Becoming a triathlete and my first triathlon coming up

I am now well on my way to becoming a triathlete. I have spent the past 3 months building basic swim skills to a respectable level, as well as conditioning the legs for cycling. The running is the easiest despite after having taken 3 months off due to a stress fracture, which I think is nearly completely healed at this point, with only minimal residual tenderness when I really press down hard on the area. I can run 12 miles without any ensuing pain at all, and can likely run a lot further if I chose to do so.

One of the most challenging barriers to become a triathlete for me was the large amounts of expensive triathlon gear that is required to get into the sport. For sure, you don't NEED the type of high-end equipment that I have selected for myself, but it does seem commensurate to my future goals of training seriously for age-group awards and long-course ironman races. It has taken me 2 months to get all my basic bike purchases together. I just purchased a wetsuit last week, so I now have the open water swim portion of gear complete. I won't even mention the dizzying amount of accessories that are in fact required to maintain the bike and the wetsuit. Fortunately, a lot of folks and store salespeople are very helpful for showing you the right equipment, so as long as you have the money, you can generally get exactly what you need.

Currently, I am not using a particular structured training plan, despite my firm belief that best results, particularly those that push you past your perceived mental and physical limits, come from following structured buildups. Winter is pretty much "off-season" for triathletes, and as I am not aiming for a winter or early spring marathon, I am going to use this season to regain a solid base before preparing for a late spring or summer race. High on my priority list is to develop a solid cycling base (which I am still lacking) and improving my swim (by far my worst category). I would also like to keep an average weekly mileage between 40-50 while keeping triathlon training active, so I can quickly resume marathon training next year.

Ironically, swimming is the activity that has been giving me the most injury-related issues lately. I've been bothered by a recurring tendinosis in my right shoulder, most likely the supraspinatus muscle tendon, which previously worsened to the point that I had problems sleeping at night because of it. Rather than risk injury during the off season, I took 10 days off until it showed significant improvement, and started swimming again. Fortunately, my swim training has been solid, and I didn't lose any fitness on the swim. In fact, I did my first tempo swim in quite awhile yesterday, and turned in personal record-best times of 8 x 200m with 10-20sec rest in between at 1:45/100m pace (3:30ish/200m) without slowing. My arms are definitely developing the requisite endurance to hold longer swims - this is a huge improvement over when I began, and very satisfying.

I did my second group ride with the local triathlon club and a few other longer rides on my own as well as with a friend. I definitely seem to have some talent with regards to the bike. I think the combination of the intense marathon training coupled with my large stocky legs makes for a good cycling combination, as I can accelerate rapidly and power up hills yet hold a steady cadence due to my endurance. We'll see whether this optimism is premature, as I am sure to get smoked on the bike at a race, but for now, I am surprised with my ability to outpace the entire intermediate tri cycling group with minimal training.

With all this gear and base training, it was due time for me to sign up for my first triathlon. It will be the San Dimas TURKEY TRI, located about 45 minutes from Santa Monica, next weekend. It's a sprint-like triathlon, comprised of a half mile swim, 14 mile bike, and a 4.5 mile run, all in a park. I have a lot of hesitations about joining this race, but they're really all mental, as I really just need to get my rear end into ANY triathlon just to get a feel for the transitions, the pace, and the whole racing vibe all over again. Part of the difficulty is that I really hate entering races without proper race-specific preparation, and though I've been training diligently, I haven't really pushed my limits in my triathlon workouts, so I will definitely be performing significantly below my current potential.

I do have some goals for this race, though:

1) Complete the lake swim - Sounds kind of silly for such a wimpy goal to be #1 on my list, but I have zero open water swimming experience, zero wetsuit experience, and race day will be my maiden voyage on both of them (I'm on call too often to squeeze in a swim before race day.) Lots of bad things can happen in open water, even for experienced folks, and panic is a common thing for newbies to the sport. Even with my solid swim times in the pool, thrashing around in a lake with lots of other people coming from all angles makes it a whole different experience. I'm going to go late in the wave, swim wide, and take it easy. Still, I'm hoping to crack the top half of all finishers on the swim on my first time out.

