I’m just an everyday ordinary guy…

I have a hard time opening my eyes underwater.  I get major gut pains at mile 18 of an Ironman Marathon.  I don’t like margarine – I much prefer the taste of butter.  I like finding solutions to help me solve my problems!

If you’re not sure what I’m referring to then Jon LaJoie and Youtube will be your friends for the next 5 minutes.  I would link it…but I’m offline and you’ll have more fun finding it yourself.  Plus, a swear word or 20 is included.  Actually, here’s the link now that I’m online… his other stuff is rather raunchy so best to send you directly there!

Anyway, I do think we’re making great progress toward a solution to our problems!  A major difficulty has been digestion issues during the marathon run of an Ironman.  Heather usually needs to run to the Porta-Potty 5-6 times over the course of the 42 kilometers.  Amazingly, she’s still fast enough to be in contention for the win.  I’ve been getting these crazy cramps in my lower gut by mile 16 of the run leaving me hobbling and looking for the med tent.

Initially, we thought the Porta-Potty issues were from using a sugar free, electroltye drink product that contains sorbitol as a chemical sweetener.  If someone goes to the hospital with a major case of the runs, they generally ask if they chew a lot of gum or drink diet drinks…both contain sorbitol, and sorbitol causes diarrhea (when you have too much of it).  We got rid of that product yet still had issues.

Our next thought was Sodium.  Taking in too much sodium relative to the amount of water you ingest can cause diarrhea as well.  In that case, your body realizes that there’s an over concentration of sodium, and since there’s no fluid to dilute some of the problem, the body does the next best thing and sends it out the back side (if someone would care to correct me on that, or elaborate, please do so!).  This is still something we will have to work on, but hopefully our gastric distress will be a lot less after we’ve ditched the Ensure Plus as a calorie source.  The more we’ve talked about it with Chuckie and other outside sources, the more we realize taking ensure DURING a race is not good.  Complex proteins – those with fat and carohydrates still attached, are big molecules and hard to digest at very best of times. To do so while going full steam ahead in a race is a bit much to ask.  The corn syrup is also a bit scary, not to mention that for the most part you find Ensure Plus next to the Depends Undergarments in the pharmacy isle of your local supermarket- hardly high performance!!

Solution to the problems?  Joining forces with the biggest name in endurance nutrition - 1st Endurance!! I’m not a religious man, but, I can’t help but think there’s some higher power at work steering us in the right direction and putting us in touch with the right companies/people.  1st Endurance offers the whole shebang.  From electrolyte drinks, recovery drinks, energy shots (similar to a gel, but without the ‘gel’), energy bars, vitamins and more.  On top of that they know their stuff works with the products we as athletes find at aid stations in Ironman events.  Their website is jam packed with nutrition and diet information and the forum is highly active with athletes discussing their problems and solutions.  Check it out.

We look forward to putting their products into action this winter.  I already know that it will make a big difference.  We want to take the guess work out of race nutrition and this is the way to do it.  Better nutrition, in training and out, will let us recover faster, thus trainer harder and on it goes in a positive spiral…

If we can nail things on race day, and have our nutrition help rather than hinder us, we will be golden!!  We will  be sure to keep posting about how we use the products in training. Be sure to check out the Team First Endurance Website.

Back in California!!

Chillin with 'El Gato' in the camper

Chasing the sun and warmth around is awesome!  There was frost on the camper windshield this morning, though.  I guess we’ll go to Mexico next year, we can’t be having frost on the camper!!!

After the leisurely drive from Arizona consisting of a couple nights in Joshua Tree National Park and some nice hiking, we pulled in to our familiar parking spot in the Santa Ynez/Solvang valley.  It’s pretty awesome to be back here.  In the two days I’ve been back (Heather is in Victoria now getting some physio/massage work done on her injury) I’ve put in two longish easy bike rides.  It’s so nice to know the roads and be familiar with the terrain.

I’m feeling really good and the motivation for 2010 is extremely high.  There’s a delicate balance between recovering properly from a long season and training full bore again.  If you hit it too early you’ll fizzle by March, but you can’t slack off either.  With 2.9 Ironmans in the legs over the last 5 months, and the last 0.9 ending only a 10 days ago there’s still some recovery to be had.  But, so long as the mind wants to train and the body feels ready to train…it’s time for some unstructured workouts.  We’re both excited to hit January/February without losing much fitness from the past 10 months of training, something we were sorely lacking last year.  Looking forward to charting those January 1st MAF test numbers!!

