Ironman 70.3 Ballarat - Not a nice day.

Swim 1.9km – 32:49
T1 – 6:01

Ride 90km – 2:46:00

T2 – 2:47

Run 21.1km – 2:15:23

Overall – 5:43:00

A beautiful day for triathlon but not a very beautiful experience for my body.

In the weeks leading up to Ironman 70.3 Ballarat I incurred my first ever, proper battle with injury and not being able to move adequately for training or racing. In hindsight, it was something that was building up for months and I had not heeded the early warning signs while I continued to push myself in training as I prepared for this race.

Over an extended period of, possibly, 6 months or more, I have developed some significant imbalances which resulted in my body making excessive compensations and in the end I am very crooked. My right side has become very tight and is pulling me over to the right. Meanwhile, my left foot, ankle, knee and hip are compensating and suffering while riding and running. I tried adjusting my cleats constantly to no avail and I’m feeling very lost for what might have caused this. Training through these imbalances has exacerbated the problem and I will need to take an unknown amount of time off from training to recover.

**NB: I was about to upload this blog post when I came across new information which gave me an answer which I have detailed further down. But, here is what I thought to be the problem prior to that discovery.

I didn’t think the little niggles were anything to worry about a few months ago. I just figured I would be fine as I got fitter and stronger. However, my recent approach to becoming stronger in the disciplines of swimming, cycling and running has been limited to the following:-

Ø  Swimming – often using paddles, pull buoy and ankle band.

Ø  Cycling – extensive use of a very large gear and riding inclines in my aero position on a weekly basis.

Ø  Running – using slight inclines and performing some drills.

Ø  As well as occasional, very basic core workouts 1 – 2 times per week and regular basic stretching.

There were no other complementary maintenance, functional movement or strength based exercises aimed at balancing my body or for injury prevention because I thought the above mentioned practices were more than sufficient. Each of those practices are very important to any well rounded training program. However, they may not allow for appropriate development and maintenance of the entire body, as well as the smaller, individual areas that are key to achieving overall structural integrity, on their own.

This problem has put a major dent in my 2016/17 season as I couldn’t perform properly in Ballarat, which was a huge target race for me, and I have had to withdraw from a half ironman distance event, in Nagambie, which was scheduled for January 29. The short term future will now be focused on resetting and re-balancing my body prior to returning to proper training. I hope to be ready to race again by March 12 when there will be a new half ironman distance event, in Bendigo, but I won’t be entering any race until I am certain that I can be ready to perform at a high level.

**NB: As I post this, it is clear that I won’t be ready to compete in March so I currently have no idea when I will race again.

The Race

Swim

Conditions were very good at the swim start on the banks of Lake Wendouree. The air was quite cool and the cloud was beginning to clear away with the forecast suggesting plenty of sunshine and the temperature reaching approximately 23 degrees. The water temperature was only 16 degrees so a wetsuit was essential to keeping the body adequately warm.

Fortunately, I had recently invested in a new wetsuit to replace the one I had used for the past seven seasons, which had seen better days. I got myself a ‘Mach 4S 0.5’ from Dare2Tri because I had spoken with Bill (co-founder of the company) when I was at Ironman Australia, during May, and he gave me plenty of detail about their wetsuits which impressed me. Since then, I was able to compare that information with the top of the range wetsuits from other brands, including several independent reviews and comparisons I found online. By getting the Mach 4S 0.5, being the top offering from Dare2Tri, instead of one of the top wetsuits from any of the bigger, established brands, I have saved approximately $300-$600 without sacrificing anything in quality of performance or materials.

Although I didn’t get a chance to do a practice swim in the wetsuit before race day, when I tried it on at home it fit me perfectly and the range of movement was amazing. When I got in the lake for a brief warm up swim, before the race start, it felt awesome. It almost felt like I wasn’t wearing sleeves because they are only 0.5mm thick making it so flexible from above the shoulder and the under arm all of the way to the wrist. I, also, found this to reduce muscle fatigue around my shoulders which I have had problems with previously.

