King of the Mountain (KOM)

As mentioned in some earlier posts, I have recently started uploading my ride and run workouts to Strava.

Strava is not only a training diary, it uses the GPS coordinates to compare your efforts against everybody else who has uploaded to Strava. People define segments and Strava will automatically show any other members who had completed that segment and list the times in ascending order. The most common segments tend to be climbs and if you have the fastest time for a particular climb you are awarded the KOM - King of the Mountain.

Popular routes will have been completed by thousands of people and the KOMs for these routes will be held by elite athletes. The person with the KOM for Oliver's Hill averaged 35kph (I'm actually skeptical that this individual may have simply worn his GPS watch while slowly driving a car up the hill). More obscure routes will see much lower participant numbers and often provide a realistic chance to score a KOM.

My lunchtime run from work travels one of these more obscure segments. It has only been completed by 20 people and the fastest time averages 3m30s pace for 600m. I believe I'm a chance to take this KOM, but I'll need to wait a month or so before I'm ready to do any speed work. Hopefully nobody else will improve that split in the meantime.

Yesterday I entered Elaine and myself into the Kinglake Ride. Last year I did the 70km option in the pouring rain and hail. Unfortunately there weren't any other fast riders on the 70km option (they were all doing the longer 115km option), so I spent the entire ride alone with the lead car driving 50 to 100m ahead.

Remembering how hard I rode last year's event, I decided I'd upload the ride details into Strava to see how I went. I didn't do that well on any of the individual segments, but had the fastest time for the overall 70km. So I am now the proud owner of the Kinglake 70km King of the Mountain. It will be interesting to see if anyone beats me on this year's ride.

Here is a link to my Kinglake report and below is the Strava ride details:

Back is Almost Healed

I saw the Physio on Thursday morning, my 7th visit since hurting my back, and the injury has improved to the stage where I can stop my weekly visit. Just as well, considering that I've already used up my Health Insurance's quota of Physiotherapy. The back is not 100% yet, but getting close. As long as I keep up the exercises it should completely heal in the next month.

Wednesday night I saw the Chiropractor, luckily it comes out of a separate Health Insurance quota. My knee is in far better shape than last season, but I'm still getting irritation on top of the kneecap (Basketball injury). I don't think it is a big problem, but the Chiropractor has written out an X-ray referral just to make sure. This will be my 3rd X-Ray in the last 8 months (plus an Ultrasound and MRI).

So far this month I have missed one bike ride due to bad weather, one swim session due to being too tired (and lazy) and 7 run sessions due to injury. I'm looking forward to more run mileage in July.

Tony Benson Information Night

Tony Benson competed in the 1972 Olympics in the 5000m and he was the Coach for several other Olympics. In general he is the number one man (person) when it comes to a Running Coach.

On Wednesday night he headlined an information session about running. Below is a quick list of running tips (as many as I can remember)

• Run Tall
• Hold up torso with core muscles
• Hold Bum in (don't slump)
• Feet land under body (will happen if running tall)
• arms bent at 85%
• if you lower you hands, you will stop running tall
• lower hands also cause the torso to swivel
• relaxed shoulders and hands
• effort in back swing of arm helps propel forward
• footsteps slightly overlap (run on a line)
• cannot pronate if you land under your body
• cannot heal strike if you land under your body
• minimalist shoes promote good running style
• low heel (ramp) makes it harder to heel strike

The main purpose of putting this list up is so I can easily refer back to it when needed.

Other points:

• Most people run properly when running on the spot
• Very difficult to heel strike running on the spot
• Forward swinging hand should be level in height with backward swinging elbow
• Back foot swing should automatically go higher when you get the running posture correct.
• A high rear foot means a quicker and more efficient leg swing.

More Progress

Injuries are slowly improving. Had a good ride on Saturday, very short 4km run on Sunday and a longer 7.3km run on Tuesday.

I'm still swimming twice a week. My form is still lagging, probably because I am cruising most of the sessions. However I still expect to see an improvement over the next month or so.

Two Strava workouts have been embedded below. Not so much because they are of any particular interest, but I was curious to see how the privacy setting works. It should block out any start or stop pionts within a 1km radius of where I live or work.

Below are the details of Saturday morning's ride (pretty fast from Beaumaris to Mordialloc):

And Tuesday's lunchtime run:

Review of the Rocket Science Goggles

Rocket Science (Vostok)

Old Speedo goggles

Over the years I have collected a fair number of goggles. On the left is a picture of the new Rocket Science goggles. They are the Vostok model, I have no idea what Vostok means or stands for. I am currently using the Rocket Science goggles for my pool swimming, replacing the old Speedo goggles shown on the right.

