PAULA FINDLAY SHOOTS FOR LONDON OLYMPIC GLORY 速
APRIL/MAY 2011 : ISSUE 05
SERIOUS TRIATHLON
APRIL/MAY 2011
速
$5.95
LAVAMAGAZINE.COM
KWICK TIME
9 oz. – from start to finish. The new Kwicky Blade-Light features revolutionary Ion-Mask™ technology. Waterstation. Rain. Sweat. Nothing gets in. Now that’s gonzo.
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Julie Dibens* upgraded.** So can you.***
* 2009 IronmanŽ 70.3 World Champion ** R4 Aero tire, the World’s Fastest Tire *** bontrager.com/wft
PROTOCOL: ENERGIZE COOL THE CORE
(3 lb tub) (16 oz / 480 mL bottle)
(100 capsules)
(2 lb bag)
MetaSalt
CARBO-PRO
CarboPro 1200 Aminos
“Energize”
“Every drop is loaded!”
100% pure complex carbs, non-sweet. (1 scoop = 25 grams = 100 calories). For at least 200 calories per hour = 2 scoops mixed in at least 16 oz of water. Easy to carry, digest, absorb and assimilate.
In orange or berry flavor, has 1,200 calories in a 16 oz bottle. Has 4 different forms of efficient carbs (RIBOSE, TREHALOSE, DEXTROSE, CARBO-PRO, GLUTAMINE & ARGININE). Which means the higher activation rate of transport mechanisms by the 4 different types of carbs, increase energy release and improve hydration: great for performance! Why not fructose? Because fructose is not an efficient fuel. It increases Triglycerides which may not be good for everyone. Also, there are issues of malabsorption and intolerance.
THE ULTIMATE ENERGY SOURCE FOR ENDURANCE
FACT: Glucose is the brain’s primary fuel; your neurons depend on the bloodstream to deliver a constant supply. The brain gets 20% of your oxygen; and 25% of your glucose. Your brain is always at work, and is pushed to its extreme when you train and race hard. It has a high demand for energy; it needs a lot of glucose, so feed the brain and the body, and keep that tank full, ALWAYS! USAGE: for TRAINING - 2 hour session = at least 400
calories (4 scoops) mixed with water. Keep sipping it throughout the training session. You can take up to 300 calories per hour to keep the MUSCLE GLYCOGEN TANK FULL with FUEL at all times. CARBO-PRO can be consumed anytime in any fluid. Add it in your post-activity RECOVERY shake, to enhance the recovery process. CARBOLOADING for energy and hydration: Load carbs for 4 days leading to the event. Take 2 SCOOPS in the morning and 2 SCOOPS in the evening, in a glass of water. DURING THE RACE: @ 200 to 300 calories per hour, you need approx. 1,000 to 1,500 calories for a 70.3. And 2,000 to 3,000 calories for an IRONMAN. You may carry it in several bottles or flasks (fuel belt) and sip it. Or carry it concentrated like a GEL in 1 or 2 bottles, sip it and wash it with the required amount of water.
TIP: The osmolality of CARBO-PRO even at 15% concentration is lower than body fluid osmolality - and it makes it relatively easier to be absorbed. With each gulp of the CARBO-PRO concentrate - drink a few oz. of water. Try it before the RACE.
THERMOLYTE
SODIUM / ELECTROLYTES / ANTIOXIDANT COMPLEX VITAMIN D3 / HYDRATE & PREVENT CRAMPS
PURE ENERGY FOR A RACE
ELECTROLYTES: A 16 oz bottle provides 900 mg of Sodium and 600 mg of Potassium = 150 of Sodium and 100 mg Potassium per serving AMINOS: all BCAAs, & GLUTAMINE, ARGININE, to deliver Powerful Muscle Energy.
USAGE: @ 200 to 300 calories per hour, you have 4 to 6
hours of pure calories in a bottle of CarboPro 1200. When diluted it in a CAMELBAK, or HYDRAPAK, it tastes like flavored water, but carries a TORRENT of energy.
“Cool the Core” The one and only Sodium supplement which provides Sodium in 3 different forms: Sodium Chloride, Trisodium Phosphate and Sodium R-Lipoate, which work together to maintain the optimal metabolism of sodium to prevent dehydration. It also provides the other electrolytes (Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium) as organic Krebs Cycle Intermediates, which help in converting carbs, fats, and proteins into chemical energy.
FACT: It also an ANTIOXIDANT complex with Selenium, Alpha Lipoic acid and Zinc Methionine which convert free radicals into harmless residues. USAGE: Take 2 caps per hour of training or racing. If it is hot and humid and you sweat a lot, you may take up to 6 caps of MetaSalt per hour. TIP: Use with CARBO-PRO for any endurance activity under
the sun.
TIP: You may use the CARBO-PRO in a gel form, or use CarboPro 1200 to last for 4 to 6 hours of racing.
THE FACTS THE 3 CRUCIAL ELEMENTS FOR ENDURANCE:
(1) WATER (hydration) (2) CALORIES (fuel) & (3) ELECTROLYTES (sodium)
“I had two good races in 2010: Subaru Ironman Canada, and then after six weeks 2010 Ford Ironman World Championship, Hawaii, and from a nutritional point of view, everything was perfect ...MetaSalt, Motivator, VO2 Max, Recovery and CARBOPRO. Products kept my energy high and my health optimized for these back to back races.”
Scott Curry Pro Triathlete
“With VO2 Max I’ve been able to train and race harder, for longer. I don’t fatigue as quickly as I normally would, nor do I pull up as sore. There’s a lot of research and science behind this product and it works.”
Kelly Jarrett
Corporate Lawyer Investment Banker Pro Triathlete
HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED PER HOUR OF ACTIVITY: WATER: at least 20 oz. / 600 mL – adjust according to weather and solids consumed. CALORIES: at least 2 calories per pound of bodyweight. Use watersoluble complex carbs, and eat solids only if necessary. SODIUM: at least 300 mg, and up to 1,500 mg (1.5 grams) of sodium if the conditions are hot and humid. With the right combination of our products and optimal amount of water, you can reach peak levels of performance to enjoy any ENDURANCE ACTIVITY UNDER THE SUN. “All SPORTQUEST products are absolutely reliable. I have been using them for over four years now. They work!”
David Goggins
Ultra-Endurance Athlete
BEAT THE BURN
(150 capsules)
VO2 Max Endurance PREVENT DELAYED ONSET OF MUSCLE SORENESS
“Beat the Burn” FACT: Muscles fatigue (you feel the burn)
when repeated resistance is applied. Ammonia and other metabolic wastes build up in the muscles. Rest becomes a must until the metabolic wastes are cleared or chemically reconverted before the activity can continue with efficacy. VO2 Max Endurance BEATS the BURN with an advanced formulation of major neutralizers and ammonia cleansers such as phosphates, bicarbonate, L-Carnosine, BetaAlanine, Citrulline Malate, OKG, Arginine KIC, as well as a synergistic combination of lactate and energy metabolizers. Increases time to exhaustion by 20%. During anaerobic trials, maximal power output increased by 17%. During aerobic/endurance trials, time for 40 km time trial on the ergometer bicycle was reduced by 3.5 minutes.
USAGE: Take 4 caps before a workout or
training session. ◆ LOADING: For 5 days BEFORE an event, take 5 caps every day in the morning after breakfast. ◆ RACE DAY: 30 to 45 minutes before the start of the Race take 4 caps; then take 3 caps for every HOUR of the RACE. During a 70.3 or Ironman Distance, definitely take 4 caps at T1 and T2, to keep your legs strong throughout the Race.
TIP:
VO2 Max Endurance supports normal fat mobilization and beta-oxidation thereby preserving glycogen usage during prolonged exercise resulting in 50% increase in endurance and resistance to fatigue. This is perfect for long events such as 70.3, Ironman distance, Marathons, and any other endurance events.
“My recovery has been exceptional and for sure I credit that to the RECOVERY, VO2 Max and INTERPHASE. CarboPro 1200 is the race nutrition of choice.”
Sergio Borges
www.sbxtraining.com
REPAIR & RECOVER
(60 capsules)
(2.6 lb. / 1.2 kg) Powder
(300 capsules)
Motivator
RECOVERY Amino Power
“Enduring Energy”
“Repair. Rebuild. Recover”
It can enhance mental and physical performance, with energizing herbs, co-factors, and neurotransmitter precursors. Caffeine from Guarana seed extract to provide 80 mg of caffeine per capsule, released slowly – so the energy boost that is experienced continues for hours. Other ingredients: Gingko Biloba; L-Tyrosine; L-Taurine; DMAE (precursor to Choline a B Vitamin); Vitamin C; Inositol; & Glucoronolactone.
Instantized; 100% Pure, Crystalline, Free-Form, Pharma Grade Amino Acid Complex with all Essential Amino Acids (EAAs), including BCAAs, and an advanced delivery system for the Essential Amino Acids consisting of OKG, & Glutamine alpha-Ketoglutarate, Arginine alpha-Ketoglutarate, Arginine-Ketoisocaproate. PLUS AstraGin™ to increase absorption of amino acids, carbs, and vitamins by 50%.
FACT: Increases mental power by enabling a glucose-rich and oxygen-rich brain environment; increases alertness, MOTIVATION, enhancing muscular coordination; and cognitive and physical performance. Replaces the need for COKE, REDBULL or any Energy drink.
FACT: Provides 3X the quantity of EAAs and BCAAs in other products, plus the compounds which form the Advanced Delivery System. It’s the best, the most effective and most efficient product for QUICK RECOVERY & REGENERATION.
MENTAL ENERGY FORMULA
USAGE: Take 2 caps for 4 hours of training
or racing. ◆ A large part of training is MENTAL, and it is about Brain energy and Motivation.
TIP: MOTIVATOR has been successfully used by triathletes, runners, and adventure racers. It can also be used for any prolonged activity for sustained mental energy and focus.
5 CAPS + 2 CAPS = ROCKET of MOTIVATOR of VO2 Max FUEL
All EAAs (BCAA)s w/ AstraGin™
USAGE: 3 caps before training; 3 caps immediately after training; and 3 caps immediately before going to bed at night. ◆ Amino load before a Race: for at least 3 days leading up to the race take 9 capsules a day as above.
◆ RACE DAY: 30 to 45 minutes before the start of the Race take 4 caps; then take 3 caps for every HOUR of the RACE. During a 70.3 or Ironman Distance, definitely take 4 caps at T1 and T2.
“RECOVER AS YOU RACE” - David Goggins “MUSCLE TISSUE CANDY” - Peter Reid
INTERPHASE Hypertrophy Matrix
PREMIUM PROTEIN POWDER to REPAIR, REBUILD and REGENERATE
“Premium Protein Powder” 34g of sustained release protein matrix per serving: with whey protein isolates, concentrates, peptides, micellar casein, calcium caseinate, egg protein isolates, and free-form amino acids for hyperactivating your body’s recovery and regeneration potential to a hyper-level. Enables LEAN TISSUE HYPERTROPHY & RECOVERY to occur quickly and simultaneously, after each and every performance.
USAGE: It can be used as a powerized “energy shake” before exercise, or as a “recovery shake” immediately after exercise. It can also be taken immediately before going to bed at night to help increase the anabolic drive. It can be taken between meals or to complement a light meal. USE ANYTIME!
CarboPro 1200 and MetaSalt a perfect combo, and Recovery Amino Power to quicken recovery time, to train hard the very next session.
Gary Robbins
HURT Hawaii 100 Mile Endurance Run Course Record Holder
POWER. STRENGTH. ENDURANCE. “I cramped and had a difficult time in every race I have ever done, until 2010 Ford Ironman World Championship, Hawaii, because I followed this Protocol for the entire race. I used all the products. The CARBOPRO and MetaSalt made my day. I had a great race.”
Scott Kaplan
XX1090sandiego.com Scott & BR Show Weekdays 6am - 10am
DIRECT.COM
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006 : LINEUP
LAVA publisher JOHN DUKE heathergordon@ironman.com
johnduke@ironman.com
:
:
associate publisher HEATHER GORDON
editor BRAD CULP
bradculp@ironman.com
:
senior editor
JAY PRASUHN jayprasuhn@ironman.com : features editor SUSAN GRANT-LEGACKI susanlegacki@ironman.com art director ERICA KRYSTEK ericakrystek@ironman.com : graphic designer HALI RYAN haliryan@ironman.com senior photographer DONALD MIRALLE donald@donaldmiralle.com : photo editor SAMMY TILLERY sammytillery@ironman.com : online editor JENNIFER WARD BARBER jenniferward@ironman.com : account executive SEAN WATKINS seanwatkins@ironman.com : account executive KIRK BAUSCH kirkbausch@ironman.com senior account executive LISA BILOTTI lisabilotti@ironman.com : account executive LAURA AGCAOILI lauraagcaoili@ironman.com : office manager KAYLA NEWBY-FRASER kayla@ironman.com Phone 858.366.4444 : Fax 858.504.7062 : Subscriptions & Customer Service 800.839.4537; lavamag@pcspublink.com Circulation Inquiries heathergordon@ironman.com : Editorial Inquiries susanlegacki@ironman.com : Web Site www.lavamagazine.com
LAVA. (ISSN 2155-1081), World Triathlon Corporation, 514 Via de la Valle, Suite 300, Solana Beach, CA 92075-2718, is published bi-monthly (Dec/Jan, Feb/Mar, Apr/May, Jun/Jul, Aug/Sep, Oct/Nov). The entire contents of LAVA are copywrited and may not be reproduced, either in whole or in part, without written consent. LAVA™ and Serious Triathlon™ are trademarks of World Triathlon Corporation. Basic subscription rate is $19.95, Canadian remit $30.45 in US funds (includes GST), other international mail $47.95 in US funds only. Application to mail at Periodicals Postage Prices is pending at Solana Beach, CA and at Additional Mailing Offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to LAVA, PO Box 469023, Escondido, CA 92046. Printed in the U.S.A. SUBSCrIBE, rENEW, GIVE A GIFT, rEPOrT MISSING ISSUES, PAy yOUr BILL AND ChANGE yOUr ADDrESS AT LAVAMAGAzINE.COM lavamagazine.com
ANOTHER WORLD RECORD. 8:36:13 SWIM 00:51:56 \ BIKE 04:47:06 \ RUN 02:52:55 \ IRONMAN ARIZONA 2010
The Slice’s exceptional aerodynamics, stable geometry and body-saving SAVE micro-suspension system help you go faster on the bike and run stronger off it. Proven by two Kona Ironman World Championships and Chrissie smashing her own World record in Arizona. Cannondale Slice Hi-MOD. Find Your New Fast. cannondale.com ©Eric Wynn Photography
www.5150.com
The largest international distance triathlon series in the world. 2011 5150 Series United States March 20
Miami International Triathlon (Miami, Fla.)
May 1
St. Anthony’s Triathlon (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
May 15
5150 New Orleans (New Orleans, La.)
May 22
Memphis in May Triathlon (Tunica, Miss.)
June 19
Washington DC Triathlon (Washington, DC)
June 25
5150 Provo (Provo, Utah)
July 10
Boulder Peak Triathlon (Boulder, Colo.)
August 7
Nautica New York City Triathlon (New York, N.Y.)
September 4
Hy-Vee Tri/5150 U.S. Championship (Des Moines, Iowa)
September 11
5150 Lake Lanier (Gainesville, Ga.)
October 2
5150 Lake Las Vegas (Henderson, Nev.)
October 23
5150 Galveston (Galveston, Texas)
November 12
5150 Clearwater/5150 Series Finale (Clearwater, Fla.)
2011 5150 Series International June 5
5150 Darmstadt (Darmstadt, Germany)
June 12
5150 Klagenfurt (Klagenfurt, Austria)
June 26
5150 Liverpool (Liverpool, United Kingdom)
July 9
Zurich Triathlon powered by ewz (Zurich, Switzerland)
July 23
5150 Munich (Munich, Germany)
September 10/11
5150 Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
Oct 2
5150 Tenerife (Tenerife, Spain) Photo By: Brian Knight
Washington, DC Transition Area
010 : LAVA FLOW
APRIL : MAY, 2011
ISSUE 05 THE BIG REVEAL
features
welcome
TRAINING T
012 : EDITOR’S NOTE
072 : LONDON CALLING
116 : THE HYPE
014 : CONTRIBUTORS
Canadian Paula Findlay is hungry for the highest rung on the Olympic podium, and her country is giving its best and brightest to help her get there
Forward force: Understanding muscular force relationships
016 : THE BUZZ
By Jim Gourley
By Jennifer Ward Barber
122 : COACH’S COUNSEL
020 : iTRI
090 : MARS ROVERS
Prosthetics innovator and 11-time Ironman Peter Harsch
The lunar landscape of Spain’s Canary Islands offers up a winter playground for Europe’s top triathletes
By Don Norcross
By Brad Culp
022 : SEEN & HEARD
102 : THE FAIR FIGHT An inside look at triathlon’s new-and-improved anti-doping programs
Cadence boost: Drilling your way to a higher cadence By Troy Jacobson
126 : SIDELINED ASTYM and Graston: The “scraping” technique for healing tendon injuries By Matt Kraemer, PT, ATC, CSCS
By Susan Grant-Legacki
GEAR G
130 : THE FULL SPECTRUM Setting your north star: Then planning to achieve it
026 : THE BIG REVEAL After a few months of thorough testing, we unveil our 15 favorite new-for-2011 products
By Matt Dixon, MSc
138 : TO YOUR HEALTH Optimize your biology: Nutritional strategies to get the most out of you
By Jay Prasuhn
046 : ON DISPLAY Felt DA and Serotta HSG Aero
By Ben Greenfield
By Brad Culp & Jay Prasuhn
144 : COMPETITIVE EDGE
050 : PRO FILE
Pop Quiz: Why frequent fitness testing is key to staying on the right training track
Maik Twelsiek and his Scott Plasma
052 : REVIEWED
By Mark Allen
LeMond Revolution Trainer By Jay Prasuhn
054 : WORKBENCH
RACING R
All carbon, all the time: Train and race in style and speed with the new breed of carbon clinchers
154 : IN FOCUS Challenge Wanaka, Ironman 70.3 Pucon
By Mark Deterline
060 : RAPP REPORT
By Jordan Rapp
066 : ALL ACCESS Bicoastal custom: A Serotta factory tour By Jay Prasuhn
lavamagazine.com
162 : BOARDING PASS Eastern Cape endurance: Ironman 70.3 South Africa
DONALD MIRALLE
Friction vs. form: Catch panels on wetsuits are supposed to make you faster, but there’s a catch
By Susan Grant-Legacki
176 : THE LAST WORD Torbjorn Sindballe vs. Matty Reed
ON THE COVER: Canadian Paula Findlay at her off-season training base in Maui, Hawaii PHOTO DONALD MIRALLE
012 : EDITOR’S NOTE
DOpERS Suck
A
couple of years ago I started working on an article about performance-enhancing drug use in triathlon. I gave it a couple of weeks of honest effort before realizing that the topic was way too complex to tackle in a single article. While the story never took off, I did receive some interesting feedback from the handful of interviews I did. Of the 12 athletes, race directors and industry executives I talked to, all but one of them believed that doping is a bigger problem among amateur triathletes than professionals. Eleven out of 12 triathlon experts were certain that age groupers are dirtier than those who compete for a living. This puts triathlon in a unique position. Can you think of another sport with a higher percentage of amateur dopers than professionals? Me neither. If you’re an age-group athlete taking performance-enhancing drugs, we kindly ask that you Don’t be a dope. stop reading this magazine and choose another sport. I can’t think of a single good excuse for a professional athlete to dope and that goes tenfold for those of us not competing for a paycheck. Qualifying for Kona is not worth turning your body into a science experiment. Any performanceenhancing drug that is powerful enough to work is also powerful enough to kill you. How Sylvester Stallone’s heart is still beating is beyond me. Whether or not there are more dirty amateurs than pros doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that doping exists in triathlon, and it’s probably more prevalent than most would like to believe. Cycling has already become synonymous with doping, and if we want to avoid a similar fate, there’s a lot that needs to be done. Luckily
for us, a lot is being done, and over the course of the past few seasons, the framework has been put in place to make triathlon as squeaky clean as curling. Or at least as squeaky clean as I assume curling to be. Are the testing protocols perfect? Far from it, but the resources are finally there and the testing has been ramped up to new levels. To find out what new programs the International Triathlon Union (ITU) and World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) have in store to combat doping in 2011, check out Susan Grant-Legacki’s “The Fair Fight” on page 102. Aside from combating doping in triathlon, the ITU’s other mission is to develop the best talent in the world, and, along with Triathlon Canada, they’ve done a pretty good job of developing the woman on our cover into one of the most promising triathletes on the planet. At the start of the 2010 season, Paula Findlay was a relative unknown, with a bronze medal at the Under-23 World Championships as her only claim to fame. After a 2010 season that included two wins on the ITU World Championship Series and one World Cup title, many experts are pegging Findlay as a favorite to stand atop the podium at the 2012 Olympic Triathlon in London. The Hawaii Ironman may require more suffering, but winning at the Olympics is no doubt the most difficult feat an athlete can accomplish in this sport, and we feel the redheaded Canuck on our cover has the goods to do it. It’s a lot of pressure for a 21-year-old, but as Jen Ward explains in “London Calling” (Page 72), Findlay isn’t going for it on her own. LAVA
Train safe,
Brad Culp As you’ll see on page 16, we enjoy hearing from our readers. Please e-mail your comments to bradculp@ironman.com lavamagazine.com
are you n a tu ra l ?
a l l - n a tu ra l p rote i n s h a ke p re-workout fuel • post-workout recovery
014 : CONTRIBUTORS
Matt KraeMer is a physical therapist and director at Endurance Rehab in Phoenix, Ariz. He has a background in orthopedics and sports medicine, and specializes in the evaluation and treatment of endurance athletes. Matt has competed in numerous triathlon and marathon events. This month Kraemer lets LAVA readers in on one of the more painful (and effective) methods of injury treatment (“ASTYM and Graston”, Page 126).
