Mind (and Body) of Iron

Weekly Recap, and IT BEGINS!

2012-02-06T05:23:00.002-06:00

I had a pretty good week, but I knew the weekend would be critical, in terms of posting up a solid long run and ride, since this week I need to shuffle things around in order to race on Sunday.

I had 2 solid weekday bike workouts, and this is what they were (it's been awhile since I wrote actual workouts here, but what the hell, right?):

Warmup: 15' easy, 3' spinups, 3x(2' 85-90%, 1'CD)
Main Set: 4x(6' @FT, 2' @105-110%, 3' easy), 10x30/30

Pool time was good, more work with the paddles and pull buoy. One of the guards, who gives me tips occasionally, asked me about my paddles! For the record, they are TYR Catalyst, and mine are like 8 years old and I still love them. Mine are black, but now they are made in different colors for different sizes.

I had that good track workout on Wednesday, and running was feeling great. On Friday morning, I headed to the Y where I first did chinups and dips, then I ran for 25', then I swam 3,000. My interval times were a bit slow from the additional weight I'd unloaded from the assisted chin/dip machine, but at least I knew that's why I was swimming a bit slower.

A few hours later at home, it was time to finish up my strength training for the week and do squats and calf raises. I am a firm believer that calf raises have something to do with me never experiencing calf cramps in racing or training (except if I run or bike right before), so I continue doing them.

For squats, I supersetted air squats (4x15), barbell squats (2x15) and dumbbell squats (2x8). I added a few small plates to my barbell, and in retrospect, I shouldn't have done so many reps with the new weight! Oh well, it's not like I was racing this week, so no matter. I've decided I am going to buy a squat rack for downstairs once I get the remodeling done. No sense getting it now, since it will just be something else to relocate while construction proceeds.

After the squats and calf raises, I did my knee stability exercises on the floor with the ankle weights on. I do some basically isometric things for my VMO and adductors that seem to help keep my knees happy, but they felt a little tough after all the squats.

I got a massage after work, and it was much needed! I hadn't had deep tissue in 3 weeks, and when I wait that long, it can sometimes result in some soreness the next day. Indeed, when I woke up Saturday morning, I had some slight all over soreness, but my adductors were screaming! But that was from the squats, not the massage. I was pleased, though, that my glutes were just fine. Oh--my massage therapist commented on how my glutes are developing! I now have a big ass! That's what a full year of more squats will do to you!

I had to do a 2:30 ride on Saturday, and was really wondering how I'd fare in terms of power output with the sore legs. But I've surprised myself many times, so I just hopped on at about 8:30 (I got my grocery shopping done first). Warmup was fine (30'), then popped into the big chainring to go at 80% for 30', and that felt fine. The last 90' was done as 3x(17' 85-90%, 6' FT, 2x30/30, 5' easy) and the first interval went well, hit watts just fine, although I was on the low end of my FT for the 6' part. For the second 30' stretch, I went a little harder, and the third 30' interval was the best of all!

I got off the bike and put on my running shoes. I was not looking forward to running off the ride I'd just done. It's been ages since I did this, what with Ultraman training where there was no need for me to do brick workouts, and then basically a year off racing. So I let myself run super slow, just to remember how it feels. My legs were fine, actually, but that old familiar sensation in my stomach of wanting to puke was front and center! I really enjoy all the different sensations I get to experience in training and racing--things that if you've never done triathlon training, you would never get to experience. I know that sounds weird, like why would you want to feel like you are going to puke, but it has meaning! The meaning it has is that I rode hard (53.5 miles for 2.5 hours, not bad with an easy warmup!), and that made it all worthwhile.

I only ran for 20', since that's all I needed to do, and predictably, even though I knew I needed a ton of calories (I'd worked out on only Gatorade plus some peanut butter/cheese crackers), I wasn't hungry right away. But I drank a big glass of water, quickly showered, grabbed a bottle of Endurox R4 out of the fridge, and headed to Subway. I decided to get Subway so I had a pre-made sandwich ready for Sunday that I could take to the Y to eat right after my workouts, since I was going to do a presentation for a triathlon class immediately after my workouts.