These guys may out drink me...but I think I could take 'em

Maybe we’ll make the December 31st training session a beer mile.  Something I’ve never done and a great way to ring in the New Year (supposedly).  You’re going down CV!!!  Anyone else in the area can come try and avoid being arrested with us.  Nutrition is KEY for the beer mile.  Gotta take in a light beer, none of this dark ale crap.  And the container is apparently a huge factor as well.  Seems like a bottle is a good choice.  After all, you’ve got to be able to down 4 of them at 15 seconds each, one each lap, to have a chance at breaking 6 minutes (for me anyway).  Come to think of it I don’t know if I can finish – 4 beers in one night would be close to a record alone.  I think 7 minutes is a respectable time – though it’s most certainly been done in under 5:30.  In fact, I just looked (beermile.com), 5:09 by Jim Finlayson.  That’s ridiculous.

After some relaxed training in January and the gong show of a beer-mile on New Years our focus for 2010 is starting to take shape:

Focus #1 is swimming.  It really is time to put more focus on this sport.  Much of 2009 was spent just getting used to being able to train 25+ hours per week without killing ourselves physically and mentally.  Now that we can do that no problem, throwing some extra swimming in will be that much easier.

Focus #2 is dialing in the race day nutrition.  Again, we’ve hung on to a weak plan for long enough.  It’s worked some of the time, but, we have to get rid of that ’some of the time’ question and make it an ‘all the time without question’ type of thing.  Move number one is to scrap the Ensure Plus on the bike – we’re working on an alternative that we’re both REALLY excited about – more on that soon hopefully.

Focus #3 is doing whatever it takes to be the best we can be.  Almost a year of full time training and racing has taught us so much about what works and doesn’t work for us.  It’s also taught Chuckie how we tick, making the training he prescribes that much more beneficial.

Well, I’ve about exhausted my welcome at the local wireless cafe.  That darn internet thing, it’s never easy to find in a camper.  We can’t exactly park inconspicuously in front of the local library.  Nor can we subscribe to a monthly DSL or cable service.  We could shell out $60 per month and a 2 year contract to get one of those “FREE” wireless sticks.  Free my ass.  That’s $1400 going in to your (Virgin, Sprint, AT&T) pocket and out of mine for a limit of 4gb per month.  What can one do with 4gb of data transfer in this day and age?  Not a whole lot if you happen to be me.

All the best to an enjoyable December.  More soon about that nutrition thing.  We just got the good word from a new sponsor as I write!!

NBA Time

Our first order of duty for the offseason is to take in an NBA game!!  Ohhhhh yeah!  Heather and I have never been to a major league type sporting event.  Well – Heather actually took in some NHL games as a kid, and I think I may have seen a Toronto Maple leafs game as a youngster.  My dad tells me the story of asking Wayne Gretzky (played for Edmonton Oilers) to sign a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey.  Bad form apparently.  Something along those lines, anyway.

But yeah, this is the first time ever that we’ve found ourselves in a major city center with no jobs to get back to and no training to focus on.  It’ll be a great night out with our good friend and homestay in Phoenix.  The Suns Vs. the Memphis Grizzlies.  I’m sure they don’t have any Grizzlies in Memphis – maybe grizzled old men, but certainly no bears with 4 inch claws.  I’m assuming the team name was kept when Vancouver, BC sold their franchise.

We’re not big fans of any of the major sports, but I can guarantee we know how to appreciate the skill and agility these guys have.

Well, we should go, I’m in the middle of painting Heather’s ass cheeks with “GO (insert crack) NASH”.  We’ll be the loud ones in section 200.

You can lose the goal, but don’t lose the lesson

Well, that was a frustrating last half of the season.  There were some very uplifting moments over the last 9 months, but it is hard to end my last two races way off what I know and feel I’m capable of.  Physically, I was totally ready to go out there and lay down my best race to date, but absolutely failed to deliver.  This time round was pretty much exactly the same melt down as Ironman Canada – a slow energy loss at mile 13 once the gut shuts down, soon followed by total detonation and no way to get fuel to the muscles.  There is definitely something that I am doing wrong, or completely missing altogether.  I hate to play the blame game on nutrition ’cause it’s always the first thing any athlete points at when their day goes wrong.  Often times it’s not nutrition at all, it’s bike pacing or simply poor training.

Training: I know that’s not it.  Test numbers on both the bike and run have seen unbelievable improvement this year.  Running especially, almost unimaginable to be honest.  Consistent gains month after month the whole year.  If there is one major disappointment this year it’s not letting those number come out on race day.