The resident Canadian on the team, Jennifer Ward BarBer has to suffer through persistent teasing around the LAVA office. Hanging with a bunch of Canadians in Maui for this issue’s cover story on Paula Findlay (“London Calling”, Page 72), needless to say, was refreshing. Last summer, after short stints in upstate New York and Washington D.C., Jen followed her passion for triathlon and editing to San Diego to help launch the online arm of LAVA.
MATT KRAEMER
JENNIFER WARD BARBER
BOB FOY
NICK ABADILLA
After a brief stint as a professional footballer (soccer player), BOB fOY took up photography fulltime after hanging up his football cleats and hasn’t put down the camera since. While he most looks forward to shooting the FIFA World Cup every four years, Foy is best known as the official triathlon photographer of the Canary Islands, where the Scotsman now lives. In “Mars Rovers” (Page 90), Foy shows off the lunar surface of his adopted home.
lavamagazine.com
nicK aBadilla is a San Diego-based photographer specializing in photojournalism and commercial photography. Equally adept shooting on location or in his downtown studio, his work includes fashion editorials, high-profile personality portraits, and now, ultra-cool triathlon gear (“The Big Reveal”, Page 26). When he’s not shooting, Nick is either scuba diving the local coastline or enjoying suburban life with his wife and daughter.
016 : THE BUZZ
I
was given a complimentary subscription to LAVA when I signed up for my most recent Ironman 70.3 event. In addition to being a halfiron triathlete and veteran of 53 marathons, I am also a personal trainer and fitness instructor, and hold a degree in Kinesiology. I work for a major University in both the Kinesiology and Recreational Sports departments and have years of experience in the fitness industry. I train triathletes and do boot camps focusing on triathlon. I have become increasingly irritated by this publication. Many of the articles promote dangerous ideas. It also seems that there is a general “spend a ton to win” and “latest gizmos and gadgets you don’t really need” focus to the articles. This magazine also brings out the worst aspects of triathlon—elitism, snobbery and yuppieism—all of which pervade this sport. This idea that triathletes are superior beings and should be treated as such—what bull! For the most part triathletes are wealthy, type-A people who need to boost their egos
by bragging, but also happen to be quite fit. The type of people your magazine appeals to are those who need to brag by putting a bumper sticker saying “70.3,” “26.2” or “140.6” on their cars. These types of people may as well be screaming to the world “I have so little self esteem that I need to validate my self worth.” It’s the same group that needs to update their Facebook or Twitter every five minutes. As you have probably figured out, I am not your target audience. I barely tolerate these types of people and find them to be, at best, a waste of oxygen. The last thing the sport of triathlon needs is further validation of these behaviors and attitudes. It is disgusting to me that there is even enough of a market for such a magazine to be created. I would like to be removed from your subscription list immediately and do not wish to receive this publication ever again in the future. — Anonymous in Texas
Editor’s note: We’re sorry to hear that our publication irritates you. While our magazine does cater to more experienced triathletes, we think you’re drawing too broad a stereotype about our readers. Elitists? Some of them. Snobs? Occasionally. Yuppies? This ain’t golf. The people we make this magazine for don’t think they’re better than everyone else—they think they’re better versions of themselves for testing their bodies on a daily basis. I wasn’t having self esteem issues when I stuck a “140.6” bumper sticker on my car, and considering that not even 1 percent of the population knows what those numbers mean, I’ve never felt like I was showing off by having it. If you want to find a sport full of elitist yuppie snobs, learn how to play polo. If you want to reach your fullest triathlon potential, quit bitching and keep reading. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go post this to my Twitter and Facebook. —Brad Culp
Please give us your thoughts on our magazine by emailing the editor at bradculp@ironman.com.
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018 : LAVAMAGAZINE.COM
LESS PAIN
MORE GAIN By Robert Portman, PhD
APRIL : MAY, 2011
LAVA ONLINE
Pain is part of the culture for serious endurance athletes. “No pain, no gain” has been part of the training lexicon for decades. The problem with this approach– it leads to less gain. The association with pain and improved performance evolved from research in many laboratories showing that when muscles are stretched
they
activate
those
metabolic
pathways responsible for building new and stronger muscle protein. In fact, after intense exercise, muscle remodeling, which ultimately leads to improved performance, takes place. Athletes have interpreted this research as more is better. The more pain, the greater the improvement in performance through increased and stronger muscles. Research, however, shows this is not the case. When muscles are overly damaged through intense exercise it takes longer for them to recover. Instead of building new and stronger muscles, the metabolic machinery is focused on repairing damaged ones. This is the classic problem seen in over-training syndrome, where athletes who over-train often reach a plateau in their muscle development. So what is the solution? The solution is to control the degree of muscle damage. This can be done through nutritional intervention as shown by researchers from James Madison University. They controlled muscle damage by having cyclists consume a carbohydrate/protein beverage during an intense exercise bout. Twenty-four hours later they evaluated the ability of the cyclists to conduct a series of leg extensions. Cyclists whose muscle damage was controlled with nutrition were able to do 14% more leg extensions than the uncontrolled group. The bottom line–for the serious triathlete, muscle damage control should be an important part of their overall nutrition regimen.
Dr. Portman, a well-known sports science researcher, is author of Nutrient Timing and Hardwired for Fitness.
lavamagazine.com
Scan to watch Whitfield and Findlay talk Olympics
multimedia
• Get additional instruction for performing Mark Allen’s test workouts (Page 144) in an exclusive video from The Grip himself. (lavamagazine.com/test) • What has Olympic gold medalist Simon Whitfield learned from the young Paula Findlay? In this video shot on-location in Maui, the two Canadians pause after swim practice to talk about their relationship and the upcoming Olympics. Scan the code above to go directly to the video.
extras
Triathlon’s first true team—the Timex Multisport Team—celebrated 10 years in February with a camp and a star-studded reunion dinner. Follow their legacy with online galleries and videos from the event at lavamagzine.com/timex
gallery Scroll through gorgeous
extras from our cover shoot with Paula Findlay at lavamagazine/pf
don’t miss
chicked: A new gear column just for the ladies, where LAVA editors put the latest apparel and women-specific tri gear to the test.
featured columnist
Ryan SchneideR’S new column “Mind Games” takes you into the mental aspects of serious triathlon, from overcoming disappointment to avoiding post-race depression. Read his introductory column at lavamagazine.com/mindgames Visit lavamagazine.com for recipes, articles on nutrition and training, and reviews of the latest books on the multisport scene.
020 : iTRI
PETER HARSCH Age: 40 | Born: Middletown, Conn. | Resides: San Diego Profession: Head of Prosthetics, Naval Medical Center, San Diego | Personal: Married with one son—Dayton, born Dec. 29, 2010 | Accomplishments: 11-time Ironman finisher. PR: 9:28 at Austria, 2008. Three-time Ironman Hawaii finisher. PR: 9:55 (2010).
lavamagazine.com
THe lURe of PRoSTHeTICS wAS TwofolD. I lIke PHYSICAl woRk. AND YoU feel gooD HelPINg SoMeboDY wAlk AgAIN.
JAY PRASUHN
Growing up in Tucson, I didn’t play any sports in high school. I wasn’t good enough. I was cut from all the teams. I tried out for basketball, football, track and swimming. I didn’t have the direction or the mentorship from someone to give me the tools to become good. At Arizona State, I got out of shape, up to almost 200 pounds. (currently Harsch is 5 feet 11, 175 pounds.) A friend, who was a below-the-knee amputee and was training for the Paralympics, wanted somebody to run with. He blew my doors off. I couldn’t keep up. Within six months I started racing mountain bikes, did my first triathlon in ’95, my first Ironman in 2000 and qualified for Kona in ’05. The lure of prosthetics was twofold. I like physical work. I’m not somebody who wants to sit in front of a computer. I really don’t want to sell anything. And you feel good helping somebody walk again. When you look into the eyes of these men and women when they return from war, you can only try to put yourself in their situation and imagine how devastating it must be. You look at them and it’s like looking at your child. You want to give them the world again. I see the effects of war day in and day out. Most people hear about it on the news. I live the back end of war every day.
Peter Harsch (center) with Naval Medical Center prosthetics patients and fellow triathletes Michael Johnston (left) and Chris Chandler.
My job only begins with the casting and fitting of prosthetics. There’s also gait training. And there’s the psychological end. My main saying (to the wounded) is that life may not be better, it may not be worse. It’s just going to be different. Now, it’s what you make of it.
Yes, I was on “The Amazing Race.” Yes, I was portrayed as the able-bodied drill instructor bad guy coupled with the petite blonde girl with a prosthetic leg (Ironman finisher Sarah Reinertsen). Via editing, TV can portray whatever story it wants. CBS captured those bad moments.
What they neglected to show was the ultimate pride my teammate felt after overcoming obstacles, like climbing the Great Wall of China. Most triathletes love to train but hate to race. I do enjoy the training, but I can’t wait to race. I love the feeling of competing. Maybe because I never had that in my high school years. I’ve far exceeded all my expectations at the Ironman distance and Kona. My absolute dream would be to break 9:30 on the Big Island (a 26-minute improvement). But I don’t have the luxury of training 18 to 25 hours a week. I’m lucky if I get in 15 hours. Back to the job. Sometimes the biggest thanks don’t come from the patient. It comes from the parents. When you can get their child up and walking again, you give them hope that all will be OK. Their facial expression is like, “You saved my kid’s life.” LAVA
— Don Norcross
Ironman champ Linsey Corbin turned 30 in style on February 16 thanks in part to these 端ber-custom Saucony Jazz Low Pro kicks. See more at lavamagazine.com/birthday.
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16,571 miles The distance athletes will travel between the seven stops of the 2011 Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series, which includes races on three continents. The series kicks off on April 9 in Sydney, Australia. Source: Travelmath.com
15: The number of USA Triathlon presidents since the organization’s formation in 1982. Bob Wendling of West Springfield,Va., was elected
40.92 seconds The fastest anyone has ever covered four lengths (100 yards) of a short-course, 25-yard pool. The feat was accomplished by then 22-year-old Brazilian César Cielo on March 27, 2008. Source: Usaswimming.org
the group’s most recent president at a meeting of the board of directors in January. Source: Usatriathlon.org
14,419:
The number of people following Ironman world champion Chris McCormack (@MaccaNow) on Twitter as of February 18, the most of any professional triathlete. @juanpelota, the triathlon-specific Twitter alias of Lance Armstrong, had 13,447 followers. Source: Twitter.com
6 HouRS 51 miNutES 51 SEcoNDS 1997 Ironman world champion Heather Fuhr’s finishing time at this January’s Catalina 50-mile run. The 43 year old won the women’s race by more than 90 minutes and finished second overall. Source: Avalon50.com
70
The total number of off-road triathlons on the 2011 XTERRA America Tour. The newest championship venue will be Santa Cruz, Calif., which will host the XTERRA Pacific Championship on May 15.
Source: Xterraplanet.com
The number of total pedal revolutions throughout the course of a 112-mile Ironman bike leg for an athlete averaging 85 rpm for five and a half hours. Source: A calculator
415:
The amount of caffeine (in milligrams) in a Venti (20-ounce) Starbucks coffee. Twenty ounces of Red Bull (two and a half 8.4-ounce cans) only contain 189 milligrams of caffeine. Source: Energyfiend.com
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SAMMY TILLERY
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all access
“While you want your body to move as efficiently through the water as possible, you want your arm to move as inefficiently as possible—at least from the standpoint of fluid dynamics.”
—Jordan Rapp, (Rapp Report, Page 60).
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Big reveal ❘
Photography by Nick Abadilla
The
By Jay Prasuhn
Every manufacturer comes to the annual fall product shows with new goods, but a few items pass under the radar—or simply eschew the shows for their own launches. We rounded up the new-for-2011 toys we can’t get enough of.
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028 : TECH FEATURE
TYR Elite Transition backpack $180 An engineering marvel with a place for everything, no matter how much gear you haul into transition, this pack unfolds from a frame-supported backpack to a partitioned spread with zippered pockets for sunglasses, race belt and keys, and larger sections for race kit, wetsuit, shoes, you name it. TYRsport.com
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dangerously toward the same fate, if not for the indisputably jaw- but Ironman. “I felt really nervous, and then suddenly I felt even more dropping racing from third-place finisher Julie Dibens, runner-up pressure to win,” Carfrae remembers. “Chrissie had a year to prepare Caroline Steffen and, above all, Ironman champion Mirinda Carfrae, for being the favorite going into this race, and I had 30 minutes.” who managed to chase down not just her competition, but also the Carfrae had been determined to push herself harder than in intangible ghost of Wellington. 2009, and while being thrust into the position of the race favorite The haunting began for Carfrae when she was sat down and told was stressful, she knew she had to let it go and race her own race. the news outside of the transition area in the wee hours of race “It’s still a world championship race whether or not Chrissie is there, P.R.O. Missile Evo basebar and stem $800 morning. “She looked like she had seen a ghost,” says Tim O’Donnell, so I knew I was going against the best of the best regardless,” she One of the meanest-looking front ends we’ve seen, P.R.O.’s top-end bar features Carfrae’s longtime boyfriend and fellow professional triathlete. Car- says. an integrated stem (available in 85, 95 and 105 mm) with cable ports, something frae’s manager and O’Donnell tried to keep her calm as she sat on Dibens is adamant that having Wellington absent wasn’t a factor we’ve never seen before in a stem. Paired with the basebar, you can now run the curb, but the look on her face said it all. for her once the race began. “I just kind of blocked it out,” she says. your cables from aerobars to basebar to stem, creating a clean, aero front end. Not having Wellington in the race created a mixed bag of emotions “Who knows if it would have changed how I raced having her there, for the Australian, who came second to Wellington in Pro-bikegear.com 2009 in her de- but we’ll just never know.”
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030 : TECH FEATURE
Rocket Science Sports Rocket Carbon $700 This model features a clever new innovation: the MagLock leash keeper. A magnet at the end of the leash connects to a stitch-fixed magnet at the shoulder. The locked location means no more hyperextended, blind searches for the leash while dashing out of the water and into transition. Rocketsciencesports.com
Aquasphere Phantom wetsuit $650
Skinfit Plasma $349
Aquasphere’s list of features for their top-end wetsuit makes the suit sound way over-engineered, but it turns out the Core Power System—a Velcro-cinched belt that secures the lower back for extra core support—is engineering genius. Super-thin (i.e., flexible) 1mm rubber through the shoulder and back and flushresistant wrist gaskets are two more bonus features you won’t find on most other suits—even in this price range.
This made-for-Kona Plasma suit is really two suits in one. Using a mix of 80 percent Tactel and 20 percent spandex, the Plasma is extremely hydrodynamic in the water, but remains breathable for the rest of the day. An integrated chamois makes it a swim skin you can keep on all day.
Aquasphereusa.com
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Skinfitusa.com
032 : TECH FEATURE
Bontrager Oracle $199 Bontrager’s first top-shelf helmet offering is all about ventilation, with 26 ports and a very low-profile design. It’s reinforced by a glass fiber skeletal system and finished with a single-hand, dial-adjust retention device. Bontrager.com
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sportswear designed for athletes
Craig Alexander
SLIM FIT FULL ZIP MERINO JACKET Ultra soft and comfortable, this slim-fitting top showcases lightweight naturally moisture-wicking Merino wool in a premium 14-gauge knit. Breathable and anti-microbial, additional features include 1960’s inspired tailoring and a tight rib construction to help the garment retain it’s shape after repeated use.
A v a i l a b l e a t N o r d s t r o m , B l o o m i n g d a l e s , Z a p p o s . c o m a n d o n l i n e a t w w w. d u n n i n g s p o r t s w e a r. c o m
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Fi’zi:k R3 road shoe $300 As is the case with Fi’zi:k’s saddles, the brand’s first foray into footwear is all about Italian attention to detail. Thanks to an adjustable upper strap that flops open, the R3s are plenty tri-friendly, even including a ratcheted buckle system. And who doesn’t dig an Italian flag sewn on the tongue’s interior? Fizik.it
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VICTORY HAS MANY FACES TAKE A GOOD LOOK. THESE ATHLETES WILL BE SETTING THE STAGE IN 2011
Samantha McGlone
Joe Gambles
Chrissie Wellington
• 1st 2009 Ironman Arizona • 1st 2006 & 2nd 2007 Ironman 70.3 World Championships • 2nd 2007 Ironman World Championships
• 1st 2010 Ironman Wisconsin • Fastest Bike Split 2010 Ironman 70.3 World Championship
• 3X Ironman World Champion • Official IronmanWorld Record Holder
RIDES : VORTTICE HELMET
RIDES : VORTTICE HELMET CARBON TRI-HRS SHOES
RIDES : QUARTZ HELMET
LEARN FROM YESTERDAY, LIVE FOR TODAY, NEVER GIVE UP.
036 : TECH FEATURE
Fuel Belt Revenge $44 Debuted by Chris McCormack and Terenzo Bozzone in Kona last fall, the two-bottle Revenge replaces the elastic holster with a form-fitted plastic one, allowing for single-hand removal of bottles. Also available in three- and four-bottle versions, the Revenge allows for extra pockets to be attached. Fuelbelt.com
Specialized Purist $11 Eschewing a traditional pull-top valve, the new BPA-free Purist bottle moves 22 oz (or 26 oz with the taller option) of liquid refreshment to your mouth with a one-way WaterGate squeeze valve. But the bigger story is the silicone coating applied to the bottle’s interior, keeping the bottle odor, taste and stain-free. No more tasting last week’s Gatorade. Specialized.com
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038 : TECH FEATURE
K-Swiss Kwicky Blade-Light $130 Debuted by Chris Lieto in Kona, the flexible, cushy Blade-Light sole is met with a touch of medial posting for late-race support. It’s finished with a completely water-resistant upper, making for a lighter, less waterlogged race-day shoe. Kswiss.com/running
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040 : TECH FEATURE
SRAM 990 Aero Brake Lever $120 The 990 represents an elegantly amalgamated solution to the problem of adjusting brake caliper width on wide-width race wheels, especially on bikes with integrated brakes. A 2mm Allen wrench loosens a fixing bolt, allowing the brake lever to turn, and releasing the cable to the tune of up to 8mm of width adjustment. Very clever. Sram.com
Sampson c8 Pedals $240 This new nylon-carbon pedal will give the big boys a serious run for their money. At just 115 grams each with a huge 66mm platform, the c8 employs an alloy plate for pedal longevity and sports a light-action back catch clip, making it easy-in, easy-out. Also available in an upgraded ti spindle version. Sampsonsports.com
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FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS. No imposing colored panels, seams over zips or hype. Just reliable performance materials and the simple, clever principles required to deliver exceptional results time and time again. 2XU is proud to offer athletes the finest triathlon wetsuits in the world - X:2, V:2, R:1, T:2 and ST:2. For more information contact your local 2XU dealer.
V:2 VELOCITY - CAMERON BROWN 10X IRONMAN CHAMPION WWW.2XU.COM
SCAN THIS QR CODE WITH YOUR SMART PHONE!
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042 : TECH FEATURE
Oakley Fast Jacket $220 Another 2010 Kona debut, the Fast Jacket is the new jack-of-all-trades bike and run optic, using a stainless steel Switchlock pivot at the temple to securely fasten and release lenses. When locked and loaded, the lenses are in secured suspension within the frame, leaving the lens contours (and your vision) accurate and unaltered. Oakley.com
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044 : TECH FEATURE
GU Brew electrolyte tablets $6.50/tube In an effort to make its popular Brew hydration formula as portable as possible, GU now offers it up in an effervescent tab, loading each with a big dose (320 milligrams) of sodium. Flavor junkies can enjoy lemon-lime or orange, while those looking for something more subtle on the palate (or those from the South) will dig the peach tea flavor. Gusports.com
First Endurance Wild Berry EFS Liquid Shot $6 This powder keg of caloric power (400 calories per flask, to be exact) as well as electrolytes, amino acids and simple and complex carbs, is now available in a fresh berry flavor. Firstendurance.com
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THE
REVENGE SERIES
™
Arctic Blue
Juicy O’Riley
White Panda
Royal Blue
Electric Lime
Black
Silver
Hibiscus Pink
Terenzo
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FELT DA
$12,499: with Shimano Di2 electronic groupset and Zipp 808/1080 tubulars Feltracing.com By Brad Culp SIZES: 51, 54, 56, 58 cm COMPONENTS AS TESTED: Shimano Di2 groupset, Zipp 808/1080 tubular wheelset, Prologo Nago TTR saddle.
✓ ROLL IT:
If you’ve got dollars like Diddy and you’ve been dreaming of an electronic-shifting rocket since the debut of Di2.
✗ RACK IT: If you’d rather save a few grand on a bike that’s almost as fast.
