Breaking 230

Last night was a heart rate test on the bike (I died). This morning was strength training; and tonight we'll be back in the pool.

I've made a lot of training mistakes in the past - and I'm sure I'll make several more over the years. I believe strength and conditioning was one of the major missing components in my training last year, resulting in a number of niggles, and eventually injuries. 

My first year in the sport I didn’t realize that I couldn’t do any lifting and strength training while swimming, biking, and running, so I just did it. Granted I only had the one Olympic to train for, as opposed to the 3 events I raced last year, but I think I struck the balance better.

Last year I was obsessed with getting faster, not necessarily stronger. I stopped strength training almost completely after March; and even though I included it on my training schedule, it got scrapped almost every week. Next on the chop-board was always recovery, yet another indispensable part of the training equation. It’s no wonder I ended up over-trained for a few weeks during and after my season.

This year the priorities are somewhat reversed. Both strength & conditioning AND rest & recovery are top priority, as my goal is to make it to the end of the year sans injury. I am really monitoring my the intensity of my sessions to keep to the 80/20 rule, setting aside a day each week for stretching and recovery, icing (even though I hate it 🤮) and LISTENING to my body. There are times and seasons for “pushing through”; this season is for building up, for developing healthy habits and consistency.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past - but here's to learning from my mistakes to be fitter still! 💪🏾 

Fear. It is a real feeling, though usually not around things that have as yet materialized, or in some cases ever will.

This week was categorized by a lot of fear for me. First it was the fear of putting myself “out there” again on social media for all to see my triumphs and failures. Then there were some relational fears that were all-consuming. And lastly there was the fear that I had re-torn my ankle tendons...

I have found myself in this chair a lot in the last year, but yesterday was good news! Turns out the searing/shooting pain I had been feeling was less my tendon and more a nerve that was likely getting pinched by the compression sleeve I occasionally wear. The relief from that news was amazing - I had already started contemplating another procedure on my foot, and potentially cancelling my races for the year.

Granted not all our fears dissolve into harmless mirages. There are times when the growl in the thicket is indeed a tiger readying to pounce.

Just before I walked into the doctor’s office though I looked up and caught this golden staircase lit up on the side of the building. It was a reminder to look up even in the face of darkness. 

The quote is from one of my favorite video games, “Destiny”, from one of the first scenes of the game where a new hero is born, returned to life by the power of the Light. It’s something I think about a lot, especially when I saw it tattooed to the arm of a guy I ran into two summers ago, who got it in honor of his dad as he battled cancer.

And then there’s this quote by J.R.R. Tolkein from The Return of the King:

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

It is SOOOO much easier said than done. My hope and prayer is that my experience from this week serve as a reminder the next time fear and anxiety consume me to look up, be patient, and allow friends to continue to come around me and talk me down off the ledge.

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My last post was almost half a year ago (and in another decade!) With the start of the new year, it's also time to restart my training. The goals have been set, the plan is in motion - now it's just time to put in the work!

My goal for this year is simple: NO INJURIES 

I went on to race my final event of 2019, the Chicago Triathlon Olympic distance, which turned out to be a duathlon due to ridiculous waves on the lake. I managed to tear two tendons at that very race chasing down my friend and arch-nemesis Ryan S, missing him and a year’s worth of bragging rights between us by 2 minutes!

Since then it has been a loooong journey of getting properly diagnosed, undergoing treatment, and a few weeks of physical therapy. I didn't even really feel like training until a week ago, I was so burned out! I learned a lot of lessons in 2019, but a number of them came with the largely avoidable injuries. So my goal is to make it through this year stronger and fitter than ever.

So my last post (ages ago, I know) was right before my first triathlon of the season - the Grand Rapids Olympic Triathlon. Since then I’ve completed that race, and another Sprint in Lake Geneva, and am now 3 weeks into my 8-week block leading to my main event of 2019 - the Olympic Distance at the Lifetime Chicago Triathlon! I figured this is as good a time as any to give an update on how the last few weeks have been.

First off, the Grand Rapids Triathlon (Olympic distance): <No pictures here, because they weren’t free, and I’m not about that life>

I came in under 3 hours!!!  This was a really exciting result, especially considering I had missed a few weeks from overtraining, and was reaaaally slow on my practice swims. Turns out I hit most of my splits exactly as I had planned, while the extra 2mins I gained on the bike helped offset falling behind on the run.

Swim   00:39:52 T1        00:04:39 Bike     01:17:58 T2        00:04:43 Run     00:52:33

This race ended up being a HUGE confidence boost for the rest of the season. It showed me that my training was effective, and that even though I wasn’t where I’d hoped to be, I was fitter than my first tri last year, and this so much earlier in the season.