Sometimes it can be difficult, in a way that is funny to me, to hide my feelings of hunger when I am waiting for food to be delivered to me. I would like to see video of myself trying to be patient while a very nice young man is patiently making my sandwiches! When he finished, as is the usual, he asked if I wanted cookies or chips, and I said no, paid, and drove home quickly, and laid into 6" of beefy goodness plus 1/4 of the foot long turkey breast. Then I had a beer while I stretched, ran some more errands in a haze, including stopping in at a nearby triathlon shop just to see what they had (even though I don't need A SINGLE THING right now), then went home and got my shit organized for Sunday, ate dinner around 5:30 and was asleep by 8:00 (don't ask--my sleep schedule is way off kilter, but it will right itself once we go back on DST, I'm sure).

I slept really soundly Saturday night, and when I woke up, I noticed my adductors were still a bit sore, but now also my quads! Fuck yeah! But I was still way better off than 2 weeks ago after my stair climbing festival. I got my swim and run stuff ready, loaded a small cooler with one can of Coke, 48 oz. of Gatorade, a bottle of Endurox R4 and my sandwich, packed up my laptop and headed to the Y.

I swam first, although I prefer to do my short weekend swim AFTER I run, because the triathlon class would be occupying the pool from 10-11. A woman I know was in the water, and I've given her some swim tips, and since I had about 10 minutes before I absolutely had to be swimming, I spent some time with her, showing her one drill and how to do planks on deck. Then I swam 1500, and it sure felt nice to swim with my legs being a bit crunchy. I stretched my upper body for about 5' in the sauna, then suited up to run.

On tap was a 1:45 run, and while I thought I would try and put some tempo work in there, it was just not to be, as my legs were not up for it. Still, I got in 11.5 miles, including about 5' of track work where I was able to knock out 2 1/3 mile repeats at sub-5K pace after already running for 1:30, so that was good! After I finished, I stretched for 10', headed to the locker room to shower and get dressed, then I took all my crap to the conference room where I'd be giving a presentation.

I started pounding down the Endurox R4 and setting up my laptop when Jessica (the class instructor) came in all breathless telling me they had about 10' more of biking to do and then they would be up in the conference room and that she brought chocolate chip cookies in case I was hungry and it was fun for me to listen to her talking really fast and all excited which must be just how I sound when I am in that state!

Luckily I had my cooler with me, as I used it to prop the projector up so my slides would be large enough for easy viewing from the back of the room. There were about 15 people who attended my presentation called "Triathlon Nutrition 101." I had a blast giving it, as I am very comfortable delivering presentations, and have given some for 500+ people in my professional life. I know my content, which frees me from constantly looking at the slides and I can inject my usual energy and animation into the show, and yesterday was no exception. While I've read numerous books on nutrition and have, of course, experimented on myself to find what works best for me and observed other athletes and their successes and mistakes in the nutrition department, my presentation was about boiling it down to "best practices," to use a business cliche. The students are training for a super sprint triathlon, and I am sure many of them will move on to bigger and better races, and while I am pretty geeked out about many things to do with triathlon, when it comes to nutrition, I try and keep it simple, and this is what I wanted to convey to these people. I didn't have time to get into details about meal timing and which carbs are better at what times, etc., but I covered the basics of hydration and nutrient intake.

I got one interesting statement from a young man afterward that long distance triathlon is not healthy. I wanted to hear his point of view, and I just smiled and said that I believe some people are just wired to pursue this stuff, and that it is still healthier than sitting on a couch and becoming fat! It was interesting to hear this from a person who says he is swimming 2 hours a day, though!

When I got home after all that, I ate the remaining 6" of Subway, as I was starving. I did not partake of the cookies during the presentation as I didn't really want one at that point, plus I knew I was going to be baking my own later on.

I baked a dozen muffins for my breakfast, about 5 dozen awesome oatmeal/coconut cookies, all but 3 of which will be winging their way to Afghanistan today, then chopped onion and minced garlic for my dinner stir fry. I got most of the dishes washed as I was baking, and all of this by 4:45PM. Some days I don't know how I squeeze all these things in.

Next up I loaded the rice cooker with jasmine rice (I know--it's white, but it's SO good), and turned on the Super Bowl, but since kickoff wasn't going to be until 5:30, I went ahead and cooked up my stir fry of thinly sliced flank steak (that had been marinated in sherry overnight), chopped onion, lots of garlic, tons of snow peas, some baby corn, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, all in a light sauce of chicken broth and sambal oelek (I can't get enough of that stuff!) thickened with cornstarch. The rice finished cooking just ahead of the stir fry, and then I piled a plate with about 1.25 cups of rice, and scooped a bunch of the stir fry on top, and then settled in for a little Sunday newspaper reading and Super Bowl watching.

