Traveling, traveling, and more traveling

I'm normally the last person to do a lot of traveling. I try and pick locales where I will be happily ensconced with my own activities, and I really enjoy settling down into a good routine of fitness, friends, and education. Sometimes though, a combination of good luck, bad planning, and other factors combine to make for a busy stretch on the road. This past 6 weeks and the upcoming month are chock-full of travel for me, to my chagrin.

I returned from my 4-week long radiology conference at Washington DC about 2 weeks ago. It went very well both educationally and trainingwise, particularly with swimming, where I really spent a lot of time hammering out basic techniques in the pool for 1-2hrs per day. Running was also good, albeit reduced volume.

I was back in glorious LA for one week after DC, and it really was good to be back. There's nothing like leaving town for a good stretch to remember how amazing your home territory can be. Everyone raves about the mild climate, dry conditions, spectacular sun, becahfront views, and stunning mountains in LA, and let me tell you - it's all true!

I had a notable near-bonk weekend bike ride. After 4 weeks off the bike, I was chomping at the bit to get back on my Cervelo into the Santa Monica moutains with the LA Tri Club, for a 30-40 mile bike ride (a bit over 2 hrs for that distance.) I met up with them Saturday morning, and it was a fairly large crew of 30 ready to roll, so I was fairly excited. Unfortunately, right off the get-go, I had a mechanical problem with my cleats, which dropped me off the group even before we even started! I fixed the cleat problem, and started hammering to catch up if possible, and next thing I know, my left contact lens ejects from my eye. I hammered at race-pace for 40 minutes, and only managed to catch the rearmost group, but was still way off the main pack. After that, I noticed that my rear cage water bottle had drooped through the cage and was melting due to friction with the tire. More stoppage. I finally caught up at the regroup near Trancas, and then only 5 diehard riders were left attempting the real mountain climbs. 60 miles later and nearly 4 hours later, I was completely toasted. The temps rose to 80F, and even 90F in the San Fernando valley, so we were glad to make it back by noon. Definitely a tough ride.

I just came back from a week of vacation which I spent in NorCal with my fiance, but she was on a workweek, so I did a lot of cycling with some local groups. I had another noteable ride there near San Jose, where I joined the Western Wheelers cycling group on Wednesday morning for a climb of one of the steepest and biggest local climbs. This ride started not to hard, but the final 3 miles were the steepest grade road biking I have ever done. 20% (!!) incline, for most of the final 2 miles, and at least 12% incline for the remaining miles. If you've never been on a 20% incline, let me say that it's so steep that you can barely walk up it. I gave it all I had, but I was forced to dismount and walk the final 200m of the climb because it was simply so steep that I couldn't even go forward. Of course, climbing is far from easy on an aggressively geared triathlon-geometry bike that I ride, so I am using that as my excuse for not making it to the top! Definitely a humbling one, though - I don't think I'll be attempting similarly crushing climbs any time soon.

Right now, I'm sitting in the Hynes Convention Center before the start of another weeklong radiology conference. The weather here has shaped up to summerlike conditions in the past day, and I plan to get some solid running as well as swimming (very nice hotel pool here) to keep things in shape.

A throwback

I was just in the process of doing some serious backup/archiving of my computer files, which included a major photo archival job. I dug up one of my favorite old photos which I thought I had lost forever, from 2002. I noticed the striking similarity in finish times between that race and my most recent race - but at longer distance now!

2002 - The Boilermaker 

9.3 mile race, 67:57

I thought this would be the fastest I would ever run in my life

It was the most I had ever trained for a race

Age 26

2009 - Cherry Blossom 10 miler

10 mile race - 67:59

Not a PR, but hopefully still improving

Age 33

Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run Race Report

Willis Huang           33 Los Angeles CA       

Gun 1:08:52 Chip 1:07:59   6:48/mi pace 

Men-462/6618    AG-94/1266     

This past Sunday, I ran the famous Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run in Washington DC. I have been here for the past 3 weeks as part of a very educational radiology conference, and on the free weekends, I have managed to squeeze in 2 races, thanks to my friend Andy, who prodded me to sign up for these months ago.

The Cherry Blossom 10 miler is one of the most popular races in Washington DC. My friend Andy and I registered for this race online months ago - he was in DC and I was in LA, and we both simultaneously attempted to log on the second that the web registration opened. Despite our heroic early morning efforts (5AM my time!), it took an unholy 45 minutes of incessant mouse clicking due to people overwhelming the server. In fact, I was never able to register myself - my friend got lucky and managed to register both of us online. I never thought those millisecond delays across the national ethernet cables would make such a difference!

Andy and me, in the chilly pre-race dawn. I also am sporting a new Brooks jacket which I snagged half off at the expo. Neon  is great!

The race is a dead-flat 10 mile loop course around the Washington Mall, where the national monuments stand. The real bonus however, is that the race coincides with the blooming of the Cherry blossom trees, which only lasts for a few weeks, and is a beautiful sight to behold along the national monuments.