COLORS: Semi matte clear, gloss and matte DuPont black
NICK ABADILLA
As with the Scott Plasma 3, Storck Aero 2 and the handful of other bikes with a five-figure price tag, most of the DA’s eye-popping MSRP is the result of its top-shelf spec, highlighted by a completely integrated Shimano Di2 group. While the DA can handle any components, it was specifically designed to mate with Di2. One of the biggest design changes from the 2010 model is the location of the Di2’s remote control-sized battery pack, which has been moved from underneath the saddle to under the bottom bracket, where it’s enclosed in a bulge in the frame. It’s the sleekest integration of the Di2 package we’ve seen . Felt states that its engineers focused first on aerodynamics when creating the 2011 DA, next on stiffness and finally on weight. The team of engineers added almost 25 percent more surface area than on the DA’s previous iteration, smoothing airflow over the frame but also tacking on a few extra grams. Felt’s numerous wind tunnel tests were especially impressive when the wind was thrown from 5 to 15 degrees of yaw—angles that are quite common in real-world riding
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conditions. The company claims the 2011 model was, on average, 14 percent faster than last year’s version between −15 and 15 degrees of yaw, with credit going to the new, aerodynamically optimized tube shapes. And those are more than just buzzwords. Against a steady 20 mph crosswind, the DA stood upright and rode straight, even on a wheelset that isn’t exactly made for stiff crosswinds. Apart from the tube shapes in the front triangle, Felt also reshaped the head tube, bringing the width down to a scant 35 mm at the first point of contact between the air and the frame. Most of the DA remains unchanged from last year’s model, however, and that’s a good thing. Felt retained the very fit-friendly, adjustable angle stem, BB30 bottom bracket and the sleek, side-pull front brake. No one will ever build the perfect tri bike, but given today’s technology, Felt got about as close you can get. Unfortunately, perfection comes with a big price tag. LAVA
596 “No words can describe the experience. Only three digits.“
596 I-PACK: Aerodynamics, Power, and Versatility
The 596 was designed with all-around performance in mind, it utilizes the latest wind tunnel testing and aerodynamic modeling, carbon engineering, and LOOK patented integration. The 100% VHM Carbon fiber frame and fork offer exceptional lateral rigidity and ultra light weight, while the aerodynamically optimized tube shapes provide an unmatched aerodynamic advantage. The integration of the LOOK patented E-Post R32, specifically designed for triathlon seat angles, allows for ride quality adjustment through a unique elastomer system, and the ZED 2 Crankset* offers the best stiffness to weight ratio in the industry at a feathery 320grams, all while the 100% carbon indexing stem offers the largest variety of areobar positions of any bike available. All these things combined make the 596 I-PACK the most advanced tri bike on the market today. *Delivered with Keo Blade Crmo pedals .
www.lookcycle.com
048 : ON DISPLAY :
SEROTTA HSG AERO $6,571: with SRAM Rival and Shimano RS20 wheelset $5,495: frameset only Serotta.com
✓ ROLL IT: If you want custom quality at off-the-shelf pricing.
✗ RACK IT: If your bike requires a wind tunnel birth certificate.
By Jay Prasuhn SIZES: Full custom COMPONENTS AS TESTED: SRAM Red groupset, Zipp 808 tubular wheelset, Fi’zi:k Arione Tri 2 saddle COLORS: Nude carbon/red accent
NICK ABADILLA
T
he Serotta name running along any down tube draws reverence in cycling circles, but the genesis of the new-for-2011 HSG AERO is namesake Ben Serotta’s desire to get the current generation of athletes on his bikes. He’s had success sponsoring the West Point Triathlon team, but creating a fully-custom full-carbon, American-made bike at as little as $6,000 complete will pique interest. By removing the ultra-expensive paint job options (which Serotta says are highly timeintensive and extend lead time for delivery), the HSG AERO makes a boutique brand with custom geometry much more attainable. The bike itself is a throwback to American craftsmanship, with zero outsourcing. Dropouts are cut from CNC machines at Serotta headquarters in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The tubes are then custom-drawn at Serotta’s carbon facility in Poway, Calif. Our test platform was built custom to order, with Serotta SICI fitter Paraic McGlynn addressing ride quality desires after a biomechanics assessment, and also building in considerations for idiosyncrasies and limitations to truly perfect the experience (including shoes, aerobar and extension choice, eSoles orthotic inserts and cleat shimming) so that when the bike arrived, the fit was truly perfect. Finer details, including porting for Shimano Di2, are also part of any custom build.
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Despite a market hung up on drag numbers, The HSG AERO maintains fit and ride quality as paramount. No, it doesn’t ignore aerodynamics (employing deep aero tubing on the compact design frame) but putting ride first, it uses a unique sealed bearing pivot at the seat stay/rear dropout in order to improve vertical compliance while, as Serotta says, maintaining constant rear tire contact with the ground. With a remarkably sturdy, oversized fork, it’s hard to express how well the bike climbed or handled. In fact, if you factor in my initial desire for a slightly decreased fork rake (it was what we wanted, and Serotta delivered), it made for the most rider-connected bike we’ve ridden. As locked in and quick as it was on the flats, we couldn’t get over the handling on curves, climbs and descents. “Fun” is an apt adjective. From assessment to delivery to dialogue after delivery, custom has scarcely been done so artfully and professionally. And what’s nice is this isn’t a unique magazine spread delivery; it’s customer standard. To step back and consider that this bike can be had custom complete (with SRAM Rival) for $6,571 should really raise eyebrows. Oh, and lest we forget: turnaround on this is baby just 12 to 16 weeks. LAVA
Photo: Eric Wynn
Chris McCormack rides the 808 Firecrest wheelset, Zipp Tangente Tubulars, and SRAM RED components
HIT THE GROUND RUNNING. We launched the new 808 Firecrest at Kona, and Chris McCormack took full advantage. Out on the Queen K, his 808s with Zipp Tangente tubulars were the fastest, most efficient, best handling wheels on the road. And in the marathon’s final mile, he had enough left in the tank to win one of the most dramatic duels in triathlon history. | Not only is Firecrest more aerodynamic than any other rim design, its distinctive wide profile also improves handling in crosswinds, wheel strength, and overall ride quality. It only took one shot for Macca to prove that it’s simply a better wheel in every way. | But that victory wasn’t the only one for Zipp this year. Mirinda Carfrae won on 650c ZEDTECH 4s and Karin Thuerig set a bike course record with a 303/1080 setup. Zipp once again dominated the Kona Bike Count with nearly 60% of all aero wheels. Clearly, superior technology makes a difference for every athlete.
Firecrest 808 available in Tubular, Carbon Clincher, ZEDTECH ®. Zipp Tangente Tires available in Tubular & Clincher 21mm & 23mm.
1.800.472.3972 | zipp.com
050 : PRO FILE : G
saddle: fi’Zi:k ARione tRi 2
WHeelset: ZiPP 808 fiRecReSt tuBulAR fRont And ReAR, StAndARd BeARingS
naMe: Maik twelsiek BiRtHDate: 12/25/80 nicKnaMe: gcM or Maiki age: 30 HeigHt: 6’1 WeigHt: 165 lbs. ResiDence: tucson, ariz. & Vlotho, germany Weapon: scott plasma 3 premium, size large Last seen: 4:26:01, third-fastest bike split, 2010 Hawaii ironman
Cassette: SRAM Red, 11-23
GroUPset: SRAM Red with SRAM R2c ShifteRS
Weapon Logistics: Maik used this commerzbank special edition plasma 3 to break fellow german lavamagazine.com
G : PRO FILE : 051
aerobars: PRofile deSign PRoSvet 42cM c/c, PRofile deSign ABS cARBon BRAke leveR Hydration: PRofile deSign elite kARBon kAge
Pedals: tiMe i-clic cARBon, titAniuM SPindleS
Crankset: SRAM Red with SRM PoweRMeteR, 175MM, 53-39t
tires: continentAl coMPetition tuBulARS, 700 x 22MM
thomas Hellriegel’s 15-year-old bike course record with a 4:40:58 at ironman Lanzarote last year. lavamagazine.com
052 : REVIEWED :
LEMOND REVOLUTION By Jay Prasuhn
T
hree-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond told LAVA the design for his new trainer came from a similarly designed product he used during his racing days, which was little more than a flywheel positioned between a cassette and a fan. The design received a few overhauls between then and now, and when the LeMond Revolution Trainer debuted under the then Garmin-Transitions Team at last year’s Tour, it didn’t go unnoticed. Our test unit (which comes with a spacer to account for the difference between road and mountain bikes) came with an upgradeoptional, SRAM-compatible, 105-level cassette. The freehub body can be replaced with a Campagnolo freehub or 9-speed Shimano version. It’s stable, but doesn’t have folding legs on its heavy (but sturdy) 35-pound frame. The Revolution’s cassette is connected to a 14-pound flywheel. That flywheel, in turn, is connected via a belt drive to a small resistance fan. When you load your bike’s chain onto the cassette and start pedal-
ing, the flywheel slowly spins up to speed, which in turn pulls into action a fan that provides resistance to the unit. The Revolution is packed with solutions to common stationary trainer grievances. First off, you don’t need a front wheel block (unless you choose to in order to simulate climbing). Secondly, in removing the rear wheel from the trainer, LeMond has eliminated tire and wheel wear. It also eliminates resistance inconsistencies with flywheel pressure on a tire, which has its own, evervarying pressure. Every ride on the Revolution will be as consistent as the last. But that’s all minor; the real difference is the ride experience. When you stop pedaling,
the flywheel’s coast-down is remarkably realistic—the closest thing we’ve experienced to riding rollers. Standard trainers simply can’t touch it for delivering a realworld road inertia feel, which heretofore has been lacking in traditional trainers. Why do we care? A standard trainer forces your legs go up and down like pistons to get the flywheel to spin, making a rounded pedal stroke difficult. The Revolution makes for a truer, more realistic pedal stroke. Muscle engagement of the calves, hip flexors and quadriceps better mimic what happens when you’re out of the basement and on the road. Being a fan resistance unit, steady-state riding (a triathlete’s bread and butter) is louder than with a fluid or magnetic trainer, and interval efforts bring the crescendo up a fair bit more. Although we found the sound level tolerable with the headphones on, we suggest keeping it in the garage if you don’t want to wake up the entire house.
NICK ABADILLA
$549 with 12–25 Shimano cassette Lemondfitness.com
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So InSanely anatomIcal, you feel naked. Women’s isoTransition & Women’s Tri Fly III Superior power transfer on the bike and plush cushioning on the run fit your foot so naturally, you feel barefoot.
© 2011 Pearl Izumi
pearlizumi.com
054 : WORKBENCH : G
All CARBON, All tHE timE Why are carbon fiber clinchers gaining steam? They’re safer, faster, more cost-efficient and very easy to use.
NICK ABADILLA
By Mark Deterline
The use of carbon fiber in rim construction isn’t new, but in recent years safety has come up while cost has come down.
i
n 2006 I was riding a set of Reynolds MV32 all-carbon clinchers full-time. They were high-end wheels that were comfortable, strong and fast. Nearly five years later, Reynolds Cycling introduced its Attack model, which likewise featured 32mm rims, but came equipped with less expensive hubs and were built in a contractor’s facility instead of inhouse at the Reynolds factory near Salt Lake City. All-carbon clinchers at the high end? Maybe. But at the mid range, intended to compete with Mavic’s industry-standard alloy Ksyriums? This was something new. lavamagazine.com
Five years ago, most manufacturers were not taking all-carbon clinchers seriously. No one seemed to know whether it was a feasible market, and few were willing to test the waters to find out. While many wheel-builders continued to contend that all-carbon clinchers weren’t ready for prime time, America’s best domestic road cycling team, Health Net presented by Maxxis, gobbled up national titles on carbon clincher rims. The team’s wheels of choice were no surprise, given that Maxxis only manufactures clincher tires. More people were getting on the carbon clincher bandwagon, but not very fast.
UTah pioneers.
Leading the way in the development of carbon clincher technology has been renowned wheel designer Paul Lew, who developed his first all-carbon clincher in 1989 (under the brand name “Lew”). Lew went on to develop his first commercially available carbon clincher in 1996, and although initial response was lackluster, a few notable wheelbuilders took note and began working on developing their own carbon clinchers. In the years that followed, a few of the players instrumental in the development and implementation of Lew and Reynolds com-
Check out Craig and Team Road ID www.RoadID.com/Team
GARY GEIGER
056 : WORKBENCH :
Ironman Wisconsin champ Joe Gambles is part of a growing legion of pros racing on carbon clinchers.
posites technologies left to start their own gig under the Edge Composites banner, which recently changed its name to ENVE Composites. ENVE, headquartered in the mountain bike Mecca of Ogden, Utah, has grabbed a fair share of the race wheel market in recent years. While über-aero tubular wheels have been EVNE’s focus from day one, the company saw the demand for an easy-to-change, race-day carbon clincher, and recently debuted their 45mm option. Trek introduced its own carbon rims several years ago as part of its Bontrager wheel line. For its aero models, instead of building high-profile molded rims, Bontrager and design partner Steve Hed bonded aero-section fairings to Bontrager’s traditional “box section” all-carbon rims for an aero boost. According to Bontrager, this approach yields a more comfortable ride with aerodynamics similar to a standard carbon clincher. With Reynolds, ENVE, Hed, Easton, Bontrager and other manufacturers pumping out state-ofthe-art, all-carbon, hook-and-bead clincher rims, Zipp inched cautiously toward a solution of their own. For 2011, Zipp introduced its Firecrest “fullcarbon” models, as opposed to its hybrid versions that featured an alloy rim to which the company bonded its patented dimpled fairing. Zipp’s perLAVAMAGAZINE.COM
spective is that the latest-generation epoxy resins and brake pads can withstand higher temperatures, finally making all-carbon clinchers viable for everyone, including less experienced riders who tend to over-brake on descents.
WHY NOT GO TUBULAR? Why are we seeing more and more pros and age groupers adopt carbon clincher technology? According to Zipp marketing manager Andy Paskins, the convenience factor makes them especially appealing to triathletes. Paskins noted that the ease of changing a flat is a primary concern for multisporters, and that most are more comfortable changing a clincher on the race course. According to Paskins, all-carbon clinchers have been well received by the so-called “weight weenies,” who can save an extra 100 grams by doing away with the alloy braking surface. Zipp’s lead design engineer, Josh Poertner, offers technical grounds for the paradigm shift. For one, the issue of heat buildup on the braking surface, which can cause catastrophic failure if the rim’s resin gets too hot and actually starts to go plastic, is addressed through chemistry, by enhancing resins with subcomponents. Poertner says that Zipp engineers increased heat capacity by approximately nine percent, making the rim safer on descents than ever be-
fore. Add in carbon-specific brake pads (made with either cork or a rubber compound) and the dissipation of heat is greatly improved. Poertner maintains that brake pads represent the most significant potential for future performance gains.
EVERY DAY OR RACE DAY ONLY? The big question surrounding the everyday application of carbon clinchers remains their durability. Anyone who has ever seen a carbon wheel go plastic on a steep descent knows it can make for a very scary situation. Even so, today’s carbon clincher technology makes it possible to go all-carbon on your training rides, so long as you don’t plan on squeezing your brakes for half the day. Zipp noted that a large number of its sponsored ProTour cyclists and elite triathletes regularly train on carbon clinchers. We don’t expect to see carbon clinchers replace tubulars anytime soon, especially as a race-day option. But considering the stresses of race day, the familiarity of using clinchers and the exponentially improved durability of today’s offerings, carbon clinchers are now a worthy race-day alternative that you won’t have to swap off your bike when it comes time to get back to training.
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PICK SIX: A CINCH TO CLINCH Six carbon clinchers that are as easy as your training wheels, but faster than ever. By Jay Prasuhn
Reynolds 66 $2,850/pair; Reynoldscycling.com Reynolds uses a Swirl Lip Generator (a trip line rib that circumnavigates the edge of the 66mm rim’s apex) to drop drag by effectively widening the rim, resulting in improved handling in crosswinds.
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Enve 65 $2,600/pair; Envecomposites.com The unique construction of the 65s includes molding (instead of drilling) the rim’s spoke holes and hook bead, which increases the rim’s structural integrity. That results in higher spoke tensions and a stiffer, faster wheel.
Zipp 404 Firecrest $2,700/pair; Zipp.com Zipp employs a Formula I-proven heat-resistant resin on the 58mmdeep wheel. But Firecrest is best known for it’s new shape and extra-wide (25.5mm) width. Zipp says the new shape is not only more aero than earlier iterations, but also improves crosswind handling.
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Bontrager Aeolus 5.0 $2,650/pair; Bontrager.com Bontrager’s parent company, Trek, creates the OCLV carbon fiber rims in Madison, Wis., then ships them to Minneapolis for HED to apply the 50mm non-structural carbon fairing, which provides great vertical compliance.
Profile Design Altair 80 $2,200/pair; Profile-design.com Profile engineers optimized the Altair’s 80mm rim shape not for 30 mph pro speeds, but instead their target customer: age-group triathletes who travel at 17 to 20 mph.
Easton EC90 Aero $2,000/pair; Eastoncycling.com Easton’s new 56mm EC90 is laid-up, hand-built and acoustically tuned across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. Easton applies heat-dissipating ThermaTec treatment to the rim, uses ceramic hub bearings and now employs external nipples for convenient truing.
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FRicTiOn vs. FORm Catch panels on wetsuits are supposed to make you faster in the water, but there’s a catch.
LARRY ROSA
By Jordan Rapp
i
am, admittedly, too new to the sport of triathlon to remember the introduction of the catch panel on wetsuits. Though it goes by many names, the catch panel is that section found on the forearms of many wetsuits that has a rough texture, which, manufacturers claim, helps grab water during the catch phase of the swim stroke. lavamagazine.com
About 10 years ago, Orca began experimenting with catch panels on their top-end suits, forcing a number of other manufacturers to follow suit. The reasoning behind adding the panels was simple: If water slips over smooth surfaces, a rougher surface would hold more water, increasing a swimmer’s force. While many suit manufacturers immediately added such panels to their
suits, a few brands held back, due to the lack of evidence that the panels actually worked—and that remains the big question today. So how are catch panels supposed to work? Let’s assume that 100 percent of your swim propulsion comes from your arms. If you kick like most triathletes, this might not be much of a stretch. Dr. Paulo Ferreira de Sousa, a mechanical
LARRY ROSA
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engineer at Vanderbilt University, says that “propulsion in swimming comes from the arm moving backward.” This stands in stark contrast to the long-standing model that a swimmer’s hand acts as an “anchor” in the water while his body moves over it. While that might be a nice image, Dr. Sousa said it’s not at all what actually happens when you swim. He went on to elaborate: “Your hand and forearm represent a bluff body, as opposed to a streamlined vessel,” like an airplane wing or a dolphin’s tail. The bluff body of your lower arm is perpendicular to the direction of your travel. Your arm is—or should be—pointed at the bottom of the pool, while you are moving from wall to wall. The resulting forces acting on your forearm are drag forces. The more drag your forearm generates, the more propulsion your body experiences. While you want your body to move as efficiently through the water as possible, you want your arm to move as inefficiently as possible—at least from the standpoint of fluid mechanics. The other important thing about realizing that your lower arm represents a bluff body is that, with such an object, the vast majority of drag comes from pressure drag and the amount lavamagazine.com
of drag caused by friction is relatively small. Pressure drag, also called form drag, is the drag created by an object’s shape. Friction drag is what’s created by an object’s texture. For a real-world example of why form drag is so much more significant than friction drag, think of it this way: Friction drag is the reason you gain a few seconds from wearing an ultra-tight skinsuit during a 40K time trial on the bike. Form drag is the reason the land-speed record for a traditional bike is 49.7 kilometers per hour, while the record for a fully-faired recumbent bike is over 90 kph. Whether it’s fluid dynamics or hydrodynamics, form takes precedence over texture. So, according to Dr. Sousa, it’s probable that your wetsuit’s catch panels aren’t doing much to boost propulsion, and it’s even possible that they’re slowing you down, though not enough to make a noticeable difference. This is due to the fact that the majority of triathletes don’t make efficient use of their forearms while they swim, and instead use only their hands as paddles during the pull phase of the stroke. “Try swimming with a fist, or while holding a tennis ball, and not kicking,” advises Dr. Sousa. “If doing this stops you dead in the water, then you probably aren’t get-
ting a lot of propulsion from your forearms.” De Soto was one of the few wetsuit manufacturers that didn’t jump on the catch panel bandwagon, instead seeking other ways of increasing forearm propulsion in the water. To do so, the brand’s namesake, Emilio De Soto, opted to make the forearms of the suit bigger—up to 8mm on the Ironman-banned Water Rover suit—boosting the suit’s form drag coefficient. The words of Dr. Sousa, “you need to increase drag on the forearm,” were echoed by another very tech-savvy company, 2XU. Australia-based 2XU has also been running tests on the effectiveness of catch panels, and has come up with a unique innovation for its newfor-2011 X:2 suit. The arm panels will taper from 5mm to 1mm and back to 5mm in an effort to increase the surface area of the forearm. By using rigid rubber sections (applied to areas in which they have to remove the SCS coating on the neoprene to adhere) 2XU does its best to legally mimic the rigid structure of something like a paddle on the forearm of the suit, by allowing the suit to somewhat dictate the shape of the forearm. 2XU designed the $800 X:2 as a “swimmer’s suit,” meaning it’s de-
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photos courtesy 2Xu
2XU’s 2011 V:2 suit uses rigid rubber sections on the legs to mimic paddles.
signed for athletes with the shoulder strength to take advantage of the greater pulling surface and also the technique to maintain proper forearm position. A bigger bluff body is only useful if you can create—and handle—more drag. Another brand designing suits specifically for those with an efficient stroke is blueseventy. The brand’s popular Helix model is designed for athletes who are well-balanced in the water and can maintain a proper body position without relying on the suit. The Helix is one of blueseventy’s “Neutral Buoyancy” line of suits, made for swimmers who want a suit that supports their natural stroke, not one that alters it. Blueseventy still uses catch panels on its more beginner-friendly “Positive Buoyancy” line of suits, but the brand’s Global Marketing Manager, Dean Jackson, admits it’s mainly the result of market pressure. While blueseventy now enjoys the position of market leadership in the triathlon wetsuit realm, it’s still keenly aware of what else is out there. Jackson cited a Speedo prototype suit with forearm pockets that open up like a parachute as just one recent innovation. Blueseventy has taken an
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opposite approach for the next generation of the Helix, looking for ways to create an ultrathin panel that would provide proprioceptive feedback on a swimmer’s forearm position. Jackson emphasized that this was part of a growing trend towards market segregation. He said, “Wetsuits are where running shoes were 20 years ago. We’re going to start using the suit to address swimming style—speed of stroke, body type, et cetera.” Not just forearms, but suits in general can be designed to support how people swim, in much the same way that different bike geometries support differences in how people ride. LAVA
Jordan Rapp received his BSE in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 2002. As a professional triathlete, he is able to work as a true field engineer for the product development teams at Specialized Bicycle Components and Zipp Speed Weaponry. When not riding his bike, he can be found behind his laptop fulfilling his duties as the Chief Technology Officer for Slowtwitch.com.
