123 - Brits in Boulder

Our interview this week is titled Brits in Boulder to celebrate St Georges Day this past Monday.  Bill and I met with professional triathlete's Tim Don, James Hadley and Rachel Joyce at Ivan O'Gorman's bike fit studio just outside of Boulder and had a very casual interview and discussion.  As you will hear we discussed a number of topics and are super grateful for their time and for sharing their time and perspectives as professional triathletes. 

Saint George's Day, also known as the Feast of Saint George, is the feast day of Saint George as celebrated by various Christian Churches and by the several nations, kingdoms, countries, and cities of which Saint George is the patron saint.

Thanks to last week's guest, Dr. Inigo San Milan of CU Sports Medicine and Performance on the topic of metabolic testing.  Last week was part 1 of a 2-part interview.  There was a lot to digest in last week's interview and we much, much more to get to with Inigo. 

Because of the way the dates fell with St. Georges Day being this past week, we wanted to shift gears for a week and share the Brits in Boulder interview with Tim, Rachel and James.

Next week we will return to the final half of the interview with Inigo next week.  I'll elaborate further on what you will hear next week in part 2 - you do not want to miss it. 

Before we get into today's interview, I want to relay some updates from Bill and Khem, which we discussed this morning.  I won't try to represent what they discussed this morning, but would like to share a couple of brief highlights.

Bill is back from Haute Route San Francisco.  Overall it sounded like he had an awesome experience, but Haute Route was no joke.  After taking a ferry to the start, the first stage started from Jack London Square after taking in Oakland and was a 100 mile and more than 10k feet of climbing with Mt Diablo.  Mt Diablo is a featured part of the Tour of California race. After they finished in Oakland, the racers took a ferry back to San Francisco for a good meal and massage. 

The 87 mile stage two started at the Presidio and rode across the Golden Gate Bridge.  There was another 8500 feet of climbing and it sounds like it was pretty relentless, but pretty epic at the same time.  The gist of what Bill reported was that it's a great experience, extremely well supported, but very challenging.

Khem gave an update on the Karen Hornbostel Memorial TT.  This was week four and the conditions were calm Wednesday at Cherry Creek Reservoir.  There were reportedly a lot of fast times on the 9.5 mile course and Khem knocked nearly a minute off her previous week's time.  There are three more weeks to go and I'm hoping to be out there next week with her.

After the interview I'll go into a little detail on the USAT Collegiate and HS Club Nationals in Tuscaloosa.  I'll also provide a little more on last week's interview with Dr. Inigo San Milan and talk about what you will hear in next week's episode and the information that Inigo has yet to share.

Rachel Joyce has six top ten finishes in Kona to her name (6th:2009, 5th:2010, 4th:2011, 2nd:2013, 3rd:2014, 2nd:2015), a world title and four Iron distance titles (Ironman Lanzarote 2011, Challenge Roth 2012, Ironman Texas 2013, Ironman Cozumel 2013 and Ironman Boulder in 2017).  Her finish time in Challenge Roth (8:45:03) also puts her down as the fifth fastest woman over the Iron distance and is one of only 4 women to finish in sub-9hours at the Ironman World Championships (8:57:28).

London was “home” for  10 years but now Rachel has moved Stateside and lives year round in Boulder, Colorado.  She has been coached by Julie Dibens since the end of 2014.  Her ambition in the sport is to win Kona as well as tick off a few “bucket list” races she has on her list….Wildflower, Ironman Lake Placid, St Croix 70.3 and Escape from Alcatraz to name a few.

James Hadley Originally from England, UK, has been an athlete for 28 years. He progressed quickly through years of hard work and dedication to race as a professional triathlete internationally for 11 of these years. During this time James has been taught by some of the best coaches in the world, whilst also training/racing alongside some of the all time great athletes triathlon has ever produced.  He was accepted into Bath University and started training in earnest with the triathlon team. During a visit to Australia he met coach Siri Lindley, who was “instrumental” in motivating him to take his training to the next level. He moved to Boulder to train with Lindley and still lives there today.

Great Britain’s Tim Don posted a 7:40:23 at the Ironman South American Championship in Brazil on May 28, 2017 to become the fastest athlete to ever finish an Ironman-branded race. The former ITU star put together a 44:16 swim, a 4:06:56 bike and a 2:44:46 marathon to post the incredible 7:40:23 finishing time and break Canadian Lionel Sanders’ record of 7:44:29, which was just set at last November’s Ironman Arizona. In addition to the record, Don earned the championship victory with an astounding 25-minute margin over second-place finisher Kyle Buckingham of South Africa and will be guaranteed a slot for October’s Ironman World Championship.

