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TTP- #18 Henri Morales- A plant based triathlete shares some key Ironman and endurance training tips and concepts
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Henri Morales is a competitive triathlete based in Southern California and has competed in multiple Ironman World Championships. He is a force in all three disciplines and especially crushes the swim. Henri is vegan athlete and is a wealth of information on training, nutrition and how to optimize your abilities on race day.
In this episode, Henri drops all kinds of knowledge about training and recounts some crazy stories from races, including his wild experience at Ironman Cozumel.
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Transcript
Near-Death Experience Post-Ironman
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Torganic Pack. They brought me literally brought me back to life because I had some sort of like I was completely out. I was foaming at the mouth. I had some sort of cardiac. I was like a cardiac arrest. My heart stopped beating. So they literally brought me back to life. Got me to the hospital. You know, I got on a sodium drip and I woke up in the morning. Couldn't remember anything. Couldn't remember who I was, where I was. I had a shirt on, a Cosmo shirt on and I said,
00:00:29
Speaker
To my girlfriend who was there, I said, was there an Ironman? And she said, yeah, you did the Ironman. You finished the Ironman.
Introducing Henry Morales: Plant-Based Ironman
00:00:40
Speaker
My guest today is Henry Morales, super psyched to have Henry on the podcast. He's been a big help and inspiration for me in learning about training, nutrition, and many aspects of competitive racing, and doing the best I can in tough moments. Henry has qualified for the Ironman Worlds multiple times, raced in Kona,
00:00:58
Speaker
He's a badass in the triathlon in all three disciplines and absolutely crushes the swim. He takes the challenge of Ironman triathlon head on and is a wealth of info on how to train properly. We get into some nitty gritty details in this one so listen up. Henry is also a plant based athlete, proving that vegans can get the job done. Without further delay, let's get into it.
00:01:20
Speaker
All right, dude, thank you so much for taking the time. You got it. Yeah, nice to be here, David. Really stoked to talk a little bit about all the amazing stuff you've done and, you know, your triathlon experience, your Ironman, all the stuff you've done to learn to dial in all the different aspects of training to take you to where you are right now. Yeah, man, let's just jump right in.
The Athlete's Comfort with Suffering
00:01:41
Speaker
It was a while ago, but you had a post which was I think the quote was the true measure of an athlete is your level of comfort with suffering. Yeah. I don't know if you remember that post.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I completely can relate. And I think although the pros have incredible natural ability and training and incredible nutrition, everything, I think also they just have an ability to endure pain and persevere and push through and not let up. You know, they can push that the brain aside and keep going. So I just wanted to open it up and just discuss a little bit about that and what that quote means to you. Yeah, absolutely.
Building Endurance through Adversity
00:02:18
Speaker
I mean,
00:02:19
Speaker
I think one of the ways that, you know, I've experienced suffering is to put myself in situations and training that are difficult situations where there's, there's only one way out of it. And that is to complete the session and to, you know, get to your, your destination. And like, if it's on the bike or if it's on a run or on the ocean on a swim, it's like,
00:02:47
Speaker
you know, it's a one way or it's a loop, there's not an option of, you know, let's say jumping off your trainer or jumping off the treadmill or, or the track, right? So you're out there somewhere and you've, you've, you've set your mind on, you know, climbing 10k on the bike that day. And anything short of that is going to be unsatisfactory. Now you've made this goal. And it seems like a big,
00:03:17
Speaker
a really big number when you start. You know, like, I've got this bike area that I bike in Laguna Beach a lot, which is not where you would think to do your bike training, but it has very steep hills that run up from the from the beach up the mountain there to about 1000 feet.
Extreme Training in Desert Conditions
00:03:38
Speaker
And so there's about five different roads that go up this up to the top of this hill.
00:03:44
Speaker
They're each about, you know, anywhere from like 700 to 1000 foot gain at an average of like 10 to 15% gradient, some even 20% in places. My favorite ride is just to start at the bottom. I'll park my car down there. I live pretty close. So I'll park my car down there and leave my nutrition. And I'll just do repeats.