2) Don't completely bungle my transitions - My only transition practice will be, well, zero. I simply don't have the time or space to practice it as it should be done here in busy LA with my crazy weekend work schedule. (Yup, I'm on call right now.) I'm relying nearly completely on YouTube for transition tips. I expect to lose a good 1-2 minutes on the transitions alone, which is significant, given how difficult it is to cut that sort of margin off my run time.

3) Put up a respectable run. Actually, I have no idea what respectable for me is in my current fitness state. I'm definitely significantly slower than I was compared to peak form, but I suspect that I still could contend for AG awards in small races even in my off form. My runs have been from 8-12 miles in length in training, and have gone well, despite minimal speedwork. I dream about throwing down 6:20s (my 10k pace) for the 4 mile run, but that will likely be impossible at this stage, and I'll settle for 6:40-6:50s this time out.

That's pretty much it. I am training a lot, despite the lower mileage, because cycling and swimming both take more time than running. As well, I've noted that I'm the heaviest I've ever been in the past 2.5 years at this point, pushing the scales at 150lbs, which is 10 lbs over my weight on August 1. I have been lifting some, but definitely not enough to justify a 10 lbs weight increase, so I'm becoming more careful about workouts and eating now - at that pace, I'll be 200lbs by next June LOL!

Cycling is fun

The nice thing about learning to train multisport is that there is a good mixup between upper body (swim), lower body (run) and low-impact (bike/swim) exercises such that you can switch disciplines when one part is getting overused. In the past 2 weeks, I have been bothered with a persistent right shoulder pain that seems to be due to my long reach freestyle swim stroke/pull. After it worsened to the point of actually bothering me at night, I decided that to give it a week or two of rest and rejuvenate my running mileage a bit.

Running itself has been going well. After the 3 Pfitz cycles I've done in the past, my legs are readily adapting to the low mileage regimen I've been using. I have been running 7-10 milers about 2-3x per week thus far, and doing a heavy load of swimming and occasional cycling on top. In the next few weeks, I plan to cut back on the swims due to the shoulder, and beef up on the run in particular as the light hours get more scarce for cycling.

In terms of road cycling, it's a LOT of fun. I strongly suspect that I am intrinsically better suited for the bike than the run or the swim, in that I have disproportionately large & powerful leg muscles for someone of my size (I was known as log-legs in HS, and leg pressed 1000+ lbs at one point with minimal training) and coupled with my cardio built up from the run, it makes for a very pleasant biking experience. Add on top my insanely fast race bike, and it's a great time out there!

I've been living on the bike trainer for the past few weeks, but have recently gotten enough courage and experience on my bike to ride on the roads. My first venue out with the LA TriClub on the Pacific Coast Highway was a great start - 40ish mile ride with a bunch of intermediate-level cyclists. Lots of carbon fiber bikes out there, and I was glad I had a weapon to match. Keeping up was no problem at all - we were averaging nearly 22 miles per hour on the flat highway, but I was sidelined by a flat about 40 minutes into the ride. 4 fellow riders pull aside and helped me change the tire (thank god - I was pretty clueless despite having the right hardware) and ridiculously, 2 of those 4 popped flats in the ensuing 30 minutes. It still ended up being a great ride, and I was amazed at how fast I could move on my race bike. The limiting factor is definitely my neck & back, as the "aero" bike position (see aerobars on the bike) which is optimized for speed is tough to maintain if you don't sit in it for hours in training.

