And so another year (and decade) comes to an end. Among other things, this serves as a trigger to look back on the past year (mostly) and decade (a little bit, for context) with respect to triathlon and adventure. This is a narrow perspective, in that it's on me (well it is my blog) and I'll stay focused on my training and events and not comment on life more broadly....Here goes:
Overall
2019 in sum was a very successful and rewarding year for me. My two major goals were to train for and have a successful alpine expedition to Bolivia in May and to train for and execute an excellent Ironman and qualify for Kona 2020 in November. Both of these goals were effectively achieved.
I was also able to stay relatively healthy and injury free (which is no small thing at 62 years of age) and set new training milestones along the way.
I put a lot into this year. I think I had a more effective and accurate view of what I can and can't do this year than ever before and as a result was able to translate that into executing against my plan and goals for the year. This was perhaps the most rewarding thing about the year!
Bolivia
The first 4+ months of the year were principally focused on getting my body ready to climb 3 specific mountains in Bolivia. I was additionally, building up my triathlon training so that after Bolivia (beginning of June), I could hit the ground running (and swimming and biking) and get ready for my Ironman in the fall.
I did a huge amount of walking/trekking/climbing/stair master, etc. in preparation for the expedition. Two highlights here were 11 major treks in Shenandoah National and my 30+ mile circumnavigation of Manhattan.
In May, Anders and I enjoyed a very successful and enjoyable two weeks in Bolivia. On the first climb I successfully reached the summit of Tarija (17,000 ft+) and Anders additionally bagged the nearby, and more technically difficult summit of Pequeno Alpamayo.
We then travelled to Huyana Potosi (19,974 feet), which is a classic glaciated and at times pretty steep climb and both successfully submitted. It was a particularly challenging day for me, one where I had to rely on Anders and Andy (our guide) pretty heavily. Immensely rewarding as well!
Our original plan was to seek a third summit climb to Sajama but when we arrived at the base we saw 80+mph winds at the summit and no one climbing into what would clearly be life threatening conditions.
Overall, we returned safe, had a great time, and achieved our climbing objectives--nailed our three priorities and added to an already large bag of epic adventure experiences!
Triathlon
The headline goal for 2019 was to qualify for Kona at (originally Barcelona) IMAZ in late November. Along the way, I entered just one other triathlon this year and was able to achieve an important personal milestone as I won my Age Group in a triathlon for the 50th time of my triathlon career.
Anders and I were coming off of IM DNFs (his at IM Texas and mine at IMFL--this later the first triathlon I had DNF'ed at). At one level, our first objective here was to just finish. Beyond that, we had both sacrificed a great deal and trained very hard and we were hoping to have a race that was consistent with the fitness we believed we had developed. But make no mistake about it, given that I'm in the home stretch as far as my IM racing days go, we wanted to both KQ and race together as a father and son at Kona in 2020.
As you know, we were both able to achieve all three as we basically both executed our race plans pretty much as planned. Extremely rewarding, and of-course Kona 2020 will by our primary focus for 2020!
Training
In some respects, my ability to consistently train at high volumes and with appropriate intensity was the biggest story of 2019. As you might recall, my back/nerve problems in 2015 basically caused me to have to take 2015 off from climbing and triathlon (and caused me to think about if I had reached the end of this phase of my life). I tentatively got back into training in 2016, decided to "sorta" go for another IM in 2017 and this ultimately led to my biggest training year ever in 2019. You can see that in this chart below, which shows my annual training hours from 2011 (labelled 1) to 2019 (9)...(2015 is understated because I didn't record a bunch of my training after my back problems and before I decided to get back into things in late 2015):
Overall
2019 in sum was a very successful and rewarding year for me. My two major goals were to train for and have a successful alpine expedition to Bolivia in May and to train for and execute an excellent Ironman and qualify for Kona 2020 in November. Both of these goals were effectively achieved.
I was also able to stay relatively healthy and injury free (which is no small thing at 62 years of age) and set new training milestones along the way.
I put a lot into this year. I think I had a more effective and accurate view of what I can and can't do this year than ever before and as a result was able to translate that into executing against my plan and goals for the year. This was perhaps the most rewarding thing about the year!
Bolivia
The first 4+ months of the year were principally focused on getting my body ready to climb 3 specific mountains in Bolivia. I was additionally, building up my triathlon training so that after Bolivia (beginning of June), I could hit the ground running (and swimming and biking) and get ready for my Ironman in the fall.