Pacing: Again, I know that’s not it.  I put that issue to bed yesterday.  I rode well below any semblance of a red-line with the intent of giving myself a really good shot at running sub 3 hours, my main goal for this race.  In fact there were points I was so far below red line I closed my mouth for a few minutes to breath through my nose, simply to see if I could.  Perhaps not the smartest thing to do in a race, but clearly a sign of keeping things under control.  Yes, I was well behind any semblance of a race for a top 10 and that did bother me on some levels, however, keeping site of running well and finishing strong was more important to me personally.

That leaves nutrition, mental strength, and will to suffer.  I can guarantee I’ve got the last two covered, but, nutrition is one thing I’ve kept the same (relatively similar anyway) over the last 2 years.  Some great moments in more than a couple Ironmans have left me hanging on to that plan, now though, I’ve got to re-evaluate and put something better together for next year.  My main concern is eating Ensure+ over the first couple hours of the bike.  It works well for me in training at low intensities, but never do I train at the same levels or distances back-to-back like an Ironman day.  My thought is that I’m unable to digest it properly, leaving it curdling in my stomach for 5 hrs till my gut says “f-you man, I’m cutting you off.”  Really, that and dehydration are my only potential culprits (obviously not the only potential culprits when it comes to fully excelling as a professional triathlete – putting the work in is the only possibility to get that outcome – but finishing a race without keeling over from intestinal pains, most likely something going in the hatch). I had a good talk with Coach CV this morning and we’ll definitely look at putting some time into sorting out these issues.  I’m happy to have him on my side to keep self doubt at bay, in many ways he believes in me more than I believe in myself.  What more could you ask from a coach, really?

Number one priority for the Wurtele crew now is to recover well and maintain a decent level of fitness over the winter.  Heather needs to get her injury sorted out, so, will more than likely make her way back to Victoria where she knows some great massage and physio guru’s.  I will most likely hang out with Manah (our cat) in our RV down in Lompoc, California until she returns.

All in all our first full season as true professional athletes has been a good one.  Some great lessons and good results.  Heather hit the podium at every race she cared about with the exception of Hawaii and Wildflower – where 5th place is still a freaking good result.  I managed to grab a 6th place at Ironman Coeur d’Alene along with some PB’s in the early season races, ending the year with moments of brilliance but a definite gloom on the overall finishes.

We look forward to spending the entire winter building on what we’ve built up this past year so that we can hit those early season races with gumption.  Last winter was extremely rough in that department.  Leaving jobs in February, living in an RV with feet of snow to deal with through January, and a relative unknown wearing on the nerves.  This time round we know where we’re at, what we want, and how to go about doing it.

All that’s left to be done is to go out and do it.

Thank you great sponsors and family members for believing in us.  We truly could not be pursuing this passion and dream were it not for you.

Darn

Too ironic (I’m not depressed, really) I got a good pre-race mention on Ironman.com and I am not even competing.

Have a great race… everyone else!

At least I got to make a dorky spectator sign for Trevor today while he was in the pro meeting.

Oh, and since I apparently chose an unflattering picture of Trevor on the trainer the other day – read: I look too skinny (if only I suffered the same terrible fate) this is what Trevor’s legs really look like. I had to sneak up on him while he was on the computer. He isn’t even flexing.

Prepare to get run down boys!

New photo galleries on fyzz.ca

For those of you that go straight to our blog, you should check out our personal website www.fyzz.ca for two new photo albums – one from Kona, and one of our adventures on the road down to Ironman Arizona. The scenery along the way was pretty amazing.

Trevor is doing typical race week things (in atypically primo surroundings): sitting on his ass, eating, relaxing, training a bit, riding race wheels on the trainer to avoid flats, being paranoid about germs and human contact…

I, on the other hand, have been going on fun solo adventures. Scrambling to the top of the tallest peaks (withing hiking distance) in the nearby Tonto National Forest, mountain biking, lake swimming, cactus dodging….

It has been a nice change from the usual training regime and I actually put in a 23 hr week of alternative exercise last week. Pleasant surprise!

Trevor rocked his last few hard, pre-race, efforts – some max effort 400’s in the pool, hard 800’s on the track and harder than race-pace bike sessions. All systems are go for the race, uh, but that’s jinxing so never-mind… crap where’s my rabbit’s foot…

Cactus and calling it quits

Today I decided that I am not going to compete in Ironman Arizona – that it is time to officially call it a season. I’ve been trying to train hard when my leg isn’t healed and I need to smarten up before I cause a long term problem.

