Tapering Redux

As I begin this post, IM Coeur D'Alene looms a mere 14 days away.  Futzing with the stuff has begun in earnest.  Taking things off the bike, adding them on. . .I've sold the Zipp Tubulars and replaced them with Williams Clinchers and a HED Disc, partially so we can have more wheels for the $$$, partially to assuage my concern that I could fail to finish because I have no experience fixing a flat tubie (seen it on YouTube, but like many folks, I've never actually changed anything but a clincher).  I did a Retul fit with Brian Grasky this last Friday.  Yesterday, I did part of a swim workout in my new T1 wetsuit.  This is my civilized version of preparing for battle.

Although I know I've put in the time, my fitness seems to have developed a momentum of its own.  Swimming, biking, and running all feel pretty smooth and effortless.  I have learned what it feels like to bonk due to hypoglycemia, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, physical exhaustion, emotional stress, and sleep deprivation, and I know how to respond to each when I see them coming.  No injuries plague me, and if I can avoid mechanical bike failure or another calamity, there's no reason why I won't finish, and do well both personally and relatively.  Completing the once unfathomable distance of a full Ironman--One Hundred-Forty Point Six Miles--now seems only a matter of pacing, hydration, and nutrition. 

Some visuals:


1) This season's Performance Management Chart from TrainingPeaks.com.  In brief, the blue line represents fitness, and the pink line represents tiredness.  Tiredness will drop off quicker than fitness; tapering is optimizing both so fitness is maximum while tiredness is minimum.

2) Totals for mileage/yardage, and training time per week, since Jan 1.

The big rides and runs are behind me; the hard work is done.  My weekly training hours have gone from 18 down to 14, and the next two weeks will be 8 (gasp) and 5 plus race (What am I going to do with all that time? I may even get caught up on honey-dos!).  As I begin to back off the total training hours, I am to some extent surprised by the level of residual muscle soreness that I feel, but most surprised by how accustomed to it I have become.  Letting it slip away will be strange, as I have equated the aches with improving ability.  But I will, as I am at the point where more hard workouts would only add more to my overall fatigue than ability.  My fitness, at least for this race, has been determined.  All I can do is tire myself out by overdoing it and not trusting the science of training.

An article I read by Alan Couzens of Endurance Corner clarifies the physiology behind the need to taper:

"Just like the cycles witnessed in bone repair, muscles undergo a similar repair process in response to load -- a clean up phase that goes on between days 3 and 14 post training and a repair and remodeling phase that occurs five to 35 days post training event(Duguez et al 2002). This can be illustrated as follows:"

Downward deflection is the initial stressor; upward deflection is the performance boost due to muscle remodeling.  Note the time course; no net benefit accrues for roughly three weeks.  Maximum benefit appears six weeks after a loading period.

Luckily, I have had tapering experience as a former competitive swimmer, and I'm reassured that some speed work coupled with resting will actually make me faster.  I've also had the experience of failing to back off, then hopping in the pool weeks after the end of the season and swimming better than I did in the big meet. Aside from info and workout planning, this is the main reason why I got a coach this season--not to ride my backside, but to yank my chain.  So I know that easing off is the straightest path to my goal, even if it is not my temperamental inclination.

That, and not gaining back a bunch of weight.   Karen is still a good cook.  Eating is still fun.  And throwing on 5-10 pounds in the next two weeks will definitely slow me down.  Carrot sticks, anyone?

Following are my goals for this race:

10. Survive
  9. Finish
  8. Finish without walking
  7. Finish in 95% confidence interval time (10 to 11 hours)
  6. Top 10 in AG
  5. Meet goal time (In the 10-11 hr range, I don't want to say specifically, as I'm superstitious)
  4. Qualify for Kona (probably top 4-5 in AG)
  3. Win AG
  2. Beat a fair number of pros
  1. Win the whole darned race

#7-10 should be straightforward assuming nothing untoward.  #4-6 will depend on how well I race, and to some extent, who else shows up.  #3 is rather unlikely, but not impossible.  #2 is getting absurd.  #1 involves selective lightning strikes, gravity surges, and other events of biblical stature that impact only people faster than me.

