For some reason, this season my left hip has been extremely sensitive to heavy efforts. This weekend racing Escape from Alcatraz was no exception. I was worried that my hip would tighten up and sure enough it did, although it was less severe than in the past months. It actually stopped tightening up for a while but now it was back.
Having a tight hip doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels like my muscles surrounding my leg at the hip area are dragging my whole leg upward, restricting movement and reducing severely its ability to absorb running shock.
When I went out to run with a tight hip, it feels like I’m thumping on the ground with every left step; very bad for shock absorption and I hated knowing that with every step I was transmitting that much more shock into my hip bones and structures. Definitely a possible cause for hip fractures! Thus it was important for me to get that hip loosened up as much as possible.
ART and Graston helped immensely. Self massage with a softball and lacrosse ball also helped, as did foam roller and TP Massage Rollers. But ART really helped loosened up the hip and I wish my ART practictioner would come with me to help loosen it up before the race! But alas, that is not to be.
So some massaging with balls and rollers, and then some self applied scraping with my own Gua Sha and STARR tools, and then some fast cycling on my trainer working through my pedaling efficiency workouts has really loosened it up some. I hope that in the few days to come before the race that it will completely get to normal so that I can be at least start the race loosened up.
Mostly, it’s important to be loose for the race. I need to have zero muscle restriction so that my legs can just move fast. I have practiced this all season during training, which is to use minimal energy to swing or cycle my legs either on the bike or run. I just want to fire my muscles just enough to make it move through the next cycle and no more. Contracting further just wastes energy. I’m glad that it’s starting to relax and hopefully by race morning it will be gone.

Today I raced Escape from Alcatraz as a warmup to IM CDA. I had not intended to race so close to IM CDA, but I made a mistake when I signed up for the Alcatraz lottery as I thought this race was 2 weeks before IM CDA, not one! Well as fate would have it, I actually got in and decided to race.
The race was huge. There were 2000 people signed up! I wasn’t really serious about this race so I told myself I’d take it easy. I almost didn’t manage to get everything together as I was preparing for the race and also packing for IM CDA. In fact, I did forget one crucial thing, which was to take my Sportlegs. This was definitely a mistake as on the bike, I did feel the burn whereas I normally don’t. Likewise on some of the run, I also felt the burn. But thankfully I didn’t cramp – it was the first race I’ve done without salt tablets, although I did put Endurolyte powder in my drinks. So I was very glad to not seize up in pain during the race.
This was the first time I did the swim landing at Yacht Harbor. It seems like such a tiny place to land – the last time I did a similar crossing I landed at Crissy Field for the Alcatraz Challenge, which is a much larger landing spot. So I was worried I would overshoot. Thankfully I did not and landed fine. It was a bit choppy and the current didn’t seem to sweep me as fast as I thought it would. I landed in about :45.
The bike was very challenging. It seemed like I was always climbing through the small mountains of San Francisco. I don’t think I was on my aerobars much at all, maybe three times. There was one small stretch where it was so steep that I was out of my seat and in my second to lowest gear. I was happy to get back to T2. The hills and the fact that I wasn’t trying too hard got me in at 1:05.
The run was very scenic. It took us past the Golden Gate and down the west side of SF. But it was also a mountain climbing exercise. We were going up stretches and stairs where we had no choice but to walk. Then we also went up the famous sand ladder and we had to walk up that as well. By then, I was sick of mountain climbing – first on the bike and then on the run. Geez. I pushed it gently once I got up the sand ladder and got in around 1:15.
I don’t think I’ll do this one again soon. The race is exciting and fun, but it also cost $400 and that’s about as much as for a full Ironman. Also, the mountain climbing all day long wasn’t too much fun.
Now for recovery and get ready for Ironman next weekend!

This is not what we triathletes like to see:

I’ve raced in pretty hot, really windy, and cool weather, but I’ve been real fortunate to never have raced in rain. Many of my friends have, but I have not. Looking at this weather report on my iPhone, I can only hope that the weather past Thursday is going to clear up. Being out there for 12 hours in rain will really suck.

We’re about 10 days away from IM CDA. Last weekend, my back decided to flare up. Very annoying! It set off muscle tightness in my left lower back and glute and made it painful to move around. About once a year this happens and this was not the best timing. I iced it twice a day, which I knew would remove the disc issue, and then some PT yesterday set my muscles on their way to releasing and being back to normal. I just hope that it doesn’t flare up at Escape from Alcatraz, which I’m racing this Sunday as a warmup for IM CDA.
My bike is over at Cupertino Bike Shop and ready to be picked up by TriBike Transport. Since TriBike Transport is picking up my normal race bike on Saturday, I’m racing my Ritchey Breakaway Titanium at Alcatraz.
Late last week, I took my Breakaway out of its suitcase and discovered that the Qantas baggage handlers had thrown or dropped it so hard that it bent the top tube! When I tried to put the bike together, the pieces didn’t line up anymore! I was really mad but also in a bind because I wasn’t sure what I was going to race if I couldn’t race my Ritchey.
I emailed Ritchey Design for help. Amazingly, Tom Ritchey replied to me and invited me to come over to his house where he put my bike frame half with bent top tube into a vice, and the proceeded to bend it back. Wow, Titanium is sure some strong stuff! He was putting his whole back and weight into it and bending it little by little. Titanium has this flexible quality where you need to bend it past the point you want it, and then it springs back. So we kept bending it, checking it, bending it and checking it until the pieces lined up again. Man I thanked him profusely for helping me out! It was stellar moment for me and very impressed with Tom and his company. Definitely buying more Ritchey stuff whenever I get the chance!
So now I’ve got my Ritchey ready to race, and hope the titanium didn’t weaken to a point where the bike is going to fall apart on me at Alcatraz. I’ll put up an Alcatraz race report shortly after the race.
Otherwise, my power and speed are both looking good for Ironman. Yesterday I did a Speed+Threshold workout on the bike Computrainer and got through it with no problem. Today I ran a treadmill hill+speed workout to loosen up my legs; don’t want to stress them too much as I want my muscles to calm down fully from my back issue. Biking doesn’t seem to stress it as much as running does. So lots of rest for Sunday and pray that Alcatraz doesn’t fire up my back again.
Other than my back, I’m happy that the normal aches and pains prior to any race haven’t emerged as much this year. Any kind of ache or twinge I’m really worried about because getting injured right before a race is not a good thing!

