Wawawai 20km Time Trial Race Report

Out-of-the-saddle, getting up to speed at the start. Orange cones and the white-pant clad race official mark the race start.

I recently tested my early season form at the Wawawai 20km Time Trial just outside Pullman, WA in the Snake River Canyon. It was an excellent race in a gorgeous setting.  

A shot of the Snake River Canyon

Driving over the snow-blanketed prairie lands to reach the long-descent into the canyon, we were pleasantly surprised to find temperatures increasing a pleasant 10 degrees F. as we drove down the short road. This was also a scouting section of the drive for Alan, a close friend and riding buddy who would be participating in both the time trial and the mass-start uphill climb held afterward. 

We parked at a park, as redundant as that sounds, and met Ted Chauvin, the event director who has done an excellent job with the race. Guided through a smooth sign-in process, we grabbed our packet and headed down to the time-trial specific staging area along the water. 

The time trial staging area was very conveniently located in a parking lot on the opposite side of the above hut, with the starting line set just about where the trees are located in the photo. The time trial takes you down 8 km of baby-smooth, flat asphalt to 2km of good-condition chipseal. This was actually pleasant in that, on the return trip, I had the combination of going with the river, a tailwind, and a return to smooth asphalt to all but catapult me back towards the finish line. 

We'd been watching the weather all week and it finally looked promising. Some thunderclouds threatened to defeat the hopes of fair weather cyclists, but just as Ted promised, the micro-climate of the canyon made for great race weather and beautiful sun despite the fact that it was snowing in Spokane as I loaded up my bike and left early that morning.

I was set to start in 8th position, as many minutes after 10am. We got out our bikes, made final adjustments, and set about warming up on the trainers in the sun. 

While getting ready, Alan unleashed a novel new product developed by a riding buddy- the Tritenda. 

Attaching to the car by powerful magnets, the Tritenda affords one the privacy of changing without forcing you to squinch around in the front seat of a car or in the tainted confines of a porta-pottie. If you've had difficulty with this process at a race, I would definitely look into it. 

Speaking of porta potties, the restroom situation at the race was nothing short of beautiful. It was really sheer magic. Porta-potties practically outnumbered the racers, and I was afforded the luxury of having any number immediately available. Bravo, Ted!

With a minute to go until my start time, I bid the guys what I hoped would be goodbye (Alan was starting after me, after all) and made my way to the line. I was riding my brand new 2010 Felt B12, which I am in love with. I literally could not love a human baby as much as I love this bike. In an attempt to avoid neutralizing the bike's aerodynamics, I was wearing a layer of spandex beneath my tri suit in what worked out to be a good clothing decision for the relatively modest temps. 

The race official counted down from ten and I was off! In retrospect, I had wished that I'd done a trackstand at the line as I didn't clip in terribly quickly. Alan caught a picture (the first one of this entry) as I got up to speed and I immediately commenced hitting the race as hard as I could. Being a medical student, I have spent seemingly countless hours over the winter studying on the bike trainer, but only at an intensity conducive to learning, so this race would be an exercise in the application of base miles. 

Right away I knew that my warm-up had been too hesitant as my legs started to load up with lactic acid. Racing without a bike computer, heart rate monitor, or power, I went purely off of perceived exertion. I would learn later that a fairly solid headwind would oppose our progress outbound and then push us home, and this is just what I experienced. 

Two days before the race, I'd looked at photos from the previous year's event and felt the competitive urges kicking in. I was highly motivated after over a year away from racing (having lived and trained in Thailand for 6 months before school started), and lots of pent up energy came out. 

I was flattered after the race when Alan, starting 7 positions behind me, said that he began counting returning riders, expecting to find me in 8th given my 10:08 start time. As he said it, "I counted the first rider.... 2nd... 3rd... 4th... Derek?" as I rode by on the return having passed a few riders. To qualify that statement, however, Alan put in an excellent ride, coming in 1:30 faster, and high-praise also goes to Nic Carey, a University of Idaho rider who won the Men's 4/5 with a 29:10 that I'm told was completed on a road bike. Solid work.  