I did a huge amount of walking/trekking/climbing/stair master, etc. in preparation for the expedition. Two highlights here were 11 major treks in Shenandoah National and my 30+ mile circumnavigation of Manhattan.
In May, Anders and I enjoyed a very successful and enjoyable two weeks in Bolivia. On the first climb I successfully reached the summit of Tarija (17,000 ft+) and Anders additionally bagged the nearby, and more technically difficult summit of Pequeno Alpamayo.
We then travelled to Huyana Potosi (19,974 feet), which is a classic glaciated and at times pretty steep climb and both successfully submitted. It was a particularly challenging day for me, one where I had to rely on Anders and Andy (our guide) pretty heavily. Immensely rewarding as well!
Our original plan was to seek a third summit climb to Sajama but when we arrived at the base we saw 80+mph winds at the summit and no one climbing into what would clearly be life threatening conditions.
Overall, we returned safe, had a great time, and achieved our climbing objectives--nailed our three priorities and added to an already large bag of epic adventure experiences!
Triathlon
The headline goal for 2019 was to qualify for Kona at (originally Barcelona) IMAZ in late November. Along the way, I entered just one other triathlon this year and was able to achieve an important personal milestone as I won my Age Group in a triathlon for the 50th time of my triathlon career.
Anders and I were coming off of IM DNFs (his at IM Texas and mine at IMFL--this later the first triathlon I had DNF'ed at). At one level, our first objective here was to just finish. Beyond that, we had both sacrificed a great deal and trained very hard and we were hoping to have a race that was consistent with the fitness we believed we had developed. But make no mistake about it, given that I'm in the home stretch as far as my IM racing days go, we wanted to both KQ and race together as a father and son at Kona in 2020.
As you know, we were both able to achieve all three as we basically both executed our race plans pretty much as planned. Extremely rewarding, and of-course Kona 2020 will by our primary focus for 2020!
Training
In some respects, my ability to consistently train at high volumes and with appropriate intensity was the biggest story of 2019. As you might recall, my back/nerve problems in 2015 basically caused me to have to take 2015 off from climbing and triathlon (and caused me to think about if I had reached the end of this phase of my life). I tentatively got back into training in 2016, decided to "sorta" go for another IM in 2017 and this ultimately led to my biggest training year ever in 2019. You can see that in this chart below, which shows my annual training hours from 2011 (labelled 1) to 2019 (9)...(2015 is understated because I didn't record a bunch of my training after my back problems and before I decided to get back into things in late 2015):
As you can see, in 2019 I surpassed 1,200 hours for the first time. This means I averaged over 100 hours of training per month, 23+ hours/week, and over 3 hours per day! The 1,200 hours were also 17% higher than my previous annual high. That I was able to do this with no significant injuries along the way, I think is a testament to a reasonable plan, high expectations, and the fact I've been doing this now for nearly 20 years. (this is not to say I didn't have aches and pains along the way--lots of those and one minor bike crash/separated shoulder).
My swim shows a similar pattern over this nine year period with over 280,000 yards in 2019. While this is a relatively modest amount by real swimming standards, and quite short of my personal high water marks, it was a fairly significant commitment to swimming, especially since it was concentrated in essentially a 5-6 month period:
2019 was the year of "Bike Monster", essentially an extreme focus on bike riding as a triathlon training strategy, that Anders proposed while we were in Bolivia. During the summer, I was sometimes exceeding 400 miles during 7-day stretches and did 10 pretty high quality 100+ mile rides. As a result, I had my best year biking in probably 7-8 years and hit 12,343 miles for the year. In addition to exceeding 1,000 miles/month on average, it works out to 237 miles/week and was my largest bike volume ever:
For the run (or in my case run/trek/climb/walk), the big investment in getting ready for Bolivia early in the year led to a significant up-tick in my run volume. Although I didn't get back to my pre-back injury days, in terms of volume and especially in terms of intensity, 2019 was a very solid year for me and in-fact as the calendar turned to the fall, I was running as well as a I have been able to since 2015--very satisfying for me:
Lastly, I continued to increase my investment in non-SBR training (mostly weights and stretching PT type activities) and reached 70 hours this past year:
So, all-in-all, a very successful and rewarding year by any reasonable set of standards. It fills me with pride and an eagerness to spin the wheel again in 2020. Check back in a few days for what the plan for 2020 is!
Onward and Upward!
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