2011-1011 Lava Magazine

BIKE PHENOM JULIE DIBENS IS KONA’S ULTIMATE X- FACTOR ®

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011 : ISSUE 08

SERIOUS TRIATHLON

®

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Julie Dibens – 2011 Ironman Coeur D’Alene Champion and 2X World 70.3 Champion

008 : LINEUP

LAVA publisher JOHN DUKE heathergordon@ironman.com

:

jayprasuhn@ironman.com

johnduke@ironman.com

editor BRAD CULP

:

:

:

KIRK BAUSCH

bradculp@ironman.com

ericakrystek@ironman.com

:

:

senior editor JAY PRASUHN

jenniferward@ironman.com

:

:

sammytillery@ironman.com

: online editor

senior account executive LISA BILOTTI

account executive SEAN WATKINS kirkbausch@ironman.com

susanlegacki@ironman.com

senior photographer DONALD MIRALLE

photo editor SAMMY TILLERY

JENNIFER WARD BARBER lisabilotti@ironman.com

associate publisher HEATHER GORDON

features editor SUSAN GRANT-LEGACKI

art director ERICA KRYSTEK donald@donaldmiralle.com

:

seanwatkins@ironman.com

:

account executive LAURA AGCAOILI

office manager KAYLA NEWBY-FRASER

account executive lauraagcaoili@ironman.com

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 bradculp@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 nine times per year (Feb/Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct/Nov, Dec/Jan).

The entire contents of LAVA are copywrited and may not be reproduced, either in whole or in part, without written consent. LAVA速 and Serious Triathlon速 are trademarks of World Triathlon Corporation.

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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

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WAR A YEAR OF T R I WA R S C L O S E S AT KONA

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016 : LAVA FLOW

OCTOBER : NOVEMBER, 2011

ISSUE 08 KONA PREVIEW

TRAINING T

welcome 018 : LAVA ONLINE

104 : TRAINING FEATURE

020 : EDITOR’S NOTE

Hacking heat: Heat-proofing your body for the big dance in Kona.

By Ben Greenfield

022 : CONTRIBUTORS

112 : THE HYPE

024 : THE BUZZ

In search of the stoic triathlete: What Greek and Roman philosophers can teach us about Ironman.

026 : iTRI Steve Nelson, Western Region CEO of UnitedHealthcare

By Jim Gourley

Caveat: Water: How a single-celled organism can ruin your season.

By Don Norcross

028 : KONA PICKS

By Ian Stokell

Checking in with the Hawaii Ironman’s top contenders ahead of the biggest event of the year.

122 : COACH’S COUNSEL Easy on the IBU: The dangers of Ibuprofen during training and racing.

032 : SEEN & HEARD

By Troy Jacobson

GEAR G

The FAI epidemic: Femoral acetabular impingement can wreak havoc on your hips.

128 : SIDELINED

036 : TECH FEATURE

By Nate Snell PT, CSCS

Future bike: What comes after carbon fiber?

132 : THE FULL SPECTRUM Aqua Ace: Meet the new guru of open-water swimming.

By Jim Gourley

Cervelo P4 Evo

By Jay Prasuhn

042 : PRO FILE Magali Tisseyre and her Blue Triad SL

044 : REVIEWED CycleOps G3 Carbon Clincher & 2XU Refresh Compression Tights

By Jay Prasuhn & Brad Culp

049 : Workbench Making the connection: Choosing the right kicks for the middle leg.

By Mark Deterline

By Matt Dixon, MSc

donald miralle

040 : ON DISPLAY

140 : TO YOUR HEALTH Plant-based dangers: Is a vegetarian diet dangerous for triathletes?

By Ben Greenfield

features 062 : JOKER’S WILD All eyes are on past Kona champs Mirinda Carfrae and Chrissie Wellington as favorites. Which suits laid-back swim-bike gunner Julie Dibens just fine.

By Mark Allen

By Jay Prasuhn

RACING R

056 : Rapp Report

074 : SOMMER IN DEUTSCHLAND

Magic in the midsole: All you need to know about EVA.

If you think the U.S. is the center of the triathlon universe, you haven’t spent a summer in Germany. Let renowned German sports photographer Michael Rauschendorfer be your guide.

By Jordan Rapp

By Michael Rauschendorfer

ON THE COVER: Kona wildcard Julie Dibens, shot in Boulder, Colo.

PHOTO DONALD MIRALLE

090 : A LEAGUE OF OUR OWN Men and women compete in different ways, and often for different reasons. Triathlon has found a way to embrace these differences—and even capitalize on them.

By Susan Grant-Legacki

lavamagazine.com

149 : COMPETITIVE EDGE Stress test: Listen to your body and heed the warning signs of stress overload.

156 : IN FOCUS ITU World Champs London, Ironman Lake Placid

160 : BOARDING PASS Instant classic: Challenge Cairns.

By Jay Prasuhn

176 : THE LAST WORD Magali Tisseyre vs. Siri Lindley

The finish line just got closer.

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018 : LAVAMAGAZINE.COM

Separating

PROOF

FROM

HYPE

OCTOBER : NOVEMBER, 2011

LAVA ONLINE

in Endurance Supplements

By Robert Portman, PhD A number of marketed herbal supplements claim to improve endurance. There is often, however, a disconnect between what the manufacturer claims and what the studies, if there are any, show. The challenge for cyclists is separating the hype from the science. For example, a popular supplement that combines cordyceps and rhodiola is claimed to improve peak endurance, decrease lactic acid and increase peak VO2. But the studies paint a very different picture. Studies published in two different peer-reviewed journals and conducted by different research teams found that this combination did not improve endurance metrics.

The Endurance Herb There is one supplement that has stood up to rigorous scientific testing. Chinese researchers recently published a new study on the endurance effects of the herb ciwujia. What makes this study credible is that the scientists used a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover protocol, which is the gold standard for research.

Ciwujia is a well-known Chinese herb that has been used by Tibetan mountain climbers to improve work performance at high altitudes. Previous studies have shown that ciwujia (Endurox® Excel®) improves exercise performance.

The latest study in trained cyclists showed that eight weeks of ciwujia supplementation increased peak VO2 by 12% and endurance performance by 23%.

Yet perceived fatigue levels were no higher despite this greater work capacity. Researchers also demonstrated that ciwujia increased the breakdown of fat for energy, which is the likely mechanism behind the endurance boost.

Scan with a QR app to read the article

▲

Web exclusive: Get to know famed restaurateur and Master Chef judge Joe Bastianich, who’ll race this year in Kona as one of Ironman’s NBC feature athletes. Find out what keeps him motivated to race and train, and try his recipe for traditional Pasta Puttanesca by scanning the code above.

multimedia ➊ Watch a video of the airbike Jim Gourley details in “Future Bike,” on page 66 at Lavamagazine.com/ airbike

➋ Mark Allen wants to help you de-stress (see his article on the subject on page 148) by helping with your triathlon packing list. Check it out at Lavamagazine.com/packlist

extras

➊ Read Ben Greenfield’s feature on the benefits of going vegetarian (page 140) then try your hand at some of Rich Roll’s innovative recipes, like these glazed figs. All at Lavamagazine.com/rich-roll

featured columnist Gordon Yeagar owns a boutique bike services shop in San Diego and writes the column “In the Hangar.”

See what he had to say in his first two posts, on the 2011 Focus Izalco Pro 1.0 and MadFiber carbon wheels, by searching his name or column title in the search box on our website.

The investigators concluded that ciwujia is an effective nutritional aid for individuals who perform endurance exercise. Complete study results can be found at www.enduranceherb.com.

Dr. Portman, a well-known sports science researcher, is co-author of Nutrient Timing and Hardwired for Fitness.

tweet of the (bi) month:

Doing all of my training late today, running now @9 pm. That’s where drunken sex at 4 am gets you. Totally worth it! @jonascolting (Swedish pro triathlete Jonas Colting)

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020 : EDITOR’S NOTE

WINNING ON THE BIKE

I

You can’t win Kona on the bike. At least, you couldn’t win Kona out with Swiss ace Caroline Steffen for the final podium spot. On on the bike until Normann Stadler did exactly that in 2004. In paper it’s not a very good race, but everyone who has raced in four hours, 37 minutes and 58 seconds, Stadler redefined how Hawaii knows you can toss out the proverbial paper as soon as the Ironman World Championship could be won. He was almost the cannon goes off. In this month’s cover story Jay Prasuhn dives 20 minutes ahead of his competitors when he reached the secinto the mind of Dibens to find out what it’s like for a woman who ond transition on the Kailua-Kona pier. Even the great Peter Reid is quite possibly the best all-around triathlete in the world to enter couldn’t hunt him down. a race as an underdog (“Joker’s Wild,” Page 62).

Stadler did it again in 2006; this time his victim was Chris McThere are plenty of story lines to follow at this year’s race in Cormack. Macca was the far superior marathoner, but that didn’t Kona: Five British women are more than capable of finishing in the matter after Stadler put 11 minutes into him on the bike. Even a top ten (Wellington, Dibens, Catriona Morrison, Leanda Cave and 2:46 marathon from McCormack put Rachel Joyce). Come to think of it, every him at the line 71 seconds too late. one of those women has the potential to This August, a month after underfinish in the top five. Carfrae could be going heart surgery to repair a failsaving up a marathon the likes of which ing valve, Stadler announced his rewe’ve never seen in Hawaii, potentially tirement. Even though Stadler hadn’t keeping any of those Brits from reachgraced the Kona podium since 2006, ing the top of the podium. Steffen is cahe remained one of the race’s biggest pable of ruining any of those scenarios. threats. His incredible power on the That’s just the women’s race. bike allowed him to change the dyFor the first time in recent memory, namic of the race in a way no other there will be no returning champion in athlete has been able to do. He retires the men’s race. Without McCormack, the as the only German ever to win Kona stage is set nicely for Andreas Raelert twice and the greatest cyclist ever to to take the Kona title he came a mile win in Hawaii. When everyone said short of last year. He’s the top returning Stadler making it look easy in 2004. that Kona would always be a runner’s athlete and he re-set the iron-distance race, Stadler proved that you don’t world record earlier this year in Roth. need to be a great marathoner to win.

By all accounts Raelert is the favorite, but Belgium’s Marino VanJulie Dibens is not a great marathoner. Given her current skill hoenacker has an equally impressive résumé and finished only set, it’s unlikely that she’ll ever be a great marathoner, but, like 57 seconds behind Raelert a year ago. Anyone who has written Stadler, she’s a rare athlete who is capable of winning Kona withoff Craig Alexander or Eneko Llanos will likely be in for a surout doing so on the run. Her swim and bike are that good. Dibens’ prise come race day. Rasmus Henning might be the most talented chief competition, countrywoman Chrissie Wellington and best athlete in the entire field. Neither Chris Lieto nor Andy Potts are friend Mirinda Carfrae, know Dibens is capable of winning, but showing up to get second place. she’s still far from a cofavorite.

As I said, there are plenty of story lines to follow this year.

On paper, Wellington is in her own league, and somewhere Catch Kona live on October 8 at Ironman.com to witness the drabetween Wellington and the rest of the field sits Carfrae. Go by ma, pain and glory that can only come from the hardest singlethe numbers and Wellington wins without much drama, Carfrae day sporting event on earth. And then ask yourself what you can is a close, but not-too-close, second, and Dibens is left battling it do to get there.

Train safe,

Brad Culp Your significant other is tired of pretending to listen to your triathlon commentary. We’re here for you. Send your letters to the editor to bradculp@ironman.com LAVAMAGAZINE.COM

What’s Leanda’s secret?

3 weeks, 3 podium finishes When Leanda Cave stepped onto the podium after Ironman Arizona it must have felt like déjà vu. She had already stood on two other race podiums in the previous two weeks– winning Ironman 70.3 Miami and taking second at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. Even more remarkable, Leanda completed the Ironman World Championships just one month prior to her three-week medal run.

This was not only an amazing feat of talent–it was an amazing feat of recovery. Leanda’s recovery secret was Endurox R4.

In a series of studies conducted at James Madison University†, researchers measured the impact of recovery beverages on muscle disruption and subsequent muscle performance and found that Endurox R4, compared to a carb-only drink : – Reduced short-term muscle fiber damage by 42% – Reduced longer-term muscle damage by 47% Not surprisingly, these reductions in muscle damage were shown to translate into : – 40% increase in endurance performance 16 hours later – 14% increase in muscle function 24 hours later

Leanda’s secret is out. Achieve your own feats of recovery with Endurox R4.

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©PacificHealth Laboratories 2011. All rights reserved.

Endurox® R4® is a registered trademark of Motts, LLP. †Valentine RJ, Saunders MJ, Todd MK, et al. Influence of Carbohydrate-Protein Beverage on Cycling Endurance and Indices of Muscle Disruption. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. 18: 363-378, 2008.

The uncompromising pursuit of science

022 : CONTRIBUTORS

LAVA photo editor Sammy Tillery brings incredible passion and energy to his job, whether he’s in the studio or in the lava fields of Hawaii.

Tillery’s assignment this month kept him close to his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., where he photographed the legendary Barb’s Race (“A league of our own,” Page 90). “The finish line was incredible,” he said. “I’ve never seen so many smiles all at once.”

Susan Grant-Legacki (“A league of our own”, Page 90) is the founding editor and features editor of LAVA Magazine. She did her first tri 12 years ago while studying journalism at New York University. When she’s not training for triathlons or on a reporting assignment somewhere around the world, GrantLegacki can usually be found teaching multisport athletes pilates in and around San Diego’s North County.

SAMMY TILLERY

SUSAN GRANT-LEGACKI

IAN STOKELL

MICHAEL RAUSCHENDORFER

Ian Stokell has been a sports writer for more than 30 years, appearing in such esteemed publications as the New Statesman and the Washington Post, where he spent 10 years on staff.

He holds a MA in Physical Education from Chico State University with an emphasis in coaching, his lifelong passion.

In “Caveat: Water” (Page 116) Stokell takes a closer look at a single-celled threat to your season.

lavamagazine.com

After getting his start photographing feature stories for a wellknown German newspaper, Michael Rauschendorfer began photographing endurance sports 10 years ago. To date he has shot more than 100 triathlons including seven Hawaii Ironman races. This month Rauschendorfer takes us on a tour of his home country in “Sommer in Deutschland” (Page 74).

Serious athletes need a serious GPS. The Timex® Ironman® Run Trainer™ and Global Trainer™ watches with GPS represent 25 years of evolution in the world’s toughest sport.

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024 : THE BUZZ

Beyond nationalism

T

he Olympics is a competition between national athletic teams and the concern for fielding a successful American triathlon team is understandable, but why should these nationalistic tendencies apply to Kona?

The Ironman World Championship is a contest between the best individual long-course triathletes in the world. It is truly a global competition and the nationality of the winners is irrelevant. It has become common for the winners to carry their national flags across the finish line and this belies the international nature of their training, coaching, and triathlon experience. We should let Kona exist beyond nationalism and instead celebrate a truly worldwide sport.

—Pete Anderson Colorado

What’s ours or yours?

I

’m writing in regard to the latest issue, in particular the article by Susan Grant-Legacki: “The Kona Crisis” (August/September 2011, Page 74). Although the article itself may be well written and it may have uncovered a serious issue affecting American triathletes’ quest for Kona gold, it is nonetheless an American issue.

I take offence at the very last line of the article, where she writes: “Let all the rest just fall away when the gun goes off, and go get what’s ours.”

Really? What’s “ours”?

If, as a magazine, you speak on behalf of the tri community, with an obvious emphasis on long course, then I really think this issue is something that should be discussed by the relevant organizational bodies concerned: USAT, NCAA and anyone else involved in giving U.S. athletes a competitive edge. But to suggest that Kona is “ours”—I find it excludes, disregards and disrespects the efforts and results achieved by non-American athletes. Triathlon and Ironman-distance racing may have originated in the U.S., but qualification for Kona is an international endeavor.

Think, for example, of the Boston Bruins, who won hockey’s Stanley Cup this year.

Should Canadians turn around and say we

want back what’s “ours” (as the inventors of hockey)? No. The NHL is a league of teams, and whoever wins the cup deserves the cup.

Period. Whoever wins Kona deserves the win, regardless of where American athletes placed.

In the run-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), VANOC (the local organizing committee), and Sport Canada devised a program for Canadian athletes to win as many medals as possible. It was called “Own the Podium.” It was done without much international fanfare and certainly not advertised to the entire world as an “us versus them” ploy. It was simply the culmination of discussions that, as a winter-sport country, we (Canadians) needed to do significantly better in terms of performance. Obviously it paid off. But Canadians didn’t go around saying, “hey, this is ours.” Did Norwegians sit there and cry “we want what’s ours” when Lindsey Vonn won skiing gold at the Olympics?

I find no issue with profiling an athlete, country, manufacturer or anyone else who’s singled out for an extraordinary accomplishment in our sport. The same issue lauds the merits of Zipp, ENVE, and First Endurance.

That’s fine, because these are all examples of stakeholders in our sport who’ve made significant contributions. But they’re not claiming the sport belongs to them.

But there’s also another, bigger issue here.

LAVA is owned by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC). Isn’t it hypocritical and disingenuous to be promoting events across the globe—WTC/Ironman-branded events—only to turn around in your own publication and tell these very same international athletes Kona is “ours”?

So, is American exclusivity rearing its ugly head, or are we all part of an international triathlon family?

—Harry Stergiopoulos Montreal, Que., Canada

Editor’s Note: Dear Mr. Stergiopoulos— First off, thank you for your letter. I did receive a few letters from readers who were

upset with my article for the same reasons you mentioned, and I believe their concerns warrant a response.

While I agree with you that USA Triathlon should be involved in the further development of long-course athletes, the fact remains that their focus is and will always be Olympic-distance racing. I believe I made that clear in the article.

The bigger picture here is the question of ownership of triathlon. When I wrote that American athletes should go out there and get what’s “ours,” I meant it, but perhaps not in the way you interpreted. No, I absolutely do not believe that Americans have ownership over the sport and therefore are entitled to world championships. I meant it in the same way I want my home team to win the World Series, and the same way I want the U.S. to win the soccer World Cup. To answer your question, yes, I do think that when the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup the Canadians should have turned around and said they wanted it back. Because that’s what sports fans do. Did you not see the riots in Vancouver when the Canucks lost? National pride is the driving force of world championship events, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that if you check out any number of magazines, blogs and newspapers across the world, you will find articles that not only address this fact, but also wholeheartedly play into this bias you speak of. If this wasn’t the case, shouldn’t the Canadian Olympic Committee have called their program “Share the Podium”? The reasons you gave for that program are the exact same reasons I wrote my article. Improvement, not ownership.

The last issue of LAVA was clearly a themed issue about the state of the sport in America, and my assignment (and many others) reflected this. But I feel it’s worth saying that, this year, when the winner of the Ironman World Championship crosses the finish line, I, and our entire staff, will be incredibly happy for them, regardless of what country they are from. —Susan Grant-Legacki

This page doesn’t write itself. That’s where you come in. Share you thoughts by e-mailing the editor at bradculp@ironman.com

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026 : iTRI

STEVE NELSON Age: 53 | Resides: Laguna Beach, Calif. | Profession: Western Region CEO of UnitedHealthcare Personal: Married with four children, ages 30, 25, 21 and 19 | Accomplishments: 2 Ironman finishes (13:07 PR), 10 70.3 finishes.

In high school, I played football, baseball, golf and track. I was one of those kids who loved sports and had enough athleticism to do anything I wanted to do. But I didn’t have anybody behind me saying, “you ought to focus on something and get really good at it.”

I got up and said, “Ironman comes after my kids, my family, my religion, my job.” If I couldn’t make it all work and translate Ironman into being a better dad, a better executive, I didn’t want to do it.

And I can honestly tell you Ironman has made me a better father, a better executive and I feel closer to God. You push yourself to do things you don’t even know you can do. I think it makes you calmer, wiser. You have perspective. On a 12- to 14-hour Ironman day, stuff’s going to happen. You have to be able to roll with it. Plus, I can do anything with my kids, like ski, which is cool.

I ran my first half marathon when I was 42. It was my first road race. I was playing recreational basketball, tennis and golf, and running once or twice a week. I felt I was in good condition, but I’ve always been attracted to doing something outside my comfort zone.

I have a passion for the health care field. To me, it’s the perfect way to combine my love for trying to do some social good with the challenge of running a business. The business of health care is extremely complicated.

It’s clearly dollars and cents, but it’s also people’s lives. I love the complexity of trying to sort those two things out.

I always wanted to do an Ironman but there were two barriers I had to get my head around. lavamagazine.com

I work 50- to 60-hour weeks.

And I’m usually on three to six flights a week. The key to fitting it all in is getting up early and planning ahead. Like when I travel, I always stay near a lap pool. But it doesn’t mean I’m living on five hours’ sleep a night.

finisherpix.com

About four years later, my first triathlon was the Ironman 70.3 in Oceanside, Calif. Why do I start big (instead of a 5K or sprint tri)?

I’m the same way in my professional career. I feel like if my hair’s not on fire, I’m not really having fun. What I’m interested in is what can I sign up for that scares me enough that I’ll get up to my alarm at 4:30 every morning?

One was the training, because of my hectic lifestyle. Secondly, I’m a deeply religious person. I hold the Sunday Sabbath sacred and don’t do competitions on Sunday. I kept waiting for the WTC to sanction an event somewhere in my region on a Saturday.

When Ironman St. George came along last year, I didn’t hesitate. I just signed up. (He finished in 14:15, then finished Texas this

year in 13:07. He’s signed up for Ironman New Zealand in 2012.)

I’m chasing Saturday Ironmans all over the world.

I remember before I started training for my first Ironman I read a book. The foreword said something like, “Remember you’re entering a dangerous activity.

You’re going to lose friends. Your marriage is going to suffer. You’re going to skip out of work.”

When I first started riding I was in my mid-40s, but I felt like I was 11 again. There’s something very freeing about being on a bike. You feel power transferring from yourself to the machine. You’re one with the road, the scenery, moving 20 mph, hopefully.

I like to be with people. I like to experience things with people.

But it’s different when I’m on a run by myself. It’s a personal, spiritual moment, almost hard to describe.

When I get back from those runs I feel like I stole something.

— Don Norcross LAVA

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createtheperfectride.com

ec k

hat ’s o

Chrissie Wellington (GBR) Age: 34

Mirinda Carfrae (AUS) Age: 30

“Mirinda really laid down

“I just have to focus on

the gauntlet last year.

nt

That gives me something

he ir

1 1 0 2

to gun for. Her run course carrot for me. And I was

just Chrissie. There are

Julie last year. She’s far

potential. I think it will be

sad I didn’t get to race

and away the best biker

at the Ironman distance.

a lot of girls with serious

good to have Dibens and

Wellington in the same

st

I feel a lot more relaxed

race. That’s something

years. I think that comes

last year. You definitely

good Ironman races this

Steffen or Cat Mor-

than in the past couple

from already having two

yo da

ey f th

ear.

season. Physically, I’m

right where I want to be.”

Best Kona results: 1st in 2007 (9:09:45), 2008 (9:06:23) & 2009 (8:54:02)

lavamagazine.com

will be there, but it’s not

he

big ge

PIC

think about who else is

eeks leading up to t

A N KO K S

my own race and not

showing up. Yes, Chrissie

record is up there as a

he w nt si

We c h

ers to hear w

ind

in

n Ko

nd onte c top a’s

m

wi th

028 : KONA PICKS

I really wanted to see

can’t count out Caroline rison either—both those girls have been going really well.”