00:04:10
Speaker
And it takes me about maybe like 13, 14 times up to, you know, to hit that number. But it's just like every, every rep, you're just, especially the early reps, you're just, you know, feeling it and thinking, hey, there's no way I can do this, you know, but you just keep grinding. You just start slow and just, just literally like grind, you know, grind it out, like going up some of these hills, even with some,
00:04:39
Speaker
On my road bike, I've got like a 1134 cassette in the back and like a mid compact up front and it's like 5236. So a decent amount of gearing on the road bike, but still really hard when you're, you know, heading up like there's a few segments that are 15% for half a mile. And, you know, literally grinding up these things at like 40, 50 RPMs. And when you throw in heat,
00:05:08
Speaker
Um, it can get really, really nasty. Like during the summer, there were just some, some really hot days where, um, these canyons, there's these little canyons and they'll just heat up. They'll be like little microclimates in there where it's 10 to 20 degrees hard down below. So, um, you know, I just, I would just set these, set these benchmarks, these numbers. Hey, you know, I'm gonna, this session I've got to get to 10 K or bust and, um,
00:05:40
Speaker
You know, so those are kind of sessions. I know, like, there was a, I like to ride out in the, in the desert sometimes. And there's a loop out that goes out into Anza Borrego, Anza Borrego desert. And during the summer floor of the desert, it can be like a hundred, 110 degrees, you know, every day out there. Um, so there was one ride I did. There's, um,
00:06:09
Speaker
There's a climb out there called Montezuma grade. It's pretty far out in the middle of nowhere, but you start in Borrego Springs and it's 3,600 feet to the top of just winding switchbacks all the way up at about 8%. Damn, at 110 degrees.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah. At the bottom, you know, if it's a hot day, you know, usually the 110 days I wouldn't go, I wouldn't go out there, but I've been out there on some days where it was like a hundred at the bottom. And, um, you know, I started early, but when the desert, you just can't start early enough. So it one day, there was one day I did, I set my mind on doing it three times. I drove out there the night before and slept in my car.
00:06:55
Speaker
because I wanted to make sure I started really early because it's kind of far to get out there and I got started and I got up like the first two takes about an hour and a half to climb this thing and it's a great ride down it's a super fun winding switchbacks not desert views not much traffic and I was like the second time down it was really heating up like you could the last thousand feet down you could really feel it and then
00:07:25
Speaker
The third time down, it was just insufferable coming back. And then I had a brick run that was an hour brick run. Oh, wow. And it was over 100 degrees. And I took a big water, big, big water bottle with ice with me and almost died on that run. But, you know, it's just like, I think that session, you know, that one session made me super confident that year. And this was, I think in 21.
00:07:55
Speaker
And so I went into Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, maybe like a month later for the iron man. And it was 104 degrees on race day. So I felt like that really prepared me like both mentally and physically for the suffering that we were going to do in the iron man. And so I think there's just, you know, no substitute for like going out there and suffering and training.
00:08:25
Speaker
Cause if you can, you know, do it in training, then you'll be able to do it in a race. Yeah, totally. Like if you have your goal set on a race or something like that, part of the training suffering is, is training your mind to deal with it. It's not just training your body, right? Yeah. So there's a lot of, um, like for me, it's less about, you know, numbers and it's more about just experience and just being ready for anything.
Polarized Training Methodology
00:08:50
Speaker
You know, I do look at metrics quite a bit and,
00:08:54
Speaker
One metric I like to look at a lot and I've talked to you about before is heart rate. I've just found that heart rate's a very honest metric that on the various disciplines, whether it's the bike or the run, you have an idea what you can do in each heart rate zone and how long you can stay there. Especially in hot conditions, it's something I look very closely at because
00:09:23
Speaker
I don't want to be at, you know, threshold heart rate for an entire Ironman. It's just, it's too much. Right. So, you know, I like to look at the heart rate. I don't worry about power so much. You know, I know there's a lot of focus on power, but, um, you know, it's funny, like I just did Ironman Wisconsin. That was my, my race last year. And I got, I got down to T one morning of the Ironman.
00:09:53
Speaker
And I plugged in my bike computer. And it didn't work. So I was like, Oh, shit. You know, I got on the bike, I'm used to looking at that screen and seeing like, Oh, what my power is and, you know, what my, you know, speed is and whatnot and cadence. And I didn't have any of that. So it was it was kind of a fun race. I just focused on writing. Yeah, that was interesting. I think sometimes it can like work against you to focus too much on
00:10:22
Speaker
on numbers, you know, and especially when you're out on a on a live course, like, you know, that Ironman course, the bike course was open. So we're sharing it with cars. It wasn't like sketchy, but it was definitely like you had to be hands on, like really focused on the road just because there was a surprising amount of climbing, there was about 6000 feet of climbing.
