Last Saturday I raced Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, aka “Honu.” This has to be, hands down, the most beautiful Ironman race in the world. Well, at least the swim and bike. The run is not so much beautiful as it is challenging, snaking through the Mauna Lani golf course. By that point what beauty is there is easily overlooked by the desperate desire to get to the finish.

This is my race report. I have split it into two parts. This first part is more conceptual, and the second part is more analytical.

Stress overload can drail even the fittest athlete. 

Last Sunday was the annual Haleiwa Metric Century Ride, hosted as always by the Hawaii Bicycling League. The ride begins at Kaiaka Bay Park in Haleiwa and passes several iconic surfing spots, including Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach. It’s place on the calendar make it a perfect shake-down for anyone doing Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, aka Honu, and there was a bunch of us doing just that. 

I am pleased to announce my Spring Into Action promotion, a great deal for new members. I am fortunate to live in Hawaii, where I can swim, bike, and run outdoors year-round, but I am not looking to build an in-person squad. We have enough of those here. 

I am looking for athletes who have been doing triathlon for a year or more and just need a little help with managing the process. I specialize in seniors and coach primarily on-line, but have limited availability for in-person coaching in Honolulu. 

I am pleased to announce that I am now an IRONMAN U Certified Coach. It has been quite a while since Ironman had a coach certification program. I know because I asked when I started by business. That was just when COVID took us into lockdown, so my USAT course was the first one on-line. At that time, Ironman was struggling with how to survive in a world turned upside down, canceling races and starting their really fun virtual program. Late last year they finally got it together. It is huge, almost a semester's worth of content that covers everything except how to tie your shoes.

It is no secret that sugar is the most effective fuel for endurance training. But are they the best? Some people disagree.

I am a fan of eating everything. I am not going down the rabbit hole of high carb, high fat, vegan, organic, gluten free fads that persist in adding confusion around what fuel is best for athletes. What I am dealing with here is sugar. Specifically, the confusing, even contradictory messaging about endurance athletes and the sugar intake.

Recently I swapped my planned Sunday workout – a run and long bike combo – for a hike with a group of co-workers. The planned bike was three and a half hours and the hike was advertised as four hours, so I thought it would be a good substitute, a welcome break from the swim-bike-run routine and some much-needed cross training. We hiked the Hawaii Loa Ridge Trail which features a fair bit of high step movements, quite different from my typical run. I was so glad I have been hitting the gym and flex sessions lately.

If you read my last post on routine - if not, go and read it now - you might have decided to have your early season strength and conditioning sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon. You may encounter a few hiccups at first; forgotten gym bag, stuck in traffic, a vet appointment you made six months ago. Eventually things smoothout and you put in a solid couple of weeks, but then more problems crop up. Things keep getting in the way. Maybe you get home and realize it’s Wednesday and you are supposed to be at the gym. 

The previous post was about skills. Key to improving skills is adequate flexibility. With flexibility, more is not always better. What you need  is just enough. This is particularly true with running, where too much flexibility will result in a loss of economy and can increase the chance of injury. When we don’t devote time to flex work, when all we do is swim, bike, and run, our muscles adapt to a limited range of motion. Eventually, this will cause trouble in the knees, hips, shoulders, lower back … just about any joint except maybe your nose.

The early season is a great time to focus on skills. Later, when large volume is the goal, spending time on the mechanics of execution will feel like a waste of valuable time. Now is when you should back off, slow down, and strive to achieve smooth, fluid motion. Swimming, biking, and running all use different muscle activation patterns, so spend time on each.There is no metric that will inform you that you are performing well. Go by how you feel. Smooth, easy, yet powerful.