Best Kona result: 1st in 2010 (8:58:36)

KONA PICKS : 029

Julie Dibens (GBR) Age: 36 “It’s a lonely day out

there and it’s easy to

Catriona Morrison (GBR) Age: 34 “My aim is just to get to

switch off. I think that’s

Kona happy, healthy and

staying focused; keeping

ill before the race the

Rachel Joyce (GBR) Age: 33 “I approach Kona the

Leanda Cave (GBR) Age: 34

same way I approach any the best way possible

probably a few males

instead of Vegas. I really

feel defeated before

tions at Ironman Texas

other race: by preparing

female triathletes—and

so that I can swim, bike

the power down the whole

last two years I know how

can. I know some other

the start when Chris-

what I’m doing at the mo-

all your hard work count

ment. I try to think about

time and thinking about

frustrating it is to have

with a 9:07 finish. That

means business and

for nothing come race

so far this season, but it

I love racing her—she

at the Ironman distance.

you look to repair the

to obsess about what

best in me. It has been

Austin, Texas, I get in

beaten her, and maybe

whether I like it or not. I

when Chrissie comes to

‘strategy’ is simply living

challenge just to try.

year round!”

girls have had some very

doesn’t do you any good

definitely brings out the

damage and even the

the others are doing. I’m

some years since I have

This is what will drive me

and I know that it will

I never will again, but

score the following year.

but it’s a risk I’m defi-

and this is what will drive

Best Kona result: 3rd in 2010 (9:10:04)

Best Kona result: 16th in 2009 (9:56:04)

nitely willing to take.”

exceeded my expecta-

impressive performances

Racing both 70.3 worlds in October is a bit risky,

for me to opt for Kona

race made me think that

day. When that happens

in September and Kona

and run as fast as I

for that matter—who

and it was really hard

sie races. Chrissie

the process while I’m out there, not the outcome.

“I love the 70.3 distance

I think there are a lot of

injury-free. Having been

one of my strengths—

Kelly Williamson (USA) Age: 34

Chrissie.”

just focusing on my race

take a very, very strong performance to make

the podium or even the top 10.”

Best Kona result: 5th in 2010 (9:18:48)

play I consider it a great

Best Kona result: 8th in 2007 (9:36:10)

I really do have potential

By virtue of living in

a lot of heat training

guess you could say my in Kona-like conditions

Best Kona result: 15th in 2010 (9:36:11)

lavamagazine.com

030 : KONA PICKS 031

2011

A N O K PICKS Rasmus Henning (DEN) Age: 36 Chris Lieto (USA) Age: 39 “I’ve had a little different approach and focus this

year, but it’s still been a

Craig Alexander (AUS) Age: 38

“Even without Macca

racing, the bar has been

“Not having the defend-

Eneko Llanos (ESP) Age: 36

change things from a

“I don’t know how much

rino] Vanhoenacker at

ing champ there might

media standpoint, but I

the race will change with

raised by the recent

performances of [Ma-

Marino Vanhoenacker (BEL) Age: 35 “I think that it will

take an even stronger

Ironman Austria and

performance to win this

Challenge Roth. It’s

competition just keeps

solid season. I’m spend-

don’t really know if it will

a smaller field—the pace

[Andreas] Raelert at

ing hard training and a

little more time with the

I’ve only done this race

four times, but it seems

as always. This year I raced less than last

hard for me to believe

that I will keep up if one

think the race will unfold

family, but it’s still given

like every time there are

so I’m confident that

of them pulls another

differently than it has

Last year I was very

potential. There’s no

and ready for whatever

hat in Kona. However, I

because of the smaller

to the finish first: You

My strategy will be the

changes during the last

number of smaller groups

pack, stay in contention

fast as I can!”

give me an edge. I have

a couple of large packs.

Best Kona result: 2nd in 2008 (8:20:50)

Playitas in the Canary

thing for the strong

ing a little less time do-

me some great results.

change the actual race.

easily 10 guys with podium

fit in the middle part of

secret about how to get

able to hang on through

need to swim in the front

focusing all my energy on

on the bike and then get

the season and wasn’t October. This year I’m peaking in October.”

Best Kona result: 2nd in 2009 (8:22:56)

ready to run a very fast marathon.”

Best Kona results: 1st in 2008 (8:17:45) & 2009 (8:20:21)

up front will be fast

I’ll be stronger, faster kind of race we have.

same as always—go as

race like that out of his have made some major year that I hope can

a new training base at

Islands and a great new coach in Matt Dixon. If

those boys fail to deliver I’ll be right there!

Best Kona result: 5th in 2009 (8:28:17)

lavamagazine.com

year than last—the

getting better. I also

in the past few years

field. I expect to see a on the bike instead of

Hopefully this is a good cyclists like me!”

Best Kona result: 2nd in 2010 (8:13:14)

KONA PICKS : 031

Cameron Brown (NZL) Age: 39 “I don’t think the smaller field this year will have

too much of an effect on

Dirk Bockel (LUX) Age: 35 Andy Potts (USA) Age: 34

“I think we might see some new faces on

Luke Bell (AUS) Age: 32 “I think this year you’re

Tim O’Donnell (USA) Age: 31 “All of the top guys from

which guys are up front.

“Since there will be a

the podium this year.

going to have to go ‘Euro

last year will be returning

usual suspects pushing

there this year I think

recovers well from his

that does not mean look-

don’t expect the dy-

gensburg, he’ll be the

macchiatos. It means the

I expect to see all the

the pace on the bike.

much smaller field out

one to watch. You can

ride is going to be flat

the smaller field size. I’m

never count out guys

out from the get-go. The

curious to see how the

Rasmus Henning or

who has enough left in

influence everyone’s per-

marathon. If you’re out

have had to chase points

strong European bikers,

might not be as fresh as

to earn it all the way. As

having to race an early-

for me, I’m abandoning

or mid-season Ironman to

last year’s plan of being

like Craig Alexander,

run will then be all about

race. Hopefully that won’t

run. This year I’m taking

Eneko Llanos. If I want

their legs to run a swift

mid-season Ironman for

approach. No guts, no

I’ll need to be able to

of the water behind the

requalify for this year’s

affect me as I’ve done a

the past 10 years. I think I’ll have to run around a

2:45 marathon to make the podium.”

Best Kona results: 2nd in 2001 (8:46:10) & 2005 (8:19:36)

patient on the bike and a ‘go fast and hold on’

except for Macca, so I

namic of the men’s race

races at Roth and Re-

the top ten will really have

style’ on the bike and

ing stylish and drinking

everyone who gets into

I think the big change

will come from athletes

If Andreas Raelert

to compete for the win

glory, right?”

bike somewhere around

Best Kona result: 7th in 2008 (8:33:50)

under 2:50.“

catching back up.”

Best Kona result: 7th in 2009 (8:29:55)

Best Kona result: 5th in 2003 (8:34:38)

4:25 and then run

then forget it, you’re not

to change too much with

new points system will

formances. A lot of guys all over the world and usual for Kona.”

Best Kona result: First appearance

lavamagazine.com

LAVAMAGAZINE.COM

DELLY CARR/TRIATHLON.ORG

Emma Jackson (AUS), Barbara Riveros Diaz (CHI), Helen Jenkins (GBR) and Andrea Hewitt (NZL) pop champagne on the podium of the ITU Sprint World Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland.

032 : SEEN

HEARD : 033

One thousand and one kilometers The distance covered by pro triathletes Chris McCormack and Ronnie Schildknecht as part of the six-man team that claimed victory at the Tortour bike race, which circumnavigates Switzerland each August. Source: TorTour.ch

sixteen

Number of months after competing in her first triathlon that 25-year-old American Gwen Jorgensen qualified for the Olympics.

The number of extra calories a woman can burn each day by breastfeeding.

Source: USATriathlon.org

2.3

500

million.

Source: WebMD.com

The estimated number of people who participated in a triathlon in the United States in 2010.

Source: Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA)

11 hrs., 18 min., 52 sec.

Time it took two-time Hawaii Ironman champ Tim DeBoom to win the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon on August 6, widely considered to be the world’s most difficult 140.6-mile race.

Source: NXTri.com

3,000 FT. Total feet of elevation gain on the 18-mile bike leg of the 2011 XTERRA World Championships, which have been moved to Kapalua on Maui’s North Shore.

“There are people out there who are better than Chrissie. Of that I have no doubt. But the people out there don’t necessarily live in a country or an environment where they can exploit that or they don’t realize that they have the genetics and they’re not given the opporunities to do so. So it’s just like a collision of the stars, isn’t it?” —Brit Ironman contender Catriona Morrison on countrywoman Chrissie Wellington.

Source: firstoffthebike.com

Source: Xterraplanet.com lavamagazine.com

michael rauschendorfer

035 : GEAR : G 034

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GEAR G

G : GEAR : 035

036

tech feature 040

on display 042

pro file 044

reviewed 049

workbench 056

rapp report

“When you step down, the gas is squeezed out of the matrix, and when you bring your foot up, the matrix sucks that gas back in. Over time, the ability of the polymer cells to reabsorb gas is steadily decreased until, eventually, your running shoes feel ‘dead.’”

—Jordan Rapp, (“Magic in the midsole”, Page 56) lavamagazine.com

036 : TECH FEATURE : G 037

Futurebike

We can build it.

We have the technology.

We can make the bike lighter, faster and stronger than ever before.

By Jim Gourley

lavamagazine.com

G : TECH FEATURE : 037

Y

ou go to your riding partner’s house to do some bike maintenance.

As he struggles to route his front derailleur cable through the down tube, you slide yours into one end of the tiny pipe built into your frame and it immediately comes out the other end. Afterward, he reattaches his bike computer to the frame, taking care not to scratch the paint. You swipe your finger along a millimeter-thick disc built into the frame that acts as your computer. During the ride, your friend mentions that he needs to get a bike fit at some point. You don’t need one because your bike was built specifically to your dimensions.

He asks you how long it took the company to make the frame and how much it cost. You reply that the manufacturer turned it around in less than a day and it didn’t cost any more than his bike. Frustrated, your friend tells you that he still has the better bike because he’s on a carbon frame and yours is built out of—what exactly? Aluminum? Titanium? Either way, it’s got to weigh a ton. “Pick it up,” you tell him.

It’s light as a feather. Your friend is riding a modern super bike—the cutting edge of today’s manufacturing technology. You are riding the bike of tomorrow, and tomorrow is rapidly approaching.

It starts with the construction method. This year, engineers at the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) unveiled a unique technology. Jon Meyer, leader of the research development team that created this new technology, explained that they wanted to depart from the norm. “We were a bit tired of making models of things that showed off the technology but didn’t really do anything, so we thought we’d make something that actually worked for a change.” The product they chose to design with this new technology? A bicycle. What they rolled out from behind an aircraft hangar door for reporters to see didn’t appear all that impressive. The two-wheeled craft looked like an oversized, plastic children’s toy. But, sure enough, one of the engineers climbed aboard and managed to pedal it for a few minutes.

Granted, the rider was a better engineer than cyclist and the bike didn’t look all that fast, but the somewhat comical nature of the presentation belies the incredible potential it represents.

Dubbed the “Airbike,” the little toy’s crude appearance is deceptive. The sophistication lies in how it came to be. It was not built. No one put it together. No parts were attached in an assembly line. No tools tightened any bolts. It was

literally made out of thin air.

Engineers call the procedure Additive Layer Manufacturing, or ALM for short. The layman’s term provides a more literal illustration of how it works— three-dimensional printing.

The ALM process involves a large machine that creates an object by laying down cross sections. Think of slicing a tomato and having the slices bind themselves together as you drop them onto the ground one by one. An ALM machine does essentially the same thing, except with cross sections that are less than a millimeter thick. Sara Flint, a professor at the University of Exeter in England, whose research has helped to bring ALM from concept to a reality, explains the process in greater detail. “An ALM machine starts with a powdered metal like aluminum or titanium, and then spreads it along the surface of the object in cross sections about 0.05 millimeters thick.

The powder is superheated and then a binding agent is applied to make it adhere to the desired form.” Though this process is slow (it took about 15 hours to “grow” the Airbike), Flint points out that is has several advantages. “To begin with, it drastically reduces the waste of industrial processes.

Typically you start out with a solid piece of metal that has to be cut, drilled and welded

to make something like a bicycle frame. You lose a certain portion of the material in the process. With ALM, you can scoop up any excess powder and use it again.” Then there’s the matter of molds and mass production. The present generation of ALM machines take some time to finish a product the size of a bicycle. However, the benefit for that investment of time is that the machines are unbounded in their specificity. A single ALM machine could essentially make bike frames of any size. Controlled by conventional CAD software, the design only requires simple manipulation on the screen before the fabrication of the finished product can begin. The process also lays down the material in a highly ordered state, meaning that there are no inconsistencies in the actual material used. This allows manufacturers to dial in the strength of the metal and create objects that are thinner and lighter, with greater certainty they’ll meet structural demands. This bodes well for metal bikes, but can it deal in carbon fiber? Yes and no, according to Flint.

“Carbon has been incorporated into certain ALMproduced pieces, but only as an additive to the primary metal,” she says. “We call this combination PEEK [polyether ether ketone], but machines

lavamagazine.com

courtesy eads

038 : TECH FEATURE : G

that can accomplish this can cost up to £800,000 [about $1.3 million USD].” This is prohibitively expensive for bikes, but the whole point of ALM is that it may make metals relevant in bike design again. “The real advantage of ALM is that it deals with higher tolerances than conventional machines,” explains Meyer. “We can now create shapes that were impossible with existing technologies. The technology is so different, everything is new again.”

It all comes down to two fundamentals that will change the way we look at everything. First, manufacturers will no longer be limited in their designs by the diameter of a lathe or the length of needle-nose pliers. The implication is that bike builders could finally design bikes to their full potential to meet the required functional purpose. Bike frames could take on shapes we’ve never seen before. Just as important, designers would be able to adjust the strength of a bike frame on the molecular level. The strength of welds or the instabil-

lavamagazine.com

ity of certain materials will no longer be an issue. “Building a bike from scratch” will take on a whole new meaning—one that includes the very elements from which it is constructed.

With regard to those elements, Meyer hints that EADS’ research doesn’t stop at making ALM work.

Engineers are also trying to expand the repertoire of materials they could use. And by expand, they mean right to the edge of theoretical physics.

Enter graphene, a revolutionary form of carbon heretofore believed by scientists to be the equivalent of a molecular snipe hunt. It is one of several variations of carbon, most closely associated to graphite, as its name implies. Since the 1960s, scientists have theorized its existence but were unable to produce it in quantities large enough to examine. The problem lies in its structure. In an electron microscope, graphene looks like chicken wire and is made up of hexagonal chains of carbon only one atom thick. If you could draw a line on

a piece of paper with your pencil and then slice it into thousands of layers, you’d have graphene.

If only it were that easy.

Graphene is the stuff of cyclists’ dreams. Research indicates graphene is 200 times stronger than structural steel. Say goodbye to the bike chain as you know it. For that matter, don’t worry about replacing your brake cables ever again. It is also superconductive, giving it vast potential in the field of computers.

Scientists at IBM have been able to construct a transistor from graphene that runs at 150 GHz; the fastest silicon-based transistor can only run at 40 GHz. Not only could it hold the processing power of a laptop in a device no larger than a credit card, it could also act as its own screen and user interface all at once. In addition to being the most aerodynamic bike computer you’ve ever had, that credit card could also be your MP3 player, your heart rate monitor and your phone.

We’re a long way off from seeing it in action at the Tour de

France, but the manufacture of graphene is in fact becoming easier. In the last 10 years, scientists have improved the techniques for separating graphene and assembling it into wafers large enough to study. While a sample no larger than a dime can cost thousands of dollars, it has captured the interest of investors. The 2010 Nobel Prize for physics went to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for advancing research on graphene. That led to a recent $1 billion investment in graphene research over the next ten years by the European Commission.

Given that advancements are being made every day and considering the unpredictable nature of new discoveries, the bike of the future could be totally unrecognizable to the cyclists of today.

There is no telling what it will look like, but it is sure to be as fast Scan this code to watch a video as it is imagi- of the prototype airbike or go to Lavamagazine.com/airbike native.

LAVA

photo: John Segesta

SOMETHING IN THE WATER. You’ve heard it a hundred times: bring your electrolytes, not just your water. Well, you finally did the old DROP > FIZZ > DRINK and now you’re feeling pretty well greased. Same amount of sleep, same stretch of road, same three packets of GU, but you’re holding it together better than ever, feeling so solid that you’re thinking race day might want to be right about now.

BREW MEANS PURE PERFORMANCE HYDRATION.

TM

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PURE PERFORMANCE

ELECTROLYTE DRINK TABLETS

What can BREW do for you?

GU BREW Electrolyte Tabs Naturally Sweetened, Low Calorie, Handy Electrolytes GU Electrolyte BREW Electrolytes for Hydration, Simple and Complex Carbs for Added Energy GU Recovery BREW Premium Protein & Carbohydrate Recovery Solution

040 : ON DISPLAY :

CERVÉLO P4 EVO $6,200 with SRAM Red & Shimano RS30 wheelset.

Cervelo.com

✓ ROLL IT: If you’re a short-course gunner who prizes handling and aerodynamics.

✗ RACK IT: If your Ironman race-day fueling requires more—and normal—bottles.

By Jay Prasuhn SIZES: 48 cm (650c), 51, 54, 56, 58, 61 cm COMPONENTS AS TESTED: Sram Red Groupset; 3T Aura Pro Cockpit; Zipp 808 Firecrest Tubulars; Fi’zi:k Arione Tri 2 Saddle COLORS: Nude unidirectional carbon/red

NICK ABADILLA

D

ebuting in 2008, the P4 was among the first “superbikes” to truly integrate the frame, with the rear brake built into the cowled bottom bracket’s underside, and a water bottle that mates with the frame for seamless aerodynamic flow across the bottle and onto the rear wheel. Cervélo even applied the dropped down tube and aero seat stay shoulders of the P4 to the 2012 S5 aero road bike first seen at the Tour de France.

The fit of the P4 Evo parallels that of the P3, offering riders a wide range of sizes and plenty of adjustability. It’s completed by a 3T Aura Pro aerobar, which also offers enough fit options to suit even the pickiest of riders. The front end isn’t quite as integrated as many other new bike designs we’ve seen, but this choice also makes for a bike that travels well—key for triathletes.

The “Evo” part of the revamped frame we tested includes subtle aero tubeset adjustments, a redesigned rear brake (with increased stopping power as well as user utility and adjustability) and a redesigned seat post clamp with a corresponding adjustment in frame layup to accept the clamp’s increased torque load capability.

All that integration made for a fast bike great for the short, intense

LAVAMAGAZINE.COM

UCI ProTour prologues. But for Ironman triathletes, its utility is limited.

Once that integrated bottle is emptied in a long race it becomes an aero fairing. The refillable bottle isn’t practical, necessitating a rear hydration system, which negates the aero advantage of the frame.

But what if you don’t need to refill that bottle?

We must not forget a core collection of triathletes: Olympic- and sprint-distance age groupers.

That’s a lot of people not doing six-hour rides, but rather hour-long efforts. In that case, one bottle will suffice, and you can get down to doing your best Dave Zabriskie imitation.

We did a hard hour on a flat but technical loop and the experience was consistent with what we’ve come to expect from Cervélo. The exceptional steering balance meant I could confidently attack corners and put in a hard effort without the frame weaving from side to side.

Aero aside, that’s the stuff that actually translates to a fast bike. Ergo, we find the P4’s ideal home in a shortcourse race with plenty of rights and lefts. Of all the new “superbikes” to debut in the last couple years, we give the P4 top honors for handling performance.

At press time, the rumor mill has it that a new flagship Cervélo tri bike is in the pipeline for 2012. If that’s true, the P4 Evo may be a great chance for short-course speedsters to nab a proven fast bike for a steal of a price.

LAVA

042 : PRO FILE : G 043

Wheelset: pro DiScwheel Tubular, Shimano Dura-ace c75 Tubular, 700c

naMe: Magali tisseyre BiRtHDate: 10/27/81 age: 29 HeigHt: 5’4 ResiDence: Montreal, Quebec Weapon: Blue triad sL, size Xs Last seen: 2:32:37 bike split, 1st place, 2011 ironman 70.3 Rhode island

Cassette: Shimano Dura-ace cS-7900, 11-23

GroUPset: Shimano Dura-ace Di2

Weapon Logistics: the canadian 70.3 star’s new custom-painted triad sL features a top tube lavamagazine.com

G : PRO FILE : 043

Saddle: Selle Italia SLR T1

Aerobars: Aerus Composites INtegrated

hydration: aerus composites force 1 bottle cages

Pedals: Shimano PD-7810 Dura-Ace SPD-SL

Crankset: Shimano Dura-Ace FC-7900, 170mm, 53-39T

Tires: Schwalbe Ultremo HT tubulars, 700 x 22mm

that bears the initials of four key figures in her career; her parents, manager and coach Siri Lindley. lavamagazine.com

044 : REVIEWED :

I

’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the CycleOps wheel. The love part is what’s made the brand an industry leader; power is the purest performance bellwether available in cycling, and hub-based power is among the most accurate and affordable delivery methods available. Fatigue, tailwinds, headwinds, nutritional balance, whether you got a good night’s sleep—all that stuff can fluctuate and provide a distorted sense of effort, but watts are watts. They don’t lie.

CycleOps stepped up the game recently with the creation of the Joule 2.0, a computer that provides more power metrics and detailed reports to track training progress than any other dashboard we’ve seen. But getting that data from the source for CycleOps has historically been cumbersome. Because the hardware and strain gauges resided in the hub, it meant that if you wanted power data in training and racing, you needed two sets of wheels: One built on a standard alloy rim for training, and a second laced to a carbon fiber deep-dish race rim. Furthermore, the bulky hubs made for a heavy hoop.

Call me a dreamer, but I want it all—training utility and raceability—in one wheelset. And I want it user-friendly with a clincher setup. Carbon clincher.

Yeah. And while we’re at it, I want it a lot lighter.

CycleOps delivers for 2012 with the debut of the G3 wheelset. Instead of building on a variety of rims, the Madison, Wis.-based company now offers its own branded wheelset (with the rim supplied by ENVE Composites) available in 45- or 65-mm rim depth front and rear wheels in carbon clincher or tubular. Tubular wheels on the new Smart-ENVE rims will be made available as well. We opted to test the 45-mm carbon clincher, perfect for a triathlete looking for a training and racing wheel in one.

What about the weight? G3 refers to the third generation redesign of the hub, which went on a major diet. Its predecessor, the CycleOps SL+, was the previous featherweight champ at 412 g. The G3 weighs just 325 g, or about three-quarters of a pound.

What does that mean in a fully-built wheel? Our scale found a Zipp 404 Firecrest Carbon Clincher, with tire, came in at 1.18 kg. The CycleOps G3 with the same tire mounted? 1.14 kg. Evidence that you can run a power system with no added weight.

Serviceability was improved as well; a small threaded cap on the non-drive side serves as the battery and antenna housing. Generally, unit service will require mailing in the cap, not your whole wheel.

Certainly, there are a number of options these days, from crankset-based units to upcoming pedal-based systems. But for a wheelset setup that requires just your ANT+-compatible head unit, with zero weight penalty, the G3 flies like a G6.