The food was awesome, and once I finished, it was lay on the couch with legs propped up, and hang out until Madonna was on for the half time show, which I really enjoyed, and then off to bed for a little reading (I am rereading "Born to Run"), and then to sleep.

This morning my legs feel pretty good, which is good since I have to fit in 2 1:30 hard bike rides, a 1:40 run, 3 swims, 3 more runs, and about 1:30 of strength training between today and the end of Friday! Then I have another little race on Sunday.

So I have to say that this week it begins--it is this sort of training that begins to test my ability to string together a bunch of serious workouts that are designed to whip me into some semblance of speedy shape because I only have about 2 months of this before I start piling on the volume again to get ready for Triple T and Ironman Canada.

Have I ever said how much I love this stuff?

Cautiously Amped

2012-02-02T07:40:00.002-06:00

I think it's taken a few weeks to come down from my high volume mid-December to early January training, and I feel settled, rested, and fucking awesome.

Yesterday I did my first official track workout--5K and 10K pace intervals. I was bummed after my dismal, pathetic run in the indoor tri last Sunday, but I felt ready for this. My schedule (stupid coach!) didn't have me doing track work until 2 weeks later. I've been barely training for the last 3 weeks (about 12, 14 and 13.5 hours), which was most definitely called for, but come on, I can only go low for so long.

Ludacris: How Low (Official Video) from DTP TV on Vimeo.

I was hitting sub-8's on the 5K intervals, and right around 8's for 10K, which is the fastest I've gone in a few years. And they didn't feel that bad (although I was grimacing and cussing on my last laps of each repeat), so fingers crossed, I will go faster. We will see on Sunday when I slam some serious tempo work into my long run. While I felt predictably beat up yesterday (I did a hard 2200 swim right after the run), I feel absolutely awesome today.

My swim experiment with daily (whenever I'm swimming, that is) paddles and pull buoy seems to be working. I am able to swim really fast (for me) with them, and it is showing in my non-toy swimming speed during warmups, and while I still swam my usual pace on Sunday, it was solid, really not much effort. The experiment is teaching me to be OK with a higher heart rate while swimming, which is tough for me being so bradycardic.

Biking is also coming along in a huge way. Racing on Sunday again reminded me of just how hard I can go, and that is showing up in my workouts this week. I did laugh during the race on Sunday, since I could see my heart rate on the bike, and it was good 'n high for me (high 130's), but my sense of it was "it's just a number." That's why I no longer use a heart rate monitor--at some point, I would become concerned over seeing the high numbers. Fuck that noise.

Now comes the really fun part. Last year, while I was "resting," (and I do mean that figuratively, since WTF 780 hours is not exactly slacking), I decided I needed to move heavier weight in my strength sessions. I had experience with the heavy stuff, but it can be dicey mixing high volume triathlon training with heavy lifting sessions. So last year was perfect for going a little bigger. While I did my really long stuff in December/early January, I had to back off the weights, because that is just what you do if you are going to pile on the endurance training. But now, I am back on them, and this week I am noticing that I might be able to dump on even more weight very soon!

I suppose my evolution as a triathlete, which has occurred over only 11 years, at an advanced age, is probably right on schedule, in terms of being able to truly handle the high volume, and now, possibly also much heavier weights. Plus a good dose of high intensity work! Is that cool or what?

Hence the title of this post. Whenever I feel like this, I have a bit of a sense of foreboding that things may come crashing down on me at any minute. But I am being very watchful of how my muscles feel, and they seem fine. My only concern is the inability to sleep for more than 7-8 hours a night. This may be due to the lessened volume, underestimating my metabolism (which, of course, was seriously jacked up a month ago), my recurring winter darkness confusion (this has happened to me before I began training so much), my age or hormonal factors (but come on, I am done with that shit I thought) or some other factor. I do sleep quite well for the first 7 hours, and if I can't fall back asleep, I force myself to stay in bed for at least another hour. I am not yet at a point where I feel like I should see my physician, although I did ask her to write me another scrip for sleeping pills, and she asked whether I was OK, extra stressed, etc., and I said NO. So unless something else rears its ugly head, I have to just roll with it. If any of my three blog readers have ideas about this, please pass them along.

First official triathlon of 2012

2012-01-30T05:05:00.002-06:00

I've done the MITCS series 5 or 6 times, and have won the series of 3 or 4 races (there were 4 up until a few years ago; now there are only 3 races spaced 2 weeks apart) 4 times, the last time being in 2010. I didn't have expectations going in here yesterday, seeing as how I've not been doing much of any speed training for running, only a few weeks on the bike, and really only a few weeks on the swim. I just hoped to not suck too much!