00:10:48
Speaker
I'd never even been to Wisconsin. I had no idea what to expect there, but it was just a lot of country roads, a lot of like very much like here, like, like East County, San Diego, kind of, but, um, a little more like straighter, like country, like farm roads, you know? Um, and so there were just a lot of like, a lot of climbs and really long straight shots where you got a lot of speed up and the road wasn't the best in some places. So you just really had to hold on and,
00:11:18
Speaker
really focus on the ride. And I think when you can not worry about your power and obsess about that, just focus on the road, focus on the effort, you know, sometimes that works out better for you. I mean, I know like, you know, the worst is being in some race and looking at, I know like St. George was a race where St. George full, that was another hot race.
00:11:45
Speaker
In 2022, St. George's Ironman World Championship, they held it in May of 2022 after Kona was cancelled. That race started out really hot on the bike the first hour.
00:12:04
Speaker
you know, and the numbers were good, you know, but I was running like a little rich and I definitely bonked on that bike ride around mile like 60 before the two main climbs and I could just feel it come in. I was like, oh no, I went too hard. The heat just came on really strong and
00:12:25
Speaker
That race just ended up being a real sufferfest for me. I guess the positive of metrics in a race, because I hear you, you don't want to be too in your head about metrics during the race. During training, I think there's a lot of value. But then the flip side is sometimes it can force you to dial it back.
00:12:44
Speaker
in a race when you've got adrenaline in the first half, you're going too hard. It's like, well, let me check in with my heart rate. Let me check in with my power, whatever. Like, let me just chill and dial it back. Cause I know there's a lot more to go. That's, you know, can be the positive side of at least paying attention to your metrics during a race. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
00:13:00
Speaker
You say that you're not big on numbers, but I also see you as someone that really is pretty precise with their training. I was wondering how, how you develop that. Is that something that you've had in other aspects of your life, just being like detail oriented, or is that something you developed in training through trial and error? Yeah, it says a combination of, you know, of coaching. I've had three different coaches, triathlon coaches, um,
00:13:27
Speaker
a lot of trial and error for sure, just just looking at those, you know, watching the zones throughout the training sessions, in the races, and then just like having this database in your head of all your past races and training sessions to draw on and sort of know like where you're supposed to be. You know, and, and some reading as well, like I use the training peaks, like, they have a really, some really good information on zones on
00:13:55
Speaker
you know, both power zones for the bike and running zones for the, for the run and how and when to train in the different zones, you know, like, for example, you know, you're on the bike. Do you want to be just sort of in zone two, zone three, or doing more, you know, specific intervals and when to do them. And same with the run, you know, it's like, we talked about that before, where it's like,
00:14:26
Speaker
you know, there's a lot of a lot of approaches, you know, marathon training, full Ironman training is obviously a lot different than half marathon and half Ironman. So that's something I think about, you know, depending on what kind of race I have coming up. But I do generally try to do like more polarized training. And that's,
00:14:52
Speaker
generally the way that my sessions go down, whether it's on the run or on the bike or even on the swim. What does polarized training mean? You know, it's just really like staying out of the gray zones. So it's all right. Exactly. It's going like either keeping a really mellow, like zone to effort, easier zone to effort or, you know, or finding a sweet spot in your, in your threshold zone where
00:15:22
Speaker
which is usually what you call zone four, where it's a comfortable endurance pace or endurance power that you could hold for maybe, depending on your fitness level, maybe a couple hours, maybe four hours. Once you dial in that zone, it's somewhat below the red line of the lactic threshold, but a little bit, I would call it like low to mid aerobic threshold.
00:15:52
Speaker
And that's when I like to train in a lot. I like to stay out of the zone three dead zone. There is a time and place for zone three training, but I would say for the most part, I try to not. If I'm in zone three, it's more like the lower end of zone three on maybe like a progression run or a foundation run.
00:16:17
Speaker
Um, but I do generally try to like keep it more polarized. Yes. Yes. Now I totally understand what you're saying. You know, if you're in that dead zone and marathon training is tough because a lot of times marathon pace kind of overlaps that dead zone or close to that dead zone. So sometimes in like a marathon, you might need to
00:16:40
Speaker
start a little slower and then pick it up more, you know, throughout the middle of the race. So you're not, you know, you're not in that dead zone the whole time. Because I found I just found in my own training, I don't perform well in the dead zone. Like if I have a bad workout, it's normally because I was in zone three, I was, I was not pushing hard enough, or it wasn't going easy enough. And that's just something I've
00:17:06
Speaker
come to learn through trial and error. Yeah. And so it's just about finding those sweet spots. But I think, you know, in your training, I see you do a lot of, you know, you do a lot of progression runs where you start really slow and then build to like a fast, probably half marathonish pace towards the end. And as you're running, like you feel areas where you feel good and you don't feel good. And so those are like your sweet spots where
00:17:34
Speaker
You learn those sweet spots and that's what you want to hit. You know, when you're racing is you want, you want to be in the sweet spot during your race. Totally. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you got into competitive racing a little later in your life, right? It's not something you've been doing for a ton of years.