Yesterday, the plan for the final two weeks of training showed up in my inbox.  I dutifully entered it into TrainingPeaks.  My last entry was the race itself.  It asked for an estimated time.  Taking a deep breath, I input my expectation, then hit, "enter."  Feet began tapping.  Butterflies.  The full weight of this undertaking, combined with my hopes and expectations, were suddenly staring down at me, monolithic and imposing.  Next thing I noticed, I was pacing around the room.  My hands were mildly tremulous.  I realized that what I want, most of all, is to finish.  Anything else would be gravy.  Actually, it's all gravy.  And it's all been fun. 

Today, I am healthy, well trained, and by any measure, ready to do an Ironman.  This will not always be the case, and I definitely have an attitude of gratitude not only for my health, but also that this amount of self-indulgent fun was in my Higher Power's plan for me. 

Biggest thanks to Karen and the kids for their support!

More after the race.

High-Altitude Century

For my 45th B-Day a couple weeks ago, Karen gave me a week-long, no kids date in Colorado, with two major foci: Whitewater Kayak Lessons in Salida, CO; and a weekend Leadership Training Course in Denver with Adventure Cycling of America.  In short, it was a total blast.  I know we're best friends, but the subjective sense of it can get lost in the daily shuffle of work, kids and kid activities, and of course, training.  So it was nice to have a break from it all and just hang out.

A break from all except Tri Training, that is, as IM CDA was looming less than 2 months away, and I was in the middle of peak training periods of 16-18 hours per week.  Luckily, an outdoor paradise like Colorado offered ample opportunities to ride our tri bikes, rent mountain bikes, and run to our hearts' content, even on those days when it was beautiful yet rainy/sleety.  (It's all in the attitude)

Getting started outside of Salida, CO

Probably the highlight was Karen's first century ride, done along the Collegiate Peaks Scenic Byway/Colorado HWY 24 from Salida towards Leadville, with a short detour up 285. 

As the scenery/elevation were both breathtaking, so no personal speed records were set.  Additionally, I had done a two hour run the previous afternoon which was punctuated by three episodes of what could be described loosely, pun definitely intended, as "Shartlek" training, two episodes of which were actually indoors. 'Nuff said.  With sufficient resuscitation, I was good to go the next morning.

We were initially going to go North on 24 from Salida, then over 285 to the valley beyond, then back.  There was a fair amount of climbing, and even though we were doing OK with the elevation, we started to wonder/worry about the limits of daylight if we spent too much time climbing out of the valley, and then back out of the next valley.  So we turned around and headed back to 24.

Karen blazing down the hill towards the 14ers

Happy Honey knocked out 101 Miles!

We continued North through Buena Vista and towards Leadville until we hit our turnaround at Mile 57 (for Karen), just shy of the mountain pass out of the valley.  The best part of this route was that once we turned around to go back to Salida, almost the entire ride was downhill, virtually ensuring our success.  It was a beautiful cruise back to our cozy and charming Bed and Breakfast.  Karen got her mileage into triple digits for the first time, and I racked up 123 miles looping around her with chat breaks every few miles.  We celebrated with a gluten-free pizza pig-out (no cheese in my case) followed by an early bedtime before our next Kayak lesson:

Ain't vacation grand!!

Ironman 70.3 California Race Report

I'm of the mind that people primarily want to read race reports to figure out if they want to attend said race.  To that end, I'm dividing this one up into sections, each progressively less relevant to that purpose and progressively more about me.

Logistics and Race Support

As with any M-dot branded race, signup was pretty straightforward, if one is well ahead of the curve.  I don't know when this race sold out, but it did.  Being proactive, perhaps as much as a year in advance, would certainly get one in easily.  My wife got interested 6 months from the race, and wound up signing up for a Carmichael Training camp which came with a race signup so she could join me in Oceanside for her first 70.3.