LAVA

LAVAMAGAZINE.COM

CYCLEOPS G3 CARBON CLINCHER $2,999, 1,250 g/45 mm pair Cycleops.com

By Jay Prasuhn

046 : REVIEWED :

2XU REFRESH RECOVERY TIGHT $160, 2XU.com/usa

By Brad Culp

I

t’s an interesting time for compression technology. As a relatively new market, the potential for growth and product development is almost unlimited. Unfortunately, the potential for greedy leviathans like Under Armor to come in and dilute the market with inferior products designed to appeal to the masses is also there—and it’s already happening.

Enter Australia-based 2XU, whose commitment to compression research and development is second to none. While most other manufacturers have chosen to dabble in compression, 2XU has gone all in. Yes, they also make wetsuits, tri suits and training gear, but the company’s core focus is compression. The result is a line that includes more than 40 garments for 2011, broken down into three distinct categories.

The “Perform” line is engineered to wear during a workout or race, providing maximum flexibility, breathability, moisture control and muscle containment. The “XForm” line takes the “Perform” fabric and adds in graduated compression, creating a garment that can be used for recovery or a workout. The “Refresh” line uses 2XU’s strongest fabric and is designed specifically for recovery. Within each line you’ll find tights, tops, socks and sleeves.

On test for this month were the Refresh Tights.

I’ve never heard the term “powerful” applied to an article of clothing, but that’s how 2XU describes the material used in the Refresh line. A couple of seconds after pulling the tights on, I knew exactly what it meant.

I’ve put on other compression tights and wondered what—if anything—they were doing. That wasn’t the case here. For the first time “graduated compression” wasn’t just marketing speak—I could actually feel it.

These tights pack some serious squeeze.

To sufficiently squeeze the legs is one thing, but to do it in precisely the right way to maximize recovery is something entirely different—and entirely more complicated. Most

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compression garments are made of Lycra that is extremely tight in the horizontal plane and extremely flexible in the vertical plane. This makes for an uneven distribution of pressure and tights that snag or run up your leg. To combat this problem 2XU developed a circular knitting process that allows the fabric to stretch evenly in all directions, eliminating points of uneven pressure.

To create a more powerful compression garment 2XU had to opt for a higher-denier (i.e., thicker) yarn, which yields an additional—and very important—benefit. These tights remain compression tights for a very long time. After a few wears and washes most other compression tights are only useful when you need to keep your legs warm on a cold ride. Even after a handful of washes and two months of consistent use, these tights still felt as “compressive” as they were out of the box. If they’re shelling out $160 for a pair of tights, consumers should expect something that lasts and these tights deliver in an area where few others do.

Want to know just how effective these tights are at flushing out waste and reducing swelling? Pair them up with some compression socks on your next flight and you’ll get off the plane with your legs feeling fresher than they were when you boarded. We won’t be flying without them anytime soon.

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MAKING THE CONNECTION Finding the right cycling shoe for you.

sammy tillery

By Mark Deterline

I

t used to be that you bought the latest model of Sidi cycling shoes or “something else.”

Alternative offerings either promised they were as good as Sidi or—more likely—were just cheaper.

Sidi had been the standard in craftsmanship, closure systems and fit for so long that not many anticipated the arrival of worthy competitors late in the last decade. But Sidi finally became expensive enough to open the door to new challengers.

Other brands finally got their products right, offering mid- to high-range models for less money. Many athletes I coach began asking for

footwear advice. Folks wanted to know whether shoes made by companies like Shimano and Specialized were as good as those crafted by the venerable Italian brand.

With all due respect to one of the great manufacturing personalities of our time, Dino Signori of Sidi, my answer was yes: I could ride as well in Shimano’s somewhat beefier yet comfy kicks and in Specialized’s svelte models as I could in Sidi shoes. Other brands weren’t quite there as far as combining technology, comfort and durability.

However, the contenders have been closing the gap each year, with brands such as Mavic,

Fi’zi:k and Giro coming to the market this year with first-rate footwear.

Closure systems. I have grown quite enamored with Specialized’s Boa closure system, which provides a fit versatility that I have yet to experience elsewhere. The Boa dials and the design of the Body Geometry upper make it possible to snug shoes around the feet of riders with either large-volume, or wide, foot forms as well as those with low-volume or narrow feet.

These days, however, each cycling shoe represents a combination of features and benefits, and no closure system presents a filavamagazine.com

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one aspect of cycling and tri shoe design that all manufacturers seem acutely aware of and determined to address is that of heel fit and stabilization.

nal solution. In fact, in their efforts to provide either a superlight cycling shoe or a versatile triathlon shoe, many manufacturers have opted for proven, dependable hook-and-loop (Velcro) lavamagazine.com

straps. Some argue that hook-and-loop straps, particularly when offset, can diminish pressure points and therefore help to eliminate hot spots.

Heelin’ the love.

One aspect of cycling and tri shoe design that all manufacturers seem acutely aware of and determined to address is that of heel fit and stabilization. Again, no one particular heel cup system seems to stand out above the rest. Some brands “reinforce” or “stabilize” the heel cup, while others emphasize contours and even materials to keep the entire foot snug and secure.

Each rider must determine whether or not a particular model is capable of holding the heel in place throughout each foot’s en-

tire pedaling stroke. Ultimately, it’s an integral part of the overall fit of a shoe, and is another reason why precise fit according to individual needs is crucial. Many riders find a heel cup helps stabilize the foot, while others feel it contributes to slipping.

Supportive footbeds as a required feature. Giro and Fi’zi:k haven’t so much entered the footwear market as adeptly finessed their way into it, like a couple of young powerhouse sprinters who won’t be elbowed out of contention by the veterans in the final surge to the finish line.

Recognizing the need for semi-custom, if not full-on custom insoles, Fi’zi:k wasted no

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time in approaching an established expert. Sidas, a prominent name in ski boot footbeds, has also been making inroads in the bike and tri worlds over the past several years. Its “Conform’able” heating stations and variety of moldable footbed options are an increasingly common sight at bicycle fit and biomechanics studios, as well as shops.

By partnering with Sidas, Fi’zi:k could focus on finely contoured and stitched materials that feel supple on the feet, and on unique design features like the carbon buckle of its high-end R1 model as well as its stretch-resistant sailcloth straps.

Shimano has long championed the semi-custom movement with its Custom-Fit heat-moldable offering. After a little time in the oven, the shoe’s upper, heel cup and insole can be molded to an individual rider’s feet, providing a near-custom feel at a far-from-custom price. Specialized’s Body Geometry line opts for semi-custom withlavamagazine.com

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out having to put your shoes in the oven by offering a range of footbed choices with varying amounts of instep volume and support.

As far as out-of-the-box comfort and technical luxury go, Giro’s Prolight SLX and Bontrager’s Limited Edition RXXXL are standouts.

Both emphasize light weight and a slipper-like feel that doesn’t sacrifice sole stiffness, preserving efficient power transfer. The RXXXL— Chris Lieto’s personal choice—required me to use my own custom orthotics for optimal fit, but the result was the closest I’ve come to all-day comfort.

Giro’s approach to a built-in, customizable solution is both subtle and sublime. Instead of providing either unsupportive generic insoles or a separate semi-custom option, they added a truly usercustomizable and supportive footbed system. Giro engineers opted to deliver a perfectly flat sole (instead of one that has built-in varus canting like some brands do), and empowers customers to adjust lavamagazine.com

054 : WORKBENCH : G ing a tri shoe with quick-entry features, or a standard road shoe with a buckle attachment.

While the short-course athletes will generally lean toward a tri shoe, many Ironman pros prefer a standard road shoe. Sure, it may take a few more seconds to get the shoe on and fitted, but the better instep coverage of a buckled shoe is generally more comfortable, and that’s more important than saving a few seconds in T1.

Another consideration is riding with or without socks, which can be a determining factor in nailing your shoe size. Many multisport athletes opt to ride sans socks at all times to prepare for the fit and feel of riding without socks in a race. Some tri shoe models are sized to fit without socks while conversely, road and mountain bike shoes are sized to fit well with a good pair of cycling socks.

Many manufacturers now offer triathlon as well as road models, knowing full well that personal preference will dictate an athlete’s final choice. Bontrager brand manager Tom Kuefler wasn’t concerned that Lieto prefers the Limited Edition RXXXL road shoe over the brand’s designated tri model. When I asked Lieto why he had opted for the high-end road shoes, he cited superior support, weight and power transfer.

JAY PRASUHN

Aerodynamic shoes.

many manufacturers now offer triathlon as well as road models, knowing full well that personal preference will dictate an athlete’s final choice. the arch support to their taste with the sock liner that has three arch rise “cookies” of varying heights. The company’s insole will already ensure a biomechanically functional fit, as well as a baseline of proper support, but it goes one step further by providing two optional instep inserts that attach to the footbed. It’s a concept that seems too obvious and too simple to be lavamagazine.com

technically valid, but therein lies its genius. It could change the way stock shoes are offered.

Australian-based Bont comes with yet another fit option. After becoming a prominent manufacturer of handmade speed skates, Bont has steadily increased its presence in the bike and tri markets. While most brands build their uppers upon a flat sole, Bont’s soles are actually a bathtub-shaped platform that wraps upward to become the heel cup. The design makes for one of the stiffest shoes on the market. While Bont supplies a simple, flat insole with its shoes, the carbon fiber soles are semimoldable (and infinitely readjustable). They can be shaped by heating them in the oven and reforming them around the foot while warm and malleable.

Road or tri?

Speed or comfort? For triathletes, there’s a paradox between wear-

Full-on aero shoes are probably something better suited to hard-core road time trials, where efforts tend to be short and hard, comfort and heat be damned. But that doesn’t make the development of no-holds-barred speed models like Bont’s Crono any less impressive. Given the increasing amount of aero study data coming from bike parts manufacturers, it won’t be a surprise when shoe manufacturers seek to provide the same comfort, ease of use and support they’re now offering, with the added benefit of aerodynamically oriented closure systems.

The challenge we face as consumers today is the broad range of options. But once you’ve researched the technology and philosophy of each brand—and considered different models within each brand’s product line—it’s time to try them on. Your own personal preferences with regard to footbed, closure system, upper and outsole materials, and heel cup design will largely determine your final choice. Take your time, be sure of a precise fit based on how you’ll actually use the shoes, then determine what will provide the ideal balance of considerations to create that slipper-like fit. Because the shoe you can forget about is the one that’s right for you.

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Magic in the midsole You may never have heard of ethylene and vinyl acetate, but they influence every single run you do.

LARRY ROSA

By Jordan Rapp

T

he anatomy of a running shoe is relatively simple. You have an upper (the part that goes around your foot), which attaches to a sole. Directly under your foot sits the sock liner or insole. Then comes the midsole, and finally, the outsole is what meets the ground.

When you put on a pair of shoes in a shoe store, the first thing that jumps out at you is the upper: is it too tight? Too loose? Are there uncomfortable seams? In general, uppers are very tactile and need to fit a majority of feet—or a specific type of foot—well. The feel against your skin is often what sells you (or lavamagazine.com

doesn’t) on a certain pair of shoes. But once you stand up, it’s the sole of the shoe that truly reveals how a shoe is intended to work. The outsole is function-dependent: a cross-country or trail shoe needs an outsole that grips on all sorts of terrain, while road-going shoes need an outsole that can handle the abuse of concrete or asphalt.

The one area where preference is totally subjective—and therefore difficult to design for—is the midsole. The midsole is the real heart of the running shoe. It’s the really active part of the shoe and it’s what you feel with every step. It’s

also the area of shoe design where both consumers and manufacturers have the widest variety of opinions about what is “right.” Even when there is agreement about what characteristics of a midsole are “best” there is disagreement about how to achieve those characteristics.

What is truly ironic about midsoles is that, in general, they’re made of a single material.

Almost every midsole is made entirely (or almost entirely) out of something called ethylene-vinyl acetate, better known as EVA. EVA works as a cushioning material by forming a matrix (think of it like a sponge) that traps gas.

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When you step down, the gas is squeezed out of the matrix, and when you bring your foot up, the matrix “sucks” that gas back in. Over time, the ability of the polymer cells to reabsorb gas is steadily decreased until, eventually, your running shoes feel “dead.”

While some technologies, like Nike’s once-ubiquitous Air system, add additional material to the midsole, there is a now a trend toward 100-percent EVA midsoles. What’s interesting about this shift is that EVA is old technology. It has been used in midsoles since the advent of the running revolution of the ’70s, when both it and polyurethane (PU) were the midsole materials of choice.

EVA is much lighter than PU, which is its primary advantage, while PU is incredibly durable and consistent, in terms of production. Ultimately, EVA’s light weight and new construction methodologies have made it the material of choice among modern shoemakers. So while EVA is not really new, today’s EVA is quite different from the EVA used 30 years ago. Saying a midsole is made of EVA is like saying a bike is made of carbon fiber. It’s true, but it’s very incomplete.

The reason that’s an incomplete answer has to do with what exactly EVA is. To find out, I sought the help of materials engineer Andrew Hodges. Hodges is a materials scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and an elite triathlete on the Timex Multisport Team. lavamagazine.com

Before that he won the overall age group race at the 2006 Ironman 70.3 World Championships on the heels of the fastest run of the day.

EVA is a polymer, which means that it’s a material made up of repeating structural blocks.

Polymers are an extremely broad class of materials, ranging from rubber to nucleic proteins.

EVA is, more specifically, a copolymer, which means it is made up of more than one building block. So whereas some polymers have a pattern like AAAAAA, a copolymer’s pattern might be ABABAB, where A and B are the building blocks, called monomers. In the case of EVA, the two monomers are ethylene (E) and vinyl acetate (VA). Hodges explains that “the monomers that are chosen, as well as how they are put together, will ultimately determine the properties of the resulting bulk material. So even within a single type of polymer, you have a wide range of properties depending on how it is processed.”

This processing ranges from cutting specific shapes out of a large sheet of EVA to more modern injection-molding, in which a shape is formed by injecting liquid EVA into a mold. According to Hodges, processing plays such an important role in the end result because “the length and shape of the polymer chains will have a large effect on the mechanical properties. Polymers can be crystalline, meaning they have an organized structure, or amorphous

(without structure), but they are usually a combination of both. The degree of crystallinity will affect the mechanical properties.

This is where the science starts to get really technical. Hodges says, “Ethylene is simple and ubiquitous; polyethylene (a polymer made up of only ethylene monomers) is a thermoplastic (meaning it can be melted and reformed), which is easy to process and manipulate. Depending on how it is processed, it can be used for everything from plastic bags to milk cartons. Vinyl acetate, on the other hand, is a more complex structure, which causes the resulting polymer—EVA—to be significantly more amorphous.” But this complexity, which is why different shoe companies can have their own “recipes” for EVA, is worthwhile. Hodges explains, “specifically for midsoles, vinyl acetate significantly enhances the toughness of the ethylene. Additionally, the resulting product— EVA—is still a thermoplastic, which means it can be injection-molded. This gives it elastomeric properties and good toughness.”

The molding process is also quick: a midsole could be made every 10–30 seconds depending on how quickly it’s cooled (which affects the degree of crystallinity). But the chemistry magic doesn’t stop with cooling rates. Hodges went on to say that you can change the density by “adding fillers, which get trapped in the

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060 : RAPP REPORT : G polymer matrix,” which is important for creating medial posts and other structural shoe elements. The dual-density midsole is fairly ubiquitous among “stability” shoes, which use a firmer EVA to control pronation. Hodges added, “You can also adjust the ratio of ethylene to vinyl acetate. As the percentage of ethylene is decreased you’ll increase the toughness (the ability to absorb energy), resilience (time to bounce back after deformation) and flexibility, while decreasing stiffness.” Making these decisions about how to specifically tweak that balance is where shoe designers come in.

For some insight into how shoe companies play with this chemistry, I turned to Dave Jewell, Director of Footwear at Zoot Sports, who is the man who makes these decisions for my own shoes. Jewell works with the chemists at Zoot’s factory in China to come up with an end product that translates the need, for example, for more cushioning into a chemical recipe for EVA. “There is a trend to remove ‘tech’ from shoes and go back to basic EVA,” Jewell says.

That doesn’t really mean it’s any easier or simpler; there are an infinite number of varieties and properties to EVA. The chemical variations and possibilities are clear when talking to Jewell about how he chooses EVA types for Zoot’s shoes; “we start with our proprietary chemistry of EVA. From there we spec a hardness for each shoe. Shoes for faster running generally spec a harder EVA, and shoes for the general population spec a softer one.”

Core company philosophies help to smooth out what could be an overwhelming array of choices. Like many other companies, Zoot uses specific percentages of materials, and specific placement of posts to achieve the desired feel.

“It helps us to differentiate a training-for-racing shoe, or a long-distance shoe, or a workhorse training shoe,” Jewell says.

Asked about the future of shoe development, Jewell emphasizes that EVA will continue to play an important role. “For 20 years, it was just: build a solid midsole and put a ‘thing’ (like air or gel) in there to cushion. Now there is a focus back on the midsole, heel-to-forefoot offset, and the shoe’s profile. It’s actually more interesting and more challenging now, especially when it comes to offset (heel height vs. forefoot height).”

One company that has taken a very unique view on both offset and midsole function is the ultra-running brainchild of Hoka One One CEO Nicolas Mermoud and his cofounder, Jean-Luc Diard. If ever there was a company that had a lavamagazine.com

true love affair with EVA, it is the Frenchmen’s brand. I base this on the fact that Hoka uses 2.5 times as much EVA in their midsole as a typical running shoe.

The reason for the Hoka’s voluminous design is that, as an ultra-runner, Mermoud believes that cushioning—which protects the joints and feet—is the critical factor for a running shoe.

However, as Dan Empfield pointed out in his review of the Hoka One One on Slowtwitch. com, triathlon running—done on tired legs— has a lot more in common with ultra-running than might seem apparent at first blush. It’s for that reason (along with their obviously unique approach to EVA) that I’ve included the Hoka in this article. I quickly dubbed the Hokas my “tired legs shoes.”

”There is a trend to remove ‘tech’ from shoes and go back to basic EVA. That doesn’t really mean it’s any easier or simpler.”

What’s also unique about the Hoka is that despite its massively thick sole, it’s built with only 4 mm of offset from heel to toe. That’s the sort of design choice that is typically seen in a racing flat, though it’s starting to become more common, with Saucony’s Kinvara being an example of a mainstream shoe that offers a lot of cushioning (along with a relatively thick midsole height and an injection-molded midsole) with a similar offset. What I think this reflects is a conscious decision on the part of shoe designers to separate biomechanics—which is influenced to some extent by offset—from overall feel, which is influenced by a shoe’s cushioning.

Mermoud said they made over 100 prototypes for their first model, including one with 3.5 times as much EVA, to solve a somewhat unique problem: How do we run really fast down rocky downhills? It’s not the common starting point for a shoe design, just as running 100 miles at a time isn’t the typical task of a running shoe.

What they found was surprisingly applicable to shoe design in general. They reasoned that just as with a full suspension mountain bikes,

they wanted as soft a ride as possible coming downhill and thus wanted to use as soft an EVA as possible. This clearly meant using more of it as well, since too little of a low-density EVA wouldn’t last and wouldn’t actually offer much protection from rocks. Soft EVA is soft because it contains more air within the individual cells, which typically also means it is more flexible.

What they discovered is that with the introduction of more material, they were able to provide a surprising amount of structural stability to the shoe. If you think about it in terms of basic mechanics, it becomes remarkably obvious; a large volume of very light and very soft EVA ends up forming quite a rigid sole. Unlike shoes that use a shank to provide rigidity, the Hokas get their rigidity by simply using a lot of material. The end result is that the shoe has the structural rigidity that’s important for performance, but achieves it in a unique way. In this case, it was simply the volume of EVA, rather than the chemistry of the EVA, that provided the unique characteristic.

I expected them to feel a bit like running on stilts, but even cornering, the shoes felt a lot more like a low-profile shoe than the height would imply. In addition to feeling stable, the shoes’ most notable feeling is one of bouncing.

But with such springy EVA, how long could they last? Mermoud found that with such a massive volume of EVA, the pressure on individual cells was much lower, providing much better durability than expected. Typically, softer forms of EVA are less durable, because there is more air and less polymer, but in the case of the Hoka, the volume served to offset this limitation.

What does all this mean for you, the shoe buyer? Unfortunately, EVA recipes are not going to become public any time soon, so you can’t say, “I need a men’s U.S. size 11, and I’d like a midsole with an 18 percent VA composition please.” But with a better understanding of the technology involved, we can ask better questions, give better feedback, and hopefully end up with shoes that simply feel better under your specific feet.

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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By Jay Prasuhn : Photography by Donald Miralle

All eyes are on past Kona champs Mirinda Carfrae and Chrissie Wellington as Kona favorites.

Which suits laid-back swim-bike gunner Julie Dibens just fine.

JOKER’S WILD T

ake a look at a photo of Julie Dibens in any magazine and you’ll see a lanky Brit wearing a thin-lipped, almost smug, smirk. Devoid of any sign of emotion or effort—it never changes.

For many of her competitors, that statue-stiff stoicism has been one of the most infuriating things about Dibens, because it raises questions—and self-doubt. Is she working hard? Because she doesn’t look like she’s working at all. Is she hurting?

Does she even suffer? Do I need to turn up my pace?

“She does have a bit of a poker face,” says reigning Hawaii Ironman World Champ Mirinda Carfrae. “I’ve been on rides and I’m like ‘Julie, c’mon, this is an easy ride!’ She’s just that strong and used to putting out the watts, and that hurts the people who go riding with her. I don’t ever see her show pain.”

XTERRA foe Melanie McQuaid knows the stone-faced look as well, and has often been on its losing end. “I don’t know

if she’s really controlled or just hiding her efforts well,” she says. “I’m sure she’s capable of pushing herself, because she seems to be kicking our asses pretty easily.”

And therein lay what may be the ace in the hole for Dibens as she returns to Kona after a third-place debut last October.

Invariably, the question will be “am I being played?” And that has the two women who have owned the last four world titles fairly concerned.

Says three-time Ironman world champ Chrissie Wellington: “Julie is far and away the best biker in the sport at the Ironman distance. She adds a new element for everyone to be concerned with.”

While all the talk coming into Kona may be about Carfrae and Wellington gunning for the win, Dibens is more than capable of sneaking away with the crown. While we all saw her crack late in the marathon in Kona, and saw a bonk this year

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A wildcard like Dibens can change the race from a contest of who’s fastest into something much more complicated: a chess match. while she won Ironman Coeur d’Alene, she’s still learning Ironman, and has proven to be a quick study.

Normann Stadler’s Hawaii wins in 2004 and 2006 proved that it’s possible to win without running like a gazelle, and Dibens’ ability on the bike could put an athlete like Wellington on her back foot and force Carfrae out of her comfort zone. A wildcard like Dibens can change the race from a contest of who’s fastest into something much more complicated: a chess match.

“I have a ton of respect for Julie,” Carfrae says, “and she now has two Ironmans under her belt. She wants it and she’ll do whatever it takes to try to win that race. If she’s gonna do it, she’s gonna be ready this year.”

Certainly Dibens has taken a circuitous and highly respectable path to success in racing. There was no federation grooming or specialization. She cut her teeth on her own, showed her versatility and earned her place.

An All-American swimmer at Louisiana State University, Dibens was like every collegiate swimmer with an Olympic dream. But taking fifth at the U.K. Olympic Trials in the 200-meter backstroke brought an end to that dream. Once she graduated, Dibens, like so many other former collegiate swimmers, sought something to fill the competitive void, and triathlon proved an easy transition.

