How a coach, teammates can make training for an individual race more effective

He’s well known in the Mid Hudson Valley as the “fix-it guy” for a wide spectrum of endurance athletes. The founder and owner of Feldman Physical Therapy and Performance, Justin Feldman is himself an endurance athlete.

As a result, the old saying “do as I say, not as I do” thankfully does not apply here. The “been there, done that” methodology can be helpful in his practice, but the soon-to-be 40-year-old Feldman is reluctant to consider himself a “role model” for his patients. That’s OK. We’ll do it for him here right now.

Along with running an incredibly busy physical therapy practice in the area, Feldman and his team of endurance-training friends dedicated the better part of the past 12 months to training for the Lake Placid Ironman triathlon, held on a hot and steamy late July weekend. Feldman was able to cobble together a strong finish in 16 hours, 1 minutes, 56 seconds.

After completing a half-Ironman distance triathlon last summer, Feldman and his friends agreed to keep their training momentum going toward the Lake Placid Ironman.

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“In the end, five of us all worked together over the last year to keep each other accountable and motivated,’’ Feldman said in a post-race email. “The best part about sharing a goal race with a team is that inevitably, as the year goes on, you will have highs and lows and hopefully not all at the same time, so you can keep each other going.’’

Joining Feldman, there were John Nunez, Ben Smith, Kelly Dwy and Brenda McRae, who all worked together to get it done. While they may not have done each workout together, and some weren't even on the same training plan, knowing they had each other working toward the same goal was a huge help, Feldman said.

Along with his physical therapy practice, Feldman also writes training plans for athletes as an endurance sports coach. As he embarked on training for his first-ever Ironman, he knew going the self-coached route might not be the best idea.

“As a coach, for years I would explain to people the benefits of hiring a coach, having someone in your corner, someone to do the hard work and planning, but until this I was always self-coached,’’ he said. “I was lucky enough to be able to hire a good friend and fellow PT Cait Sapp from Ohio to coach me, and I could never have done it without her help.’’

Feldman said being accountable to a coach simplified his rigorous workout routine. “It was so nice to just wake up and do the workout on the plan each day, and know that someone else was looking at the data behind the scenes to make sure that I was getting in what I needed to,’’ he said.

Ironman triathlon training takes time and proper planning. For the swims, Feldman went to the Culinary Institute of America pool for workouts with the Dutchess Dolphins Masters swim team, and then to White Pond for open water practice once the weather warmed. Most of his bike training was in his basement on his “trusty trainer,” following the virtual Zwift program. His runs were mostly outside, three times per week.

Feldman described the race as an “adventure, for sure,” mostly due to the unusually hot and humid weather, conditions that are not favorable for him. Feldman said he often gets mocked for how little he sweats, which at times is convenient because he can run errands after a run. But in a long, hot and humid race, the lack of natural cooling mechanisms was a detriment, and he planned accordingly.

Feldman said the swim portion in Mirror Lake “felt great,” as did the first 54-mile loop of the bike portion of the race. “Then,’’ he said, “I started to notice that my hands were swelling and if I increased my effort, my heart rate wasn't going up, so I knew these as signs I needed sodium and water. At the next aid station, I took on extra water and it promptly fell out of my bike bottle cage when I hit a bump and I couldn't stop to get it safely, so I was right back where I started just 10 miles farther.’’

Feldman tried to keep taking sodium and water, along with planned high carbohydrate drinks, but he simply couldn't make up for what was needed.

“Once I got on the (marathon) run, I knew it was strictly triage to make sure I could finish, I had to really manage my effort until I could get enough sodium and fluids to start to see my heart rate respond,’’ he said.

Feldman has been closely monitoring the many “fancy devices” he has to keep track of his heart rate and other complicated data those devices provide, as he plans his recovery. In the process, his experiment of one can lead to benefits in his practice.

“I'm not sure I would consider myself a role model,’’ he said. “I will say that being able to test things on my own races/events and learn from those experiences is huge. Athletes will often ask how we know specific things, and usually the answer is we made mistakes in our own training/racing and learned from them.

"I do think that it really does help understand the mindset of an endurance athlete being one.’’

Part of that mindset is to keep grinding through workouts, despite the usual aches and pains that accompany such repeated efforts. Feldman knows the mentality of athletes fearing a doctor’s visit because they don't want to be told to stop training. “And really,’’ he said, “most things can be trained around, or training can be altered without being stopped.’’

He added: “Being an athlete, I know that I would never want to be told to stop, so I think other athletes like knowing you understand them. In this training cycle I had some posterior tibial tendonitis sneak up on me, and, I tweaked my warmup a little, added some different exercises, and switched my shoes, but I never missed a workout, and a few weeks later it was gone.’’

As he approaches a milestone birthday in a few weeks (“no one seems to want to let me forget it,’’ he said), Feldman said his fondest memory of the Ironman triathlon experience was sharing it with friends.

“For me,’’ he said, “the biggest thing about this was being able to train for a year with friends toward a common goal.’’

Mid-Hudson Road Runners Club member Pete Colaizzo, the track coach at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, writes on running every week. He can be reached at runhed246@hotmail.com. For more club information, go to www.mhrrc.org

This article originally appeared on Poughkeepsie Journal: Justin Feldman zooms at Lake Placid Ironman with help of coach, team