My preparation for this race was minimal, as I had just run the National Half Marathon 2 weeks prior, at a fastish but not extremely difficult pace. I probably ran 15-20 miles per week in between races, as I spent nearly 2 hours per day in the pool in an effort to fix my technique in the water. (Swim focus tri training.) Nevertheless, I knew that the 10 mile distance would be less of an issue in terms of leg fatigue as compared to the half marathon (or marathon - which would likely kill me now), so I was prepared to go out fast and hold on as long as I could.

Fancy new disposable RFID tag system in lieu of chip timing. Worked great

I was fortunately seeded into Corral #1, way up front past the slower crowd, so there wouldn't be any problems with a brisk start. Still, a good 300 or so people were lined up with me up front, and I was at the back of the corral, intending to run a small negative split if possible. The gun went off, and everyone took off, very fast, as usual.

I got my pace to about a 7 minute mile despite the significant crowding on the course. Fortunately, most people were moving very fast, and most people around me were actually moving faster than me. We got a good look at the lead pack of 8 Kenyans/Ethiopians who eventually dominated this race with ungodly 4:45/mi paces, as they hit the 2 mile turnaround nearly 4 minutes ahead of me this early in the race. Amazing.

Good crowds were present for this race, but I found that I was too focused on the task at hand to hi-five people. Running at your lactate threshold is pretty hard and takes a good deal of concentration. If you run too fast, you'll definitely burn out within a few miles or less, or suffer a big dropoff in pace by the end. If you run too slow, you'll penalize yourself significantly on a 10 mile race, as it's too short to make up lost time with a big negative split. I felt that I ran this race exactly as planned, and right to the edge of my current abilities. My legs started to act up about 8 miles into the race, which was expected, but held up long enough for me to go hard into the final mile and push into anaerobic threshold for the last half mile. I don't have pace data per mile, but I am fairly certain that I ran a small negative split, as I started with 7 minute miles, and then steadily dropped under this pace after each mile marker. 

Approaching the finish line

A note of advice to racers as well, especially those racing without Garmin GPS devices to help monitor distance: be aware of incorrectly placed mile markers. It seems like a trivial non-issue, as the final distance is invariably correct, but an errant mile marker can suddenly suck all the wind out of a good race, for the wrong reasons. I was nearly sidelined by an errant mile marker at mile 7, which was almost certainly placed long at mile 7.2. I had been feeling confident that my aggressive pacing was working out as planned prior to mile 7, but then I noted that per the mile markers, mile 7 took me nearly 45 seconds longer than I had been expecting to run. Actually, I wasn't using lap times, so I was just estimating my pace off a 7min/mile average, and I really only noted that I was suddenly behind my target pace, when my original plan was to ramp up the pace at this point to drop under 7min/mile. I was SO discouraged at that point, and even thought about dropping out of the race at that point! After all, I had just significantly pushed the pace due to the approaching final miles, yet my clock times were showing that I was likely far more fatigued than I perceived, and thus would almost likely crash out in the last 1-2 miles. Fortunately, I got to wallow in self-pity for only 2-3 minutes, before  I overhead a group of guys passing me saying that the last mile was long per their GPS, and that we'd likely have a "fast" mile coming up. Sure enough, my pace between miles 7-8 timed out at 6:00/mile, which was way faster than I knew was possible, so indeed, the marker was short. I'll be ready next time I race without my GPS to not get discouraged by errant mile markers.

All in all a successful day, especially given my limited training. I ran a 6:48/mile pace, which was a good deal faster than my realistic target of 6:52-6:55/mile. Of course, I just HAD to plug this result into the online Mcmillan Race Time Estimate Calculator, which showed that this performance today was in line with a 1:30 half marathon (versus my 1:32:xx 2 weeks ago), and a 3:10 marathon. Of course, I am under NO illusion that I could put up a 3:10 marathon now - without the 20+ milers under the belt, there would be no way I could maintain that pace for more than 15 miles. The last 2 races clearly demonstrated to me that despite my decent leg speed, my leg endurance has definitely been limited due to the lower mileage triathlon run training. The upshot is, that I managed to finish in the top 7% of my AG field, and in flat-type or net downhill marathons, finishing in the top 7% is generally fast enough for a BQ. I will definitely be taking another crack at the BQ next year after a dedicated marathon training season, but this year is triathlon year. 

This race was also good for me in that it has been the first race since my stress fracture where I felt that I was able to put up a true race effort as well as a race time that seems to demonstrate where my ability is at the moment. Despite the big dropoff in speed compared to my race results last year at much higher mileage training, I am very happy with my last 2 race results, given the intervening stress fracture and low-mileage training I have been doing. For the first time, I'm becoming optimistic that triathlon-type training may indeed keep me in good form for even pure running races, and I think I may be able to even improve a fair amount from my current shape in the upcoming year.

