Triathlon at Retirement

Well, almost, L'Etape San Antonio by Tour de France is part of a worldwide amateur cycling series designed by Tour de France experts. San Antonio, Texas was chosen for the only USA race at April 10!  L'Etape San Antonio included a pro bicycle race featuring two-time Tour de France and Giro de Italia winner Alberto Contador and the amateurs race/ride the same course behind. When I heard about it, I signed up as I live nearby. I choose a slightly shortened version of the pro race "only" 60 miles and 3689 feet of climbing... Pro race and the longer option was 100 miles and over 6000 feet of climbing. There was also a shorter race of only 25 miles. This is a great motivator and training. It was a little crowded the first few miles, but not too bad. My race plan was to not rush and exhaust myself at any point, but to hold a steady pace and make sure energy lasted to the end. During the first 30 miles, it was not too hot and there was no wind, plenty of people to draft on a

Sometimes you can end up in a situation where you definitely are the least able athlete. In every event, someone is last. It does not have to mean they are out of their depth; they can be the slowest person in a strong field. The world championship for example, even the lowest place competitor is a great athlete. As I am older, I have to accept that I may be the slowest athlete sometimes. But I have a rule; I never sign up for anything where I think there is a risk I will become a burden to the organizers or other competitors. I make sure that I am adequately prepared for every event I enter. Noone should for example sign up for an Ironman without a long period of training beforehand. But still, an Ironman may be in your capacity, you just know that you will be far behind the winner. Maybe they don't offer your age group and you have to compete against younger athletes. Don't let the worry about being last stop you. I have seen people being so worried about being last that they

It is now the tail end of winter, and I will write about what I did to complement my training last summer in Sweden:  orienteering.   Orienteering is fairly popular in Sweden. It is so important to enjoy the workouts, and orienteering is perfect for longer runs. Running through forest and on rough trails is hard and demands stability in the ankles. A lot of small muscles are used in the constantly varied terrain. During my last orienteering, I had an average heart rate of 147 and topped at 172, during the 40 minutes race.  Being focused on the map and finding checkpoints, I did hardly notice how hard the body was working.  Of course, if you are a beginner, you may be walking more than running as those controls are hard to find... It is interesting that an average orienteering race in Sweden only costs about 20 dollars to enter. For that you get a professionally drawn special map, a course set in the forest designed for your age group and ability (there are hundreds of different checkpo

What an experience! I am so glad I decided to participate in the original Swedish long distance ski race  Vasaloppet , together with 48000 other people. I had my race of 45 km (28 miles) yesterday, races are occurring over many days to accommodate the demand. Below is a youtube video from the race by Volvo cars where I feature in a yellow jacket. Gunilla Gard - VASALOPPET 45 2022 - 04:08:17 - YouTube The event is very well executed. It is all happening in the little town of Mora in the province of Dalarna (or Dalecarlia in English). Over 500 years ago, Gustav Vasa, a Swedish nobleman, was skiing away from Mora fleeing his enemies. The Dalecarlians decided to get him back and make him king and two ski runners caught up with Vasa in the village of Sälen, 90 km away. The return trip from Sälen to Mora became the Vasaloppet ski race that has been going for 100 years! I did half the race (45km), from the village of Oxberg to Mora because 90km is more than I can safely handle. As I wrote in

This year, at age 64 and at the upper end of my age group, I decided to do some sporting events just for the experience.  The Vasaloppet cross-country ski race in Sweden has been on my bucket list for a long time and now I have gone for it. It is the largest cross-country ski race in the world.  It is also a special year 2022, since it is the 100 year jubilee since the first race 1902!  The full race is 90 km (56 miles), but I worried this would be too much for me, so I signed up for half distance, 45 km (28 miles). To prepare myself, I have rented a hut in Sweden for 4 weeks in a location close to the race and I bought equipment, skis, poles and shoes. I did a bit of cross-country skiing when I was young, so I had an idea how to get decent gear that fits my ski style, weight and height. I have now been in Sweden almost two weeks and I am humbled. This is harder than I remember. My Strava segments are telling me the truth; I am slow, slow, slow. Not so impressive to be number 10217 on

I know not to take fitness apps too seriously, but here we go again. Recently, I ran one of my regular routes on a new PR. Great, I might still be improving, despite age being against me. It was a chilly day (for Texas), about 52F (11C).  My first observation is that the Coros watch I am using right now gave me a distance of 2.61 miles and an elevation gain of 627 ft. Strava gave the same distance, but only a 371 ft elevation gain. Previous runs using Garmin have measured the distance to 2.60 mile and 313 ft in elevation. My Fitbit have given me 2.80 miles on the same route. I have got used to the discrepancy in distance, and I use Strava as the arbiter. Strava: 2.61 miles. 371 elev. gain Coros: 2.61 miles, 627 ft elev. gain Garmin: 2.60 miles, 313 ft elev. gain Fitbit: 2.80 miles, elevation gain not recorded This last time (Coros), I ran a PR with 35 seconds! This is a huge improvement, and I was deliberately trying for a new record, meaning that I pushed hard all the way to the end. 

What works for best performance in a long run or bike ride? Start hard and push it as far as you can, or start in a more comfortable speed and increase at the end? It's the latter, when your mile (or km) times are getting faster as you go (negative splits), you are more likely to reach your best time. This is well known, and I have also tested it for myself on the treadmill.  To the left is an example of negative splits on a recent training run. Starting too hard is always a mistake, you cannot will yourself to keep it up to the end, your body is actually  unable  to respond. I am not going into the physiology of why, but I have enough experience to say that a too ambitious opening will fail to make a good time and it's not a lack of willpower. When I did my half ironman earlier in the year, I was just focused on completing the course, not to reach a specific time or place. I managed the energy well, holding an even pace, and the final run ended up as my best performance for th