Peter Vu's Ironman Blog - Vineman 7/31/10

I got a mile or 64 laps in at the Culver Pool today. Hopefully, my body is starting to adjust. FAIL = TNT complimentary swim cap broke while I was putting it on. I ended up reverting back to my black Speedo swim cap. I would like to get a new pair of goggles in the future because my current one does not cling that well to my face.

Tomorrow: maybe some biking on the trainer. I have to pick it up from Performance Bike Store first though.

Next Swimming Goal Practice: 75 laps next non-coached swim.

A lot of training these past two days.

1/8/2010:  I was supposed to go out for a 13 mile run, but I didn't have an accurate gauge of how far I was going. I was basically running from my apartment in Brentwood down to Venice Beach and back. It ended up being close to 16 miles. I started around 4:30 and finished a few minutes after 7pm. No issues along the run, but I had to pull through a few mental blocks especially when you're out by yourself for 2.5 hours. Having music on my Ipod Shuffle helps. I also kept the pace slow since it would be stupid if I injured myself during tapering mode. I think this will be my last long run before my marathon next Sunday in Phoenix, and I will try to maybe do a couple milder runs this week to stay fresh. Tomorrow, we have our seasonal costume run for the TNT Westside marathon team - it's the last practice before the marathon. I am going to reuse my Halloween costume and dress up as a chef at the water stop!

1/9/2010: First long, challenging bikeride of the season. Highlights included:

• 30 mile loop that I finished in about 2.5 hours
• Got to see some remote areas of LA that I did not know existed in Westlake Village (i.e., farms and pastures)
• At some points on the downhill, you're just zooming...you have to ask yourself, "Is this safe to be going this fast?"
  
• We had some challenging hills on the course. Given my shape, it really tests you out there when you are trying to pedal as fast you can and you're not moving that fast and your cadence is still slow. Once I was able to master my shifting better and also "push and pull," things became easier, but it was still a grind. There was one hill at the beginning and towards 2/3 of the way where you kept asking yourself when is this incline going to end. One thing that has helped me over this past year of endurance training is this ability to embrace the challenge and know that most hardships on the course are usually mental. You have to keep telling yourself that you might be "in pain" or "dying" out there on a run or the course, but you will get through it if you just focus, emphasize proper technique, and keep moving forward.
• Trying to keep my cadence around the 90-95 revolutions per minute
• Most frustrating about today's bikeride that didn't have to happen: another fall. I had my hands on the top of the handlebars, and I tried to bring them down so I could hold on to the sides. As I looked down to do so, I took my eyes off the road and veered into the curb and flipped onto the sidewalk and almost hit a wall. Luckily, I wasn't going too fast. I got a cut on my hand, a couple small scrapes on my shoulders and knees, and slightly bruised my right forearm. Given how much worse it could have been, no complaints from my end. Scott and Chris were tailing me on the course and stopped to make sure I was okay and check my bike. I may have bent one of my sprockets on the fall, so I am going to take my bike in to get it serviced hopefully tomorrow (also looking to get new aerobars and a bentobox). One great thing about the Ironman team is how everyone is really helpful and nice --always trying to teach you things, give you advice, encourage you, etc. Also, I must be quite clumsy compared to others to be falling so much.
  
• Louis and Carlos taught me how to change my first tire after. I will need to practice on my own later this week to get a handle on it.
• Training tips: you need to drink a bottle of liquid every hour of training. Even if it's freezing in the morning, you need to constantly be sipping on your liquids during the first hour. As you warm up later, it becomes easier to take in liquids. Louis also pointed out that you should not use Gu energy gels during an Ironman race since they provide you with sudden bursts of energy and will not sustain you over 13-14 hours of activity. Instead you should divide your weight by 2.2 and that is the amount of carbohydrates that you need to consume every hour. I plan on buying this drink supplement called CarboPro to add to my athletic drink (which only has 30g), Based on my weight, I need about 72-75g per hour.
  
