Going Loopy

Last weekend while the V8’s were racing loops in the streets of Hamilton, I started my own “loop training” just a couple of kilometers away at Hamilton lake. I am glad, not only that the V8’s loop is gone forever as it turned my cycle commute into a suicide dash across town, but I am also glad that my first attempt at practicing for the “loop format” in the Deca triathlon also went well!   It’s good that it went so well, because in the Deca there will be 380 100m swim loops, 1797 1km bike loops and 422 1km run loops….and no I haven’t missed any decimal places! 

Now I have to admit something, as much as I love exploring the outdoors and using my ultra-distance fitness to take me long distances to cool places, I am actually quite fond of loops too.  To me there is a great comfort in going over the same piece of road time and time again for hours on end.  Many people comment more on how they think that the mental aspect of loops would be the hardest part of a race like the Deca.  For me that is definitely not the case, admittedly I have never done a race that consists of 2599 loops but in the past I have found the repetitiveness allows me to get into a good mental zone.  And as long as I break down the task at hand into a series of small goals I can’t think of a time in an ultra-distance race when I wished I wasn’t just going around in circles.

While I was running around and around the lake I had plenty of time to think.  For those of you interested in the inner workings of my mind in these races (and training) here is a tiny snapshot (more in future blogs as it is a long and involved topic).  I started thinking about how much I like running around in circle and actually how I like repetitive things in general. All the sports I enjoy require the same motion again and again and again thousands and thousands of times, one foot in front of the other, one pedal or paddle or swimming stroke after the other for hours on end, the same motion again and again.  These thoughts then got me to thinking about some information I had read on Asperger syndrome and how repetitive behavior is one of the classic symptoms.  Ever the scientist I gave this more and more thought, I have enjoyed repetitive movement for as long as I can remember (often testing my parents patience), what if I did have Asperger?  Maybe that would explain my intense focus at time, but then again I don’t have trouble with social interactions and I am a big believer that we are all some point on a spectrum with  “normal” being some group in the middle.  But then I had to start thinking about what is “normal” anyway – socially acceptable? Who gets to decide where the lines defining “normal” are?  Many people would say that wanting to do a race that requires you to do 2599 little loops, swimming, cycling and running is not normal, but if you asked those that have competed in such races, they would be likely not only think it normal, but also, I would guess that they would feel the same way as I do about swimming, cycling and running around in little loops.  Maybe to do these races you need to have a certain attraction to repetitive movement and going around and around in little loops.

All these thoughts took up a good amount of time while running, especially because they were interspersed with noting of land marks on each loop, running, past the group celebrating something fun, past the hospital now, past where the geese are, past where we park when we kayak, nearly at the start finish of the loop,  finished X number of loops only Y number of loops to go, both the percentage left to run as well as the fraction left to run were then calculated to the lowest denominator.   Okay, now starting again with the next loop…..and so the process goes on and on with each loop.  Last weekend the weather was so stunning that the views of the lake also interrupted my deep and meaningful thoughts about what “normal” really is.

Maybe it is because I am very goal oriented and I find that breaking the big goal into lots of little goals is easier when running small loops rather than one big loop, whether it’s the familiarity and undertaking little rituals such as eating and drinking etc. at specific spots on the loop, or maybe I am just loopy as far as racing is concerned!  Whatever the case, it was a great day out running!

Oh Marathon Canoe – How I Miss You!

Having lived in the USA for 6 years, if you ask me what I miss most from my time there, right near the top of the list (after my friends of course) would be marathon canoe racing!  In fact each of my summer visits back to the USA have involved racing marathon canoes – easily my favorite out of the many boats that I have paddled.  Marathon canoes are a far cry from their “traditional Canadian canoe” cousins, these are lightweight, carbon fiber racing boats.

Photo by Blaise Rhodes - Mitch and I racing in the General Clinton canoe race 2011.

  

I recently got to relive some of my canoeing (and kayking) memories when I chatted with Alix from Endurance Racing Magazine.  So in order to show you that I’m not just all about riding, running and swimming, here is the article written by Alix: http://enduranceracingmagazine.com/?p=523

I would love to paddle one of these boats here in New Zealand!  I wonder what the logistics of getting one of these shipped here would be? 

And remember: if you ain’t rubbin’, you ain’t racin’

 Photo by Paul Grubber (I'm on the very left, there was plenty of rubbin' in this race - especially at the start with something like 200 boats all headed to do a U-turn around a bouy about 200m after the start)

Just another training weekend

Once again the end of the weekend rolls around and I am shattered, too much fun playing! Training for a Decatriathlon takes you a lot of great places, but it sure does leave you feeling the worse for wear on a Monday morning!

I try and structure my training to have three progressively harder weeks followed by one slightly easier week to allow some recovery. The last couple of weeks have been big training weeks for me, I’m looking forward to easing back a little this week.  Here is a summary of what I have been up to in the last two weeks:

Week beginning April 2^nd  - Total 27 hours

Road bike riding  21 hours

Run                       4 hours

Swim                    2hours

The running looks a little lacking in this week, but I was still recovering from the Tarawera ultra marathon and had a big/fast hike coming up on the first day of the next week, Which looked like this:

Week beginning 9^th April – Total 28 hours

Road bike riding    14 hours

Fast hike                 7 hours

Run                         6 hours

Paddle                     1 hour

Do you spot the trend, biking is far more my thing than running!  In fact, my body does not handle running all that well and tends to break if I do too much of it, whereas I tolerate long rides day after day extremely well.

With Easter weekend being included in these two weeks I was able to do a first test of how my body was able to handle training in a fatigued state, going out and training hard four days in a row, followed by a recovery day and then good solid training for the rest of the week.

