2018年的大熊铁人三项赛是我将注意力转移到铁人具体训练之前的第一个区块的比赛的最后一场比赛。在这场比赛之前我休息了大约三天，但此时距离铁人三项赛还有大约五周的时间，我很难放松太多。周末比赛的另一个可变因素是比赛场地的海拔7000英尺。我以前从未在高海拔地区比赛过，但比赛一开始我就很清楚它的影响。

游泳从一个码头开始，进入一个两圈的赛道。赛前有人警告我，由于海拔高，开始游泳时要放松。当枪响时，听从这样的建议说起来容易做起来难，我以一个有力的跳水开始了比赛，在开始放松之前，我艰难地游了大约30秒。我立刻注意到呼吸比我想象的要困难得多。在第一圈的大部分时间里，我和另外两名运动员一起游，我选择试着喘口气，等着看他们的速度如何发展。有时我甚至会觉得有点害怕，因为我很难呼吸。当你在陆地上时，你至少有机会增加你的呼吸频率，而游泳时，你累到你的中风率。我发现自己在思考，是缩短划水和呼吸更频繁更有意义，还是放松下来，追赶游泳，但呼吸间隔更长。最后，在比赛的中间部分，我用一种非常放松的追赶式游泳，没有踢腿，只是试图降低我的心率。在第二次循环开始时，我又开始感觉正常了，肌肉的疼痛消失了，呼吸落后的感觉也减轻了。 The second lap was far more enjoyable than the first half of the swim. Now that I felt comfortable I pushed the pace the last five minutes and was able to come back to the dock at the front of a group of three swimmers. Big Bear Lake, like all lakes in California, is low, so that meant a long run on a dock from the swim out to the transition area. I did my best to pace myself and watch my footing over metal docks and uneven concrete.

我把T1放在同一组三人的前面。这是我在两天前才买的新Ceepo Viper上的第一次比赛。这次比赛将是我第三次骑自行车。从很多方面来说，使用这样的新设备是愚蠢的，但我几乎立刻就觉得在新自行车上很舒服，而且我已经把我的两套车轮换到了11个变速轮毂，所以我真的没有选择。大熊奥运自行车赛道包括绕湖南端的滚动骑行，在湖的西侧有一个非常多山的出湖和回湖，然后在湖的北侧有一个快速的平跑，最后回到过渡段。我真的不知道海拔会如何影响我的表现，所以我在脑海中保留了一些不同的计划，力量和节奏明智。最大的变化位置明智与我的新自行车是更伸展在前面。这是一个受欢迎的变化，因为我已经用尽了毡的可调节性，但改变仍然需要时间来适应，即使它是更好的。在赛道中间的两个较大的爬坡处，我肯定感到有点不自然，动力也不像我希望的那样来得容易。比赛进行了大约30分钟后，当我开始向湖边走去时，我第一次有机会看到比赛是如何展开的。 At this point I had what I thought was about a three minute lead and started to feel a lot more confident about how things were going. Even when you are in the front it is hard to keep out all the moments of doubt. Is my power low because of the new bike, or the altitude or am I just having an off day? Assessing your competitors and getting a sense for how the race is unfolding can go a long way towards calming those inner discussions. The down hill back towards the lake was fun and very fast but I definitely had to have my wits about me due to the open roads and clueless California drivers. The ride around the northern section of the lake was a lot of fun. A slight tailwind and strong back half effort wise meant I spent most of the last 10 miles above 25 mph which is always a lot of fun and can even make you forget you are the one doing all the work at times. Overall numbers for the bike were 30.8 miles in 1:15.07 with 1500 feet of gain. Normalized power was 279 and average HR was 155. Overall I thought it was a strong day on the bike but I definitely could have cleaned up a lot of details. This course was unique in that there were at least four places where I had no option but to be coasting for extended periods of time. This made using metrics like normalized power during the race less useful and also provided genuine opportunities to recover, but also fed the temptation to go too hard right after that recovery. The biggest difference I perceived on the bike, due to altitude was a very high respiration rate. Even at relatively moderate levels of perceived exertion I was more or less panting to keep up with the effort. In the end I had the fastest bike split of the day and came into T2 with about a six minute lead over my competition.

这是一个简单的来回跑在起伏的地形在一个小半岛上的湖。至少在前三英里，我努力让自己的心率加快。就像在自行车上一样，我的呼吸频率比平时高很多，但努力并没有感到不舒服。这是一种非常奇怪的感觉，因为你的大脑会把如此快速的呼吸频率与VO2水平的努力联系在一起，相反，我努力让自己的心率不超过150。我把注意力集中在我能控制的东西上，腿的速度、姿势和呼吸，只是寻找一些小小的方法来加快我的步伐。就像游泳一样，下半段的努力比前半段好多了，最后几英里的感觉就像在跑步，我真的很享受这种努力。我以每小时162的速度跑了39:15，跑了6.06英里。我很高兴以强势的方式完成了比赛，最终以2分17秒02的成绩以大约10分钟的优势获得了第一名。在这场比赛之后，我对海拔对身体的影响有了更深刻的认识。我很高兴能控制住这种状况并继续发挥，但在那场比赛中，我肯定有一些时候，比如游泳和跑步的前半段，我感到无法控制。 I can take a lot of good lessons from the race and I am very happy to have completed my first block of racing with three wins. That being said I am very realistic about the level I need to achieve to race competitively in the professional field so it is right back to work. Up next is an Ironman specific block for the next five weeks followed by Ironman Canada at the end of July and USAT Nationals two weeks later. But first, a quiet, pace night in the woods.