We drove to this race from Tucson, so I can't comment on air travel/car rentals.  I rented a Zipp 808 Firecrest/Disc combo from Race Day Wheels.  I'd hoped to get them sent to me at home before the race, but there was some confusion about shipping, mostly generated by me.  They put them on the bike the day before the race at an offsite location.  Finding them after the race to return the wheels was not as simple as they had intimated, but they sent me a label so I could ship the wheels back to them.  There were hitches on both ends, but the wheels worked well.

Like many folks, we pre-rode the run course.  Pre-riding most of the bike course was not possible, unless one is a US Marine (Oorah!) stationed at Camp Pendleton, where much of the beautiful bike course takes place.  Map descriptions of the run course were a little unclear--the ramp up/ramp down that one has to do to access the Strand on the north part of each run lap in particular.  But it was well marked on race day, as was the bike course.

Setup involved putting our stuff in three bags--bike, run, and daytime clothes.  All material had to be deposited in bags after use, which made transitions slower, but uniformly so for everyone.  Dropping stuff off on race morning involved finding parking near T2 (not too tough, but we were about an hour early), biking a little over a mile by headlamp to T1 (this was all well covered in a race briefing video), and getting ready for the swim.

Body marking, porta-potties, and other assistance--including mechanics out in the field--were eminently available.  The bike course could have used another aid station or two, IMO, but OTOH, cool coastal weather keeps fluid requirements pretty low.  Food, post-race massages, and burrito wrap blankets to fend off the chill for finishers were plentiful.  I've heard M-dot races were well done, and this one was certainly no exception.

The Family's Experience--Most Relevant If You Have One, But Still Fairly Relevant If You Don't

We stayed at a Motel 6 in town, all 5 of us in one nicely large room with a kitchenette.  This was a pinch-penny move that drove us all a little nuts.  But in our previous experience, we haven't necessarily improved our sleep by springing for 2 rooms.  Warning for those who don't know--Oceanside ain't Monterey Bay or Carmel By the Sea.  When I took the kids out to breakfast Friday morning at Denny's while my wife slept in, we got to meet a local woman who had a yelling fit at the management, flung silverware on the floor, glared at me and the kids as I hustled them out of her way, and stormed out of the restaurant, presumably to return to her meth lab.  Always a parenting opportunity, though:

"So, kids, see what drugs will do to you?  That's why she's acting that way."

A fellow triathlete at the restaurant smirked at that one, but I was serious, and--having worked with drug addict and delinquent kids prior to med school--99.436% sure that I was right.

Our kids are 11, 9, and 4, which is to say, almost old enough for the oldest (who has taken CPR/First Aid) to manage them.  This creates a need for babysitting, which no race I've yet attended has managed to provide.  My wife called the race director and actually got a referral that worked out well, and, for $10/hour, dang cheap for CA.

Dining in the area, including both Oceanside and Carlsbad, is packed to the gills on race weekend.  There seemed to be some other event in Carlsbad as well.  I'd recommend that you make dining reservations ahead of time, unless your race strategy involves carbo loading on Der Weinerschnitzel hot dog buns.  We missed the kids' 1-mile fun run because it took us so long to find somewhere to walk in and eat the night before the race.  This is not to whine, but to inform.

At the race itself, the kids were welcome in the post-race athletes' section with all the choice grub.  There was also a jumping castle to entertain them, which for our hyperactive offspring, was more than sufficient.  Burrito wrap blankets were available but in short supply, and massages were available with little wait.

