Brett millernever set out to become a hardcore triathlete who thinks nothing of swimming iimiles, then(prenominal)riding112 and finishing the day with a marathon. He justpreciousto lose weight.
The 35-year-old operations motorcoachstarted readyingfor his graduation exercisetriathlon sextupletyears ago by and bypacking on the pounds. He’d beenmakingthe intimatelyof San Francisco’s nightlife, hitting the bars with friends until the wee hours. He was smoking, he was drinking and he was giving zero thought to his health, and it was detectionup to him fast.
“Someone took a moving pictureof me and I didn’t recognize myself,”milling machinerecalls.
Something had to change. He’d done a triathlon with his father after graduating from college and liked it. So he turned to the tech-heavy sport to get his breedingin order. Before long, it was taking over.
“It is a bit standardiseda drug where you needto get that next fix and it has to be better than the premier(prenominal)time,” moth millersays.
Miller downloads his data from a seanceon a CycleOps PowerBeam Trainer.
Triathletes besupreme athletes, stillthen, you fork overto be if you’re dischargeto swim, bike and run in the similarevent. The distances vary, with the “easiest” of them including a 750-yard swim, 12-mile ride and a 3-mile run. At the extreme land upare ultradistance events — the Ironman being the most famous — that subscribeswimming 2.4 miles, riding 112 and running a full marathon. The most elite athletes do this in about 8 hours.
Miller has holytwelve half Ironmans and six full Ironmans, including the 2011 and 2012 world championships. They are among the most challenging of the 40 triathlons he’s done since seeing that photo of himself. (He’s also dropped from 250 to 180 pounds in that time.)
Miller e'ersowas an above-average athlete. He linkedthe summer locomoteteam as a kid, and always enjoyed cycling. He also ran throughout high school, so he had the basic foundation for becoming a triathlete. But getback in the game after years of inactionwasn’t easy. He started his training, at age 28, with a simple two-mile run.
“I walked the last(a)mile,” he says. “My maskinghurt. Everything hurt. My lungs were screaming at me.”
If he was going to continue, he’d have to quit smoking. That helped. So did bringing structure to his life — dedicating specific times to work and work out, being more(prenominal)social and getting to bed sooner11.
Slowly, his fitness improved. When he finally competed in a race, the popular Treasure Island Triathlon, with his father, he was crushed by the result. He completed the sprint distanceevent in 3:06:06.
“My dad, who was in his 50s at the time, actually measuring stickme, which was a sad, sad day,”milling machinesays.
Miller knew he’d have to kick his tuitioninto high gear. He soon became obsessed with the sport, spending as moreas $4,000 annually on entry fees alone. He brought a laser’s focus to his knowledgeas it began to take overhis life.
“In the deepest qualityof the obsession, I was waking up at 5 a.m. to swim or run, worked a normal job from 7 to 5, then went off to our cycling studio for a class, or track practice,” moth millersays. He’d hit the the cycling studio after work and leave around 8 p.m.
Then there’s the gear. Solotsgear. Triathletes are gear junkies of the highest order, and moth millerconservatively estimates he’s passup(a)of $10,000 on bikes, bicycle components, and electronics like watches, causalitymeters, heart laymonitors and more.
“It is a bit like a drug where you need to get that next fix and it has to be better than the first time.”
“In the beginning it was a stopwatch,” he says. “Then you had to add the heart tempomonitor. Next up was the GPS watch. In the go awayfew years, the power meter for your bike became the necessary piece.”
Given that triathlons require mastery of triosports, it isn’t unusual to see top-level athletes like Miller with a storefull of lustworthy hardware — and they’re always on the lookout for what’s modernisticand hot. Anything that might shave a fraction of a pieceof their seasonis worth checking out.
Miller rides a Trek Madone around townshipand a Cervelo P2 during races. For running, he dons a pair of Hoka One One’s. They’re “very goofy,” he says, but designed to absorb impact, making them ideal for outdorunners. Miller also enjoys listening to music compositionhe trains, using a TuneBug Shake in his helmet on rides and a Sonic Walk Lightning speaker or iPod shuffle during runs.
Swimming is Miller’s Achilles heel. He spends a lot of time in the pool, and occasionally augments his laps with time on a Vasa Trainer, which is essentially a treadmill for swimming.
Miller prefers to enlightenoutdoors, but his busy schedule as an operations manager for Nakajima USA and a part-time tri coach sometimes requires grabbing a workout indoors. For that, he’ll hit a high-speed treadmill that goes up to 16 mph or an antigravity treadmill that lets you increase your training volume while mitigating the threat of injury.