My training/race ready bike with aerobars, frame pump, and aero water bottle rack

Some of you are probably wondering why my bike is so expensive and what the deal is with the aerobars. Well, my bike is made of carbon fiber, which is equivalent or stronger than steel in strength, but much lighter. It also absorbs shock like steel, which makes it more comfortable to ride than the more typical lower-cost aluminum which is used in most non-racing road bikes. Also note the aerodynamic frame of my bike - the thick crossbar is shaped like a blade, and the entire bike including the front fork is shaped to reduce wind resistance which is the major slowing factor on a bicycle. (Runners don't have real aero issues at their low speeds.) The last thing which I had to learn as I started triathlons, is the purpose of the aerobars. These are the two bars that stick out in front of the bike in front of the handlebars on the sides. The purpose of these bars is the allow you to drop your torso into a full aerodynamic position, which has been shown in wind tunnels to give you a 1-2% or so increase in speed. The caveat with these aerobars is that you are much more unstable on the bike since all your weight is dead center, and even more importantly, you can't reach your brakes from the aerobars, so you're essentially riding brakeless if you're in the aero position. For this reason, most group ride "pacelines" that you may seen on the road ban the use of aerobars during the ride, since you'd have to move your hands from the bars to the brakes if someone ahead suddenly slowed, which would greatly increase the chance of a wipeout. Also, aerobars are most often used in "time trial" style races, in which drafting is NOT allowed. Most triathlons are "no-draft" bike races, meaning the aerobars will be legal and help a lot - you will be penalized if you are caught drafting during the race. In contrast, most other team roadbike races such as most of the Tour De France, allow and encourage team drafting, and in the draft line,your aerodynamic advantage from the draft pattern is enough to not require aerobars. Since you are in a tight group though, you want the brakes by your hands at all times in the draftline, and hence, no aerobars. 

See THIS website for a great comparison of speeds between aerobars, aerobike frames, and normal road bikes.

I made the final attachments to my Cervelo this week, adding the extra water bottle cages in back as well as the frame pump and "bento box" behind the handlebars. Right now, I'm storing inner tubes (in socks) in the water bottles in the rear, but as I grow to half-ironman and possibly ironman races, those bottles will come into use for hydration and nutrition. The technical aspects of the bike are far greater than that of the run, but do come with their own rewards. Actually, there is only a very small body of knowledge and skills you really need to bike well, and the repairs that you really need to know about are really easy, such as tire changes and basic tightening of various bolts on your bike as needed. The overwhelming part is the selection of parts and bikes in the stores - the choices are literally endless. I'd recommend close consultation with the local bike store experts for choosing your gear, particularly if it is expensive. I had the benefit of working with an ex-professional sponsored triathlete at Helen's Cycles named "Joe" (he has completed a sub 9hr ironman!) whose equipment recommendations have been extremely helpful for me in choosing both a bike and equipment that will last me from my beginner triathlete life to future higher levels of ability.

Yup. Those are socks in my water bottles. 

(With extra inner tubes in them.)

I do admit that I am still intimidated by cars on the road, and likely will be for the rest of my life. Riding in groups of 3 or more certainly makes road riding much more manageable, and cars show much more respect when you have a large group for "protection." However, I have learned to optimize use of my power and speed on the bike to take the lane when necessary, and that acting like a "pro" rider and riding with confidence on the street is far superior to acting like you don't belong on it at all and allowing cars to crowd you out. I had no problems today owning my lane and signaling that I was going to do so for turns.

My last observation is that in this early stage of my cycling life, I find the initial learning curve of road biking to be much easier than running or mountain biking. On a road bike, you have the ability to ride quite slow, on flat paved roads, and in fact, may find it troublesome when you hit speeds over 25mph, as traffic and safety issues become much more important. Riding easy is a definite possibility and reality on a road bike. Running, due to its intrinsic weight-bearing nature, is harder to start from scratch, especially for heavier runners. Mountain biking is also both technically difficult as well as aerobically intense, as you literally are riding up steep hills most of the time. For sure, I would be able to recommend road biking as an easy start to most of my friends, whereas I would encourage running for those who are willing to start easy and slow, and I don't recommend mountain biking unless that person is already in decent shape to begin with.