My Race Experience

I came in pretty well rested, with an easy week, B-race taper behind me.  I felt as ready as I could be for the swim, which is to say, I couldn't wait to have it done.  The water was cold, as expected, but after an hour of waiting in the chute for our wave to start, I was good and ready.  Temperature was quickly a non-issue, likely to some extent due to the silicon earplugs I was using for the first time.  Challenge #1 came within a few strokes of the start.  Arm-to-arm contact with a heat-mate knocked off my Garmin 310xt, and it was immediately lost in the cloudy green depths below.  I kept swimming, but started wondering if I could rent SCUBA gear the next morning.  My regular stopwatch was running, and I had the Edge 800 on the bike, which I would now use on the run as well.  Problem solved, but not cheaply. 

I settled into a passable but somewhat choppy rhythm.  My goggles, which I'd worn only once before, began to leak.  Challenge #2.  This was irritating, but I knew I just had to cope.  So several times, I rolled quickly onto my back, emptied them out, squeezed them back on, and pressed onward.  Passing folks in other waves required a good amount of extra sighting and maneuvering, and I began to entertain the mildly insane notion that a mass start would have been a good thing.

When we reached the outer buoys near the turnaround, Oceanside's promised calm and flat waters disappeared, replaced by challenge #3: 3-4 foot swells.  The swim was now a bouncy, heavy traffic situation, which was not exactly the most compatible with speed.  But it's the same for my whole age group, I reminded myself.  Keep the arms moving, and it will end.  And eventually it did.  29:09 was not my fastest 1.2 mile open water swim, seemingly slow for someone who spent his adolescence chasing a black line on a pool bottom, but good enough for today.  On to better things.

T1 seemed to take awhile, not so much due to the obligatory gear bags, but due to my shaky hands fumbling while rolling up compression socks.  Transition times for everyone were slow, but 5:00 was pretty dang pokey for me.

The best part of my race by far was the bike.  I did a flying mount, slipped my feet in, and pedaled away.  Challenge #4 was re-threading the cinch strap that got unfastened as I rode at 20+ mph.

I was also humming the Star-Spangled Banner while Integrating a Hyperbolic Function in 3-Dimensions

A little anxiety, but not much of a problem.  The course started flat and fast.  The report from race officials was that the Marine Layer (fog and drizzle, not a phalanx of amphibious troops) had settled onto the course and the roads were wet (challenge #5).  Ambulances, flat fixes, and wrecks were all over the course.  But between the beauty of the ocean and hills, the easy speed of the first part of the course, and the humming of the disc wheel, I really started to enjoy the ride.  I'd planned to be  conservative on the bike to make sure I had a good kick on the run.  But given the speeds I was holding with marginally more effort than expected (240 instead of 230 average watts), I decided to burn it just a little harder than planned.

There are three significant hills on this course, and the first is the biggest.  My strategy was to spin up them easily, without making excess lactate or ripping quadricep myofibrils that I'd need later.  My lowest (39/28) gearing didn't really permit spinning per se on a 10% grade, but I still took it pretty easy, and stayed seated the whole time.  It certainly helped to be a disciple of Mt. Lemmon, AZ!  Some folks were standing and cranking, but I wanted to avoid "burning a match" if I could.

Bike NP 257, Avg. Pwr. 245. Pretty steady, given the course.

I knew as soon as I hit the descent on the last hill that this was going to be my best HIM bike leg by quite a bit.  On the way back into town after the hills, I repeatedly caught myself racing a young 30-something and a fellow 45 year old with whom I'd been trading passes.  It really took some work not to overextend myself (challenge #6).  When pro Jordan Rapp spoke recently in Tucson, he claimed, and I paraphrase, that every stolen minute on the bike leg will cost you two on the run.  It was a fast bike leg, yes, but I wondered how many stolen minutes were involved.  So I added two expresso gels in the last few miles of the bike, along with the scheduled remainder of the Perpetuem/Carbopro/Endurolytes brew that is the centerpiece of my bike nutrition.  This would turn out to be imprudent. 

Even though the ride into town was a bit tortuous and slower than I would have liked, T2 was easy.  Bike time was 2:35:07, averaging 21.66 mph.  Volunteers directed me to my stuff, and I was off the bike, in the shoes, and running out the other end in 1:47, which was pretty solid given the size of the T2 area.