I warmed up at home first on the treadmill, then on my bike, drank a Coke on the way to the venue, and when I was exiting I355 and waiting at a stoplight to turn onto Roosevelt Road, I saw a pair of coyotes on the hill supporting the tollway. They looked to be in good health, with a nice, bushy winter coat. I watched one then the other capture and eat some sort of small rodent, using the pouncing method. I was so glad I got to see that! It makes me sad that many people think ill of coyotes, but I applaud the fact that they have become at home in the suburban ecosystem, and I can only guess that they are doing a good job in keeping the mouse/vole/miscellaneous rodent population under control. Some people are concerned about their dogs and cats, but cats should be indoors (to limit impact on songbird population), and as to small dogs, well we are only renting our land from the wild animals, who have every right to seek out their prey. The more wild animals I encounter near where I live, the happier I am! With the exception of deer--not a big fan of them coming into my yard and eating my flowers, but there aren't too many near me. Still, if I lived in an area with a lot of deer, I would just have to accept it.

When I got to the race venue, I had just enough time to do a quick warmup--5' on the track, then 10' on the stationary bike. This year they have Life Fitness bikes, and I've used them a few times at my Y and they seem to be geared more or less like a real bike. I say that based on the fact that I can hit the same speed on it as I do on my real bikes with about the same effort. I made a note of the saddle height, back to the locker room to put on my swim stuff, and got to the pool deck with just enough time to get in a 250 warmup.

The pool was nice and cold, and a few people commented it was TOO cold. Not for me! My Y's pool is usually 84-85, so this one seemed around 81, which was fine by me. Unfortunately, I got the gutter lane, but it wasn't too bad.

It was funny to me that even though I'd warmed up everything, that I still had some race jitters in me! Ah, my old friend! When the horn went off, I took off in my usual long distance pace, and felt pretty good. The woman sharing my lane was a decent swimmer, and we were neck and neck for maybe 150, and then I pulled ahead of her.

Even though I've started doing a lot of hard intervals in the pool (starting 1/1), I still am not a fast swimmer or sprinter. I managed 525 yards in 10', but know I can get to 550 or maybe 575. On a good note, at least I have not slowed down in 5 years!

Onto the bike, where I thought, based on my 10' test, that I'd do pretty well. I was in a wave with a bunch of old farts like myself, but hoped someone would challenge me, not that you can actually challenge someone on a stationary bike! I went relatively easy for the first mile, then changed to intervals of .5 mile hard/.25 mile easier. I managed 6.93 miles in 20', and my goal for the next race is 7.25, which I think is very doable. I expected to see high bike totals for everyone based on how the bikes are geared, so even though this was the best I've ever biked in terms of distance, it is almost apples and oranges, but still I know I worked really hard, and as is typical for me, when the bike was over, I dropped down to lay on the floor for a few seconds.

My hamstrings hurt a little from the god awful saddles on those bikes, but I walked it off and got ready to run. Everyone in the wave ushered me to the head of the line, even though I don't consider myself a good runner at all. We took off, and there was one girl much younger than me that seemed to be running a good pace, so I stayed just off her shoulder for much of the time. Looking back, I held back too much, and the pace was TOO comfortable, although I ran the most distance in the wave, but my pace was a craptastic, pathetic 8:50. I will fix that, though, and would expect to get down to 8:15 or even 8:00.

Still, as crappy as I ran, there was only one other woman in my old lady age group, and I crushed her. But when I was looking at the posted results, I would have placed 2nd or first in many of the lower age groups. Biking IS my strength!

Now the good thing about all of this is that I worked out for 3.5 hours on Saturday, so it's not like I was rested up or anything. But I'm looking at my training schedule, and it appears it's time for Wednesdays to become track workouts. I was going to wait 2 more weeks to begin that, but fuck it, I'm all recovered from all the November-December volume festival, and know I'm ready for serious track work, as I've been doing a little of it here and there. Again, I was shocked at how slowly I'd run, but only because I wussed out and hung with someone else instead of pushing myself.

After the race, they had both acupuncture AND massage, and I was in heaven! I got a little massage first, and then got some basic acupuncture, and I have to say, I feel pretty good this morning! I hung out to cheer on some friends, made a new one, and then they brought out the sandwiches (I was finished at 9:30 but was hungry go figure!), so I had a couple of those. I needed to kill some time anyway waiting for my bike shop to open so I could get my other shoes shimmed up.