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BiCoASTAL CuSTom A Serotta factory tour takes LAVA from Upstate New York to Southern California Story and photos by Jay Prasuhn
Vintage to cutting edge: Ben Serotta rests on the steps of his Saratoga Springs, N.Y., fit studio with current carbon creations—and his first time trial rig—surrounding him.
He went over to a small shed in the corner of the garden, the back wall of which was made of finely carved wood shingles arranged in a design. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘the trouble they took for something that could not even be seen. That is what has been lost. It was lost when workers began selling their time. Or as you say in America, when time became money.” —The New Yorker, Sept 6, 1999, The Balthus Enigma here is no question that the bike industry, and the tri segment to a greater degree, has become inured to the concept of bike building—literally building bikes—on an individual scale. Forget customization in today’s
T
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age of mass production. Ever since wind-tunnel design became a centerpiece selling point, bike manufacturing has become an industry of computer-generated designs sent to Asia where bikes are mass-produced within an adequate size and fit range. The efficiency has doubtless distracted us from concepts that used to be calling cards in the bike industry: Hand-crafted. American-made. Custom geometry. Instead, as tri bikes go, we receive a ride that is generally anonymous, our only connection to it being a white paper or a race win by a pro. But sitting across the table from Ben Serotta in a Saratoga Springs, N.Y., diner discussing
the direction of bike manufacturing and what’s possible, I’m brought back to my original induction into the culture of cycling. Back when men with names like Tom Ritchey, Richard Sachs (from whose website the opening quote of this story was sourced), Ugo DeRosa, Ves Mandaric (former master frame builder for Quintana Roo), Fausto Pinarello, and Ben Serotta conceptualized, designed and quite often nodded down a welder’s mask and wielded a torch to create the bikes that bore their names. So, what is possible? Part of it we examine upon review of Serotta’s new HSG AERO, a bike earmarked for triathletes. Boiled down:
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Attention to detail: From pre-build fitting to paint, small parts construction and finishing, very few—if any—elements are outsourced on a Serotta custom build.
Serotta is determined to bring custom quality and quick turnaround to a machine that sees so many hours of service in training that it should be far more than the product of a CAD program. For Serotta, he’s pleased to have a genuine tri bike in his quiver to compete with all the bikes that seem to be designed purely based on wind tunnel tests. As he’s quick to point out, bikes don’t ride themselves. “When you consider fit, overall ride performance and all the components that some
other manufacturers don’t account for, I have no doubt we’re among the fastest bikes on the market—not necessarily as measured by a wind tunnel, but certainly in the real world,” Serotta said. “There’s not just one element; it’s a combination of fit, aerodynamics and comfort.” “The tri market is smart,” Serotta added, “and we’re not selling 30-year-old bikes or a fad product—these are fast bikes.” Serotta’s brand history is effectively a history of American bike racing. As he built his
brand in upstate New York, Serotta welded up steel bikes for the American 7-11 and Coors Light road teams, with riders including Davis Phinney, Chris Carmichael, Bob Roll, Tom Schuler and Alex Stieda making their name on his creations. He created the first aero pursuit bike in 1977, developed the s-bend chain stay in 1984 and is known, along with Sachs, for producing some of the finest dropouts and lugs, sought by custom builders the world over. The company’s pull in the industry is such that
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G : ALL ACCESS : 069 Columbus tubing in Italy supplies Serotta with a proprietary custom-drawn steel tubeset that it offers to no one else. But it’s by no means a yesteryear brand. LAVA’s tour of the Serotta factory in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., as well as its carbon fiber facility in Poway, Calif., illustrated this quite effectively. Between the two facilities, Serotta has the ability to manufacture pretty much anything. If Serotta needs a tool, the company doesn’t outsource; they make it. All bikes are built, aligned, sanded, pinstriped, painted and packed at one of their U.S. facilities. “It’s not an easy way,” Serotta says, “but it gives us the control to make things to our tolerances, and to be innovative.” One look at a 3D XL bolted dropout joint at the seat stay terminus found on many of the brand’s bikes, and the difference in quality and attention to detail is apparent. For all its road pedigree, Serotta has been quietly building a presence in triathlon, recently as the supplier to the very successful West Point Triathlon Team. But the new carbon aero
bike line (which includes the top-end MeiVici AE and the more price-conscious HSG AERO) aims to raise the company’s status in multisport. To aid in the design, Serotta brought in master fitter Paraic McGlynn, who was formerly the head of the Serotta International Cycling Institute (SICI)—the company’s universally adored fit program. To answer the ubiquitous question, no, Serotta doesn’t have drag numbers on the bikes (though they say they are investigating it). Instead, they concentrate on basic aerodynamics, great ride quality and above all, excellent fit. “It’s the combination that adds up to a quick bike,” Serotta says. “We were on the fence for a few years about how to present the right kind of bike to go after the triathlon market,” says Serotta. “We want to build fast bikes for fast people, and we’re excited to do it.” The list of brands who build their bikes in North America is a short one. Fewer still are those whose entire lines and small parts are of American construction. For Serotta to make that
happen, the construction of its bikes requires both coasts. While most Serotta bikes are welded in Saratoga Springs, the company’s carbon bikes (including the HSG AERO and MeiVici AE), as well as tubesets for lugged carbon road bikes like the Ottrott, are created at the company’s carbon facility in Poway, Calif. Serotta employed longtime Reynolds Composites engineer Mike Lopez to head up his team. Serotta does make stock frames, but that’s not the company’s specialty. And central to that theme is a hulking mass sitting in the middle of Serotta’s Saratoga Springs fit studio: The SICI size cycle. In capable hands, the state-of-the-art $9,500 microadjust fitting machine—in concert with Dartfish software analysis and an arsenal of shoes, cleats, shims, saddles and aerobars to mix and match—is critical to making a custom creation that will fit like a Recaro bucket seat. Our first stop, Saratoga Springs, is home to Ben and most of the metalworks team. The factory is fronted by a classic house revamped into an airy SICI fit studio with hardwood floors. It’s here that the build of a Serotta bike
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American made: Serotta carbon builder Balthazar Lupercio lays carbon sheets into a Serotta HSG Aero mold.
starts—not with asking what size a consumer rides, but with a biomechanical assessment, as we experienced for the build of our HSG AERO (see Page 48 for a review). For our bike, SICI fitter Paraic McGlynn spent several hours on the fit, starting with a query about my desires in a bike and a biomechanical assessment to identify imbalances. Once on the SICI size cycle, McGlynn made adjustments to determine the bike’s target geometry as well as the ideal saddle, shoes, arm pad height and crank length. Remarkably, any Serotta dealer is equipped to deliver a similarly detailed experience in helping build up a new bike. A few steps out the back door is Serotta’s factory. Inside, experienced teams work on CNC machines, bond carbon tubing to alloy lugs for their road bikes, and do detail work including sanding, painting and packaging for shipping to Serotta dealers. Nearly every thing is done there. Nearly. Several months later, we visited Mike Lopez, Director of Composite Development and Manufacturing at the company’s carbon fiber center
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G : ALL ACCESS : 071 in Poway, Calif. Set unobtrusively in a business park, the only indication that a high-tech carbon fiber production facility existed was the Serotta Skunkworks decal on the front door. The Poway production team is among the most experienced, with staffers having between 15 and 20 years’ experience building Reynolds Composites forks and carbon fiber golf shafts in previous lives. Lopez works cross-country with Ben Serotta to develop the aero bike line and leads his team in turning rolls of pre-impregnated carbon fiber sitting in a walk-in cooler into some of the most soughtafter bikes in the industry. The custom element to Serotta’s carbon bike was our big question—and answered when we saw shelves full of mold sections—essentially huge metal negative reliefs—of down tubes, top tubes, and rear stays. Since the frames have bonded front and rear ends, Lopez and his team can take the program-input geometry measurements sent in from Serotta dealers across the country and build the corresponding front and rear ends in the mold. The head
tube is simply built high and cut to fit with diamond saws per the consumer’s aerobar height requirements. The frame is matched with a custom-angled fork with a layup custom-tuned to the rider’s weight and displacement. The tubes rest like a jumble of bones in a bin where they await bonding into a single frame, coming together on a very historic alignment table: the same one, Lopez says, that served up the very first Specialized Stumpjumper. Today, the bike machinist Ron Rehkopf is clearing extra bonding agent from a frame that is a bit more complex than that first Stumpjumper. We were lucky enough to see an HSG AERO being born. After taking precut pieces of carbon fiber from a cooler, frame builder Balthazar Lupercio carefully lays the pieces into a mold: first comes purely aesthetic woven carbon and then ride-tuneable unidirectional carbon fiber. “These aero bikes, they’re the ones that take the most time,” Lupercio said as he laid more carbon into the mold. “They’re challenging, but I like the challenge.” From the painstaking work at the carbon
facility to the steady hands of the pinstripers to the tedium of sanding, few brands elicit that oft-overused (but in this instance highly appropriate) cliché: labor of love. To see it is to more greatly appreciate the hours that go into the bike. Could it be more aero? Possibly. But does it have more soul than an Asian-made creation? No question. And will it fit the way you’d always wished? Both Serotta and McGlynn were without doubt. “I go to an Ironman and see athletes riding out of their aerobars,” McGlynn said, “and as a fitter, it’s hard to witness, knowing these people don’t have to ride that way—not on a bike that fits and delivers the ride you want. They can be more comfortable, and can certainly go faster.” Serotta concurs. “One thing we’re proud of is that when we say we can deliver a ride experience, we mean it. A lot of people make that claim, but unless you control the process and can offer tuning in any medium, it’s a tall claim. But given the amount of attention we deliver from beginning to end, we feel confident making it.”
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I
t’s a clear morning in Kihei, Maui, Hawaii, and Simon Whitfield is giving an impromptu swimming lesson. From behind, he and his protégée look like two teenagers sitting on the edge of the pool, their lean bodies glistening in the morning sun. Whitfield raises one arm, bending it at the elbow, while the lissome young woman beside him—her red hair piled on top of her head in a wet knot—listens intently. Both, of course, are no longer teenagers. But for 21-yearold Paula Findlay—the redhead seated beside triathlon’s first Olympic gold medalist—the teenage years are not so far behind. It wasn’t so long ago that she was cranking out laps with the Keyano Swim Club in her hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, one of Canada’s coldest cities. Now here she is, just a few short years later, training in a tropical paradise beside some of her country’s top triathletes: National Team cohorts Whitfield and Kyle Jones, as well as support athletes Samantha McGlone and Calgary twins Kyla and Alex Coates.
london calling IN ONLY ONE YEAR, CANADIAN PAULA FINDLAY HAS GONE FROM A STRAIGHT-A STUDENT TO PODIUM FAVORITE FOR THE 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES IN LONDON. LAVA HEADED TO MAUI TO SEE HOW CANADA’S OTHER TOP TRIATHLETES ARE HELPING FINDLAY PREPARE. By Jennifer Ward Barber
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Photography by Donald Miralle
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Calling Whitfield and Findlay’s relationship one of mentor and protégée, however, would be an overstatement. Early-morning Maui swim sessions aside, she doesn’t really train with him. “Simon’s a celebrity,” she explains. “I’m a bit intimidated by him, but not because he’s intimidating. He’s a smart racer, a good guy to go to for advice if I ever need it.” Findlay arrived in Maui at the end of December to participate in a varsity swim camp hosted by the University of Alberta, where she’s been a student athlete since 2007. As soon as those two weeks were over, she relocated to the north coast town of Paia to join the Canadian National Triathlon Team’s three-week training camp. This kind of non-stop schedule is nothing new to Findlay, who sprinted onto the ITU stage last summer with back-to-back wins at World Championship Series races in London and Kitzbühel, Austria. If anything, she’ll have a lighter load this year, as she’s decided not to return to classes next fall. As her athletic promise and training regimen increased, Findlay’s grades began to slip and she had to make a choice. “It wasn’t an either-or thing—I wasn’t about to give up triathlon,” she explains. When she returns from Maui she’ll move to Victoria, B.C., to pursue tri-
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athlon full-time at the National Training Centre. Used to juggling textbooks and training, she says she now looks forward to finally reading a novel. On my way past her bedroom during one of our evenings together, I glimpse two books: “House Rules” by Jodi Picoult, and “Born to Run”— not exactly something to take her mind off endurance sports. But as I’ll soon learn, that’s the last thing the Olympic-bound athlete wants to do. According to Findlay’s mother, those books won’t go unfinished. “She’ll make a list, and won’t stop until everything’s done,” Sheila Findlay said. “She’s just going all the time.” Findlay comes by it honestly; her father, Max, is a neurosurgeon, who Findlay shares at least two more qualities with: bright red hair and the desire to work in the medical field. “Paula’s got the world by the balls,” her mother adds. “But she’s quiet about it. You wouldn’t expect that she is where she is in the athletic world.” Findlay finished fifth in the 2010 ITU world rankings, behind Emma Moffat, Nicola Spirig, Lisa Nordén and Helen Jenkins—women who’ve got years of experience on last summer’s dark horse. Though she’d had a few years of success as a Junior, Findlay’s performance at her first World Championship Series race of 2010 in London seemed
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to come out of nowhere. Her furious shoulder checking over the last quarter-mile of the race has become as much a symbol of her racing innocence as it is of the victory that snuck up on her. “I honestly didn’t believe I was going to win until I crossed the line,” Findlay remembers, pausing over a plate of rice and grilled mahi-mahi. Her eyes—a shade of blue usually reserved for the very young—convince me she’s not just trying to be humble. “We had just come off a training camp, so I was ready to have a good race,” she continues, “top 15 would’ve made me very happy.” In his latest book, “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell argues that it takes 10,000 hours to become a master at anything. By examining the successes of people like the Beatles and Bill Gates, Gladwell claims that greatness, when it comes down to it, requires practice. For Findlay, forces other than a mere accumulation of hours must have been at work last year. She entered last July’s championships ranked 53rd out of the 65 women competing, and finished the day sprinting away from crowd favorite Jenkins, as well as Spirig, who is considered to have one of the best finishing kicks on the ITU circuit. ITU standout Lisa Nordén, who fell victim to Findlay’s finishing burst in Kitzbühel last August, says the Canadian has already
earned a lot of respect among the rest of the women on the circuit. “She’s taken the transition up to the World Championship Series races very well,” Nordén says. “She’s one of these girls who doesn’t make a lot of noise.” Findlay’s victory rode in on the shoulders of feeling good, plain and simple: “When I started the run, I felt better than ever. It was almost effortless,” she says. “In the last half I just felt like I could go faster, so I put in a little surge. Coming around the last barricade I surged again. It honestly didn’t feel like I was at my max until the last mile.” If that’s how she felt running a 33:51 10K, the other women probably can’t help but wonder what she’ll bring to London’s Hyde Park in 2012. Halfway across the world there was one person who wasn’t quite so surprised by the blur of red stealing the finish. Back in Edmonton, Glen Playfair, assistant head coach of the University of Alberta track and field team, was thinking, “I told you so.” Playfair had been active on both the city’s running and triathlon scenes for 20 years, and had seen Findlay at swim meets. It wasn’t until he saw her compete at a high school cross-country event, however, that something clicked. “That’s when I said ‘Oh my god, that girl can swim, too.’ I told her that if she was up for trying triathlon, in about three years’ time she could
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“Most athletes, if they get to that point where you feel like your heart is going to pop right through your throat, would say ‘I need to back off.’ But then there are those athletes like Paula...
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win the Junior world title and then go on to the Olympics.” Findlay, who at the time was working through a frustrating swimming plateau, agreed to try a university-organized race during the off-season from swimming. She borrowed a bike, got some tips from Playfair, and won. Playfair talked her into competing at the Provincial Championships, where she won again. But it wasn’t until competing at the 2006 World Junior Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, and watching the elite women compete that she was completely hooked. Playfair continued to coach Paula in swimming- and running-specific programs through her first two years of college. His approach was to develop her foundations, biomechanics and techniques—to keep her healthy and help her achieve the under-distance normative standards for varsity swimming and running (a 4:40 400-meter freestyle and a 9:20 3,000-meter run, respectively). He said
achieving this helps decrease the athlete’s foot contact and injury potential, while developing the foot speed needed for successful 10Ks down the road. Playfair said that despite some IT band issues brought on by the transition to higher-volume triathlon training in 2009, Findlay remained injury free. That’s when trophies became as common for her as A’s on her transcript. “I think Paula thought I was full of crap when I told her she could be an Olympian,” Playfair said. But he clearly wasn’t just playing flattery games. “I’ve called it the ‘it’ factor. Most athletes, if they get to that point where you feel like your heart’s going to pop right out through your throat, would say ‘I need to back off.’ But then there are those athletes like Findlay—all they’re thinking about at that point is whether or not they’re winning the race. What their vital signs are telling them is irrelevant.” Playfair says that when pain
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comes into the picture, Findlay’s face registers something different: extreme focus. “The ability to compete at that level with that intensity, well, I don’t even know if that’s coachable.” Perhaps not, but Patrick Kelly is giving it his best shot. Driving along beside Findlay, Iron-distance powerhouse McGlone and the two sinewy Coates girls on an afternoon ride, the 52-year-old French-Irish Canadian looks over and says, “What’s with these girls coming out of Alberta? Maybe its not what’s in the water but what’s in the beef!” (The province is famous for its cattle ranches.)