I found my legs almost immediately, and settled into a solid pace between 8 and 8.5 mph.  The 45 year old biker dropped quickly behind me, and I looked forward to running down a few more members of my age group.  I grabbed a sports drink and a water at each of the first few aid stations, letting myself get a little faster, then a little faster. . .  Then challenge #7, and the worst of the bunch, struck.  I started to feel a little bloated.  Then a fair amount more bloated.  Then a little nauseated.  I was likely done running folks down, but hopefully not done with the race. . .

Slowly, I backed down my pace, and only dumped water over my head at aid stations.  The course was generally flat with the exceptions of a few ramps and hills, which made it easier to find and sustain a tolerable pace that allowed the bloating and nausea to slowly subside.  Around mile 10, the bloat lifted completely, and I started picking it up cautiously again.  Retrospectively, I think I'd overdone the nutrition at the end of the bike.

Dip in HR corresponds with the Bloat

My wife was just getting started on the run as I came down Pacific Street for the last time.  She looked fresh and strong, and I knew she was going to finish her first 70.3!  We gave each other a cheer, then I ducked down onto the beach and kicked it into the end a little, making sure nobody with the numbers 45-49 on his calf passed me.  Problems notwithstanding, my run was 1:34:50, exactly 10 seconds faster than I'd predicted, averaging 7:14/mile.  Total time was 4:45:53, 7th in my age group, and 133rd out of 2903 overall, and almost 1/2 hour faster than my previous best.  A pretty well executed and thoroughly enjoyable race, but far from perfect.  Always room for improvement.

I waited around to see if I got one of two age group roll-down slots to the IM 70.3 World Championships, but none was forthcoming.  In M 40-44, the slots rolled all the way down to the 20th or 30th place finisher, but our age group wasn't so indifferent.  The first two finishers in my AG didn't want their slot, but the next two did.  But the mere fact that I was in the hunt was exciting.  Add 70.3 Las Vegas to my Triathlon Bucket List.

(Full disclosure: Due to "Race age" being that on Dec 31 of the year, I'm a 44-year old masquerading as a "45 Year Old" until May, when I become the genuine item.)

DESERT TRIATHLON CLASSIC RACE REPORT 

In our customary fashion, we packed the crew off in the Suburban Utility Vehicle for a weekend of triathlon, hotel life, and fine dining.  This weekend's main course: The Desert Triathlon Classic, an International but not Olympic distance (meaning not strictly 1.5/40/10km for S/B/R) race in Palm Desert/Coahuilla, right near Palm Springs.  Race distances were 0.75Miles/40K/6 miles, so it was pretty close. 

The setting was lovely and the pre-race pickup pretty well done.  We got to swim in the lake on the afternoon prior, which was nice. My only issue was that the bike course explanation was a little counterintuitive, and this was worsened by confusing maps with arrows that indicated turns that were not correct come race day.  Luckily, the course was well marked on race day.

Transition setup was pretty standard, as was our routine.  I got up early and set up my wife's stuff while she slept a little and got the kids ready.  Given that it was only a 2 hour-ish race at a protected park with a good playground, we decided our budding babysitter oldest daughter could watch her younger sibs.  I carried a cell phone JIC.

The swim start was in waves, heading straight into the morning sun.  The water was chilly, but not painful.  The buoy was essentially invisible; we were referred to a couple of palm trees on the far shore that marked where it was.  This was not a problem until I got close enough to fail to pick up the buoys and get a little extra swim yardage in before noticing the leftward departure of my compatriots.  No biggie.  Back on course.   

The bike course was my favorite part of this tri, and I'd return just to do a TT on a flat, fast, beautiful, palm-tree lined course.  Even though I let Karen have the race wheels, I felt fast and rode well.  The course was two laps of a flat course.  Power, HR, and cadence all steady and just sub-threshold.  Personal best by >10min, and tantalizingly close to the 1 hour mark.