So I went to The Bike Shop and hung out and chatted, and it turns out they are getting a shipment of the new shoes I really want--the Sidi T2, pictured above. I don't really NEED new bike shoes, but I've learned now to periodically check Sidi and Castelli for cool new designs, and I really like the silver shoes (they're sparkly!), and I don't really need any other gear this year, so what the hell. I will pick them up in 2 weeks after I've done my second indoor sprint that I better go faster at and win my AG again!

By the way, I wore my magic running shoes (shown above), and I definitely had the best looking shoes! I did see a girl with the new Asics Gel Noosa Tri shoes, but the New Balance rainbows are cooler looking. Sadly, I can't find them anymore, and don't think NB is making this color any longer. I hope they do something similar next year. These are the best shoes ever!

On another note, I am not sleeping enough. I may just be in "confused winter mode," which has happened to me before with all the darkness, and my sleep schedule gets way off kilter. I am going to ask my doctor for a refill on sleeping pills, because OTC just isn't doing it. Last time I did that, pretty much as soon as I got the prescription, I began sleeping well again.

I was just so happy to race again yesterday! The adrenaline coursing through my veins, holding off the urge to hyperventilate during the swim, pouring it on during the bike, the sensation of wanting to puke while running, thanking all the volunteers, reconnecting with tri peeps. I think I was smiling ear to ear the entire time except when I felt like puking. Ah, racing---whenever I talk to someone who works out a lot (swim, bike and/or run) but doesn't race, I just don't get it. I don't do it so I can beat other people (well most of the time anyway), but just so I can see how I perform under pressure and enjoy doing it with others. The word compete comes from the Latin verb competere, which means to seek together. Even us introverts can enjoy doing a solo sport in the presence of others!

And so, it's officially ON! I feel healthy, strong, and ready to work my ass off (and on, as I've been doing lots of squats) and see just what I can accomplish this year!

Surf and Turf

2012-01-25T10:42:00.000-06:00

To follow up from my weekend, on Sunday I ran for an hour, but not very fast. I had a bunch of leftover sushi from Saturday (I purposely ordered extra), and had a bunch more for lunch, watched some football, but seemed to be in a perpetual state of hunger the entire day. I have no idea how many calories I burned on Saturday, but as far as I could tell, I was stuffing my face and still felt constantly hungry.

On Monday, I woke up with non-functioning legs! I could barely walk, as my calves did not really want to work, and my quads now hurt like motherfuckers. Going downstairs (I live in a split level), I had to hold the rail and take one step at a time sideways. I decided I better not try and run on ground, so after I swam (where it hurt a bit to push off the wall), I did a water running workout, and even that was tough on my calves, but it felt just fine aerobically. Since my legs were trashed, I figured I'd get most of my upper body lifting done, and there were no problems there.

The remainder of the day, I sort of hobbled around wearing compression socks, and slept fitfully, since any contact with my legs was a bit painful. But I knew I'd get over it. On Tuesday, I headed to the pool again in the morning for another water run, which felt better than on Monday, did some more lifting, then got on my bike in the afternoon. I knew I wouldn't be able to work too hard on the bike yet, so I opted to just spin in the small chainring. This makes me more nuts than blasting out lots of watts, so I quit after 50 minutes, I was SO BORED! But my calves seemed to be coming around, and also my quads.

Sometime during the middle of last night, I noticed that when I got up to pee I could almost walk normally! Plus, I ditched the compression socks because too much of that is not good for the muscles, either, based on my experience. When I finally got up this morning, I walked downstairs in a normal fashion without holding on to the rail! I was so happy, that I decided to do part land running and part water.

I got to the Y, and got on the treadmill. The new treadmills they just got have the ability to switch the display to a number of different languages, so today I chose French (Sunday was some sort of Arabic--I'm not sure which country exactly!). I began warming up easy, and my legs felt GREAT! There was still some residual soreness in my calves, but nothing like on Sunday, and I was smiling from ear to ear! I only spent 15 minutes on the treadmill, and when I hit the STOP button and the stats screen came up in French, I noticed that the button which reads EXIT in English now said QUITTER. AWESOME!!! I laughed my ass off at that.

Next I headed to the track, and I ran 3 1/3 mile repeats, not at top speed, but I just wanted to see what I had. I did pretty well considering, then I ran another 1/4 mile easy, but it was still a good pace. I followed that up with a hard 2400 swim and then I did some water running for :32.

