Couch to KQ in 7 years
It was Christmas time of 2010. At 36, I was starting to āoutgrowā my size 34 jeans and I tipped the scale over 200lbs. I am 5ā-9ā. My family is obese. I was never really into athletics and playing football in high school doesnāt really count anymore at age 36. I told my wife, Diane, that I wanted to start running to lose weight and get healthier. In Jan of 2011 I did just that. I signed up for a 26.2 so I had a goal to shoot for. I finished my first 26.2 in August 2011.
While I was absorbing as much info as I could about running, I would talk with an IM finisher that worked in my wifeās office. She would tell me about how much she and her husband loved riding their bikes, so in Aug of 2011 I bought my first used road bike off of craigslist. It even came with shoes that fit, so I was set. This IM finisher also talked Diane and I into going to Madison to see IMWI that year. WOW! That was the coolest thing I had ever seen. All I needed to do was learn to swim, at age 37, the Monday night after IMWI 2011 was my first night of adult swim lessons.
I really was having a blast with s,b,r. I did a few olyās leading up to my first 70.3 in the fall of 2012. I think I almost killed myself and I went somewhere in the 5:50ās that day. Man that was a rough day. But as we all normally do, a couple days later, I was energized and wanting more. That year I signed up for IMWI 2013. I still remember a pivotal conversation in my development. I went to my weekly adult swim lesson. I never swam that night. Instead I had a great conversation with a Kona qualifier about IM and tri. She told me about a friend of hers that was a coach and that maybe I should talk to him. Heās someone that I hold in very high regards still today. He's a great coach, person, and friend. My first coach was Scott Bowe. STerās might know him as Sentania. My first conversation with Scott was basically this: Iām new to all of this. I donāt know where itāll go. Letās see how far we can get me. Scott told me that he had 3 goals for me, get me to the IM start line uninjured, still married, and still employed. He did a great job with all 3. I think one of the biggest things Scott did for me was he kept me from simply training myself into the ground. I continued with my weekly swim lessons up to IMWI 2013 where I went 10:55 (1:22, 5:38, 342) in my first 140.6.
2014 was wash, rinse, and repeat. My guess is that a probably averaged 10 hours training per week for the entire year. I probably maxed out around 17 hours/week. I followed Scottās planning closely. I was getting into multisport pretty deep now and loving every minute of it. I was doing running road races and duathlons as well. My adult swim lessons had come to an end and I was now swimming with a masters group and swimming alone, but following Scotts swim workouts. My swimming improved right along with my cycling and running. In 2014 IMWI I went 10:43 (1:11, 5:29, 3:54). I had experienced some stomach issues at this race again. I started the run feeling like I had just eaten an entire Thanksgiving Day dinner. It was bad. In the finishers shoot, I told Scott that I wasnāt going to do this again if we didnāt figure out my nutrition. The first thing I did was threw out all my trusted Hammer products. In this off season, I did a very big swim block. 2.5 months of swimming 5 and 6 days per week. This swimming was āoverseenā buy a local swim coach that I had hired to help me develop into a competitive level swimmer. Those results were marginal at best.
2015 for some reason I decided it would be a good idea to do 2 IMās. IM Coeur dāAlene was in June and IMWI again in Sept. I was really getting into the IM thing and bought my first used tribike off of Craigslist. We started the year with very detailed recording of calories and their stomach affects while doing long rides on the trainer. I was now using Carbo Pro. We found that anything more than 265 calories/hour would upset my stomach. This was tested and proven over many 3-5 hour trainer rides that winter and spring. Some may remember that 2015 IMCda was a pretty hot event. It was the hottest temp ever recorded in Coeur dāAlene for any day in June ever. My Garmin 500 said 116*F. That race was so hot I thought that no lessons could be gained from it. I was wrong. I went 12:32 (1:12, 5:53, 5:19). In retrospect I did learn some valuable lessons. I learned that I still needed to learn how to swim competitively. I learned that anytime you start with a plan for an IM that may be a little more than youāre capable of, than execute that plan poorly by overriding, the day will end with a lot of walking and suffering. Onto IMWI in fall of 2015. I trained very hard over this summer. I spent a lot of SAUās (spousal approval units) units this year. By the time I got to IMWI, I was mentally on the edge. I had pushed very hard. I probably peaked out with a 4 week block of 18-20 hour/week leading into WI. Prior to IMWI I announced to Diane that the only 140.6 I would be doing the following year was Kona. It was all or nothing for me at that point. 2015 IMWI was a 10:17 (1:13, 5:15, 3:39). It was a good race. I had become a low 10ās guy. I was mentally broken. I was done. I had pushed so hard. I wasnāt even close to a KQ. 13 minutes off the last KQ slot might as well be forever at that point. I swam my ass off in training, and now I am moving backwards in the water. Shorter races donāt allow me to make up enough time to overcome the loss in the water, and my competition is too strong in the longer races. Game over. I cancelled my pool membership. I declared myself a Duathlete. Scott (my coach) and I went separate ways. That next month was terrible for me. I was really in a dark place. I did some riding. Absolutely zero swimming. I ran a fair amount. Whatever. None of it really meant anything to me. Then I threw myself āon the swordā and mentioned to Diane that I was kicking around signing up for IMWI 2016. That was not a very happy conversation. I was an emotional wreck.