.Click for larger view

The run course was two laps, again flat, around Lake Coahuilla for an even 6 miles.  It was on dirt, some broken pavement, and pavement. Some griped about this, but I'm OK with a non-manicured run course.  

Click for larger view

 I went out just a bit too hard on the run, and started feeling it with a little bit to go.  I didn't fade per se, but I didn't kick it into the finish either.  I didn't lap Karen until just before the end.  She had a mighty race, and knocked about 1/2 hour off her previous best time. Here are our lines:

Click for larger view

All in all, an excellent weekend.  Worth doing again, in my opinion.

Newest Swim Video

In the ongoing quest for improvement and acquisition of all possible "free time" to be had in triathlon, I video'ed myself swimming from various angles.  Like the clown displayed below, I appear to be "crossing over":

Any other observations are welcome.  Here it is:

ADHD and triathlon, a Slowtwitch.com Post

Other Member: I think a lack of exercise is one of the reasons for all the meds today and the ADHD / behavioral issues particularly with boys. When I was a kid we spent a lot of time outside just doing things.... anything and everything. Now it's all changed. Kids roaming around outside are seen as a nuisance or threat to society or what have you. Boys used to explore and just get into things. Boys still need that, but don't get it anymore.

I think boys to some degree have always had ADHD in various degrees or forms. But in the past, boys used to get more exercise, chores and walk to school etc, to use up this energy.

Me: I can see both sides of this issue. Without a doubt, society has become more passive and feminized, and overuses ritalin and other amphetamine derivatives essentially as a pharmacologic means of "norming" energetic kids.

But there are legitimate cases where medication is warranted, and ignoring or undertreating the problem is potentially perilous.

When I was a kid 30-35 years ago, only the most severe cases of ADD, as it was then called, were diagnosed and medicated. Before the diagnostic bar was lowered, many of us with real and significant problems flew under the radar simply because we weren't the worst offenders. I also managed myself on exercise, as a competitive swimmer. 2-4 hours of swimming per day was just about enough to help me to sit still. During the off season, I was off the walls. In junior high and high school, I took a "bathroom break" in the middle of every single class so I could walk around the halls to shake out my wiggles. Retrospectively, there was clearly an issue, but nobody noticed, as I was a good athlete and an "A" student.

College required a little more focus and self-control than I had, and that's when my spazzy, meandering chickens came home to roost. After a very bad run with alcohol and its friends, coupled with three episodes of agitated, melancholic depression, I had to radically alter how I did things. Effective solutions for me have included 12-step programs, antidepressants, and of course, hours of exercise daily. On medical recommendation, I tried vyvanse recently, but found it to be somewhat superfluous, and took myself off it. In addtion to exercise, I find that adrenalizing music also helps me to focus. Call it the neuropsychology of heavy metal. ;-}

When we met, my wife and I bonded around a number of things, energy level being one. Not surprisingly, our three kids are chips of the old block(head)s, and we have a rather busy household, to put it mildly. Our POV started out as very strongly anti-medication. But life doesn't always cooperate with one's prejudices. Our oldest child, now 12, developed not only ADHD symptoms, but concerning mood symptoms as well several years ago. After trying everything else with little significant result and fighting medication tooth and nail, we finally agreed to try medication with her, and it made a world of difference in her school performance, self-manageability, and overall happiness. Our second child, age 9, takes it as well. His symptoms are not as severe, and my feelings about medicating him are mixed. Our youngest is 4, and seems every bit as energetic as the others. But should she manage without needing ADHD meds, we have no intention of putting her on them as a matter of course.

Current medical literature shows properly treating a ***REAL*** case of ADHD lowers the risk of depression and addiction. (Although I'd be cautious around that as well) Overmedicating active kids cannot be a good thing, either. If you're contemplating medication, be thoughtful and cautious about this one, and get a second opinion. And a third.
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Stubbornness is not a widely recognized talent, but it's the only one I've got.