2 weeks after GRTri, I was in Lake Geneva for the Bigfoot Triathlon (Sprint distance):

This was my first ever Sprint Distance event. I made a weekend of it with my girlfriend (she’d yet to explore Lake Geneva) and a friend I was racing with, along with his wife. I figured since the Sprint was half the distance of the Olympic in every discipline that shooting for 1:30:00 completion was a comparable goal. I also wanted to experience what it was like to recover from one event, directly into another event. How long does the fitness I’ve built up for one event carry into the next? Should I schedule my prime events first in the season, or on the back-end? These were some of the questions I was hoping to answer.

Well...I timed in at 1:29:22 AND finished 5th in my age group!! WHAT?!?!?! This result was a huge surprise. I certainly had to push for it. It helped that I was racing my friend Ryan (first across the finish line got priority for the shower back at the Airbnb), but I was really only shooting for the time goal, which I was glad to beat for sure.

Swim   17:27 T1        03:11 Bike     39:46 T2        01:55 Run     27:06 

I took a week to rest after this event, since it was a shorter distance than the Olympic, and I was going back to training instead of a race. I have been mixing up speed work with strength work and distance work. I have been training more intensely and more consistently than any other point in my life. And I’m seeing it pay off!

I am now a week out from my first Triathlon of the season - Grand Rapids, MI (Olympic distance) - which puts me 12 weeks out from the Chicago Tri and my attempt at breaking 2:30:00. Since I used a 12-week training program last year, this first tri has always been meant to show me where I'm at with my training. We'll talk about some of the other reasons later, but for now, let's take stock and reflect on the product of the last 12 weeks.

My original plan called for completing the GR Tri this coming weekend in 2:45:00 on the high end, and definitely under 3:00:00 on the low end. The remaining 11 weeks would then be tailored towards speed work and getting my body in shape for Chicago. As it stands, 3hrs is my only goal, and I'll be pushing the pace to reach it.

Whatever swim progress I thought I was making has been squandered by 2 full build weeks out of the water due to overtraining, and imperfect technique that showed up only once I started swimming in open water. My mile-swim time is somehow 3mins slower than it was before Chicago last year, and I have yet to do any long runs even totalling the 10km I'm expected to run at the end of Sunday's triathlon. So yea, I am going into the weekend with less confidence of hitting 3hrs than even Chicago last year.

That being said, I feel...ok. I've raced a tri before, so I have a better idea of what to expect. I'm counting on a better run leg now that I have a nutrition plan that works for me, which means I should start that phase of the run with more energy and fewer/zero cramps. I also have a better sense of when/how hard/how far to push myself in a race. So I actually think I'm better prepared going into this race.

Where does that leave us? Well, I'm proud of the work I've put in towards this race. Along the way, I've learned a lot about myself and my body, it's limitations, and how to train effectively for future races. And I'm keen to see what kind of performance I put out on Sunday! When I've felt like giving up, I've been guided by this quote:

"It's alright to miss your goals. It's not alright to quit beforehand."

I’ve heard it said that an Ironman triathlon is long enough that anything that could go wrong will go wrong. And that’s part of the game. Thank God I’m not racing an Ironman! But I think it’s a valuable life lesson, that things are bound to go wrong every now and then, but it matters more how we respond and deal with it.

Last year during the swim I freaked out in the water and stopped sighting, leading me to run headlong into one of the pro athletes in opposing traffic. She eviscerated me. Then during the bike leg my bike rattling inexplicably the entire ride, only for the front wheel to literally drop straight off the front of the bike when I tried to rack it in transition. A mile into my run I started cramping...

But I kept going.

I think one of the beauties of this sport is that it gives you an arena to face life-like issues in a low-stakes environment. Very often my attitude up to this point in life when facing setbacks has been to give up or throw a hissy fit. And let’s be real, I still do that from time to time. But I think I’ve also seen how better I’m becoming at keeping my cool and to keep going in the face of setbacks. 

Let’s take this Saturday for example.

It was my 6-month Dental appointment. My dentist moved from the city to the suburbs two trains and an hour away, but is so terrific I followed! Figured I can make that trip twice a year. And this Saturday would be perfect because I could bike my way back home to get my 2hr long ride in! 

Well the first of those two trains was running so late I would’ve missed the second one, and been 90mins late for my appointment... But I had my bike! So I decided to high-tail it to the train station even though Google maps said I’d miss it by a minute. Shaved almost 5mins off that time before, with the station 6 full city blocks down, my back tire hit a lip in the road from all the construction and popped my inner tube. I chose to run the rest of the way half rolling, half carrying my bike.