Late Entry into Triathlon Competition
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so my history is I was really, really keen surfer for a long time. Um,
00:17:59
Speaker
I did quite a bit of aquatics when I was younger in my high school, early college days, I did water polo and swimming a little bit across country and track. And then I sort of shelved all that for about 20 years, I was really into surfing, would have been into snowboarding. And I did get back into endurance sport later, like in my, in my 30s, mid 30s, I
00:18:22
Speaker
started out focusing on, on swimming, like pool swimming and master swimming. Yeah. That was about all I had time for was my daughter was young and I was really focused on, on her and just working. And, um, later on I was like, I got to this period of my life where I just wanted to try something new. So I, I, well, I started running and so I mixed in the running there, but then something got me into triathlon where I just,
00:18:49
Speaker
friend actually turned me on to triathlon is probably about 2017. And I didn't have a bike at all. I've never even ridden a road bike or a triathlon bike. And so I rented a bike for my first race, which was the Solana Beach triathlon. And that went that went pretty, pretty well. I enjoyed it. I got a drafting penalty, my very first race. So that kind of sucked. But
00:19:15
Speaker
Um, you know, that kind of got the bug going and I did a few more. I got a bike and just started signing up for different. I did a Olympic, I think down in Chula Vista. That was a really.
00:19:28
Speaker
crappy course. It's pretty infamous here for just having like the worst roads in the area. Um, yeah. Yeah. And the water quality is a little suspect. And then let's just write it right across the bay from San Diego. And then, um, I did iron man super frog, which was a 70.3. That was like my first iron man branded race. And, um,
00:19:52
Speaker
That was Kelly. I think they stopped running it in 2019. That was the last year. It was an Imperial Beach, San Diego, Imperial Beach and Coronado. And it was a really fun race because.
00:20:05
Speaker
You did an ocean, a two lap ocean swim at Imperial Beach and it was known for having really big surf and a lot of carnage. So that, that was always fun. And then the bike was a four lap horse up the strand from IB to Coronado, which is a great place to race and to train. And then there was a 13 mile run on the sand and it was a four loop course where like
00:20:34
Speaker
about half of the run was in deep sand so and you ran on onto the beach for a couple miles and then into the neighborhood on the asphalt so it's back and forth from sand to asphalt and it's just known as a really tough run like the the iron man was originally created to train navy seals for iron man a long time ago so then iron man took over the race for a while and
00:20:59
Speaker
yeah they ran it for a long time and then it just got discontinued after the 2019 race so anyway that was my first iron man race and I ended up I think I finished like seventh or something but I got a roll down spot to 70.3 worlds in South Africa for the next year for like a year later
00:21:23
Speaker
So that just like really threw me right into the sport or was like, Oh my God, I've, you know, qualified for worlds. Now I've got to train. I've got to get a coach. I've got to, you know, train hard, take this seriously and go compete in South Africa next year. So, you know, that sort of started the whole, that was 2018. So that kind of what it all started for me. And, you know, all ramped up from there into, you know, halves and worlds and full iron mans and, you know, you name it. And, uh,
00:21:54
Speaker
How have you managed to balance the intense time training for Ironman full Ironmans? It's so, especially on the bike, like so much time on the bike. Right. So I, you know, my bike training plan is only about six hours a week of biking for Ironman. Really? So what I was doing is I would divide that up into like,
00:22:21
Speaker
basically like a two hour and a four hour ride. Um, and the two hour ride would be like midweek and the four hour ride on, on the weekend. Um, so about three days apart, but what I was doing is I was doing very hard rides. So, um, for those rides, I was doing climbing intervals, like I was telling you about earlier, where, you know, I was doing 10 to 15 minute intervals, you know, zone four power, um,
00:22:51
Speaker
You know, and with the steepness of the hills, it'd come down and only have about three to five minutes rest between intervals before I'd go back up again. So very intense workouts on the bike, very polarized bike training. But yeah, I just for me, I just.
00:23:08
Speaker
It's kind of funny, it's sort of a running joke with me and some of my friends, but I say I don't really like cycling that much. For years, like I said, I never cycled. I wasn't into cycling. I never thought I would be a cyclist. And in some ways, I still don't consider myself a cyclist because I don't have a trainer.
