by Todd | Nov 8, 2020 | Blog
I don’t need to reiterate the fact that 2020 has been tough. No one has been through this year without some sort of unexpected challenge – closed schools, lack of social interaction, health concerns, financial worries, and the list goes on. But out of all this, there seems to be a few things that will actually lead to growth and progress. Taking time to realize these things and being grateful for them has been a useful practice for me. But first a really quick recap of the 2020 “season”: Races lined up. Races canceled. More races. More cancelations. Keep training. But what for? Mental sanity. Endorphins. Try new training approaches. Sign up for more races. More cancelations. Virtual Races? Suppose its better than nothing. ½ Marathon. Good but can do better. Few days later a solo marathon sounds like a good idea. So painful. I guess worth it. 2:47 and a PR at 39 years. But now a strained shin. 39 now feels old. Back to back races maybe not so smart. Lots and lots of biking and not much running. Daily dinner conversations about shin start to get old. Alice very patient with my neurosis. Excited for great fitness but shin not feeling so good. Sign up for races. Races not canceled. I’ll get to race. Races modified. Not ideal but better than nothing. Hagerstown Sprint Duathlon. Aim for beating my 2015 course record. I smashed it. Oh wait, I got my first DQ for going off course. No record. But still faster at 39. Will try again next year. Small pro 70.3 in NC. Fast course. Can...
by Todd | Jun 20, 2020 | Blog
For the past two weeks, I satisfied my curiosity surrounding a few new topical products that had gotten my attention: AmpHuman PR lotion and Lactigo gel. If simply putting on some topical product before a workout could make someone faster or help them recover better, who wouldn’t be interested in using them?! So I got a few bottles and did a one week trial of each product. As much as possible, I kept my workout structure and volume (~ 16 hours) the same: Mondays short strength workout and a VO2 bike interval session, Tuesdays were long run and some swim drills, Wednesdays were long outdoor rides, Thursdays were a key strength and fun fat bike recovery ride, Fridays were a shorter bike interval session with some swim drills, and Saturdays were threshhold efforts on the bike followed by a brick run. Sundays were family day (I don’t write “off” since I’m usually expending quite a bit of energy chasing around my boys!). My training was very bike-focused as I’m still coming off of my 1/2 marathon and marathon virtual races, and quite honestly, the running needed a bit of a break. From my research, albeit limited, the two products are similar, but not mutually exclusive. For sake of simplicity, AmpHuman works to act as a PH buffer of lactic acid outside the cells (via sodium bicarbonate) and Lactigo attempts to buffer lactic within the cells (via carnosine). Both companies have at least some studies that are listed on their websites, which seem to demonstrate their efficacy. Also, both companies have been surprisingly open and communicative...
by Todd | Nov 24, 2019 | Blog
I had six races and six struggles this year. I was dished up some ass-whopping from fellow competitors and my body. All. Year. Long. From starting off at St. Anthony’s triathlon and coming out of the water in 2nd to last, to dealing with ongoing back issues that steadily got worse, to unexplainably having both of my quads cramp during mile 11 of Marine Corp Marathon, it was a humbling season. Sport can be incredibly uplifting at times but equally challenging. And a relentless challenge it was. I did my homework before electing to get my pro-license and knew that it would be an uphill battle, but to have it coincide with some unexpected challenges certainly was not part of my plan. It hurt. And even one month removed from my last race, it still stings a bit. But rehashing the details of this season’s struggle won’t be of any value for me, or anyone who happens to read this. So, instead, I’d like to focus on my top six lessons learned in my first pro season. 1. Numbers do not equal fitness “More work equals bigger numbers, which must mean I am getting more fit.” “If I take a short rest before the race, watch my recovery numbers rebound, I must be ready.” “All TSS is created equal.” No, no, and no. It took me a good 4 years, but I finally have learned that this is dangerous and it is wrong. As my wife – someone who has never used Training Peaks and logs her workouts in a paper journal succinctly stated one day: CTL is simply...