I am really pleased at how I chose to recover from the unplanned assault on the stairs, and am pretty confident I will be completely back to normal tomorrow, including hitting the bike hard. I still need to do a bit more running today, and will do it on my at home treadmill, and some easy biking.

But now I am REALLY looking forward to being able to do lots and lots of squats tomorrow! Also I have a little indoor sprint triathlon on Sunday, so I'm thinking I should be in decent shape for it.

I love this stuff!

Stair Climbing Fun and Weekly Summary

2012-01-22T09:02:00.000-06:00

This week was supposed to be another easy-ish week. I still have a bit of running and a shortswim to do today.

My swimming experiment seems to be working. Lots of paddle/pull buoy work is filteringback into my speed without them. I’mdoing lots of intervals at good paces, leaving me breathless hanging onto thewall. One of the guards cautioned meagainst all the work with paddles, but I reminded him that I’ve done as much as4,000 yards at a pop with them, so I’m not worried about my shoulders.

Biking is really starting to come around. I am getting glimpses of my decent FTP andassociated power to weight ratio that I had in 2009-2010. I remain optimisticthat I will be a beast out the door in April!

Running is coming around, too, although I still am not doingany formal pace workouts. But I do whatI feel like on any given day, although I will start seeing actual speed worksoon enough as I begin on the indoor super sprint triathlons next week. This week I did a mix of easy treadmill, ½ milerepeats on the indoor track and Cybex 750AT (Arc Trainer). The AT is an awesome machine. If you really crank up the resistance, it’slike you are doing squats AND running uphill at the same time. Seriously, I am not a big fan of anythingresembling an elliptical trainer—not that you can’t get a workout on one—but theleg motion of many just doesn’t come close to anything “normal.” But I am liking the AT, and think I may justkeep doing some of it at least once a week. All I can say is I get on there, I get my HR up pretty high and hatemyself. Which means it’s awesome!

Strength work continues to go really well. I’ll be back on heavier weights next week aftertaking 5 weeks easier while I did my Ultraman prep madness. I am feeling strong, and that manifests inhow well the SBR is going. Also I cantell from my physique and I am fairly lean, continuing to weigh in at 113pounds, although of course I would like to whittle off maybe 2-3 pounds of fat,but that will happen on its own without me making too much of a concertedeffort.

I am doing pretty good on my diet, although I could drinkless beer, which is always true! I’m pretty sure that if I gave it up, I’d drop2 lbs. of fat in a hurry, so it’s my own damn fault, right? Aside from that, Iam eating pretty damn clean. Here’s anexample of a typical weekday for me, with the workouts interspersed:

· Breakfast: hardboiled egg, homemade banana/wheatgerm muffin, coffee with creamer. Yes there is some sugar in the muffin, butnot too much, and the creamer I use has some sugar in it. I could do better here.

· AM workout: 1 hour swim M/W/F or :45 strength orrun on Tu/Th, with 20 oz. Gatorade

· AM snack: 1-2 pieces fruit, 1 piece stringcheese

· Mid-day workout: :45-1:15 run M/W/F or 1:30 bikeTu/Th with 20-32 oz. Gatorade depending on time. Immediate recovery drink 1 scoop Endurox R4.

· Lunch: approx. 300-calorie Lean Cuisine. I prefer the ones with rice. Again, I could do better here and have, say,tuna with vegetables, but this works for me so that I can have it done while Iget back to work.

· PM snack: small handful of nuts, maybe anotherpiece of fruit.

· Dinner: Huge salad of greens, cherry/grapetomatoes, possibly avocado (it would a whole one sliced), possibly pimientostuffed green olives, liberal dousing of olive oil and Cream of Balsamic, withmaybe a sprinkle of grated Parmesan or Romano. 4 oz. chicken breast or fish, occasionally a lamb chop or piece ofsteak. This is my usual dinner when I amtraining under 15 hours per week. When Igo over that (or sometimes even at 14 hours), the salad goes bye-bye and isreplaced with 1-1.5 cups of rice (usually brown or jasmine made in my ricecooker) topped with one of my various stir fry concoctions (really heavy on thevegetables; turkey, beef, chicken or shrimp-based) out of the freezer. I typically drink one beer prior to dinnerwhile I am stretching.

· If I am still hungry an hour after dinner, Iwill evaluate how much I think I’ve burned vs. eaten for the day, and at thatpoint I may have 1-2 Fig Newtons, a few Pringles (OH NO!!!), pretzels, a Tiger’sMilk Bar (I know—no different than candy, what can I say?), more fruit.