00:23:36
Speaker
I don't do a lot of group rides. I tend to just do go and do hill repeats or climbing rides in the mountains by myself with a few friends and I really do enjoy climbing. I like climbing. I like going up and down. I don't really like going horizontal that much so like spending a whole day on the bike you know going down the coast. I mean I've done it it's fine but it's just not what I you know it's not what I do for training. I just try to
00:24:05
Speaker
I keep my bike sessions more to the point and just get the maximum benefit out of them with the least amount of time possible. Wow. Super cool. Yeah. If you're training all three sports, you just, you can't, some people can, but I just can't spend, I can't be out of four or five days on the bike. It's just too much, right? So,
00:24:30
Speaker
A lot of people spend a lot of time on the trainer and they can do other things while they're on the trainer. They can work and everything. But for me, because I don't use a trainer off the grid when I'm on the bike, I can't take calls or do work or anything.
00:24:46
Speaker
you know, I've got to focus on the road. So I just try to try to make it count when I'm out there. Cool. Training not year round for the bike anymore, more just before my races. So I did like maybe a two to three, two and a half month bike block before Wisconsin this year. And I wasn't really on the bike at all before that for about six or seven months. I took some time off the bike. So
00:25:09
Speaker
I think that really fired me up when I went back to it. I was really excited to start climbing and training the bike again. I'm kind of doing the same thing now. I'm taking another break from the bike now and planning to start back up in the spring and summer for my Ironman races. Cool, man. I wanted to see if you could talk a bit about the story from Cozumel.
Collapse and Recovery: Ironman Cozumel
00:25:30
Speaker
What happened in that crazy race and A, what you learned from it, how you
00:25:37
Speaker
learn to make sure that doesn't happen again in the future and be kind of how emotionally or just mentally that might've tripped you up and you got past it. Cause I could see that it might've gotten in your head a little bit. Like what, what the fuck happened that day? And could it happen again? You know what I mean? Cause I don't remember the exact story. I know it was like hyper new tree me or whatever. And you woke up at the hospital or something. Yeah. If you could tell the story of what happened. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Um, so that race was at the end of the COVID year. If it was the first
00:26:08
Speaker
full Ironman that wasn't canceled after COVID. So, you know, we all had our races canceled that year and everybody was like, okay, what's, what, where can we race? You know, and of course Mexico was the first place to, to, to bring back the, the racing. So after, you know, waiting out St. George all year, that would cancel twice. I signed up for Cozumel and went down there and flew into Cancun and
00:26:38
Speaker
there was a big storm. So all the ferries to the island were grounded for three days. So then three days on the mainland trying to get to this island for the race Sunday, finally got on a ferry Friday afternoon, out there Friday, late Friday afternoon, the Iron Man starting Sunday morning. That's wasn't ideal preparation. So
00:26:58
Speaker
Everything was like really rushed when I got out there and I had forgotten to stock up on some nutrition. I thought I was going to be able to find and have time to buy when I got to the island. So, you know, that sort of lays the backdrop for this race that I went out there with a little less, not really dialed in with my nutrition in terms of like having enough product on me to get through this really gnarly race and 90 degree heat and
00:27:27
Speaker
90% humidity in the Caribbean. So, um, and that was my first like tropical race where I raced in those conditions. So even though I did a lot of training in California, in the desert, I like the humidity was new to me and humidity is brutal, man. So yeah, it was, it was, it was pretty gnarly. And I just remember when I got out there in the, in the iron man,
00:27:54
Speaker
I felt really good the first for the swim and beautiful swim. It's a little bit down current. So, you know, you're getting out of the water in like 45 minutes. It's you're like, you know, your race is off to a great start, right? You get to walk up the pier, get on your bike and it still feels pretty cool.
00:28:11
Speaker
Um, you know, it's a three lap bike course around that Island. So like the first lap I felt great. Um, but I did go pretty hard and I realized I was pushing a little too hard. I saw my heart rate actually was not in the right zone. And I didn't think too much of it until later, but, um, it was around the middle of the second lap that just started really heating up. And I was cramping on the bike, which is really bad sign to be cramping on the bike. Um,
00:28:40
Speaker
obviously didn't have enough salt and electrolytes. And the only thing they had on that course was bananas, coke, Gatorade, and water. And there really wasn't much. There wasn't any gel. There wasn't like a lot of the things that they have at Iron Man's now, they just didn't have. I don't know if it's because it's Mexico or because it was just the COVID year. It was just really lean in terms of what you could get on the course. Totally. What happened was I
00:29:10
Speaker
You know, I realized I was in bad shape at the end of the second lap. And I saw my girlfriend there and said, hey, I stopped for like a minute. I was like, I'm not feeling it today. I feel like I should probably like DNF this race, but I'm going to try to go on. I'm going to slow down and just cruise this last lap of the bike and try to pull it together. So I did that, got off the bike and I was like, okay, I'm going to try to run and just see how it goes. I'm just going to take it easy. Just try to get.