The 5mm thick panels around the lower torso, hips and upper leg provide me with terrific buoyancy and a super comfortable position in the water. The knee and lower leg have slightly thinner covering for comfort and ease of removal in transition. The collar doesn’t rub at all due to specific protection from the zip and velcro seal built in which is something I struggled with in my old wetsuit. Finally, removing the wetsuit is super quick and easy because of the flexible sleeves and the design around the lower leg. It just pops straight off over the feet and hands.

This probably sounds like a paid endorsement but it certainly isn’t. I simply feel the need to tell of my great satisfaction for this wetsuit so that it might assist others in choosing a wetsuit in the future, all the while saving some money.

One thing that was clearly evident when I met Bill at Ironman Australia was that he is extremely passionate about what he does and producing the best quality equipment at a more affordable price. That passion is revealed further in the outstanding quality and performance of their wetsuits and I highly recommend them. They do more than wetsuits too including swim skins for non-wetsuit races and tri-suits for racing in.

Now, to tell you about the actual race swim. Although my fitness had seen a decline in the month leading up to the race due to the inability to train properly, I was very happy with my swim. I felt calm all the way through the 1.9km. I felt consistent in my stroke and breathing and I held a predominantly straight line to each of the turn buoys. My time of 32:49 was a couple of minutes outside of my PB but, considering my highly interrupted preparation, I felt this was very good and when I came out of the water I didn’t feel I had exerted myself greatly at all. As I was just aiming to get through the event in the best possible shape, this was the perfect start.

The Ride

The air was still cold when I came into transition but I had prepared for this by leaving an extra cycling jersey, bib shorts and gloves next to my bike. I knew that I wouldn’t be getting as warm as usual on the bike because I wouldn’t be able to push as hard so wearing the extra clothes was the right decision. I took my time getting myself sorted in T1, six minutes in fact, not having added pressure of every second counting for this race.

Ballarat has a two lap, 90km bike course, with the first 5km approximately of each lap being some winding roads around some park lands. On the first lap I took it fairly easy during those first 5km to assess how my body was feeling but once out onto the long out and back section I tried to stay aero and concentrate on keeping my body tracking as symmetrically and as comfortably as possible to preserve as much as I could for the run which I knew would be the biggest issue.

Despite having not ridden for about 3 weeks before the race, as well as not trying to push on the bike very hard at all and taking two toilet breaks during the 90km, I was very satisfied to have rolled through the bike leg in 2 hours 46 minutes. I just tried to remain calm all the way, keep a low heart and look after my body as best I could.

The Run

Another relaxed transition, not quite as relaxed as the first, and I was about to see what my body might be able to do on the run. The answer was not much at all. I felt very crooked so I stopped after less than 1km and found a nice grassy area to stretch and do some self massage using a tennis ball which I carried for this exact reason. I decided then that I would keep doing this until my mate, Dallas, came along. I knew he wasn’t far behind because we are in the same age group and we crossed paths a couple of times on the bike. My plan from then on was to try and stick with him for the duration of the run as motivation to get to the end as soon as possible. I hoped that having a mate to run with would, somewhat, take my mind off my twisted body.

Unfortunately for Dallas, he was not feeling too well and was battling some stomach issues so he couldn’t run anywhere near his best. As it turned out, it was a good thing we were able to stick together, otherwise, we would have both either taken a lot longer to finish or perhaps not have made the finish at all. Prior to the race and during the run I had real concerns about not finishing. After getting through the first lap of three with Dallas we knew we would make it, the question was just how long it would take. Eventually, our approach became jog between each drink station and walk during them, taking our time to consume fluid and nutrition. It was a good method as jogging to the next station became a mini goal with the reward being a walk and my body was definitely thankful each time it was rewarded.

Throughout the run we chatted about various things and even chucked the tennis ball to each other to keep ourselves from getting too wound up in the negatives of the situation. We saw a few people we knew along the way, including our family who came to watch us and some friends who happened to be there too. It’s always great to see those important people during the race no matter how good or bad things are going.