by Todd | Jun 5, 2019 | Blog
So why do you race? This is something I’ve been asking myself quite a bit the last two weeks. Before my last race at Chattanooga 70.3 – and even still a bit now – my answer would have been probably similar to what many would say: I race because I love competition and it provides me an opportunity to test myself. But what if those opportunities have not proven to be a good means to test? In other words, does racing lose its value if does not present an opportunity to get the most out of oneself? Let me step back a little. I absolutely love training. I love the challenge of writing a workout and executing it to the best of my ability. I love the juggling act of fitting in workouts around my responsibilities of being a father, an attorney, and a husband. I love the sense of fulfillment that grinding out a hard session – all by myself with no one watching. And this season, my training has been going really well. I’m swimming faster than I have since college, my bike power is as good, if not better than I’ve had before, and my run endurance and durability is about as solid as I can recall. Problem is, my performances in my two races this year have been far from what I have been doing in training. St. Anthony’s – my first race as a pro – was decent for me. I went 2 hours for an Olympic race and I certainly wouldn’t consider it a bad race. But my swim, bike, and run numbers were not...
by Todd | Feb 21, 2019 | Blog
This post has been a fairly long time coming – I’ve actually been thinking about it for several months. Consider it a bit of a intro to my new Ventum One and my first stab at writing something that discusses aerodynamics. I’ll start off with a disclaimer – everything I say about how fast this bike is applies to me and my setup. While I can say with confidence that the bike will make most people faster, aerodynamics is very individual and extremely nuanced. Furthermore, getting a bike fit is absolutely critical. If you aren’t going to dial in your fit, don’t bother with a new bike. I am not an engineer, and I have not (yet) taken this to the wind tunnel so my conclusions are close to accurate, but still not perfect. But before I get too deep in the weeds, I want to first talk about my experience with Ventum and how honored I am to be working with this company.Ventum first reached out to me after my IM Maryland win, asking if I’d be interested in riding one of their bikes in 2019. At first, I was extremely hesitant. Buying a new bike – especially a triathlon bike with all the gadgets and gizmos (power meter, hydration, aerobars etc..) – is a fairly involved process. Although my Felt frame was from 2013, I had upgraded almost all of the components in the past year so I was hard pressed to go with an entirely new setup. After doing quite a bit of research, inclduing talking to several existing Ventum owners, reading through all the critical...
by Todd | Oct 19, 2018 | Blog
It’s close to three weeks post Ironman Maryland and a big smile still comes across my face when I think back to the race. I certainly felt like I had the potential to pull together a good result, but to come away as the winner of an Ironman race, was something that I really didn’t think was in my cards. Looking back on the race, my data, and my training leading up to it, I really did not do anything that was overly exceptional. Instead, I did exactly what I had read about and what had been suggested to me by much more experienced coaches and athletes – I put together a solid training day up until mile 20 of the run, and then started to race for the last 6 miles. My swim time was a bit slower than I had planned but it turns out that the course was probably 200 yards or so long. So, my swim was as predicted. The bike course was lengthened 2 miles the day before the race so it was exactly 112, and like the swim, my power/pace was just as I had predicted. In fact, my average wattage of 216 was probably 5-10 watts lower than I had planned but I wanted to make sure to be a bit conservative on race day. For the run, the first 20 miles were also as I had planned – other than 2 quick stops at the porto-potty (thankfully I had changed into a run outfit – it made it so much quicker than trying to get in and out of a...
by Todd | Sep 24, 2018 | Blog
So I’m doing an Ironman in less than a week. I honestly feel a little hypocritical in writing that. For the past 3 ½ years, ever since finishing Kona in 2014, I’ve said to myself and others that there is no way I’m doing another Ironman…I have ZERO interest. While I was honored to have qualified to race in Kona, my race experience was fairly miserable. I didn’t come anywhere near what I thought I was capable, suffered from pretty bad dehydration on the run, and just did not have any fun. And so here I am, just a few training sessions away from toeing the line at Ironman Maryland. So what gives? I digress: After Ironman Eagleman in June, my race plan for the year was to take a week or so off (which I did), and then re-focus for my second big race of the year, which was Steelhead 70.3 in early August. I got back into training, and on a whim, decided to race Rev3 Williamsburg 70.3. Previously, that was my best 70.3 to date –and perhaps the only time in my career I will go under 4 hours. So I headed down to Williamsburg, and had a really solid performance, coming in 2nd overall with a time of 4:03. However, I felt that something was just “missing” from the race. Being that I hadn’t planned on it and had almost no rest, I chalked it up to the fact that it just wasn’t a goal race and that perhaps the “blah” feeling a should be somewhat expected. After Rev 3 Williamsburg, I got right back...