00:29:38
Speaker
you know, just try to get a finish now, right? Because I'd already written off trying to get a result at this point, it was just about trying to try to see what I could do and maybe maybe finish this race. So I did it out on the run. It was not pretty. But I got through that marathon. It's a three lap course. And
00:30:02
Speaker
my stomach was definitely like I wasn't able to take calories I was just I was I was bonking but there was something else going on where I think my stomach was just shut down as well and so on the run the only thing I drank was water and very little of anything else so
00:30:24
Speaker
I got plenty of hydration, but what happened was I would develop water poisoning from having too high a concentration of water and too low a sodium intake. And just for reference, this is a full Ironman, so you're 11 hours in at this point.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, I was about 12 and change 12. I think I finished in like 12 40, which is not a very good time for me, but it is what it is. And sure. But you got to the finish line. I got back into town at night and, um, it was a jog walk kind of affair on the marathon. I think I had like a five hour split, got in, finished, finished the race. You know, I was, I was ecstatic just to finish, right? I finished this thing.
00:31:07
Speaker
It's like after just the worst bonk imaginable. And I got in and cramping up at the finish, laid down, went back to the hotel. I was going to get my bike later because I couldn't even deal with it at that moment. Got back to the hotel, went to the room, showered, started getting dressed for dinner, about 10 30 at night. I was sitting on the bed and my legs just started shaking up and down and I
00:31:37
Speaker
realized something was going down, but I didn't really understand what was happening. And I was losing consciousness and my legs were just shaking. And I was like thinking that I was still in the Ironman running and it was the weirdest feeling. And then I just remember after that, just sort of blacking out. So I was, I was having a seizure at that point. And, um, fortunately there was a nurse staying next door who responded to my girlfriend's screams.
00:32:08
Speaker
And they fetched a doctor who was also actually an athlete in the Ironman. Pam, she was Pam Coleman from DC. She's a long time Ironman athlete who'd done this race a bunch of times. And Devon Hall was the nurse. Now we're really good friends years later. But you know, they they brought me literally brought me back to life because I had some sort of like, I was completely out, I was foaming at the mouth, I had some sort of cardiac
00:32:35
Speaker
I was like a cardiac arrest. My heart stopped beating. So they literally brought me back to life. Got me to the hospital. You know, I got on a sodium drip and I woke up in the morning. Couldn't remember anything. Couldn't remember who I was, where I was. I had a shirt on, a Cozumel shirt on. And I said to my girlfriend who was there, I said, was there an Iron Man? And God.
00:33:00
Speaker
I she said, Yeah, you did the Iron Man. You finished the Iron Man. You don't remember that? I said, No, I don't remember anything. And, you know, that took me about a day or two to get my memory back. It started slowly coming back. But it was just the weirdest feeling. It was like when I woke up, it was it was really peaceful in a way, because I woke up there in Cozumel, I was like,
00:33:28
Speaker
It was like a blank slate for myself. Like I was just everything I was, everything who I was was wiped. Like I didn't know, I didn't know who I was, where I was. It was like being reborn and starting life over and being given another chance. So I was just really blessed that I had a happy ending, um, to that, to that race. Wow. That's epic, man. Yeah, it was, it was crazy. So, um, you know, I took a lot of,
00:33:57
Speaker
A lot of experience from that. I decided I was going to become an expert in nutrition and hydration so that I never had any more problems after that. Subsequent races went a lot better, a few hitches here and there, but nothing as serious as that. Did it get into your head at all?
00:34:17
Speaker
It didn't affect my confidence or anything. It didn't create any fear. Once I learned what, what it was, I just took it for what it was. It was just a bad race. Nice. You know, the nutrition hydration was completely, you know, it's completely block botched. It was a, you know, failing failing grade from a nutrition hydration standpoint. So, um, I just took it for what it was and learned from it and moved on.
00:34:47
Speaker
Um, but it did take awhile. Like I didn't go right back into heavy training. I ease back into it. I just started doing some light swimming and
00:34:56
Speaker
wasn't really sure when I was going to race again after that, but I was able in the new year to ramp it up pretty, pretty quickly and get ready for my 2022 season, 2021 season. Definitely didn't stop you, man. You came back to Casa Mel. I did. I went back the next year and, um, because I wanted another shot at it and the race was nothing like the previous year. It was, um, it turned out it was raining pretty hard on race day.