Dibens (then known as Julie Ricketts before marrying college sweetheart and fellow LSU swimmer Mike Dibens) was instantly successful racing as an age grouper after college. In her first year competing, she became age-group world champion and earned Amateur of the Year honors from the British Triathlon Federation (BTF). “I had no form for running, but I was so fit from

swimming that I started off doing 70 miles of running per week, just because I could.”

Turning pro in 1999, she destroyed the U.S. Triathlon Series (USTS) with four wins (while finishing no lower than third at any Series event) to claim the overall Series title. She also took third at the European Championships, which qualified her for the 2000 Olympic Games.

Collegiate swimmer to Olympic triathlete inside of two years? It was almost hard for Dibens to believe. “As a swimmer, you grow up dreaming of going to the Olympics,” she said. “I realized I was not quite at that top level, but I was progressing. I still tried out for the Olympics, but wasn’t ever gonna really make it. But to all of a sudden to have that Olympic dream realized in triathlon, it was awesome. It all came quickly, and in a way, easily.”

But lady luck is fickle and she turned on Dibens in 2000. “I’d had a couple of bike crashes, and my knee swelled up pretty bad after one of them,” Dibens says.

“I couldn’t run five steps without being in agony.” The Sydney Olympics were one week away and as much as she hoped the injury would fade, the partially torn ACL was not cooperating with the Brit’s dreams. She pulled the plug and removed herself from the start list of the Sydney Games. “That’s not how I wanted my Olympic dream to be, so I had to withdraw. That was so hard, to go from just getting into the sport and achieving something you’d never thought was possible, to have it taken away.” She sat out the 2001 season, undergoing two surgeries on her right knee.

She would be back, but the comeback was tenuous.

“I battled injury after injury from 2000 to 2006 and just happened to be healthy during the qualification period for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.” Still one of the top female athletes in Britain, Dibens was impressive enough

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to earn a spot on the Olympic squad, joining countrywomen Michelle Dillon and Jodie Swallow. She finished in a disappointing 30th place in Athens, but it brought closure to her Olympic ambitions. Now she was ready to take on the rest of what triathlon had to offer.

2007 put Dibens on the map. Segueing from ITU to XTERRA and Life Time Fitness Series races, she began amassing podium finishes in Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, Chicago and Dallas, as well as a win in her first Ironman 70.3 in St. Croix. Victories at XTERRA events in the U.K. and Guam earned her a place at the world championships in Maui, where she finished more than eight minutes ahead of the competition to earn her first world title.

The floodgates were open. Dibens earned two more XTERRA world titles in 2008 and 2009, while claiming scalps at major road events, including another world title at the 2009 Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater, Fla. Last year, she scored wins at Ironman 70.3 Boulder, 70.3 Boise and the prized Wildflower Triathlon. And at her first long-distance test, a self-proclaimed litmus for whether she would compete in Kona, she won the highly competitive Abu Dhabi International Triathlon. Now a hot commodity, she was brought aboard the Trek/K-Swiss Team where she currently stands as the alpha female on the squad.

“I started enjoying the sport again, especially using my bike strength in both XTERRA and 70.3, instead of sitting in a pack in ITU,” she says.

That enjoyment has translated well into a long-distance career that wasn’t even on her radar until a few years ago. “It wasn’t long ago that I’d first heard about Ironman and I wasn’t interested in it at all,” she says.

“Once I’d seen guys like Rinny [Carfrae] and Andy Potts and Sam McGlone who won 70.3 worlds having success at Ironman, I started thinking about it, and did Abu Dhabi. I had to ensure the enjoyment factor was still there while riding five or six hours and then running a couple more—and it was.”

Accepting a Kona slot after winning the Ironman 70.3 Worlds in Clearwater in 2009, the world would now get a chance to see what she could do on the sport’s grandest stage. “I though it would be foolish to not at least try and experience the race, because you hear about how magical it is. And until you’re there and experience it, you don’t know what everyone’s talking about.”

perhaps Dibens’ biggest riVal is also one oF her Closest FrienDs anD no Doubt the CoMpetitor Who knoWs her best. “I liked her attitude,” Carfrae says of the time they first met at Ironman 70.3 St. Croix. “I struck up a conversation with her afterward and she’d flatted and DNF’d, but she was pretty chill as we talked about the fact she was coming to Boulder to train. So many pros are too serious and don’t even love what they’re doing. I could see she enjoyed the sport for what it is, and it was pretty similar to me. We got on pretty well.”

And they actually train together, which is almost unheard-of among apex pros who aren’t blood relatives like the Brownlees or Raelerts. The reason is simple: they complement one another perfectly.

“We’re completely different athletes,” Carfrae says. “There’s no puffing; I never challenge her on the bike, and she’ll never challenge me on the run. We have our own part of the race we own undisputed, but we really

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can make one another stronger. More than that, we’ve grown to be such close friends, we want to see each other go well.”

Dibens echoes the sentiment. “When I first got to Boulder, Chrissie was here and we did a lot of training together, because I wasn’t training for Ironman then,” she says. “I haven’t trained with Chrissie on the bike in a while, but I wouldn’t now anyway, because she’s strong across the board and the bike is my strength. I’m not gonna want to give an inch, and she’s not going to want to give an inch. If we were to train together, I would put myself into a hole. With Rinny, we can go out and ride or run. We use one another to make ourselves stronger. We have fun together.”

Being friends is how Carfrae says the two can “take the piss out of each other.” Witness their now famous banter on Twitter. Just as last year, Dibens and Carfrae have been flicking venom back and forth across the Twittersphere, to the delight of fans. Recalling last year’s Kona race when a taxed Dibens was forced to walk late in the marathon while succumbing to Carfrae, the two have re-ignited their entertaining verbal sparring:

@JulieDibens: all talk anD no Walk @MirinDaCarFrae: uM yeah that’s eXaCtly right no Walk. i think that’s Where you haVe been going Wrong :) @JulieDibens i kneW that Was CoMing as soon as i saiD it! lavamagazine.com

@MirinDaCarFrae yes Dibens … that one Was too easy! @JulieDibens u knoW hoW i like to builD u up!

Further to knoCk u baCk DoWn that Way. With her coy smirk, Dibens is pithy on the subject. “We just love to make fun of each other whenever we can,” she says.

Surrounded by her Trek/K-Swiss teammates, Dibens rolled out of the Mauna Lani Hotel and engaged a collection of magazine editors and industry brass in early February for the team’s pre-season camp. Dibens presents a genuinely genial front as the group rolls at a relaxed pace north on the Queen K Highway to Hawi and back.

But upon our southbound return at Kawaihae, teammates Chris Lieto and Joe Gambles continue on for more hours on the roads. Dibens joins them. And at this point, as the press is waved away, it’s not a scenic tour. For Dibens and her coach and bike fitter Mat Steinmetz, who’s always on hand to track her progress, it’s Kona recon: getting familiar with every rise and fall of the ride up the Kohala Coast. She wants to be intimate with that unforgiving strip of black ribbon; to become one with the winds. She wants to own it, with no stones unturned. “Having been there once before, I’ll have that mental image,” she says. “I visualize it during my workouts.”

Further, she’s still learning the Ironman game. Melting in the heat last year on the marathon in Kona and experiencing a nutrition bonk at Ironman Coeur d’Alene were valuable lessons for Dibens. “Even

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though I was severely disappointed with my bonk, I learned that I can dig myself out of that hole and stay mentally tough. That’s a big part of Ironman.”

Despite her cool air, there’s a reason Dibens has found success throughout her career, and it wasn’t by being laid-back. Or, for that matter, taking a back seat—to anyone.

“I was reading something from Rebekah Keat about Roth where she said ‘if I finish within 30 minutes of Chrissie, that’s a good race.’” Dibens says. “I’ve never raced Chrissie over the Ironman distance, but I have to believe I’ll be competitive, otherwise I shouldn’t be on the start line.

It would be an absolute waste of my time. I have beaten her over the half-Ironman distance, so I know where some of her weaknesses are.

I think we’d be wrong to say she doesn’t have them. I do believe I can be competitive. That’s why I’m racing Kona—to win it.”

Which isn’t to discount the athlete that Wellington is. “I have so much respect for Chrissie and what she’s accomplished, I mean, to go 8:18 at Roth? That’s phenomenal,” Dibens says, “but I have to believe on my day, I can do the same thing. I’m sure Rinny LAVAMAGAZINE.COM

feels the same. You can’t put someone so high on the pedestal, otherwise you’re just racing for second or third.”

“As things get closer, Rinny and I will train less together. And Chrissie’s doing her own thing, which is fair enough,” Dibens said. “In my ideal world, I’ll never see Rinny before I cross the finish line. I want her to do well—but I want to do better. At Rev3 Quassy, there were some mind games. This year, she’s playing down. I’m like; ‘is she messing with me?’ We’re still friends, but there’s going to be that mental game.”

While the temptations to react to the day got the better of her last year in Kona, Dibens says she will stay on her game, regardless of the race’s always fluid dynamics. “Last year, when Chrissie didn’t start, in my mind the race was against Rinny, and I wanted a certain lead on her on the bike,” Dibens says. “I learned there— and in Quassy—that I can’t think about that. I have to race my race and have the belief in my ability to run the marathon around three hours. Plus, I have more good miles in my legs, and there’s no real secret; I’ve shown throughout my career that if I can run consistently and frequently, my running improves.”

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“In my ideal world, I’ll never see Rinny before I cross the finish line. I want her to do well—but I want to do better.

We’re still friends, but there’s going to be that mental game.”

It’s a smart, veteran approach for a woman doing just her third Ironman. “The way I see it, I have a nine hour race and 140.6 miles to go. I have to look at it as, ‘how do I get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible, without worrying about other people.’ Chrissie’s gonna race hard from the gun and she’s not gonna care about what’s going on around her. It’s how she’s always raced. Rinny and the quick runners will go at a pace they can sustain but still run fast off. I think you race your own race until a certain point, and that’s going to be late in the run, where you play strategy games and really start racing against other people.”

If anyone knows Dibens’ marathon aspirations are more than a pipe dream, it’s Kona’s marathon record holder. “I think she’s truly improved her run,” Carfrae says. “She’s a good-looking runner when she’s in full flight—believe me.”

All of which isn’t to say we shouldn’t expect to see her at the front of the bike. “I have to use that weapon,” she says. “I know a lot of people thought I went too hard, but my power numbers were where they needed to be, or a bit down. They were down at Abu Dhabi too.

It’s great to have the power meter on there to have the confidence that I know what I’m doing and use that as a weapon.”

And with that, a coolly delivered smirk stretched across her face, accompanied by a very slight, but knowing nod. Whether it manifests itself into a proper smile at the intersection of Ali’i Drive and Palani Road, we’ll only know come early October.

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SOMMER IN DEUTSCHLAND

If you think the United States is the center of the triathlon universe, you’ve never spent a summer in Germany. On any given weekend from June through September you can find dozens of races throughout Germany, some attracting as many as 10,000 participants. And it’s not just athletes: Germany has triathlon fansreal, crazed, triathlon fans—adding an element of excitement you won’t find anywhere else. This summer Germany played host to four major long-distance races in a one-month period: the Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt, Challenge Roth, Ironman Regensburg and the Ironman 70.3 European Championship in Wiesbaden. Renowned German sports photographer Michael Rauschendorfer caught all the action from the tri-craziest country on earth. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL RAUSCHENDORFER

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IRONMAN EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP

Frankfurt is Germany’s fifth-largest city and the 33rd-largest in the European Union with almost 650,000 residents. Banking is the lifeblood of the Frankfurt’s economy, and the city is perhaps best known within Europe as the seat of the European Central Bank. Along with London and Paris, Frankfurt is one of only three cities in the European Union with a significant number of skyscrapers. At the center of the city’s skyline is the 850-foot Commerzbank Tower, the tallest building in Europe.

Long heralded as the most competitive Ironman in the world outside of Hawaii, Ironman Frankfurt has been a staple on the circuit since 2002 and has been designated the European Championship since 2006. It’s one of the original urban Ironman events and the throngs of spectators lining the city streets create a truly unique atmosphere.

Germany’s own Faris Al-Sultan described his fitness as “mediocre” heading into this year’s race on July 24, but his performance on race day was anything but.

Rain, wind and cold did little to bother the 2005 Ironman World Champ, as he powered away from the rest of the field on the bike to win in 8:13:50. The party didn’t end for the raucous crowd with Al-Sultan’s finish, however, as the next four men to come across the line were also from Germany.

The women’s race was a much closer affair, with the entire podium separated by only two minutes. After biking away from the entire women’s field Switzerland’s Caroline Steffen narrowly held off Czech Lucie Zelenkova and German Sonja Tajsich to win in 9:12:13.

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CHALLENGE ROTH

With over 3,500 individual athletes and another 2,000 relay participants at this year’s event, Challenge Roth is the largest iron-distance event on Earth. It can also lay claim to being the fastest, thanks to the world-record performances turned in by Andreas Raelert and Chrissie Wellington at this year’s race on July 10.

It’s also one of the most fan-friendly events on the planet. The entire Franconian lake district turns out en masse on race day to embrace the event (especially along the Tour de France-esque Solarer Berg, right). True to form, fans come out early and relax with a glass of Bavarian beer, cheering on the athletes as they pass on the bike course. The race finishes with a unique, stadium-style finish, again, filled with fans awaiting the champs or family and friends.

For athletes, the post-race imbiding is second to none. Enjoy a mustard-covered brat (or two, or three), washed down by a heavy mug of ice-cold local beer at the biergarten in the town square, at the foot of the 16th-century Schloss Ratibor castle. Don’t feel guilty about indulging. After all, the local Spalter beer is said to extend your life. But the best takeaway for the folks back home? Elisenlebkuchen, the area’s legendary gingerbread.

Raelert was in a league of his own at this year’s race, stopping the clock in an iron-distance world record time of 7:41:33, which included an incredible marathon split of 2:40:52.

Wellington’s record-setting numbers were even more impressive: she broke the tape in 8:18:13 after closing with a 2:44:35 run.

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IRONMAN REGENSBURG

While many of Germany’s medieval city centers were destroyed during World War II, Regensburg remains one of the most wellpreserved medieval cities in the world, earning the distinction of UNESCO Heritage Site. Located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, Regensburg was a major trading post throughout the medieval ages, with its classic stone bridge over the Danube (the Steinerne Brücke) connecting Northern Europe with traders in Venice. Today, the city’s economy is kept going in large part by

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BMW, which produces its 1 and 3 Series vehicles in Regensburg.

Ironman has made its home in Regensburg for the past two years, serving up a challenging course that takes athletes through the Bavarian Forest National Park before finishing in the city’s historic center.

After winning her debut Ironman in spectacular fashion at Ironman Austria, American Mary Beth Ellis made her second attempt at the distance at this year’s Regensburg race on August 7. German-Canadian Annett Kamenz gave a strong chase on the bike-actually passing Ellis before T2-but once on the run Ellis demonstrated once again that she’s found her ideal distance. Ellis’ 3:06:45 marathon was the best of the day and put her at the line with a gap of almost ten minutes on the field.

In the men’s race Germany’s Markus Fachbach took an early lead out of the water and never looked back, finishing over seven minutes ahead of Switzerland’s Stefan Riesen. Perhaps the most impressive performance of the day was turned in by 44-year-old German Frank Vytrisal, who posted the fastest bike split en route to finishing third, only 18 seconds back of Riesen.

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IRONMAN 70.3 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP

Less than 25 miles west of Frankfurt you’ ll find Wiesbaden, one of the oldest and most well-known “Spa Towns” in Europe, with more than 15 thermal spring baths located throughout the city. Unlike Frankfurt, Wiesbaden was largely spared by Allied bombers during World War II, and many have speculated that this was a strategic move on the part of the Allies, who were interested in using the city’s

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airfield as a post-war base. While such reports were widely refuted by the Allies at the time, it’s important to note that the U.S. military has maintained a base in Wiesbaden since WWII, with almost 10,000 soldiers currently stationed in the city.

The city has hosted an Ironman 70.3 event since 2007, earning the title of the European Championship this season. At this year’s race on August 14, Andi Böcherer showed he might be Germany’s next über-biker, rocketing away from the field on the challenging 56-mile ride to take the win over Czech Filip Ospaly.

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The women’s race was also decided on the bike, as former pro cyclist Karin Thürig of Switzerland showed once again why she’s the best pure cyclist in the sport. Thürig, who will retire after this year’s Hawaii Ironman, put over five minutes into the field on the bike before winning easily in 4:45:47. Austrian Eva Wutti crossed the line in second, just ahead of a trio of Ironman legends: Switzerland’s Natascha Badmann, the Netherland’s Yvonne van Vlerken and New Zealand’s Joanna Lawn.

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A League of Our Own Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no secret that men and women compete in different ways, and often for different reaso ns.

What is more surprising is how the sport of triath lon has found a way to embrace these differ ences, and even capitalize on them.

By Susan Grant-Legacki : Photography by Sammy Tillery

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R

unning down the hard-packed dirt trails surro unding Decker Lake with only four miles to go in the Austin Ironman 70.3, I rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of my husband, David, standing on the sidelines. He was on brief military leave so that he could watch me race, but he was due back on base in California very early the next morning. The hot Texas heat had spaw ned some menacing thunderheads, and my eyes fixed on them as I made my way toward him. I sped up slightly past some other athletes and angled my way to where he stood. It was obvious I had something important to say. “Is she in pain? Sick? Dizzy?” he remembers wond ering . The look on my face was stricken with worry. He prepared himself for some bad news, and leaned in to hear me as I went past. “Honey, make sure you check your flight status, because those clouds don’t look good. And make sure my dad is puttin g on sunscreen,” I yelled, before speeding off toward the finish line.

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The psychological and physical differences of men and women have been debated since the beginning of time. These peculiarities are rarely more evident than when men and women compete in sports, regardless of whether or not they are in competition with one another. In longtime collegiate coach, author and speaker Kathleen Deboer’s book “Gender and Competition: How Men and Women Approach Work and Play Differently”, she examines these differences and explains why it’s all right to admit that men and women behave differently in competition and even in training. Deboer writes that “women approach how they accomplish things through the guise of connection, and men approach how they accomplish things through the guise of opposition. Neither of these is good or bad. It is just how we are wired.” According to Deboer, there doesn’t have to be a value judgment associated with admitting differences between genders, despite it often being considered politically incorrect to do so.

But in a highly individual, non-team sport such as triathlon, finding that connection women seek can be a challenge. “There are enough barriers to triathlon to begin with,” says Judy Molnar, creator of the Iron Girl event series and herself a longtime triathlete. “Add to that all the other lavamagazine.com

titles women have: mother, coworker, wife—adding triathlete to that is a tough balance.” Even in the team sports Deboer grew up participating in, no matter how competitive or successful she was at them, she writes about feeling a constant sense of “otherness” when participating in or even talking about sports with men. It’s little wonder that when triathlon was getting started in the U.S. in the ’80s and early ’90s it was predominantly male. Yet it’s clear that some sort of shift began in the mid1990s. According to USA Triathlon, they have seen a threefold increase in female membership since the early ’90s. There was a 10-percent increase alone between 2000 and 2009. An increase in national awareness of women’s health and fitness overall undoubtedly played a part, but triathlon raised the bar when women-only triathlon events began springing up all over the country, starting in 1990 with the first Danskin Women’s Triathlon in Long Beach, Calif. These women-only events have embraced the differences between male and female competitive drives, and in doing so have helped the sport grow, opened it up to new generations of women, and even changed the industry’s consumer market.

Back in 1990, when Maggie Sullivan, who at that time was Danskin’s vice president of sports marketing, began to plan an all-women triathlon

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series, the multisport landscape was much different. “Men did triathlons, and women did jazzercise or step aerobics,” Sullivan remembers. Convincing a woman that she could finish a triathlon was a hard sell for Sullivan, and she quickly realized that what she was selling wasn’t about triathlon at all. “We were out to create something that was doable for women. It was a matter of being life-focused instead of sports-focused.

When people ask me today if I’m in the triathlon business I still say no, I’m in the business of changing lives.”

This was and remains at the core of the Danskin series, as well as the many other women’s series that exist today. On that June morning in 1990, Sullivan remembers looking out at and seeing 120 women— doctors, housewives, students and judges among them—scared out of their wits standing on the shore. A couple of hours later she watched them triumphantly cross the finish line. More than 20 years have passed since that day, and Sullivan has gone on to start her own women’s event company, The Xxtra Mile, LLC, which puts on both the Danskin and Trek Women’s Triathlon Series nationwide, but she insists that the more things change, the more they stay the same. “Every time we have a race I’ll look out and see those terrified looks on those women’s faces, and lavamagazine.com

there are a lot more faces now,” she says. “Then I watch them fly through the finish line grinning from ear to ear. It’s just amazing to be a part of something like that.”

The Danskin Triathlon Series grew from 1,100 women that first year in three different cities, to more than 20,000 women in eight cities nationwide by 2008. While Danskin remained the only women’s triathlon series for much of the ’90s, it wasn’t long before the female-friendly triathlon model took off. There are currently several women-only, sprintdistance series—Iron Girl, SheRox, Trek Women and Tri for the Cure to name a few—which have built off of the Danskin model while still finding a way to make their own brand and events unique. What they all share is an attention to detail, and highly developed support programs for all their participants. Whether they’ve signed up for a SheRox event in Philadelphia, or an Iron Girl in Las Vegas, once they make the commitment to race they become part of a community.

For women who have never braved a starting line, the all-female support system women’s series create for them can become a lifeline. These races offer everything from female mentors, training plans, encouraging emails and discounts on triathlon gear to get-togethers where they can

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096 : FEATURES

For many women, seeing one another on race day helps them realize that the balance they strive for isn't a journey they have to walk alone.

meet other women attempting their first triathlon while learning how to set up a transition area or change a tire. Come race day the support system only gets stronger and the emphasis turns to the little things like hand sanitizer outside the bathrooms and extra lifeguards on the swim course. “The guys who come to watch our events notice the difference.

I’ve had a lot of them tell me they wish there were these kinds of little details at the coed events,” Molnar says.

This isn’t to say that coed events or training groups are devoid of support. But the fact is that women congregate in different ways than men (there’s a reason knitting circles started, and I guarantee you it wasn’t lavamagazine.com

because women really wanted to sit around and knit for hours on end).

Just ask SheRox Triathlon Series Director Barb McKeever, who regularly goes on both coed and all-female training rides in Philadelphia. “When I go and ride 25 miles with my girlfriends, we end up talking about our kids, our marriages and whatever else we need to vent about,” she explains. “My co-ed rides are just different. There aren’t those types of conversations; it’s more about the ride. But women need that friendship and that time while we’re training to clear our heads, and we do that by talking it out.”

The sense of connection is palpable at a women-only event, whether you are just walking around the transition area or standing at the finish line. But there’s something else at work there. The countless letters Sullivan has received from participants show that while the journey each woman took to get to the event might be unique, they all share one common theme: A desire to do something purely for themselves.

For many reasons, this is a desire fraught with guilt for most women.