In the pool I like to have my goggles fitting quite loose. A tight fit will often result in what Elaine calls the possum look - dark circles around the eyes (goggle imprints).  Having a loose fit increases the chances of them leaking and the older the goggle the more likely they are to leak as the rubber seal becomes less supple.

You'll notice the speedo goggles have much bigger rubber seals. I've found this style more suitable to wearing the goggles loose. However I've been wearing the Rocket Science goggles loose and so far not even a hint of leakage. It is unfair to compare them to the much older Speedo goggles, but I cannot remember the Speedo goggles being as comfortable and leak free even when they were brand new.

Finis Thunder

Engine

Last season I used Finis Thunder goggles (shown on the left) for my open water swims and races. I wear my goggles a little tighter when swimming in open water. You don't want to be stopping to adjust leaky goggles in a race and the open water swims are often a shorter duration than pool swims, so less risk of possum eyes. The Finis goggles are designed for racing and have less rubber in their seals and fit a little smaller - less chance of being knocked off my other swimmers. I bought the Finis goggles to replace my Engine goggles (shown above right) for open water swims. The Engine goggles are a similar racing style, but the big advantage of the Finis ones was that they are clear all over allowing better vision. There are no lane lines in open water, so sighting becomes very important. With the entire goggle being clear I found my vision while swimming was much improved.

Comparison of Finis & Rocket Science

On the right is a comparison photo that shows the Rocket Science goggles I'm using in the pool are almost exactly the same style as the Finis goggles I use for racing and open water swims. While I love the Finis goggles in the open water, I find they don't work as well in the pool - not as good with a loose fit. Whereas the Rocket Science goggles have been the best I've ever used in the pool.

I received this pair of Rocket Science goggles for free as part of my XOSIZE, Rocket Science Ambassador Program, but I'll definitely be buying more pairs (with my own money). They are the most comfortable and leak free goggles I have ever used. They come in the smaller racing style shape I prefer, but are also excellent in the pool. Due to it being Winter, I haven't tested them in the open water yet. I suspect the biggest issue might be visibility, but hopefully there will be different versions available to address this.

Hilly Ride and Minor Setback

Monday morning's hilly ride in Dandenongs was great, very cold but a lot of fun.

With the temperature hovering around 5 degrees Celsius, we headed down Burwood Hwy to Belgrave and then followed the Puffing Billy Fun Run route up to Emerald. Elaine has raced Puffing Billy (fun run where you race the train) three times, but each time I have caught the train to Emerald. She always mentioned that it is quite hilly, but I never really appreciated this until riding up these hills on my bike.

From Emerald we followed a downhill winding road to Monbulk. It was an extremely foggy morning. Being high up in the Dandenongs we were often above the low lying cloud cover, but would ride back through the thick fog on the descents. The road between Monbulk and Olinda is usually referred to in cycling circles as (cue dramatic music) 'The Wall'. Up til this point we have ridden up several category 3 and 4 climbs, but 'The Wall' is a category 2 climb - steeper and longer.

Through the smaller category 3 and 4 climbs everything felt good. Well actually my face and fingers were often numb due to the cold (my Garmin bike computer recorded the temperature for most of the ride as 1 degree), but my knee and back injuries were giving no signs of problems. However (you knew that was coming), during the steep sections of 'The Wall' I was unable to maintain a fast cadence. This can result in extra pressure through the knees as more force is being applied to each pedal stroke. When the hill gets very steep, you often rock and twist your whole body trying to extract extra force to help get the pedal turned over. Not surprisingly this extra effort irritated both my knee and back injuries.

The sore back slowly improved throughout the day and was barely noticeable when we swam Tuesday morning - an even colder morning (4 degrees) on which we swam in an outdoor pool. My knee did not get as sore as my back, but is taking longer to feel better. I didn't run on Tuesday as planned and will see how it is feeling before deciding whether to run or not on Thursday.

I think the hilly ride itself was OK, my only problem was climbing the steep sections of 'The Wall' when I was unable to maintain a good pedalling cadence. So assuming the back and knee recover well, I'll keep doing hill work, but just avoid the overly steep climbs like Arthurs Seat and 'The Wall'.

