GRRRLS in Training

Looking at some of my results, it might be easy to conclude I only coach elite ultra-endurance multisport freaks. Nothing could be further from the truth. I train all kinds of people. But some of my favorite clients are these wonderful ladies.

Deborah, Amelia, and Robbie share similar goals. They want to get the most out of life. They want to keep their joints healthy so they can work hard, play hard, and enjoy what life has to offer. When they lose a few pounds in the process, that is an added bonus.

Thank you GRRRLS for training with me! You are the best!

Client Conquers Patagonia

Client Kathy Griffin participated in a 2-week trek through the mountains of Patagonia in South America. She trained for an entire year to prepare for this adventure of a lifetime. We did lots of strength training, balance, and high intensity cardio.

She writes: "Stephen we made it to the base of Mt. FitzRoy and Mt. Torres del Paine. One hike was 12 miles, the other 14. It was amazing. Thanks for all you did to help."

Triple Insanity Part 1

Race Report by Greyson Daughtry Part1
Triple Iron With Single Iron 2 Weeks Later

In January it was difficult for me to run 5K. In October I was an Ironman.

Whether you’re a beginner looking for basic advice, or an experienced athlete looking for the expert edge, Steve can deliver.

Endurance athletics requires physical and mental stamina. Steve can help you develop both.


Race Journal: Ultra October

Thursday, October 4, 2007:
I arrived in Spotsylvania, Virginia, after a drive of over 650 miles. I drove another 25 miles to the race site for bicycle inspection, registration, and a meet-n-greet pasta dinner. My longest race to date was a half-Ironman. This was a triple—7.2 miles in the water, 336 miles on the bike, and 78.6 miles on foot, all on a continuous clock, with a time limit of 60 hours. Everyone else was more experienced than I. At 20 years old, I was also the baby of the group; if I finished, I would be the youngest American ever to run a triple Iron.

Thursday night:
I did not sleep much—only 1.5 hours total. I finished off the 1-pound bag of Skittles that I had started in the early morning hours.

Friday, October 5, 2007:
I arrived at the race site just after 5 AM. I had a six-foot-long table assigned to me, and I covered it completely with supplies—towels, wet suit, Hammer gel, whey protein, Red Bull, trail mix, Pringles, and many other things. I was in the right mindset; I was ready to roll.

We started the swim at 7 AM. I made a short stop every 1.2 miles for some kind of refreshment. After 3.6 miles I had the best peanut-butter sandwich of my life. After about 5 miles my upper body started getting lactic. I cleared the water in about 5.5 hours.

I started the bike ride in the early afternoon. I was faster than almost anyone else for the first few hours, but the bicycle seat started to hurt significantly. I made short stops about once every 15 miles, with a few exceptions where I pressed to 30.

I started having problems with my right foot. My leg was always rotated a little bit, and this caused an odd pressure between the base knuckle of my little toe and my bike shoe. After 50 miles or so, this became painful, and that pain became more intense with time. In training, I had managed to tolerate this for 100 miles, but this time I was riding much more than that. I tried stuffing Kleenexes into various parts of the shoe, but they soon flattened out too much to be useful. The pain became severe, and I ended up using a sharp knife to cut a hole in the shoe to relieve direct pressure.

Around the 12-hour mark (total race time), I started to feel very sick to my stomach. When I got sleepy during a break, I drank 2 Red Bulls and mixed another one into my Heed. This apparently compounded the problem. An ambulance arrived for someone, and, pedaling behind it, I thought to myself that it would be coming back for me next. I kept going for a few more hours. When I was around 100 miles into the bike, I decided that I had to rest, if only to give my stomach some time to settle. I spent 30 minutes in the sleep tent. Afterwards I felt much better, but by no means good. The race director saw me towards the end of this episode, and he seemed to think I’d had it. I said, “I’m not dead yet!”

Saturday, October 6, 2007:
Dawn broke after a long night.

I spent a lot of time on my outer handlebars, upright against the wind. The reason was because I was still in my first year of triathlon, and I’d only had a tri-bike for about 2 months. I was not accustomed to the balance of the lower elbow position. After about 200 miles, despite my periodic rests and my efforts to shake my hands out while riding, the compression of my ulnar nerve started to take its toll. I could not spread my fingers or straighten them fully.