“As many of these women grew older, had children, had a career, there became this greater sense of ‘I can’t’ in their lives. ‘I can’t get daycare, I can’t coordinate my life anymore than I already do, and most of all, I

Cortisol Levels decreased by 26%

Placebo Optygen Group

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Lactate (MM/L)

Lactate Threshold increased by 42%

Time (seconds)

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Girl Power Have you signed up for a triathlon and you’re looking for some support and advice? Most women-only triathlon events offer mentor programs and training guides, but if you want a more long-term training community, you’re in luck because women’s training camps and triathlon clubs have never been easier to find. Here are a few good options for you:

GOTRIbal (Gotribalnow.com) An international female training community aimed at empowering women through multisport, GOTRIbal offers everything from training meet-ups and free how-to articles to financial aid programs for women who want to join the sport but can’t afford to. On November 12, GOTRIbal will be putting on an all-female multisport retreat at the National Training Center in Clermont, Fla., where participants can listen to world-class coaches, improve their cycling technique and get inspired by one another.

She Does Tri (Shedoestri.com) This Boulder, Colo.-based organization offers training camps, clinics and racing plans for women of all abilities. She Does Tri typically offers at least one all-female camp in the summer, as well as numerous weekend clinics throughout the U.S.

LUNA Chix local teams (Teamlunachix.com/teams) In addition to their highly successful professional women’s racing team, Team Luna also offers various local teams throughout the U.S. These teams accept women of all abilities who are looking to challenge themselves with several races and team training clinics each year while raising money for Luna’s nonprofit partner, the Breast Cancer Fund.

can’t do this for myself. It would be selfish,’” says Sullivan. “Most of the time, signing up isn’t a question of their fears of doing a triathlon, it’s about overcoming all the other reasons in their lives that could have kept them away.”

Sometimes not even finishing the race is enough to alleviate the guilt.

Former professional triathlete and founder of Skirt Sports, Nicole DeBoom, saw this firsthand at a Tri For the Cure event her company sponsored. “The race director got up on stage before the race and said ‘OK ladies. I know your families might want to come out and watch you finish the race, and that’s great, but don’t forget that you are doing this race for you,’” DeBoom says. “‘When you finish, your husband is going to be lavamagazine.com

tired, your kids are going to be cranky, and he’s going to try to hand off that kid to you. And if you give in to that you will switch back from being an athlete who just finished a race to being the one who takes care of everyone. You need to enjoy this whole day because you’ve earned it.’”

For many women, training with other women or seeing one another on race day helps them realize that the balance they strive for isn’t a journey they have to walk alone. But for many first-time triathletes, the most powerful tool for getting them to commit to a race involves making that race more about giving back to a particular charity or cause than finishing in any certain time. “I think the philanthropic angle can be very important for some women,” says DeBoom. “It just feels good to know that you are doing something to help the world while you are doing something to help yourself. It gives a duality of purpose for racing in a triathlon.”

Cancer charities, specifically for cancers such as breast and ovarian cancers that predominantly affect women, have benefited greatly from the women-only triathlon boom. In the case of Barb’s Race in Sonoma County, Calif., the only half-iron distance women’s triathlon in the world, since the race’s inception 11 years ago more than $500,000 has been raised for local and regional cancer charities. One of these charities, Marin Countybased Commonweal Health and Environmental Research Center, offers among its many programs a retreat for women recently diagnosed with cancer to come together and discuss treatment options and concerns.

Barb’s Race, named after a longtime Vineman and Vineman 70.3 volunteer and two-time cancer survivor Barb Recchia, offers a slightly more competitive atmosphere due to the course’s length. However, the community feeling found at shorter, more beginner-friendly all-female events is still very much at play—just ask four-time participant and 61-year-old breast cancer survivor Annette Schaff. “There aren’t a lot of egos out here,” says Schaff. “Everyone’s so supportive. Through the whole bike course everyone is just smiling and cheering one another on. It’s such a unique race.”

Looking out at the bike racks at this year’s Barb’s Race, it’s apparent that it isn’t just female-only triathlons that are catching on, but femalespecific triathlon gear as well. From form-fitting and fashion-forward tri suits, to bike frames that accommodate a woman’s shape and specifications, the triathlon industry has clearly seen the jump in female participants as well. “You can actually see the parallels with sales of companies like Trek and Specialized,” says Molnar. “They’ve seen their sales go up and off the charts as our events have grown. Any race director in the country will tell you there are more women competing now, and so naturally more women are buying triathlon products.”

The good news is that, more and more, making something femalespecific doesn’t just entail “pinking it and shrinking it” as Molnar calls it. And just because you slap a flower on it doesn’t mean every woman in a 50-mile radius will buy it. The community of women who compete in triathlons are often the best sales force and marketing department a company has for selling their product. According to an article published in the 2010 March/April edition of the trade magazine Sports Insight, a study by Leisure Trends Group found that 42 percent of women gather product information from friends and family before making a sportsrelated purchase.

When DeBoom founded Skirt Sports in 2005, her running skirts caught on quickly for this very reason. “We were really embraced by female athletes,” DeBoom says. A skirt that doubles as performance wear has an element of symbolism for DeBoom, who as a collegiate athlete

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WAKE UP! YOUR BODY NEEDS A KICK START. Since you were a kid, you’ve been hearing, “Don’t forget to eat your breakfast.” And the research is clear: Eating a breakfast rich in complex carbohydrates, protein, and essential vitamins and minerals is a great way to kick-start your day, especially if you’re heading to the gym first or need long-lasting energy. So imagine what was created when we brought together some amazing minds and athletes to develop a greattasting cereal that provides long-lasting energy from whole grain.

TRUE STORY: We assembled elite athletes Peyton Manning, Albert Pujols, Kevin Garnett, Bryan Clay, and Hunter Kemper to discuss their fitness and nutritional regimens. Working with Dr. John Ivy, a performance nutrition expert, the Co-Creation Team helped create and taste-test various cereal recipes, making sure they had the proper nutrients and great taste. By no coincidence, the readers of Men’s Health were asked to select their favorite recipe – and that became Wheaties FUEL.®

The Good Stuff: With a blend of carbohydrates, fiber, minerals and vitamins, Wheaties FUEL® is a great option before an intense workout, an intense workday, or even 15-45 minutes after your workout so your body can replenish and rebuild. So yes, we’ve thought of everything.

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MORNING FUEL #1 ..... Prior to an intense workout ..... bowl of Wheaties FUEL® (1 cup) 280 calories skim milk (1/2 cup) 45 calories glass of orange juice (4 oz.) 56 calories seasonal fruit (1 cup, e.g. blueberries) 81 calories

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the chair of kinesiology at the University of Texas, worked closely with elite athletes to help develop Wheaties FUEL® for athletes like you.

TIME YOUR NUTRITION: For the past 30 years, Dr. John Ivy’s research has provided the underpinning for many practical and conceptual advances in our understanding of exercise and how muscles work, recover and adapt.

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Breakfast is unique because some of the benefits it provides have short-term or immediate effects, while other benefits are long-term.

Breakfast should immediately raise the body’s energy level and restore the blood glucose level to normal after an overnight fast. It should also rapidly replenish the body’s carbohydrate stores.

By increasing the amount of carbohydrate and using a combination of simple sugars, Wheaties FUEL® helps provide rapid energy to get the day started with vigor and vitality, and helps replenish the body’s energy stores.

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and later professional triathlete often felt as if she was constantly straddling a line between being at her peak performance and conforming to what the cultural idea of femininity might look like. “You can’t imagine the number of letters I get from women who tell me they’ve passed a man in a race wearing their skirt and the guy yells out ‘I can’t believe I got passed by a girl in a skirt,’” she laughs. “And you know what? It made these women feel so strong.”

Whether you’re embracing your athletic femininity by donning a running skirt or signing up with your best friend to do your first Iron Girl, the camaraderie of the female triathlon community is as strong as ever.

And the best part is that it isn’t just young women stepping out on the lavamagazine.com

starting line for the first time. The average age of an Iron Girl participant went from 34 in 2003 to 38 in 2010. “Years ago, we would never have a 60 and over awards category and now we go up into the 80s,” says SheRox’s McKeever. At a recent awards ceremony McKeever had the youngest participant, a 14-year-old, and the oldest woman participant who was in her 80s stand up on stage together. “All the women started clapping like crazy,” says McKeever. “It just said it all right there—we’re just getting started.”

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Read a Q&A with the namesake behind Barb’s Race at Lavamagazine.com/barbs-race

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Andreas Raelert, wind tunnel Instituto Polytecnico di Milano. Photo: Stephan Bรถgli

TRAINING T

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competitive edge

“Of all the elements of endurance racing that MICHAEL RAUSCHENDORFER

triathletes develop, from cardiovascular endurance to muscular flexibility, the one they take for granted most is psychological resolve.”

—Jim Gourley, (“In search of the stoic triathlete”, Page 112) lavamagazine.com

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Racing in Kona? Worried about the heat? Learn how to “hack” your body into dealing with more punishment than you ever thought possible.

By Ben Greenfield : Photography by Jay Prasuhn

unny things happen to the body when you race in the heat, especially the kind of heat that the world’s best Ironman athletes will likely face on the Big Island of Hawaii on October 8.

As soon as you throw your body into the heat and begin to exercise, you create a need to circulate blood out to the skin for cooling, and this both draws blood away from working muscles and decreases the amount of blood your heart can pump with each beat. Since evaporative cooling from sweat is the primary mode of heat reduction during exercise, this redistribution of blood to the extremities is combined with loss of fluid and blood volume via sweat, which places additional demand on an already-stressed heart.

As blood pressure and cardiac output fall because of this drop in blood volume, temperature elevation accelerates, performance is impaired as the body reaches a critical core temperature, and neuromuscular drive and metabolic function subsequently begin to plummet. In other words, the wheels fall off.

So what can you do about it? Can you do anything about it? Absolutely. The human body can be conditioned to maintain a higher blood volume, decrease the amount of salt in sweat, increase salt availability and keep your body’s core temperature cooler during exercise in the heat. When it comes to hacking your body into handling the most extreme conditions possible, you have plenty of weapons in your arsenal.

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Scotland’s Catriona Morrison used cooling sleeves en route to winning Ironman Texas in May.

Body cooling gear.

Let’s begin with the heat-hacking fashion you can wear: body-cooling sleeves, vests, gloves, grips and a wellvented helmet.

The science behind body-cooling sleeves is that they block solar radiation and increase sweat evaporation by increasing the surface area of the skin. In addition, the newer sleeves contain xylitol, a natural sugar-alcohol that produces a cooling sensation when wet.

Earlier this year, two researchers put CEP body-cooling sleeves to the test in Kona, and found that during just a 30-minute run, there was a significantly lower temperature in the arm with a cool sleeve compared to the arm without (you can read full results at LavaMagazine.com/armcoolers). Zoot, CEP, Craft and New Balance are among the companies that currently make arm-cooling sleeves.

Several studies show that a lightweight body-cooling vest could possibly get you even better results. In one study, after nearly 40 minutes of warming up in the heat, participants wearing a body-cooling vest ran an average of nearly 13 seconds faster in a 5K, with average heart rates 11 beats per minute lower. Since a vest covers an even greater surface area than the sleeves, this could be a better option, or an addition to the sleeves.

But just in case sleeves and a vest aren’t enough for you, back in 2004, two Stanford biologists developed a special grip that maximizes heat transfer through the palms. The palm is a point where a large amount of heat radiation occurs as blood vessels in the palm’s surface bring heated blood from the core to be dissipated. If the palm is cooled, the cold blood from the palm is brought back to the core to assist with heat management. While the Stanford “Core Control” device is too bulky to effectively carry in a race (and is the price of a decent triathlon bike), you can achieve a similar effect by freezing an ice pack and attaching it

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to your hand, or use the BEX Cool Palms—one such example. A vest will still extract over three times as much heat as a palm-cooling device, but the latter is more portable, affordable and a whole lot easier to run with.

If you’re planning on breaking out cooling gear for a long event like Ironman, consider the logistical implications—your gear should be kept as cold as possible until you use it, and the grips and vest will only maintain cooling for up to a couple of hours. This means that you might wear sleeves on the bike, then add in the vest and grip from a cooler in your transition bag.

No discussion of heat-dissipating gear would be complete without addressing helmet ventilation. Balancing aerodynamics and cooling in an aero helmet is a technological barrier that TT helmet manufacturers must overcome, since vents, holes or any other gap in the smooth surface of a helmet can increase drag. You can choose a well-vented aero helmet, such as the Specialized TT2, or simply wear a road helmet if you’re willing to sacrifice aerodynamics.

Heat acclimation. Now that your warm-weather fashion is set, it’s time to address heat acclimation hacks. Gradual exposure to repetitive exercise and non-exercise heat stress will produce beneficial physiological adaptations, including improved heat transfer from core to skin, more efficient cardiovascular function, decreased heart rate, decreased skin and body temperature during exercise, increased blood volume, and less electrolyte loss via kidney filtration. And all that adds up to a faster average pace.

For athletes training in colder climates, preparation for a hot race should begin with frequent exposure to simulated heat. For these athletes, there are two options: passive acclimation and active acclimation. Passive acclimation involves sitting or standing in dry heat saunas or steam

WELCOME TO THE TRIBE.

zootsports.com

108 : TRAINING FEATURE : T 109 rooms to simulate heat, and induces the same cardiovascular and sweat changes without the recovery implications or discomfort that accompany exercise in the heat. Sweat evaporation and cooling efficiency appears to occur most favorably with hot and wet conditions (steam rooms), but both steam rooms and saunas will generate favorable results.

Positive adaptations can occur with as few as 10 days of passive acclimation, but for optimum results, begin passive acclimation four to eight weeks before your race, beginning with 10–15 minutes and gradually working up to 45–50 minute sessions every one to three days.

Active acclimation, or exercise in the heat, is crucial for experiencing the physiological and psychological responses to hot-weather racing, and can be accomplished with treadmill or cycling sessions in a dry heat sauna, or in a small room with a heater or humidifier under the bike. You can use a steady-state exercise protocol, and if you begin to get too hot to exercise comfortably, you’ll still get results if you stop exercising, or remove the heat, allow the body to cool, and then progress back into the routine when you are ready (this is often called “controlled hyperthermia”).

During active acclimation, the elevation of both core and skin temperature is necessary for complete heat adaptation, but wearing too many extra layers of clothing during these sessions could actually be detrimental. Clothing is semi-permeable to water, so the climate developed under your clothing creates a water vapor pressure that prevents sweat evaporation and rapidly elevates discomfort and dehydration.

Full benefits of active acclimation can take 45–60 minutes of moder-

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T : TRAINING FEATURE : 109 ate-intensity exercise in the heat for seven to 10 consecutive days, or four to five times a week for two to three weeks For these same cold-weather athletes, arriving early to a race like Kona is highly recommended, but initial exposure to a hot and humid environment can result in lethargy, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, dehydration and reduced training capacity. After seven to 10 days, these responses diminish, assuming the athlete isn’t spending the majority of the time in air-conditioned spaces (for this reason, I recommend you turn the air conditioning off).

You can lose the positive benefits of heat acclimation in as few as seven days, so continue to engage in heat exposure until just four to six days before the race, at which point you can begin staying out of the sun and heat.

WatEr.

Water is the ultimate heat-acclimation hack. Not only does your blood require water to maintain volume, but water can be used to cool the skin and body. One method to hack the heat using water involves pre-race water immersion.

One study found that torso immersion of elite cyclists in a cold water bath for up to 30 minutes improved subsequent power on the bike, and another study found that a five-minute cold water immersion increased power during a time trial in the heat. If a cold tub is not available, a combination of a fan and a cooling vest can significantly improve cycling endurance in hot conditions.

Once you’re finished immersing yourself, you should make sure that you

IF ELECTROLYTE SUPPLEMENTATION DOES NOT OCCUR, THE BODY’S ELECTRICAL CONDUCTION WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY AFTER ROUGHLY FIVE HOURS.

are pre-loading with water before your event. A practical way to do this is to drink 15–20 ounces of water two hours before you go to bed on the night before the race, then another 15–20 ounces of water as soon as you wake up. Continue to drink 15–20 ounces of water every hour leading up to the race, tapering off water consumption about 30 minutes before the race begins. This form of hyperhydration can be potentially enhanced through the use of glycerol, a binding agent that allows you to retain extra water, but this practice can be dangerous, and at high levels is banned by WADA. While it may not seem like a sexy new hack, you’ll definitely want to continue to drink ample amounts of water during your hot-weather event. Tim Noakes, hydration expert and physiologist, recommends 14–28 ounces of fluid per hour, and the American College of Sports Medicine recommends 20–40 ounces of water per hour. The colder the better, since cool fluids leave the stomach more quickly than room-temperature or body-temperature fluids. Finally, there is some evidence to

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110 : TRAINING FEATURE : T suggest that electrolyte-containing fluids will result in a greater amount of hydration compared to plain water.

The body will store approximately 10,000 mg of sodium, and sodium loss during an Ironman will occur at approximately 1,800 to 2,600 mg per hour, depending on the athlete. So, if electrolyte supplementation does not occur, the body’s electrical conduction will stop working properly after roughly five hours. Ideally, electrolyte supplementation should contain sodium, chloride, potassium, magnesium and manganese, and although the gastrointestinal tract cannot absorb the full amount that is lost per hour, a range of 300–1000 mg per hour will have a significant benefit. You can supplement electrolytes from capsules, tablets, powder or pre-mixed liquids (remember that most gels also contain between 80 and 300 mg of electrolytes).

The importance of water “immersion” continues while you race. Your perception of heat will heavily influence your perceived rate of exertion, and while ice, ice sponges and cold water on the back of the neck, inside the tri suit, or down the legs will not significantly reduce core temperature, these methods can significantly decrease perceived heat.

Finally, water in the form of ice slushies can lower physiological strain and core temperature. To make your own slushies, you can fill a water bottle with crushed ice and keep it in a cooler in T1 and in your special needs bag. On the run, you can grab a cup of aid station ice and add four to six ounces of water or cola, then chomp down, chew and swallow as you go.

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Extra heat hacks. When it comes to hacking the heat, there are a couple of additional considerations that fly under the radar. The first is the propensity of the gut to become more permeable during exercise in the heat, which can cause diarrhea as the body attempts to avoid toxins from gut organisms entering the bloodstream, where they can potentially contribute to heatstroke and organ damage.

Enter colostrum, a nutritional supplement extracted from the milk of mother cows and goats, which has been found to reduce leaks in the gut by up to 80 percent during maximum aerobic running. Supplementation with colostrum should be initiated at least two weeks before hotweather competition.

The final heat-hacking element to consider is sunscreen. Most oilbased sunscreens will limit cooling capability by creating a non-porous layer on the skin’s surface, but a sunscreen made with specific benzones that create a porous polymer can allow the skin to breathe, and enhance cooling. Scape sunscreen is one example of a product that includes avobenzone as a safe but porous UV-blocker.

LAVA

Ben Greenfield (BenGreenfieldFitness.com) will be competing in Kona this year using a body-cooling vest, arm-cooling sleeves, palm-cooling grips, colostrums and electrolytes, ice slushies, and a combination sauna/steam room heat acclimation protocol. Stay tuned to LavaMagazine.com for the follow-up thoughts from Greenfield.

Advertisement: science & nutrition

every Footstrike, crank and stroke Breaks down red Blood cells: >> Want to Know How to Build Them Back Up Before Your Next Race? by Rich Bachus an InSIde looK at footStrIKe hemolySIS As an endurance athlete, even before your race starts, the micro-camera reveals that your red blood cell (RBC) count is already low. That’s because your body hasn’t recovered from recent blood damage incurred during training. The clinical name for this cell destruction is hemolysis.

In a study of triathletes, researchers at the University of Tennessee found that some triathletes were anemic before they even began their races. 1 So, what’s happening to all your RBCs? “Footstrike is the major contributor to hemolysis during running,” according to studies published in Journal of Applied Physiology. 2 Even swimming and biking cause RBCs to rupture – due to chemical and mechanical stresses on the cells. In swimming, the cause is mostly “oxidative damage.” In cycling, the pressure points on hands, feet, and seat can cause hemolysis. But “footstrike” during running accounts for four times as much hemolysis. When running, your feet typically hit the pavement at a force of about 2 times your bodyweight. With each footstrike several RBCs pop like water balloons, squirting out hemoglobin, leaving damaged membranes floating in your veins. The harder and more often you run, the greater the amount of damage caused by footstrike.

E

ndurance athletes suffer blood damage from footstrike, cycling pressure points, and oxidation. While many of us take supplements for muscle, joint, and electrolyte recovery … elite runners, cyclists, and triathletes are discovering a new way to accelerate blood recovery that’s both legal and safe.

Imagine placing a microscopic camera into an elite athlete’s blood stream during a race, and controlling its location within the body. What could you learn from the pictures from such a camera?

Craig Howie, a pro triathlete, long-distance runner, and endurance coach, agreed to serve as a test subject for this journey through the circulatory system.

Like hundreds of triathletes, runners, swimmers, and cyclists, Howie recently discovered an all-natural supplement called EPO-BOOST that has appeared in several magazines and dozens of websites and blogs. Safe, easy, and effective to use, this supplement helps to repair blood damage caused by competition and training. In as little as two weeks of taking patent-pending EPO-BOOST, Howie began seeing phenomenal results.

“I Shaved 15 SecondS off each KIlometer!”

Howie, a self-described “math geek,” monitored his performance precisely by graphing his progress with spreadsheets. He ran the same 11k loop weekly, keeping his heart rate at 140 beats per minute.“After taking EPO-BOOST, my test sets dropped from 4:35 per kilometer to 4:20. Not only am I running faster … but all my heart-rate zones have shifted down.”

Like many athletes, Howie started taking EPO-BOOST because he was “looking for an edge.” Howie knew that Erythropoietin (EPO) is the hormone responsible for stimulating the production of red blood cells in bone marrow. The greater the red blood cell production, the greater the body’s ability to absorb oxygen, which in turn gives an athlete more strength and endurance. Thus giving athletes that extra edge they are looking for.

The one thing Howie didn’t understand was how footstrike hemolysis was affecting his performance. In order to gain insight into what was happening in Howie’s body before taking EPO-BOOST, it’s useful to get an inside look at an athlete’s body with the hypothetical micro-camera mentioned above.

The number of ruptured RBCs levels-off as you find a steady pace, but an inside look into the blood would reveal fewer healthy RBCs than when you started your run. A few thousand more passes like this with RBCs bursting on every footstrike, and you cross the finish line with about 10% less RBCs than you started with.

ePo = more rBcS = Greater endurance A few weeks after taking EPO-BOOST, the picture inside your blood stream is significantly healthier than it was prior to the start of your previous marathon.

Your RBC count is now at about 100% normal, even though you ran many training miles in the weeks prior to the marathon. As you run the race, you will still be afflicted with cell damage from “footstrike”, but you will be able to run faster and longer because you started with your RBC fuel tank topped off, instead of starting on a deficit.

EPO-BOOST isn’t a quick fix. The body can’t produce new RBCs during the stress of a long-distance race to replace the ones damaged by footstrike hemolysis. And EPO-BOOST can’t provide instant gratification.Most athletes see the benefits after two to four weeks of taking EPO-BOOST. But with EPOBOOST, athletes run faster without pushing harder because they are making more RBCs quicker than ever before. And more RBCs equal more oxygen, and greater endurance and speed.

What’S InSIde ePo-BooSt? The all-natural herb Echinacea purpurea has been clinically shown to increase EPO production. 3 The amount of Echinacea you find in stores isn’t nearly enough to have any real-world effect, but EPO-BOOST uses a proprietary Echinacea extract that has a concentration, and potency not found in stores. EPO-BOOST also includes other ingredients that enable athletes to absorb more iron, reduce inflammation, and prevent cell damage from oxidative stress. EPO-BOOST can be ordered at EPOBOOST.com or 1-800-780-4331, and comes with a 100% moneyback guarantee. A company spokesman confirmed a special offer: if you order this month, you’ll receive FREE ENROLLMENT into the company’s Elite Athlete Club where you’ll qualify to receive a full 25% discount on all your bottles of EPO-BOOST. O’Toole, et al. (1988) Med Sci Sports Exerc. 20:272-5.

