2010: Ironman Wisconsin

Sensible. After taking a few steps back after last year's Ironman Louisville experience, I took some extraordinary measures to change my life. First, I got a new job. For that, I couldn't be happier. It changed my head space to contentment and fulfilment. A number of fellow triathletes were instrumental in making that happen and for that, I am grateful. The next big change was finding my own groove when it came to training and racing. When starting out as a novice, the books, the interviews, the Q&A with others attempted to supplement my inexperience. However, as the game goes on, nothing beats experience. This time around, I felt confident.

Sensible. Training this year focused solely around Ironman Wisconsin. I dabbled with equipment, raced with and without aero-equipment early in the season, played around with nutrition, tweaked my bike fit a lot, switched from a compact crank to standard, went for some soul-crushing bike rides with those that are clearly better than me, and attempted some PR splits. The highlights of those adventures would be:

1. American TTT - I went into the event with minimal bike training, and raced with bad tires and no aero equipment. Wow, I was working harder than most people around me.

2. Door County HIM - How fast can I run? I ran a 1:21 half-marathon split. Applicable lesson was by biking "very" under controlled, I can run with the very best of them.

3. Pigman HIM - How fast can I bike? I biked a 2:19, while making a few pacing errors in the process. Biking too hard, especially in the heat, leads to a tough run. So tough that it's really not fun.

These three things shaped the way for Ironman Wisconsin. A pacing mistake, from my perspective, is the worst type of mistake a racer can make. My overall "A" goal range was 9:15-9:45. On the one end was a time that would risk an atomic bomb type of explosion, and on the other hand, a sensible outlook. The day proved, by a matter of circumstances, a sensible one.

Sensible. Adrienne and I started the swim together on the left side right near the turn buoy. When the cannon went off, we had clean water with a great group of swimmers around us. Everybody was courteous. The pace was strong for less than 50 yards before we all settled into a 54-56 minute IM pace. It was my easiest IM swim yet.

I exited at 56 low without breaking a sweat. (Two years prior, I exited the water in 53 low and was hurting. It made for a really long day despite the good overall time.) Transition went smoothly and before long, I was out biking.

Biking the stick, as we affectionately refer to the segment between the Monona Terrace and Verona before starting two loops, was easy. So easy, that I knew I was tapered right and that I swam well within my means. I was biking with two other guys who seem interested in having a good bike split. I was happy to join them.

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Interject: The day before the race. I had breakfast with a fellow friend doing the race who was also the host for Pro Eric Bean. He and I had a good discussion about powermeters and heart rate monitors. His argument was for using them in training, but not for racing. It convinced me, so I raced without any technology. It was a good move.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Myself and two others cruised the stick managing to catch a number of riders. It wasn't long before I caught my training partner Scott Bowe. At that particular moment, I wasn't sure if he was holding back or off to a rough start (At the end of the day, he killed all us by biking with uncanny even power, and backing it up with a 3:09 run). Then came the hiccup.

Sensible. Penalties are bad. I got one. The details are unimportant. I served my four minute time penalty in Cross Plains. Shortly after receiving my penalty, the strongest age-group racers caught me (Joe Kurian, Mike Lavery) on the way to Mount Horeb. Thomas Brunold did not catch me until after Cross Plains, by then I did my time. Going into the race, I knew that if I wanted to mix it up with the fastest guys, I would need to ride near them on the bike. Given that I swim 4-8 minutes faster than them, I could afford to hold even on the bike, and by biking a 5:15'ish, be only a few minutes down when starting the run. Given I had a penalty, that plan was down the tubes. From there on, I simply dialled down my effort to the point where I was saying to myself "this is easy and I don't mind it being easy." My Door County HIM experience was still fresh in my mind.



Sensible. I came into transition 2, well behind the leaders, and surprisingly, behind a number of local guys that put out some really incredible bike splits. By the time I got my CEP compression socks on, I was a ways back.

Sensible. When a pro tells you that he runs the first three miles really easy. He means it. I took Bean's pre-race advice to heart and ran the first three miles easy. Actually the first 13 miles weren't much trouble. I held 7:15-7:20s without any grimacing. When I came up on a spector who was spotting for me, he said I wasn't gaining any time on Scott Bowe, I replied "Well, I'm running 7:20s!" and thinking that either Scott is going to Rock star the race or blowup soon. For the second loop, I started having more coke, than water or Powerbar drink. The stomach felt fine the entire time, I had a salt tablet nearly every mile. No hints of side-stitches. I did feel some sloshing coming on, but took a gel and that prevented it.





Eventually, I caught and passed everybody I thought I would minus Scott. I put together a 3:15 marathon and finished with my wits. This was the most fun I had while "doing" an Ironman. The other two times were filled with some really low points mentally and physically.


