Unlearn, you must unlearn

Had a TNT swim clinic today. It was nice meeting my teammates and captains for the first time. The group was actually pretty large because this was a combined workout with both the Dallas and Fort Worth TNT Tri teams.

A LOT of swim drills. I am (was) a decent swimmer, but there is much room for improvement. Lengthening my stroke. Keeping my body more horizontal - i.e., keep head down and kick legs more so that hips won't sink. It was a very informative session, but frustrating.

It reminded me of a time a couple years ago when I tried to learn how to snowboard - I'm a decent skiier and "starting over" (and continuously falling on the ground) was no fun. I ended up dropping the snowboard at the bunny slope and going back to skiing blue diamonds, but for this swimming I have to make the effort to unlearn my bad habits and get better the right way. I guess I will be doing a lot of these practice strokes and kicks in the coming months.

We finished up the swim clinic with a relay race and I was the "anchor" for our team. We didn't come in first, but I got to know my teammates better and it let us end on a high note after 90+ minutes of drills!

Team In Training

This is my first official post for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training (TNT).

As you probably already know from reading this blog, I got back on the "workout horse" this spring. Joined a gym, traded Mexican buffets for swimming at lunch-time, and did some biking and running on the weekends. As a matter of fact, it's been going pretty well, and I have really improved my fitness, lost a few pounds, and even completed a few "sprint" triathlons (swimming, biking and running) and local charity bike rides this summer. Up until recently, I was working out and racing mainly for my health and personal enjoyment, but I have decided that I’d like to do something different this fall and winter. I am going to train for next six months for a Half-IronMan length triathlon as a member of TNT.

Derek (who is now my TNT mentor) has done three events with Team In Training and raised over $12,000 for leukemia and lymphoma research. Jarrod and Jonathan each raised over $2,500 for LLS with their participation in the Texas Man Triathlon earlier this month. It is a great cause and a great experience.

A Half-IronMan triathlon will be a big challenge for me, but nothing like the challenge the people affected by leukemia go through on a daily basis. The North Texas (Dallas and Fort Worth) TNT team will be training and volunteering to raise money and increase awareness about these terrible diseases.

Making the decision to join the team and compete in this event was easy; the race – not so much. I will be swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles, and running a half-marathon (13.1 miles) down in Galveston, TX on March 30, 2008. The Half-IronMan distance will take me between 6 and 8 hours to complete. As a member of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s TNT program, we will be swimming, biking, and running to assist the organization in its efforts to battle blood cancers. The team’s goals are to complete the training and the event. Beyond that physical commitment to the program, our most important goal is to raise a minimum of $2,600 each. Over 75% of the money that we raise will go directly back to the Society for research, patient services, advocacy, and education in the battle against leukemia and other blood-related cancers.

I will be training and racing this spring in honor of everyone fighting leukemia each and every day. These “Honored Heroes” do not have a choice in facing this disease, but I do have a choice. My choice is to be out there training hard, raising money for cancer research and making a difference. In order to do that, however, I am asking for your help in contributing the money to meet my fundraising goal. Your tax-deductible donation will fund the research dedicated to finding a cure for leukemia and lymphoma. More that 712,000 Americans have leukemia, Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma or myeloma. Every five minutes, someone new is diagnosed with blood cancer and every 10 minutes, someone dies. But thanks to research funded by programs like TNT, the survival rate continues to rise each year. In fact, leukemia research has been the leader for effective treatments of Hodgkins’ disease, lymphomas and other common kinds of cancer, including breast cancer and lung cancer. Leukemia research is considered to be the window to the treatment and cure for ALL cancers.

You can contribute to my fundraising account by making a donation directly to my online account at http://www.active.com/donate/tntntx/Andrien_Wang. Whatever you can contribute matters; however large or small, it all adds up. I greatly appreciate your help and look forward to hearing from you.

Happy Birthday to Me

Turned 37 today. Unfortunately, not old enough to move to the 40-44 age group. :-)

Long Swim

Boo-yah! I did my longest continuous swim ever/yet today: 3,000 yards total. It took quite a while (1 hour and 9.5 minutes with a 50 second Accel Gel & water break in the middle) to complete that distance, but my pace was pretty consistent for the entire effort.