• Diet the past few days has been helping. However, I was starving after today's bikeride. I went up to Louis and basically offered to pay him for anything in his car. He actually had day old bagels and rice krispie treats that I destroyed. 
• After our bikeride, we went to The Counter Burger, where I continued to satiate my appetite. Given how hungry I was, a burger sounded amazing. I did opt for the smallest meat patty to stay healthy.
  
• First "transition" or "brick" from biking to running after the ride for about 10 minutes. They call it a "brick" run sometimes because you're legs feel like bricks after biking for so long and then starting to run. Coach mentioned the key to the transition was to start off really slow on the run since you will have been biking for a long time. You can pick up the pace later as your body adjusts.
  
• Overall, great training session and happy to get my first long, challenging bikeride out of the way. It will be interesting to see where I am 2 months from now. FUN FUN FUN. 
• On a sidenote, I went to see "Avatar" last night at 11:15PM since it was still hard to get seats. I didn't get home until 2:30AM and fell asleep 15 minutes later. I had to wake up 4 hours later at 6:45AM to get out to training...argh.  I still felt good this morning after the bikeride, but had to take a nap later in the evening. I am going to make a more conscious effort to get some rest before these longer training days in the future. 
• We ended up finishing around noon today, which coach mentioned was early. As the season unwinds, the training will get longer and longer. I can't wait for the 100 mile bikeride from LA to San Diego!
  

Last but not least, I also attended a pubcrawl that Frenchie and Javier put on tonight to fundraise for their TNT efforts. I was able to make it to Bigfoot Lodge and Saints and Sinners in Culver City. Fun time w/ the TNT marathon/Ironman crews.

Go Team! Tomorrow, I am going to hit the pool for some lapwork.

A doctor convicted of assaulting two bicyclists by slamming on his car brakes after a confrontation on a narrow Brentwood road was sentenced today to five years in prison.

As a biker myself, I have no remorse for this guy. I know that I am making a huge effort to stay safe on the roads and not get in the way of any other traffic when I ride. If a car slammed his brakes in front of me, I probably wouldn't be able to react fast enough and injure myself. EVIL.

Read more here.

Tonight's swim practice was INTENSE. I am surprised I survived. I am still feeling the after effects of my extended, non-active vacation. We were doing timed sprints for most of the night. 4x100 and a 400.  Granted, the distances are small compared to our later training, but there was a point halfway through my 400 where I wanted to throw up. I must have a lower pain threshold than most people, but sometimes little things will get to me during a race/workout. Luckily, I mentally pulled through it...still not sure how, but probably sheer will.

I hope to get into better shape now that I am back from my vacation and can get serious about training. Coach mentioned before our workout tonight that we're entering an intense training phase and we need to focus on our dieting / nutrition. A bottle of liquid (water, Gatorade, Accelerade, etc.) for every 60 mins of training and constant hydrating everyday. He made a point that when you see people on raceday suffering, it's usually not from lack of training, but poor dieting / nutrition before and during the race. Carlos Pineda, another teammate of mine, also made an interesting remark that an Ironman is not a diet program but a triathlon program. Basically, you need to eat to maintain your energy.

Taking his advice, I went home today and cooked myself my first healthy meal in a while. I went to the Westwood Farmer's Market today, so I was able to pick up some tasty leafy greens (they ran out of kale -> darn those stay-at-home housewives), fresh bell peppers, onions, garlic, etc. I made a simple braised green chard dish with those ingredients and pan fried some Trader Joe's tender chicken breasts with a simple pepper, salt, and lemon marinade. It wasn't too bad, but I will hold off on the excess oil, salt and onions next time.

Another training day down...tomorrow I have 13 miles of running.

I just got back from my two week vacation to Africa/Paris/New York and now it's time to really get serious about training. I didn't do anything during those two weeks and it definitely showed on my first day back. I ran 4.5 miles on Monday, and it was not a good run. I felt a little winded at the end and it was at a comfortable pace too. On Tuesday, I hit the Culver Pool (since most of the pools on the Westside are closed for maintenance right now) for about 45 minutes. That was not a fun swim either. I did about 50 25m laps and took many breaks in between. In any case, I was just trying to get the mileage under my belt for Thursday's coached swim, which I am really dreading so far. We're going to do timed sprint swims! After Tuesday, I was really feeling the effects of 2 weeks of inertia. However, today, I went out for a 9.5 mile run from my apartment down to Santa Monica and back, and felt decent most of the way through. I went out in the late afternoon/evening time so the weather was perfect (about 60 degrees). Although I love SF and NYC, sometimes you really can't beat running with only a shirt and shorts in the dead of winter along the beach as the sun sets.