I made the train. And my appointment! 

After my cleaning I decided to turn the dental office into a mini bike repair shop cuz it was a little chilly outside (S/O to Dr Sabrina Cinqui and the wonderful people at North Suburban Dental in Highwood, IL!!) This was the first time I would use the tools in my saddle bag since I bought it a year ago. And to think I nearly left it at home! Whew!

Well, I managed to get the tire off and change the inner tube, but as I tried to pry the tired back onto the wheel, I snapped one of my tire levers... No matter, I only need one to get this tire on anyway.

Snapped the other one.

Eventually I borrowed a flathead screwdrivier at the car shop opposite the office and managed to get the tire back on without puncturing my new inner tube. I rode for an hour on a trail I’d never ridden, treated myself to a sandwich, and then hopped on the train for the last hour home.

Through it all, I was oddly calm. Which was new for me. My perspective with each setback with either “this will make a great story,” or quickly coming up with the next solution to keep moving. Giving up never seemed an option. My setbacks were just setbacks, and not paralyzing disappointments.

And that’s really cool! When you can face something you know even a year ago would have upset you or made you give up; but now you can take in your stride.

In short: nope.

I performed a CSS (Critical Swim Speed) test yesterday. It’s supposed to give me an indication of what pace I can hold throughout the race without building up too much lactic acid and crapping out. The test involves doing your fastest 400m (9mins 10secs), a big rest to recover as fully as possible, and then your fastest 200m (4mins 23secs). You then enter your times into the calculator (https://www.swimsmooth.com/improve/intermediate/swim-smooth-css-calculator) and that gives you your CSS pace: 2:24 per 100m in my case.

This is what I look like swimming, I guess:

To put this in perspective, my goal has been to get this down to 2mins flat, with a combination of refining my swim technique and stroke (I learned front crawl swimming from YouTube last February, so I knew had a lot of room for improvement here). It’s much better than my swim pace at Chicago last year - which was 2:49/100m - but still 24secs shy of where I want it to hit my 2hr 30min completion goal.

Sooo... Maybe I'll just bike really really fast instead? 🤔

Who am I really? I’ve been trying to answer this question for, oh, some 2 years now. 

In some ways I already know who I am, and whose I am. I know I love food, and dad jokes, and volleyball. I am the son of my parents. One of five. Ghanaian. Chicagoan. Saved. Triathlete? lol

But I’m also at the point where I realize that I have lived a lot of my life more reacting to people and circumstances, than proactively. And it’s mostly worked to my favour! (I recognize that I am privileged in this regard). But when it comes to long-term planning and moving forward, I find myself in the paralysis of analysis. How do you make right choices in a sea of good choices? What are my core values and principles. What kind of person am I? What hill(s) am I willing to die on? 

I often want to portray myself as the me on the right: calm, together, [what I imagine is] cool. Often though it takes only a few minutes for the me on the left to come out: goofy, smiley, thriving off sharing happiness and hope with others.

What does this have to do with triathlon?

Nothing really. I have just found that I am more willing to do hard when I’m training for triathlons - hard work training physically, and hard work mentally working on myself and through different things. When you’re pushing yourself to do something you think is bigger than yourself, you sometimes find yourself asking who are you, really. And that’s a good thing.

So while I don’t yet know the answers to these questions, I’ve at least found a place that helps me work through them. And in community. I hope you have or find yours.

Swimming is psychological warfare for me. 

There’s the element of it that every (especially when you’re new at it) swimmer goes through of feeling out of breath. Like you’re going to drown. Like a fish out of water (oh, the irony). There’s definitely that. But then there’s also all the things I personally have to go through before, during, and after every swim.

Last June/July I hit the pool one evening during my training. For about a year or so leading up to this point I had started to get this random itch after most of my showers. It had been getting progressively more frequent, and I was still trying to get a handle on the issue. By this point I had started to use Vaseline to try and lock in moisture on my skin after showers, which had a 50/50 success rate on whether I would still itch or not. Well after this particular shower, I started to get itchy despite my moisturizing protocol. I figured it would pass after a few minutes...

I spent the rest of my waking hours that evening scratching at my legs.

I suspect now that I hadn’t rinsed off properly after my pool swim, and then locked the chlorine in my skin with the Vaseline... This meant that later when I tried to take another shower I couldn’t even get beneath the protective layer of lotion. After two hours curled up on my bed, itching uncontrollably, my roommate made a run to the store to pick up some calamine lotion to apply on my legs, which finally soothed the itching enough for me to fall asleep.