• 1st 500 yds: 11:14
• 2nd 500 yds: 11:28
• 3rd 500 yds: 11:27
• 4th 500 yds: 11:22
• 5th 500 yds: 11:26
• 6th 500 yds: 11:39

In fact, I was very happy with my speed - the pace was actually faster than what I usually do for shorter swims. I tried something new today - I (mostly) only breathed for every other stroke - and this really helped increase my stroke cadence.

Note: one bad thing about swimming for over an hour - you get some pretty stubborn "goggle lines" around your eyes. I looked like a raccoon until about 2:30 or 3:00 (I swam at lunch-time). The hazards of tri training ... :-)

Tour Des Fleurs

The Tour Des Fleurs (which I believe is French for "tour of flowers") race was held at the Dallas Arboretum this morning. I ran in and completed the 20K (12.4 miles) route. The route went around White Rock Lake with a extra loop just before the dam/spillway.

The weather was pretty nice. Not too hot and the course was at least partially shaded. I tried to keep my pace slow so that I wouldn't burn out and I think overall I was successful as my 5K splits were fairly consistent:

• 5K split: 28:01 (9:02/mi pace)
• 10K split: 27:47 (8:58/mi pace)
• 15K split: 27:41 (8:56/mi pace)
• 20K split: 28:48 (9:17/mi pace)

Here are the full splits (by mile):

and my (ridiculously high) heart rate during the run:


As you can see from the chart, I only slowed down (for a significant time) twice - at 6 miles to walk and suck down an Accel Gel and at 11 miles because of a nasty hill that I just didn't feel like running up!

The beginning portion of the course felt very familiar since it was following the same path and direction as the Too Hot To Handle 15K from July. There were over 2,000 people running the race so it was quite congested until the 3 mile mark, when about half the people split off for the 10K route.

The middle portion of the run was uneventful - which is a good thing. My pace stayed consistent and I only stopped briefly at the water stations (except for the 6-mile one) to drink water/PowerAde and dump a cup or two of water on my head to cool off.

Just as I crossed the 15K marker, I heard a few people saying "Hi, Andy!" and saw Derek and Mike & Simone, who were at White Rock Lake riding their bikes. It was a nice surprise (I knew they planned to be there, but didn't expect to see them at all) and definitely gave a life to my spirits for the final 3.1 miles.

Anyway, the race went well and I placed 425th out of 1084 finishers of the 20K route. Top 40% is not bad for my first 20K and my longest run to date!

My total time was 1 hour, 52 minutes, and 19 seconds (for an overall pace of 9:03/mi). If I can keep this pace for another 0.7 miles, I should be able to (barely) finish a half-marathon in 2 hours. So this will be my goal for the Dallas Running Club Half-Marathon in November.

Race results - due to a lost entry form, I am (currently) listed as "Unknown Particip. 2742":
http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/142514_173433_2007.html

MotionBased workout info: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4019743

Recovery

I didn't feel too bad the day after the Texas Man tri. "Everything" was sore - back/shoulders/chest from swimming, glutes from biking, quadshamstrings/calves from running - but it wasn't a super painful soreness ... more like my body just saying "hey, you had a hard workout yesterday - just thought you should know."

I'm thinking the overall good news was due to (1) adequate training for the event, (2) some stretching and muscle massage that afternoon, and (3) good post-race recovery nutrition. Regarding the latter, I (of course) partook of the free pizza at the race site, but the race also had a lot of Accelerade (which has the recommended 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein) available at the finish line and I drank at least 32 ounces of it. After I got home, I had some pasta with chicken and a protein shake (chocolate whey powder mixed with caffeine-free Diet Coke - not bad tasting and quite refreshing).

On Monday, I did a "light" swim of 2,000 yards. Note: I have given up on doing the lap conversions into meters at LA Fitness - i.e., no more 11 laps for approximately 500 meters, it's now just 10 laps for exactly 500 yards - I like round numbers. (Sorry, metric system, you lose again :-P). My plan is to work my way up to 3,000 or 4,000 yards over the next couple months. As for Monday's swim, my 500 yard splits were decent: 10:55, 11:46, 11:40, 11:51. The total time was 47:31 with about a 1:19 water break in between the first and last 1,000 yards.

On Tuesday, I wasn't able to make it to the gym so I just did 60 minutes on the elliptical trainer at home. ("2.06 miles" at the highest incline and resistence levels). Almost like running and no pounding of the joints.