• Follow up comments about last week's interview
• • One of the topics from last week was a reference to calculating of sweat rate.  If you are unfamiliar with how to calculate your sweat rate, I recommend you read the blog article on the MHE Blog http://milehightripodcast.blogspot.com/2016/11/determining-your-sweat-rate.html
  • The basic process is this:

Weigh yourself prior to your workout

Weigh yourself after your workout

Note how much fluid you consumed during

Note (generally how much fluid you lost through peeing)

• Maintain a spreadsheet. 

My spreadsheet has:

1. Date
2. Time
3. Temperature
4. Activity
5. Duration (minutes)
6. Weight Prior
7. Weight After
8. Weight Change in pounds: multiply by 16 to convert to ounces
9. Fluid Consumed
10. Fluid Excreted
11. Sweat Rate in ounces

USAT Collegiate Club Nationals in Tuscaloosa.  The USA Triathlon Collegiate Club & High School National Championships are this Friday and Saturday in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with nearly 1,300 collegiate competitors from 120 collegiate clubs and more than 150 high schoolers registered to compete.

There was a course change announced and now executed.  All races will be shifted from a triathlon (swim-bike-run) to a duathlon(run-bike-run) to ensure athlete safety.

Heavy rainfall in Tuscaloosa the past two weeks led to the Holt Dam spillway gates being opened by local officials to avoid flooding. Heightened volume in the Black Warrior River necessitated that the gates remain open through race weekend, resulting in overly strong currents that were deemed unsafe for swimming.

Racing Friday included the Draft-Legal Collegiate Club Championships, in which athletes covered a 2.5-kilometer run, draft-legal 20-kilometer bike and another 2.5-kilometer run.  The draft-legal format, which allows athletes to work together and pace off eachother on the bike, is similar to what is contested in elite International Triathlon Union (ITU) competitions and the OlympicGames.

Some of the nation’s up-and-coming multisport athletes will compete at the USA Triathlon High School National Championships. The course will cover a 2.5k run, non-drafting 21.45k bike and 2.5k run. High school boys, including two athletes competing in the Paratriathlon Open division

The action continues Saturday morning with nearly the entire field of collegiate athletes competing in the Olympic-Distance Collegiate Club Championships. The course covers a 5.2k run, 40k bike and another 5.2k run. The race also includes a Paratriathlon Open division, which features a 5.2k run, 20k bike and 5.2k run.

I enjoyed working with Caryn Marconi today.  Caryn is USAT's Communication Manager and was doing an amazing job making sure all teams, coaches, media knew about the changes and handling all of the social media with her team.  COO Tim Yount did and incredible job announcing today and you can tell how passionate he is about these young athletes and the sport of triathlon.  He follows the progress of these athletes and he knows how to keep the spectators informed and engaged.

Upcoming interviews:

• Part 2 of Inigo and metabolic training
• • We'll hear Inigo's definition of training in Zone 2 and how to train to how to improve fat burning and lactate clearing.  When you don't train properly in Zone 2, you are not training the Type 1 muscle fibers.  When you don't train those fibers, they atrophy.  When Type 1 fibers atrophy, you get reduced mitochondrial function and impair your ability to clear lactate.  Accumulation of lactate results in H Ions affecting acidosis and muscle contraction
  • We'll hear Inigo talk about target carbohydrate consumption at 10-15 hours of training per week - spoiler alert - it's about 3-4 g/kg
  • We'll hear how chronically low glycogen results in catabolic effect, loss of muscle mass and results in higher cortisol and adrenal fatigue and even hypothyroidism
  • We'll Inigo's theory on the relationship between Coronary disease related to inflammation;
  • One of the things that Bill brought up on his Haute Route race was that his heart rate couldn’t get much above 130 beats/minute.  Inigo does an excellent job explaining what is happening physiologically that causes us to not be able to elevate our heart rate.  The basic idea is that the brain needs glucose.  If the brain senses there's not enough glycogen to share with the muscles and liver, the brain controls how much glycogen they get.  It also reduces adrenaline production and adrenaline reduction results in lower heart rate.
• Tim Don's cycling coach Matt Bottrill on aerodynamic form.  Matt is going to join us for an interview and get into just how many watts you can save yourself with good bike form.
• Level 3 coach Mike Ricci of D3 Multisport to talk about how to advance from age-grouper to elite
• Andrew Talansky on Oceanside and St George 70.3

Our show is also supported by 303 Media Productions, including 303Triathlon and 303 Cycling, which are your resources for news and events on triathlon and cycling in Colorado.  Be sure to follow 303Radio.

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Thanks again for listening to MHE.  Train well this week.  Stay tuned, stay informed, and enjoy the endurance journey!