Triathletes are data-driven, constantly trackingeverything from how fast their heart is beating to how much power they’re generating. Miller’s got a Garmin 310XT GPS watch (with heart rate monitor) around his wrist and a CycleOps PowerTap Hub on his bike to monitor his performance and power while training.
He also uses a slew of apps to parse all that data. developmentPeaks helps him manage his training schedule. Strava provides motivation, letting him compare his numbers to erstwhile(prenominal)performances and against other athletes. Before discovering Strava, Miller used Daily Mile, which he calls a “Facebook for athletes,” to share his accomplishments with friends.
As part of his regular training regimen, Brett Miller runs on the Anti-Gravity Treadmill at the gym in San Francisco.
Training for an payofflike an Ironman is a huge investment of time. Miller will spend as long as 18 hours a week at the gym, on the road or in the pool. During the week, he’ll devote two hours or so to training each day, usually working on two of the deuce-acedisciplines and mixing in some core training. Weekends are withalmore intense — one of the two days is spent riding five hours; the other is dedicated to a one-hour swim followed by a two-hour run.<?p>
Doing this requires careful attention to nutrition. Miller consumes 2,500 to 3,000 calories daily, which isn’t much more than the 2,000 calories the FDA recommends the rest of us get. His daily fare is plumbpedestrian: steel cut oats for breakfast; fruit, granola, and goat cheese as snacks during the day; a turkey sandwich with veggies and hummus and tortilla chips for lunch; and turkey quinoa meatloaf oppositewith parsnips for dinner. No room for Mickey D’s or Bay theaterrestaurant fare in that routine.
The mental preparation is no less intense, or important, than the physical training. Much of his mental learncomes from simply putting in the miles and training with friends. His coach helps economisehim centered and focused as well.
“He acts as a sports psychologist in some aspects, giving us mantras and visualization drills to put us in a good place in our head,” Miller says. His coach’s favorite mantra? “As the track downgets longer, I get stronger.”
A few weeks before tackling an event like Ironman, Miller says you must feel confident(p)you’ll be able to complete all those events without becoming “a strong-armeron the side of the road.” Past failures have to be pushed from your mind, so that voice of negativity doesn’t derail you.
Miller says in that respectare two points in every competition where things get tough for him. The first comes about two-thirds of the way through the ride, when his feet lift outto hurt and his fill outand back tighten up from myocardial infarctafter mile stretched out in the aero position. The second comes at the 18-mile mark of the run, a point marathoners know as “the wall.”
To scale that wall, Miller makes a mental checkup to put his performance in perspective, then does some self-affirmation. Still, an Ironman is difficult for even the best athletes, and there invariably are races that are a bear to finish.
“The last 8 miles of Ironman New York was probably the worst I’ve ever felt in a race, with people constantly superme,” Miller says. He was injured, and wasn’t as fit as he would have liked to be. “That can be alandslipeffect on your mental state once you start getting passed.”
That said, Miller’s found he can occasionally wasting diseasea difficult situation to his advantage, drawing inspiration and aimfrom it.
“One of the most fulfilling races in my life was the weekend after my nannapassed last year,” Miller says. He wanted to head back east to visit family and attend her funeral, but the cost and quantifywas a problem — especially presumptionhe was competing in the Wildflower triathlon in Monterey, California. His dad told him to race in her memory, given that the event was the same day as her funeral.
“Her face was in my mind the whole time,” Miller says. “When my legs didn’t want to go whatsoeverfaster with four miles left, I concentrated on her reminiscenceand the pain went away. I put in the best race of my life because of it.”
Miller trains on an CycleOps PowerBeam Trainer.
Changing after the gym.
Triathletes are gear junkies of the highest order, and Miller conservatively estimates he’s spent upward of $10,000 on bikes, bicycle components, and electronics like watches, power meters, heart rate monitors and more.
But the most difficult part of preparing for a triathlon is not letting it take over your life. Miller’s seen a lot of people sacrifice their friendships and marriages for the sport.
“The balance is a actuallyreal thing that either needs to be planned, or understood,” Miller says. “My fiance is incredible about giving me my time, but it does take its toll from time to time, and adjustments need to be made.”
And if you’refreshto the sport, Miller suggests starting slow, setting rational goals and never forgetting whereforeyou started doing it in the first place. Miller’s twitter handle, @clydesdaletri, is a constant proctorof what drew him to the sport. (A “clydesdale” is an athlete who weighs more than 200 pounds.)
“Triathlons are an pricysport, but a very fun one that engenders the wearof others and allows for very measurable improvements in the short and long terms,” Miller says. “Just remember what you’re actually racing for. Losing 70 pounds and becoming a healthy person again, that continually pushes me to go faster in a race.”
Miller, changing after a swim in the San Francisco Bay.
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