Either way, I was happy to be moving through the field out on the course. On the return trip, I simultaneously came back into the sunlight just as the gorgeous asphalt surface returned and, propelled by the tailwind and ever-so-slight decline consistent with traveling in the same direction as the river, motored towards the finish. I began pushing my legs to unsustainable levels as I neared the finish, and with the 1km sign behind me, did my best to leave it all out there. 

I came through the finish line in a time of 30:39, good for an average of 24.3 miles per hour. That time was good for 4th in the Men's 4/5, but interestingly would've had me 3rd in Cat 3 and second in Cat 1/2. I'm pleased with the result, given that it was only my third time riding outside and on the new bike this year, having ridden only at easy intensity on the trainer. I'm excited to make it under 30minutes this season and potentially under 60 for the 40km distance.

I was left to study Microbiology as a solid field went about a brutal uphill bike race. Either of these races, or, for the hardmen/women, both, are excellent early season opportunities to get outside and put in a good effort. Thank you very much to Ted Chauvin and all of the race officials and volunteers who made it happen. If you live within driving distance, especially Eastern WA, and want to race an early-season time trial or test your climbing fitness, I highly recommend this event. The post-race food and generous prizes were icing on the cake!

Focusing on Technique and Core Work

Browsing the interwebs on a study break, I came across the website of Kiwi pro-triathlete Terenzo Bozzone. A 5x World Champion, Bozzone just recently finished 2nd at Ironman New Zealand and is set to defend his title at the Half-Iron US PRO Championship in Galveston, TX.

There is a tremendous amount of knowledge that age-group triathletes can gleam from the professionals of our sport, and the well-spoken Bozzone is no exception. Here is a quote from the first page of his site, terenzo.com , where he preaches the importance of hard work as focused by the use of proper technique, with the combination serving as the foundation for proper training:

    ".... there is nothing wrong with training hard, and yes you will have to give up certain things to get to the top, but there is more than just training hard to achieve in your sport.

There is another aspect that many people say they know about, understand, and work on, but do they really? I am talking about technique.

Lets get more specific. In Ironman, you have the swim, bike and run. Each of which is sport in itself. If you can master the technique of these different sports, so that you swim like a swimmer, ride like a cyclist, and run like a runner, and put it together, then surely your room to improve with hard work is greater. You become more efficient, and faster." 

  Bozzone continues writing on his site (which I encourage you to check out), but this entry got me thinking. I've recently been priding myself on the religious execution of a difficult core/strength workout within my training program. Abs, upper body, and important secondary muscles (such as hip abductors) are all stressed by the routine. But just as core strength is a vital addition to any triathlon training plan, so too should time be dedicated to technique work. I've always included a thorough session in swim workouts and I have been doing Single-Led Drills on just about every bike training session. But I've now resolved myself to add a session of technique drills to each run workout. Just a few minutes before a threshold run could reap incredible dividends further along the trail. 

   Given the inherent time constraints of multi-sport training, I'll begin by adding a few drills to the beginning of tonight's run, and then have a focus element that I will emphasize throughout each workout for the next 3 weeks (a carryover from technique work I've used in swimming). For example, after  a quick warm-up, I will do short sets of high-knee skipping (effeminate? maybe. Effective? Definitely), butt-kicks, and strides. Then, during the workout, I will focus on leaning forward into my stride and trying to land properly on my midfoot. 

   With my first running race of the season set to take place at a half-marathon in June, I'll look to be out on the course running like a runner, with an efficient, and faster, stride. 

5 Seconds of Triathlon Humor: a joke and a cartoon

Joke:

Q: "How can you tell if a triathlete's at a party?"

A: "You don't. He'll tell you."

Cartoon:

caption: "The small town never forgot the day a space alien walked into town, bought a bicycle-tire repair kit, and left."

