Psyched Out - Ironman 70.3 Geelong.

I don’t remember ever having a race, no matter the length, in which I felt I couldn’t push myself to the extent that I expect. Even if, during the race, I know I am not going to get the result I am aiming for, I can usually push myself to get as much as possible out of my body on a given day. However, during Ironman 70.3 Geelong, four weeks ago, I learned about the vital role that a healthy mind will play in the process of pushing your body to its physical limits. 

The race didn’t turn out how I had hoped and I didn’t fulfill my main objective of qualifying for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships, to be held in Queensland later this year. 

My overall time was 4:44:11. 

My splits were:- 

Swim 1.9km – 30:29 (a new PB for the swim leg). 

T1 – 2:54. 

Bike 90km – 2:26:55. 

T2 – 1:37. 

Run 21.1km – 1:42:16. 

It was very pleasing to start the day with a new PB for the 1.9km swim and I was heading out on the bike with very high hopes that this trend would continue. Initially, the ride seemed to be going along the way I expected it to but on the second of the two 45km laps, I felt like I was labouring more than is normal and I found myself getting easily frustrated with this, particularly in areas with rougher road surfaces and slight headwinds. The weather was excellent for racing so the wind wasn’t that strong and I couldn’t blame the conditions for feeling bad.  

Although, it’s expected that it will feel harder to pedal on rough roads and/or into headwinds, it was more than that. It was an emotional sensation as I felt I was tiring quicker than normal. A sense of disheartenment which made me want to grown and sigh as I attempted to maintain forward momentum at a reasonable speed. Despite this, I kept telling myself “c’mon, just keep going. Stay consistent”. 

After checking my watch as I completed the swim, I didn’t look at it again until I had put on my running shoes after racking my bike. It was showing 3 hours and 1 minute which was about 10 minutes later than where I really hoped to be and 5 minutes more than where I felt I should have been as a worst case. Initially, I said to myself, “just bury yourself to get a PB run”, because a PB run would have resulted in an overall time around 4 hours 25 minutes and that would have been satisfactory. However, within the first kilometre of running I felt very off but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in terms of my physical feelings. My legs felt heavy just as they have at the same point in any other race, which is pretty uncomfortable, but this was different. Something was definitely wrong. Instead of psyching myself up to push on and push my limits no matter how hard, I felt stagnant. My body was somewhat willing but my mind wasn’t going to allow it. 

Throughout the duration of the 21.1km run, I felt more and more emotionally unstable. The run had started badly and progressively got worse. I was on auto-pilot turning my legs over in order to make it to the finish line and it even briefly crossed my mind to pull out of the race altogether. In the last 10km I actually walked through most of the drink stations as I took on water and used it as an excuse to rest. The only drink stations I didn’t walk through were the ones where the most people were watching and where I had seen my family. Somehow I could force myself to keep going through those stations for fear of embarrassment but I couldn’t get myself to go harder in pursuit of my goal. This is not like me at all because I am so determined to push myself to improve in this sport and try and win an event one day. What was going on?  

The realisation that it was all psychological didn’t come until about a week and half after the race. In the couple of months before that I had increasingly become very anxious and was experiencing symptoms of depression. In that time I had been getting very frustrated with my job. Nothing had really changed at work because I still worked the same type of rotating shifts which contains a wide variety of start and finish times. But, for some reason, I was convinced that work was the main reason I was feeling excessively tired, making it difficult to train as desired and get the most out of sessions. There had been a couple of issues/incidents at work which I seemed to take badly when normally they wouldn’t worry me for very long at all. However, they turned into just another reason to hate going to work. 

Then, I was struggling to sleep well, sometimes taking a very long time to get to sleep and if I woke up during the night it was often hard to get back to sleep. I was thinking a lot about whether or not I want to continue doing this job because of the lifestyle and maybe I should look very seriously at going back to a career in health and fitness. However, the very reason why I am in this job – for those who don’t know I work in a public transport customer service role – is that the fitness industry is notoriously unstable and difficult to make a good living without many years of establishing yourself. However, my current job is very stable, secure, well paid and I am good at it. I get to help people every day and never have to keep working when I get home. My passion lies in the world of health, fitness and triathlon but I still get to enjoy that on a daily basis in a variety of ways, not the least being through this blog. 

