Alcatraz Challenge

 

San Francisco, California

I flew up to San Francisco with Mark Andersen and his wife Julie. Mark wanted to swim Alcatraz so I told him I would do it with him. I talked him into doing the aquathlon and running the bridge too. This was my 4^th crossing, 2^nd this year and my best navigation so far. There was a head wind and waves in our face the whole swim so my time wasn’t great but I had a much better run than last summer although I was cautious with Ironman 70.3 Hawaii only 4 days away. I beat my time from last year and had a good race. We went to see a game at Giants Stadium which was like the Celestial Kingdom of ball parks.

One funny aspect of this race, was that after the race was over I was looking at pictures that Julie took on her phone. There was Mark still in his wetsuit posing for a picture with a medal around his neck. I was puzzled. As it turns out Mark has let the volunteers take his chip of his leg after the race and then was guided to the medal people. He took a picture and then went out on the run. He ended up getting a medal for both the swim and the run and didn’t even know that is not how it works.

 

 

Training in the Heat - How to Avoid Internal Bleeding

 

FYI Lessons Learned -Training in the Heat

A word of caution . . . and things to consider to avoid internal bleeding.

I went on a long hard run on yesterday in the heat of the day and was a bit alarmed afterwards to find out I was bleeding internally. After talking with several people and some research, here is what I believed happened. While this may be TMI for some, I thought it was worth sharing with my triathlon and running friends.

For the past several years I have participated in the Ironman 70.3 Hawaii triathlon. One of the biggest challenges of this race is the heat. This is especially true for a heavy sweater like me. Each year, for a month or two prior to the race I purposely subject myself to long intense training sessions in the heat to prepare for this race. This year I did something a little different and learned a valuable lesson that I will not soon forget.

In years past I have done long runs in the heat, but I have talked my son into setting up a little aid station with cold water and Perform along the 1 mile loop around our house so I could hydrate every mile. This year I thought I was tough enough to go out and face 10 miles of heat armed only with my Fuel Belt. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake.

Prior to going running I completed two hours of cycling on a trainer in the hot garage. Although I drank a lot of water my personal sweat rate is definitely towards the high end. I have weighed myself before and after an hour of running in hot conditions, and I am cable of losing 5-6 pounds in an hour (and that does not take into account the small amount of water I am able to drink while running).  After I finished cycling, I quickly swallowed some salt pills in an effort to ward off cramping, voided my bladder and then went out to run. I purposely timed my run to take place at the hottest part of the day. It was in the 90’s, but I have certainly run in hotter weather. I took my Fuel Belt with two bottles of water and two bottles of Perform. I also carried one disposable bottle of water in my hand. I also ate three high sodium Cliff Shot Blocks while I was running. My goal was to stay on pace despite the heat. Every year the Hawaiian heat has cut into my pace during the run segment of the triathlon. I told myself I was going to suffer whatever it required to stay on pace for 10 miles. That became quite painful for the last three miles and with two miles to go my body was beginning to resist my constant command. My running form was deteriorating on a muscular level towards the end of the run, but I was able to stay on pace. I finished on pace, but immediately felt a bit off and I became wobbly walking.

I drank a bottle of water and took a shower to cool down. Don’t tell my wife this, but I always take a cold shower after a hot run and something about the cold water usually induces me to want to urinate. When I looked down, I was a bit alarmed. I was peeing what looked like pure blood. Even the water from the shower was doing very little to dilute the blood on the floor of the shower. Needless to say this prompted a few telephone calls and some research. I am not a doctor, and I am not giving medical advice, but this is what I think happened:

The medical term for this is called exercise-induced hematuria. While there are several theories on what happens, and no one is exactly sure, this tends to occur in individuals during particularly long and intense runs where dehydration and heat are factors. Basically what happens is that when your body becomes severely dehydrated, the bladder can collapse in on itself. During the jarring repetitive motion created by running the walls of the bladder begin to rub and hemorrhage at the points of friction filling the bladder with blood. The trauma to the bladder walls might intensify and have an earlier onset if you start dehydrated and with and empty bladder. Dehydration will cause a greater degree of blood being shunted from the kidney as well.

In my case I am convinced I started by dehydrating myself while cycling for two hours in the hot garage. To make matters worse and then voided my bladder before I went out to run. (which I never do) The amount of water I was able to take with me, was a very small percentage of the water I lost during the near hour and half it took me to run the 10 miles. Looking back at what I know now, I set myself up for type of internal bleeding.
I just wanted to share this, because it is the first time in over three years of triathlon training that this has happened and it can be a bit alarming. So if you are going on a long hot run, you might want to consider starting well hydrated, don’t void your bladder completely and make sure you are able to get your hands on some water out there.

From a psychological perspective, Is there something wrong with the fact that I am a little bit proud of the fact that I now possess the discipline to push myself to stay on pace in the heat until I am literally bleeding internally?

Splash + Dash

Tempe, Arizona

 It was time for some more Thursday night fun. I learned a lesson doing this race. I personally need to skip the wetsuit when the water reaches 77 degrees. I took off and was feeling great. I was drafting behind a pro comfortably holding 3^rd place for almost the entire first lap. Towards the end of the first lap I started to burn up. All I wanted to do is peel that wet suit off. My second lap suffered and I felt horrible. I let the pro go and and focused on swimming as fast as I could without burning up. I could not wait for that second lap to be over. I was happy to be able to get out of that suit. Unfortunately for me it is pretty hard to cool down running when the air temperature was just under 100 degrees. I felt way too hot the entire run and suffered accordingly. I felt like I was running horribly. I just told myself that if nothing else, it was good training for the heat in Hawaii. I was surprised to learn afterwards that I ended up 2^nd over-all in the swim and managed to complete this distance in my fastest time to date. It just goes to show that perception is not always a good gage.