When I am training 15+ hours a week, what usually happensis that Thursday-Sunday I will either eat more rice, more snacks, and/or have apasta-based dinner rather than rice prior to my big training days (3+ hours). When I get around 17+ hours per week, allbets are off, and I allow myself to have candy (usually Gummi Bears), maybeeven Cheetos. Of course, I eat out everynow and then with my preference being sushi, but on huge training days I allowmyself pizza or whatever I want that same day and leave myself wiggle room thenext day or two. But the longest amountof time I will ever let myself completely slack on my diet is maybe 3 daysafter an Ironman or longer. Otherwise Iwill feel like complete and total crap.

Now onto the stair climbing. I was doing some work on the AT this past week to prepare (sort of) forthe inaugural stair climb right in my town that happened yesterday. The event was not timed, and they said wecould climb up AND down as many times as we liked. I had made plans to do this with my friendJamey, and we arbitrarily decided to do 10 repeats of the 17-floor climb (375stairs per floor). Jamey is formallytraining for Hustle Up the Hancock, which I’ve done several times in the past,so he’s already “in shape” for stair climbing, whereas I just figured I’d gowith my current cardiovascular fitness. I shouldn’t have to actually train for something like this, right?

I got in one repeat up and down before Jamey arrived. Wesettled on doing 10 total reps together at a moderate pace, although somewherealong the way we did some calculations and decided we should do 11, since, hey,this thing goes up to 11, plus that would give us at least double the number ofstairs in the Hancock climb. We laughed and talked and I occasionally swore,but I apologized if I swore near one of the volunteers, and we just cycled upand down, up and down, with almost no resting at all. There were a few peoplewho did maybe 2 or 3 reps, but after that, it was just Jamey and me. The volunteers were amazed at us, even thoughif we were stupid, we would have gone even longer. We didn’t want to make anyone stay TOO longjust to wait on us.

I decided that for my 11^th rep (and Jamey’s 10^th),that it would be NO TALKING and I would go for time. I did the 17 floors in 2:53, which is equivalentto a time of 16:20 for the Hancock (96 floors), assuming the floors of bothbuildings are equivalent, but who knows. Anyway, I thought that was a pretty good time considering I’d alreadydone 10 reps, and I hadn’t trained specifically for this. When we reached the top, I ceremoniouslydropped onto the floor. I really didn’tneed to, but I did have jelly legs, and I was laughing hysterically whilelaying there.

But I got back up quicklyand we headed down. Jamey was going to do his 11^th rep all on hisown, with a goal of going up and down in under 5 minutes. I knew he could, and actually he did it in3:25! After he quit coughing, I askedhim what he did, and my guess is he went up in around 2:30 but literally flewdown the stairs. He did say he wasalmost sliding down!

I wish we had recorded our conversation while we didthis. We were laughing so much and therewere a number of “that’s what SHE said” moments, especially in reference to “goingdown.” At one point, I remember askingus figuratively why we were doing this, and there was something about thestairs getting lonely and needing someone to use them like whores.

My total time spent climbing up was 37:16 for 187 floors or4,125 stairs, and I counted this in my training records as running time, and35:56 going down, which I counted as walking. Much more than the :20 run which was the original plan in my trainingplan for yesterday!

We both had twitchy calves, and that sensation didn’t leaveme for over ½ hour. But when I got home, I needed to do a 2:15 ride. I put oncompression calf sleeves, but after 30 minutes I took them off because theymade me too hot. Let’s just say that theslowtwitch fibers in my calves seemed to be worn out, and while I could exertforce on the pedals, my typical RPM’s (I will average about 98 most indoorrides) were nowhere to be found. I was OK with that, and not hitting my targetwatts for the day.

This morning, both my calves and quads are not surprisinglysore, but I am still going to try and run for an hour and then do a ½ hourswim. The swim will not involve anykicking! I think it would have been hilarious to try and swim yesterday. Itwould have been cramp city!

Last night, I took myself out to eat for sushi, and Ipolished off at least 20 assorted pieces along with 2 big Sapporo beers. You would think that would have replenishedme, but fuck no! It still feels like Ihave a hole in my stomach or a tapeworm or something, so I guess it’s poundlots of calories again today, and hopefully I will be back to normaltomorrow. I should end this week’straining at 14.5 hours, which is not a lot for me. My metabolism is in ferocious mode now, so Iexpect I need to increase my carb intake next week. Tough problem to have, but I’ll manage!