Right now, I am in a wait-and-see mode to see if I can really pull off a marathon by the end of next week. If I can get myself up to 16-18 miles by this Sunday/next Monday, then I will give it a shot. Otherwise, I will think twice. I am going to try and do a 13 miler on Friday.

I have also decided to skip today's bike ride since we'll be biking with the team on Saturday.

Diet: I'm starting to get serious about my diet and nutrition again. I definitely indulged myself over the vacation (Laduree French Macaroons / Levain Bakery Cookies / NYC restaurant food are a deadly temptation). Hopefully, I can cook more this year. Trader Joe's salads have been holding me over though. I am really interested to find out more about the benefits of kale as that vegetable seems to be all the rage amongst athletes/nutritionists right now.

I'll post again shortly. As the title of this post indicates, we are entering an important stage of the training and it's time to put in the hard work.

Before I end this post, I would like to share a recent e-mail from Krissy, an honored teammate, on the Westside Marathon team. She was diagnosed with Leukemia not too long ago. If you're reading this and can help out, please do. There is truly no better gift for someone to receive than the gift of life. When I read emails like hers, it really puts the pain/suffering during my training into perspective.

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Krissy's e-mail:



Go Team!

First off, congrats to my all my TNT participants who finished the Honolulu Marathon today...AMAZING!!!

Here's also a snippet of Coach Craig's e-mail to our participants prior to their race this Sunday.

The journey for the Honolulu group started with a 3 mile run in Santa Monica finishing at Shutters.  They complete their journey on Sunday running 26.2 miles in Honolulu finishing along Diamond Head.  This is an incredible progression in just four and a half months!  Along the way they have made new friend connections, re-connected with old friends, raised money to fight Leukemia, accepted new challenges, held fundraising events, broken through personal barriers, and inspired people on our Team and in the world around them.

Think back to that first day of practice in August.  What were you thinking as we started our first practice?  What are you thinking about now?  How far have you progressed as an individual?  How far have we progressed as a group?  Where is your journey with Team In Training going to take you?  Hopefully, you are all beginning to see that this Team is an incredible family and we are about so much more than just running and raising money.  You are all making an incredible impact on the world and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  We are so proud of how far everyone has come in their journey, and how much farther we will get to see you go in the future.

I always love our coaches' weekly emails not because of their inspirational words but because of the truths they speak. When you reach the end of the season and you see what you have accomplished, there is no need for motivation. You have achieved what you thought was impossible and there are no words to describe that feeling!

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Training Update:

• Biking: only hit up the trainer on Wed for 45 mins. I stopped 15 mins into it to take a water break/rest and then finished up the 30 mins continuously. I was very pleased but the goal will be to get a full 45 mins in next time.
• Swimming: I ended up going to the Sherman Oaks pool on Thursday evening instead of Tuesday because of a conflict with another event. I felt strong in the pool. We worked on a few drills, learned how to glide coming off the wall and then finished up with lapwork. I am going to try and hit the pool tomorrow evening to get in hopefully a mile of lap work.
• Running: I didn't really run for most of the week. On Saturday morning, it was raining like crazy, and I thought we would not be having practice. WRONG. I was this close to staying in bed. However, I decided to get some mileage under my feet since I hadn't been for a while. It was my first time running in the rain, and Dash, Erin and I only ended up doing a couple miles. I will have to say that running in the rain is fun as long as your feet don't get wet. Oh, the reason why we didn't run that long on Saturday was because we were running 20 miles on Sunday with the marathon team. Since I hadn't run this long a distance since my marathon in May, I was not sure if I could keep up. I was also running in the fastest pace group today with Kyle. A few things that were on my side: better nutrition and proper refueling during the run (made sure to hit up the pretzels, yummy starbursts and energy gels). We ran it in about 3:30 mins...not bad for a long/slow day. I was definitely tired at the end, but not dying. I went to soak in the ocean for 10 mins after. 
• Diet: going well, except for Sunday (3 holiday parties)...as I am writing this, I am starving! I wish I could have a burger right now, but it will probably be a salad with some protein tomorrow. 
  