Last year, I wrote:

"My future in Ironman racing is uncertain. I feel that there is much work to be done both physically and mentally to hit the ceiling. But like most hobbies, it's just for fun and if something else comes along that fosters the same feelings as racing I might just hang up the swim cap and goggles, sell the bikes, and use the running shoes to mow the lawn."

I took some flak for that statement. This time around, I'll say I thoroughly enjoyed the training and the race. The people surrounding the event make the journey worth while, especially my wife Adrienne. That darn girl is nearly as fast as me and she also got a Kona slot. So, next year we'll both be at Kona, Hawaii. My training partner Scott nearly won my age group as well. He'll be there as well.





Swim - 56
Bike - 5:29 (including 4 minute penalty)
Run - 3:15
Total 9:50
36th Overall
6th Age Group 30-34
Awarded Kona Slot

Things to Remember:
- 2 Cliff Bars, 1 Powerbar Harvest for breakfast, then bottle of EFS Pre-Race
- Bilaterally breathe when swimming. If I can't, it means I'm pushing too hard.
- In bike special needs bag, think about having a Red Bull in a water bottle and drinking it a mile 80.
- No caffeine for two weeks prior to an IM to increase sensitivity.
- First Endurance Liquid shot (15 of them) in water bottle topped off with water was fine. I had 19 in there but could only mustered down approx 15 of them.
- First Endurance EFS was fine for the first bottle on the bike frame, but after that grab water at the aid stations to wash down the Liquid shot.
- Mixing it up between water, Powerbar drink, coke at all the run aid stations was effective.
- Pee'd once on the bike, once on the run.
- Salt Stick tablets (26) in the MM's container tucked into jersey worked fine for the run.
- Konawi Tri-suit, CEP compression socks, Visor, no heart rate monitor, Nike Lunar Glide shoes (best shoes ever for me), LG aero helmet, Planet X Stealth Size Medium, Planet X Tubular 82-101 combo, rear cassette 11-27.

Special Thanks to:
- Gear Grinder
- Planet X Bikes USA
- Emery's Bike Shops
- Scott Bowe, Joe Kurian, Jeff May, Mike Pierson
- Lane Brostrom, Eric Bean
- Travis Evenson and Paula Skoy-Evenson
- TriWisconsin

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1-7:24 2-7:01 3-7:22 4-7:21
5-7:11 6-7:18 7-7:16 8-7:18
9-7:21 10-7:23 11-7:36 12-7:35
13-7:35 14-7:35 15-7:35 16-7:43
17-7:42 18-7:42 19-7:36 20-7:39
21-7:47 22-7:52 23-7:53 24-7:54
25-7:40 26-7:23

2010: Swimming Update

It's three weeks before Ironman Wisconsin and now is when I do some cramming for the swim. All that hard biking that occured over the last couple of weeks makes it hard to add in some quality swim sessions.

Today was my first of the bunch: 30x100s. My goal was to hit sub 1:15 with an interval time of 1:25. It wasn't a problem. I average 1:12.7 for all thirty without any drop in pace or increase in effort.

The goal for the next two weeks is to swim 5x/week with the three weekly key sets each week. They are: 30x100 on 1:12/1:25 ; 15x200 on 2:30/2:45 ; 7x400 on 5:00/5:20. The inbetween swims are easy filler ones.

2010: Pigman HIM

Cook my eggs over easy, please!

This was the hottest race I've ever done. Because of fog on the lake and roads, the race was delayed 45 minutes. Hence, we all got to feel the heat of Iowa and let me tell you, it was hot!

The swim was uneventful. A lead group of ten or so swam hard and I let me them go. I ended up swimming with the lead women (Lauren Jensen, Cyndi Bannik, Jackie Arendt).

The bike was an adventure. At mile 3, Jason Maurice went past me with David Cohen. At that point, I knew who my riding buddies would be to help me get a fast bike split. The three of us rode together for ten miles until Cohen eventually pulled away (and subsequently blewup on the run). Maurice was a good carrot stick and I decided to ride behind him for most of the race. I did put in one big surge for 30 minutes in the first quarter of the race to catch Scott Bowe that probably wasn't in my best interest. Given the speed I was already travelling at, it was a needless waste of carbohydrates. In the move, I dropped Maurice who eventually caught me 15 miles later.

Given my only goal for the day was a PR bike split, I accomplished it. 2:19 and change was a decent time considering the heat. Uber biker David Thompson rode slower intentionally because of the conditions. It was a good lesson for all of us.

