Triathlon Cozumel and Alistair Brownlee

This is a champion we need as a human race:  Alistair Brownlee.  We need many champions as Alistair.  Global warming, war for unintelligent reasons and ugliness are present because of our lack of education.  Alistair helping his brother in Cozumel is an example of an action from the Greatest.  We also saw what the apartheid created: Richard Murray and Henri Schoeman.  The first generation of a culture coming out of insensitivities after many years of practicing indifference:  Apartheid.  When Alistair, Henri and Richard were asked about the situation, Alistair said, “I would do it for anybody not just my brother.”  I believe that he would help the one falling.  Henri was apologetic for winning but was not interested in helping Johnny when he was falling, the opposite: “I was the strongest.”  The one that blew my mind was Richard, he did not know who the real winner was.  He thought it was Mario Mola and started speaking about his teammate without paying attention to THE BIG VICTORY, the human race winning and triathlon culture.  Richard did not address the question ignoring what he saw with the Brownlees.  This is a scary apartheid product.

Crisanto Grajales saw the Brownlee brothers’ action from the aesthetic point of view and said: “I hope he does not get disqualified because he had a great race.”  He has not said anything regarding the discrimination of the Mexican Federation against the poor swimmers.  Even if they win and leave the water with the pack, they are not allowed to compete outside Mexico because of the “marcas mínimas.”  Money and control over the state budget is the real issue.  They have not landed in this century, still in the apartheid era.  Not to mention the supposed protest from the Spanish Federation, no comment if that existed. Javier Gómez has said enough regarding this Federation.  

We have written about the subject of overheating:

16 juin 2014

Triathlon and Acclimation II

We have part one acclimation where we explained what happened to one of our athletes.  I read what happened to Tommy Zaferes a week ago in Dallas and saw images of Lescure falling 50 meter before the finish line in Huatulco this past weekend.

The Seizure:

Once I crossed the line I immediately flopped on the floor and started seizing. Personnel came over and moved me out of the way like a limp bag of rice and got me to the paramedics. I apparently had a heatstroke and then a seizure (which the doctors say can cause death, brain damage, and major organ failure). They airlifted me to a hospital and called my parents right away to fly out from California. I ended up being intubated and on a ventilator for 19hrs before they moved me to another hospital. I had major short term memory loss and had no idea what was going on. I don’t remember, but I need to thank Courtney Kulick from USAT, Rob Canalas from ROKA, the Huffmans,(and anyone else I don’t remember) for being there for me until my parents, and girlfriend (who flew from London!), came. The support I received was amazing!

Bonus Material:

The doctors said that all my sodium levels were normal (if I wasn’t hydrated or if I didn’t have enough electrolytes these should have been completely depleted) so they think that I had a small virus which wasn’t showing any symptoms leading into the race and that the race conditions and effort put me over the top and caused the heatstroke and seizure. Having a heatstroke in these conditions isn’t that uncommon, but having a seizure is what caused all the panic.

My body temperature was 103 at the hospital.

I am a doctor and have followed patients who have had this problem.  It is not about temperature in itself.  It is mainly related to humidity.  32 degrees Celsius with 90% humidity makes the condition for many athletes being exposed to heatstroke.  To produce the phenomenon of heatstroke we do not need the highest temperatures, what we need is very high humidity (this is a Petri dish for heatstroke).  The body in itself takes care of increasing the temperature when is unable to decrease the temperature by sweeting (evaporation of water through sweeting is the way we use to cool down our body).  You did not have a virus Tommy; your acclimation to humidity was not enough.

12 juin 2013

ACCLIMATATION IN TRIATHLON

Several years ago, perhaps the year 1999 or 98, José Merchan was winning the race in Ixtapa, Mexico, for more than 100 meters when he felt down 200 meters before the finish line. I have seen several athletes falling after that, including Sara Groff (in a video).