I am extremely pleased to report that the body stood up well to this test. The days did not get progressively harder, the body seemed to switch into the mode of “well complaining isn’t going to help so I might as well just enjoy the scenery”!  I am extremely pleased about this, I feel strong at the moment –well except for the four hour beach run that I finished the week off with last night…that could just have easily been described as a death march.  In reality though, although I never really felt great I didn’t actually feel any worse at the end of the four hours than I did at the start, and it was great mental training to have to keep going, knowing that in the Deca I would be feeling much worse than this and I will have to keep going.

Part of all the joy from all this training is going cool places, so here are some picture from Easter weekends training evolution:

Great views of the Kawhia harbour on Good Friday and Easter Saturday

Fast hike (zone 2 and 3 training) up Mt Ngauruhoe (otherwise known as Mt Doom)

That was a spectacular day, not a cloud in the sky!  When people ask me "why do you do this?" part of the answer always has to be "because I get to see such cool things out training"!  And for the record, my climb to the top of Mt Doom was considerably easier than Frodos mission. 

Because I am also a scientist, my training really needs to fit in with my full time job, but come Monday morning, I'll be plenty happy to be sitting at my computer with some 34Gb files, giving my legs a well deserved rest!

It's all about the soup

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting about some local cafés with a work colleague.  For each café that we had both been to I made some comment about the soup there – my colleague was quick to point out that it seemed a lot like I rated cafés by the quality of their soup.  After some thought, it turns out that this is indeed the way it is these days. With the endless hours that I spend on my bike, there is plenty of time to ponder all manner of things, and one day my mind turned to pondering “the soup”, why do I always order the soup at a café? What makes soup good soup? Should I be judging a café based on the quality of the soup?  Ahhh, the subconscious mind of an ultradistance athlete working on life’s great problems.

So the soup – After much contemplation of such weighty issues, and a significant amount of soup eating this weekend I think I have some answers.  Most of my café visits occur in conjunction with training missions – often feeling at least two of the following states, cold, hungry, tired, sore (if those states didn’t exist I wouldn’t be stopping).  In these cases, soup is warm and comforting and has a miraculous way of making you feel better!  One of the most notable examples of the healing power of the soup was on one of the first rides around the “no wimps allowed” ride, 130km of very very hilly and very beautiful back roads around Kawhia, Te Anga and Waitomo.  Two thirds of the way around, I was feel worse for wear and asked if we could stop in Waitomo for a few minutes and have a coffee – it was then that we discovered the Huhu café (www.huhucafe.co.nz), they were serving potato and leek soup which came with the most delicious bread.  Within minutes of consuming the soup I was revived and the last third of that ride was almost effortless.  Hardly a “no wimps allowed” ride has gone by since then without stopping to eat the soup – without fail it is tasty, seasonal, homemade and revives us.  This weekend we had roast pepper and chili! 

The soup needs to be homemade, last winter, after a cold wet mountain bike ride we turned up at a café, I was excited to order some warming soup, imagine my disappointment when it tasted as though it had been made from a packet, I have not returned to that café since.  I mean, how hard is it to make soup……if you can’t do that you shouldn’t be running a café!

For me, I think you can judge a café by its soup!  The effort a chef puts into making a good tasty, hearty well balanced soup says a lot about how much they care about their food in general.  Currently my two favorites are the Huhu Café in Waitomo (we start discussing the soup up to 3 hours before arriving in Waitomo) and The Shack in Raglan – they both also serve good coffee but caffeine and the ultradistance athlete is a separate topic all together.

It is all about the soup – I wonder if I could convince the owners of the Huhu to come and cook soup for me at the Decatriathlon????

How the ultradistance seed got planted in my head

A quote from Sir Edmund Hillary “In some ways I believe I epitomise the average New Zealander: I have modest abilities, I combine these with a good deal of determination, and I rather like to succeed”

 

I love this quote, it so accurately and cleverly describes quite a large portortion of people who take part in crazy ultraendurance events (and the first successful accent of Everest is definitely one of them!). 

 

In fact, on of the main reasons that I entered into the world of ultradistance racing 10 years ago came about by spending time with the folks at Odyssey Adventure Racing.  These people no only put on double and triple Ironman distance races, multiday adventure races, but at the same time raced in similar races around the world.  As I helped set up races, look after aid stations (sometimes for days on end in the middle of nowhere), and man the radio, I watched the others involved in the management of the races.  In that setting, they came across as normal people, different sizes and shapes, they had regular full time jobs that they went to when they weren't out in the wilderness.  But then, on other occasions, they would themselves be racing, and these seemingly normal people would somehow transform themselves and be able to perform what seemed to me to be superhuman feats of strength and endurance. 

 

I began to wonder whether I could me mentally and physically strong enough to compete in races that went on day and night for up to 5 days at a time.  I would like to think that I was mentally tough enough – getting a PhD was a mental ultraendurance feat in itself.  So I figured I would approach ultradistance racing in the same way as I had my PhD – with a good deal of determination and a strong will to succeed.

 

I have to say, that when I started ultradistance racing, I would not necessarily have described my abilities as “modest”, I think I would have chosen the words “non-existant”, at school I was the chubby uncoordinated child at school, picked last for every sports team, and actively discouraged from participating in sports by my physical education teachers. But that did not deter me, after all, I knew a lot about hard work, and I now saw that all these other seemingly normal people were able to do remarkable things.

 

Ten years on, people are frequently surprised; those that know what I do are surprised  when I tell them that I have very little in the way of natural sporting ability and that most of what I do is through sheer hard work and determination, and others, that aren’t aware of my crazy adventures are surprised, that given my short stature and “plentiful curves” that I can actually do what I do. 

 

At the end of the day, being successful in ultradistance racing, is so much about having modest abilities and combining them with a good deal of determination, and a desire to succeed”.  Many would call this goal setting!