Arizona Open Water Swimming

Canyon Lake, Arizona

My son, two friends and I all headed up to Canyon Lake this morning to compete in some open water swimming. We did two races. One race was a 2000 meter race and the other one was a 1000 meter race. It was a nice day of open water swimming. I did pretty well, but not as well as I had hoped. Christian placed third in the junior divisions in both races. Canyon Lake is a beautiful venue.

IRONMAN 70.3 St. George

 

St. George, Utah

Getting to the start line has been a challenge for this race. I have struggled with the injured calf issue and I have been sleeping on the couch for a week because Lori has been horribly sick. I didn’t want to risk getting sick. Sleeping on the couch contributed to poor sleep and my back going out two days before the race. I had a foot scare too. My right foot became painful to walk on a week before the race at the same time the my friend Bill Hagan called me and told me that after 8 months of training for this race his St. George dream was over because he stress fractured his foot on his final training run.

St. George is the race I feared more than any other this year other than Ironman Arizona which I will do at the end of the year. Every time someone would mention it, I would get a pit in my stomach. I seriously questioned whether I would be able to finish this race in the 8 hour time limit.

 It was a great trip. We got up successfully at 4:00 a.m. on Thursday and headed out of Phoenix. We missed all early morning Phoenix traffic and were playing around in Las Vegas by 10 a.m. We went to the awesome Buffet that Lori picked out at Caesar’s Palace. It was the best buffet ever.

After some time in Las Vegas, we headed up to St. George. I still love driving through the Virgin River Gorge. You know what? St. George is a very pretty place. I have always just driven through it. We loved this trip. The town square where the expo and T2 were located was small town picturesque. Access was easy and Vayden loved playing in the water features they had. The kids loved climbing around in Pioneer Park up on the bluff where the run would take place. Everyone liked the trip and my brother Erik drove down with his family and stayed in the same hotel so that was nice too. It was a great trip. I think the calm of the place and being surrounded by family helped me.

As in Oceanside we spent some time enjoying parts of the course prior to the race. We went to Pioneer Park and hiked around. We also went and had smoothies at a local shop along the course. Later during the race I would find peace and calm when I encountered these portions of the race. I can’t explain it, but it really works.

The swim course is the only swim course where you get to swim by beautiful rock formations jutting out of the water. It is actually a scenic swim.

 

There was one interesting aspect of the bike course that has never happened to me before. At one point, the bike course and the run course share the same road up on the bluff on Red hills Parkway. At same time I was hitting that portion of the bike course the pros were running it. As I struggled to pedal up this hill, to my right the pros had hit the run turn around and were running up the hill. Let me tell you something . . .  it does not make you feel particularly good about yourself to have runners passing you while you are on your bike, pros or not. On a more positive note, it did feel good to catch and leave the pros in the dust once I hit the downhill. It was a clever bike course. Snow Canyon was very difficult. It is a long, Long, Long climb, but I made it. I did have a few moments of doubt, but I did it.

 

 

The run was tough. I knew going in that I was going to have to protect my calf. I knew that I would have to walk any sharp or lengthy inclines. I just decided to take them one at a time and run strong in between. I was running through Pioneer Park when I was surprised to hear my name being called. It was Erik! That really picked me up. I have now heard his voice cheering me on in two of the most difficult races this year. I am really starting to love having Erik at my races. I thought heat would be an issue, but I was able to keep my temperature under control with ice and I felt like the heat was not a limiting factor for me. It would have been another story without the ice, but I have learned to use ice well, and the aid stations were well run.

Towards the end of the run it starts about two miles of slight downhill which is very welcome given the day of elevation gains we have suffered. The down-hill and wanting to finish increased my pace and I was actually running down my average pace. I looked at my watch and decided I could run it under an 11 minute mile. Normally an 11 minute mile would be a complete embarrassment, but not for this course, especially with my calf issue. But I did want my average to say 10 – something to save face a bit. I started running down my average and figured I could get it under 11 minutes by the end. Then, I must not have looked at the course very well because suddenly the course took a left down this roadway and I immediately saw a nasty little hill. Everyone who turned with me let out groans and a few cursed. I was deciding in my mind whether or not I should push this last hill when a guy 20 yards ahead of me suddenly screamed out in pain and went down with a horrible cramp or something in his calf as he has had begun the assent of the hill. He was screaming bloody murder as I ran by and people were already helping him. I took it as a sign and said screw the 11 minute mile average . . . let’s finish this thing in one piece! 

I ran down the shoot high fiving lots of kids and managed to finish a lot faster than I had thought possible. My time was 6:38, which was not as bad as I had feared. I was pretty tired though. I was glad to have Christian and his cousins to help me with my gear. Lori, Erik and Alicia were all at the finish line. That was nice too.

After resting up a bit Erik, Alicia, Lori and I went to the Tuacahn amphitheater to listen to a really good comedian by the name of Brian Regan. It was a lot of fun and we laughed and laughed.