 Ixtapa Triathlon - Ixtapa, Mexico (ITU Points Race)

Swim 1.5Km - Bike 40Km - Run 10Km
November 13, 1999

Men:

 1. Doug Friman          (USA)   1:51:51  (16:59, 0:59:59, 34:38)

 2. Alec Rukosuev        (USA)   1:52:18  (16:56, 0:58:59, 34:58)

 3. Jose Luis Zepeda     (MEX)   1:52:27  (16:54, 0:58:56, 35:15)

 4. Victor Plata         (USA)   1:53:07  (17:02, 0:59:08, 35:34)

 5. Wes Hobson           (USA)   1:53:38  (17:28, 0:58:40, 36:10)

 6. David Hyan           (RSA)   1:54:33  (17:00, 0:58:55, 37:10)

 7. Eligio Cervantes     (MEX)   1:54:39  (17:28, 1:01:46, 34:05)

 8. Leandro Macedo       (BRA)   1:54:48  (17:36, 1:01:59, 33:45)

 9. Rob Barel            (NED)   1:55:13  (17:42, 1:01:02, 25:52)

10. Uzziel Valderrabano  (MEX)   1:55:46  (17:57, 1:01:35, 34:56)

11. Arturo Garza         (MEX)   1:56:10

12. Javier Macias        (MEX)   1:57:36

13. Jim Quinn            (USA)   1:57:47

14. Alvaro Martinez      (MEX)   1:58:09

15. Philippe LeDuff      (FRA)   1:58:58

16. Sergio Quezada       (MEX)   1:59:10

17. Francisco Serrano    (MEX)   1:59:34

18. Enrique Molina       (MEX)   1:59:48

19. Allan Villanueva     (MEX)   2:00:21

20. Rodrigo Quevedo      (MEX)   2:01:03

21. Carlos Probert       (MEX)   2:01:56

22. Fernando Gomez       (MEX)   2:02:19

23. Marcus Ornellas      (BRA)   2:04:36

24. Jose Merchan         (ESP)   2:05:41

Merchan finished the race after falling.  It was very humid and hot when that happened.  This year the same thing happened, one of our athletes was stopped from racing before falling (9km) into the running.  He started to have problems after 3k running.  Ixtapa had above 32 degrees Celsius and 90% humidity.  Our athlete was used to the temperature but not to that degree of humidity (it rained the night before and the race was at 10am). He was hydrated with 3 liters of water and electrolytes in the last two hours before the race. He was second when passing the first lap (2.5k), after that he started to slow down until he was ready to fall at the 9k mark.  Our athlete mentioned that since he started to slow down he had problems focusing things and does not remembered when he was stopped until he was taken to the hospital and his temperature was decreased to normal levels, when he recovered consciousness was in the hospital.  His blood pressure was 90/40 when he arrived, his skin was dry and hot, he was able to stand up and walked with difficulties but he was incoherent.  Potasium, sodium, magnesium was within the normal limits; CPK mildly elevated 200 as well as creatinine 1.5, BUN within normal levels; his albumin was less than 3 (he eats 4g of proteins per kilo on daily basis).  Liver enzymes were within normal levels.  He was able to leave the hospital two hour later and took the plane back home four hour after the incident.  His temperature was within the normal levels after he left the hospital.  Laboratory test will be done today again.  There is a good article written regarding this subject for runners.  A one subject research (himself) that gives plenty information.

Johnny was grateful with the British doctors that were present.  Advice for foreigners!  It is not about not drinking the water in Mexico, which by the way, I did not see Johnny drinking water when competing, Alistair did it.  I have had several encounters with doctors in Mexico.  In one occasion, one of our athletes fell after arriving and started to vomit, the vomit became uncontrollable.  This was at the Mexican Nationals, I told the doctor that he needed an I.V. with saline -do not use 5% glucose because most of the athletes are hyponatremic- in addition, nothing happens if you give extra sodium to an athletes after a competition, the opposite could be very dangerous, below 129 starts the problem with sodium.  After I saw him vomiting six times, I jumped the fence and went straight to see the doctor and she told me that they did not I.V.’s in the tent and if I wanted to do something else I needed to take the athlete against medical advice.  We took the athletes with two more people and went to an ambulance parked next to the finish line.  There was no doctor in the ambulance but the nurses allow me to have an I.V. running if I would do the procedure.  I did it in the ambulance.

Thanks Alistair.  Chapeau! Champ.  I hope we can keep learning.