Injuries and Motivation, a post from an online group that I wrote

"yyyy" is the anonymized name of another group member.  My responses are to him:

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 6:06 PM, yyyyyyyyyy <yyyyyyyyyyy> wrote:

yyyy---FIRE (Frequent Injuries and Repeated Exacerbation), of shoulders, knees, elbows, etc..

Chronic athletes know all about them. The body isn't built for the wear and tear of swimming, running, rowing, biking or pretty much anything at the intensity needed to be competitive today.

Me--Hmm.  Not sure I agree, on a couple of points. 

I suppose it's to some extent a matter of definition--particularly of "competitive."   At what level?  Local? National? World? In one's own mind? And why do you care about competition?

Pushing through injuries will get you what you describe, but careful training, even with steadily increasing mileage, likely won't.  It's all in the approach.  Outside of a genuine life and death setting, there's nothing heroic about forcing oneself through injury.  It's just creating an unnecessary problem. 

Not that there isn't a genuine temptation to push for me: I love everything about the athletic lifestyle.  I revel in exertion, exhaustion, and endorphins.  I actually find competition a fun way to interact with peers, and a great way to get motivated.  I like the mind-boggling rush of pushing past my preconceived limits.  Sports push me into a gloriously, enjoyably primal, limbic brain mode, and I'd be in a real spot if I had to give it up.  It is the antithesis of all the polite, faux horseshit that I have to put up with in the human social world in order to fund Basecamp Quigley.  For a spaz like me, the white noise of exertion is my most effective form of meditation, free association, and what Nathan calls "Back-burnering." 

But like anything that gets the dopamine flowing in the Nucleus Accumbens, it requires caution.  The key to keeping the party going is effective cortical oversight--caution, sensibility, reason.  The temptation to overdo it is always there, and my past, athletic and otherwise, is littered with numerous failures of limbic guidance. 
 

yyyy-----Or even non-competitive, but for an extended duration, all the more pertinent if your expected lifespan is on the up-slide.Are we doomed to give up the sports we love, or restrict them to a couple of decades of fireworks? Can the party go on?

Me--I think xxxx 's point re body adaptation is key.  You don't see endurance athletes, even those who have been at it for awhile, walking around bowlegged like weightlifters, hidebound  from muscle fibrosis due to repeated stress.  Nor is breakdown inevitable.  Quite the contrary.  Slow, incremental (versus excremental?) increases in distance/effort will strengthen and limber both the muscle and the gristle, and prevent injury and breakdown.  Increasing the stress on the body by increasing training will expose weaknesses, whether they are structural, technical, training/strength related, or psychological.  If a weakness if found, it needs to be addressed properly in order to continue, and experience has shown me that it is unlikely that it will be best addressed by brute force.  Luckily, the body is constantly remaking itself, and the medical/dietary/health/coaching resources for dealing with injury are better than ever. 

My foremost concrete suggestion would be to make sure you stay mentally resourceful and flexible, explore and use any and all available resources, and be OK with doing less than you think you ought to.
 

yyyy---From more seasoned athletes, I would like to know what their standards for unreasonable cowardice are, with respect to pain of chronic injury keeping them off their chosen sport. How much do they tolerate before backing down. How much pain have they persisted through and seen the light at the end of the tunnel in spite of it, etc. Does having a sense for the consequences mean that they're more predisposed to being a bigger wimp, or is that just me?

Me--When I was a young competitive swimmer, I had the retrospective good fortune of closely pursuing accomplishment for three straight seasons and pushing myself into a career ending injury.  I had been on the brink of being national caliber, High School All-American, and recruitable by schools that would have paid for my education, but it was all gone in a matter of weeks because I couldn't make myself back off when my body first asked, then insisted, then demanded. 

