Month: June 2018

2018 Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Camp (6/8 – 6/10/18)

I don’t remember who told it to me, but this has stuck with me — ‘this is an adaptive sport, as you have to be willing to adapt’. Whether it’s a piece of equipment that breaks druing a warmup, missing a key piece of equipment and having to go to back ups or something else, it will happen. More important that what DID happen is how you handle it and what DOES happen afterwards. Being frozen in a ‘plan A’ only mentality will do more harm to you than having to walk a tandem 3 1/2+ miles back in cleats after it’s double flatted (and yes, I’ve done the latter).

To that point, while it wasn’t planned, I was fortunate to get extra sessions in with my Nationals guide on Friday, to help a newer guide get more comfortable on the tandem on Saturday, and get in some valuable practice with someone who will be guiding me later in the summer. All positives, and all good things both short and long term.

For me, camp started with FUnctional Stregth, followed by time in the pool. Lots of drills and lots of opportunities for Dave and I to work out swim signals, rhythm and other beneficial things prior to Nationals. The afternoon was bike/run, with several important learning lessons coming out of both.

While it has been getting better, I still have some confidence issues when it comes to turns on the bike. Simply because I know basic laws of force, gravity and motion. Even with how well the nutrition stuff has been going, it’s still a concern. But we were able to get more and more comfortable throughout the turns to a point where I didn’t think about it. The initial starts and stops were a little choppy, but got better. As I started to think there might be an issue with the pedals, I talked with Cameron post-session. What I found out is that there are two different types (Zero something and Light Action) and I needed the latter. The former do work, but there are usually clip/unclip issues. I will get that addressed after Nationals. (1)

Coach Judy was back this year for the run, and I’m so glad she was! The first run session was drills, including the incredibly fun ‘pull the guide’ resistance drills. I’m sure that there’s a video of it somewhere; just Google it. Things felt much better this year during the first run session than they did last year. And a refresher on how to properly run hills was a great learning lession. Especially since I’m going to be pushing towards a strong finish when I hit it during Nationals.

Day two for me went bike, run, Open Water Swim and Yoga. Even though she hadn’t done much tandem riding, Canders stepped up to pilot for (and then run with) me. Even with the chain breaking at the end of the workout and my left hand going a little numb at times because of the seat spacing issue, it was still a great session. Thankfully we were essentially at a stop when it did, so no harm and something Cameron was able to fix.

Before going into the run, I had told her that my pace was about 12:30 / mile. That’s what it had been during my last good 5K (5/5), so that seemed like a good ballpark. So when Coach Judy said that we should be doing the 400 intervals a little faster than run pace, I was thinking 2:55. That would have been an 11:40 pace, and a decent drop. And then the 400s went 2:22, 2:23, 2:25 and 2:19. No, those aren’t typos; those are my real 400 times and a roughly 9:25 / mi pace.

Open Water Swim with Natalie went well. We had a chance to work out a lot of things with signals during that practice, all of which helped the following day (and will beyond camp).

During the weekend, there had been on and off rain. And who loves rain — mosquitos of course! While they was moderate during days 1 and 2, they were out in full force for the Triathlon on day 3. It rained hard in the morning, gave us a roughly 90 minute window and then came back in full force. And from how I was post-race, I think a mss message went out on BugBook — “Eat at James, he is delicious!”

Even though there were a couple of issues during the Triathlon, there were also a lot of bright spots. Especially on the run, where pacing and resets led to one of the best runs I’ve had to this point. And all of that will help during Nationals on June 24th.

It was a great weekend, and I came away with a lot of great knowledge and experience. A huge THANK YOU to all of the Coaches, sponsors, volunteers and guides that made the 2018 Dare2Tri PT camp possible!

Final Shot (Leon’s Tri) – 6/3/18

For those of you following my blog or me on social medial, you know that I had to pass on my May race that I planned to use to qualify for Nationals. So Leon’s was my final opportunity to qualify. And even though I was conservatively 3 1/2 minutes off headed in, I still thought I had a chance.

Before I go any further, I want to remind all of you reading that VI Paratriathlon is a team effort. While I’ve heard some refer to the guide as “equipment”, that’s not the whole story. This is someone who’s given up their time, their race and their comfort to ensure you succeed. Yes, it’s “your race” and yes, you put a tremendous amount of trust in them. But that has to be a two way street for success; both short and long term.

Wolf Lake has two very different modes. One is it being calm and you can easily churn out your 100s. The other is wind hitting the lake and it slamming waves into you for the first 150 – 200m until you make the left around the buoy. While I struggled with waves two years ago, bilateral breathing helped out. It was wavy again this year, and my guide ended up with a couple of huge mouthfuls of water early in. It got down into his lungs so for the rest of the swim, we had to stop every 50-75m so he could get breath and try to cough out more water.

Even though the clock was working against me and I wanted to get out of the water ASAHP, I didn’t have an issue with this. For the simple reasons that I knew he needed to stop to try and reset and that he would have done the same if reversed.

We made it out of the water and by the time we were a couple of miles into the bike, he was doing much better. Between the wind and the 4 U-turns (so much ‘fun’), I wasn’t drinking much from my bottle on the bike. I think that this led to some minor dehydration, as I had cramping to the point of pain about 300-400 ft from the dismount line. It all worked out though and we moved onto the run.

With what had happened the previous weekend, I was a little bit concerned about going too fast. But I still wanted to finish strong. Even though qualifying for Nationals was gone, I still wanted to PR. And while it wasn’t a smooth run, it was 100 times better than 2017’s. During that run, at best I was able to run for 1/10th of a mile and then had to walk because of back issues. This year, I was able to run for much longer stretches, finishing with an all out sprint down the finish chute.

I did succeed in setting a new PR by about 10 minute (mostly by shaving 13+ min off from 2017’s run).

Burn Out (Western Springs Tower Trot) – 5/26/18

Over the past several years, I’ve continually battled with going out too fast. Usually it’s meant an unsuccessful practice, as I’ve got little left after mile 1. But I’ve been working on it, and usually in 5Ks themselves, I’ve been okay. Unfortunately, it caught up with me during this race. And I didn’t know that it was going to happen until it was too late.

As Rob and I started out, he noted that I was going too fast. I kept trying to slow it down, and things felt good at a 12:15 or so pace. Then at less than a 1/2 mile in, my right side and back started hurting — bad. Almost like I had pulled something without realizing it. I hoped that a couple minutes of stretching would help, but to no full avail.

So for the rest of the race, I did what I could. This meant running until the pain level got to a 5 or 6, then walking until it was back down to a 2; rinse and repeat. While it’s just antidoctal, I think I may have had some minor dehydration. I say that because post-race as I kept draining cups of water, it kept getting a little better (although I was still in some pain).

While it wasn’t the race that I had hoped for, I still had fun. And I appreciate Rob being able to come out and run with me!