I expected the run to be tough. Right out of transition the legs felt tired, I had stomach cramping, and wierdly enough, some right knee pain. Add in sensations of overheating, I thought I was fully cooked. DNF was on my mind, but when I reached mile one I was right at 7:00 pace. That kept me going, at least for another 1.5 miles. Knowing that I seeking a good workout this weekend and not a bottom of the well, PR type of experience, I proceeded cautiously. It was a good move. I ended up walking to cool down my body. From there on out, I walked all the aid stations, and ran very slowly just to get the race over with. I stopped and thanked the volunteers, cheered on others, and simply enjoyed the rest of the day. It was a lot of fun.

In summary, I had a great time despite the lack-luster time. A lot of us blewup from biking hard. On a cool overcast day, the results would have been very different.

Things to Remember:
- When my shoes get wet, especially the left one, the sole slips. Use double sided carpet tape to tape the shoe soles down.
- In hot conditions (85 degrees and +), slow it down on the bike and run.
- Use a visor, not a hat when above 75 degrees.

2010: Bike Crash, Training, and Planet X Bikes

When I did my 2 hr bike ride on Thursday night, I got a late start so the last few minutes of my ride were in the dark (yes, I did have lights on). In doing so, I missed seeing a huge pothole that my front wheel fell into. I was sent flying to the pavement landing on my left shoulder. I got mild road rash on the left shoulder, left forearm, and left knee. Nothing too serious that a few days and some tegaderm couldn't heal. As a result, I took Friday off to recover.

On Saturday night I resumed training by doing my 13 mile MAF-10bpm test on the track. It went well and I averaged 7:06 pace and held even within a few seconds from start to finish. The drift upward at the end was from it being so dark I couldn't see my watch, hence I pushed a little strong:

1- 7:08 146bpm 2- 7:13 146 3- 7:08 146 4- 7:03 146
5- 7:03 147 6- 7:03 147 7- 7:12 146 8- 7:09 146
9- 7:08 146 10- 7:04 148 11- 7:02 148 12- 7:01 150
13- 7:05 149

On another note, Adrienne finally got her new bike. She ended up replacing her Planet X Exocet with the Planet X Stealth Pro. Our local bike shop mechanic Ryan, at Emery's, spent some time shortening the cables for us and checking everything over. He's our go-to guy for bike repair here in Milwaukee:


Our basement is full of Planet X bikes, plus we have another white one on the way. Brian Ray at Planet X USA and Brent Emery at Emery's Bike Shop have been great through the whole process of getting Adrienne a new bike since her bike crash.

2010: Build for IM

In review, I polished off my third week of Base 3 with the hard 100 mile ride with Joe and Thomas in Madison mentioned in my previous blog post.

The recovery week was not much different: a solid 3 hr ride on Tuesday, a solid 2.75 hr run on Wednesday at 7:52 pace with neighbor John Lancanster, and again, a hard ride with the guys. Although, this time I got two flat tires reducing my ride a few miles to catch up. I drafted a bunch, unlike last time, allowing me to keep up. Joe held 271 watts for 3:53. I ran 40 minutes afterwards around 7:00 pace. It wasn't all that bad. I swam three times: 3K, 2K, 4K. Plus, I added in the track workout of 4 x 5:00 at 6:20 pace with 2:00 minute recover instead of past week's 6 x 5:00.

Weeks 1-3 are the my build weeks followed by a two week taper. The mainstays are the hard 90 mile bike rides, shortening up the long run, doing some 800s on the track, and adding some more mileage to the swimming. Nothing fancy.

2010: Late Season Training

I was kind of like the picture above for four hours last week Saturday: a facial expression of Oh, God! and hanging on for dear life.

Rumor has it that we rode 260 watts for three hours, at least until I had to ease up the fourth hour. I rode a total of 100 miles, but timed only 94 miles of it at 4:14. That's a new land speed record for me.

I learned a few things riding with Wisconsin's IM rockstars Joe K and Thomas B. First, they mash the pedals more than I thought possible. I mean they crank it at 70-80 rpm to keep the watts high. Second, the hills were no different than the flats. Ride them strong and stiff. Third, a quality 100 mile ride means no stops. Carry what you need and, if possible, never slow down. Fourth, riding behind someone even 25 to 35 yards offers some draft. It's common to see a 5-10 watt difference when behind someone at this distance when riding really, really fast. Finally, a powermeter is a wonderful tool for keeping it real. I don't have one but these guys did and they kept the effort steady. Certainly something to think about for 2011 for optimizing training.

Last year, I did German Rides that were similiar to what I did with Joe and Thomas this past weekend. In retrospect, my German Rides had too many granny gear hills, stop signs, and turns. Thomas's route was a great blend of everything making it for a very humbling ride. Pushing the pedals for four hours without stopping is really hard, especially when riding with guys like them.