I started swimming again, still on my own, about 5 weeks post IMWI. One of the costs to doing IMWI I had imposed on my marriage had been skipping a tandem cycling event the week before IMWI every year. I had promised Diane we would attend that event in 2016, so I registered for IMLou instead of IMWI. I needed to be registered for an IM. It has become part of who I am. I started 2016 being a self-coached athlete. I was training every day. I was using some of the old plans for me from Scott. Things were kind of going so-so. Diane could see that too. She told me one day that if I was going to continue to do this stuff that I should probably take it seriously and hire a coach again. This time I interviewed probably 5 different coaches. I decided on working with JonnyO. My first workout under Jonnyās guidance was August 1 of 2016. My plan was to try to hit 2017 hard enough to KQ and figured that having an IM together with my new coach in 2016 would allow us to learn each other through a āpractice runā. Training in the late summer and fall of 2016 leading into IMLou became the life focus again. Big weeks and lots of hard work. Maxed out at 21 hours and 1100+ tss. 2016 IMLou was 9:53 (1:07, 5:02, 3:33). A pretty good race. A sub 10! 15 minutes from a KQ. I can run and I can bike, I canāt swimā¦still.
Continuing to do the same things over and over and expecting a different result is insanity. After IMLou 2016 I searched out 1 on 1 swim help again. I found someone to work with. This swim coach and I had many 60 minute 1/1ās. First we started twice per week, at $55 a pop. Then we cut back to once per week. I probably spent over $1200 on swim coaching. I also spent a whole lot of time in the pool. I have continued to visit him on occasion in a group setting for the remainder of the year.
One doesnāt get onto the train with JonnyO running things if youāre not driven to work hard and succeed. IMWI 2017 was now my life goal to KQ. Any and every decision made was to be based on how it would affect my A race. 2017 was going to be my year.
2017 Starts with IM Madison 70.3: I knew from the registered athlete list that some pretty big names in M40-44 were going to be racing. I also knew that if I wanted to KQ in IMWI 2017, Iād have to prove myself as being able to race with these big dogs because they were going to be there as well. My coach (JonnyO) and I, put together a very conservative race plan because it was HOT that day. I finished 19 OA and 6 AG! That was a huge confidence booster for me.
Next up: Door County 70.3 2017: An absolutely beautiful race day temp wise. Soo windy that the RD shortened the swim from 1.2 miles to the day beforeās sprint course of 400yrds. It was a very rough 400 yrds but I told myself that if I survive it, Iāll never come out of the water that close to the leaders, so in the water I went. I pushed real hard on the bike. I had just caught #1+2 OA on the bike course at mile 35, hit a bump I wasnāt expecting, and over the bars I go at 35mph! BUMMER!! No broken bones, thank God, but a lot of road rash. My first DNF.
IMWI 2017: My A race for 2017. 6 weeks post crash. Swimming is swimming, Iām on a new bike and running strong. I feel great. That is until my left hamstring flared up 2.5 weeks prior to IMWI. I didnāt freak out. I got help for it. I didnāt run for 1 week. My coach helped me through this difficult time perfectly. I rolled right into the taper and started to really feel good again. I was going to race IMWI hard and the hamstring would hold on or it wouldnāt. I had a pretty good day. The hamstring held on. I went 10:01 for #6AG. It was a good day for me, but still a little short for the KQ. I knew that M40-44 was stacked this year. I did the best I could on that day. Now what?
After a few days, I talked about the situation with my coach JonnyO. A 5 week turnaround to race IMLou would be tricky. I needed to rest and recover, but not lose any fitness. Iām in.