Reflections on my stress fracture

It's definitely important to reflect on the mistakes you have made and make every effort not to repeat them. With regards to my running, the stress fracture that I suffered in late July has been perhaps the biggest running-related setback I've had, and one well worth avoiding in the future. It hasn't all been negative though, and I have learned much from the past 12-14 weeks about myself, running, and triathlon training. 

My stress fracture was located in the base of my 4th left foot metatarsal, or one of the long bones of the foot. The base of the 2nd-4th metatarsals are actually common areas for runners to develop stress fractures, although anecdotally, there may be a greater incidence of tibial and hip stress fractures. The symptoms I developed were classic for a stress fracture - an insidious, dull pain which was very hard for me to localize, starting off with a very mild sensation of soreness which gradually worsened as I continued training. I did not suspect I had a stress fracture until the pain had worsened over 3 weeks, and even then, I was able to run 20 mile runs without problem, so I continued to doubt the possibility of a stress fracture. Unfortunately, the days AFTER the run presented with great difficulty, with increased pain. I finally realized I was looking at something more serious than a strain when I noticed that I was starting to have problems walking without pain. And even then, I didn't really believe it, since I was still doing intervals and distance as fast as I had planned.

Stress fractures are caused by overloading the bone. It is generally a combination of chronic repetive low-medium grade forces, as opposed to a sudden high-intensity burst (which would more usually lead to an acute fracture.) Diagnosis can be difficult, as the pain is often dull, and hard to localize. Even with repeated self-physical exams, I swore that my point of greatest pain was the base of my 5th, not 4th metatarsal. It was not until weeks of recovery that the general soreness decreased to the point where I could clearly push on the toes and deduce that indeed, the pain was at the base of the 4th. 

Diagnosis of stress fractures is usually by MRI or nuclear bone scan. In most cases of stress fractures, x-rays will be completely negative. If you have radiographic findings of a stress fracture on xray, you have had a fairly significant one in that a gross bony fracture likely occurred. In contrast, my stress fracture was the more typical type, in where the xrays look completely normal, but there is true microdamage to the bone which can be detected by more sensitive (and expensive) imaging studies. My MRI demonstrated a very, very small "crack" in the base of my 4th metatarsal. The defect was so small that it would have been easily missed if I hadn't been specifically looking for it (I am a radiologist.) However, the various imaging data all correlated with each other, and after a few weeks, my physical examination completely matched the study, with focal pain exactly at the location specified. I was lucky in that my 5th metatarsal was spared - those often require surgical fixation since they do not heal well on their own. The pain I was feeling in the 5th MT base was due to the pushing of the 5th bone on the 4th as I pressed down on my foot.

Recovery from stress fractures is generally 12-16+ weeks, depending on severity and location. The type I suffered almost never requires immobilization or surgery, and in fact, it is recommended to continue non-weightbearing exercises such as cycling and swimming to maintain fitness. I was hoping that I would heal faster since my fracture was so small on imaging, but indeed, it took a full 12 weeks just to get back to running 1-2 miles without pain the next day, and will likely take 16-24 weeks to get back to no pain at all. I tried several times to make an earlier comeback, and ran 1-2 miles at a time to "test" out the foot, but on the 3 separate occasions where I tried this, I suffered recurrent pain the following day, indicating that it was not a good time to restart. I now can run 10 miles at a time without pain the next day, but I do have definite persistent soreness in my foot if I massage the area, indicating residual injury. I've decided that it's better to be safe than sorry, and I will not plan to race the 26.2 again until I can run and walk completely pain-free. 

