I know I’m a slacker when my pal Brad Culp posts to his blog more regularly than I do. And the fact that he’s doing beer reviews on a triathlete nutrition blog is just the icing on the cake. I’m bright green with envy. Not only does he find time to write, he finds time to toss back a few pints and write - both most likely on the clock!
I’m trying my best to stay on track but I have to admit that at times it’s tough. For example, times like now when I’m balancing a busy workload with the peak weeks of Ironman training, tending to an energetic young dog and paying some sweet attention to my personal life. But my full plate is a welcome load that I wouldn’t trade for anything, especially in light of the fact that there is excitement in every corner.
What’s up at GU is that, after years of super-secret-seeding-to-the-pros, we’ve launched our Roctane Ultra Endurance Energy Gel to the athletic world at large. The response has been great and the buzz continues to grow. While this blog is meant as more of a personal training/racing/life experience space as opposed to a soapbox for shameless brand promotion, I want to share some of my own experience with Roctane - our phenomenal new gel which I’m convinced will accompany me on a journey to athletic achievement on an entirely new level. The stuff is that good!
Take a look at my Wildflower race. I was extraordinarily happy with my choice to go the Olympic distance, my first short course race in quite some time. My swim & bike training were nothing to write home about, as my focus had been marathon miles in preparation for Boston. Wildflower was more of an afterthought, a nice way to get my heart rate up 2 weeks following the marathon, and an opportunity to satisfy my itch to participate while spending the entire weekend at the race venue. So needless to say, I wasn’t expecting much from my performance. But as fate, or perhaps great nutrition, would have it, my day went beautifully. I felt decent in the swim, a few notches better on the bike and then – as if infused with otherworldly powers - superhuman on the run. And if you’ve ever raced Wildflower you know that “superhuman” is never the way one describes feeling during the last leg of that race. Brutalized, near-death, and totally spent are all common descriptors – but not superhuman.
And I know exactly what got into me – blueberry pomegranate Roctane. Along with GU2O electrolyte drink, it was my only fuel on race day, and it helped me sail to a finish time 1 minute faster than my last WF Olympic race, several years back when I was better trained for speed and had not come off a marathon 2 weeks prior. I even took time out to stop briefly and encourage a friend who was cramping and struggling through her own run. Zipping through each mile, I picked off several of the women I had leapfrogged back and forth with throughout the bike course, leaving them behind to struggle with the demons of heat and dust. The miles flew past and before I knew it I was headed into the final frenzied descent down Lynch Hill and into the finish chute.
As we’ve worked on Roctane, we’ve had many discussions internally at GU focusing on how to best capture the essence of the product. One concept I’ve latched onto is that Roctane is about competitions that are decided by seconds or inches. It’s not going to make a Lance Armstrong out of a couch potato, but it may well provide a competitive athlete with that extra bump up to the next level. In the finish chute I caught sight of a woman who was surely in my age-group, and even though I knew we were unlikely to be battling for podium spots, she was within sight and I was dead-set on catching her. I powered toward the line, energized by the quest for glory (as well as the Roctane packets I had consumed throughout the race) and blew past her in a blur of dig-deep-speed. The final result: 2:54:00 vs. 2:54:01.
Looking ahead to what’s next, Ironman Coeur D’Alene on June 22nd looms large on my race radar. It will be a follow-up visit to last year, when I enjoyed one of the sweetest days of my athletic career. Of course, being an Ironman race there were multiple ups and downs throughout the 12+ hours I spent on the course. But it’s exactly those ups and downs that weave together the tapestry that is Ironman, a multi-textured experience that is simultaneously life-changing and life-affirming.
I’ve been taking my minimalist philosophy of less-is-more training to new extremes this time around, having only become serious in the past few weeks. But despite the lack of major miles logged over months of dedicated effort, I feel surprisingly good. I’ve had a handful of intensely long and strong training days which have helped me turn the corner toward the confidence necessary to do this thing. Anything can, and probably will, happen on race day, but I feel ready and eager to plunge into the water and go forward into my M-dot dream. Let’s just hope I can swim 4k without feeling that my arms might fall off!