Along with my work related stress, I was constantly feeling like I didn’t have enough time to do everything including spending time with my wife and son, training enough to satisfy my preparation for races and preparing good meals. It was as if, out of nowhere, I had so much piling up on me and I didn’t know how to fix it. I was getting terribly frustrated with what I believed was unnecessary pressure from all angles. Truth be told, there was no added pressure on me. I just perceived it that way but why were things feeling different all of a sudden? How did it come to this? Why can’t I just do what I want and everyone else just deals with it? 

But, what exactly did I want and what did I actually need? I started to try and convince myself of what I thought I needed to feel better again. This included finding the perfect, secure job where I worked in health/fitness/triathlon coaching or perhaps a bike shop that still paid well enough to get by. I needed a new bike, I needed to be able to train when I wanted to so I could ensure I was doing everything I could to get better, I needed to be able to prioritise sleep however I needed because of my weird shifts, I needed to race more and I just needed everyone else to understand what I need. However, even I knew that I was only thinking of myself despite believing I was trying my hardest to give time and priority to others too. But, I couldn’t get these thoughts out of my head. I kept dwelling on them and wondering how on earth I am going to get back to normal without being selfish. 

These feelings built up over a couple of months. I can’t recall a specific point where things started to weigh on me but my suspicion is that it was probably at a time where there was a combination of the following;-  

• A string of very early shifts at work whereby I struggled with sleep deprivation. 

• The sleep deprivation effected the quality of my training at, what I felt was, a very important time in my build up to racing.  
• The sleep deprivation had a big impact on the quality of time I spent with my family. I was grumpy and worrying about not being able to sleep properly or train well. 
• Some incidents at work had made me feel very anxious about being there. 

From then on, I began to feel like everything was against me and nothing seemed to be improving. I felt like I was in a hole I couldn’t get out of and I couldn’t even imagine the future where things would be good again. I was desperate to do something about it but I couldn’t figure out what I should do. The things mentioned earlier which I thought I needed to be happy were all about me and I was hardly considering anyone else. I knew this and it contributed greatly to my negative mental trajectory as I was viewing myself as a bad person. But, the other big point not yet mentioned is that I was doing all of this inside my own head and hiding it from everyone else. All everyone else saw was a grumpy Lincoln who just wanted to do his training, eat his healthy food, get more sleep and not be bothered about it. But, I was blind to this. 

I wasn’t talking to my wife about this, discussing our life and working on finding a better balance together. I wasn’t looking to find what I could do for her and our son. I wasn’t using professional help which I have used before and know that it helps me. In fact, I had put off sourcing those services on several occasions over the last year as I had gone through brief patches like this before. I was waiting for everything to work out on its own, like magic, so I wouldn’t have to do anything. Previously, I hadn’t been doing anything and just kept thinking ‘it’ll be Ok soon.’ In retrospect, it was never actually Ok, it just became less obvious.  

Without talking about these issues when they were most present, I never dealt with them properly. Fortunately, this time, I talked about it. I talked to my wife a lot and did several sessions with a psychologist who helped me to understand better communication and different personalities, among other things. The first session was a few days before the Geelong race and weekly thereafter. During the second week after the race, I had my third session, and my wife and I had been having some very productive discussions at home and putting some new plans into action. It was at this time that everything seemed to turn around. Suddenly, I had my energy back. I noticed it during training because I could feel the extra spring in my step/pedal stroke/swim stroke which had been lacking for so long. I felt motivated to read more and get back to regularly writing blog posts. But, importantly, I was fully determined to balance my life better to ensure that I truly make time for my family and enjoy life with them as well as satisfying my personal interests. 

It was an incredible feeling. Almost like an epiphany. I felt like I had found what I was looking for all along and it wasn’t what I expected. All of those other things I was thinking I needed were simply things I would like to have. Some more than others and for different reasons but none of them were going to truly change how I was feeling at this time.  

It turns out I just needed to communicate better with those closest to me. By holding it in and running things through my own head over and over, I was compounding the problem and this time it came with the added reaction of inferior race performance. The return of my energy allowed me to see what I had been lacking for weeks, possibly months. I had been battling these demons alone, unnecessarily, and it was sucking the energy out of me. 