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With his curly dark hair, soft-spoken demeanor and well-built physique, Kelly looks as much a bodyguard as he does a coach. He’s in Maui exclusively to shepherd Findlay, one of the country’s two targeted Olympic athletes (Whitfield is the other). “Based on how she did last year, we can expect her to podium,” he says flatly, as if relaying the weather forecast. “It’s like the old guard and the new.” Kelly and the rest of the Triathlon Canada posse are hard at work readying Findlay for her return to London. They recruited the support athletes mentioned, as well as an Integrated Support Team to provide
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services like massage and physiotherapy. It’s Kelly who’s best acquainted with her as an athlete, however—her focus, her “huge aerobic engine” and her sheer love for training. A legend in the Canadian triathlon community (he started the country’s first triathlon club at the University of Victoria in 1983), his experience doesn’t keep him from admiring his young charge: “Paula is fantastic with discipline in recovery, food, sleep—she’s at a very high level with that stuff. But it’s her personality and her intelligence that makes her so successful.” He’s also no stranger to her weaknesses: “Paula is stubborn,” he says. “What makes her really good also makes her a bit of a challenge sometimes. She loves to train, loves to be busy. My job is to gently pull her back.” Add to that the task of bringing her cycling up to her swimming and running levels, and Kelly has his work cut out for him. “They say in physiology, choose your parents wisely,” Kelly says to me as we watch the women finish up an easy 10K. “When you get to that level of performance, a lot depends on genetics.” Those who know Findlay best describe her as one of the smartest and most driven athletes on lavamagazine.com
the ITU circuit, but a lot still depends on the cards you’re dealt. “The first signs of competitiveness? I think she was nine months old,” laughs Findlay’s mother, herself a former national-level rower. She says her daughter wanted to do everything perfectly, from school to tap dancing and ballet. “When she started swimming, she always wanted to train harder, longer and faster,” Sheila Findlay said. “She always wanted more.” Sheila and Max Findlay—both active runners and triathletes now themselves—sent the message of daily physical activity loud and clear to their children; their two other children, Adrienne, 20, and Colin, 18, pursue fitness as well, but not with the same drive as their older sister. Not surprisingly, the Findlays support their daughter’s decision to pursue triathlon full-time. Still, the pressure mounting on their little girl, deemed “Canada’s medal hopeful,” hasn’t gone unnoticed. “That’s a ridiculous amount of pressure for someone so young,” Sheila Findlay said. “I don’t even want to be alive during the Olympics!” She knows that the best thing she can do right now is to just be her mom, not her coach or her
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psychologist: to listen, keep the fridge full and help with the details of her upcoming move. “We just want her to know that we love her whatever happens. But inside, our hearts are beating like crazy,” she said. Findlay’s got genetics on her side. She’s got a humbling dose of selfdiscipline, and the kind of quiet drive that undercuts brash confidence. She’s got something else, too: a hometown standing behind her. When most people think of triathlon towns, Boulder, San Diego and Tucson come to mind—not Edmonton. But the unassuming Prairie city has enough multisport mojo to rival tri towns where summer never sleeps. In 2001, Edmonton hosted the ITU Triathlon World Championships, and continued hosting a world cup every year until 2007. Edmonton is slated to be one of only three North American cities to host an ITU World Cup event in 2011. Former world cup director and Edmontonian Sheila O’Kelly says things weren’t always that way. When O’Kelly came back from the ITU congress in Lausanne in 1998 to help with the city’s first bid to host the ITU World Championships, she said she had to literally spell the world lavamagazine.com
triathlon. “It’s a hockey town, but we’ve turned it into a tri town,” she said proudly. O’Kelly says the city is very pro-international events, and has a whole department dedicated to bringing in new ones. She’s glad that Triathlon Canada has been so forward-thinking, realizing the power of hosting the right events to develop the sport. Findlay was undoubtedly part of the inspiration behind the Edmonton Triathlon Academy, an organization created recently “to be a centre of excellence for athletes wishing to pursue the sport and reach their highest potential in a very structured and nurturing environment.” O’Kelly, recently resigned from the ITU, has channeled her energy towards the Academy because she believes that people “gain confidence by watching confidence.” She’s enjoyed watching more competence trickle through the sport system in a country where pride is rarely of the loud and overt kind. Findlay, who moves with the grace only a trained dancer can pull off, clearly hasn’t fallen far from the maple tree. “She’s very fortunate that a whole bunch of other people, before and after Simon, have paid the dues to get the government to recognize the
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“paula is fantastic with discipline in recovery, food and sleep--she’s at a very high level with that stuff.”
sport,” says ITU TV announcer and Torontonian Barrie Shepley. “With the programs that exist now for our athletes, they don’t lack anything. If they need better testing, it happens. Better equipment, it’s there.” The decision to hold Findlay back from early-season races last year worked, from Shepley’s perspective, like clockwork. Himself a national triathlon team coach since 1991, Shepley knows what success is made of. He also knows Findlay quite well. “Sometimes when people don’t toot their horn a lot or seek out attention, you think maybe they’re not that passionate. But that would be a huge mistake in her case,” he said. On the surface, Findlay is unruffled, but spend a few hours with her and you can sense that “fresh and hungry” quality (again, Shepley’s words) bubbling just below the surface. Her iPhone buzzes away: she’s texting her best friend, Ryan, then tweeting, then getting updates from her mom on her upcoming move to Victoria. She’s confirming dinner plans with someone from her agency, and then getting a confirmation of her new Nike sponsorship. “I don’t like how cell phones kind of take over,” she muses, a self-professed late adopter. Now hers is a lifeline, helping her navigate the brave new world of elite sports. lavamagazine.com
Hanging out at her condo while she attends a National Team meeting, her roommates dish the dirt on their friend. Kyla Coates, also from Alberta, has known Findlay since they were both young teenagers and says she’s never met anyone with her work ethic. “She doesn’t like fun things!” Coates jokes. (I know her humor is only half sincere.) “I don’t think she derives as much pleasure from treats as most people.” McGlone bursts in from the kitchen, holding up a stack of wrapped cookies in agreement: “This is my shelf,” she says. “You want Paula’s, just look for spinach, eggs …” she trails off, listing more healthy ingredients. To the predictable “guilty pleasure” question I pose to her later, Findlay’s answer is almost mockingly predictable: chocolate. (If a few pieces of the dark stuff are considered a vice for this girl, I wouldn’t want to be next to her on the starting line, either.) Findlay doesn’t go out a lot like most young women her age. “I like to go to bed early, and triathlon’s my thing. People have to accept that,” she says. Her struggle to open a bottle of champagne on the podium in Kitzbühel seems almost comical in light of these traits. She’s obsessed with hot yoga and making lists. Findlay’s ideal day reveals her as a true type A: she’d spend it checking things like groceries
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and laundry off her list, and if there’s time left over, doing yoga or getting a massage. Kelly says it’s hard to get her to take a full day off from physical activity. Findlay’s mother says her daughter demonstrates wisdom beyond her years in everything, including her race preparation. Findlay knows that she can be hard to be around during those last few hours, however. “I try not to be rude, but I think it comes across that way sometimes. I just want to shut things out and focus on what I have to do.” Despite her stoic race face, her emotions are never far below the surface: “I still cry after a bad race. You train so hard, and if you fail to deliver, it’s hard. I start to wonder sometimes why I’m even doing this.” She knows that nerve control comes with experience—something that she’ll develop over time, and through her relationships with more seasoned athletes like McGlone. When it comes to the fellow redhead, Findlay gushes. Whether riding wheel-to-wheel over Hawaii’s hills or chatting into the evening about sponsorship, Findlay feels like she can go to the veteran triathlete with any question. “Sam’s done everything lavamagazine.com
I want to do,” she says. Somewhat sheepishly, Findlay admits that she’s just now beginning to learn the history of the sport in Canada and in general—the Carol Montgomerys, Siri Lindleys, and Peter Reids who paved the way for her. With that kind of legacy, this redhead—as smart as a whip and as fast as one, too—has a good shot at making the triathlon history books come 2012. The youngster, fresh off a stressful semester of school, seems a little oblivious to the weight of Olympic glory. “Being seen as a favorite for a medal is a bit overwhelming, but it’s a good kind of pressure. People will be more aware of the sport—like how it was with Simon.” Back at the pool on another perfect morning, Whitfield is frank with the young athlete: “There’ll be a billion people watching … so don’t screw up.” He pauses, looks at her out of the corner of his eye, and then breaks into laughter. Findlay may only be 21, but she’s old enough to hear the truth in the older Olympian’s jesting. And if the anthem he heard 11 years ago in Sydney plays again for her, we know that back in Edmonton, at least 730,000 people will be glued to their screens. LAVA
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WE AMPED CHRISSIE AND SHE BROKE TWO WORLD RECORDS. Riding 3 minute miles and running a marathon in under 3 hours at the Quelle Challenge Roth, she set the world record for Ironman distance. Then she shattered the record in Ironman Arizona slashing 11 minutes off the previous record. Not to mention she finished 8th overall, beating almost all the men. Welcome to the future of performance, courtesy of the TYR Carbon Collection — clothing that lowers your body temperature, makes you breathe more efficiently, slows your heart rate and reduces lactic acid build-up. When we designed the TYR Amp Pad, we went over the top to make sure it was up to the advance capabilities of Carbon. As comfortable during the run as on the bike, the pad was engineered using a custom exclusive mold. It provides superior comfort by perfectly conforming to the body in motion.
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MARS R Whether you’re filming a low-budget sci-fi flick about the Red Planet or training to become the greatest triathlete on this planet, the Martian landscape of the Canary Islands provides the perfect set.
ou probably don’t remember the 1980 TV mini-series “The Martian Chronicles.” It wasn’t exactly a huge hit. The farcical plot follows astronauts sent from Earth to colonize Mars. The humans run into some strange-looking Martians and give them chicken pox, threatening the aliens with extinction. Some humans end up fighting to save the aliens, others seek their destruction, and in the end the writers try to hammer home some message about how modern man’s lifestyle is bringing about the destruction of the entire universe. It was basically a really long version of “Avatar” with bad special effects and no 3-D glasses.While the costume design, explosions and dialogue were far from believable, the setting was surprisingly authentic. Charged with finding the most Mars-like location on Earth, the producers decided to head to a small volcanic island 80 miles west of Morocco. Flying into Lanzarote, it immediately becomes clear why this island was chosen as the set of a show that takes place on Mars. Lanzarote, and the other six major islands that extend westward to make up Spain’s Canary Islands, don’t really look like they belong in this world. Like Hawaii, the Canaries were forged by massive underwater volcanoes, which, over the course of a few thousand years, grew to produce islands. Rain is relatively rare, with most locations receiving around five inches per year. Throw in a few punishing climbs on each island, abundant,
Y
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ROVERS By Brad Culp
â?˜
Photography by Bob Foy
Pro triathletes Javier Gomez, Rasmus Henning, Martin Jensen, Emil Dalgaard, Bjorn Andersson, Massimo Cigana and a few friends make their way up one of the endless climbs of Fuerteventura’s lunar landscape.
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The roads of Lanzarote have helped Philip Graves become one of the fastest cyclists in triathlon. Here, the powerful Briton powers past the Montañas del Fuego (“Mounains of Fire”). The last major volcanic eruption took place in 1736, burying 11 villages around Lanzarote.
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FEATURES : 093 freshly-paved roads and almost no traffic, and it’s no wonder the Canaries have become the preferred training destination of Europe’s top triathletes. According to British superbiker Philip Graves, the Canaries are “the European version of Hawaii.” It’s no surprise then that Lanzarote is the training destination of choice for this 21-year old, who has every intention of winning in Kona one day. For this season’s winter training camp, Graves brought along his girlfriend and training partner, professional athlete Desiree Ficker. As an American, Ficker is a bit of a misfit on an island full of Europeans, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “It’s unlike any place I’ve ever been to train,” Ficker says. “There are no distractions here. There’s some good entertainment at the resort and there are always activities if you go looking, but it’s a fairly bare-bones kind of place, which makes it very easy to focus.”
“IT’S UnlIkE Any plAcE I’vE EvER bEEn To TRAIn,” FIckER SAyS. “IT’S A FAIRly bARE-bonES kInd oF plAcE, whIch mAkES IT vERy EASy To FocUS.”
While in Lanzarote, Graves and Ficker make their home at the Club La Santa Resort, which has hosted endurance athletes for decades and has operated Ironman Lanzarote for the past 20 years. While they may be one of the fastest couples in triathlon, on most days, Graves and Ficker are far from the most famous athletes at the Club La Santa. “There’s a really eclectic mix of elite athletes that come here to train,” Graves says. “The other day I saw [F1 Driver] Mark Webber hanging out. I was pretty starstruck—he’s a big deal if you’re British. There are also professional rugby teams, Olympic swimmers and runners, and so many other top-tier athletes. Whatever you’re training for, this is the place to get fit for it.” Complete with a state-of-the-art gym, outdoor track and a massive 50-meter pool, athletes can squeeze in two or three workouts a day without ever leaving Club La Santa. But for most triathletes, what sets Lanzarote apart is the riding. The island has become infamous in triathlon circles for serving up arguably the most difficult Ironman course in the world with over 8,000 feet of vertical gain lavamagazine.com
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This winter was Ficker’s first time training in Lanzarote, and her consistent off-season training has already paid off: The Texan won the overall title at the Austin Marathon in February, finishing in 2:50:35.
throughout the 112-mile bike leg. The most difficult climb on the course is known as Tabayesco, which is a weekly stop for most triathletes training here. According to Ficker, the scenery of the climb helps take a little burn out of the legs. “You can see the water the whole way up, and sometimes there’s this algae that collects close to shore. It makes the water this amazing deep green, and if the sun is just right, the reflection makes the entire mountain look green. It’s on those kinds of rides that you realize how special this place is.” lavamagazine.com
Twenty minutes on the ferry from Lanzarote will take you to the island of Fuerteventura, where Danish triathlon great Rasmus Henning has relocated for the off-season. On most days Henning is the most decorated athlete on Fuerteventura, but today he has some venerable company. Reigning ITU World Champion Javier Gómez has made the short trip over from Spain to enjoy some winter training, as he has regularly done for the past few seasons. Gómez and Henning have spent time training together in the past, but now with Henning focused squarely on winning Kona, and Gómez eyeing
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Club La Santa bills itself as a “playground for active people” and the description is certainly apt. The resort hosts nine official triathlons, duathlons, mountain bike races and running events throughout the year, and also offers training races for guests every week.
If you go… GettinG there There are International airports on both Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, but no direct flights are available from the U.S. There are frequent flights to both islands via Madrid and Berlin on Iberia and AirBerlin, respectively.
StayinG there Club La Santa (Clublasanta.com) on Lanzarote and the Playitas Resort (Playitas.info) offer packages catered specifically to endurance athletes.
racinG there The Canary Islands will host three major triathlons on three different islands in 2011:
• half challenge Fuerteventura April 30; 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run
• Ironman Lanzarote May 21; 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run
• 5150 Tenerife October 2; 0.9-mile swim, 24.8- mile, 6.2-mile run
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his third ITU world title, they only get together on occasion. Luckily for these two superstars, the island is chock-full of triathletes this spring, so finding good training company is rarely an issue. While Lanzarote has long been the preferred winter destination for Europe’s top triathletes, it seems Fuerteventura was the popular pick this year. Also at the Playitas Resort, where Henning lives with his wife and two daughters, were Andreas and Michael Raelert, Normann Stadler, Daniel Unger and Marino Vanhoenacker, just to name a few. Most athletes only stay at Playitas for a couple of weeks at a time, but Henning spent six months there this year while his new house was being built in Denmark.
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ABOUT THE EVENT: On September 25, 2011, the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Pays d’Aix will take place on the city of Aix en Provence. The Community of Pays d’Aix, known as a training paradise to many cyclists and triathletes, will host a qualifying race for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship for the first time.
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“I’ve always wanted to have a place where I could stay and train for a long period of time and I finally found it here. I can have my privacy if I want it or I can go out and train with a big group. And my family is happy here. I couldn’t ask for more.” Finding good places to train around Playitas is easy, although the training is anything but. Like Lanzarote, most roads on Fuerteventura head straight up or straight down,
The climb known as “Tabayesco” is without a doubt the most famous hill on Lanzarote for local riders, and it’s just one of the dozens of hills thrown at competitors racing Ironman Lanzarote, billed as the most challenging Ironman on Earth.
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but the hills are often only half the battle. Winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour and temperatures around 90 degrees Fahrenheit can make a long day of training here feel like the Hawaii Ironman. “The geography is so similar to the Big Island,” Henning says. “The crosswinds in Hawaii are a lot less scary after spending some time here.”
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“I really feel like Playitas is my second home,” Henning said. “There is never a bad day of training here and everyone who comes here wants to return as soon as they leave.”
Henning doesn’t need to venture far when he needs a workout that doesn’t involve 12-percent grade climbs and gale force winds. With a seemingly endless network of running trails and a 50-meter pool located within the resort, it’s easy for a triathlete to stay busy. Playitas also hosts a number of low-key running and triathlon races throughout lavamagazine.com
the year, which Henning occasionally enters, much to the chagrin of any locals with hopes of pulling out a victory. “It’s a small island, with only so many roads, so people always ask me if I ever get bored of training here,” Henning says. “My answer is always ‘no.’ If you’re a triathlete, you can’t get bored here.” LAVA
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THe fAir
fiGHT
In the battle against doping in sports, the cheaters have always been one step ahead. This year the International Triathlon Union and World Triathlon Corporation are pulling out all the stops to close the gap. By Susan Grant-Legacki
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W
ith several miles to go in the 1904 Olympic marathon, brass worker Thomas Hicks began to stumble. The humid, 90-degree summer air stifled the St. Louis World’s Fair, the site of the Games, and race vehicles (most of them just people on horseback) kicked up enormous dust clouds around the dirt track the athletes had been circling since the gun went off. Hicks’ trainers swept in to help him. They sponged him off and gave him some brandy and a shot of strychnine, a pesticide used to kill rodents, which was also administered medicinally as a stimulant. It didn’t work for long, so they gave him another. Hicks won the marathon and promptly collapsed at the finish line. Another dose might have killed him. This brass worker from Beantown was lauded for his efforts on that grueling day, and no one even batted an eye at his use of stimulants. After all, he had won, right? Today, the mere whisper of the word “doping” sends chills down the spines of the largest weightlifter and the fastest marathon runner alike. Allegations of doping have ruined careers and reputations in virtually every competitive sport—and triathlon is no different. In the 12 years since its inception, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has taken enormous leaps in the fight to control doping in and out of competition, and as a still relatively new sport, triathlon has been fortunate enough to come into its own during an age where anti-doping programs were the norm and not the exception. But when it comes to our sport, what does this fight look like behind the curtain? Triathlon’s two major anti-doping programs, run separately by the International Triathlon Union (ITU) and the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC)— the latter being the first WADA-accredited anti-doping program run by a private corporation in history—have formidable arsenals, but several obstacles continue to stand in their way. The more significant of these include communication breakdowns, a tricky line between
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A Timeline of ScAndAl Triathlon is not considered one of competitive sport’s biggest doping offenders, but it has had its share of incidences.
July 2002: Canadian Olympic hopeful Kelly Guest is banned from competition for two years after a positive test at the Commonwealth Games revealed traces of the steroid nandrolone. Guest appealed his ban, arguing that the substance was part of unlabeled ingredients in a dietary supplement and therefore was inadvertently ingested. His ban wasn’t overturned, but it is important to note that the acceptable levels of nandrolone allowed in an athlete’s sample have since been raised, and today his test would not have been flagged. SepTember 2004: German three-time Ironman winner Katja Shumacher tests positive for testosterone at Ironman Germany and is suspended for one year. At the same time it is announced by the German Triathlon Union that Thomas Braun had tested positive at Ironman France in 2003 for ephedrine, caffeine and an anabolic steroid, and had been suspended for one year. ocTober 2004: Nina Kraft of Germany tests positive for EPO at the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, and later accepts her two-year ban from WTC competitions. She returned to professional racing in 2007. november 2004: Australian long-distance athlete Rebekah Keat tests positive for nandrolone at Ironman Western Australia and is banned for two years. Keat appealed her ban to the Court of Arbitration of Sport, which ruled that her test was the result of supplement contamination, but they did not overturn her ban. She and three other elite athletes later sued Hammer Nutrition, LLC, claiming the Hammer Nutrition electrolyte supplement they all had been taking was contaminated with the steroid precusor norandrostenedione. mAy 2008: Austrian Olympic athlete Lisa Huetthaler tests positive for EPO at the Ishigaki World Cup in Japan, and is later found guilty of trying to bribe a laboratory worker to cover up her positive results. She is banned for two years from competition but retires before the end of her ban.
June 2008: Kazakhstan’s Dimitry Gaag tests positive for EPO at the Hy-Vee Triathlon in West Des Moines, Iowa, and he later accepts a two-year ban. June 2009: Brazilian triathlete Mariana Ohata tests positive for the diuretic furosemide, her second doping violation in as many years, and is given a six-year ban from competition. lavamagazine.com
WADA’s Code has created regulations and standards for drug testing across all Olympic sports.
anti-doping science and the bottom line, and the continued need for anti-doping education worldwide for athletes, coaches and the general public. It’s a noble fight, to be sure, and one the reputation of our sport depends on. Before one can understand how the myriad organizations intertwine, you must learn about the glue that holds them all together—you must learn about the “Code.” The Code is a living document crafted by WADA in 2004, which was put in place in order to harmonize regulations about anti-doping across all sports and countries of the world. “The Code has essentially created a framework so all of these different organizations are always on the same page,” said Kate Mittelstadt, the director of the WTC’s anti-doping program. “All sports should strive to be Code compliant.” Before the Code, anti-doping rules varied so widely that international forums like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and individual governments constantly disagreed over the definitions of policies, sanctions and prohibited substances. Subsequently, formal inquiries into doping allegations were often thrown out in civil court.
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The Code, which is updated periodically, contains WADA’s official prohibited list of banned substances, rules, regulations and drugtesting procedures for all participating bodies (referred to as signatories to the Code), as well as a list of WADA-approved laboratories to which all athlete samples must be sent. Today more than 600 sports associations worldwide adhere to the Code. The consequences of deviating from this anti-doping bible are fierce. If a signatory is not upholding the Code, WADA can report them to their stakeholders (namely the IOC), who can impose sanctions against them. For example, if a country’s sports federation is discovered to be procuring performance-enhancing drugs for their athletes, the country could theoretically lose their right to host the Olympic Games. One of the Code’s most recent advances is the creation of an international whereabouts management system (Anti-Doping Administra-
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Screening for EPO is a highly involved process that takes roughly three days to complete—and as a result raises the price of testing for it considerably.
tion and Management System or ADAMS). Athletes securely access the system’s website to input where they are scheduled to be for the next several weeks, as well as allocate a specific hour each day where they will be at an identified location where they can be tested. Each signatory’s Registered Testing Pool (RTP) of athletes is mandated to update their individual whereabouts on ADAMS or a whereabouts system of their own. Many National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADO’s), including UK Sport and the WTC’s program, use ADAMS, and as a result have an out-of-competition testing process and whereabouts system that spans the globe. Through these systems all signatories theoretically have access to see one another’s RTP list for cross-referencing—but how this often shakes out is anything but harmonious.