While it was a humbling experience, I noticed that when I rode hard a few days later, I could feel the benefit of the past weekend's ride. Pushing hard and steady for hours and hours is a learned skill and one that I "thought" I mastered, but was mistaken. I look forward to another dose of reality this coming weekend.

Overall, I've backed down the training volume to about 15hrs/week the last two to three weeks. The quality workouts of long bike, long run, shorter-harder bike, shorter-harder run are all getting done. The nice thing is that I'm not feeling like burnt toast all the time like in years' past. The other positive thing to mention is that Adrienne is back racing. She did a great job at a local olympic distance race taking second, plus she ran a 41 minute 10km. She thinks she can catch me. I'm starting to wonder that myself.

2010: Door County HIM

Door County HIM
Egg Harbor, WI
7-18-2010

Matt Amman
7th Overall 4:22 S-28 B-2:30 R-1:21

I went into the race stressed. I started a new job, Adrienne got hit by a car while training on the Ironman WI bike course, and I was travelling a lot. Training was happening, but at irregular spurts.

Regardless, I wanted to do something VERY different for this race. I wanted to check my run fitness to gain some solid data applicable to upcoming Ironman Wisconsin (which is eight weeks away). My goal was to swim at IM effort, bike at IM effort, and then run to my potential--very Gordo'esque.

It worked! I swam easy and by doing so, I wasn't all that far behind the leaders. Yes, it was two minutes but it wasn't five. Given that I swam a 28, a 56-58 swim at IM is in the cards with little strain. Swim HR ave 157

The bike was surprising uneventful. I had about a dozen and a half people pass me. I did my best to have the HR be 145 bpm and at the end of the day I averaged 147. Not too bad.

Riding with the MOPers was a blast from the past for me. Three years ago I was right there huffing and puffing, taking the corners slow, having erractic speed changes, and weaving all over the road. Most the guys I rode with were pushing well beyond their fitness levels and either blew up in the last 15 miles of the bike or did so on the run. It pays to be in super duber bike shape. Bike HR Ave 147.

I left T2 with one other guy who wanted, I assume, to show off for the crowd (plus his family). For the first 100 yds, he was running at 5:30 pace until he suddenly stopped, ripped off his HR monitor for some inexplicable reason, and gave it to his family. Then he resumed top speed again for another 200 yards before blowing up. Kaboom! I cruised the first 200 yards with him and asked him if he planned on running the whole race at 6 minutes pace. He didn't say anything...must of been busy planning his sudden meltdown.

I ran hard and fast to see what my "run potential" should be. In the past, I usually rip the swim and bike and hang-on during the run. Usually that's good for a 4:2X. This year, it's probably good for a 4:1X. Who knows. Here's my mile splits:

1-5:52 (163bpm)
2-6:05 (164)
3-5:59 (164)
4-5:48 (165)
5-6:12 (164)
6-6:10 (164)
7-6:21 (163)
8-6:26 (little hill) (161)
9-6:11 (160)
10-7:14 (killer hill) (162)
11-6:08 (163)
12-6:17 (163)
13-5:55 (162)
.1-31 (163)

Total 1:21 (6:12 ave)

I was hoping to have the fastest run split of the day, but superstars Jeff Tarkowski put up a 1:18 and Mark Harms went 1:20. All things considered, I proved to myself that I can do it. Lesson learned: bike conservatively to optimize the run.

If wanted to "attempt" to win this race, I would have swam with the leaders, biked with the leaders regardless of the pace, and ran with the leaders hoping to out-survive them. Given that Tarkowski and Harms both went 4:00, there really is no other way to do it. In that scenario, expecting me (or anybody else) to run a 1:14 is not realistic. Even so, they biked fast enough that even a 2:20 bike split is not fast enough to win overall. However, if the winning time was expected to be a 4:1X, I'd swim with the leaders, do my own plan for the bike, and then run to my potential. In the future (2011), I'll be toying with it.

I also switched up my nutrition. I used First Endurance EFS - carried two bottles and drank both. I also used First Endurance Liquid Shot - carried two flasks using all of one of them and 3/4 or the other equalling 6-7 gels. I had nothing on the run. I also did lots of excentuated left footed exhales to minimize any side-stitches. I had inklings of them, but nothing that got out of control. My legs felt a little crampy on the bike, so I should consider using a few salt tablets in the future. Breakfast was two Powerbars and an EFS bottle with PreRace mixed in.

Today, Monday, I took completely off. I was sore. The long drive back home didn't help. Either did today's six hour drive for work. But hey, the pain was worth it.

Race Hard, Race Smart!