I pedaled all day, and into the night. I finished the bike leg after about 31 hours.

I began the run. For the most part, I walked uphill and ran downhill. The exceptions involved running uphill. My right knee was stiff and painful to bend, apparently because the slight turn in my leg during the bike had caused swelling of the iliotibial (IT) band, the tendon running through the knee. Some of the time I did a funny limp-run where I bent my right knee as little as possible.

After 14 miles, I talked to the race doctor. He told me that I would not snap any important connectors in my knee, but stressing it too hard might cause a chronic condition.

Sunday, October 7, 2007:
I ended up walking out a single-marathon distance, earning me credit for an “Iron-plus.” Since I had completed an Iron race, I still got to cross the finish line carrying an American flag. During my last lap I decided that I had to finish strong. For the last half mile or so I ran, ignoring the pain, because nothing else mattered beyond those few minutes. I crossed the finish line with both feet off the ground.

Post-race:
My hands were in bad shape. I could maintain a tight grip, but I had great difficulty holding a writing utensil for a few days. It took about two weeks for me to straighten all my fingers. It took a little longer for the numbness along the sides of my hands to go away. I could not snap my fingers for about a month.

I was working as a part-time foundry technician. I did a lot of hard manual labor. I did not take time off for my race-related ailments. I limped for several days on account of my IT band problem, but the pain went away in a week.

Triple Insanity Part 2

Part 2. Athlete completes Great Floridian Iron-distance Triathlon
Written by Greyson Daughtry

My next race was the Great Floridian Ironman in Clermont, FL, less than two weeks after the triple-Iron. My account of that race follows.

Thursday-Friday, October 18-19, 2007: After dinner at Vanderbilt I drove to work in Gallatin. I spent 4.5 hours swinging a heavy hammer almost non-stop. I got back to campus close to 1 AM. I did not have time to sleep. I cleaned myself up, loaded the car, and drove 700 miles to Florida.

I checked into my hotel room, registered for the race, ate dinner, got the lay of the land, and met my brother. We ate another dinner and went to see a movie. Once again, I polished off a 1-pound bag of Skittles.

Saturday, October 20, 2007:
I had ordered a wake-up call, but I did not get it. Fortunately, I had guessed that the hotel staff were not the most competent in the world, and I had set an alarm clock. It went off at 4:30 AM. I had slept for 3 hours.

The morning was cold, windy, and rainy. The lake was warmer, and I was happy to get started. I had plenty of energy throughout the swim. As I prepared for the second lap (i.e., the second half) of the swim, my brother called, “How ya feelin’?” “Rock and roll.”

Then came the bike ride. Though my knee had not hurt me in several days, it started aching on mile 1. Still, I was full of piss and vinegar for a few more hours. Fortunately, these were the hardest hours for the muscles; though I cursed loudly when I first saw the biggest hill on the course (deceptively named Sugarloaf), I pushed up it and did not dismount.

Later in the bike ride, the pain of the seat started to wear on me. The course was flatter than before, but I was slower. I watched the hundredths of a mile tick by, one at a time.

After I got off the bike, my knee was swollen. It hurt very much to walk. The pain made me angry. I walked into the run, but I was ready to break anything that got in my way.

I ran for a number of short stretches, but most of the time I kept a fast walk. Once again, around the 12-hour mark my stomach went berserk. For a couple of hours I wondered if I was going to drop. My more determined side said, “Maybe, but not yet. Keep going.” I was the third-to-last person to finish the race, with a time of 16 hours and 28 minutes. I smiled.

MO State Champion Jersey

First post on my new Results Blog...this way I can post them fast and furiously as the awesome results come pouring in.

This one is old school...back when I lived in Missouri, this guy named Tom Dresser was swimming in the club with a scuba mask on. Told me he had ran over 30 marathons. I coached him through his first triathlon in May of '04. He needed the help.

Later that summer we decided to shoot for the MO State Time Trial...he took a crack at his age group, and WON! That is a State Champion jersey he has on. If you know what that is, you know how desirable they are.

"The Craziest Run I Have Ever Done"

No really...it was!

