Alex McDonald Pro Triathlete

One year ago this past weekend I graduated from medical school and made the uncharacteristic choice to take a break from my medical career and challenge myself in new and painful ways in the sport of triathlon. I have now been training and racing as a professional triathelte for 1 year and the lessons continue to arrive fast and furiously. This past weekend at Ironman Florida 70.3 was no exception…in fact it was probably one of the most glaring examples of what I have learned over the last year.

First off, racing at Disney World is fun, although next time I need to bring Ashley…and maybe the kid if we have one by then. I arrived on Friday, got everything taken care of and was ready to test my fitness, just one week after racing a previous weekend at the White Lake half triathlon.

As a professional triathelte the swim can make or break your race and unfortunately on this day it broke mine. I have been working very hard on my swim over the last 6 months and have made huge improvement, both in terms of my speed as well as my swimming endurance. I had put together great swims at IMAZ last fall and this spring at California 70.3 and was excited to put together another solid swim thinking I had figured out how to do it. The pro wave went off at 6:20AM and the sun was not even up yet. I had made the mistake of wearing tinted goggles and I had trouble seeing the buoys as well as other athletes. I began swimming very hard, as I usually do, and found some feet and then settled in to a steady rhythm after a few minutes. However, I got over confident and before I realized what had happened I had veered off course a little, the pack surged and I was left swimming alone. This has happened before, but this time it was not because I was not a strong enough swimmer, or I didn’t know what I was doing, it was because for a brief moment I lost concentration and stopped fighting to stay with the group. Lesson learned, never stop fighting to stay with pack, never! In that brief moment when I let the pack slip away my desired top ten finish also became much more difficult.

I stayed positive and came of out the water with a small group and jumped on my Trek. The bike course is smooth and fast and after a few minutes I found a great rhythm and a group of athletes and we help push each other along as we tired to chase down the main pack of 12 cyclists. However, despite a solid PR ride I remained about 2-3 minutes behind the group the entire way into T2.

The run course consists of 3 loops, which was a nice change from the “out and back” routes most courses have. The first mile I felt pretty good and was happy with my sub 6min split knowing I would catch several of the athletes ahead of me if I was able to maintain it. However, the middle 2 miles or so of the loop was on a wide grass trail and I had a very difficult time getting into a rhythm on the soft uneven footing. In addition to the grass the temperature and humidity began to climb and the sun began to feel very intense sapping my energy. I managed to stay relaxed and smooth and I was able to pick up the pace a little on the last lap where I passed a few guys and moved up to 17th overall.

The process of training and building fitness and seeing improvements is hugely gratifying and I have seen great improvements over the last year. However, I am still leaning the best way to execute a great race as a pro and give myself every opportunity to put that fitness to use. Many top athletes have told me the best way to become the best in the world is to train a lot, but race even more, and I am beginning to believe them. Every time I race I learn something new and especially when I am racing against some of the best in the world. Some people ask me why I constantly enter races that have a very deep pro field or that I probably won’t win. The answer is that I want to be one of the best in the world and the only way to get there is to continually, challenge myself and race the best in the world. I know that I now have the fitness and ability to race against some of the best athletes in the world, now I just need the experience! Next up Rev3 and Ironman CDA!

My Trigger Point Technology Massage Balls…why? What were you thinking? I always carry my TP massage balls with me when I travel and find that sitting around the airport is the perfect time to use them. This, however, requires carrying them thru security. On my trip here to Florida 70.3 I forgot to take the Quad Baller out of my bag and when they saw it on x-ray they decided that it was a club and decided to search all my other stuff! I though this was pretty funny, and the TSA officer and I, as well as a few other bystanders, had a good laugh when I got down on the floor and demonstrated it’s use! So the moral of the story is always take your Quad Baller out of your bag and put it in the bin before going thru the x-ray machine. But be prepared for a little demo at any point! ☺ Check out all the great TP products and the new Grid at www.tptherapy.com, use the coupon code MCDONALD09 to get 10% off your order! ☺

Sometimes races do not go exactly planned…. In fact they rarely go “exactly” as planned, but it’s how you respond to the adversity and handle yourself physically and mentally, that dictate the result. Lets just say that White Lake #2 was a great test. 

First off SetUp Events put together a great race in a great location! This race has been so popular in the past that they split it into 2 weekends Whit Lake ½ #1 was 5/2 and the sprint was 5/3, and White Lake #2 was 5/9 and the sprint 5/10…. I did the second weekend.It was an early morning for me, even by race day standards, because I decided to save money on a hotel room and got up at 2:30am to drive the 2 hours to the site that morning. What can I say…I am poor and cheap! I got there in plenty of time to register and got all my stuff together without any rush or unnecessary stress.The swim was in beautiful, clear and smooth White Lake (hence the name of the race). The water temp was 77 degrees, just barely wetsuit legal for this race, but it was going to be 90 degrees and sunny so I decided to go with the swimskin to keep my core body temp as low as possible for as long as possible. Also I wanted to challenge myself. Swimming in a swimskin is certainly slower than a full wetsuit. I had a decent swim, not exactly what I was hoping for, but it was difficult to see for the first 1/3 of the course and many of us swam a little farther than necessary. I exited in about 29min and was in 8th place, about 4min behind the leader.