• Hopefully, my endurance can maintain after two weeks in Africa where I won't be training at all.
• 7.5 months away from gametime!!!
• Need to hit the pool hard and get on the bike one more time before travelling.
• Btw, did I mention what a great time I am having on the TNT Ironman team?
  

 

Here's another update on my training post Thanksgiving. You'll see it's a mostly scatterbrain job = > story of my life right now.

• Running - I was able to get in a good run for 6 miles on Thanksgiving up in San Francisco. Otherwise, I have missed a couple workouts because of travel/work. I am helping out with the walkers tomorrow for 13 miles, but I would like to run later that day. 
• Biking - I feel strong on the bike despite only having ridden a few times. We went for our first bike ride with the team this morning around the Griffith Park/L.A. River area. 20 miles bike ride in about 1.5 hours. It was freezing!!! I couldn't not feel my fingers initially, but I started to warm up 30 minutes in. I spent 1.5 hours last night installing my new Cateye Bike Computer (more costs...sigh) because the directions were terrible. For the Ironman, we want to bike around 90-95 RPM, so the bike computer helps you to track that statistic. For the most part, I was able to keep that pace throughout today's bike ride and sometimes went higher. The course was great since we were on an isolated bike path with basically no obstructions and very few bikers. Surprisingly, the L.A. River had water in it. I suffered another minor fall today when we were going over a soft dirt area, where I should have unclipped and walked my bike over. Memo to self: always unclip when you are going over treacherous terrain. Sun Tzu would probably concur if he were a biker. I am also not a big fan of small entrances because I am fearful that I will not fit through while biking. I did end up learning all the hand signals for stopping and signaling a left/right turn. Hopefully, I can get on the trainer this week and get a good bike run in before next weekend's bikeride.
• Swimming - I went swimming three times this week (M, Tu, and F). I got in a short 30 minute session on Monday because something broke at the pool and the temperature was 72 degrees. Never noticing the pool temperature before, I always assumed my body would adjust. Not this time! It was unbelievably cold and I just made it through my drills and a few laps in the pool before jumping out. I should have listened to the teenage girl who mentioned "Not worth it" to me prior to my heading into the pool or the teenage boy who ran from the pool to the showers as if he was being chased by an ungodly creature. Tuesday we had our swim practice --drills and bilateral swimming. Bilateral swimming is basically swimming while alternating your breathing on both sides and on every third stroke. It makes for a more efficient and faster swim, but prevents you from breathing every other stroke. I was "so-so" on the drills but I thought my bilateral swimming was going quite well. Coach Paul even remarked that I had improved a lot since the first practice (i.e., I must have looked like a fish out of water back then). Originally, I had been able to swim over a mile prior to the start of TNT swim training, but I had really bad technique back then. I am happy that I decided to start swimming on my own after my first marathon in May 2009 as that has made me feel more comfortable in the water. On Friday, I went to the SMC Pool and the temperature was a perfect 78 degrees...what a difference 6 degrees make. I got a couple drills in and focused mainly on extending my bilateral swimming endurance. I got about 48 sporadic laps in or 3/4 of a mile. I always feel that I start off slow and my breath is not in rhythm when I start swimming, but towards the end of my workout things start to balance and I am not struggling to breath anymore. I knew I could have gone a decent amount farther towards the end but decided to hold back.

Overall, training has been a rollercoaster for the past couple weeks. I am excited to get in the pool and hop on the bike again. I just need to start running again. Maybe I will do a 10-12 miler after TNT mentoring tomorrowing. Another bad thing: diet has not stayed as consistent as I wanted because of excess carbs and eating at the wrong time. I need to make a concerted effort to eat more vegetables this week and lay off any greasy stuff. By the way, I watched "Food, Inc." last night and I highly recommend that documentary to everyone.

Plant a garden.

-PV