00:35:23
Speaker
So it was a different challenge. It was like we got through the swim and then it was pouring cats and dogs for the whole bike ride where you might, you might've seen this picture I posted where it was like, we're in like a three inches per hour type downpour.
00:35:42
Speaker
And there's just it's a black and white photo of these guys just biking through this, this rain, you know, in puddles, like, you know, two inch deep puddles. There were potholes in the road that filled up with water, a couple guys went down, like, unfortunately hit potholes and went down in the potholes and, you know, fell crashed off their bikes. So fortunately, you know, unfortunately, I had a hazard free race, but I just was
00:36:08
Speaker
having a lot of visibility problems, just trying to see the bikers in front of me. It did clear up a bit. There was a lot of lightning, and then it cleared up a bit for the run. By the end of the run, it got pretty hot. Everything went great nutrition-wise, and I was able to drop three hours off my time from
00:36:27
Speaker
the previous year and get a pretty good result there.
Nutrition Strategy and Future Goals
00:36:31
Speaker
I think that's actually my Ironman PR, so I was really happy with that race. Nice. You've given me a ton of great advice about intra-race fueling. I was curious how much you think about nutrition. I know you're plant-based. In general, on a day-to-day life, how
00:36:49
Speaker
How much are you monitoring balancing your macros or your protein intake? Or do you do it more just by feel? Is it something you're really conscious about? Right, right. Yeah, I mean, I don't think so. I think it's more just intuitive for me. But what I've been doing more recently is before the bigger sessions, I just try to eat a balanced meal, really.
00:37:12
Speaker
to go into it pretty fueled up and really try to manage the race fuels in the salt tablets to use those as necessary but not as you know as a staple like obviously if you're going out for a four hour session by the second hour you're going to be
00:37:31
Speaker
tapping into your race fuels and your salt tablets. And so I am very methodical about that once I get on a schedule, whether it's like every 15 minutes or every two miles, it's going to be a quarter of a water bottle, you know, two salt tablets. And it's just, you know, methodical fueling throughout that session, you know, until it's until it's over. And it's the same in a race. But I try to keep things pretty basic. You know, I use like
00:37:59
Speaker
I use the scratch products. I like the scratch products and the Martin products and also the salt stick caps. So I think between those, I've got everything I need for my training and my racing and really don't use too much else. I just think like, like the Morton gels were money in Wisconsin. Those just weren't great for me. I was actually lost a water bottle leaving T one and
00:38:25
Speaker
So I had some scratch but a limited amount of it and I ended up just fueling most of that race on Morton gel and Morton calf gel and it went really well. I took my salt tablets throughout the bike and throughout the run and I think you know nutrition wise that was like a you know
00:38:44
Speaker
You know good a minus effort, you know could have been a little better But for the most part it was it was right on cue everything worked out You know, one thing I do is I try to add a lot of I need a lot of caffeine especially later in the in the races so You know just learn to start drinking those cokes early on the run not wait until towards the end but just already by like
00:39:09
Speaker
you know, mile five, mile 10, be getting those cokes every aid station, hitting those Morton calf gels. You know, it just works really well for me. I don't know if it works well for everybody. And maybe you can have too much caffeine, but I haven't been there yet. That's funny. What's coming up for you? Do you have any, is your goals and stuff, is it pretty race specific? Do you have aspirations to, you know, hit worlds again? Or do you have any big goals, plans coming up for this year, the upcoming years?
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so I've got, um, Kona in October this year. So this will be my second time going there. And the first time didn't go real well for a few reasons was 2021. The last time they had the men's, no, 2022 last time they had the men's race. And that was a tough day. I didn't give myself a lot of preparation, uh, as far as arriving early for the race and getting acclimated to the climate.
00:40:09
Speaker
And it hit late in the season. Like that year, I felt like my just my fitness and my training, everything kind of peaked during the summer. And the Ironman was pretty late. It was in October. And I was going through a move at the time. It was really, really inconvenient. We we literally had to move the same the week, the week of the race, which was just ridiculous. Yeah.
00:40:36
Speaker
So I went out there and my mind maybe wasn't like in the right place and made the best of it but it was just extremely hot that day. It was like 89 degrees with 90% humidity and you really start feeling it about three or four hours into the bike where the heat becomes a factor where you're just
00:41:00
Speaker
at least I you know there are some obviously some athletes who did but I wasn't one of them you know but you're just not hitting your your targets whether it's your power or you know other riders are starting to pass you or you're just not feeling it but it was around like maybe mile after the descent from Hawi which is when you're coming back so maybe like mile 80 onward of that bike
00:41:28
Speaker
And I remember thinking, okay, just dial it back a little bit. You know, I was drinking my Coke's and dialing it back a little bit, trying to get that second wind and T2. And I got on to that pier in Kona, you know, found my gear, you know, my transition bag, you know, loaded up on fuel again.