We crossed the finish line together and we were both proud to have reached that finish under such circumstances. It was terribly frustrating having not been able to give our best performance but it was an achievement of a different kind.

Where to from here?

I’ve come away from this event with an altered perspective on training and how to look after my body. Once again, I have found out that I have over-trained in preparation for a race and this realisation has only occurred several weeks out from the event. The obvious sign being my body failing me but, also, I had some of the other usual signs which I have had before, albeit not quite as prominent in this case. Those other usual signs included some lethargy, slight training performance decline, not feeling quite as rested after a decent night sleep, change in body fat composition and irritablility.

As I have mentioned, I need to look after my body much better and maintain structural integrity with activities other than swim, bike and run but there’s more to it. I absolutely must learn how to better gauge my effort in every training session to ensure proper recovery from the higher intensity workouts. This means finding and establishing clear parameters to ensure much lower intensity in sessions, more often, to limit excessive stress which should allow for greater adaptation to the much higher intensity sessions when they are done. Also, I need to understand what level I should be working to in the hard sessions knowing they shouldn’t be done as often as I have been doing them to get performance gains. 

How can I keep track of what stress I am putting on my body, how it is recovering and knowing if I need to back it off? I believe the answer will be heart rate (HR).

Although, there are several ways to monitor stress, gauge training effort and keep track of training adaptation, not all of them are economical. Heart rate monitors (HRM) come in a wide variety of options, most commonly in the form of a watch which will record your HR via the combined use of a chest strap. Also, there are a number of current models which record your HR directly from your wrist with varying degrees of accuracy, based on a few reviews I’ve seen. Basically, a HRM will be easy to source, not particularly expensive and can be used across swim, bike, run and races.

Not only can you record your HR while training but you can record it while you are sleeping which may possibly be the best way to gauge whether or not you need to take extra rest. An elevated HR while sleeping can be the best early warning sign of being over-trained or stressed.

I have used a HRM quite a lot before but never effectively. I, like many inexperienced athletes, used the HRM to see how hard I was pushing myself and how many calories I was burning. The higher my HR stayed the more calories I burned and I had no idea that was a bad thing to always aim for. Never did I use it to help myself not push too hard for recovery purposes or strategically plan when to increase the intensity.

I stopped using any HR detection several years ago because I got sick of trying to reach certain numbers and on the days when I couldn’t reach them I felt very bad about myself. I began to realise that I can’t go hard all of the time even if I am doing a different activity every day. This is the same for the speedometer on my bike. Several years ago I stopped using one because I was constantly looking at it and feeling bad or thinking I wasn’t working hard enough if every training ride wasn’t at least an average of 30km/h. My mental state would also be negatively affected during races for not hitting certain numbers.

More and more I am seeing information that reminds me that I am spending far too much training time in an intensity zone which is far too high such as race intensity or very close to it. Far too often I believe it is what I have to do to be race ready but I get ahead of myself when I’m feeling really good and push my body even further. Then, I get over-trained and my body suffers.

It is essential that I find a way to regularly monitor my exertion. I must study how to properly use HR to manage my training effort, recovery, physiological stress and the breakdown of my training program. I have very high expectations for what I believe I can achieve in triathlon but I haven’t come near to them yet and I am determined to do what is necessary to reach my goals.

80/20 Rule

80% training done at low intensity (conversational pace) and 20% done at or above race intensity – or another ratio consisting of even more low intensity and even less high intensity – is a very common breakdown and one I have read about in various places. However, I have never used this mentality when scheduling or performing training and I’m struggling to provide a good reason why. The fact is I always feel the need to push harder. I have never exercised genuine restraint in my training intensity and, as I look back over my training diary from the past 4 months or so, I would say that I had been working at around a 50/50 breakdown or possibly even 60/40. There was nothing that was done at an exceptionally easy level and, basically, every session had some form of higher intensity.