I've started uploading my training data to a training website called Strava. Below is a quick snapshot of my ride:

Back Training

Friday morning's swim went well, and I decided to do the club's velodrome session on Saturday morning with Elaine, rather than the Cycling Obsession group ride. You can stop any time on the velodrome, so if my knee or back starting playing up I could immediately finish the session without the worry still of having to ride home. My bike speed was relatively good. I only did 3 of the 4 sets on offer, but I felt no discomfort from my knee or back. The main reason I stopped was due to saddle sores (I was riding my Triathlon bike) and I was also starting to get fairly fatigued.

Today is a rest day with no training.  Despite my contrary views in my previous post, I plan to do the hilly Dandenongs ride tomorrow morning (Queen's birthday public holiday). This morning I did another 3 sets of 20 single leg squats on each leg. There was very minimal signs of discomfort and I can feel my balance during the squats getting better, which means the stabilising muscles are getting stronger - all good signs.

On Thursday and Friday I did feel soreness in my knee (I skipped doing the squats on Fri & Sat morning), but I now think this is all due to the fall I suffered during the infamous basketball game. I landed heavily on my knee and I believe the trauma suffered to the knee cap has resulted in small lesions (or other medical sounding words) in the patella. When the patella tendon rubs against these lesions (ie. when running), it causes irritation to the patella tendon resulting in the minor pain I experience.  The new injury is often termed 'Runner's Knee', whereas my previous injury was termed 'Jumper's Knee'. I believe my previous Jumper's Knee injury is 99% (or even 100%) healed. This is not a professional opinion, rather simply a result a lots of amateur Googling.

While my back improved in the latter part of last week, it has flared up a bit today. I don't believe it is from yesterday's ride (I did get a very sore neck from the ride), instead I think biggest factor in my sore back is when I sleep in like I did this morning. The same thing happened last week when I didn't train over the weekend, so I slept in both mornings (last Saturday was bad, last Sunday was worse). Tomorrow morning I'll be up early to get to the ride start by 7am, so hopefully my back will be improved.

I been trialling some of the new Rocket Science products I received as part of the Ambassador Program and so far have been extremely happy with them. Hopefully I'll get time in the near future to write some reviews of each product.

A Week Off

Mainly due to my sore back, and partly due to my knee, I haven't done any training since swimming last Friday morning.  My back got progressively worse until Sunday and then slowly improved throughout the week.  Last night the Physio used a machine to put an electric current through my back.  He usually places a hot pack on my back and leaves me for 10 minutes before coming back to work on the injured area.  This time I had the hot pack and electric currents pulsing through my back each second.  It felt strange at first, but then I got so used to it that I dozed off.

I plan to swim tomorrow morning and am hoping to ride again on Saturday morning.  I'm really missing the riding.  Last season I could not do any intensity or hill work because of my knee, so I am hanging out for a good hill climb.  The club is doing what looks to be a great ride in the Dandenongs (very hilly) this Monday (Queen's Birthday), but I think this may be too soon for my knee in its current condition (very disappointing).

Yesterday and this morning I did 3 sets of 20 single legs squats on each leg (total of 120 per day).  This is the first time I have been able to do this since I injured the knee early October last year (before Ironman I could not do any squats without feeling pain).  During the left leg squats I definitely had an awareness of the knee injury (it didn't feel as good as the right knee), but there was no pain which is fantastic.  Back in December when I saw the Sports Doctor (I've forgotten his name, but he is the Sports Doctor for the Melbourne AFL Football Club), he said once I could do 3 sets of 20 single leg squats on my injured knee without pain - I could resume full training (ie. ride hills).  But I've got plenty of time at this point in the season, so I want to take a cautious approach to avoid any risk of re-injury.  I believe it has been the week off training that has helped my knee finally reach this stage.

Even though my back has been problematic for the last 3 weeks I have never been concerned that it will plague me long term like my knee injury has - it is more of a nuisance.  Whereas the knee injury completely ruined last season's training and initially looked like it might ruin a fair portion of this season as well.  So I am extremely happy with the current positive signs demonstrated by the squats.  I will try to continue doing the exercises every day and re-introduce running very carefully and hopefully I will be 100% recovered within a month.  I think my knee is about 90% at the moment and the back is probably 60%.

Reflections of Ironman

Even though I am not happy with my Ironman finish time, I am very happy I did the race.  When it was announced, I knew the hype it would generate amongst the Triathlon Community was going to be huge (and it was).  It was great to feel like I was involved in this hype and I'm sure I would have regretted it if I wasn't entered.