I will be trying to go to a swim focus training in an effort to get into open-water shape for late summer races. This will take a LOT of work, and I am prepared to sacrifice significant amounts of run and bike performance to boost my swim. For sure, I am currently a back of the pack swimmer, if even that, and this means that until I can get to middle of the pack type performances, I need to really devote most of my time to becoming faster in the water.

Last note - I've finally gotten back to LA after this 4 week educational conference in DC. I loved the flexible schedule with no real responsibilities, but it sure is nice to get back to sunny dry SoCal, as it rained nearly every other day while I was in DC.  

Post-race at the White House

Swimming (I suck!) and training in DC

I've had the privilege of being at a 4 week radiology conference over in Washington DC. It is a very enjoyable time, and considered one of the highlights of radiology residency, with a good selection of high quality lectures to attend (8 hours per day worth), no weekend obligations, and lots of friends and like-minded folks to spend time with.

My friend from my earlier years who now lives in DC convinced me to sign up for two races here. One was last week's half marathon, and the next one is the upcoming Cherry Blossom 10 miler at the end of this week. It has been difficult training specifically for these runs due to my triathlon-type multisport training, but things have been going more or less well despite the decrease in run volume.

I was expecting my training to drop off like a rock in DC, especially the swim and bike, owing to lack of facilities, but a bunch of folks including myself found a local YMCA and joined for a month. It has excellent swim facilities and spin classes to help stay in cycling shape. Coupled with nice runs through the DC national monuments, it hasn't been hard at all to stay in shape.

I have dedicated a lot of time in particular to swimming, as it turns out that I'm likely a lot lousier of a swimmer than I could have ever imagined. The pool at the YMCA here is an official distance pool, and it turns out that I have been overestimating my speed due to a short pool length at the pool I use in LA. I'm swimming an incredibly slow 2:30-2:40/100m, with 20 strokes per 25m, which is surely in the bottom 5% of swimmers in a triathlon, let alone pure swimmers. Very discouraging.

I signed up for some swim lessons here to examine my form, and also asked the instructor to use my camera to videotape me so I could self-analyze my stroke further. I'm clearly making some big errors in excessive body roll and an ugly kick, both of which were remarkably hard to self-diagnose without the camera. Still, even with correcting these two items, there has been no sudden big burst in speed by technique alone. I suspect that the truth is, that my swim muscles are simply underdeveloped (no experience, go figure) and will require another 6 months to a year to build up to respectable strength. Quite discouraging considering the decent effort I've put in, but I'm not about to give up any time soon. The worst part is that I'm nearly always one of the slowest people in the pool. This is always a surprise to me, as I have always been significantly faster than most women and most older folks on the run and bike, even before my high volume training. For sure however, swimming is a whole different ballgame, and I definitely am not bringing any special talents to the plate. It's going to take a lot of hard work to get up to speed, and I will likely dedicate the next 4-8 weeks specifically to swim training before embarking on a fall triathlon.

A big part of the problem for swimming is undoubtedly my lack of adequate volume of training. Despite my best efforts thus far, I have been spending far more time on cycling and running than the swim. I’m not sure if I will have the mental dedication to increase swimming at the cost of the other two disciplines, but for sure, this is what will be needed for a short period of time until I can achieve a better balance amongst the three.

As for now, it's lots and lots of swimming, and a sprinkling of running and cycling thrown in for good measure. I actually managed to complete a nearly 5 hour day at the gym last week, with 2 separate swim sessions, a spin class, extra cycling on the stationary bike, and a 5-6 mile run on top. Didn't feel so hard from an endurance standpoint, since there's a lot of dead time between the different sessions, and the fact that I can't go that hard on the swim makes things much easier. Tri-training can be quite consuming!

There's nothing more honest than a video to assess your swim technique. All your mistakes in their ugly glory, are out for you to see - despite the fact that your brain may be INSISTING that you're "doing it right!"

This is a link to a swim video of my typical swim form used for a fastish swim for me - I would not be able to keep this pace up for more than 10 minutes in the pool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3EB-xjFEY0

It's not horrendous, but it's also not good, either. The errors are obvious, even to a non-expert like myself, but fixing them has proved to be remarkably difficult, despite my full knowledge of the problems at hand. Amongst the things I will be working on:

- Over-rotation on the breath. I'm flopping my whole body over just to get air and altering my stroke. In a perfect world, my left/right strokes would be equal, and breathing would not disrupt the cadence.

- Arm going to midline instead of out to shoulders on the reach. Despite my best intentions, my arms seem to always end up in the middle, which ends up rolling me over like a log. When I splay my arms out wide, I lose a lot of power. I will need to do a lot of drilling to correct this.

- Ugly kick - My legs are way outside my body cone. Strangely, I am completely unaware of this while I'm swimming.

My next drill that I'll be doing in an effort to fix my form, is the "Tarzan swim drill", recommended by some triathletes on the triforums. This is a really tough drill, in which you swim with your head completely out of the water, and basically do freestyle. Your neck gets sore, your arms pump like crazy in an effort to stop your legs from sinking, but it does get your arms to reach to the correct width. It's going to be ugly out there in the pool for me.