A further two weeks on from that point where things seemed to move in a positive direction, life feels as good as ever. I don’t feel pressed for time and I feel like I’m achieving much more on a daily basis including some wonderful quality time with my family. Also, training is slotting into life quite nicely and the quality of training has been excellent.  

Training is now focused on Ironman Port Macquarie on May 1 and it has started very well. I will write a separate blog post in the near future about how I am approaching that race but for now I am glad to be enjoying life again and all that is wonderful about it.  

It must be said that I am very disappointed about what happened in Geelong, mostly because I have missed my chance to qualify for the first 70.3 World Championships to be held in Australia. Although, I am still in with a tiny chance of receiving a spot in the event via a lottery system, I won’t be holding my breath on that because I won’t find out until July anyway. So, I will focus on the Ironman eight weeks from now and look forward to developing myself further as a triathlete in the future. Along with this, I will remain very focused on maintaining and further developing my balance in life. 

Although, I’m not certain how things went downhill so quickly, I remember how bad it felt and the early signs that I can keep an eye out for in the future. This will be essential in avoiding such events again but I am sure they will come up from time-to-time and it will be of high importance to recognise them for the benefit of training and racing. I now have a new factor to consider for performance which I hadn’t considered much previously and it can play as big a role as any training session might. 

Cheers, 

Lincoln.

Ironman 70.3 Ballarat

Sunday 13 December, 2015.

My race didn't quite turn out as I had hoped. I believe I have developed into a much better athlete over the past 12 months and I genuinely thought I could produce an overall time of around 4 hours 15 minutes. Unfortunately, this was not to be on this day.

My finish time was 4 hours 27:43 minutes with the following splits:-

Swim 1.9km – 31:11

T1 – 1:56

Bike 90km – 2:23.21

T2 – 0:50

Run 21.1km – 1:30.25

My swim time was a personal best for the 1.9km but bike and run were a couple of minutes outside personal best splits, as was my overall time. I finished 10th in my age-group but had high expectations of a podium finish for the first time. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a qualifying slot to the Ironman 70.3 World Championships either so I will be looking for that at Ironman 70.3 Geelong on February 7.

NUTRITION

My nutrition before, during and after the race turned out to be very successful. My breakfast, which I had two and a half hours before the race, was three scrambled eggs cooked in a tablespoon of butter, along with two of my 'Coconutta' frozen muffins. These are something I recently invented which have turned into a favourite pre-workout snack (if I have one) or something I can take on long rides. They consist of crushed almonds and macadamia nuts with a heap of coconut oil, a generous amount of pink Himalayan salt, some 90% dark chocolate and banana. I spoon it into a muffin tray and place in the freezer. They are then about half the size of a muffin (because they don’t rise like a cooked muffin) and have a solid, yet creamy texture when straight out of the freezer. Along with this, I drank about a litre of water during the couple of hours before the race and had a coffee but because I was already feeling pretty wired with race morning anticipation I only had half of the coffee.

My nutrition during the race was the first time I have fueled predominantly on fat as my main source of calories, as opposed to sugar/carbohydrates. I was very fortunate to have Mandy Riordan from My Clean Eats specially prepare some high fat/low carb ‘gels’, made from all natural ingredients, to use during the race. I had tried these twice during training and was very pleased with how I felt using them. They were a tasty chocolate flavour, I didn’t have any digestive issues whatsoever and they went down easy. In fact, my guts have never felt better during a race as they felt light and undisturbed. One thing I did expect was that I wouldn’t need to consume a great deal of these to fuel my race because:-

• The ingredients of the high fat gels allow a slower energy release in contrast to what a common energy gel full of sugar would do. Also;
• The high fat gels, gram-for-gram compared to sugary gels, provide a higher calorie content, probably double the calories, for the same quantity so, the amount consumed was much less than if I was using sugar based products. And;
• Because I am fat adapted, I knew my body was going to work just as well at producing energy from my own fat stores, provided that I maintained proper hydration and electrolyte intake. This is what I relied on during the run whereby I only drank water and my body took care of a steady stream of energy.