I thought the course was very good and the organisation excellent, especially seeing as it was first time the race had been held here, and possibly the first time ever that an Ironman had been run in a capital city (logistical nightmare).

A lot of people get hooked after their first Ironman.  It is not unusual for triathletes to do an Ironman every year, in fact it is common to see people do 2 or more a year.  Some look for improvement at each race, others seem to enjoy just getting through the day without much concern about their time - I'm sure you would find similar attitudes in any Marathon field. Personally I do not have any great urge to subject myself to an Ironman again. I'm not saying I won't do another one, I just lack the burning desire.  Likewise I don't feel like running a Marathon either.

If I was to do another Ironman, I doubt I'd do Melbourne again.  This is not a reflection upon the Melbourne course, but if I am to subject myself to that much misery again I'd like some different scenery.  While there was definitely lots of benefits to racing on such familiar ground, there were no new sights to take my mind off the pain.  At the moment I think my choice of location would be the Challenge Roth race in Germany.

Below is a more statistical analysis of my Ironman Melbourne Race.

Bike statistics for each 20km split:
    0-20km  - 34.0 kph  133 bpm  84 rpm  180 watts
   20-40km  - 31.7 kph  134 bpm  85 rpm  180 watts
   40-60km  - 37.1 kph  135 bpm  87 rpm  189 watts
   60-80km  - 37.1 kph  136 bpm  87 rpm  183 watts
   80-100km - 32.1 kph  138 bpm  88 rpm  179 watts
  100-120km - 30.5 kph  139 bpm  85 rpm  166 watts
  120-140km - 30.4 kph  135 bpm  82 rpm  163 watts
  140-160km - 34.0 kph  132 bpm  81 rpm  156 watts
  160-180km - 31.5 kph  131 bpm  80 rpm  150 watts

My heart rate and power was kept under control for the whole bike leg, but it is obvious that my second lap was slower and my falling heart rate and power numbers show I really started to lose interest in the last 40km (edit: I subsequently remembered that my knee started to hurt in the last 40km, so I deliberately backed off in the hope it would come good for the run).

Run pace and heart rate for each 5km split:
   0-5km    - 5m11s  144bpm
   5-10km   - 5m39s  143bpm
  10-15km   - 5m39s  145bpm
  15-20km   - 6m06s  137bpm
  20-25km   - 7m03s  129bpm
  25-30km   - 7m15s  128bpm
  30-35km   - 7m01s  128bpm
  35-40km   - 8m12s  120bpm (walked for 1km)
  40-42.2km - 7m22s  121bpm

As you can see from the above splits I felt extremely good for the first 5km (I had a lot of trouble holding back my pace), I slowed down slightly after 15km, slowed down a lot after 20km and then fell into a big hole after the 35km mark.

Luckily my marathon time (off the bike) of 4h45m easily beat the efforts of Katie Holmes 5h30m and Hamish Blake 5h25m in standalone marathons.  Tragically I was slower than Oprah 4h29m and P.Diddy 4h15m - that fact alone may force me into doing another Ironman,

Slow Progress

I did two 7km runs this week, but my back has flared up again and I'm getting pain in my left knee again.

Early in the week it seemed my back was improving and I ran 7km on Tuesday without any pain.  After the physio worked on my back Wednesday night it was quite sore and I experienced a small amount of back discomfort during the Thursday run.  On Friday my back was noticeably sore and my left knee was also starting to hurt and my back has continued to get worse during the weekend.

I believed the original injury to the patella tendon was almost completely healed.  The main soreness always came from where the patella tendon attached to the shin and it is now difficult to find a sore spot in this area.  Now the pain seems to be coming closer to the patella itself.  During the infamous basketball game, I fell heavily on my left knee very early in the game.  I'm worried I have re-injured the tendon higher up (I really hope not, because I am getting very sick of having an injured knee).

This weekend I have done no training.  Instead I have enjoyed extra time with my kids, caught up with friends for a lovely lunch at the Mentone Hotel and then celebrated our 2nd Wedding Anniversary at the Boathouse Restaurant in Frankston that overlooks Kananook Creek - a good view of part of the Ironman Melbourne Run Course.  We may decide to have lunch here next year's race, I think spectating is going to be far more fun than competing.

On the positive side I did 2 swims last week.  I cannot remember every doing 2 swims in one week during May.  Previous seasons I would average one swim a fortnight (or worse) until August.  So while my running goals have been put on hold, I can hopefully make good inroads into improving my swimming.