2017 IMLOU race report
Recovery from IMWI was quick. I felt great 1 week post-race. 10 days post-race I was hitting hard workouts again and feeling strong. For those that like the numbers:
Week 1 = 4.5 hrs +321 tss
Week 2 = 13 hrs + 853tss
Week 3 = 14.5 hrs +994 tss
Week4=12 hrs+717 tss
Week 5=14 hrs +935 tss includes the IMLou race
I was very confident in my fitness 3 weeks after IMWI untilā¦the last long ride on the Saturday 2 weeks before IMLOU. It was a great ride, .8 IF (240 NP)for 4 hours. I did it. It was a great ride. It absolutely sapped me. Week 4 I started to ease into a taper that continued and accelerated into week 5. I really mentally felt flat. I wasnāt burnt out or hurt, just lacking any pop about anything really. This is IM # 7 for me. I know the drill. I did Louisville last year. Just get it done I kept telling myself. Nothing really to note pre-race other than I flatted my front tire in the hotel parking lot heading to drop the bike off. Oh well, better today than tomorrow I tell myself. Writing down my estimated times for my wife, I tallied up a 9:40. I was almost shocked by that. I still doubted my capabilities to pull that off.
This year the swim start was changed from a first come single file line to one that was self-seeded swim time single file line. Even swimming a 1:05, that moved me way up in the line from where I started last year. That was a huge help with congestion for me on the course. My swim was pretty uneventful. 2.4 miles is a long distance to swim. I somehow managed a 1:03.
T1 was smooth. I grabbed my stuff without issues. I had a volunteer hold my bike near the mount line as I put my shoes on and off I went.
Bike: My plan was to ride 220 NP all day. We upped my calories a bit from WI to try to set me up for a better run. I had 2 bottles of Carbo Pro mixed with Gatorade and emptied salt stick capsules for a total of 1750 calories and a planned ride of 5 hours. The bike was normal for an IM. A few blatant drafters, that I always call out when I can, hardly any course marshals, a few people riding in the middle of the road, some wind gusts, some hills, and lots of people sitting upright on their TT bike. The bike was fine until my stomach started to feel just a smidge off around mile 100, so I backed off just a bit and road into T2 about 15 watts lower than the rest of the ride. Bike split of 4:54, 219NP, 214AW, all calories in.
T2 was smooth again, not crowded at all :) ļ
Run: Heading out onto the run course I knew one of the mistakes I made in WI was one that most of us do, I ran the first mile or 2 way too fast. I really concentrated on keeping the pace in check as most of the first mile at Lou is up hill to boot. I thought I could run a 8:00 pace for the entire 26.2, so I didnāt really want to go any faster than 7:45 for the first 13.1. I saw my wife at mile 1 and she informed me that I was showing as number 7 AG. That wasnāt really what I wanted to hear. I had hoped to had picked off a few more spots on the bike, but oh well. About 5 miles into my run, the expected front swept through the area. As I was trying not to be blown off the run course, my heart went out to the many people still out on their bikes. It had to have been scary out there. It was almost scary running with so much debris blowing, it was crazy. But thankfully the temp dropped around 15 degrees in 30 minutes, from a warm day to a great running temp day. Anyways, I was successful in keeping my pace in check. About half way back to the far turn around, mile 17ish, still feeling good, I decided that the time was right to take the chains off and run however my body wanted to run. Continuing to feel good into the low 20ās I tried to push my pace a bit. I concentrated on driving with my legs and relaxing my upper body and NOT slowing down. It was hard, but I felt good for the entire run. This is a TT race, youāve got to go hard all the way through the finish line, and I did just that. 3:23 run with a negative split!
Overall time of 9:30:44, that still feels weird to type and say.
I ended up #5 ag in M40-44. There were 4 slots and I very excitedly took a roll down slot and
I AM GOING TO KONA!!!
I didnāt write all of this for the purpose of āLook at meā. Iām just some average guy. I wrote this to give anyone else out there who may be wondering how in the world can I ever get there, my story. What I did do, was I took the KQ process very seriously. I found great coaches and did what they said. I trained very seriously, every day, day after day after day, month after month and year after year. I also surrounded myself with very supportive and loving friends that share a passion for s,b,r. I have spent an awful lot of capital on this chase. It has cost a fair amount of $$. It has cost a fair amount of good will at times with Diane, who I am blessed to still be able to call my wife. I have missed things in life that I had no time for, because of a training schedule. I am very fortunate. I am healthy. I am very proud of my KQ. I am looking forward very much to the Kona experience. I am also glad that I can now allow myself to step off of the KQ treadmill. I love the sbr lifestyle, but sometimes trying to get to Kona got old.
I hope this helps anyone that might be on this journey. I say, find a great coach. Do what they say. Be honest with them. Time is too valuable to be training without a clear direction. There will be no shortcuts. This may take years. Try not to get discouraged. A goal that is easy to reach may not be worth it. Aim high and tri. Who knows where you may find yourself someday.
Feel free to ask any questions from this regular guy.