In terms of volume, I only consumed approximately the same amount as two commercially produced energy gels. This equates to about 70 – 80 grams and I estimate that provided me with approximately 400 calories. There was also a small amount of naturally occurring sugar consumed through my coconut water drink.

FLUIDS

For my fluid intake, I took two 700ml bottles, one with water for washing down my gels. The second bottle contained my electrolyte mix of 500ml coconut water (for potassium replenishment), the juice of one lime for a lovely fresh flavour, a generous amount of pink Himalayan salt (for sodium replenishment and some bonus minerals) and topped up with water.

This was a very sufficient amount of fluid, however if it was a really hot day I would have grabbed some extra water from the aid stations too. In hindsight, I think I would have benefited from getting a bottle of water at aid stations to pour over my head and body to help in cooling my body temperature, so that is something I will take away to implement in the future.

POST RACE

I initially had some water in the recovery area but didn't hang around in there long because there wasn't anything else I was interested in. Especially, not the coke, red bull or sports drink. There was fruit but I was keen to start refueling with fats and protein and only minimal carbs. Instead, I had packed myself some delicious post-race replenishment, starting with 600mls of chilled full cream milk which I had about half an hour after finishing. Then, I sipped on another bottle of my coconut water electrolyte mix over the next half an hour or so. And, to complete the nutritious recovery food about 2 hours after the race, I had a frittata made with 5 pastured, free range eggs, asparagus, cauliflower, capsicum, mushrooms and cheese which was cooked in plenty of butter. Yum!

GOING FORWARD

As always, each race brings a new experience to learn from. As I have plenty of years ahead of me to continue improving in this sport, it is of utmost importance that I look at all aspects of the race, and my preparation for the event, to understand what worked and what didn't so I can be better in the future.

As I look back over my training log, it had been a sporadic build up during the last couple of months prior to this race. I began my focused preparation at the start of August after having about six weeks of little or no training to enjoy, with my wife, the arrival of our first son. This meant I had four and a half months to build to the event.

Throughout the course of those four and a half months I planned my training well in advance as best I could, factoring in home life and work, but on a regular basis I was adjusting that schedule because things didn't always go to plan. This isn't a problem because I don't expect everything to go exactly as I intend and I try to be as flexible as possible. However, as I look back over my training records I see distinct inconsistencies, which I believe led to my sub-par performance in Ballarat.

GETTING MY BODY RIGHT

In the final two months of the preparation I had two occasions of overtraining and one dose of gastritis. The gastritis, five weeks before the race, was unavoidable being caused by a stomach bug or maybe food poisoning, but the over-training was definitely avoidable and it happened the second time only three weeks out from race day. I have learned a lot from this and this new knowledge will be very helpful as I plan my training towards Ironman 70.3 Geelong and Ironman Port Macquarie.

On both occasions when I became over-trained, I didn't heed the very clear signals that my body was giving me. In fact, both times were almost identical. They came after I had completed a very solid block of training over the course of about two weeks. These training blocks involved one or two very large double workout days near the end, after which I only took one day of rest as I believed I was recovered enough to continue pushing myself.

So, I proceeded to perform more tough sessions thinking that my body was able to handle it since I was feeling so strong. However, it was during these sessions where I should've realised that my body was not OK. I felt tired, lethargic and very irritable. During the first extra session, I would think I was simply having an off day so I would finish the session as desired instead of stopping and resting. Then, the next day I would try and push myself again and have the same symptoms of fatigue but still not stop to think how serious this was. I would then repeat this dose on a third day before I finally succumbed to the understanding that my body was stuffed and needed some serious time off - by which time I felt absolutely terrible.

These periods of overexertion were usually mixed in with not enough sleep, generally because I was trying to fit in a certain amount of training, and drinking extra or much stronger coffee which sometimes masked the fatigue. From now on, when I feel the need to increase my caffeine intake, I will know that there might be something wrong and I will now be including this in the list of symptoms to look out for. Also, if I feel like I desperately need an afternoon nap I will take it (if possible) or not do any training and ensure I get some extra sleep the next day.

Another important alteration I will make to my training will be to have more regular scheduled rest periods of two to four days. I will look to take a proper break in every two week period and it will include a minimum of two days of no training whatsoever.