Here I sit in the middle of taper now. Feelin’ pretty good this year. Some highlights as I approach Ironman:
1. Yesterday I weighed myself on the scale at only 145 lbs! This is midday, after I’ve eaten breakfast, had fluids to drink, etc. I think I may be as low as 143 lbs on race morning. Well, less to carry with me on the race, hopefully that means more speed.
2. Last year, I was able to go up a combination of Old La Honda and Kings Mountain repetitions of up to 4 times. But I didn’t do anything special; I just was happy to make it up those hills 4x on my peaking rides.
This year, I was able to do 4 laps but I used intervals to increase their ability to make me stronger. I didn’t want to do just do the same thing I did last year. I wanted to improve on my cycling time and strength and I shouldn’t be doing the same thing as last year; I need to keep hitting my body differently. So I began doing intervals the entire way up either Old La Honda or Kings, and doing them such that I would increase effort by the last lap.
I survived this and I believe this has made me stronger on the bike.
3. Mostly I have been relatively injury free this year. I do have a tightness in my right glute and hip, which has extended down my outer hamstring. I also have tight flexor hallicuses on both legs, probably due to my constant negative splits on my long runs. Both have been managed effectively through ART and Graston technique.
4. This year, I extensively trained my neuromuscular system in all 3 disciplines. For swimming, my form hasn’t been all that great and I’ve rediscovered Total Immersion swimming to help with this. In cycling, I’ve really tuned my muscles to keep my legs cycling fast especially when I crest hills instead of slowing down. This is also true after all my interval training where I am really tired but I still can cycle my legs fast by relaxing my legs but my nerves can continue to fire. In running, I used a treadmill to train my legs to keep working at fast paces, and also in getting used to powering up grades at faster speeds. Thus now I feel pretty good at keeping my leg muscles firing even when they are really tired.
5. My recovery lengthened by almost an extra day from 3 days to 4. I did not know why at first and it was very concerning. I did know that I had increased my intensity year over year and each time, I had added almost an extra day of recovery and now I was at 4 days. This means I was left with only 3 days of working out at effective wattages or paces, which isn’t enough to stress all disciplines enough. I needed to find how to recover faster or else I wouldn’t be able to train to my max potential.
I read Dara Torres’s book, “Age is Just a Number” and she, being of similar age as me, told of how training for the Olympics at her age meant that she would intersperse more recovery workouts with high intensity workouts, rather than doing a constant string of high intensity workouts which can be withstood by younger athletes. This did not mean that she wouldn’t improve or be faster – she did set some world records after all.
So I tried this and this did help. But I was still perplexed by my lengthened recovery time. Then I got a Normatec MVP and that really helped my leg recovery. But my heart/lungs still felt very stretched well into the 3rd day, and almost the 4th. Something more had to be done. I was sure of it.
It was then I got my first clue from my physical therapist who talked about nutrition in recovery. Then I got some help from a tweet and another buddy of mine who took Glutamine to help recover.
I then began trying protein powder, BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acid), and Glutamine, on the theory that my body was passing food too quickly and not absorbing enough nutrients from each meal. The results were astounding; I was able to pull in recovery almost a full 2 days!
Still some workouts did stress my body too much. I normally do a workouts in the peaking phase that incorporate mile (and longer) repeats. This season, I started with some long repeats that had some short, fast sprints intermixed. These workouts were too much for my system and lengthened my recovery by an extra day mid-week. I had to pull back and just do more simpler mile repeats.
Other gadgets that I used this year was vibration, via a Port-A-Vibe, and Gua Sha tools which are similar to Graston tools. I am also lusting after a Direct Muscle Stimulator which is able to cause tight muscles to release, but this is really expensive and haven’t made the leap yet. Maybe next year.
7. I had the pleasure of guiding two of my friends on their triathlon journeys, one to her first half Iroman and the other to his first Ironman.
The days are passing quickly and my anticipation grows. I have increased my intensity this year but do not know how I will do. I hope for better than my performance last year at IM FL, but my ultimate goal is now to break 11 hours. It may be too much of a jump from last year as IM FL is a faster course then IM CDA, but you never know until you get out there.