by Todd | Jun 18, 2018 | Blog
2018 is well under way with two triathlons under my belt and several more on the horizon. I started off the season with Rev3 Westfields sprint, where I had a solid race and was able to take the overall win. I was particularly happy with my performance and outcome since the 5 days leading up to the race was perhaps the most challenging I’ve ever had. Not necessarily from a training perspective, but from a “life” perspective: In the span of 5 days, I traveled back and forth to New Jersey for a funeral (sadly and unexpectedly, my Aunt passed away… she was one of those amazing people who was always positive, always remembered special occasions with a card and a text message, and always demonstrated how to live life to its fullest), had some major changes at my job, and hosted a 50 person birthday party for Gavin’s 3rd bday (fifty people! – I realized that Gavin is significantly more popular than I am! lol). I paid the price from that week and the race, as I was absolutely exhausted for over a week after. Fortunately, my training finally came back around and I was full steam ahead going into my final Eagleman 70.3, my first big race of 2018. Without going into too much detail, the race went, well, well. I think “well” is probably the best description. I didn’t quite hit my bike power numbers, my run-pacing target or come anywhere near my goal time, but I still managed to have a solid performance. Based on my training the weeks leading up to it and...
by Todd | Oct 24, 2017 | Blog
Well, it’s been over three months since I last wrote a blog posting. They used to be “race reports,” but since I only seem find time a few times a year, I’ve been rolling several races into one posting. I’ll be honest, I do miss the more simple days when I’d finish a race, unpack, and have enough free time to get my thoughts down on paper before I forgot. Now, its usually more of a get home from a race, unpack (Alice is usually super understanding of my neurosis to unpack and clean up all my crap as soon as we get home), scramble around with the boys for a few days and try to get in a little recovery, and then back to training and focusing on the next race. Nevertheless, below is the long version of my second half of 2017 recap. For the cliffnotes version: Great season. Won several races and won some money too! Not much of any progress on swim or bike but ran really well this year. Two kids are hard. Recovery from training and racing and working a full time job is really My wife is awesome. Finishing top 5 AG in the world at the 70.3 IM World Championships in Chattanooga was amazing and something I had been focusing on for four years. I continue to have self-doubts of my capabilities and I really want to break 4 hours again in the ½ distance. Maryland Du This was my second race of the year where prize money was being offered and I knew the competition would be good. I...
by Todd | Jul 10, 2017 | Blog
Well its mid July and I’m finally getting around to writing a race report! I remember the pre-kids days when I’d have time to actually sit down and write the day after my race, do spell check and edits and make sure what I wrote was somewhat coherent… now I’m just excited if can sit down and remember what even happened in the races! Nevertheless, if you plan to read this you may want to get out some coffee, sit back, and prepare for a long read. The good, the bad, and (and if you make it to the end) the ugly of the season so far… My training season usually gets a start sometime in December after a few weeks off in the fall. And this year, the 2017 season started off with a baby! In December, Alice and I welcomed the arrival of our second son, Grady Wilson Burns. Having two kids under 2 years old is challenging for anyone, and perhaps even more so for two parents who work full time jobs (Alice works a fuller than full time job) and also juggling the demands of a fairly demanding training and racing schedule. While part of me was pretty nervous how it would all fall into place, I kept reminding myself that I had similar fears when we had Gavin in 2015 — turns out the 2015 and 2016 seasons went better than I ever expected. And after 6 months of working, training, and working and raising two boys, I can say that IT IS HARD. And this is considering the fact that I am lucky...