Telford et al. (2003) J Appl Physiol. 94:38-42.

3 Whitehead et al. (2007) J Sport Nutr Metab. 17:378-9.

1 2

112 : THE HYPE : T

IN SEARCH OF THE STOIC TRIATHLETE Did Greek and Roman philosophers understand the Ironman mindset better than today’s triathletes?

By Jim Gourley

“P

ain is mandatory; suffering is optional.”

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

“Suck it up.”

Everyone has heard these athletic proverbs at one time or another. Some have shouted them at teammates to encourage them. Others have whispered them to inspire themselves to push through an extra mile. For all their power to rouse the spirit of the competitive athlete, they are merely modern interpretations of an ancient and enduring philosophy. While they serve as an effective equivalent of an advertising jingle, they fail to get beneath the surface of that philosophy, where greater strength awaits the triathlete in the form of mental resolve. If one can only pull back the veneer of contemporary perceptions, then the benefits of Stoicism may imbue them with a potency that goes far beyond “mind over matter.”

The foundations of the Stoic philosophy date back to the third century B.C. While the Athenian teacher Zeno is credited as its founder, the school of thought experienced its high point during the Roman Empire, as the slave-philosopher Epictetus (pronounced “epic-teetus”) further developed its rules and Emperor Marcus Aurelius expanded its audience with his posthumously published work “Meditations.” While many of the greatest philosophical minds debated the finer points of what Stoicism should be, they did agree on the fundamentals, and these are what make Stoicism so important to endurance athletes. Dr. Nancy Sherman, professor of philosophy at Georgetown University and author of “Stoic Warriors,” specializes in the subject and explains what value the philosophy holds for the triathlete.

“Stoicism is about understanding well-being and happiness through self-mastery and reliance,” Sherman says. Beyond death and taxes, lavamagazine.com

114 : THE HYPE : T there are other things the Stoics recognized that all people will experience in the course of their lives, namely physical pain, loss, danger and failure. What the Stoics strove to achieve was not some kind of psychological disconnection from the body, but rather distance from emotional attachment to events and outcomes.

“The Stoics placed emphasis on controlling what you can control,” explains Sherman. In the context of a triathlon, that means you can’t control the lactic acid buildup in your legs, but the decision to continue pushing onward is wholly yours.

That context isn’t far removed from the metaphors of the original Stoics. Epictetus himself often taught Stoic principles through analogies to competition. As he wrote in his Enchiridion, (or “Handbook of Epictetus”):

“And if you encounter anything troublesome or pleasant or glorious or inglorious, remember that the hour of struggle is come, the Olympic contest is here and you may put off no longer, and that one day and one action

The whole point is to find out if you can go farther today than you went yesterday by going all the way to the breaking point.

determines whether the progress you have achieved is lost or maintained.”

According to Sherman, Epictetus’ references to the athlete’s life held more significance than simply being a sports fan. To him, life was very similar to endurance sports. It requires constant training and demands that we compete regularly. This may seem odd, since winning and losing are both outcomes—and the Stoics maintain that outcomes are unimportant. Sher-

man explains that it is not the finish line, but rather the race itself that is the important thing.

“The Stoics considered everything that does not fall under our agency an ‘external,’” she says. “In the most extreme view, even the body itself, viewed as a conduit for pain, is an external. So the point of training in Stoicism becomes sort of like an endurance event—to push your limits every time and expand your endurance.”

While some teachers argued that there are limits to how far the body should be disregarded (including Epictetus’ own humorous edict that Stoics should take baths to avoid stinking up the forums), the commonly held view was that everyone should test their endurance, physical or otherwise, on a daily basis. Sherman explains that the emphasis of the Stoic philosophy is the pursuit of excellence. Actually achieving it was a difficult proposition.

“The Stoics called one who fully mastered himself in the Stoic tradition ‘sage.’ However, Epictetus and Seneca both stated that no sage existed in their time, and doubted that anyone

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T : THE HYPE : 115 could achieve such status.” This may again make it seem that Stoicism contradicts itself, but it’s important to keep in mind that reaching or failing to reach the status of sage are outcomes.

For this reason, Sherman says, Epictetus directly discussed the idea of failure. “He directed Stoics to push their agency to the degree that they can. At that point, one felt neither great satisfaction in going the distance nor shame in stopping. Epictetus didn’t believe in thinking of failure as shameful. He directed the Stoic to reflect on it.” Once again, he used athletics as a metaphor when he said that life is a contest for good fortune and happiness:

“In this, even if we falter for a time, no one prevents us from renewing the contest, nor need we wait another four years for the next Olympic games to come, but as soon as a man has ... recovered himself ... he is allowed to take part in the contest ... and even if you should falter again, you may begin again and, if you once become the victor, you are as one who has never faltered.”

The whole point then, in the Stoic view, is to find out if you can go farther today than you went yesterday by going all the way to the breaking point. Sherman says that the Stoics weren’t self-destructive though. “In the Stoic view, if you fail to make a reasonable goal, then you must rationally conclude you didn’t do your best. But you have to know that your goal was reasonable to begin with. A Stoic takes a critical sense of where they came up short.”

This kind of introspective punishment is the spiritual equivalent of looking over power meter data after an interval workout. So just what is to be obtained from this inward reflection?

Is the Stoic better for it, and if so, better how?

Sherman indicates that Stoic training in athletics yields benefits in other areas of life. She refers specifically to the “Marshmallow Experiment” conducted by Stanford University psychologist Walter Mischel in 1972. “In the experiment, young children were placed in a room with a marshmallow and told that, if they could wait for 15 minutes, they’d get a second one.

Mischel called the principle ‘deferred gratification.’ What was really interesting is that, years later, a strong correlation was found between a child’s ability to develop that sense of deferred gratification and their academic performance.”

In short, indications are that Stoic discipline developed in one aspect of life improves discipline in other areas of life as well. Whatever the habits of highly effective triathletes may be, Stoicism is likely to be the one philosophy to rule them all.

Of all the elements of endurance racing that triathletes develop, from cardiovascular endurance to muscular flexibility, the one they take for granted most is psychological resolve. Neither Epictetus nor Marcus Aurelius declared that Stoicism defined what the ideal endurance athlete, or anyone for that matter, should be. However, they emphasized the importance of seeking out that ideal, and provided a road map that is worth studying for all athletes looking to push themselves to their physical limits.

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116 : THE HYPE : T

Caveat: water How a single-celled organism can ruin your season, and what you can do to stop it.

By Ian Stokell

A

sk most serious triathletes how theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re feeling and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re likely to get the same replyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;extremely tired, aching muscles, occasional nausea. This is especially true for those training for Ironman. But what if those symptoms were not a simple by-product of intense training but were actually a manifestation of something more sinister? What if they were the result of the often misdiagnosed, and certainly medically misunderstood, Blastocys-

lavamagazine.com

tis hominis intestinal parasite? In this era of an ever-increasing number of triathlon races, more triathletes are finding that what they thought was just a bad race day performance is in fact the presence in the gastrointestinal tract of a microscopic single-celled organism, also known as a protozoan.

Ironman 70.3 standout Lesley Paterson spent much of the latter part of the 2010 season wondering why her training was fluctuating so

much from one day to the next and why her race performances lacked consistency. Sometimes it even affected her mid-race, and she would come off a solid bike ride to implode a couple of miles into the run. It was only after she tested positive for Blastocystis hominis that she found her reason. But clearing up the resulting Blastocystosis has proved elusive. Fast-forward to July 2011: nine months and several treatments later, things started to get even more complicated as

sammy tillery

118 : THE HYPE : T

medical tests suggested she might also be suffering from Lyme disease.

And there lies one of the main problems in diagnosing and treating a Blastocystis hominis infection: it often appears in unison with a second infection. The unanswered medical question remains, why? Does the athlete get the Blastocystis hominis parasite first and then suffer a weakened immune system, which opens the door for the second infection? Or does the existence of another infection make an athlete more susceptible to Blastocystis hominis?

Rewind to Kona 2005. American pro Michael Lovato began feeling unusually bad on the bike and then the marathon took him, in his own words, “forever.” Although he initially attributed his experience to just having a bad day, weeks later, after losing a lot of weight, he was diagnosed with Blastocystis hominis. He was also diagnosed with giardia.

Two pro triathletes. The same infection. Just coincidence?

Both Paterson and Lovato think they got at least one of their infections from open-water race swims on the United States mainland. lavamagazine.com

two pro triathletes. same infection. Just coincidence? both paterson and lovato think they got at least one of their infections from open-water race swims.

Open-water swims are the one common environment shared by triathletes the world over, often in still lakes or off beaches next to highly built-up and populated resorts.

Two of the main causes of Blastocystis hominis are thought to be swimming in contaminated water and exposure to human feces. Or both.

It’s a classic detective story. The shadowy and elusive Blastocystis hominis parasite is often at the scene of the crime, but there is no smoking gun. How much circumstantial evidence needs to pile up before more concrete

measures are implemented to help prevent triathletes from getting sick? The situation is complicated further because no one is quite sure where exactly the crime scene is.

Water contamination is not new. A now-infamous event in triathlon lore occurred in 2009 at Oklahoma City’s Boathouse International Triathlon, when 45 of the 367 participants, many of them elite competitors, became sick from swimming in the Oklahoma River, with symptoms including diarrhea, vomiting and fever.

ESPN reported the damage on June 10, 2009: “State health officials confirmed ... that a stretch of the Oklahoma River was to blame … saying the water was filled with parasites, viruses and other contaminants associated with animal and human waste. The Oklahoma State Department of Health said tests on stool samples from the athletes confirmed such contaminants as norovirus and ‘a couple of different kinds of bacteria and parasites.’ The agency said the findings were consistent with waterborne human or animal waste.”

The Blastocystis hominis parasite is certainly not the only gastrointestinal parasite, and Blas-

120 : THE HYPE : T tocystosis is not the only infection, but it is certainly one of the most misunderstood, and one whose role in multiple additional infections is, while circumstantial, extremely suggestive.

It is hard to say just what health issues come directly from the Blastocystis hominis parasite, given that there is often a secondary infection.

Because of this, exactly what role the parasite plays in causing the infection is not yet fully understood. Lovato had giardia, while Paterson may also have Lyme disease, in addition to having Blastocystis hominis. Paterson was not diagnosed with possible Lyme disease until nine months after she was diagnosed with Blastocystis hominis, yet she suffered symptoms that affected her training and racing the entire time.

Often Blastocystis hominis sits in the digestive tract undetected with no overt symptoms and without causing any health problems. It may be that most people who have it never show outward symptoms. However, if Blastocystis hominis does actually enter the body, at some point a secondary infection is allowed to take hold in the body.

Treatments. Another complication is that treatment for the second infection may or may not also remove the Blastocystis hominis. It may just settle back down again, quietly waiting in the body with no outward symptoms. Some doctors consider Blastocystis hominis easily treatable with such drugs as Flagyl (metronidazole), but, as the U.S. Center for Disease Control says, that isn’t always effective. Both Paterson and Lovato took Flagyl initially, without success.

Treatments seem to have varying effects on different people. Says Lovato, “I had to take a two-week course of Flagyl, which was terrible.

And I felt lethargic and worthless with the drugs in my system.”

Paterson too has had limited treatment success, saying she has had “several different types of antiparasitics, but Tindamax mainly. I tried this twice and it made the symptoms better, but didn’t get rid of it. I did alternative remedies like natural parasite cleanses, but they didn’t work.”

She finally went on a triple therapy from Professor Borody of the Centre for Digestive Diseases in Australia. That treatment is still ongoing.

Diagnosis troubles. While many doctors have a limited knowledge of Blastocystis hominis at best, diagnosing the parasite requires a specialized process. Paterson and Lovato were both diagnosed by submitting a standard stool lavamagazine.com

sample for testing. It is important that stool testing be done on three separate samples collected on three different days, not a single sample.

The three samples need to be from three different days to prevent “intermittent shedding” from a false negative result. The parasites have a natural daily ebb and flow with regards to how many appear each day, so the athlete needs to be sure to balance reports of lower numbers with days where higher numbers might come in.

Diagnosis can take a long time, and not knowing why you are feeling bad or are underperforming can be hard on an athlete. Says Lovato, “For about two weeks I had no idea what was causing my symptoms. I thought I was experiencing some terrible effects of having such a bad day in Hawaii, and did not realize that the issues I had were what caused my terrible day in Hawaii.”

It would be easier to deal with Blastocystosis if the symptoms were easy to diagnose and their effects consistent, but neither is true. One of the problems in the diagnosis is that the symptoms often overlap symptoms for a second infection.

Are the nausea, fatigue, bloating, muscle aches and appetite loss Paterson periodically endures from blastocystosis, or possibly from the flu-like symptoms of Lyme disease? Conflicting test results for Paterson again highlight the problems in diagnosing such infections, with her HMO test saying one thing and private tests another.

Differences in the quality of tests and lab work can make all the difference.

Lovato in one sense was lucky in that his initial bout with Blastocystosis came at the end of the season when he was due to take a break from training. “My symptoms first hit on the bike at Ironman Hawaii,” he says. “It was the end of my season, so I could wait to train until it cleared up.”

Responsible organizers and athletes. While there is considerable circumstantial evidence pointing to contaminated water being one of the main causes of Blastocystis hominis, there is no doubt bad water is a source of dangerous bacteria and a variety of other parasites. The question is whether or not enough is being done to prevent exposing athletes to such health dangers by allowing them to swim in suspect conditions. Regular testing of a proposed swim location would seem like the obvious way to make sure it is safe. However, problems can arise when runoff from heavy rains washes new pollutants into the water just before

race day, causing a sudden drop in water quality. With hundreds of major triathlons going on around the world, and more being added every year, it is often up to the local race organizers to test the water. But how frequently and thoroughly they do so is often unregulated.

Organizing bodies, especially in the U.S., often default to local government health regulations and tests, such as EPA water quality standards or local governmental standards for public swimming areas. But these tests can vary, even within the U.S., never mind between countries. Because of this there’s little consistency with what’s being tested for, and what levels are deemed unhealthy.

Perhaps the onus on protecting triathletes should fall on race organizers themselves. Until contaminated water is eliminated as the source of infection, it should be considered a prime suspect. Last-minute water testing, for example after recent rains that cause runoff from surrounding terrain, is always going to be problematic, especially if a positive test will make the designated swim course unusable. However, a forced location change, no matter how inconvenient, is surely preferable to the alternative. Just this May, USA Triathlon switched the swim portion of the Aquathlon National Championship in Colorado to another venue, after heavy rain and subsequent runoff increased the E. coli level in the water at the intended swim location to four times the maximum amount allowed.

That was a relatively easy fix. What happens when 2,000 athletes converge, at considerable expense, from around the world, expecting the race to start on time, and there is no alternative swim location available? In such a situation, race organizers are faced with a tough decision: Cancel the swim, and risk a slight blow to a race’s reputation, or have the swim, and then run the risk of destroying a race’s reputation if a number of athletes get sick.

In the end it’s up to the athletes to watch out for symptoms of Blastocystis hominis and other parasitic infections. Don’t automatically take a doctor’s word for it when they say symptoms such as severe fatigue, gastrointestinal problems and nausea are something minor and will quickly pass. If in doubt, get thoroughly tested.

If the results come back positive, get treatment immediately. Keep retesting even if the symptoms subside. Also, if open water swims in anything but pristine water conditions are on the training schedule, proactive testing, even without symptoms, can do no harm.

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122 : COACH’S COUNSEL : T

EASY ON THE IBUprofen Pre-race pill popping may make you end up on the sidelines.

By Troy Jacobson

Q:

Dear COACH,

I’ve taken ibuprofen on and off for the past five years, usually only after the soreness of a really hard workout sets in. I’ve found that it helps me bounce back for my next workout and feel a little fresher. I never take it more than twice per week, and rarely take more than 400 mg at a time. Recently I was struggling with some knee pain on a fivehour ride, and a training partner suggested I lavamagazine.com

try popping a few during the ride to take the edge off. My knees (and even the rest of my legs) felt noticeably better about 30 minutes after taking it, but after about an hour my stomach started to turn on me. My question to you is: Is it safe to take ibuprofen during a long workout or race, and if so, what can I take with it to make sure it doesn’t make me want to puke?

—Stephen Saunders Toronto, Ontario

A:

dear STEPHEN,

Painkillers of all types have been used throughout the years by athletes to combat training-related aches and pains. I’ve heard stories about athletes popping prescription doses of 600–800 mg of ibuprofen or other NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) during the Ironman marathon in order to delay the onset of that all-too-familiar sensation of needles stabbing the quadriceps with every step.

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It’s definitely not recommended that athletes self-prescribe these powerful drugs to help reduce pain during training or competition.

I consulted an expert in the field of sports medicine, Dr. Mark Klion, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and multi-Ironman finisher based in New York City for more information. While he says that NSAIDs can be used effectively for the treatment of inflammation associated with exercise and injury, he also states the following.

“Use of such medications when taken with any type of regularity should be reviewed by a health care professional. Ibuprofen, which is the generic form of Advil and Motrin, has known common side effects including but not limited to stomach irritation that can cause ulceration and bleeding of the stomach and intestines. It has a direct effect on platelets, which are cells that are responsible for controlling bleeding.

When taking such medicines, even a small cut or bruise can be made worse because of increased bleeding potential. The other problem that occurs is that Ibuprofen is secreted by the body through the kidneys. As well as anyone believes that they stay hydrated in a race or lavamagazine.com

intense training session, the fact is that if you become dehydrated to any extent, the dose that you have ingested of the medicine can effectively be increased to a potentially dangerous level. Kidney failure is another possible complication from excessive use of the drug, especially if fluid status is in question.”

Given the fact that you experienced stomach issues after ingesting the drug, it should be clear to you that you should discontinue this practice immediately. Instead, focus on figuring out the cause of your pain experienced during training, like perhaps improper seat height or muscular imbalances that can be corrected by a strength training program.

Good luck and train smart.

LAVA

The official coach of Ironman, Troy Jacobson is a former pro triathlete with sub nine-hour Ironman Hawaii credentials and was a top half-Ironman distance racer in the 1990s. The creator of the Spinervals Cycling Workout series, Jacobson has coached triathletes of all levels since 1992. Visit Coachtroy.com or email him at Troy@coachtroy.com.

128 : SIDELINED : T

The FAI epidemic Femoral acetabular impingement can wreak havoc on your hips, but it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to be a season-ending ordeal.

By Nate Snell, PT, CSCS

H

ip injuries, in the endurance athlete, are becoming increasingly frequent as athletes of all shapes and sizes compete, train and even work with the hip in a flexed position. Symptoms typically start as a dull pain in the groin or buttocks, with associated stiffness and loss of hip mobility. Since the majority of triathlon training occurs in the sagittal plane of motion (the hip comes straight forward and back) it creates imbalances like weak gluteals lavamagazine.com

and a tight hip flexor. This imbalance, coupled with a forward tilt in the pelvis and lack of hip extension, allows the head of the femur to remain anteriorly positioned and makes it more susceptible to pinching in the groin region.

If this issue is caught early enough it can be normalized by increasing gluteal recruitment, using core stabilization to improve pelvic alignment and lengthening the hip flexor for balance across the hip joint.

However, groin pain that is strictly related to soft tissue and muscular imbalance is rare.

Most gradual-onset hip pain conditions are a result of structural changes in the bones of the hip, or more specifically, femoral acetabular impingement (FAI). FAI is a condition where the ball of the hip does not have its full range of motion in the socket, causing impingement on the cartilage ring (labrum) or too much friction on the cartilage covering the end of the bones

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When choosing a surgeon, make sure he or she has experience with hip arthroscopies, as this procedure has only recently gained popularity.

(articular cartilage). Signs and symptoms of FAI are typically a dull groin pain after activity or sitting, with loss of hip flexion and internal rotation mobility. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s typically missed as the primary diagnosis or as a secondary diagnosis to a hip flexor or groin strain, hip tendinitis or piriformis syndrome. There may be no pain or symptoms at all, particularly in the early stages, because the pain comes from the cartilage damage and not the bony abnormality.

FAI occurs in two forms: cam and pincer.

The cam form is caused by the head of the femur being oval instead of perfectly round.

The pincer form is caused by the socket of the hip protruding out or over-covering the head of the femur. Very often these two deformities exist together, leading to destruction of the labrum and the cartilage covering the bones.

The extra bone repeatedly rubs against the cartilage and labrum leading to fraying, tearing and pain. As more tissue is lost, the bones make contact more frequently, leading to a bone-on-bone condition. The cam type tends to affect male athletes in their 20â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, while the pincer type tends to occur more commonly in active women in their 30â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and 40â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. If left untreated, advanced hip osteoarthritis may develop at a young age and eventually lead to joint replacement.

It is important to understand that hip injuries in sport have become a new orthopedic frontier, following improvements to imaging studies, surgical techniques and clinical ex-

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amination testing. During an evaluation, a physician or physical therapist will first ask about your symptoms. After a physical examination to assess your range of motion, posture and strength, you may be referred for an X-ray, MRI or MRA (MRI with the use of dye).

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to find an orthopedic surgeon and radiologist who are experienced with hip injuries to assess the images. But even without expensive diagnostic imaging, a physical examination of the hip performed by an experienced clinician is highly reliable for diagnosing FAI and labral tear. If the results reveal FAI with involvement of the labrum or cartilage, there are two options: surgery or physical therapy with a very unpopular dramatic reduction in training volume. While always recommended first, conservative treatment for cartilage tears is often unsuccessful in highly active athletes whose goal is to return to peak performance.

Surgery for FAI is generally performed through hip arthroscopy as an outpatient pro-

T : SIDELINED : 131 cedure. When choosing a surgeon, make sure he or she has experience with hip arthroscopies, as this procedure has only recently gained popularity in the US over the last 5–10 years. Three small incisions are used to view and correct the problems in the bone and cartilage. If there is damage to the articular cartilage, a process called “microfracture,” where small holes are drilled in the surgical area, might be done to stimulate the growth of new cartilage. Depending on the type of damage to the labrum, it may be shaved, or reattached to the socket. In all cases, the surgeon will correct the cam and/or pincer bony deformity. Recent studies have found that surgery was beneficial for roughly 70 percent of patients, and that those who did not benefit had advanced cartilage degeneration, which generally required a total hip replacement.

Following surgery, the athlete is either partial-weight-bearing or non-weight-bearing with crutches; the recovery time frame depends on the extent of the procedure. Typical-

ly, physical therapy starts immediately after surgery. You can begin cycling on the trainer within one to two weeks as long as you avoid the drops or aero position to avoid excessive hip flexion. In addition to a more upright position, we recommend using shorter crank arms and/or Rotor Cranks Q-rings to reduce maximal hip flexion. This is the ideal time to correct the imbalances that plague every triathlete, focusing on gluteal recruitment and core strengthening while being cautious with stretching activities. Swimming can begin as soon as the surgical incisions heal, first using a pull buoy, and progressing to kicking as pain permits. Squats, lunges and functional, multi-planar exercises will typically follow over the next four weeks. By six weeks postop, the labrum and articular cartilage has mostly healed, which means it’s time to put the trainer away and get back on the road.