Today, I did a 60-minute spin class and then followed that up with a treadmill run where about half the time it was at the 5 degree incline setting (the rest of the time it was flat - zero degrees incline). The results:

• Time: 44:44
• Distance: 4.5 miles
• Vertical climb: 604 feet

Tomorrow, I plan to do another (shorter, 45-minute) spin class and then do a weight training session. Friday will be an off day to rest up for Saturday's Tour Des Fleurs 20K run.

Texas Man Olympic Tri

Woo-hoo, I have completed my first Olympic-distance triathlon! Double the distance, double the fun.

The Dave Scott Texas Man Olympic Tri consisted of a 1,500 yard open-water swim in Lake Ray Roberts (Valley View, TX), a 23 mile bike leg, and a 10K (6.2 mile) run. I finished it in 2 hr and 42 minutes for 18th out of 27 in the men's 35-39 age group ... and 78th out of 179 overall. Pretty good performance for my first time at this longer distance! My goal was to finish the race in under 3 hours and I was able to meet that by a decent margin.

• Swim: 27:04 (75th place)
• T1: 2:41
• Bike: 1:10:40 - 19.5 MPH (51st place)
• T2: 1:21
• Run: 1:00:33 - 9:46/mi pace (114th place)
• TOTAL: 2:42:17

Full results at http://results.active.com/pages/page.jsp?eventID=1534234&pubID=3

The water temperature in the lake was good - not too hot and not too cold - but there were actually some waves as we moved to the first turn buoy (about 450 yds from shore). Open-water swimming is still frustrating with all the swimmers packed in like sardines and running into each other. I emerged relatively unscathed, though - sticking to the outside "lane" helped. Remembering swim exit info from the pre-tri, I swam nearly up onto the sand - only stopping when my hand hit the ground on the downstroke - before jumping up and high-stepping in the shallow water towards the transition area. As I exited the water, I saw Jonathan (the Sprint tri didn't start until about an hour later) and Yvette, his TNT mentor, and gave them a thumbs-up.
The bike was exactly as I expected since I had already ridden the course at the pre-tri. Despite having just swam 0.85 miles my average speed was almost 1 1/2 MPH faster than the week before. Adrenaline had kicked in. I looked for Jarrod and Derek (who did the Olympic tri with me) on the out-and-back part of the course but I never saw them - Jarrod said he saw me, but I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention.

The run actually wasn't that bad. I was worried that my legs would be shot after biking over 23 miles, but after some initial wobbly steps I was ready to go. (I guess those brick workouts really helped.) It was still pretty early (just after 9:00 AM) so the sun wasn't too hot yet. With my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS strapped on - yep, I was the geek running with two watches on his left wrist - I managed to maintain my pace between 10:30/mi and 9:15/mi for the entire run.

The first part of the run took us out of the park and the terrain was generally uphill until reaching the entrance. Then it was mostly flat for the mile on the road outside of the park. After looping back and about to reenter the park, I heard a "Go, Andy" from Don (not "Cycling Teammate Don", but another Verizon coworker that I'd talked to a few times at the North Lake College pool) who was doing the Half-IronMan distance and was just starting the second lap of the bike course. I waved as he whizzed by.

Coming down the hill back into the park, I (almost literally) ran into Jarrod. I was definitely very focused on the run because I barely noticed him until we passed and I never saw Derek at all even though I had to run right past him on the out-and-back course! Definitely in the "running zone".

As the 10K run rejoined the 5K, I got a surge of energy as I realized that I was less than a mile and half from the finish. This part of the course was also mostly shaded so that was a relief. I drank lemonade-flavored Accelerade and dumped some water on my head at the last two rest stops and tried to pick up the pace. After final turn, I sprinted to the giant "Finish" arch that inflated and set up right on the beach where I had started a few hours earlier.

A lot of support for our little tri group at the finish line. I met Jarrod's friend, Jimmy (who lost over 100 pounds this year and was doing his first tri) who had finished the Sprint distance (with a great time for his first outing) and his family, Jarrod's family, Jonathan & Alexis (with the video camera :-), and I had met Derek's family (sister and brother-in-law visiting) before the race.

After finishing, I had a recovery meal of pizza and more Accelerade and watched the other finishers. I saw and said hello to Archie, who I had met at the TWU Sprint Tri and Denton July 4th 5K and ran with at the pre-tri. I also wandered by the Team-In-Training tent and met Leah, the Dallas TNT tri coordinator. (TNT will be an upcoming post.) Then, we all packed up our bikes and gear back at the transition area, and Jimmy's wife snapped a few photos of us - the happy triathletes.

I love this sport.