I am planning on doing 14 day cycles with a ten day building period followed by four days of rest/recovery. I believe this will allow me to remain much fresher throughout my entire race preparation and help me avoid overtraining. However, the main challenge will be to make sure I follow this plan properly and not do extra just because I feel really good. I am confident that these regular rest periods will help me improve my fitness. When I had those two occasions of over-training I took four or five days of absolutely no training, stayed in bed as much as possible and when I returned to training I felt amazing.

Taking that time out was just what my body needed to absorb all of the hard work I had done and become fitter and stronger. However, it is never, ever a good thing to push yourself that far, as I did, because it can have some long term effects on health, energy and fatigue. I believe I was still having some slight effects of the second bout of overtraining on race day based on how my muscles felt while pushing hard on the bike within the first few kilometers. That is why I took ten days off to recover from the race before I begin training again and I now feel really good, fresh and ready to push myself again.

TWEAKING MY RACE PREPARATION

There are some other aspects of my race preparation which I have critically assessed. First of all, I will start spending a lot more time in the pool. For the majority of the four and a half months, I was only doing between 2 – 3 km sessions in the pool and not seeing a lot of improvement in times. However, after doing a swim session with my mate (chiropractor and gun swimmer, Dr. David Riordan from HolistiQue Health and Spa), I was inspired to push my water mileage up to a minimum of four km per session and have greater variability in my workouts. This proved effective over the final six weeks of race preparation and I noticed a big improvement in my feel for the water. My overall strength and strength of technique and my general comfort in the water also improved. I will now be aiming for sessions of 5 – 6km most of the time which will be essential as I push towards the Ironman on May 1. I don’t believe this will be over doing it, as I know I get so much benefit in my aerobic capacity from working harder in the pool which greatly assists the other two disciplines and I will only be swimming four to five times per fortnight.

Due to the periods of forced rest, I didn’t complete many long rides (over 100km) and I am sure this had an effect on my ability to push hard in the second half of the 90km bike leg as I had done in the first. I know how vital that endurance training is and I will be aiming to complete one ride of approximately 150km per fortnight from now on. It’s not a ride I will perform at high intensity, but it will be important for building endurance and to practice maintaining an aerodynamic position for a long time. When I am closer to the Ironman, that distance will increase to approximately 180km. This ride will always be the last session I do before my fortnightly rest period as I feel I really need to take the time to freshen up properly from such a long effort.

Another aspect of my cycling training that fell by the way side in the final couple of months before the race was high intensity work on hills. I gave much more focus to high intensity work done in a time-trial position but neglected the hills because the course at Ballarat is relatively flat. However, I sensed that I was missing a little bit of fire power and strength on race day, particularly through my quads, which I am very confident can be found again by getting back on some steep hills on a regular basis. This will be absolutely necessary in preparation for Geelong and Port Macquarie as both races contain some serious inclines. Call me crazy but I am actually looking forward to hammering some hill repeats again soon.

My run training, in general, was just inconsistent in the final six weeks or so. I don’t think there was much wrong with the type of sessions I was doing but it was just a bit all over the place with what I was able to fit in. One positive point from the race was that my stride rate was very consistent throughout the whole 21.1km run leg. I have found it hugely beneficial to maintain a consistent turnover regardless of fatigue and the speed at which I am going. I am sure that if I wasn’t so focused on keeping my stride rate up, I would have run quite a bit slower. Spending time on the treadmill and counting my strides often has paid off in this regard.

My run training will change too as I move towards the next two races as they are different types of courses to Ballarat and I will have the long term goal of the Ironman, in May, to keep in mind. I plan to increase my long run to two hours or more, incorporate some hill work and move away from sessions (such as 1km repeats, which have been a staple of my training for a while). I will also start using more Fartlek type runs and some extended Tempo runs off the bike.

I need to make the changes mentioned above in order to expose my body to new stimuli to make improvements to my performance whilst being effective and efficient with the time I have available. As always, it will be a case of trying to do enough without doing too much, which I know from experience is dangerous.

I am looking forward to working through this next phase of training and development and I will bring updates along the way.

Cheers,

Lincoln.