In early 2010, Dr. Jay Johnson and Dr. Ted Butryn of San Jose State University began their WADA-funded research into the knowledge of and motivations/deterrents to doping among Canadian and American elite female triathletes. Their interviews were done primarily on Olymlavamagazine.com
pic-distance athletes and their coaches, and it became clear very quickly that a duplication of resources among federations was a common theme. These duplications were leading to an overall communication breakdown between athletes and their governing bodies—as well as a breakdown between the governing bodies themselves—and were severely clogging the pristine pathways WADA’s Code put in place. “There is a model out there for all of this to work, but it’s fragmented,” Johnson said. “Everything from the testing processes to the whereabouts programs is still in a state of flux and that really came out to us through the perspective of the athletes and their coaches.” Johnson said many of the athletes admitted that if a chip could be implanted under their skin so that they could be constantly tracked by WADA instead of having to enter their locations on ADAMS or another whereabouts system—they would do it. “The fact that these athletes would rather lose their personal freedoms instead of having to deal with the system in its current state speaks volumes,” Johnson said. According to Johnson, every athlete’s experience with the whereabouts
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For out-of-competition testing in the U.S., the WTC contracts with USADA to send out WADA-trained doping control officers to receive athlete samples.
systems seemed to be different, depending on what national federation or testing program they are affiliated with. Some athletes receive an online tutorial or afternoon seminar and are good to go, while others are simply informed they have to use the system and often have to rely on other athletes to help them along. The consequences for the athlete if he or she misuses the whereabouts system are strict: missing or incorrect dates are labeled filing failures, and three of them in an 18-month period is the equivalent of a failed drug test. According to the WTC, all athletes on their RTP are given online resources about the Code, WADA and how to work ADAMS. Additionally, the ADAMS system can be accessed easily via an iPhone app, on the iPad and through most all mobile devices. However, three-time Ironman world champion Chrissie Wellington is on the testing list for both UK Sport and the WTC, and while she received training for ADAMS by UK Sport, when her boyfriend and fellow Brit Tom Lowe was informed he was on the WTC’s RTP list after his third-place finish at Ironman Arizona last November, she ended up having to be the one to show him the ropes on ADAMS. “This system can be complicated, especially for non-English speakers,” Wellington said. “While ultimately it is the responsibility of the athlete to know what we have to do, I think it’s the organization’s responsibility to see that we have all the information we need to use the system properly.” The bigger communication problem in triathlon’s anti-doping arena up until very recently existed not between the athletes and their governlavamagazine.com
ing body, but between the governing bodies themselves—particularly between USAT and the WTC. When Nina Kraft of Germany crossed the finish line in Kona at the 2004 Ironman World Championship and later tested positive for EPO, it was a wake-up call for the WTC, who at that time relied largely on national federations like the USAT for their drug testing, that they needed to up their anti-doping efforts. “Kraft’s doping scandal was like a baseball bat at the head of our organization,” said Paula NewbyFraser, WTC’s Manager of Development. “It showed us how vulnerable the sport was.” Between 2004 and 2008, the WTC became increasingly concerned that athletes were targeting specific Ironman and Ironman 70.3 events where they knew they wouldn’t be tested. Additionally, Newby-Fraser said they noticed that the USAT and USADA were pulling back on their overall testing of Ironman athletes, and in 2009 they were informed that the USAT and USADA wouldn’t be testing at any Ironman 70.3 events at all. The WTC’s program officially began later that year. “It’s clear that the USAT and USADA were focused on Olympic and ParaOlympic sports, and as a private, for-profit organization we were basically caught by our own success,” Newby-Fraser said. Such began our sport’s unique setup: one drug-testing program backed by government funds and an allegiance to the Olympic Movement, and another from an ever-growing private company. An unlikely partnership forced to work together against the same enemy.
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ThE biggER commUnicATion pRoblEm in TRiAThlon’S AnTi-doping AREnA Up UnTil REcEnTly ExiSTEd noT bETwEEn ThE AThlETES And ThEiR govERning body, bUT bETwEEn ThE govERning bodiES ThEmSElvES.
The WTC’s anti-doping program is still very new, and so far the results have been mixed. Some athletes have pointed out a duplication of resources among the various national federations and the WTC, questioning why they are on more than one RTP list while another athlete has slipped by both. Others say some of their testing results weren’t being shared regularly between their national federation and the WTC. WADA’s Director General, David Howman, hinted that other organizations under the same sport often need to learn to share information for the greater good in order for the process to work more effectively, and triathlon was no different. “The ITU and the various national governing bodies have to work alongside the WTC,” he said. The WTC and the various triathlon federations are in the process of learning how to work together in order to share resources about what athletes are on one another’s RTP, and which athletes need to be more closely monitored. Getting this communication to flow freely on a global level is a expansive project, involving coordination and cooperation across governments, Olympic federations, athletes and the WTC. At its worst, this arrangement is not unlike the one between the CIA and the FBI: inconsistent at best. But when it works, we all win. According to Fraser, more and more federations are alerting the WTC if there is an athlete of theirs or one who just competed in an event in their country who they consider to be high-risk. The WTC can then flag that athlete and make sure he or she is put on their own list of athletes to test. In turn, the WTC offers information to various federations about which athletes they are having trouble keeping track of, which athletes have any suspicious testing results and which athletes they will be testing in and out-of-competition. “I think the strength of our program is that we are so proactive in trying to work with all of the national federations, and unlike them we don’t really have to answer to anyone like the IOC,” said Fraser. “But of course most of our events are sanctioned through the national federation of the country the race takes place in so we always have that connection to the ITU; we’re working to create harmony with them.”
InsIde the UnIversIty of CalIfornIa
Los Angeles (UCLA) Olympic Testing Laboratory in Westwood, Calif., a shipment of urine and blood samples recently arrived from out-of-state. The blood samples needed to be kept at a certain temperature so they wouldn’t spoil. The delivery service charged a pretty penny for that. The samples will need a quick turnaround, which will be an additional charge. On the outside of the sample boxes is a checklist that alerts the technicians they need to do the regular WADA steroid screenings, as well as test for erythropoietin (EPO) and human growth hormone (HGH). Of course, there will be additional charges for each test.
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Fifty laboratory technicians in white lab coats move purposely from one station to the next, some with yellow liquid in beakers, others with vials of blood. One of the samples of urine is taken through a process called isoelectric focusing, where an electric charge separates the molecules within the sample by their positive or negative charge, creating stationary bands in a gel matrix. The lab technician then analyzes these bands for specific patterns that tell him whether a synthetic form of EPO is present. The entire test will take three days. So what’s the total cost for this test? According to Howman, a single urine test runs between $500 and $1,000, and Newby-Fraser quoted roughly the same amount, but because there are only 35 WADA-accredited laboratories worldwide, ones that are not government funded (including the two WADA laboratories in the U.S.) must compete for business, and therefore will not disclose their pricing. “I do get some support from USADA,” said Dr. Anthony Butch, director of the UCLA Olympic Laboratory. “But the money I need to run my lab and pay my 50 employees comes from what we charge for testing.” And everyone seems to want a piece of the pie. “Transportation of samples is the biggest financial and logistical obstacle we face,” admitted Leslie Buchanan, ITU’s Anti-doping director. Howman said testing costs are an “issue” across the board. “We’re trying to work collectively with national agencies to go to a lab and say ‘hey, we’ve got 10,000 samples, let’s make a deal.’” But let’s get back to that urine sample. This particular sample contains a form of synthetic EPO there is no marker for yet, and because of this they might not be able to see it at all. This form of EPO is what Butch called a biosimilar, an agent that acts like EPO in the body but doesn’t show up in tests in the same manner. “There are hundreds of these biosimilars out there on the black market, and new ones are being created all of the time,” said Butch. “Unless we get a sample of it in the lab, we can’t create a test for it.” What this means is that testing for performance-enhancing drugs is always one step behind the technology of creating them, both scientifically and financially.
If there’s any hope for sports lIke trIathlon to close the gap between the technology of performance-enhancing drugs and the testing for them, it’s abundantly clear that something has to change. Make that two things. For one, a stronger emphasis on intelligent testing will need to start taking place. This essentially means increasing the element of surprise. “In-competition tests are just aptitude tests,” admitted Butch. “Unannounced collection is the only way to catch athletes who are smart enough to try and play the game in the first place.” Intelligent testing also refers to the type of testing done. Currently, WADA laboratories and signatories are working on creating urine and blood passport profiles of athletes, where they take repeated samples of the same athlete to create a “fingerprint” of what their normal urine and blood look like. Then, instead of looking for a specific substance or a marker for a substance, you look for fluctuations in the blood or urine. “EPO essentially increases your red blood cell count, so if we were to create a blood profile of an athlete, follow it over a length of time, and if one of their samples came in with a high hematocrit level [the proportion of blood volume occupied by red blood cells], we’d know something was up,” Butch said. WADA partnered with Interpol, the world’s largest international police organization, in 2009 to coordinate efforts to stop performanceenhancing drug manufacturing, importing and exporting, and they are
112 : FEATURES also increasingly turning to athlete intelligence as well. It is in this arena that anti-doping efforts in triathlon really show promise. “Triathlon is a small community,” said Johnson. “Pros train together, travel together, they know if someone is acting different or suddenly amazingly faster, and anti-doping organizations are starting to tap into that in order to know which athletes or groups they may need to target.” Secondly, anti-doping education efforts need to be strengthened across the board so the demand for drugs can one day be lower than the supply. “What we’re finding is that a dollar spent on education is never wasted, but a dollar spent on another test might be,” said Howman. WADA offers education programs for high school athletes, coaches, law enforcement agencies and anyone who takes a gander at their website (Wada-ama.org). WADA also mandates that all of their signatories have education available for their athletes on the dangers of doping, including what using EPO and steroids can do to your body (stroke, heart disease, jaundice, liver disease and blood clots, to name a few). Education on banned substances is a particular concern. “It’s amazing to me how many people take supplements that are questionable,” says Butch. “The FDA pulls things off the shelf all the time because they aren’t safe, and people need to be more proactive about that.”
While there Wasn’t an anti-doping agency back in 1904 to strip Hicks of his title, this doesn’t mean the event was free of the type of finish line scandals and investigation we encounter today.
It’s worth noting that Hicks wasn’t the first person to cross the finish line. That honor went to New Yorker Fred Lorz, who, after suffering from cramps nine miles into the race, hitched a ride from a race vehicle for 11 miles before getting out to finish the race in just over three hours—waving to the grandstands filled with cheering spectators and even accepting a wreath from President Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice. His cheating was quickly revealed, and he was banned for life from amateur competition in any sport (this ban was later lifted and he went on the win the Boston Marathon). Lorz’s explanation as to why he crossed the finish line is telling—he said he just couldn’t resist the praise and adulation of the crowd. In a photograph at the finish line of the 2004 Ironman World Championship, Nina Kraft crosses the finish line, her hands grasping her head, staring with wonderment at the Maile Lei about to be wrapped around her shoulders—the Polynesian sign of honor and respect. You can just hear the sound of Hawaiian drums and the cheering crowd. While she was smiling, looking at it now there’s just something awry about her reaction to her win. She later told ESPN, “I felt ashamed the entire time.” There’s no way of knowing if Lorz or Hicks felt the same feelings Kraft did at the finish line. Kraft competed in a time when the rules of competition were much more clear cut, and it appears that at least that awareness made a difference for her, even if at the time the praise of the crowd was louder than her conscience. Winning can’t seem sweet if you know you cheated, and at the end of the day, that’s the only motivation to play clean that we really have. LAVA
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the hype 122
coach’s counsel 126
sidelined 130
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competitive edge
“Follow your plan, but ensure that you are flexible and willing to adjust it. Any plan should be treated as a live document, one that requires regular review.”
—Matt Dixon, (The Full Spectrum, Page 130). lavamagazine.com
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Hard or fasT? Understanding muscular force relationships can make the difference between staying light on your feet or finishing in the dark
LARRY ROSA
By Jim Gourley
P
ick up the pace or stride it out? Pedal faster or push a bigger gear? These are decisions we make constantly throughout a race, often with little more than the feeling in our legs to guide us. The experienced athlete knows that the immediate relief of a lavamagazine.com
downshift is quickly replaced by an intensified burning in the legs. The knowledgeable athlete understands there’s a delicate balance involved and doesn’t get sucked into the trap to begin with. The proposition of taking our effort to the max becomes a two-fold question of
how hard and how fast we should push it. Human locomotion is guided by the principle of force. Your muscles generate enough force to overcome wind resistance and friction, producing forward acceleration. You have two distinct methods to generate that force;
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either by pushing hard or moving fast. Your initial response may be “what’s the difference?” The answer is: quite a bit. It’s no coincidence that almost all top Ironman athletes pedal their bikes in the same cadence range (roughly 85– 95 rpm). Nor is it coincidence that the same cadence is ideal for running. You’d think the two modes would be completely different, but because the same muscles are involved in both disciplines, the internal environment overrules the external one. Most people are at least intuitively aware that they can vary the rate and forcefulness of their effort to regulate their speed. Understanding the unique relationships involved in that regulation and their relative influence on power generation is the key to maximizing output while minimizing the rate of burnout. Muscles don’t generate force uniformly throughout their motion. Their power generation is a function of both their contraction velocity and the length to which they’re stretched before contraction. The principle is best illustrated by the example of opening and closing your fingers in a fist. Regardless of whether you repeat the action rapidly or squeeze a tennis ball with all your might, the muscles eventually get tired. In neither case do you wear out your cardiovascular system, meaning muscle fatigue depends on much more than lactate threshold. Triathletes who believe they’re making the most of their ability just because they’re keeping their heart rate below the redline may be fooling themselves. In fact, regulating the muscular effort is arguably more important than keeping aerobic exertion steady. Solving this problem begins with a sound understanding of the fundamentals. The force–length relationship is the easier of the two to understand. We observe it all the time when watching people use improper lifting techniques in the gym. They swing a free weight at the fully-extended position or bounce the barbell off their chest in a bench press to gain momentum. That momentum is meant to overcome a weakness that occurs in the muscle at full extension. Moving the weight becomes easier once we get it going, because the muscle is stronger farther into the contraction. This concept plays a major role in adjusting bike fit, prompting fitters to position the legs to maximize the stronger region of the quadriceps extension. Sitting too low overextends those muscles and keeps the quads in a weak position when the cranks are in a position to generate the most power (usually from
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80°–140°, relative to top-dead-center). The phenomenon occurs again at maximum contraction. This is because of the way the muscle fibers slide past each other during contraction. When muscle fibers are at full extension, they have little contact with each other and so produce minimal force. At full contraction, they have passed by each other and once again lack the contact area to generate maximum force. Thus a sweet spot for muscular force arises, typically around the muscle’s natural relaxed length. One note for purposes of accuracy—as a muscle lengthens past a certain point, the elastic nature of the muscle fibers themselves produces a “passive force” that resists further stretching, a principle we’re made profoundly aware of the first time we attend a yoga session. However, this elastic nature doesn’t significantly contribute to active force generation. The most important message is that the force–length relationship dictates force generation as a function of measurement, thus influencing your stride length and bike fit. The other, less intuitive, element of the pair is the force–velocity relationship. Believe it LAVAMAGAZINE.COM
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THE FASTER A MUSCLE CONTRACTS, THE LESS TENSION THERE IS IN THE MUSCLE FIBER AND THE LESS FORCE IS PRODUCED.
or not, the faster a muscle contracts, the less tension there is in the muscle fiber and the less force is produced. Conversely, the more force involved, the more slowly a muscle contraction occurs. The relationship is not linear, but rather hyperbolic. By multiplying force and velocity, you get power. The objective then is to find the right values for each along the power curve that yield the highest number. Qualitatively, the optimal muscle velocity is about one-third of the maximum. For some athletes, this can mean cadences in the 130 rpm range, but that’s curtailed by our aerobic system. While Lance Armstrong has been noted to pedal above 100
rpm, typical triathlon pros hover between 85 and 95 rpm, and this has been shown to be the optimal range for the many athletes. Using an elite runner for reference, marathoner Haile Gebrselassie maintains a stride rate in the upper 90s in competition. As with the force–length relationship, there is a secondary element to the force–velocity relationship worth mentioning. The activation frequency of the muscle has an impact on muscle fatigue. Through each cycle of motion, the muscles go through discrete periods of contraction and relaxation. Whenever the muscle isn’t contracting, it’s recovering and preparing for the next nerve impulse to demand movement. The faster the cadence, the shorter the time allowed for recovery and, most likely, the more powerful the exertion during contraction. It must be emphasized that the preceding discussion only covers the basics of these principles. There is a vast body of more detailed research regarding metabolic and aerobic interactions with muscles throughout the spectrum of both relationships. However, a solid understanding of the fundamentals will set you on the path to optimizing your performance.
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CAdENCE bOOSt Drilling your way to a higher cadence and less fatigue on long runs By Troy Jacobson
Q:
Dear COaCH,
Most people I train with say that 180 strides per minute is the optimum stride rate while running long distances. When I check my cadence I’m usually between 150 and 160, and I’ve had trouble finishing off the final miles of my marathons strong. I’m wondering if my cadence might be what’s holding me back and what I can do to pick it up. A few guys have recommended plyometrics and water jogging—do you think that would help? —Matthew Miller Dallas, Tex.
A:
JAY PRASHUN
Dear MaTTHeW,
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This is a great question and addresses a very important issue for the triathlete when it comes to the run leg (especially for long-course racing): the overall economy and efficiency of their running form. Unlike “open” running races, triathlon runs are done on tired legs with waning energy reserves. Even the best triathletes in the world, who are running faster than three hours for an Ironman marathon, are well off their potential open marathon times. Foot strike, posture, arm swing and stride rate are all factors when it comes to one’s running economy and their importance is magnified when running off the bike. As you improve each of these technique variables, you’ll be able to run faster while using less energy. Stride rate is of particular importance because it’s indicative of one’s overall running form. Athletes with loping running styles tend to have a lower foot strike frequency, taking longer strides and tending to get more air (bounding) between each foot strike, meaning more energy is being expended vertically as opposed to horizontally. On the other hand, athletes with higher footstrike frequency (in the 180 strides per minute
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range), tend to be more forefoot-strike oriented with greater horizontal velocity, shorter strides and better posture. Ultimately, their more efficient form yields faster overall running splits on fatigued legs. There are several ways to improve your running cadence. National Run Training Director for Life Time Fitness, Rebekah Mayer, recommends incorporating “stride outs” into your running program once or twice per week. This involves warming up for 10–15 minutes, performing some dynamic stretches and run drills, and then doing a series of 6–12 100-meter runs where you gradually build speed throughout each effort until you’re running at around 95 percent of your maximum speed while focusing on executing perfect form. Another way to achieve a higher cadence is to run on a treadmill once or twice a week at your aerobic pace with the incline at 3–6 percent. Focus on taking shorter, quicker steps as you run uphill, counting your foot strikes and making a conscious effort to nail that 180 stride per minute range. Last but not least, anyone
who does my Spinervals workouts knows that I’m a huge proponent of developing the ability to spin the pedals smoothly at a high cadence of 90–100 rpm. I believe, as do many other coaches, that your ability to spin quickly and smoothly on the bike translates to a higher, smoother and more efficient leg turnover on the run too. Developing a faster cadence on the run is one of the time-efficient ways to get faster, especially if you find yourself falling off at the end of a long run. With a few drills, a treadmill, and some extra time on the trainer, you’ll find that ideal 180 rpm range is well within reach.
Troy Jacobson is the official coach of Ironman. A former pro in the 1990s, he’s back to racing again as a masters athlete and set his marathon PR at 2010 IM AZ with a 2:59:55, incorporating the techniques described in this article. For more info, visit Coachtroy.com. Got a question? Email it to bradculp@ironman.com to have Coach Troy tackle it. LAVAMAGAZINE.COM
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aStym aND graStoN: The “scraping” technique for healing tendon injuries
naTe cOch
By Matt Kraemer, PT, ATC, CSCS
Research suggests that ASTYM and Graston techniques can be extremely effective at treating calf and heel pain.
h
eel pain, calf pain, shin pain, knee pain, hip pain or shoulder pain: These are many of the injuries we recognize as a barrier to our training and performance. Many times, these injuries come and go like our last interval workout. Other times these injuries feel much like your last long run—like it will never end. During those seemingly never-ending periods of soreness and discomfort, we try everything to reduce and eliminate the symp-
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toms. Stretching, icing, resting and sometimes ingesting more anti-inflammatories than even a racehorse should take. Then, just when you think you are beyond the pain, you return to the track or pool and come to the realization that you are no healthier than you were before you took time off from training. When this happens, it means the annoying little tendinitis, or acute inflammation of the tendon, has converted to a tendonosis, or
chronic inflammation of the tissue. This means your body’s natural process of healing was insufficient, so that the pain recurred with a return to training. This does not mean that you resumed training too early. Your body’s healing process takes place within about two weeks, and any extra rest after that may not make any difference. A chronically injured tissue, when looked at under a microscope, is disorganized and
Lauren BecheLLi
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Fibers in a healthy muscle tissue (left) remain elastic and relatively parallel, while fibers in an injured tissue (right) become disorganized and contractile. Scraping techniques assist in straightening the muscle fibers and promoting the body’s natural healing process.
looks like cooked spaghetti in a bowl. Healthy tissue looks like dried spaghetti in a box—it lines up in nice, organized parallel lines. This injured tissue or “scar” tissue is by nature contractile: it contracts down upon itself over time, meaning the injured muscle tends to get shorter and more restricted. The layers of skin, fascia and muscle adhere to one another, and develop a grainy, gritty texture that the athlete can feel. These adhesions have poor blood flow, restrict movement and can be precursors to injury. As you may have guessed, such injuries have been around for thousands of years, as has the treatment. Much like endurance sports science and training, treatment techniques have progressed and evolved over the centuries. These progressions can be seen in the past few decades with the invention of soft tissue remodeling techniques called ASTYM and Graston. These treatment techniques may be common knowledge in your club or they could be the secret weapon that your training buddy won’t share with you. If one of your buddies tells you that his black and blue calf or ITB is just the result of a fall, be wary: he could be using one of the latest injury recovery tech-
SpEcIfIcaLLy DESIgNED ExErcISES aID thE Soft tISSuE trEatmENt by rEaLIgNINg thE tISSuE aND StrENgthENINg It...WhEN combINED WIth a phySIcaL thErapy program, athLEtES arE oftEN abLE to rEturN to phySIcaL actIvIty aftEr thE fIrSt aStym or graStoN trEatmENt.
niques athletes affectionately call “scraping.” Most athletes we treat don’t remember whether they underwent ASTYM (with a plastic tool) or Graston (with a metal tool), but everyone who has gone through it remembers the pain and profuse sweating that accompanies the treatment. Most can also recall that they were able to return to their preferred physical activity within a few minutes of finishing a scraping. ASTYM is a way to encourage healing in
a degenerative soft tissue by stimulating the same healing process in your body that was previously unsuccessful, and give it another chance at a heightened level. This happens by creating a controlled microtrauma that leads to release of a growth factor that stimulates new blood flow and nutrient delivery to the area. The patient can feel the adhesions being mobilized underneath the skin, often accompanied by a crunching sound. Graston technique, which also facilitates blood flow and nutrient delivery, involves using tools to locate and reduce collagen crosslinks and splays in connective tissue while realigning fibers. Graston practitioners use their tools like a tuning fork, using resonance to determine areas of dysfunction. Both methods are performed in conjunction with prescribed stretches and exercises to further promote healing and recovery while accelerating the ability to train or race without pain. Specifically designed exercises aid the soft tissue treatment by realigning the tissue and strengthening it to allow for higher force production during activity. When combined with a physical therapy program, athletes are often able to return to physical activity after the first ASTYM or Graston treatment. lavamagazine.com
naTe cOch
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ASTYM tools are designed to create controlled microtrauma in the tissue and restimulate the healing process.