00:41:50
Speaker
headed out down Ollie Drive. The first 10k of Kona is an out and back on Ollie Drive, which is great. You have everybody cheering you on. The ocean's right there. Local residents were spraying us down with hoses. I was like, okay, if I could just cool off a little more and get a little bit more hydration, a little bit more calories, I'm going to be good. I'm going to have this second wind. I'm going to crush this run. As I was starting to come around,
00:42:19
Speaker
and got through that 10k. And you head up as you head up out of off the away from the beach. It's a Palani Drive, I think it is. It's a steep hill going up to the top of town to head out on the Camp Highway. And it just kicked my ass. It was just
00:42:43
Speaker
Like going up that hill, my Kona dreams just died. I realized like this was going to be a suffer fest. So, you know, like whatever targets or times or placings I had in mind, it was just like, you know, now it's about finishing and not collapsing out there because when I started that run, there were, um,
00:43:07
Speaker
a lot of athletes who are in a really bad place actually what happened I ended up racing with the women because I was one of four age groups that men age groups that they they had raced with the women because there were too many men to race on the same day. So it was kind of funny because you know, typically
00:43:29
Speaker
men are a little stronger on the bike and women actually are a little stronger on the run when it comes when it gets really down to it in terms of like, running in the heat. So it's funny, like, on the bike, I was passing all these girls, right? And obviously, not all of them is just a really fast ones too. But when I got on the run, all these girls started passing me. I was like, Okay, I'm just
00:43:57
Speaker
You know, they're just, they're just crushing it. So, you know, kudos to the women. They were just like, you know, I was really impressed with, with some of these, um, female athletes and just trying to find a couple to run behind and try to keep up with them and, and get through the run. And, you know, there were some, some athletes who succumbed to the heat. Um, there were athletes throwing up, there were athletes, there was one athlete who was, she was passed out in the cam highway. There were some people attending to her.
00:44:25
Speaker
So it can get really, really ugly out there. Damn. You just have to take a ton of salt. You know, like, like, I don't think it's too much to take, like, two salt tablets every 15 or 20 minutes because if again, it's sort of like caffeine, I don't think you can take too much of it. You definitely can take too little.
00:44:45
Speaker
When I say salt, I use salt sticks, so it's got balanced electrolytes. It's got your potassium and your magnesium and these other minerals. Because it's not just sodium, you need these other ones too, or you can have an imbalance. Yeah, like the little tablets. Yeah, it was really hard to take in carbs during that run just because it was so insufferably hot.
00:45:07
Speaker
and definitely my GI was shutting down a little bit so it's just another suffer fest. So anyway I hope to improve upon that this year you know I feel like I've done a few of these human races now and I know what to expect and I'm just looking forward to the opportunity to go back there and improve on that on that result I think I was like 11 1140 or something like that. So
00:45:35
Speaker
getting under 11 hours would be my goal and anything better than that would be fantastic. So that's what I'm shooting for this year. Hell
Community and Support with Mana Endurance
00:45:43
Speaker
yeah, man. I want to give a shout out to Mana. You're on this great triathlon team has been being a part of the Mana endurance team. It seems like it's been a great thing to get, you know, you know, that started up during the pandemic. Um, when I met Phillip, we actually met at a, at the lagoon swimming.
00:46:01
Speaker
because they had closed all the pools and even some of the beaches. So there was like nowhere to swim. It was crazy, right? So there was this one lagoon by my house that was under the radar where they weren't checking or enforcing the no swimming rule. So a lot of triathletes were going there at that time to do their swimming. And that's how I met founder of Mona Philip and became friends and started training together and he built a big team there. And that's been a lot of fun, like going to races and having those guys
00:46:31
Speaker
having your teammates there, showing up, racing with them, talking trash, supporting each other. Yeah, that's been a lot of fun, seeing those guys at all the different Iron Man events around the country and the world. Thank you so much, man, for taking the time to do this. This has been so great, and I hope we can do it again. I want to keep picking your brain about training and keep learning. You got it. Yeah, it's been great, David. All right, keep up the good work on the run, buddy. Hell yeah, you know it, brother. OK, good care. Peace, man. Have a great day.
00:47:01
Speaker
Big thanks to Henry for joining me today on the podcast. Big thanks to you for listening and checking this out and for your support. Come visit me on Instagram at Torganic and we will see you on the next one.