In terms of the cause for my stress fracture, I think there were 2 main reasons, both of which are equally important:

1) Neglecting recovery weeks of low mileage after the San Diego Marathon

2) Adding steep hill running too quickly

I felt so good physically in the week after the SD marathon in July that I decided to continue training and possibly shoot for a 3:10 8 weeks later at San Francisco. I actually think this would have been a completely doable plan had I not increased my training volume with hills, and there are many marathoners who do back to back and more hard training after big races. Still, the undoubted reality is that running a hard marathon does a lot of microdamage to the bones and muscles. The muscles may bounce back in weeks, but the bones definitely need more care. Even if you have no bone problems whatsoever postrace, I would serious warn against increasing training volume in the 6 weeks postrace, as this is a prime time for these sorts of stress injuries.

The real killer for me was my addition of very steep hill runs. Since my quads were my limiting factor at San Diego, I switched both my midweek long runs AND my long 20+ mile weekend runs to all off-road climbs in the Santa Monica mountains, where the average uphill incline can equal 11% for miles at a time. While a few percent incline is close enough to normal flatland running that the risk of injury is lower, severe inclines and declines impart a whole new load pattern on the feet & legs. My stress fracture seemed to correlate with this exactly, in that I had difficulty reproducing the pain while running on flat surfaces, but once I put my foot into steep angle climbing positions with lots of loading on the distal toes, I developed maximal pain. Thus, the combination of a weakened foot from the marathon coupled with an unusual loading pattern, led to an unusual stress fracture. Remember that I have run 80-100 mpw for months at a time, and I was only running 65-75mpw postmarathon, so the sheer volume was likely not the culprit, but rather, the strange angulation I was training on.

I know those who have been reading along may wonder "it must have been those Payless shoes!" I know for a fact that this was absolutely NOT the case. I used my last pair of Payless shoes in training about 6 weeks prior to the SD marathon, and was using all Brooks Adrenaline GTS 7.0s in the remaining weeks prerace as well as postrace. I had purchased 3 pairs simultaneously, and even swapped out 2 new sets in the final weeks prior to the marathon. I did have one active pair that was 600ish on the miles, but I doubt that shoe condition was a factor at all here, as the other two pairs getting equal use were in the low 100s and 200s after the SD marathon. Still, I'd advocate for people to make sure that they're not logging ridiculous numbers of shoe miles in the postmarathon phase where risk of injury is perhaps highest.

From a mental standpoint, as much of a letdown it was to be knocked off training for 12 weeks, I really believe that for my highly self-competitive drive and personality, it was a necessary stage in my running development. In the past 2 years, I have found that with careful training and planning, I have pushed far beyond any physical running limitations I previously had. Part of my progress involved taking real risks, such as going a lot faster, farther, and longer than I ever believed possible. Training to the point of this stress fracture has made it clear that I have been able to mentally drive myself to my physical maximum, and thus cannot blame any limitations of progress during the last training cycle on any lack of motivation, or subconscious fear holding me back. Even if I never fully regain my prior ability, I will always look back on this period of maximal training with self-respect, in that I was willing to put it on the line and go all out for my goals.

In terms of future races, I have nothing planned in the near future. I would love to do a triathlon in the next 3 months, but tri season ends for the winter, and racing does not start until late spring. There will be no fall/spring marathon for me, as I will not be in form to restart a full training cycle until at least early spring. I will however, be doing smaller races, possibly 5ks and 10ks here and there just to get slowly back into the groove of the race (without overdoing it), and I did sign up for a spring half marathon in Washington DC where I will be for a conference in March. Despite this lack of race focus, I've been training fairly hard for triathlons, with 4-5 swims per week, fairly fast runs, and strong bike efforts for 1-2 hours per day on average. Plus, I've been lifting weights again, and have regained 5 lbs of muscle and most of the strength that I lost over the past 2 years. I'm going to try and enjoy the next few months of open-ended triathlon-style training without a definite goal and enjoy the opportunity to take the sporadic random day off here and there as need be. But have no doubt - the moment that the body is ready and willing, I will be ready to return to my unfinished business with the marathon, in full force.