How this was good fortune was far from obvious at the time, but it: 1) Taught me that COX-2 anti-inflammatories/painkillers BEFORE workouts were a one way ticket to disaster; 2) Taught me that my body had its limitations; 3) Taught me, after a fair interval of adjustment, that there was more to life than swimming backstroke; 4) Taught me that all experts ought to be demoted to advisory status (after one swim coach radically altered my backstroke technique to his liking and my shoulder's profound distress); 5) Taught me that nose-to-grindstone, brute force effort was neither the only nor the best way to achieve a goal, athletic or otherwise. 

My assumption in my mid 20s was that I'd only be able to run for a few more years before I fouled up my knees, and wound up permanently on the stationary bike watching soap operas and sipping Crystal Light.  After all, I was a 200-ish pounder, and there's only so much shock one can administer to the knees. . .  This was the conventional wisdom at the time; nobody was really aware of controlled stress as a stimulus for rebuilding and injury prevention.  After my swimming experience, I figured that I could milk it as long as possible as long as I was cautious, then bow to the inevitable need to switch to the bike.  But time wore on, and I continued with impunity, and at increasing mileage.  20 years and 30K+ miles later, I have no knee/hip/ankle pain whatsoever.  It likely won't go on forever, but that's another day's problem.

There may be some fortunate genes involved, but IMO, there's no real reason to think so.  There is some luck, as I went against a fair amount of the prevailing "wisdom" re running back in the late 80s to 90s.  Recovery time and reasonable surfaces were a large part of it.  It was probably fortunate that I preferred trail running and hill running 3-4x/week to daily flatland running on concrete.  More recently, a fair number of distance running coaches incorporate hill training as one of the centerpieces of injury prevention, and running on hills in Northern NM and the SF Bay area was, as luck would have it, my preferred form of exercise from ages 20-40.  "Heel striking" was also the preferred technique of running back then, but I fell more naturally into a forward-leaning, midfoot striking, Neanderthal style run, which felt more natural to me.

This gets to probably the most important point: I listen to my body far more than I listen to what others' idealized methods and techniques ought to be.  Nobody knows me better than me.

Even as I've recently remade my technique into a more efficient, chi-running/pose running style, I constantly play with technique to see what feels not only most efficient speedwise, but most natural in terms of effort.  Muscle exhaustion is inevitable; joint pain is a 100% indication to back off until it goes away.  If this is what top triathletes and coaches say and do, it's likely a good idea.  If my body agrees, then it's unanimous.  

Part of why I can't really anticipate the limits of my triathlon performance trajectory is that I don't quite know what they are.  Our bodies have limitations, and pretending they aren't there is the best way to invoke them.  If they are encountered abruptly, they push back hard.  But if they are approached gradually and cautiously, over a longer time period, they flex/bend.  Given the nature of adaptation, I will not likely run into the limits of my triathlon abilities, particularly cycling, for a few years. 

I'd like to qualify for and participate in the Ironman world championships in Kona, HI.  It's a great daydream, and a heck of a motivator.  But I can't bring myself there by sheer force of will.  Every time I run, bike, or swim, or do all three consecutively in a race, I'm "going to war with the army I have, not the army I want."   I cannot push myself farther along the imagined path towards a goal than I actually am.  I'll drive  myself into injury, guaranteed.  Further, I'll make myself, and those around me, miserable.  And there's no real way to anticipate the path anyway: It's always different than my internal model.

On the whole, I think that if you argue for your physical limitations, they're yours.  Approach them cautiously and introspectively, and you may very well be on the other side of them before you know it.

Taking a step back, though, I think that perspective is perhaps the most important point.  If this is as far as I get, as fit as I get, as fast as I get, then it's OK.  Better than that, it's been a blessing to be able to live so fully in this arena.  I have the paradoxical good fortune of working amidst ongoing tragedy, which makes the everyday blessings of my life that much more obvious.  If it all ended tomorrow and I never took another stroke, stride, or pedal, it would still have been amazing, and far more than others have had.

Best of luck. 

--Tom.

--
Thomas W. Quigley, MD FAAP
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
Division Chief, Pediatric Anesthesiology
University of Arizona Health Sciences Center

“You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson