the race

Here’s a real life example. For instance if you really want to suck, I would recommend that you try switching your trusted and true traditional pre-race meal of PB and J on a bagel to something like a bowl of red sugar bomb cereal with plenty of milk.

Now you want to be sure to top up your stomach with a 20 ounce bottle of blue Gatorade just minutes before you PR half marathon attempt. The swishing and swirling combination of white dairy, with red sugar cereal, and blue Gatorade as you run make for the most explosive display of 4th of July holiday hurl your fellow racers will ever witness.

The magnificent pageantry of watching you collapse at mile 5 after a patriotic display of exploding colors coming from every orifice in your body will make even the biggest fireworks display seem boring and lame in comparison. You’ve never seen a more magnificent Roman candle unless you happened to be at mile five with me a few years ago when the soldiers running the race all but saluted this real life exploding Roman candle.

9. One word: "Tequila"

A lot of time, effort, and science has been conducted in trying to research the perfect before, during, and after race hydration. If you really want to suck with the best of them, you need only one drink to help you maximize your suckage potential, and that drink comes from the distilled sap from hearts of the agave plant. To many of us that drink is more commonly known as Tequila. As a bonus, Tequila has wonderful natural properties that enhance suckage beyond that of most other alcoholic libation.

Tequila has the wonderful ability to completely dehydrate you the night before a big race. After a night of drinking Tequila, when combined with its slight hallucinogenic effect of the distilled agave plant, makes for a guaranteed PW (Personal Worst) at any big race.

Yes, you'll be sure to go into the race as dry as the Sahara and as goofy as any Walt Disney character. You won’t know even when to swim, bike, or run, and you may just decide that a swim would be better after a long bike and run, instead of before. Besides...why would you want to get in the water when you are already over hydrated on Tequila?

8.Whim

If you really want to be in the race day Suckage Hall of Fame like me, you may want to let “whim” be your guide.

For instance I know of a former professional short course triathlete (who shall remain nameless but forever embarrassed) who, as well, had never run a marathon in his life. He was visiting a friend in the Southwest part of our country who happened to mention that he was running a marathon over the weekend and asked this nameless pro if he wanted to join him.

On a whim the nameless and not yet embarrassed pro said sure. Now keep in mind that he had not only never run a marathon, had never trained for a marathon, but more importantly had not even brought his running shoes with him on this visit.

So on a whim (there is that word again) he decided to borrow his friend’s running shoes and go for it. Except of course that his friend's running shoes were a bit too small, or a bit too big, or a bit too yellow. The exact details of the shoes are not important beyond the fact that they were not this professional's personal shoes, and they certainly did not fit him well.

So on the day of the marathon this soon-to-be-embarrassed Pro lined up on starting line with no training, no goals, no experience at the marathon distance and with shoes that did not fit well. He of course smashed all expectations and ran a marathon so fast that many of us would give our first and last born to ever be able to run such a race with training, experience and goals.

That part did not suck - but the fact that he literally could not walk for the next week…really did!

7. Bet Big…Loose Big

I like to place a bet every-so-often. In fact when race day comes, I’ll bet that we are all betting on something…whether we know it or not. For instance some of us are betting that weather will be cold, while other are betting that it will be hot, while most of us are betting that it will be just right.

We also bet with our training. Some of us bet that we’ll only need to swim a little in training since the swim is the shortest part of the race. Others are betting that we’ll be able to make up any time lost on the bike by having an incredible run. While still others of us are betting that we’ll be able to tear it up on the bike, so the run won’t be as important to our finish time.

We also bet on our nutrition and on even our mechanical skills. I’ve seen more than one triathlete call it a day after they had a flat on the bike. They bet that they would not flat by not preparing to (or even knowing how to) change a flat tire. When they did flat, they lost the bet and were forced out of the race.

But every-so-often, when the stars are aligned just right and the moon is in the perfect place in the heavens, we have that perfect storm of a race when all of our bets go south. Yes, every single bet we placed gets trumped, or gets called as a bluff, or comes up snake eyes.