Since then, after bringing it up with my dermatologist and trying different things, I’ve finally settled on a protocol that seems to have a high success rate of keeping the itching at bay (making sure I hydrate properly all day long; vaseline BEFORE entering the pool (I have to); vitamin C solution immediately after my swim and before my shower; pat dry minimally, and immediately apply shea butter) but the experience has scarred me, because I know it could happen again. In fact it has. And so the hours and minutes leading up to each swim is often nerve-wracking.

Couple that with the fact that I’ve been using YouTube mostly over the last year or so to teach myself freestyle; that floating on the water is still an elusive dream; that my used to be so stiff I used to move backwards kicking with a kickboard...

Yesterday I was 25m into my 1,900m swim when I realized that my right shoulder felt tight and sore, and I couldn’t perform a stroke with that arm without pain. 500m in I was contemplating throwing in the towel for the evening...

Swimming for me... I’m always just replaying Dory’s advice over and again in my head: 

It’s been 1.5 months since I’ve had an itching episode like the one I mentioned above from swimming. I can make it 25m across the pool now with the kickboard without ever stopping or going backwards. And I finished all 1,900m of my swim yesterday, and my shoulder felt better coming out than going in.

This has been one of the benefits of pursuing this sport. It has given me an arena to build mental fortitude and stick-to-it-iveness, and to wrestle with some demons. I’m not just getting stronger physically, but emotionally and psychologically. It’s a place where I can make mistakes and get up again and keep swimming.

There is something magical in those words: Just. Keep. Swimming

It’s not 8 weeks until the Grand Rapids Olympic Tri (6.9.19). I haven’t blogged in over a month because...well, this blog was supposed to be about chronicling my journey towards breaking the 2:30:00 PR at Chicago this year. But working through my tendonitis took a hit to my self-confidence towards achieving this goal. In fact, I only just started running two weeks ago, and so far it’s only been at a run-walk pace. Basically at this point, I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the Tri in 8 weeks, let alone hit my goal time in 4.5 months...

But then Kofi (my brother, see the last post) sent me a message that simply said: “Blog post, please! Kthxbye”

I’m not sure he’s aware, but he’s actually the reason I blog or post at all. At the very beginning of my photography “career”, which I was trying to decide if I would make my work public, Kofi simply said “Art is meant to be shared.” This was almost 8 years ago, simple words that have stayed with me ever since. And while my journey towards this stupid, dumb, ridic...ahem goal, isn’t art, it IS a journey worth sharing. Because the story isn’t about the moment I achieve the goal per se, but about the journey I take to get there. As a ‘destination’ person and not a ‘journey’ person, this is a concept that is always difficult for me to keep at the fore. And so I count myself truly blessed to have brothers who remind me to just keep going.

Last week I had a panic attack.

I had spent the earlier part of that evening revising my training schedule, since I won’t be able to run for possibly another month. Realizing how far behind I have been falling in my training and how little time I had to get to where I want to be by my first triathlon on 6.9.19 in Grand Rapids, MI, I straight up started to freak out! I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before, really had to concentrate on my breathing to get my heart rate down. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the gym that evening, or even continue pursuing this crazy goal.

An hour later I was starting my strength session at the gym. 

A couple of things happened in that hour. The first was that I had a community of friends I could reach out to that helped calm me down and remind me to breathe. I didn’t shy away from the fact that I was freaking out - instead I was open and honest about it. The second is that I remembered that fear had nothing to do with it. In the sense that this goal in and of itself scares me. Even if I had a full bill of health and had been training consistently for the last 4 months like I’d wanted to, it still feels like a stretch goal, and one worth pursuing BECAUSE it scares me!

A third is remembering people like this guy:

That’s my brother Kofi (@kofi_q on Instagram). Last night I got to watch him perform his own song, in Chicago for the first time, in front of a crowd of mostly strangers, and some unbelievable talent. He’s always set the bar for me growing up of what excellent looks like. And I’ve seen him come through on the other side of some stuff I know would have crippled me. And yet here he is, singing his heart out, doing something he loves even if and when it terrifies me.

So I’m not counting myself out yet. The stacked odds actually makes it exciting! And I’ve already started visualizing a fatigued collapse at the finish line from giving it my all. Because THAT’S what I’m going for, even more than the PR. I’m shooting for something so audacious that it’s going to take all I’ve got.

Warning: This is a tad longer of a post.