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Research continues to be conducted on the efficacy of these treatments, and results demonstrate significant reduction in symptoms and time required for healing. Currently, most research suggests that Graston and ASTYM are most effective when combined with traditional methods of physical therapy. More research needs to be done on the long-term benefits of these techniques, but considerable anecdotal evidence demonstrates a considerable drop in time spent off of activity while undergoing treatment. For injured athletes willing to put up with a few minutes of pain, it may be the fastest way to get back in the saddle or back on the road. These techniques can be detrimental if not performed by a licensed medical practitioner, so always make sure to have a thorough evaluation before consenting to any treatment. In other words, don’t check it out on YouTube and decide to try homemade scraping with a knife or spoon. However, if you need a quick laugh, these videos will probably do the trick.
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SETTing yoUR noRTH STaR Setting a goal only works if you have a plan for how to reach it By Matt Dixon, MSc
T
hree years ago a nice woman came into my office and asked for help with her triathlon training. She introduced herself as Meredith Kessler, a keen amateur triathlete who had already completed 17 Ironman races with a very respectable best time of 11 hours and 22 minutes. These numbers were especially impressive considering they were accumulated over a mere seven years while working full time (and then some) and maintaining a full social calendar. On further investigation I learned she had finished her first Ironman in less than 12 hours and that all her finish times were within 20 minutes of her PR. She had done plenty of training, and certainly tried hard, but had not managed to make much progress. I asked Meredith what she hoped to achieve in the sport, but all she could tell me was that she wanted “to be good.” Her response is similar to that given by many athletes in that it lacked a clearly defined vision or dream, something for her to latch onto and to use when training gets hard, when fatigue sets in, or when things don’t seem to be going her way. Less than three years later, Meredith became an Ironman champion, finishing with a time of 9:13! This was not by accident or chance; it was, in large part, a result of creating a very concrete goal and developing a progressive plan to reach that destination. It’s what I’ve always called having a North Star goal in mind. Soon after walking through the door to my office that first time, Meredith identified a specific goal to work toward over the coming seasons. She also had the foresight and intelligence to realize it could not happen overnight, as she needed to learn, evolve as an athlete and progress over several years. Meredith’s North Star was to become an Ironman champion. It actually took several weeks to truly establish that goal, as we both had to assess if she had the physical and emolavamagazine.com
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132 : THE FULL SPECTRUM : T
tional attributes to make it realistic. Since her North Star was so far out on the horizon, we set intermediate goals to help maintain shortterm focus. The plan was for her to evolve over the seasons—first to greatly improve her Ironman performance by emphasizing each of the three sports for blocks of training, then to race (and win) at the biggest amateur races, and finally to race professionally and aim for the win. We made several key decisions on her path to success. One was to remain an amateur for an additional season, despite her having qualified to race as a professional, in order to learn how to win races, which we felt was a critical step toward her ultimate goal. When Meredith finally did turn pro, she was ready to compete at that level. The amazing part lavamagazine.com
IF yoU HavE a TEndEnCy To CREaTE a dETaILEd PLan, bUT THEn FaLL away FRoM IT aS yoUR SEaSon PRogRESSES, yoU HavE no baRoMETER FoR SUCCESS. of her story is that she managed to achieve this while maintaining her work and social commitments. She did it primarily by training smarter, not longer. Of course, this is not to say that you are destined to become an Ironman champion just be-
cause of a little planning and smart work, but you can be inspired by Meredith’s results to set a clear goal to help advance your own performances—and it only takes four steps.
STEP 1—ESTABLISH YOUR NORTH STAR. Most people (not just athletes) maintain enthusiasm and passion for something when they have a meaningful goal in mind. Take some time to consider what is truly important to you. It doesn’t have to be a specific finishing time, but it does have to serve as a constant reminder of why you are putting in the hours of training. This will act as a stimulus on days when you are struggling. It’s important to remember that any goal worth achieving will require focused effort over a long period of time. This is especially
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134 : THE FULL SPECTRUM : T true if your goal involves improving a weak aspect of your fitness. For example, if your goal is to qualify for Kona, but you’ve been slowed by a weak swim, it may take a year of dedicated swim training to see a significant boost in speed in the water. Be focused and remain patient.
STEP 2—ASSESS YOUR LIFE AND TRAINING. An important, but often overlooked, part of creating a plan is to take a look back at how you have approached things up until now. You should look beyond sport in this assessment, considering all the stressors in your life (work, relationships, family, finances, etc.) and how they can affect your triathlon routine. Your overall goal should be to create a plan that will not only enhance your performance, but also help maintain balance in every aspect of your life. While training for triathlon is always going to be demanding and take some sacrifice, it does not have to dominate all areas of your life. An obsessive approach to training almost always leads to physical and mental burnout.
STEP 3—CREATE YOUR PLAN. We can,
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and should, continually debate the optimal training methodology for triathlon, especially when it comes to long-distance racing. There are many successful coaches and athletes with vastly different approaches, and each has its merits. There are, however, a couple of components that must be a part of any and every successful training program: progression and recovery.
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It would be very hard to argue that longterm improvement in performance does not come without a plan that has progression and recovery integrated into the heart of the program. Progress is achieved by making consistent, incremental improvements, and recognizing this is important when creating a training plan. You cannot get from A to Z in one step, but have to allow for step-by-step progression, perhaps even focusing on a single element of your overall performance for an extended period of time. I often make cycling the central focus of an athlete’s training plan, with a primary shortterm goal of improving that discipline. It takes time, normally several months or even a whole season, but with improved biking ability, the athlete is in a position to improve her overall performance through a combination of an improved bike split and less fatigue at the start of the run. In triathlon it is impossible to improve in all three disciplines at once, so don’t try to paint the bathroom before you have built the walls. For my athletes, I recommend
When assessing your training and racing, the first question to ask yourself is whether you have truly planned and executed a season-long plan before. If you have a tendency to create a detailed plan for your season, but then fall away from it as the season progresses, you have no barometer for success or progress. If you have the luxury, I urge you to build your upcoming season based on a long-term vision, thinking about what you truly can achieve in your chosen events this year, and how this might help you reach an even greater goal next season.
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EFFECTIVE TRAINING CAN ONLY BE MAINTAINED FOR ABOUT TWO WEEKS BEFORE YOU REALLY NEED TO CUT THINGS BACK TO SEE ANY GAINS.
structuring training into mini-seasons, phases and weeks and including recovery periods within each segment of training. Mini-season: Break your year into mini-seasons with defined events at the end of each miniseason. Between seasons, take 10 to 21 days of recovery with lighter training to allow complete recovery before starting hard training again. Phase: During each cycle of training, ensure that you implement a few easier days every 10 to 14 days. Effective training can only be maintained for about two weeks before you
really need to cut things back to see any gains. You only need a few days, but it will be critical to maintain consistency. Week: Within any week of training identify one or two days of very light effort to enable recovery. Stick to the plan and keep them light. It can be challenging to truly back off, but it will enable more effective training the remaining days of the week, as well as ensuring that you stay injury free.
STEP 4—FOLLOW YOUR PLAN AND MAINTAIN YOUR TRAINING VALUES. My last piece of advice is seemingly a paradox: follow your plan, but ensure that you are flexible and willing to adjust it. Any plan should be treated as a live document, one that requires regular review, revision and enhancement based on what actually happens, versus what was meant to happen. Throughout each part of the journey to your North Star, always be willing to return to your plan to assess your progress and adjust the approach as needed.
Underpinning your plan should be a smart framework of belief that led to its creation. As a coach it is my belief that every program I create, for any level, should be integrated into my athlete’s life and not simply be piled on top as an additional stress. This makes it a moving target that must evolve as your own circumstances change. My number one priority is to ensure the athlete remains vibrant, healthy and injury-free. If we achieve this state then the plan is much more likely to be successful. So, do you have a long-term athletic goal, a clearly defined North Star? Do you plan ahead and build your season with a lens of health, progression and recovery to achieve consistency? Or do you simply do as many others do, follow the herd so to speak, and pile mindless training on top of mindless training, hoping to fix and improve every component of your performance at once? Ask yourself whether you’re getting what you planned for. If not, it might be a good time to start thinking about a new North Star.
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138 : TO YOUR HEALTH : T
OpTimizE YOUR biOLOgY taking charge of internal performance factors for the ultimate endurance boost By Ben Greenfield
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riathletes, like most people, tend to love tangible, instantaneous results. But, especially when it comes to improving one’s health, any significant biological and physiological change requires time and patience. For example, vitamin D deficiency is incredibly common among endurance athletes, and adequate supplementation can greatly improve hormonal levels, recovery and performance. The same can be said for balancing the omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio, properly replenishing mineral levels or addressing hormone deficiencies. But these things take time. Because optimizing one’s biology is complex and involves a long process, it is often lavamagazine.com
neglected for more convenient and instantly attainable triathlon investments, such as a new pair of shoes or faster wheels. But to the triathlete willing to step up to the plate and take charge of his or her internal performance factors, the return on investment can dwarf that of buying any new piece of equipment, and the benefits are about more than just speed.
Finding your metabolic type. As you might expect, the best place to begin optimizing your biology is with the food that you put into your mouth. Because genes can evolve with eating patterns, the way your ancestors ate has affected your gut enzymes,
digestion and metabolic tolerance for certain foods. This means that while some triathletes will experience the highest levels of energy and recovery while eating a high-carbohydrate diet of fruits, whole grains and potatoes, others will find that this style of eating actually causes fatigue or suboptimal results. Such athletes might do better with a high intake of beef, fish, seeds and nuts. These differences are referred to as “metabolic types.” One option to determine your metabolic type would be to switch to a high-protein diet, consisting of 40 percent protein, 30 to 40 percent fat and 30 to 40 percent carbohydrate, and assessing your energy levels over a four- to six-week
140 : TO YOUR HEALTH : T period. Conversely, if you are already consuming a high-protein or “Zone” diet and experiencing low energy levels, try consuming 50 to 60 percent of your calories from carbohydrates (unprocessed carbs are always preferable). If you don’t want to go through a self-testing process, then simply use a comprehensive metabolic questionnaire, which is a series of several dozen questions that can very pinpoint your metabolic type and ideal fuel ratios.
How acidic are you? The chemical reactions that take place inside the human body operate at an ideal pH, or acidity, that is just above the neutral level of 7.0. While it is very rare for triathletes to have a high pH (or low acid level), it is very common for triathletes to have a low pH, which indicates high cell and tissue acidity. The result of high acid levels can be frequent immune system failures, chronic muscle soreness and joint pain, and low energy. An acidic condition is typically caused by low mineral levels, combined with heavy intake of sugar, starches, coffee, tea, soda, juice,
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milk and energy drinks. Vegetables, fruits and healthy fats can achieve just the opposite effect, assisting in acid reduction. Testing your pH is simple—all you need is some urine pH sticks, which you can get at most pharmacies. Check your pH early in the morning, and again before you go to bed. If the pH is consistently low (below 7.0), focus on increasing your intake of leafy greens, avocados, olives, almonds, fruits, coconut oil, olive oil and other healthy fats and vegetables in your diet. What about meat? If you happen to be a highprotein metabolic type, then it is fine to keep eating meat, but if you are a high-carbohydrate type, meat may actually trigger a more acidic condition. Finally, although it is rare, a consistently high pH reading (above 7.5) can indicate excessive urinary nitrogen or breakdown of body tissue, which is most often seen in those eating a high-protein or restricted-calorie diet.
Minerals
and
electrolytes.
When it comes to getting minerals and electrolytes into your body, the practice of simply
salting your food doesn’t cut it. Sodium, phosphorus, chloride, potassium, sulfur, calcium and magnesium must be present in the proper amounts and ratios. Correct calcium and magnesium levels are especially critical for triathletes, as these minerals support neutral acid levels, bone density, energy production and mental focus. While dietary intake of calcium is easy to achieve, many triathletes don’t actually keep that calcium in their bones, due to stress, high acid levels, caffeine intake and mineral loss though sweat. Adequate dietary intake of magnesium is more difficult to achieve, and since magnesium regulates calcium absorption, transport and utilization, low magnesium levels can counteract those daily calcium pills you may be taking.
iron and ferritin. Most triathletes realize that they need iron, since it is a critical component of hemoglobin, which is responsible for carrying oxygen from the lungs to the muscle tissues. But most associate low iron
T : TO YOUR HEALTH : 141 with anemia a clinically diagnosed red blood cell deficiency, when in fact, an athlete with low iron levels may simply have heavy leg syndrome, be more irritable or constantly crave ice. Regardless of the cause, signs and symptoms, low iron will always reduce an athlete’s maximum oxygen capacity, striking a severe blow to performance. Furthermore, because of the exercise-related breakdown of red blood cells, iron loss through sweat, caffeine intake and low iron intake, many triathletes are deficient, especially those consuming a vegan or vegetarian diet. But iron can be toxic, and overuse of ironfortified foods and iron-containing supplements can be problematic, so blind supplementation is not the solution. Instead, a simple fingertip blood assessment of iron levels can be performed using a ferritin test. If iron supplementation is used, be cautious to re-test ferritin levels often to avoid excessive intake, and choose an iron supplement that is well-absorbed, such as a liquid Angstrom form.
aMino and fatty acids. When it comes to protein and fat, the two most important considerations for optimizing biology are essential amino acids and fatty acids. Nearly every athlete who I have had tested for the eight essential amino acids, including myself, is deficient in at least one amino acid, and thus does not have the total capacity to recover and rebuild muscle quickly, or produce adequate hormones, immune antibodies or enzymes. Essential fatty acids that the body needs but cannot make include the omega-3 and omega-6 fats, both key components of cell membranes, hemoglobin production, inammation prevention and recovery. Not only are adequate levels of essential fatty acids crucial for the triathlete, but a low ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 (preferably as close as possible to 1:1) is also very important. Similar to amino acids, I rarely see triathletes pass an essential fatty acids test with ying colors, and most have very high omega-6 to omega-3 ratios, typically caused by high intake of vegetable oils and low intake of fish oils or grass-fed meats.
VitaMin d. Vitamin D has finally been receiving the good press that it needs, but recommended levels of this critical hormone precursor are still far below what most triathletes need, and over 75 percent of athletes (even those in sunny climates) have suboptimal vitamin D levels. Since vitamin D is crucial for immune system function, enzyme production, reaction time, balance and hormone formation, assessing and addressing it can often be one of the most important dietary steps for a triathlete to take. Vitamin D can be tested via a blood drop from a finger stick, and an ideal level to look for is 50 ng/ml or more. If you are below 50, then restoring vitamin D levels will involve a combination of higher sun exposure and oral supplementation with vitamin D. I have personally been tested for vitamin D in the middle of a hot summer, been extremely low, and raised levels through daily use of 5,000 IU of a vitamin D spray. If you have a vitamin D deficiency, work with your doctor to find a Vitamin D supplement that works for you.
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142 : TO YOUR HEALTH : T
HelP tHem HelP YoU
take these supplements to get your metabolic engine revving.
iron supplement (over the counter) $20 for 100 capsules Because of excessive sweat loss, many non-vegetarian and vegetarian triathletes are susceptible to iron deficiencies. Taking a high-potency iron supplement can help.
Magnesium (over the counter) $5 for 100 capsules Minerals like magnesium and potassium are necessary for proper nerve function and bone strength.
flaxseed oil (over the counter) $15 for 225 softgels Flaxseed oil contains important fatty acids to help your body build muscle, recover and prevent inflammation.
JAY PRASUHN
sportQuest recovery $66.95 for 300 capsules sportQuestdirect.com There are eight essential amino acids, and being deficient in just one can really slow you down. Take an amino acid supplement to make sure all your bases are covered.
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Vitamin d (over the counter) $12 for 90 tablets A combination of increased sun exposure and supplementation may be needed to bring levels of this important hormone precursor up to proper levels.
A LEGEND FROM THE ROCKIES
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22K RUN
©2011 LIFE TIME FITNESS, INC. All rights reserved. EVMG1048
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144 : COMPETITIVE EDGE : T
POP quIz Mark Allen explains why frequent fitness testing is key to staying on the right training track.
LARRY ROSA
By Mark Allen
F
or any triathlete working to improve performance at races, it is imperative to have feedback to assess how your fitness is changing. Ideally, as you progress through the season, you will be getting in better shape. If you are to maximize that improvement it is important to be able to quantify how all the hours of training are translating in a measurable way. When fitness is progresslavamagazine.com
ing smoothly, it’s good to know that everything is going according to plan. If you’re not steadily improving, or if you’re losing fitness, it’s time to reassess your plan of attack. Having reliable methods of testing your fitness periodically throughout the year is the key to tracking progress. There are three aspects that must be measured in a repeatable format so you can compare fitness throughout
the season and also from season to season: endurance, raw speed and sustainable speed.
1
EndurAncE The test: This is the basic yardstick for
measuring any triathlete’s fitness. Testing it throughout the year provides priceless feedback that will help you refine your training strategy. My recommended test of endurance
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ANNOUNCING THE FIRST EVER LEADMAN TRI LIFE TIME EPIC 250, AN ENTIRELY NEW SPECIES IN TRIATHLON. 5K SWIM Go the distance. Start with a three-mile open water swim in the shadow of Dead Man’s Island, as you begin a journey of both body and mind. 223K CYCLE
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LARRY ROSA
146 : COMPETITIVE EDGE : T
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measures metabolic efficiency at a submaximal level to assess both your sustainable running pace and power output on the bike. This specific test requires a heart rate monitor, a running track and a power meter for the bike portion of the test. Start by figuring out what 80 percent of your max heart rate is. This is your golden number for the test. For example, if your maximum heart rate is 180 beats per minute (bpm), then 145 represents 80 percent of your max. Gradually warm up for 10 to15 minutes, slowly elevating your heart rate up to within one to two beats of your test heart rate. Once you get there it’s time to start the test. If testing run endurance, do the workout at a track and record your mile pace for a three-mile time trial. If you are doing a cycling test, record power your output for a 20-minute trial at this heart rate. In both tests make sure to stay within a few beats of your test number without going over. At the end, write down what your run pace was for each of the three miles, as well as the average pace for the full distance. For cycling,
T : COMPETITIVE EDGE : 147 find your average power output for the total 20 minutes, as well as the average for the first and last ten minutes. The goal: Do this test once every two to three weeks. If all is going to plan, you should see that your average pace per mile for the run gets faster over time from test to test and the average power output for the 20 minutes cycling gets higher from test to test. This simple test provides the best measure of your true fitness gains because it does not require a maximum effort. Max efforts vary more widely, simply because some days people can push themselves a lot harder than other days. Pain has a way of skewing a max speed test more than a submaximal test like this one.
A few tips to mAke the test consistent: 3 Do it at the same time of day. 3 Do it the same length of time after eating a meal. 3 Do it in as close to the same temperature as possible.
3 Do it at the same relative state of freshness in your weekly training. 3 Do the cycling test on a course with the least possible variation in terrain.