I owe a tremendous debt to my friend Jamie Dial, for he introduced and mentored me into the sport of Ultra Trail Running. He is training to do a 100 mile trail run this summer. Because he is my friend, I am helping him in the process. Somewhere along the way, the idea was conceived to run a segment of the Appalacian Trail that bisected Smoky Mountain National Park. The length of this trail was 72 miles.

My normal write-ups attempt to be descriptive and informative. This time it is short and simple. We started the run at 2am in the dark. Jamie fell and slashed his knee about 40 mintues into the run.. It was hilly. Pretty scenery. At 11:14pm we came off the trail. It hurt. I'm glad I did it. Enjoy the photos.

BOSTON REDUX

Boston 1, Stephen Taylor 1
Boston Marathon, April 16, 2007

I approached the Boston Marathon with a mixture of feelings this year. I had some unfinished business there, to be sure. As a fledgling 22-year old endurance athlete, I got my a** handed to me there. Boston 1997 was an important learning experience for me on many fronts: pacing, nutrition, patience, humility. Read about that experience here.

So now in 2007 I had signed up for the race as sort of a blip on my spring/summer racing schedule. See, what I really want to do is go fast at Olympic distance triathlon. I've been training hard, or more specifically fast, to do just that. What effect would my tri training have on a marathon race?

I qualified for Boston in January 2006 at the Miami marathon, with a smashing PR of 2:44. My aspirations for Boston on this day were much more modest. In fact, I had seriously considered running the race in the format of a pub crawl. There is so much crowd support along the race course that inevitably some parties break out. Eventually I decided to run a conservative 2:59. That way I could break 3 hours (the unfinished business) and hopefully limit the recovery time my legs would need to get back to hard swimming and biking.

Another twist was added to this story by the weather, which was atrocious. In the drive from Nashville to Boston, we drove through heavy wind and torrential downpours; a "Nor'Easterner." The forecast was for 40 degrees, 25mph headwinds, and rain. The conditions made the 2:59 time goal seem that much more challenging, but also added an enticing element of mental toughness.

Boston is unique in that it is a point-to-point course. Runners are shuttled from Boston Commons up to the town of Hopkinton, where they wait hours for the race to start. We were prepared, with a waterproof ground mat, a sleeping bag, and an umbrella. Huddled on the edge of a flooded high school football field, we hunkered down and managed to stay warm and dry. There were some miserable people in the waiting area, looking like space travelers wrapped in plastic from head to toe. Definitely staying warm and reasonably dry was a big part of the strategy before the race.

As the start time neared, I put my warm clothes in the shuttle to await me at the finish line. I listened to one more song on my ipod: "Daft Punk is Playing at My House." Wearing nothing but my race apparel, I jogged the mile to the starting corral. I made a couple of inconspicuous stops to urinate, stretched, then took my position among the runners.

My race plan initiated with the firing of the gun: Hold Back. Boston begins with several miles of downhill, which tends to lure runners into a false sense of confidence. My plan was to chill, hit the halfway mark at 1:29, and enjoy the scenery. Even as I was hitting mile splits 20 seconds ahead of pace, runners were streaming past me. I had learned my lesson here 10 years prior. Let them go.

The funny thing is a lot of the people that were passing me did not look that good. Many had awkward or inefficient-looking running form. I had overdressed by wearing a thin windbreaker shell over a skintight base layer. Shortly I had the coat tied around my waist, but these people were wearing gore-tex coats, stocking caps, mittens, fleece pants. I don't understand how one can run in so many hot clothes, but they were.

My patient pacing was going as planned. I was still running fast, but my body and HR monitor were telling me I was in the right "zone." One conversation I overheard was two runners sharing their time goals. One runner said "I am going for a 2:50, but the conditions are bad." With little pause, I challenged him, "actually these conditions are good. If you draft it is ideal racing weather." At that moment we both realized…except for the headwind, it was not too bad. And if you drafted strategically…

It was then when I started hearing spectators cheer, "Go Army." (You have to imagine that with a Boston accent.) I realized there was a guy near me running with an Army singlet on. For some reason he seemed to be running the pace I wanted to hold…steady but he wasn't passing a bunch of people yet.