So, instead of heading out for a ride with Trevor, I went for a long hike to get my head screwed on straight – to shift my focus to recovering properly and to attaining my long-term goals… and, eventually, to stop thinking for awhile and just enjoy getting lost in the outdoors with no thoughts on run form or holding splits, or triathlon at all. I don’t have Trevor’s arm-extended, self-portrait-while-riding skills, but I make do playing around with the delayed timer…

I had Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” stuck in my head, which was somewhat annoying, but fitting (got to know when to fold ‘em), and much much much much better than that evil pop-crap, mind-worm “Paparatzi” that I seem to hear every time I go to the grocery store.  The landscape here is amazing and I took far too many pictures of cacti (why don’t we say walri?) because there were so many types to choose from. The other day when Trevor and I were out for a run he brushed up against a cactus and got a racquetball sized chunk stuck in his arm! I seem to have seen the whole episode in slow motion,  thinking “he’s going to move over right?” Alas he did not.  Note to self: you can’t just casually run into plants in Arizona!! Fortunately there was a small spine- free nubbin that he was able to grab to pull the thing out of his arm, but there were at least 20 spines stuck in his skin and it looked agonizing! We didn’t have the camera to record the man-screams during the extraction process. Twas a shame. He wasn’t willing to replicate the adventure for posterity’s sake either!

We’ve since been told that they are called jumping chollas, and I have found out first hand that it is not wise to attempt to kick them off the road…

beware of jumping chollas

My hike took me into the Tonto National Forest, where amazing mountain biking trails seemed to go forever. My 2L camel back did not last the 4.5 hrs I was out and I was glad I had an orange to suck on for the last 1/2 hr. I am constantly amazing how quickly you dry out here. I wake up every morning with cracked lips, desperate for a glass of water. Trev’s butt was caked in salt after our track workout yesterday so it will be critical for him to hydrate like crazing during the race.  Now that I have finally decided to drop the race, I am really looking forward to being out there to see him set a new PB and kick some butt in the process! My parents are coming down to watch, and Chuckie V is heading over as well so it will be a fun day.

Arizona!! Finally!!

Apparently Utah does not rank swimming pools high on their list of public amenities.   Chuckie had a pool in Park City, there must be one in Salt Lake City, Provo has a very warm one with no lane ropes….but other than that you’re pretty much out of luck south-east of Provo.  Heather and I were sure Moab would have a pool, we even google-earthed the building before making the decision to drive there.  Turns out they dug it up last summer.  That put an end to our desire to hang out in Moab for a week.  It’s generally a good idea to swim when you’re 3 weeks out from an Ironman!

Before leaving Moab we certainly managed some awesome rides and awe inspiring runs.  There’s actually a surprising amount of road to cover with all the national parks around.  We didn’t see nearly all of it, but what we did was super cool.  Completely different landscape than what we’re used to seeing in Canada.

We also got to meet up with my sister and her boyfriend who came down to the area to take advantage of the amazing sandstone cliffs and spires.  They convinced us to put in a little offroad time in the RV in order to get to their ‘base camp’ at Indian Creek – Super Bowl rock.

Now we’ve made our way to Flagstaff in search of water.  Found some semblance of a pool last night at their brand new Aquatic Center.  I’m not sure who designs those things or why they wouldn’t have just made their 20 yard pool a normal 25 yard pool.  Perhaps even putting in a deep end would have been a thought?  Anyway, Flagstaff has a university and that’s where we’re going today.  I believe it’s an Olympic sized pool, and we’re at 7000ft…I’m sure we’ll be sucking wind.

On our way south

Escaping the cold is taking a fair bit longer than expected.  We’re now in Provo, Utah toughing out freezing temperatures and looming snow storms.  Normally we’d just keep driving on south, but, we’ve had to kill a couple days while we sort out a missing bike part.  Thankfully that’ll be sorted out on Saturday so we can continue on to a warmer climate.

The tough part about traveling and trying to train for an Ironman is finding good roads, trails, and pools at the right time.  Our original plan of attack was to drive long one day, then train hard for two.  Of course the plan never works out, which is why our general rule of thumb is never plan ahead.

Heather is still trying to kick her cold, it’s been hanging around in the form of a deep chest cough.  Thankfully no more flue like symptoms, though.  I had a two day sick spell while in Coeur d’Alene but other than that I’ve been totally clear.

Two days ago on our ‘drive’ day, we ran for 50 minutes in a truck stop, not ideal, but it shook out some stiffness for sure.  It was a nice rest stop, I will give it that much.  The past couple days in Provo have been decent as far as training goes.  We officially deemed it too cold to ride yesterday so opted for the computrainer.  My longest and coldest ever, but somehow the time went by without much mental anguish.