Another advantage to the swimskin was my T1, itwas the fastest of the day and I was cruising on the bike course before I knew it! I had decided to push pretty hard for the first hour, not even look at my PowerTap, and see what happened. I had moved into second position by mile 10 and kept my foot on the gas, so to speak. This bike course is pretty flat, has a few small undulations, but is basically pancake flat so I could see the other competitors on some of the long straight away and knew I was catching the leader. At about mile 23 I moved into first position and was feeling great! However, about 2min later I heard a clunk and my chain feel off. My first thought was to stay came reach back down and put it back on. However, the chain had gotten jammed between my 11 cassette and rear seat stay, so I had to get off yank the chain out and I was off again. Ok only about a minute lost, and I thought to myself “no big deal, stay focused and relaxed. Note to self, never do your own bike tune up before a race…leave it to the professionals!” At this point I knew the leader was well aware of me and I have a feeling he pick it up a little, because it took me almost another 5 miles to catch up. I cruised past, a little more aggressively this time and around mile 40 there is an out and back where I clocked about a 1:30 lead. However, about a minute after that I heard that dreadful noise…KA POW! Tsss…Tsss…Tss…Tss and I knew this was not my day…to add insult to injury it was my rear tire also that had flatted. At this point I muttered a colorful metaphor to myself and for about a sixteenth of a second I thought about quitting. However, I that is not my style, I hit my watch to time how long it was going to take. After what felt like forever I was back in the saddle and rolling along. It took about 4min which I was pretty pleased with. I knew the leader was a good runner and at that point I decided that I would cruise into transition and see where things stood at that point before deciding my fate. I finished the bike in 2:15, which was the fastest of the day, including my mechanicals and flat, I was very happy with that.

I rolled into transition with my flat tire around my neck, since I didn’t have anywhere else to put it and didn’t want to leave it in the side of the road. Immediately my wife saw it and asked what had happened. I told her about my bike adventures as I took a somewhat relaxed T2…rushing never helps anything. As I headed out my wife also told me I was about 2min back, good to know. I was out on the run course with just my thoughts the sun and the heat before I knew it. I am racing Florida 70.3 next weekend and my plan at White Lake was not to run myself into the ground so that I would be fresh for next weekend. I was a little frustrated with how the day was unfolding, but I decided to focus on the beautiful weather and the fact that I was doing what I love, racing! I got myself into a positive frame of mind and felt great, physically and mentally. I found a slightly up tempo pace that was pretty comfortable that I knew I could sustain for the rest of the run and not kill my legs. A few people gave me splits along the route and I realized that I was closing in on the leader, not very fast, but I was closing. I decided to continue in my rhythm. At the turn around he was 1min up and knew I was closing. I decided that I would at least make him work for the win, so I picked up my pace for a few miles, but I kept getting 45 second splits. At that point I was going to have to run much harder to catch him with only a few miles left and I had bigger fish to fry next weekend, so I continued my pace and cruised into to the finish line in second place about 40 seconds behind, with the fastest run split of the day.

Believe it or not this was the first time I had ever flatted during a race and although I must admit that I am a little disappointed with my luck, I am very happy with the race and the lessons learned. There are several aspects of this race that I am very pleased with, not the least of which is how I responded to the events of the day. I reacted and responded to the situations around me in a calm and collected manner and I ultimately raced my race and stayed positive throughout the day. White Lake certainly tested me both physically and mentally and I am very happy with the outcome. Now for some new tires and tubes on my Bontrager Aeolusrace wheels, a visit to see the mechanic at Inside Out Sports and then off the Disney World for Florida 70.3! ☺

I am a strong believer that quality and consistency in training will trump quantity and/or intensity, if not immediately, then eventually down the road. Many people go out and race…a lot… and for some this works. Frequent, high intensity efforts, (a race), followed by recovery and rejuvenation is one way to build fitness, and for some this works. However, when it comes to most athletes, who have various other commitments, work family, school ect. and particularly those athletes training for an Ironman distance triathlon this may not be the best way to build your fitness.

Don’t get me wrong, I love racing, and toeing the line is truly the best way to test your fitness. Racing is also the goal that keeps us going forwards, and provides motivation for us all when we are tired or just lack motivation. But in my mind racing is also the reward, especially a good race, after some delayed gratification and heavy training, we dig ourselves out of the hole and see what the last several weeks have brought us.

I like clustering my races together, so that I can complete several weeks of uninterrupted training. Having said that, I have just finished a solid three and a half week training block which saw just under 100hrs of training, including 71000yrd of swimming, almost 1200miles of biking and 178 miles of running. Although there were certainly some hard intervals and work sets throughout this training block I keep the effort repeatable and consistent to maximize the fitness benefits.

As for the racing! I am racing the White Lake Half #2 here in NC tomorrow and then Florida 70.3 next weekend! I can’t wait to laid it all down the next few weeks and I’ll be sure to post updates afterward.