I tucked in behind him and let his frame (slightly taller and more muscled than my own) block the wind. As Miles 9-12 ticked off, his pace stayed steady at 6:20-6:35 per mile. He was running strong and very steady, and moreover didn't seem to mind me running off his shoulder. Mile after mile I ran behind him, exchanging a few words once in a while but mostly keeping the mind on task. Yes he was running faster than my goal pace, but I couldn't bring myself to let such a steady source of drafting go.

Here is where ongoing work with running form really paid off. I have been running for 20 years, but even in the past 6 weeks I have learned new cues for running fast. I set my mindset on holding those movements, breathing deeply, keeping my mind and body relaxed. Whenever the running started to feel effortful, I consciously increased my cadence until it felt as if I were easily shuffling along. Also drawing from lessons learned 10 years earlier, I drank sports drink every mile and took in three gels over the course of the race. These contain a bunch of caffeine and I took one a couple minutes before Hearbreak Hill.

At mile 20, here was the location of my undoing at my first Boston attempt. On this day however I was running quite a bit faster but with all kinds of strategy. I pulled ahead of the Army runner and CHARGED up Heartbreak hill, passing dozens and dozens of runners. Their heads were hanging, dejected, a shelled remnant of the optimists that had started too quickly two hours earlier. At the top of the hill I looked at my watch: 6:23! That was awesome! I gave my accomplice a high-five and we turned our attention to flying downhill on the other side.

By this time I realized I had a pretty good time going. My conservative 2:59 goal was obviously a memory; the 2:55 benchmark one friend challenged me to was now also going to drop, but by how much?

This is where the joy of racing filled me. My legs hurt but they were moving fast very fast. I felt strong and more importantly full of drive to run fast. I WAS STOKED. I wasn't going to meekly meet my 10 year old Boston goal, a faded and yellow relic that I had long surpassed. I was going to HAMMER it home. The next mile after cresting Heartbreak I split 5:55. Yeah. Let's keep it rolling and see what I can do.

I was flying past runners now. The huge crowds along the streets could tell I was on fire. My form was strong and I was driven. Mile 23 fell in 5:53 and mile 24 in another 5:55. Oh this was so fun, I was full of running. I started doing mental math and calculated that I had 14 minutes left, then 12, then at mile 25, after running a 5:49, 8 minutes of effort left. By this time it was the thrill to see if I could hold the redline pace.

A couple quick corners delivers you to the finishing home stretch. As I turned the corner it was as if a wall of sound and energy hit my square in the chest. A solid roar from the crowd met huge booming base and that finish line looked so far in the distance. My the intensity of that 4-5 block stretch met my own emotional intensity and I drove to the finish line. Runners continued to fall by the wayside and no one even came close to matching my kick in to the finish line. When I crossed the line, the clock said 2:47 and some seconds. I felt good. That was not as hard as I expected.

Analytically, I have to ask myself what contributed to this performance. I can identify racing factors and training factors. In the race, I was patient by letting a lot of runners pass me early. That is a key as most people start any distance race to fast. Then patiently pacing and drafting off another runner paid huge dividends as well. Finally an attention to form, particularly cadence and arm position added an extra level of efficiency so had the reserves to hammer when it counted.

In training, I can definitely say that my ultra distance training and racing from this winter was helpful experience. In a 50K you have to do a 4 th Quarter Smackdown after 3 hours, not after 2 in the marathon, so there is another level of endurance that transferred to marathon. Also my triathlon training which largely has been high intensity in nature also added that extra fitness. Call it V02max or Shark Fin, but the high end stuff is key (thanks to my coaches who push me there, Jamie, Johnny, and Ashley).

Most of all the key is to be STOKED about what you do. Originally I wasn't fired up for this race especially with the weather and everything. But when I got there it was fun and everything came together. I write these race reports with some being more impressionistic and others being more analytical. But it is still magical to me every time it works. Every time I race well and reach a goal I genuinely feel surprised. It is the same feeling I get when my clients experience success. The best conclusion I can arrive at is to put your feelings and dreams into your goal, and allow it to be realized. Get stoked to drive the process, forget about the goal/outcome, and allow yourself to be surprised. That is when the magic happens.