This famously happened to me in Ogden, Utah, when I decided to run the Top of Utah Marathon, which is billed as being very fast and mostly downhill. In fact the first 20 miles or so are almost completely downhill through a lovely canyon that was supposed to be wonderfully shady and cool. I placed two big bets that day:

1) The weather would be cool. We arrived at start of the marathon at 6:00 a.m. on the top of a mountain and it was already 80 plus degrees....snake eyes. 2) The course would be fast enough to qualify for Boston. And indeed I ran the fastest half marathon of my life, but by mile 18 my quads were so fried from the constant downhill pounding that they turned to noodles at mile 20. Somehow I managed to crawl across the finish line in temperatures approaching 100 degrees for a magnificent new PW.

6. Race on Tubular tires, also known as "sew-ups"

When I was a young buck in college I actually got into a bit of serious cycling and raced for a while. It wasn’t long before I realized that all of the fast guys rode on Tubular tires. Tubbies as I like to call them differ from clinchers in that they don't have beads. Instead, the two edges of the tire are sewn together around the inner tube. Tubulars are used on special rims, and are held on to the rims by glue. Tubulars used to be fairly common on high-performance bicycles, but these days they are an endangered species on most bikes.

However there is still an “old school” hardcore group of athletes that swear by them. They point to the fact that the pros on tour ride them as well as the top triathletes at Kona. They say they are faster because they can be pumped up to a higher pressure, and that they handle better. This is all well and true until you flat.

You may recall the famous scene from a few years ago during the Kona Ironman World Championships when Norman Stadler threw his bike around like a used tissue after his second flat. Why? Because he couldn’t remove his tubular tire from his rim.

Tubular tire are almost impossible to change in a race situation. That’s part of the reason the boys on the tour don’t change them. They just swap wheels.

Worse yet, if you actually do manage to change a tubular tire while racing you’ll live the rest of the race in constant terror. Back in the day when I raced I had a tubular roll off the rim on a sharp bend. It was bloody hot and the glue that holds the tire to the rim got soft and let go. I spent the next two weeks silently screaming in the shower as my body was a tapestry of road rash.

If you truly want to save seconds by riding tubular like a pro, you better be prepared to crash like a pro and/or throw your bike around in disgust with the best of best.

5. Under Training

This is a discipline that I tend to excel at as race day nears. Just like the Cheetah of the African Serengeti, I like to rely on muscle memory to get me through a race. Please note that I have a very long and exceptional muscle memory. This means that sometimes I go days and even weeks without training the run, bike or swim. So on race day as I’m waiting for the swim to start I’m left relying on that one long workout that I did several weeks ago to get me through the race.

Fortunately the results are, of course, predictable and I end up walking the run. Which to a lot of you may seem like a bad thing but until you’ve walked a few runs you don’t really know how much fun it really is at the back of the bus…or in this case the back of the run.

While all of you speedy types are huffing and puffing to shave a second here, or a tenth of second there, by not having to tie you shoes or something equally crazy in transition, we back-packers (racers at the back of the pack) are partying and whooping it up. Every back-packer knows that during an Ironman the party begins at the start of the run and ends very late into the night as we cross the line to all of you speedy types' applause.

4. Over Training

Now while I have not actually majored in this discipline of race day suckage, I have studied it in depth and I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that this really is one of the worst ways to suck on race day. The reason is obvious, not only have you done way way way too much work before the race, but you get very little of the benefits of under training. For instance athletes that over train tend to blow up (only in their minds) during a race and never really enjoy the moving back-packer party.

Why…because they never get to the back of the pack.

They tend to miss their race goal by a minute or two, in which case they never make it to the back of the pack. Or worse, they think they’ll miss their goal by a minute of two and drop out of the race. Believe me when I say that if you intend on using either of these two methods in your next race it is always much more fun and more enjoyable to under train than to over train.

3. Race Day Blues

A well known professional, once told a friend of mine, who today told me this great bit of advice, which I will now pass it along to you. Funny how the world works? Anyway here’s the advice.

You know that you always have some good and bad training days…so why do you expect your race days to be any different?

Somehow I tend to think that just because I did all this training, and tapering, and preparing for the race that it will all come together like magic. But just like any training day, race day may dawn on the wrong side of the bed. In other words, the race could all be a huge train wreck and worse yet it may all be out of my control.