Tip of the Day: Tape over the CPSC sticker in your helmet

Santa proved his passion for aerodynamics this Christmas with delivery of a Giro Advantage II. His knowledge of fluid dynamics must be how he manages to pull off so much traveling during the Christmas season. If you look at your own helmet, you'll hopefully notice a CPSC sticker which proves that it has met the legally required safety standards. There are some race officials out there (*cough* Eagleman *cough*) that I have heard have DQ'd race participants on the grounds that their helmet did not have the CPSC sticker inside it. Do yourself a favor, as I did, and take some clear packing tape and cover these stickers. It could keep you from a gnarly race-morning surprise from an over-zealous race official with an inferiority complex.

Norseman 2010 Video

As penance for my extended absence from writing on this blog, please check out this phenomenal video about the Norseman triathlon, something that should be on every long-course triathletes bucket list:

Principles of Training: Working to Quota

In studying for a final exam in Systems of Human Behavior, I came across an interesting principle of therapy that can be readily applied to triathlon training. Here's a quote from Dr. Seitz's advanced text, Behavioral Medicine made ridiculously simple:

          "When physical activity is involved, the therapeutic concept of working to quota is important. After determining an exercise baseline (e.g. five sit-ups a session), the patient triathlete is then required to start slightly below this baseline and exercise each day until he reaches this target or quota, rather than stopping when he feels pain (i.e. working to tolerance). The quota is then raised gradually. Working only to tolerance keeps a patient triathlete a slave to his "pain bell" (i.e. when pain occurs, activity stops). In contrast, working to quota shapes him to higher levels of physical performance (and less pain)."

      A beautiful, and painful, example of this principle can be found in my treadmill running. Recently, I discovered a Woodway Treadmill at our local YMCA and it was love at first sight (you can check them out here, they're phenomenal. I have no connection to the company, I just love that treadmill). Many readers may be familiar with the concepts of aerobic and anaerobic threshold. Somewhere between my aerobic and anaerobic threshold lies a 'pain threshold' up to which the pain I feel while running incrementally increases until plateauing. One day recently I was running with a friend who was on an adjacent treadmill, and I found myself pushing through quite a bit of pain to put in a fast time. Checking my heart rate, I expected it to be quite elevated, maybe 170 bpm.  Imagine my surprise when it was 147. In that moment I'd learned (or re-learned, at least) that there is a difference between what I can run comfortably and what I can run, and one of the greatest assets a fast runner can have is a pronounced ability to tolerate pain.

 The connection between this scenario and the ''working to quota'' concept is simple. Perceived exertion can be an excellent tool to determine workout intensity, but it isn't always the best metric for designing a workout. If you compete in triathlons for fun, then by all means hop on the treadmill and set it to a comfortable pace. But if you're aiming to get faster, take that dial, crank it up until you hit the pain level and then break the switch off and just hold on. Just like you need to be a little bit hungry to lose weight, you need to push yourself to get faster, and pushing yourself needs to extend beyond the realm of 'comfortable.' Rather than using the pain bell as an alarm that it's time to dial back, maybe just for some workouts, the pain bell should be a sign that you're just getting started.

Today's Run: The Road to Chong Fah Waterfall

While doing some focused training in Thailand, I came upon a beautiful, winding road comprised of gentle rollers meandering through groves, orchards, and jungles. I brought along a camera on today's run and thought I would share some photos:

The run starts out level before moving into the jungle-clad hills

Pam trees and power lines serve as an apt metaphor for Thailand's juxtaposition of rampant development and natural beauty

One of the many orchard-lined sections during the run. 

Little buckets for collecting tapped rubber hang from the trees (not visible in this photo)

Some lilies in blossom with purple flowers complement two buildings associated with one of the larger estates

I saw four cars on the 12km/7.4mi run. Must've been rush hour on the very low-traffic road. 

The orchards give way to dense jungle as the road climbs gently into the hills

The view to my left

The view to my right

When I first ran this road and saw the concrete give way to dirt, you should've seen the smile on my face

With the more remote dirt road comes some excellent views

Dirt roads lead to some of the best places

The jungle asserts itself

A beautiful outlook just before the turn-around point

Perspective shot

The road offers up a return to asphalt and I very begrudgingly accept