If you spoke with me for more than an hour last year, you probably heard me reference my favorite TED Talk: “Start with Why”, by Simon Sinek. Here, I’ll save you the search:

So if we’ve never met, this may not be a question you’re pondering. But it might be helpful to know that I haven’t always done triathlons. Last year in Chicago was my very first official one. (I don’t count the one time I did Sprint distance with a coworker before driving into work…) In fact I ran my first ever mile in 2014. Before then I couldn’t really go 800m without needing to walk. But see until this point in my life I’ve mostly gravitated towards things I already had a natural gifting for (we’re also not counting beach volleyball here, that’s just fun!) And while this list isn’t exactly small, I have always been a “Jack of all trades, Master of none.” Growing up I never really considered myself an athlete, let alone one “capable” of completing a triathlon. Psshhh I didn’t even know triathlons existed!! I won a backstroke sprint once in high school, and I’ve always played sports recreationally. But racing the Chicago Tri last year was a very different animal And the speeds I will have to hit and maintain throughout the duration of my Chicago race this year exceed any I’ve ever done! So I guess the heart of it is to find an arena to perform and excel in.

Like a number of the things I’ve come to appreciate in life, this sport is one I stumbled into. In the late summer of 2015, I succeeded in snapping my right ACL in two on my third attempt (two soccer injuries, and finally a volleyball injuy that tore the last string). After the surgery that November, I was banished to a life without soccer or basketball or volleyball for a full year. It sucked. I had spent most of my free time the summer before out on the volleyball courts of North Avenue beach. As it turned out, about the only activities the doc and PT permitted were swimming, biking, and running. That’s when I first had the idea of a triathlon (leading to that fateful pre-work, Sprint triathlon I referred to earlier) but it wouldn’t be for another 2 years until my friend David Hall dragged me along for the crazy ride that is swimming and biking and running with 7,500 of my favorite strangers and friends across the city!

Here’s the thing: I am convinced - thoroughly convinced - that anyone can do a triathlon. Maybe not an Ironman, but at least a Sprint distance. What I’m excited about is to apply myself to something that while many people do every year, but in such a way that most people simply won’t. I’m excited to push my boundaries and see, maybe for the first time in my life, what I REALLY am capable of! No, I won’t be competing for an age group podium. At least not yet. Others in the sport have the advantage of years of training and discipline and teaching and gear; but breaking 2:30 is still a feat, personally and in the world of triathlon.

So…why even tri? Because finishing a triathlon - hitting ANY crazy goal you set for yourself - makes you feel like this:

Today was my first day of physical therapy.

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To be honest, that’s not the way to start the second post of a blog that’s supposed to be about how your’re training to swim and bike and run faster than you’ve ever done any of the 3 separately, all at once. Or maybe it is...? Who even knows?! (Hint: not me)

Point is, I delayed the start of my training almost 3 months because of a pain I kept having in my left ankle late October/early November. See I’d heard you could run faster and more efficiently mid-striking instead of heel-striking, so I tried to change my strike pattern, while also doing arch exercises I’d never done, and lots of weights and stabilizing exercises, all at the same time... Don’t do that. That’s dumb. Trust me.

Well I finally got my ankle checked out last week (shout out to Dr. Chin and the Running Institute, Chicago) and turns out I have peroneal tendonitis. Since I don’t speak latin, he graciously explained to be me that I overstrained the muscles in my foot, and now they don’t like me, but might if I go for some physical therapy sessions and lay off the running for a while. The good news is that I might be ready to start pounding the concrete/treadmill in a month! Or, you know, get an MRI if it hasn’t resolved by then. Personally I’m leaning towards the first.

What does this all mean for this project? In a lot of ways, it means absolutely nothing. I finished a 45min bike ride on my indoor trainer. Last week I did one strength session at the gym, 2 bike sessions, 2 swim sessions, and an upper body + Core session. Tomorrow I’m doing a strength session in the morning, and swimming in the evening. 

Ok so I’ve been meaning to write this blog for a while now. Actually my first post was written 10.31.18, but I just never got round to posting it. Like the title suggests, I figured I just needed to start! To put something out there, and let what happens happen.

This blog is to share a journey. The journey of my attempt to hit a fairly lofty goal: to break 2:30:00 at the 2019 Chicago Triathlon (Olympic Distance)! If you know me, you might think that goal is in the ballpark of what I’m capable of. Or, like me, you might think I’m a little nuts for chasing such an ambitious goal! There’s a lot of reasons why that goal in particular, and the story of how I picked it. BUT you’ll have to stop by again later for those.

The blog is ITSELF a journey. I don’t usually put my thoughts “out there”. I’ve been off Facebook for almost a year and a half now (minus a brief month-long hiatus last summer to fundraise for some awesome organizations!) and haven’t posted to my Instagram in just as long. But I think there’s a difference between private thoughts and personal thoughts, and I’d like to invite you to come along on this somewhat crazy ride.