2
speed The test: This is without a doubt the
most difficult aspect of fitness to test, and it needs to be done in all three sports. Speed tests should only be done once you are in the speed phase of your training. Doing this without having done speed work will not give you information that is useful, simply because your anaerobic system will not function fully if it hasn’t been trained. For running, the test is 8 × 400 meters on the track, with a half-lap jog for recovery between each 400. The goal is to start fast and hold the speed or even get slightly faster with each 400. If you find that you are slowing down on the last two 400s, the test will not give you a good comparison for your next test. Going too fast too early and exceeding your sustainable limit before the final 400s will
give you a much slower average time for the entire set than if you remain steady or build each repeat. For cycling, the test is an effort that initially takes about 20 minutes to complete. It should be a distance that you will be able to repeat each time you do the test. Pick a course that is roughly 10 miles start to finish if flat, or if you want to do this on a climb, pick a hill that will take you roughly 20 minutes to ascend. For swimming, the test is 10 × 100 fast on an interval that provides 5–10 seconds of rest. Over time, you may find that your interval time is too slow because you are going much faster and you exceed the max rest of 10 seconds. If this happens, cut the interval down by 5 seconds. The goal: In each of these three tests, the goal should be to hit your maximum effort. Do the tests once every three to five weeks after you start your speed phase of training. For the run test, your goal is to see a rise in the average pace of the 400s over time. For the cycling time trial, you should complete your marked course in less time from test to test. In swimming, the
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148 : COMPETITIVE EDGE : T average pace you can hold per 100 should gradually get faster. There are also secondary levels to track that can provide valuable additional data. One is to see what your average heart rate is on the 400s on the track and at the end of each of the swims in the pool. Sometimes your times may be similar, but you find that your heart rate is lower at the same speed than it was in your previous test, which is a sign of improving fitness. On your bike, you can track power output and heart rate. Because of weather conditions, your time might be the same, but it’s possible that you did so with a lower average heart rate or power output.
3
sustAinAble speed The test: Sustainable speed is an ath-
LARRY ROSA
lete’s ability to maintain a certain pace over time. Most triathlons are won not by the athlete who has the most speed, but by the one who is able to maintain a high speed without falling off-pace late in the race. In all but the shortest races, you are working well below your maximum output, so having a lot of raw speed
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No purchase necessary. To enter without subscribing, mail individual entries to: LAVA Aix Sweepstakes, 514 Via de la Valle, Suite 300, Solana Beach, CA 92075. Remember to include your name, address, phone number and email address. All entries must be received and postmarked no later than April 12, 2011. LAVA is not responsible for lost, late, damaged, illegible or postage-due mail. Winner will be selected no later than April 15, 2011 from the entries received. Winner selection will take place under the supervision of LAVA, whose decisions are final. Each entry consents to transfer all information contained in the completed entry form to other companies. The odds of winning are determined by the total number of eligible entries received. Taxes, when applicable, are the sole responsibility of the winner. Winner will be contacted by email, telephone or mail. Winner must follow the directions contained in any correspondence and return all completed forms within 7 days from the date of correspondence. Noncompliance will result in disqualification and the naming of an alternate winner. There is no cash exchange for this sweepstakes. Prize fulfillment may take 90 days or more. This sweepstakes is sponsored by the World Triathlon Corporation. Employees and anyone affiliated are not eligible. Sweepstakes subject to all federal, state and local tax laws. Void where prohibited by law. For the name of the winner, send a self-addressed, postage-paid envelope and letter of request to: LAVA Aix Sweepstakes, 514 Via de la Valle, Suite 300, Solana Beach, CA 92075.
150 : COMPETITIVE EDGE : will only take you so far if you can’t hold on to it. One way to test sustainability is by using the first test that I described for testing endurance. As your fitness improves, your speed at 80 percent of your max effort will eventually plateau. However, what will be important to compare throughout the entire season is the rate of falloff within each test. For running, let’s say you initially see your first mile drop from nine minutes per mile to seven minutes per mile, but then you plateau and just can’t get any faster. While your first mile may be stuck at seven minutes, if you notice a drop in the average times of your next two miles, your sustainable speed is improving. You can test sustainable speed using the endurance test for cycling as well. The difference in power output between the first 10 minutes and the second 10 will become smaller and smaller as your sustainable speed improves. Your power output in the initial 10 minutes may plateau, but improving your total average by closing the gap is still an improvement in fitness. A much more challenging way to test this
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MOST TRIATHLONS ARE WON NOT BY THE ATHLETE WITH THE MOST SPEED, BUT BY THE ONE WHO IS ABLE TO MAINTAIN A HIGH SPEED WITHOUT FALLING OFF PACE LATE IN THE RACE. type of fitness comes in longer workouts and should only be done roughly two to three times per year. For the run it can be on a run course that takes you anywhere from 50 minutes up to 1.5 hours to complete. It should be a course that you know well and have a good idea how long it takes you to complete. For the test, you will run the first half strong but controlled, before running the second half as hard as possible. For the bike the test can be anywhere from three to five hours, again riding the first half strong but controlled, then the second
half hard. For running, track your overall time and also ensure that the second half is faster than the first. For cycling, note your power output during the second half of the ride, as well as your overall time if it is a course that you do frequently. The goal: Signs of improved fitness are: doing each of the courses in a faster overall time for running and with a higher overall power output for cycling. For both sports, the results are going to be something to compare within the year, as well as from year to year. Again, because of the challenge of doing this long a test, it is only advisable to do it a few times throughout the entire season. You can do the same course many times at a slower pace, but only give a max effort two or three times. Both of these tests are long enough that the only way you will be improve is if you can extend the point at which performance Scan with phone to watch Mark’s video on testing would begin to fall off.
RACING R
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154
in focus 162
boarding pass 176
the last word
Challenge Wanaka is billed as “the most scenic iron-distance triathlon in the world,� and the race rarely disappoints. More than 1,200 athletes from 27
GETTY IMAGES
countries took to the chilly waters of Lake Wanaka to kick off the fifth annual event on January 15. lavamagazine.com
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PHOTOS PHil WalTer/GeTTy imaGeS
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Challenge Wanaka
Wanaka may be best known among New Zealanders for its world-class ski resorts, but when summer rolls in Down
JANUARY 15, 2010: WANAKA, NEW ZEALAND 2.4 mI. SWIm : 112 mI. bIKE : 26.2 mI. RUN
Under, the town goes tri crazy. Jamie
Men’S TOP FInISheRS
year’s Challenge Wanaka, crushing the
1. Jamie Whyte : NZL : 9:03:53 2. Courtney Odgen : AUS : 9:07:25 3. Bevan McKinnon : NZL : 9:07:37
WOMen’S TOP FInISheRS 1. Belinda Granger : AUS : 10:26:17 2. Simone Maier : NZL : 10:32:25 3. Christie Sym : AUS : 10:36:57
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Whyte thrilled the Kiwi crowd at this men’s field on the bike to take the win. Aussie veteran Belinda Granger took the women’s title, topping Wanaka’s own Simone Maier by six minutes.
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ironman 70.3 PUCon JANUARY 16, 2011 : PUCON, CHILE 1.2 MI. SwIM : 56 MI. bIkE : 13.1 MI. RUN
mEn’S ToP FiniSHErS 1. Daniel Fontana : ITA : 3:52:59 2. Reinaldo Colucci : BRA : 3:56:24 3. Oscar Galindez : ARG : 3:57:17
WomEn’S ToP FiniSHErS 1. Linsey Corbin : USA : 4:15:42 2. Kim Loeffler : USA : 4:21:17 3. Heather Gollnick : USA : 4:33:38
Rain, wind, hail and cold made for an especially challenging Ironman 70.3 Pucon this year, but the conditions didn’t seem to bother the American PHOTOS ROd EicHlER/TRiSPORT.ORg
women, who swept the podium for the
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second time in three years. Montana’s Linsey Corbin led the way in the women’s race, while Italy’s Daniel Fontana was untouchable in the men’s contest, picking up his first Pucon title after finishing second a year ago.
THE AVERAGE RACE
LASTS ABOUT
TWO HOURS. BUT THE EXPERIENCE
WILL LAST A
LIFETIME.
The triathlon of all triathlons. Register now at hy-veetriathlon.com
162 : BOARDING PASS :
eastern cape
endurance
By Susan Grant-Legacki
F
SUSAN GRANT-LEGACKI
ifteen hundred feet below me, the pink and green roofs of a shantytown dotted the South African countryside in the Eastern Cape’s municipality of Buffalo City. My helicopter pilot, Siba, doled out coordinates to the airport control tower, but eventually he grew silent and began to grin.“I only have to tell them where we are for the first few miles of our flight, but now we’re on our own. Do you know what that means?” he said, glancing at me for a moment. “It means we can do this!” yelled Siba, banking our tiny bubble of a chopper hard to the left. My hands splayed against the only thing protecting me from plummeting to the ground—a wafer-thin metal door—and I felt my stomach suck up into my nostrils. Siba laughed and banked hard to the right and once again my stomach lurched. He leveled out and looked over at my panicked face. “Don’t worry,” he said, as he confidently grasped the controls.“I am a very good pilot.” To truly experience South Africa’s Eastern Cape is to step out of your comfort zone and grab life by the rudder. Sure, you can easily drive directly from the airport to one of the numerous five-star game resorts, where you can pet a giraffe, dine like an English king or shoot a buffalo, but you’d kind of be missing the point. The Eastern Cape (and South Africa in general) needs to
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Robbie LittLe/finisheRpix
The Kwelera Tidal River is one of many waterways in East London, and is a perfect choice for paddling, fishing and birdwatching.
be inhaled, scratched, devoured and explored like the land of extremes that it is—and this is exactly what makes it such a perfect destination race for the triathlete looking for more than just a finisher’s medal, goody bag and another tech tee.
THE HISTORY. Located 900 kilometers south of Johannesburg in the Eastern Cape’s Amathole district municipality, Buffalo City is comprised of four smaller towns: East London, Mdantsane, King William’s Town and Bhisho. Known primarily for its fantastic beaches, rivers, golf courses and myriad of recreational options, Buffalo City’s cultural DNA is a blend of the indigenous influences of the Xhosa, Afrikaner, British, Dutch and German people. The Xhosa and the various European settlers in the Eastern Cape have struggled for a peaceful coexistence for much of the past 250 lavamagazine.com
years. In fact, the Eastern Cape is the area where the English, the Afrikaners and the Xhosa encountered one another for the first time. East London was founded as a military port by the British during the Xhosa Wars (also known as the Cape Frontier Wars)—a series of nine wars in the late 1700s and early 1800s between the indigenous people and European settlers for the control of the territory. Buffalo City and East London have continued to play a very important role in the history of South Africa, and they are often considered the crucible of the country’s Apartheid era; the Eastern Cape is the birthplace of many of the nation’s most famous anti-Apartheid leaders—most notably Nelson Mandela. The Xhosa’s namesake language is one of the country’s 11 official languages, and is spoken by almost 20 percent of the South African population. Known for its distinctive “click consonants,” Xhosa is the
Robbie LittLe/finisheRpix
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The start of the Spec-Savers Ironman 70.3 South Africa is at Orient Beach in downtown Buffalo City.
main language spoken by the Eastern Cape’s black population, although English is spoken widely throughout South Africa and is considered the country’s business language.
THE VENUE. Now in its fourth year, the Spec-Savers Ironman 70.3 South Africa is a natural fit for Buffalo City. With a vast, green countryside to the east and four rivers flowing through the town and exiting into the beautifully rugged Indian Ocean, there isn’t a single moment on the course when athletes aren’t surrounded by all the beauty South Africa has to offer. The race begins at Orient Beach, a protected cove near the mouth of the Buffalo River, and takes athletes around a one-loop, open water swim in the moderately chilly waters of the Indian Ocean. The starting line of the race is particularly family-friendly, as Orient Beach also has an array of children’s wading pools and a concrete amphitheatre facing the ocean so everyone can take in all the action as the day begins. The bike is a tough one: Not only does the one-loop course entail a long climb heading out east along the R72 motorway, but often the turnaround’s promise of a long downhill is met instead with headwinds all the way back into town. “The bike is as brutal as I had heard,” said 2011 Ironman 70.3 South Africa winner Jodie Swallow of Great Britain. The twolavamagazine.com
loop run meanders along the mostly flat East London Esplanade before heading up a steep hill and back again and finishing at Orient Beach. The 2011 race featured unusually wet, windy and even chilly conditions, which added extra toughness to the already challenging course. The sold-out race still went off without a hitch, and winners Swallow and Belgian Frederik Van Lierde managed to break away from the pack early in the bike and hold their leads for the rest of the day. “I think all of the tough winter riding I did in Europe these past few months really ended up being an advantage for me,” Van Lierde said. Runner-up finisher and South African race favorite James Cunnama said it was amazing to see how much the East London community had embraced the race since he first competed in it three years ago. “Back then there were only a few hundred people and not many spectators,” Cunnama said. “Now, even on a horribly rainy day there were spectators everywhere cheering you on, and there were thousands of people doing the race as well. It’s so great to see how much this race has grown.”
THE ADVENTURE.
“Now all of you have been quad-biking before, right?” asked Brandon, our guide at the Areena Resort and Game Reserve. He was in charge of a small group of photographers, videographers and journalists, and he seemed slightly weary of us right from the beginning.
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Robbie LittLe/finisheRpix
East London is full of recreational activities, including quad-biking through the game reserve at the Areena Riverside Resort just outside Buffalo City.
We all nodded. We all lied. To be honest, I didn’t even know what a quad bike was (we call them all-terrain vehicles in the U.S.), and I certainly didn’t know how to ride one. I watched someone next to me who did know what they were doing start the engine and somehow I managed to get mine going. I had seen plenty of gently rolling trails as we drove in, and so I figured we would be going on a leisurely roll through the reserve, probably stopping every five minutes to take a photo of an antelope. Maybe there would be a picnic. “Now everyone has to stay behind me and in front of Louis,” said Brandon, motioning to his fellow guide, a blond-haired teenager who didn’t even look old enough to ride the Ferris wheel. And with that, he took off—fast. Brandon made the turn off the trails and into the bush pretty early on, and after the first 20 minutes I stopped noticing the animals. I was simply too busy trying not to kill myself. We gunned our engines up steep embankments, we held on for dear life as our tires—slick with mud from the previous night’s rains—slid us down hillsides. And then the soft mist in the air turned to rain. The whole ride, a simple sentence had been running through my head. Don’t use the handbrake. In the five-second tutorial Brandon had given us, he mentioned nonchalantly that if the handbrake and the accelerator lavamagazine.com
were pressed at the same time a person could easily flip over their quad bike and hurt themselves badly. “People go flying into bushes and the bike runs them over. I’ve seen it,” he said. While gunning up a steep hill, I felt my back tires slip underneath me, and a wave of terror washed over me. I slammed on my foot brake. No response. I was out of control. “Use the handbrake! Use the handbrake!” Louis and Brandon yelled. “I’m not allowed to!” I yelled back—as I veered wildly to the right, barely avoiding two or three of my fellow quad-bikers, before an enormous bush halted my bike’s momentum. I pushed lightly on the handbrake. The bike stopped immediately. I sat there on that hill for a minute, in the rain, on top of that devilish piece of machinery—I just had to take it all in. A few hundred yards below me, a group of Impala hid out from the rain under a tree, watching a human behave like an idiot. With some help from Louis, I got my bike out of the bush and I sped off to catch up with the group. I hadn’t a moment to waste. There were more animals to see, more mud to splash through and even more bushes to avoid.
GETTING THERE. No matter which way you go, you’d better plan on it taking you a while to get there. East London has an adequately sized airport that has connecting flights from several large South Afri-
www.ironmanpromembership.com
“I am true because I compete to discover my own limits and not the limits of doping.” -Jordan Rapp (Ironman® Champion)
HIP
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Alice the giraffe greets visitors warmly at the Areena Riverside Resort.
&
LOWER BACK
WHAT COULD CAUSE YOUR ACHES AND PAINS? When the quads get tight and the pelvis tilts due to lack of elasticity within the muscles, they could begin to pull on their insertion points within the hip and lower back.
WHAT DO I DO ABOUT IT? The Hip Dysfunction Kit includes all the tools to assist plus the DVD with: • How-to Section • Practical Education • 30-min Re-Gen Class • Tips for a Better Lifestyle
Robbie LittLe/finisheRpix
ACHES AND PAINS
can cities including Johannesburg and Cape Town. Delta Airlines launched a new route out of Atlanta that flies directly to Johannesburg in 15 hours instead of the usual 18+; not bad considering the former route used to have a stopover in Dakar, Senegal going each way.
STAY.
If you want a cozy bed and breakfast that’s still near all the race-day action, check out the Hampton Court Guest Lodge (Harewoodlodge.co.za). Most of the race activities, including registration, take place at the Garden Court Lodge (Southernsun. com), but if you prefer luxurious accommodations, you’ll need to head a little farther out of town to the Crawford’s Beach Lodge (Crawfordsbeachlodge.com). lavamagazine.com
VISIT. Head to the Inkwenkwezi Private Game Reserve to check out white lions, rhinoceroses, giraffes and cheetahs (Inkwenkwezi.com). Drive up to the Wild Coast to the New Hampshire Farm and ride along the beach on the Cintsa Horses (Cintsahorses.co.za), or just rest your tired post-race legs at one of the area’s numerous beaches (Eastlondon.org.za/beaches.html). EAT. Start your morning with a cup of coffee and some rusks, a hard biscuit similar to biscotti, that was originally developed as a way to preserve bread by South African pioneers. Snack on traditional South African biltong (beef jerky made with a variety of different types of game meat) or have a bowl of mealie putapap—a cornmeal porridge favored by the Zulu and
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Robbie LittLe/Asi photo
Swimmers run into the Indian Ocean at the start of the 2011 Ironman 70.3 South Africa.
Xhosa people. Finally, no South African experience would be complete without some braaivleis, which is Afrikaans for grilled meat. Attending a braai or barbecue is a social custom in South Africa and many other African countries. The meat is traditionally grilled over wood, and to cook meat over gas is generally frowned upon.
DRINK. Wet your whistle with some Castle Lager, a pale lager found throughout the country, or sip on Rooibos tea with honey and lemon, an herbal blend that comes from an African bush and is low in caffeine but high in antioxidants. MARK YOUR CALENDAR. There are a number of triathlons throughout South Africa, including the Spec-Savers Ironman 70.3 South
Africa in Buffalo City in January, the Spec-Savers Ironman South Africa every April in Port Elizabeth, and the Ironman 5150 series, which was recently announced to be coming to such cities as Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban.
WORDS OF CAUTION. The prevalence of crime in certain areas of South Africa is well documented, and so travelers should always exercise caution when visiting the country. The best prevention is simple common sense: Don’t go for a run or hike by yourself if you don’t know the area, keep your valuables in a secure place at all times and always use reputable transportation services. In short, don’t let a lapse in judgment ruin your experience in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. LAVA
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176 : THE LAST WORD : R
SinDbALLE vS. REED At a combined weight of 360 pounds and a total height of 12 feet 8 inches, Torbjorn Sindballe and Matty Reed are anomalies in the world of elite triathlon. Sindballe turned his size into an advantage in Kona, finishing third in 2007. Now retired, he has plenty of words of wisdom for fellow giant Reed, who will be making his Big Island debut in 2011. perature was the major issue, we tried basically everything to bring it down. I think filling a latex glove with ice was the most famous method I tried, and it was effective, but it was a combination of things that worked. I started using a white, long-sleeved top to keep the sun off my skin and I covered myself with ice and water at every aid station. But the biggest thing was pacing. My coaches and I found that if I ran the first two miles too hard, my temperature would spike, and then I was cooked for the rest of the run.
Matty Reed: Since the start of my career I’ve had people telling me I’m too big for this, but I’ve always believed triathlon was more of a strength sport than anything else. Sure, guys like you and me are bigger than everyone else, but with that size comes strength and I’ve always seen it as more of an advantage throughout my career.
Torbjorn Sindballe: I never really thought about being bigger than most triathletes until I went to Kona for the first time. In Denmark I trained with Peter Sandvang, who was even bigger than me. He won a long distance world title, so I never once thought I was too big to go fast. But the first time I got to Kona I realized just how much the heat affects a bigger athlete.
MR: Did it ever frustrate you that you couldn’t go as hard as you wanted at the biggest race of the year?
TS: Not really, because it just meant that I had to approach the race differently. If I was ever going to win Kona, it was going to happen on the bike, and that’s why I always went hard on the bike. I knew I wasn’t going to get off and run a 2:45 there.
MR: I think it helped seeing guys with a similar body type racing well. For me, it was Simon Lessing. When I was first getting into the sport he was winning every race there was and he was almost as tall and as heavy
MR: That’s definitely something I took
as me. He knew how to use his size, but even
away from watching your races in Hawaii and
he struggled with the heat in Kona. When you
it really helped me develop my own racing
first started racing Ironman, did you have any-
style. I learned not to be afraid to go after it
one telling you that you were too big?
on the bike, because a lot of the time, that’s your best chance to win. So do you think it’s
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possible for a bigger guy to win in Kona? If you had a perfect day, what kind of splits do you think you would’ve been capable of?
JAY PRASUHN
TS: Definitely not after my first two Ironman races. I think I ran 3:02 and 2:57, but those were colder races. Then I came to Kona for the first time and ran 3:12. After that race in 2004 I tried really hard to make the heat my friend. I was never afraid of racing in the heat; I just wanted to find out how I could race well in it. It took a lot of testing and trial and error to break that code. I had quite a few races in a row at Kona where I ran around 3:12. For me it was all about keeping my core body temperature down, but it took a lot of suffering to figure that out.
MR: So what worked for you in 2007 when
TS: For me, the perfect day in Kona would’ve been swimming and running just like I did in 2007 and then holding on to run a 2:50. A 2:50 run won’t always win the race, but that year it would’ve been just enough to put me at the finish ahead of Macca. LAVA
you finally put in a strong run in Hawaii?
TS: Once we figured out that my body tem-
For more of this interview go to lavamagazine.com/last-word-5
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