Two areas of caution: First, make sure you are able to clip in and out of the pedal easily on the trainer before hitting the road. Secondly, if

the surgeon fixed a cam deformity, this bone is still healing and even a minor fall could result in a fracture. You can begin running again after about 12 weeks. By this time, you should have a solid base of hip and core stabilization and have been increasing the volume of biking and swimming to increase your overall efficiency. Be sure to check with your surgeon for any restrictions based on your surgery and, of course, the time frame of all rehab is based on the extent of the cartilage damage and your surgeon’s preference. Remember, the care and management of these hip conditions is a relatively new area for the medical community and requires a great deal more research to determine what surgical techniques are best, who the best candidates are and what the long-term prognosis will be. For now, the good news, at least in the short term, comes from a study of 45 professional athletes (mostly male hockey players) of which 93 percent returned to a professional level 12–16 weeks after surgery to correct FAI. LAVA

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Aqua ace You can become a decent open-water swimmer by training only in the pool, but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never reach your fullest potential. How fast you can be? Find a big body of water, jump in and then listen to everything Gerry Rodrigues has to say.

LARRY ROSA

By Matt Dixon, MSc

W

hen looking at triathlon performance, swimming is often relegated in importance to an afterthought, in training energy, time dedicated and its value in the overall race. Much of this stems from the small percentage of total time spent swimming (as compared to biking and running) in an event, but it is also due to the frustration many triathletes feel with what is, for the majority, the weakest of the three disciplines.

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Quickly, swimming becomes a lost hope, and justified as something simply to get through before getting on with real racing. Despite the distaste that many triathletes have for the water, if athletes are given solid direction on how to improve their open-water swimming, and thus develop an understanding of how it correlates to overall performance, swimming suddenly becomes fun. Gerry Rodrigues, founder of Tower 26 Swimming, is doing just that: mak-

ing swimming fun. In the process, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s making triathletes faster than they ever thought possible in the water.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all happening in Los Angeles. Rodrigues is one of the most celebrated open-water swimmers and coaches of all time. As a former masters open-water world champion, he has gone on to coach and consult with world champions (including 2010 5K open water world champ Eva Fabian), Olympians and

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multiple professional triathletes to help them become not just great swimmers, but great open-water swimmers. He currently runs his open-water-specific triathlon training center, Tower 26, which has multiple pool and open water sessions weekly. At any given Wednesday morning beach workout, you will see up to 200 athletes under his instruction, including multiple members of Siri Lindley’s elite triathlon squad (Mirinda Carfrae, Magali Tisseyre and David Kahn, to name a few), as well as pros from the Purplepatch squad like Linsey Corbin and Jesse Thomas. Within the group will also be middle- and back-of-thepack swimmers, linked by the desire to move from just getting through the swim to actually looking forward to it.

Rodrigues encourages athletes to begin viewing themselves as open-water swimmers, while teaching the specific skills needed to excel in open water. He created Tower 26

(named for the group’s meeting place at Lifeguard Tower 26 in Santa Monica) to help athletes improve their swim by providing them with a massive educational base and teaching them how to train effectively on a limited budget. He has quickly become a valuable resource to all levels of swimmers and coaches (myself included) looking to gain an edge on the opening leg.

TRIATHLON’S SWIM STATE. To gain a framework of Rodrigues’ views, which are the platform for why Tower 26 was created, it is critical to first understand his thoughts on the current state of swimming in triathlon.

According to Gerry: There are a few different types of athletes that train for swimming in triathlon. The dominant approach is to hit the pool for 30–45 minutes of straight swimming, simply aiming to swim faster than the previous attempt—an approach that appeals to the

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ACHES AND PAINS

136 : THE FULL SPECTRUM : T “type-A” athlete. It offers short duration, high effort and maximal yardage each session.

Outside this group there are plenty of athletes who aim to self-instruct through reading every piece of available literature and media, then implementing the strategy. With swimming being the most technical sport, it is impossible to use this approach and expect large gains.

Even if you’re the type of athlete who only likes training on your own, having an experienced coach and a group to train with can pay huge dividends in the open water.

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Perhaps the most dangerous athlete is the one who copycats very established swimmers, and simply mimics their training protocol. This is doomed to lead to failure and injury, as most triathletes have nothing like the background of established swimming superstars like Andy Potts.

The final type of athlete is one who follows an “all easy” protocol of building yardage, often augmented with a heavy focus on drills.

If you cannot learn to swim in a couple of sessions, or complete a 2K swim in five to six weeks, you have the wrong approach!

The reason so many approaches exist is the massive amount of confusion on how to appropriately train for open water, combined with huge amounts of misinformation on openwater swimming as a subject. Swimming is not an easy sport, and requires a structured and targeted approach to really improve. There is no easy fix.

swimming is vital for overall performance. As a triathlon coach, I often get asked why there is such a heavy emphasis on swimming in most of the programs I create. Swimming is often relegated in importance by many athletes and coaches, because it takes up so little time in a race, relative to biking and running. It comes down to viewing triathlon as three separate sports instead of a single swim-bike-run sport. If you ask coaches like me and Rodrigues, it’s one of the biggest mistakes a triathlete can make.

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According to Gerry: There is a huge cost to swimming, even when swimming is only 10 percent of the race in a long-distance event and roughly 17 percent of a short-course race. Swimming taxes the system, especially when one is uncomfortable, becomes anxious or starts to panic. The key is specificity. If an athlete is adequately and specifically prepared for open-water swimming, including competition conditions (people, currents, sighting, cold) the overall physical and emotional cost is greatly reduced.

This, naturally, leads to improved cycling and running performance. A lack of specific preparation will have an enormous emotional and psychological toll, which can hinder one’s ride and run performance. Watch the swimming leg of just about any triathlon and it’s clear that the vast majority of athletes approach the swim with the simple plan of getting through it. This is not a prudent approach!

Myths and mistakes of training for open water swimming.

Swimming is the most technical of the three disciplines, and probably the least understood by coaches and athletes alike. A labyrinth of myths and misinformation related to training and technical requirements accumulate to hold performance back. The first step is forgetting three myths being circulated at just about every pool in America.

According to Gerry: Perhaps the most important aspect to address is distance per stroke (DPS). So often swimmers are told to focus on glide, reach, rotation and taking as few strokes as possible on each lap of swimming.

This ends up being the biggest limiter for most triathletes, as distance per stroke has very small relevance to open-water swimming. The common measurement used to track progress, reducing strokes per lap, only shows that a swimmer can take fewer strokes each lap. It has little relevance to swimming faster. At the elite end of the sport there can be up to a 30 percent variance in stroke length among athletes. Ironically, by focusing purely on DPS, the athlete inhibits the key aspect to improved open water swimming: stroke rate. Improving stroke rate is fundamental to open-water success, but most triathletes are taking 20–45 strokes per minute less than optimal. In beginner to intermediate swimmers, low stroke rates coupled with long gliding strokes equals a slow swimmer.

138 : THE FULL SPECTRUM : T Another myth is the idea of being able to drill your way to success. Some specific drills, when applied properly and then transferred into real swimming, can be of great benefit, but great drillers simply become great drillers. The triathlon world seems to greatly overuse drills as a proportion of total swim time. Drills are a means to teach a specific skill, but then that skill has to be executed with high frequency. What’s needed is an acute awareness of the foundation needed to be a strong swimmer, then executing that with high frequency. There are some drills that are totally irrelevant to beginner and intermediate swimmers—like sculling—but more on that later.

The final myth is that to become a great open-water swimmer, you can simply train like a swimmer. Open-water swimming is a vastly different sport from pool swimming, with a dynamic environment and changing conditions that create additional obstacles. Without experience, wisdom, specific skills and training, success is hard to come by. Specific sets to prepare for open-water racing provides a massive boost

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to performance, and the ability to relax and enjoy race conditions, without fear of panic, exhaustion or poor performance.

A coach, a group and a plan.

Even if you’re the type of athlete who only likes training on your own, having an experienced coach and a group to train with can pay huge dividends in the open water. This will help give direction to every workout and ensure that there are no wasted sessions.

According to Gerry: I believe it is really important to find real instruction and a group of swimmers to train with. Solo swimming is fine for experienced swimmers, but offers a relatively small return for others. Find an established and qualified coach, masters or triathlon training group, or a group of buddies with similar goals.

This will help keep motivation high, and it also provides valuable technical feedback on a weekly basis. Within that group structure, you must have foundational swims every week that will prepare you specifically for open-water competition. Re-

moving the lane lines and having a large group spread throughout the width of the pool is a great way to work on technical aspects like sighting and drafting. These workouts will also prepare you for open-water intensity, and allow you to become familiar with the discomfort of swim starts, pack swimming and accelerations in pace.

While an accumulation of time and frequency is needed to evolve your swimming ability, you should never simply aim to accumulate time in the pool. Volume, without direction, is meaningless, and your aim should be to develop a full range of “gears” in the pool so that you have a spectrum of intensities on race day.

Of course, you need to balance this with the other disciplines in triathlon, as well as supporting it all with adequate recovery to maintain health. I am never volume-focused in training, but prefer to aim for consistency, specificity and building a complete athlete over time.

LAVA

Watch a video from Tower26 at Lavamagazine. com/tower-26

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Plant-based dangers Are vegetarian diets safe for triathletes?

By Ben Greenfield

T

hrashing through open-water chop, hammering the cranks for hours on end and pounding pavement on the run takes a lot out of the body. Serious triathletes need a lot of nutrients to recover from the daily grind of training, but do you really need the meat, milk and eggs of animals to maintain and restore amino acids, vitamins and minerals—or can we get all of our recovery needs from plants alone?

There are certainly two opposing and opinionated viewpoints in the discussion of whether

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veganism or vegetarianism can fully sustain a steady regimen of swimming, cycling, running, weights and cross-training. If a plant-based diet doesn’t give the body everything it needs, could it actually be dangerous for triathletes’ brains and bodies? Conversely, if a plant-based diet is actually enough, then could meat-eaters be engaging in unnecessary consumption of excessive and metabolically damaging proteins?

In this article, we’ll consider the advantages and disadvantages of veganism or vegetarian-

ism, and the biggest mistakes made by those who adopt a primarily plant-based diet. Since there a multiple variations of this type of diet, let’s define a few terms first: Ovo-lacto-vegetarian: Ovo-lacto-vegetarians are vegetarians who do not consume meat, poultry, fish, or seafood, but do consume eggs and milk.

Ovo-vegetarian: Ovo-vegetarian is a term used to describe someone who would be a vegan if they did not consume eggs.

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142 : TO YOUR HEALTH : T Smoothies are an excellent way to pack maximum nutrition into a pre-or post-workout snack.

Lacto-vegetarian: Lacto-vegetarian is a term used to describe someone who would be a vegan if they did not consume milk.

Vegan: Vegan is the strictest category of plant-based diets. Vegans do not consume any animal products or by-products, and in some cases do not consume honey and yeast.

Advantages.

There are a multitude of successful vegan or vegetarian endurance athletes, including ultra-runner Scott Jurek, pro triathlete and ultra-runner Brendan Brazier, pro triathlete Hillary Biscay, U.S. Masters Running Champion Tim Van Orden and top Ultraman finisher Rich Roll.

One of the primary advantages cited by the plant-based diet community is the acid-forming properties of meat and dairy products, compared to the relatively non-acidic, or alkalineforming whole plant-based foods. The logic is that an excessively acidic blood pH could result in inflammation, and thus impair recovery.

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The reason for the increased acidity of a meat-based diet is that animal protein is rich in sulfur-containing amino acids that increase production and excretion of sulfuric acid during their metabolism. There are many who claim that this acidity can be so high that the body actually leaches calcium from the bones to neutralize the acids.

Interestingly, studies of prehistoric huntergatherer diets show that only about half were net acid-producing, while the other half were actually non-acidic, and the more non-acidic diets were achieved by populations who consumed fattier portions of meat, such as marrow, brains and tongue. So while it could certainly be possible that a meat-based diet could potentially increase acidity, this effect could be balanced through consumption of proper amounts of fatsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and the relatively healthy Inuit population of the Canadian Arctic is a perfect example.

And the calcium-leaching risk? Multiple studies have revealed that people who eat the

Studies of prehistoric huntergatherer diets show that only about half were net acid-producing, while the other half were non-acidic.

most protein have the slowest rates of bone loss, and also the lowest fracture rate. One study found that consuming more protein actually increased calcium absorption from food!

So if you are eating meat regularly, and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re concerned about the acidic effect of its metabolism, make sure that you are also consuming rich fat sources such as fattier cuts of meat, avocados, coconut milk, coconut oil, or macadamia nuts. But there is not enough evi-

144 : TO YOUR HEALTH : T dence to suggest that to balance your blood pH you should remove meat entirely from your diet.

Many vegan and vegetarian diets include large amounts of juiced and blended food, primarily due to the nutritional density and ease of digestion of blended vegetables, fruits or nuts.

Since these foods are easily digested and absorbed, they consume less energy to produce more energy, and this may allow for a healthier gastrointestinal state in the exercising athlete.

Indeed, many athletes who switch to a plantbased diet report an immediate surge in energy.

But Tim Monaco, director of client education at Bioletics medical testing, and a former pro triathlete, says this initial increase in energy may be dangerous. “Athletes may feel great for a period—maybe days to years depending on how ‘good’ a vegetarian they are. I attribute this

after feeling noticeably better—both in and out of competition—he stuck with it. After 18 months of plant-based eating Misner shattered his age group’s national half-marathon trail record by more than 25 minutes. It’s tough to argue with that kind of success.

Disadvantages. The most cited disadvantage of a vegan or vegetarian diet is the potential for deficits, and Dr. Misner is quick to point out common mistakes found in athletes who make the switch, such as not eating a wide variety of colors in whole plant food, not eating enough calories when initiating a whole plant food lifestyle, not supplementing deficient nutrients such as vitamin D, vitamin B12 and zinc, and not finding adequate sources of iodine, riboflavin or omega-3 fatty acids.

doing it right Obviously, based on the great success of plant-based diet athletes, it seems to be possible to do it right and avoid many of the deficiencies and risks cited in this article. So what does “doing it right” actually look like? Here’s a sample eating plan from one of the most successful vegetarian endurance athletes on the planet, Rich Roll:

foods tend to be very low in nutritional content, not to mention very high in gluten, which causes inflammation and a variety of other health issues for certain people. For obvious reasons neither of these regimes would be healthy for anyone, let alone an endurance athlete.”

We asked a couple of successful athletes who tried a vegan diet, then switched back to allowing animal products in their diet. Kerry Sullivan, coach at Rock Star Triathlete Academy and top age-group triathlete, tried going vegan for several years before undergong medical tests to identify deficiencies. “Testing revealed I was low in iron, amino acids and Bvitamins. I was missing a lot of vital nutrients.

You can get lots of protein but not always all the amino acids, vitamins and minerals you need if you aren’t supplementing. I got super anemic.”

Tim Monaco also experienced the manifestation of deficits, “Long term vegetarianism creates imbalance and depletion. This may manifest a lot of different ways. For me it was anemia, poor body composition, poor performance, poor recovery, and even though I changed my ways, I believe it contributed to long-term hormonal depletion and adrenal fatigue.”

Pre-workout morning smoothie: Kale, beet, chia seeds, hemp seeds, maca, orange, flax Seeds, Vega Whole Food Optimizer Post-workout: Coconut water and cold quinoa with coconut or almond milk, berries, Udo’s oil and hemp seeds.

Lunch: Salad with mixed veggies and vinaigrette or brown rice, beans and greens, hemp seeds.

Snacks: Vitamix with brown rice/pea/hemp protein, almond milk, cacao, almonds, walnuts.

Dinner: Lentils over brown rice with beet greens and avocado, arugula salad, sweet potatoes.

Most triathlons are relatively aerobic sports, and many training sessions and longer races do not use sugar and starch as primary fuels.

Dessert: Coconut milk ice cream, chia seed pudding, glazed figs (see photo, next page).

During workout: On bike—coconut water, Vega Sport, Perpetuem; On run—coconut water, Vega Sport, Hammer Nutrition Heed.

period to a general improvement of diet—better overall food choices and nutrient density.”

Bill Misner, Ph.D., a nutritionist, alternative medicine practitioner, and top masters runner, has been on a plant-based diet for the past 20 months, and says that it allows him to accommodate higher training work loads and more strength and speed workouts because of the improved recovery rate. Misner says he started with a 90-day trial of a plant-based diet and lavamagazine.com

Ultra-athlete Rich Roll agrees. “It is very easy to continue to eat poorly, particularly as most foods found at the grocery store these days are highly processed. In other words, you can eat ice cream, Twinkies, Domino’s Pizza and McDonald’s milk shakes all day long and call yourself a vegetarian. Vegans can gorge on fast food french fries, potato chips and processed ‘fake meat’ products like veggie sausages, bacon and burgers, but these chemical-laden processed

But the more successful endurance athletes can potentially balance these deficiencies. Roll is well aware of these potential risks, “With respect to endurance athletics specifically, it does require a modicum of awareness to ensure that you are meeting your protein needs as well as nutrients that are more difficult to come by on a plant-based diet, such as vitamin B12.”

Too much carbohydrate?

Most triathlons are relatively aerobic sports, and many training sessions and longer races do not necessarily use sugar and starch as primary fuels, but rather rely on fatty acids. From a biological perspective, this makes sense,

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146 : TO YOUR HEALTH : T

Jennifer Ward Barber

Glazed figs with manuka honey. For this recipe and more by vegetarian endurance athlete Rich Roll, visit lavamagazine.com/rich-roll.

since carbohydrates can be rapidly depleted, and the body can only store a few thousand calories from carbohydrates, but tens of thousands of calories from fat.

If an athlete is eating primarily pasta, bread, white rice, soy, processed meat substitutes, conventional, non-organic eggs and dairy, and drinking a lot of fruit juice, not only could they be consuming excessive and unnecessary carbohydrate that they are not actually burning for their sport, but they may also be running the risk of developing deficiencies in essential fatty acids, amino acids, vitamin D, iron, B12 and minerals.

Nora Gedgaudas, a certified nutritional lavamagazine.com

therapist and author of Primal Body, Primal Mind, explains it this way: “Fat, in the form of ketones (broken-down fatty acid byproducts) and free fatty acids, is the preferred aerobic fuel for the heart and other muscles, and ketogenic adaptation provides a more steady release of even-burning and sustainable fuel. It can take a good three or four weeks to adapt to a fat-based metabolism, following which performance has been shown to be superior.”

Nora explains that you get good at burning fat by depending on fat in the absence of carbohydrates, not by constantly depending on and burning sugar for fuel, which you’re much more likely to do on a plant-based diet.

So while a plant-based diet may certainly be dangerous, it appears that you can pull it off successfully if you cover your basic nutrient needs, supplement wisely and avoid the highly processed “health” foods that Scan this code to link directly to of our favorite vegetarian are commonly consumed three recipes by endurance athlete Rich Roll. on such a diet.

LAVA

Ben Greenfield is a sports nutritionist, and has experimented with Paleo, vegetarian, vegan and high-fat diets. His favorite diet is now “whatever my wife cooks.”

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stress test Listen to your body and heed the warning signs of stress overload.

By Mark Allen

frank wechsel, triathlon.org

T

he question today is not so much if a person is under stress but rather how much. Job cutbacks, less extended family to help raise children and expectations to get things done at the speed of Twitter have all narrowed the window of free time that people used to have to just daydream, sit on the porch and chat, and relax with friends.

For many of you, that relaxation time goes into training for triathlons, which is certainly a great thing. Research has shown that a sedentary lifestyle will kill you faster than being a smoker who is active. But I have digressed. Let’s get back to what happens in your body when you are under stress and why as an athlete is it extremely beneficial to be able to manage stress.

Stress can come in many different forms.

When asked to think about the stressors in their lives, most people think of emotional stress first.

It could be caused by a fight with the boss, a tootight deadline or being asked to do too much.

For athletes it could be feeling the crunch of a big race coming up or having to assemble and pack all your gear for it. (See my video on the LAVA website for a run-through of travel items for your next away race. It will help reduce the stress of traveling to a race.) Emotional stress can also come from trying to figure out which is more important—that early morning swim or getting two extra hours of sleep—knowing that whichever you skip is going to cause you a modest amount of mind chatter anyway.

A second stress that you have likely experienced as a triathlete, especially if you have a job and are training for a long race, is lack of sleep, which can cause an array of issues.

First, you don’t recover as completely. Human growth hormone is released when you sleep, and this is one of the main hormones that helps your body repair from the training you do in the daytime. Without sufficient sleep you can end up training yourself into worse shape because your muscles break down and never lavamagazine.com

150 : COMPETITIVE EDGE : fully rebuild. A second problem that lack of sleep causes is that it makes you hungrier.

That’s right, if you are trying to lose those final few pounds, take a look at your sleep totals. If they are lean, your body many never be.

The body first responds to stress by releasing a hormone called cortisol. This hormone helps you cope with stress, but if it remains elevated because of ongoing stress it can weaken your immune system, cause depression and disrupt your sleep cycle. When you are under too much stress, high cortisol levels often allow you to fall asleep normally, but then cause you to wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. It can also cause muscle wasting, an increase in body fat (especially around the belly), irritability and low motivation. None of this is going to help you set a PR in your next Ironman.

A third type of stress is physical stress.

This is often what pushes an athlete over that line that separates being fit from being overtrained. If you train at moderate intensities and your workouts last less than three hours, you

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are likely safe from entering the danger zone.

However, if you are training longer than three hours a day or you’re incorporating high-intensity sessions, it becomes extremely important to look at all the stress in your life and do a daily check to make sure that you are not in line for a head-on collision with overtraining.

As you can see, some of a good thing is medicine, but too much can cause harm. Some speed is essential for a great race. Well-placed long workouts are key to having a great triathlon of any length. Too many of both taps the deep reserves of energy that are your cushion against stress. The good news is that the line between fitness and overtraining is not razorthin. It’s pretty broad and gray. Along the way, you’ll get some signals well before that one big workout that breaks the camel’s back. Here are a few:

SIGNS OF STRESS. Swimming is going to be one of your best indicators of whether or not you are overdoing things, because it requires the finest motor control of the three sports in

a triathlon. Fine motor control will drop off well in advance of any noticeable reduction in gross motor skills as your body takes on more and more stress. So if you are suddenly struggling 5–10 seconds behind your normal 100-meter pace in the pool, you just got your first red flag.

Your cycling and running may be humming along normally, or even getting faster, but a drop in your swim is a call to stall and reduce your load in life—and training.

If you find your swim training taking a dive it’s time to slip under the covers a few hours earlier for a few days in a row. Log some extra sleep rather than filling your logbook with extra workouts. If you catch it quickly, the miracle healer of sleep will bring your body back and drop your swim times down to normal or even faster.

A second sign that your body is under more stress than it can safely manage is that your workouts become less consistent. One day you feel superhuman and the next like you are totally out of shape. Your performance in key workouts should be steady and reasonably predictable from week to week. If you find that

152 : COMPETITIVE EDGE : you are setting PR’s one day and barely able to get your heart rate up the next, you just got your second red flag.

If you find your workouts lacking consistency, cut way down on your workout length and intensity for three days, and if you feel you have already dug yourself a nice hole, take two days completely off and then come back on the third with short recovery workouts in each sport. If that doesn’t do the trick, cut out all speed work for two weeks and try to have only one or two days a week with more than three hours of total training.

A third sign of stress overload is a change in your sleep pattern. It could be that you have trouble falling asleep even when you’re completely exhausted. It could be that you wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back asleep. Whatever the sleep disturbance is, it’s not something you want to ignore.