Today, at the 85 degree Provo Community Pool, which shares a parking lot with the high school, a local PoPo (thug talk for Police) came on deck and pulled us out of the water to ask us if that was our RV parked outside.  They had reports of a suspicious looking RV with the blinds pulled so had to investigate.  Given that we were only about 5 minutes into our workout they must really have very little to do in this town.  Good thing we’re white!!  It’s not like we’re driving a panel van with rusted doors and shag carpet or anything.  Man, talk about paranoid.

This afternoon (Friday as I write) I’m making it my mission to run up to the giant “Y” on the mountain off in the distance.  The local Mormon University (BYU) powderpuff football team must have put it up there at some point.  My mission is to touch it and spread my atheistic germs on it.  I’m guessing two hours from our ’suspicious RV’ camp spot, unless I get struck down by God.  In which case it would take significantly longer.

From sweat to shivers

After 5 weeks in Hawaii, coming back to the cold air and even colder rain of Canada has been quite a shock.  I like running in cool weather, though, because no matter how cold it is you can always maintain an optimal body temperature if you dress correctly.  Running in Hawaii is totally the opposite, no matter how little you wear (and believe me, Ironman triathletes in Hawaii like to test the limits of minimum clothing requirements), you’re still going to sweat out of every pore imaginable.  Then there’s the need for water; liters of it over a 2hr run.  The other day, in Canada on a 2hr run, all I needed was one gel flask with water and a couple of Chocolate Agave gels.  I didn’t even finish the water.  Awesome.  A lot of that had to do with my adaptation to Hawaii’s heat.  By the 3rd week on the big island we found we didn’t need to drink as much as we did when we first arrived.  The human body is pretty wicked (most of the time), I’m just hoping we can get down south soon enough to keep some nice heat acclimation going.  Though, 3 and 4 hour trainer rides have a way of working up a sweat and keeping that mechanism in place.

Heather’s injury is looking better and better.  She can swim faster than ever, has managed a very short trainer session or two, lots of walking and hiking, and two very good physio appointments.  Another few days of just going through some easy motions and she’ll see if starting to train again next week is feasible.  We’re both registered for Ironman Arizona, and regardless of how she’s feeling she will be on the start line (unless that puts her at risk for re-injuring the thing).  Perhaps it will just be a hard swim and a short easy bike ride before getting into spectator mode, but the way recovery is going I think she’ll be there to smash a few legs.  4.5 weeks from now till race day is a long time, and she won’t have lost much fitness since Hawaii.  Given how strong she was before October 10th, I have no doubt she can bring it back to a level that would see her challenge for the win.

It took me a good 4 weeks to feel like myself again after Ironman Canada.  1 week in Canada doing almost nothing but light swimming.  Then 1 week in Hawaii with a lot of sleeping.  A further 2 weeks of consistent, but forced and labored training.  Then all of a sudden something clicked and I was hammering out some great training sessions and ready to go again for the next.  That left 2 really good weeks of training on the big Island.  No seriously epic days in the 7-8 hour range, but nice hard 3-5 hour days that make you stronger without throwing you close to the danger zone.

It may not look steep, but I assure you it is.

One arm picture taking while climbing 17% aint easy.

I never did tell my story about the climb up Kaloko – actually, wasn’t really a story anyway.  Did it, and didn’t die coming down, Avg RPM was probably close to 50 for the 58 minutes it took me to get up.  Normally I’m not such a sissy about descending big hills but that one gets me.  It’s non-stop steep, the hands are sweaty and feel like they’re going to slide off the end of the bull horns, there’s moss on the off-camber road, I’m on a  tri bike and the rear brake under the BB doesn’t have the greatest stopping power in the world, foggy, cool…just plain weird I guess.

So now we’re off for our second adventure south en-route to Ironman Arizona.  We’re hoping to find some good training around Moab, Utah.  I’ve only ever seen pictures of that place so it will be super cool to check it out in person.  There’s got to be some great trail running, I’m sure.  My sister and her man, the hard-core mountaineers and rock climbers, will be in the area for a couple weeks as well.  If you like the mountains you’d probably enjoy their latest blog entry.  I’m hopeful we can meet up and share a camp fire or two.  If all goes well we should pull in to Arizona two weeks before race day with some great training under the belt.

My focus for that race – run sub 3 hours.  I know it’s doable with the a 3:05 that I ran there last year, and the 3:05 I ran again at Ironman Coeur d’Alene with far less fitness than I have now.  More than anything else, I want that barrier to fall.  If I can precede that with a fast swim and a fast bike…perfect.