Bad weather, flat tires, equipment failure, accidents, the body’s natural rhythm, lack of sleep and even the common cold have led to terrific feats of race day suckage...and all of them completely out of my control. Just like training days, race days come in many flavors and some are so sour that you are just bound to suck.

2. Injury

There are two types of triathletes in the world; those who have been injured, and those who will be injured. It is a simple fact of triathlon life that if you train and race long enough you will get injured. It could be something as common as a strain, sprain or blister or something a bit more unusual like pink eye, broken collar bone or broken shoulder.

BTW: Two of my friends are currently out with a broken collar bone and broken shoulder from different bike accidents while training. If your injury is less severe you’ll tend to want to race anyway (race injured) and that is the number two way to suck at your next race.

The good news is that unlike overtraining, racing injured is a free pass into the back-packers club where the party never ends.

1. Professionalitis

Yes the number one way to really suck at your next race has nothing to do with your body, but everything to do with your mind. It can be summed up in various ways, but I like to call it professionalitis. It usually occurs the second or third year into a triathlon race career. It can be triggered by chance meeting with a professional triathlete or exceptional race results, but the outcome is always the same. Before you know it, you fancy yourself a professional triathlete.

Here are just a few of the warning signs:

You start to dress like a professional triathlete (logos, Cool-Max everything).
You have a subscription to both Inside Triathlon and Triathlete magazines.
You are a regular and contributing member of slowtwich.com.
You live, eat, and breathe triathlon (Cliff blocks became your favorite treat).
You know all of the Ironman races in North America and are planning on racing each one or have raced each one.
You enter the Kona lottery each year.
You have an Ironman tattoo.
All of your friends are triathletes or endurance athletes.
Your #1 goal in life becomes to qualify for Kona.

But the biggest warning sign is when racing and training triathlon stops being fun and becomes work. Just like a professional you have now made your passion your job, and nothing kills passion more than turning it into work. Your entire life begins to revolve around your race performance because, after all, this is how professionals measure themselves.

More importantly, your entire persona starts to depend on how you do at your next race. It is no longer good enough to just finish the race. Instead you need to show, place or better yet win your age-group because that’s how you qualify for Kona.

But unfortunately the vast majority of us are not talented enough to be professional triathletes and heaven knows that certainly includes me. We can aspire to compete like professionals on race day but when we change our expectations to include a personal best at every race, or top ten finish in our age-group, or a Kona slot, we are almost always guaranteed to suck at our next race. This is because we’ll never perform up to our own unattainable professional expectations.

So next time you race don’t forget to savor the race moment…no matter how fast or slow you go. You worked so very hard indeed (unless of course you are like me and have incredible muscle memory) to just get to this point so really enjoy it and HAVE FUN!

What makes a champion? Is it how many races they win? Is it how much better they are than the competition? Or is a true champion someone who can fight through the adversity and turn an utter defeat into the ultimate triumph? I believe the latter. Can anyone tell me who won the 400m men’s final in the 1992 Olympics? I didn’t think so, but I still remember the image of Derek Redmond’s Dad coming out of the stands, bullying past security guards and helping his son to the finish line..What an image!! There were 65,000 people in the stands cheering louder for a guy skipping on a torn hamstring to a last place finish than they were for the winner of the race. So you tell me who the champion is. I think there were two champions, Derek for having the courage to get up and finish what he started no matter how much it hurt and his Dad for having such a deep love for his son no one was going to stop him from getting on that track and helping his son.

Do you have an inner champion waiting to get out? I think we all have something in us screaming to get out and be unleashed. At some point in our lives we are all faced with an opportunity to quit, just bail out and live with the consequences later, the problem is that will last with you forever. Lance Armstrong says “pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever” and I agree completely, isn’t it better to battle through and finish last than not to finish at all. So the next time you’re faced with an opportunity to tap out why not dig deep, find your inner champion and conquer the pain. Don’t worry about finishing last, there will plenty more opportunities to win but looking inside and facing the demons only comes along once and a while so enjoy it, actually embrace it and you’ll be better for it. Push yourself to the edge and who knows you may be a champion too.

Source: http://www.ironmikebrown.com/