Triathlon and Drafting

I like the races where drafting is allowed.  It is more interesting from the point of view of the strategies.  The problem is that most of the triathletes do not look for the performance, but just to take advantage of the drafting and wait to have luck, enough to reach the first pack.  They do not work with the pack and just wait until the leaders of the pack catch the first peloton.  It becomes very boring and it happens most of the time when the Brownlees are not involved or the Duffy´s are too tired to try something similar to the Brownlees.

I watched the Vuelta 2016, stages 15 and 20 are the critical ones for Quintana.  In the stage 15, Quintana followed an attack done by Contador and the Team Tinkoff.  Froome was not able to follow them, when that happened, he was alone in the second pack, and lost the race there.  In the stage 20 Froome, TT stage, 37 kilometers, Froome was more than two minutes faster than Quintana.  In these two stages we can see what a team, drafting and strategy are about.  The power capacity of Froome when by himself is better than the Quintana’s one.  The team, the drafting and the strategy worked better for Quintana this Vuelta and won.  In triathlon we do not have a team most of the time and the strategy when the Brownlees are not there it is to wait until the ones pulling the peloton reach the goal (contacting the first pack).  At least this is the strategy done by the Mexicans and 90% of the second pack.  What to do then?  The answer is going to be training to perform a good strategy.

We have had numbers from different races and 360 watts is very common for the ones in the first peloton when the Brownlees are involved.  Eric Langerstrom gave some data of what happens when drafting without leading a chase pack.  He managed to produce as little as 240 watts for the 20 kilometers at Edmonton.  We appreciate Eric´s generosity. 

https://cyclosphere.com/w/2cc2271b1a410f1ebbd4c56307ededa3c997cf36040e16bd84cae66ff32dabd1

We can see the difference in wattage for the ones in a breakaway and the others drafting in the peloton.  Johnny Brownlee won the race easily, the first and second packs became one, and it was producing 100 watts less than the first pack when taking into account the ones sitting in the pack like Eric.  Let´s take a look at what we know:

http://myworldfromabicycle.blogspot.mx/2010/09/aerodynamics-in-cycling-and-how-to-be.html

The effects of aerodynamics is HUGE in road racing, time trials, criteriums, and even sprinting.  For example, drafting can reduce oxygen costs by 25 to 40 percent.  Figure 7 (below) offers a great illustration of the effects of aerodynamics and drafting:  a world class track team time trial riders can produce the following average wattages in a pace-line (traveling around 35 mph):  

First rider will produce around 607 watts (+/- 45), 

2nd rider 430 watts (+/- 39), 

3rd rider 389 watts (+/-32), 

4th rider 389 watts (+/-33). 

Professional cyclists are sensible and appreciate the help from the team.  Even Lance Armstrong would say publicly that his team was the best and he was just finishing the races.  Froome did not want to be the domestique for Wiggins because he knew he was doing all the work.  Quintana is very appreciative of the work done by his team.  We do not have the culture to appreciate what others do for us in triathlon, except the Brownlees. I have seen them looking for Varga after the race to hug him.  Varga has worked as a domestique in the water for the Brownlees and do his share of work on the bike when braking away.

 Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2003 Jul;35(7):1176-81.

Drafting distance in swimming.

Chatard JC¹, Wilson B.

Author information

Abstract

PURPOSE:

This study investigates the effect of the distance separating the lead and draft swimmers on the metabolic and hydrodynamic responses of the draft swimmer.

METHODS:

A nondrafting swim of 4 min at 95% of the best 1500-m pace for 11 swimmers was compared with swimming in a drafting position at four different distances directly behind another swimmer (0, 50, 100, and 150 cm). Swimming performance was assessed by stroke rate and stroke length; the metabolic response by oxygen uptake, heart rate, and blood lactate; and the rating of perceived exertion by the Borg scale. Passive drag was assessed at these drafting distances by passive towing. Then, passive drag was measured in six swimmers towed in six lateral drafting positions, with swimmers separated by approximately 40 cm, and then measured in two positions at the rear of the lead swimmer with a reduced lateral distance between swimmers of 50 and 0 cm.