Take a look at your training and ask yourself honestly if you might be overtraining. Keep in mind that overtraining is not solely about your total training time and workout intensity,

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but rather what your training volume is compared to the other responsibilities in your life.

Many athletes fall into the trap of just looking back at last year’s training log and trying to hit bigger numbers, and often this comes with a decrease in performance. If this sounds like you, there’s a good chance that your life is more packed this time around and your body simply can’t handle the demands on it. What you cut back on to compensate is your choice.

It might be saying “no” to that one more project at work. It could be reducing your training load. Maybe it’s as simple as not turning on the TV or logging on to Facebook and getting to bed an hour earlier. Whatever it is, sift out the fluff and stick to the essentials until your body comes back around.

The final sign is a mix of small but significant red flags that could be warnings of too much stress for your body to manage. They can be sudden weight loss or gain (as opposed to steady change in either direction), elevated heart rate in the morning (more than five beats above normal), feeling like you are

going to black out when you stand up quickly, mental resistance to going out for training sessions that lasts for more than a week or so, low-grade illnesses that keep coming back, injuries, cramping in your calf muscles, ridges in your fingernails or general malaise.

If you find yourself experiencing a mix of these symptoms, do something positive that is the opposite of what you normally do a lot of. For an athlete, this can be as simple as going to a movie and just sitting for a few extra hours relaxing. It might be spending a few hours on the deck with a good book. It could be getting that relaxing massage you have been meaning to book. Maybe it’s skipping a workout and not letting yourself feel guilty about it. Whatever it is, make it something soothing to your nervous system so that you can come back to triathlon with the kind of commitment you know Scan this code to watch a video of stress-relieving packing tips you’re capable of. with Mark Allen.

LAVA

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in focus 160

boarding pass 176

the last word

Germany’s Sebastian Kienle brought along his own cheering section for this year’s Roth Challenge. The extra external motivation helped propel

KERSTIN WINTERKAMP

Kienle to a sub-eight performance (7:57:06), which was second only to countryman Andreas Raelert’s world-record finish (7:41:33). lavamagazine.com

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156 : IN FOCUS : R 157

One year ahead of the 2012 London Olympics, the world’s top triathletes got a taste of the exact course that will be contested at the Games, and all signs point to Great Britain taking home plenty of hardware on hometurf next summer. Alistair Brownlee took the men’s win on the run after being part of a four-man bike breakaway, while countrywoman Helen Jenkins held off hard-charging American upstart PHOTOS TRIATHLON.ORG: DELLY CARR & JANOS SCHMIDT

Gwen Jorgensen to complete the British sweep. As an official Olympic qualifying event for the U.S., Jorgensen and fellow American Sarah Groff (who finished 7th) became the first two triathletes selected for the the 2012 Olympic Team. Jorgensen, 25, was recruited into the sport

by USA Triathlon after a successful swimming and cross-country career at the University of Wisconsin.

dextro energy triathlon

itu world CHAMPIONSHIP london

AUGUST 6 & 7, 2011 : LONDON, ENGLAND 1.5K swim : 42K bike : 10K run MEN’S TOP FINISHERS 1. Alistair Brownlee : GBR : 1:50:09 2. Alexander Brukhankov : RUS : 1:50:34 3. Jonathan Brownlee : GBR : 1:51:04

WOMEN’S TOP FINISHERS 1. Helen Jenkins : GBR : 2:00:34 2. Gwen Jorgensen : USA : 2:00:41 3. Anja Dittmer : GER : 2:00:49

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R : IN FOCUS : 157

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158 : IN FOCUS : R 159

FORD

ironman lake placid JULY 24, 2011 : LAKE PLACID, NEW YORK 2.4 mi. swim : 112 mi. bike : 26.2 mi. run MENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TOP FINISHERS 1. TJ Tollakson : USA : 8:25:15 2. Ben Hoffman : USA : 8:33:29 3. Jason Shortis : AUS : 8:47:18

WOMENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TOP FINISHERS

PHOTOS LARRY ROSA

1. Heather Wurtele : CAN : 9:19:03 2. Tine Deckers : BEL : 9:34:41 3. Tyler Stewart : USA : 9:38:09

lavamagazine.com

The smallest city ever to host the

and unpredictable weather. This year

Olympic Games is also the smallest city

neither could slow bike phenom TJ

to host an Ironman race, but on race

Tollakson, who earned his first Ironman

day you would never know that fewer

title after 11 attempts as a professional.

than 3,000 residents call Lake Placid

The Iowa-native powered to a race-best

home. The host city of the 1932 and

4:33:30 bike split aboard a 15-year-old

1980 Winter Olympics has been home

Zipp frame to pull away from reigning

to Ironman Lake Placid since 1999,

champion Ben Hoffman. Heather Wur-

making it the second oldest Ironman in

tele used a more modern bike to take

North America after Ironman Canada.

the fourth Ironman win of her career

Surrounded by the Adirondack Moun-

(and second of the season), crossing

tains, the race has earned a reputation

the finish with 15 minutes to spare over

for serving up a challenging bike ride

Tine Deckers.

R : IN FOCUS : 159

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160 : BOARDING PASS : R

N I C I S S LA

C T N A T S IN

arty a he e d n a om heat tah little tralia hi Cairns. a t s s u ge ju rop, allen ern A hn ackd rtheast ut of Ch b rasu l a no eb Jay P pic n d i y o r b e t s h s n g t r oto nnin f Cai un with d ph r a stu town o y an r h t o i t e S W y,” th “g’da

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C

S N R I A

162 : BOARDING PASS : R

st an mu ronm I ii o a ved t Haw as mo a t the w h f w it o but efore This is he de like b t d s w e e a o e k loo ch w arqu wind have d. Su ew m oard n n b e r ’ la s s a h s n t t t I ig e s ven nd Cair the B nge E out th , the ters a e a a e ll , li c s w a a n n h r e st f C A gla creatio al blu in Au one o first tropic finest on iss l ’s d d a it e irns. r le v e hway, , a u a o h s t r reve e hig race ing t nge C h of na t t e t t; app ll e o s g r a e n d fi h o h sin a of phoeef, rt C s. T off clo to be glory re the Airpo rier R Cairn d d r u e a f a s ll h o a B f u r o ’m t p ter his ning p, I line rea ery “They coast ckdro the G id reig ed on eriph ch. a a d p a e b s n o h e r t e ,” la n e h h p g in ap ht off do hris e t en shor amaz frame ion C bit lik nd wit n’t ev tance long na be town s a hamp ed a I had or er a n f t c d k e f o n o a g d id king ld la s e t lo e a r u sea wo rea er t head bank tos ar yet, b man stling y a ts aft n lane d pical u n m o e p o b r e r , I “It’s t firma m y a e m a ; g n Ju hu llin ay 5. as m t mo ne fr awaii early by ro ” Oa e sce t on M k jus e H s w roach ir c n in h t e o t a p e n s ut it v p id W m e “ n e y b a s r b air ne. the but ent, line both McCo the C dotted alms, he de ee ev he pla t t p , u in r t f nt. q h e a o r g t it a v r a in is e e ir m floo e w landin lush w the w r. is the y of th pphir n the e t t a o h u t e s a . s o r e t a im R e s ; er ust the b jaw w again funny uter p uld m have n its o ll I co esn’t o a o s d s f t a e s w re ju

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164 : BOARDING PASS : R

The drone of a didgeridoo and the dance from a troupe of Aborigine performers provided for a fitting send-off at the Challenge Cairns debut.

lavamagazine.com

I’m an Australian and will always champion our events, but this isn’t about being an Australian. This race is one of the most beautiful races I’ve ever done, no question. Cairns has the potential to explode.”

The folks from Challenge Events had an idea about the potential for an iron-distance race in northeastern Australia when it began discussions with the tourism authority of Queensland a year ago. The proposal? Make it a classic.

But just what makes a race a “classic”?

Certainly, event directors are aware that just plopping a race down in a city to serve a geographical need isn’t enough. Consider events like Escape from Alcatraz, with its sand ladder run and the legendary swim from the island prison to the San Francisco shore, or TriStar Monaco, with a run on the Formula I Monaco race course, taking competitors past the famed Monte Carlo casino. There’s Wildflower’s timeless camping vibe, and the Alpe d’Huez Triathlon with its Tour de France lore. Of course, the crown jewel among classics is the Hawaii

PHOTO BY PAOLA

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MAR. 18.2012 IRONMAN® 70.3® is a trademark of World Triathlon Corporation. 70.3® is a registered trademark of World Triathlon Corporation. M-DOT 70.3™ is a trademark of World Triathlon Corporation. Used here by permission.

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166 : BOARDING PASS : R Ironman, with Dig Me Beach, the desolate lava fields along the Queen K., Ali’i Drive and the pain of Palani Hill.

Well, we can safely add Challenge Cairns to that list. The clincher: How about the opportunity to race alongside one of the natural wonders of the world—the Great Barrier Reef. Until a race organizer gets a permit to host a race at the Grand Canyon, Mount Everest or Victoria Falls, Challenge Cairns offers the only opportunity to race in such a locale.

“It’s glorious,” Australian race winner Rebekah Keat said. “I normally don’t look around during the bike, but I had to look to the side, and thought to myself, ‘God, I’ve got a good job!’”

The town itself is a vacation gem. Set along the low tide mudflats (complete with mudskippers flopping about in the muck), with the recently-renovated Esplanade Foreshore and a public wading pool, Cairns’ breathtaking waterfront is an ideal family venue. Add tons of markets and restaurants and it’s a Mecca for family activity. The race was preceded the weekend before by the Coral Coast Triathlon,

You will see plenty of wildlife throughout the race course, but you can also check out the Cairns Tropical Zoo for up close encounters with crocs and caiman—as well as koalas, kangaroos and wombats.

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168 : BOARDING PASS : R

Ironman world champ Chris McCormack represented for Australia as he tore up the lush, lonely shoreline roads to claim top honors in Cairns.

lavamagazine.com

and on race weekend with the Junior Challenge Cairns kids’ race. A half-iron-distance event also ran concurrently with the Challenge Cairns event.

For a North American the timing is perfect.

Its June placement means it’s actually well into the race season, meaning you can actually travel to a race in the Southern Hemisphere with “A” race fitness, while Asia-Pacific athletes can use the event as a new top-shelf season-ender.

On race day this year the Aussie fans got the result they had hoped for. Keat claimed top honors in the women’s race, while McCormack, who entered the race never having lost an iron-distance contest on home soil (he’s won Ironman Australia five times), pulled out a convincing win in the men’s race.

“I’m in my own country and there’s a lot of expectation,” McCormack said afterward. “It’s a tough course, and that run was draining, but it was great having cheering sections through that marathon.”

PHOTO BY PAOLA

FEB. 12.2012

Register today and be part of the Ironman 70.3 Latin American Pro Championship race!!

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IRONMAN® 70.3® is a trademark of World Triathlon Corporation. 70.3® is a registered trademark of World Triathlon Corporation. M-DOT 70.3™ is a trademark of World Triathlon Corporation. Used here by permission.

Register today at www.ironmanpanama.com

170 : BOARDING PASS : R While crocodiles have been spotted in the calmer lower flanks of Barron Gorge, the upper reaches present a series of fun whitewater rapids.

What’s on in Cairns:

race, there’s plenty to do to pass the time.

Quicksilver Great Barrier Reef dives You may have dived the Hawaiian Island chain or in the Caribbean, but nothing holds a candle to the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, a 1,600-mile chain of over 2,900 individual reefs extending across Australia’s northeastern coastline. Whether you have dive certification or prefer to just snorkel, the massive Silverswift catamaran takes you from Cairns to gorgeous—and quite shallow—living coral gardens teeming with life ranging from big groupers and placid whitetip sharks to massive clams, clownfish and sea turtles. A half-day trip includes lunch, education, dive equipment and as many pictures as you can take. It’s an absolute must-see. Quicksilver group.com.au, Cairnsgreatbarrierreef.com.au

Cairns Esplanade Those who prefer their activity excitement to involve a credit card and a shopping bag will love the Cairns Esplanade. Shopping is first-rate: hunt for deals on Ugg boots, grab some Joe at one of the many coffee shops, then head across the street to sunbathe on the sand next to the swimming lagoon. For families waiting for loved ones to finish the lavamagazine.com

Cairns Tropical Zoo If it’s indigenous, it’s there. Crocs, wombats, kangaroos, adders and koalas are housed in an intimate, jungle-shaded walk-through zoo that has grown over the last 20 years from a small habitat to one of the most respected zoos in Australia. The quintessential experiences? You can feed and pet kangaroos, hold a baby croc for a photo (don’t worry, its jaws are taped shut) and the zoo is one of very few in Australia with a permit to allow the public to handle koalas. Cairnstropicalzoo.com.au

Barron Gorge whitewater rafting A reminder that Cairns sits at the foot of a rainforest valley is just a 20-minute drive north of town with Barron Gorge, a churning river that flows down to the Coral Sea. Several river-running outfits organize raft runs down through fun Class II and a few Class III rapids with names like “The Kitchen Sink” and “Mother-in-Law.” Our guide was kind enough to mention that estuarine crocodiles have occasionally been seen cruising the calm lower flanks of the river. It’s enough to keep your feet and arms inside the raft. Raft.com.au LAVA

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JUNE /JULY 2011 : ISSUE 06

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LAVA SWEEPSTAKES RULES NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. OPEN TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE FIFTY (50) UNITED STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WHO ARE 18 YEARS OF AGE AND OLDER AND WHO ARE PHYSICALLY LOCATED AND RESIDE IN THE UNITED STATES OR DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. VOID IN PUERTO RICO AND WHERE PROHIBITED. 1. ELIGIBILITY: No Purchase Necessary. The LAVA/Trek/K-Swiss Sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) is open to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 years of age and older, who are physically located and reside in the United States or District of Columbia at the time of entry (“Eligible Participant”).

Void in Puerto Rico and where prohibited. Employees, directors and officers, and their immediate families (spouse, parents, children, siblings, and their respective spouses), and their respective household members, of LAVA, Trek, K-Swiss, and World Triathlon Corporation ., and their affiliates, subsidiaries, and divisions (“LAVA, Trek, K-Swiss, and World Triathlon Corporation Entities”) (LAVA, Trek, K-Swiss and World Triathlon Corporation Entities collectively, “Sponsor”), are not eligible to enter. Sweepstakes is subject to all federal, state and local laws. U.S. law governs this Sweepstakes and personal jurisdiction shall exclusively be the state and federal courts located in Tampa, Florida.

2. SWEEPSTAKES TIMING/DESCRIPTION: The Sweepstakes begins at 12:00:00 AM Pacific Time (PT) on May 1, 2011 and ends 11:59:59 PM PT on October 1, 2011 (the “Promotion Period”). During the Promotion Period, Eligible Participants will be entered in the Sweepstakes (see Rule 3 on how to enter). Two (2) Trek bicycles valued at $10,000.00 each will be awarded at the end of the Promotion Period.

• HOW TO ENTER: Eligible Participants may enter the Sweepstakes by completing and submitting the on-line form, or by mailing individual entries to: LAVA/Trek/K-Swiss Sweepstakes, 514 Via de la Valle, Suite 300, Solana Beach, CA 92075. Remember to include your name, address, phone number and e-mail address. More than one entry per person is allowed, provided that each entry is submitted/mailed separately. Entry Deadline: All En6/22/10 3:51 and/or PM postmarked Page 1by no later than October 1, 2011. All entries become the property of tries must be received the Sponsor and will not be returned. Entries will not be judged or scored. Once you submit your entry in the Sweepstakes, your entry is final and may not be modified or edited. Modifying or editing an entry subsequent to submission will result in the entry being disqualified. Entries submitted will not be acknowledged or returned. The Website’s database clock will be the official timekeeping device for the Sweepstakes. Entries that are mechanically reproduced, copied, illegible, incomplete or inaccurate are void. Incomplete Entries or Entries not complying with these Official Rules are subject to disqualification. Entries become the property of the Sponsor and will not be acknowledged or returned. Incomplete entries or entries not complying with these Official Rules are subject to disqualification, at the Sponsor’s sole discretion. Sponsor is not responsible for late, lost, incomplete, illegible, damaged, or misdirected entries. Sponsor’s decisions are final on all matters relating to this Sweepstakes. Sponsor reserves all rights, including the right to edit, publish, use, adapt, modify, or dispose of any entry, proper names, likenesses, and photographs for advertising and promotional purposes in all media (including, but not limited to, the internet) without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law. If an entrant changes his/her telephone number, email address, and/or street address, after he/she enters the Sweepstakes, it is his/her sole responsibility to notify the Sponsor by (postal) mailing notice to Sponsor’s address (listed below) to be received by the end of the Promotion Period.

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Entrants agree to abide by the terms of these Official Rules and the decisions of the judges and Sponsor, which are final, and waive any right to claim ambiguity in these Official Rules. Entrants agree that any and all disputes shall be governed by the laws of the State of California. GRANT OF LICENSE: Each entrant agrees that Sponsor may, without any limitation or further compensation, use his or her name, voice and/or likeness, or photograph in any and all media for the purpose of advertising and promoting the Website, the Sweepstakes, or any other promotion, sponsored by the Sponsor. Neither entrants nor winners shall be entitled to receive any compensation or credit for use of entries, other than that disclosed in these Official Rules. REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES: Entrant acknowledges that nothing herein shall constitute an employment, joint venture, or partnership relationship between entrant and Sponsor. In no way is entrant to be construed as the agent or to be acting as the agent of Sponsor in any respect.

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176 : THE LAST WORD : R

Tisseyre vs. Lindley Under the watchful eye of legendary coach Siri Lindley, Canadian 70.3 superstar Magali Tisseyre is ready for the next big step in her career. So where are Tisseyre and Lindley headed next?

Hint: It’s not where you think.

Magali Tisseyre: There’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. Right now my focus is all on Ironman 70.3, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what else I could possibly do—whether it’s shorter or longer—and where I go from here. What are your thoughts?

Siri Lindley: I have to say I’m pleasantly shocked to hear you mention shorter races, because I feel like we missed a step with you.

You never really competed in Olympic-distance racing. I think that’s something you could really excel at. You have the raw speed and feistiness that short-course athletes need.

MT: I never let myself think about shorter racing before because I didn’t have a strong swim. From the start I realized I was strong on the bike, so I figured I could do better at the 70.3

SL: But seeing how your swim has developed over the past year, I don’t think it’s a weakness anymore. The training changes with the goals. If you get to the point where you want to focus on short-course, draft-legal racing, I have no doubt that we could get your swim to where it needed to be to compete. I think that you could do some great things if you decide to go shorter.

MT: Do you think I could possibly then go back to 70.3 and be stronger than I am now?

SL: The way I see it is that Olympic distance leads to 70.3 and that leads to Ironman. Athletes are bringing the speed from shorter distances into longer events and the times continue to get faster and faster. I think it could be great for your development. If you were coming to me and saying that your heart was set on Ironman right now, my advice might be a little different.

MT: I’m not saying that. I don’t think I’m ready.

SL: I agree. It’s not that you couldn’t jump up to Ironman and do well, but as far as your development goes, the timing isn’t right. Not only from a physical standpoint, but you have lavamagazine.com

sammy tillery

since I had time to make up for my swim.

to really want to do an Ironman before you do it. You have to be dying to do one. It’s a long day, and a lot will go wrong. If your mind isn’t onethousand-percent into it then it’s really going to be a struggle.

MT: But part of me is like, “I’m already 29.

It’s too late for me to step down to shortcourse racing.”

SL: Excuse me? I was 31 when I won my first ITU World Cup Series title. You’re still young.

Very young. You’ve only scratched the surface of what you’re capable of.

MT: Right now I feel like things are going well, but sometimes I can’t help but feel like there’s something missing—like I missed something somewhere along the way. Then I look at what the ITU girls are doing, and I’m not sure if I could do that, but I think it might help me in the long run.

SL: You’re the type of athlete who, if you really want something, you’ll make it happen. Do you almost feel like it’s your destiny to race short course? Do you want it that bad?

MT: When I was growing up my favorite movie was “Nadia,” about the Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci, and I think ever since then some part of me has wanted to be an Olympian. I used to practice gymnastics in the front yard and think about making the Olympics. Then I started doing triathlon, but from the start I didn’t think about the Olympics because of my swim. But you know how it is when you have something that you really wanted to do that you just sort of pushed to the side? All of a sudden I can’t stop thinking about it.

SL: Then you’re destined to do it. And I wouldn’t be telling you that if I weren’t 100-percent sure you could do it. It will be a huge challenge, and you’ve thrown me for a loop, but you’ve also got me very excited.

MT: I didn’t realize where this conversation would go. I was almost afraid to bring it up. Now you’ve got me excited about it too!

LAVA

Read more of what these two had to say at Lavamagazine.com/last-word-8

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......................................................++~~~~~~~~,~~~~~,~~~~~~++++=======++++~+~~,,,.....,,,,,,,,~~~++++===????=====++~~~~+++++++++======??????877788888777DDDD8?777???7DDDDDD8DDDDDDD8==?7????==?8D888++++~~~~~~~~~~~++++~~,,~~~~~~~~~~. .....................................................,++~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+++========+++~~~~~,,,....,,,,,,,,,,~~++=============++~~~~~+++++++++==+===??????777777778777DDDDD??77?77?78DDDDDDDDDD8?====?=======++8888+++~~~~~~~~~~~~+++~~~,,~~~~~~~~~. .....................................................++~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~++++========+++~~~~,,,.....,,,,,,,,,~~~++============+++~~~~~+~++~++++++++====?????7?7~+77777?DDDDD?????????77DDDDDDDD??7=+=?8?======++8888+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+++~,~,~~~~~~~~~~. .....................................................+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+++========++~~~~~,,,,....,,,,,,,,,,~~+++===========++++~~~~~~++~~+~++++=======?????778?777?77DDDDD??777?77?777DDDDD7??7======8888888788887~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,+++,~,,,~~~~~~~~~. 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INITIATE FON PROTOCOLS - 9.2 > > > > > > >

100% YAMAMOTO 40 C ELEVATION PANELS 360 STABILIZATION SYSTEM 7X STATIC STRETCH ROM ZONE GOLd LINING V-GCP 7 COMMANd(S) ENTEREd

EXE EXE EXE EXE EXE EXE EXE

7987 12300 86 6759 6456 23493 5066

.... .... .... .... .... .... ....

Engaged Engaged Engaged Engaged Engaged Engaged Engaged

> RUN Field test.....

ERRCOdE=0000 OBFCNT=0000

PRESS <F5> TO CONTINUE

> Run Hydrodynamic Results - Andy Potts, TJ Tollakson Chrissie Wellington, Mirinda Carfrae, Julie dibens . . . . .

CLASSIFIEd dATABASE . . . . .

PRESS <F5> TO CONTINUE > Run Imaging Process . . . . .

CLASSIFIEd dATABASE . . . . .

. . . . .

ILLEGAL ACCESS . . . . .

SYSTEM BREACH PROTOCOLS ENGAGEd C:/FON/ C:/FON/

.... SYSTEM LOCK .... FILE(S) dELETION

REMOTE LIMITEd ACCESS ONLY . . . . .

> > >

HTTP://TYR.COM/LIMITSWILLFALL

LIMITS WILL FALL

. . . . .

COMING SPRING 2012

. . . . .

. . . . .

ŠAmerican Sporting Goods Corporation 2011

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