I think I have justified not doing regular low intensity sessions by only doing one session per day about 95% of the time and alternating swim, bike and run each day. I always felt this approach would allow for adequate recovery as I would be performing a different activity each day. However, I have never properly factored in the physiological stress and accumulated fatigue from each workout. Each day would have a different focus and level of intensity but not to the extent that any one workout could be considered genuine recovery. Also, I usually felt that with the limited amount of time I have available to train, it should be devoted to doing harder workouts.

I must understand

This lack of previous understanding and implementation in appropriate distribution of training intensity is as big a factor in why my body is messed up. It’s that old mentality to keep pushing harder, believing that’s the only thing that will make me better. Along with thinking I am doing more than enough for recovery despite there being signs to suggest otherwise, which has put me in a highly vulnerable physical and mental state. I am a classic triathlete in this way and I have said time and time again that you can’t improve without there being the right amount of recovery.

The ‘more is better’ attitude does not work. Smart is better. Understanding is better. Tracking real physiological data in relation to the distance, speed, sets and reps performed is better. I am excited to learn more about all of this and I’m going to be working very hard on my mental state to help me to be patient as I try to get back to my best physical shape. It’s by far my biggest physical and mental battle to date and it sucks but it might just turn out to be one of my greatest achievements in this sport.

**New Information – Bike Fit

As I was almost ready to upload this post, I came across some information and YouTube videos about bike fit. One particular video which was an interview with Steve Hogg – I hadn’t heard of him before but it turns out he is one of the most highly regarded bike fitting professionals in the world – and one of the things he spoke about was called the ‘right side bias’. I, then, found his website and blog where I read a post about this ‘right side bias’. He explained that no single person will ever sit perfectly square on their saddle but having the correct saddle height is one of the major things to ensure that one side of the body is not significantly favoured more than the other. He then explained how having a saddle which is too high will commonly result in the cyclist rolling their hips to one particular side and forward in order to not over extend that leg but this means the other side and the pelvis makes compensations to protect that favoured side and sacrifices the other.

He says about 90% of people with this issue will favour their right hand side, hence calling it the ‘right side bias.’ One of the early symptoms is pain in the left knee when cycling (or pain in the right knee if you are in the approximate 10% of those who are left side bias). The most eye-opening comment I found was that, on the favoured side, the pelvis will extend or rotate forward as well as roll further to that side on the saddle. The other side will extend or rotate back causing the hip to rotate outward and the hip, knee, ankle and foot to all be unnaturally loaded and strained. When I heard this it was like an epiphany. I had not thought for a second that the cause of my problem could be my actual bike position. I thought I had a great position which was aerodynamic, powerful but not extreme. However, I had been tinkering with my set up all year as I was constantly trying to find greater comfort on my saddle and in my left knee.

One thing I had done in about February or March was raise my saddle. In hindsight, ever since then there has been a very slow progression for my left knee to have some pain and rotate out more. I had tried adjusting my cleats constantly looking for some improvement but it has never helped in the slightest.

My physical problems have developed over the past 8 – 10 months which makes me wonder how long it may take to rectify the issues. It may take months to return to normal working order but several months more to return to some type of decent fitness. One seemingly insignificant change to my bike set up has resulted in an extremely frustrating problem. A proper bike fit done after I have recovered should ensure this problem is avoided in the future and help me to become a better cyclist as well.

The unknown

I don’t know how long it will take to get my body back to where it needs to be and not knowing is the worst thing. I want to know when I will be fit again. I want to know when I can train like I used to, again. I want to know when I will just feel normal again and stop noticing parts of my body which twinge crookedly with every little step. I want to know if this will be a problem for months or just a few more weeks. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to know. I might recover quickly and be back to it without much more hassle or I might be dealing with it for a long time. Whatever happens, I know I will come out the other side stronger and smarter for it.

I am getting a range of treatments at the moment and performing some small exercises for rehabilitation. All of this, combined with no training, is aimed at resetting my body and its neurological patterns which is allowing it to return to a neutral point where I can begin rebuilding from scratch. To say it is frustrating is an understatement but I don’t really have a choice if I want to come out the other side as quickly as possible.

I’ll keep you updated.

Cheers,

Lincoln.