RESULTS:

Oxygen uptake, heart rate, blood lactate, rating of perceived exertion, and stroke rate were significantly reduced and stroke length was significantly increased in all drafting positions compared with the nondrafting position. For drag, the most advantageous drafting distances were 0 and 50 cm back from the toes of the lead swimmer. Drag was reduced by 21% and 20%, respectively. In lateral drafting, drag was significantly reduced by 6% and 7%, respectively, at 50 and 100 cm back from the hands of the lead swimmer.

CONCLUSIONS:

Swimming behind another swimmer at a distance between 0 and 50 cm back from the toes was the most advantageous, whereas in lateral drafting the optimal distance was 50-100 cm back from the hands of the lead swimmer.

Tom Davidson used to pull the second pack regardless of the ones on his wheels, at the end he could not run (I guess he cannot run below 34 minutes 10k).  Nobody stopped to thank him for the effort and he did not know how much he was doing for the “wet runners” on the second pack.  Davidson made the first pack to improve cycling because the first pack was losing when Davidson was on the race; the second pack sat on his wheel and 100 watts difference was evident on the run.

Triathletes should learn how to improve cycling if we do not want to see boring races.  At the end this is one of the main reasons why we are involved in this sport.  The women Rio Olympics race was one of the races we digested where fear of biking and running was present and it became boring to watch.  Pacing training without surges for one, three minutes makes cyclists unable to break away.  Look at Froome or Nibali do a one or three minutes surge and see how the peloton blows up.  Alistair did it beautiful at Leeds.  Being able to do a break away as Alistair takes at least three years of training for the majority of first 20 triathletes in the ranking, if they do it very diligently.

Triathlon and Trump

I asked one of my patients from New Jersey if she was going to vote for Trump after his visit to Mexico, she was born Republican.  She said: “No, he owes us money from a development in New Jersey where he never paid contractors because he declared bankruptcy.  He made his money that way.  He is not a producer, he just knows the system.” In our team we work on education 100% of the time in order to overcome old patterns of behavior.  Working in the system because we know its flaws does not help to accomplish championships; the opposite, our ability to struggle to improve gets hampered.  The athletes live from the system but do not accomplish anything as athlete as is the case of the majority of the Mexican triathletes.  Our system is doomed to failure since the get-go when “marcas mínimas” is considered before any real triathlon competition.  Triathletes prepare themselves for the “marcas mínimas” instead of triathlon.

Let´s get back to business. Summer Cook won the triathlon at Edmonton.  She comes from a swim and run program (born 1991).  She struggled to keep with the first pack and at times she was unable to draft, even Barrie Shepley noticed it.  She has improved her biking to be there but still far from being skilled or able to tolerate an Olympic distance triathlon.  Gwen Jorgensen has been the only able to do the jump from the program of swim and run to triathlon through the recruitment programs in the USA; and only females ventured long enough to do the jump.  Alan Webb tried:

 “My original dream was to be an Olympic swimmer.”

Webb was in eighth grade when Athens was awarded the 2004 Olympics, and his sister Lisa brought him back a T-shirt from her visit to Greece. At the time, he wore it with the dream of competing in the Games—as a swimmer. Growing up in Reston, Va., he swam on a club team starting at age 11. He excelled in the pool, but his talent in running was undeniable, and juggling the two sports became too much by the time he was a sophomore in high school. He had to make a choice, and that choice was running.

“It was tough at the time—to give up that journey,” Webb says. “It was maybe a false hope at that point to think I could be an Olympic swimmer, but to give that up to be a runner … I think I made the right choice. I had instant success and I realized, ‘Whoa—I’m not good, I’m really good.”

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2015/03/features/runner-interrupted-alan-webbs-new-olympic-dream_113062#5BVd5DVQCsughMgv.99

There were some others who used to train running as part of the swimming program and became acceptable Olympic distance triathletes over the years; such is the case of Andy Potts.  Potts did not improve his running to top levels.  A swimming-running program is not the solution to have top triathletes.  As in the case of the USA, they do not have room (time after finishing College) to improve either biking or running to finish an Olympic distance triathlon at the top.  Gwen Jorgensen is good regardless of her background, unfortunately, publicity will use her to sell recruitment from these programs.  Well, where did I leave Trump? Trump is an expert in using the system the same way.