Race/Event Calendar for 2012

2012-01-21T06:13:00.004-06:00

I updated my sidebar links so you can see all the races and major events (century rides, etc.) that I plan on doing in 2012, so if you are doing any of these and want to meet up or train together, let me know!

Goal 3 of Ultraman “Test” Training Complete

2012-01-08T13:27:00.000-06:00

The plan for this week was to run 60 miles, just to get in alot of run mileage. I didn’t think itwould be THAT hard considering I’d run 55 in late October for my birthday week.The plan further called for doing 10 miles a day for 6 days straight, and thena rest day (today).

I was surprised that on Monday my quads felt sore rightaway. I hadn’t run much the prior weekor biked. Maybe it was from all the kicking I did during my 15,000 yardswim? I don’t know, but whatever, I knewthat the soreness was OK (oops now that I think of it it may have been fromlifting!), and that I was good to go. I also didn’t have any aspirations as topace for this, although I didn’t want to run slower than 10mpm.

Monday I swam first and then ran, and gosh I was fuckingtired after that! Imagine that—I’d swum15,000 just 2 days before and I was still a little crunchy? LOL I kill myself.Turns out doing a hard 1-hour swim directly followed by a 10-mile run 2 daysafter a 15,000 swim feels a bit tough.

Tuesday no swimming, but I got to the Y at a decent time torun. We’ve been having nice weather in Chicago for winter, but the reason Idecided to do this week on the treadmill is that a) it will help me hold mypace DOWN (I always run faster outdoors) and b) as long as I’m running indoors,even though I have a treadmill in my house, I’d feel more motivated with othersaround me. But I digress. When I arrived, a friend of mine, Jamey, was on atreadmill, so it was nice to pass my first hour chatting with him. And I meanCHATTING! We were into some deep shit, and I am sure others around us were likewhat the fuck is wrong with them. Again, my legs felt sore, but nothing thatstopped me from getting in my 10. Later in the day I did some strength training for about :41.

Wednesday I swam right before I ran again, as I knew thatthe swimming (as long as it was some reasonable amount less than 5,000 yardsLOL) would not impact the running plus it helps me recover from running (Ithink), and once again my legs were still a bit sore, but not too bad, plus Ihad an awesome swim! I forgot to mention that Monday’s swim was great, too—ya thinkfrom all that swimming I’d been doing the prior weeks?

On Thursday morning I was all ready to go to the Y, got inmy car, turn the ignition and nothing. I figured it was a dead battery, and italmost started, but then I just smiled and thought I’d deal with it later, so Iwent back into my house, put on some walking shoes and walked my ass to theY. It was a gorgeous morning, albeitpitch black, and I laughed that I should run outside, but I wanted to get therun done NOW and I don’t particularly like running in the dark.

Friday I’d scheduled the day off from work, knowing I’d bepretty worked over by this time and could use a lack of stress from work. Still, I awoke by 3AM, which has beenhappening a lot the last 3 weeks, forced myself to stay in bed until 4AM, gotup, and got ready to hit it again. I swam only 2300, but swam hard, and it feltgood, and then I ran again, ending on the track where I was really kicking it!I wore my new magic shoes, which explains it. They are the best shoes EVER.While I can’t find the rainbow ones anymore, I have another pair of “regular”colored ones and I think I’ll buy some more, they are the most awesome shoes I’veever run in. I got a massage at 2PM andreally needed it, even though I stretched after the swim and the run justbecause I had the day off, and stretching as soon as I finish a workout is theway to go when I have the time.

I think I went to sleep by 6:30 on Friday I was so tiredout. But I woke up by 3AM on Saturday just rarin’ to go, knowing this was mylast run for the week. I swam another 2200 just to get my swim yardage over10,000 for the week, even though I’d planned only like 6,000. But since I’vebecome a much stronger swimmer, it is no big deal, and I want to keep up atleast 10,000 per week. My legs felt pretty good, no doubt from both stretchingand massage in the same day, but mentally I was a little toasty. Good thing a great runner I know, Larry,showed up and got on the treadmill next to me. We had a fun conversation, andat one point he told me that if a Kenyan trained me they wouldn’t make me loseweight! I have been feeling like I’m inpretty good weight/muscle mass right now, although I know there are people whowould call me skinny.

I was so happy to do that last run, but then when I figuredhow much I’d done for the week it came to 63.8 miles, and I was thinking thattoday maybe I should “even it out” so I got to 65. But, today was supposed tobe a rest day, and so it is, and I need to be off my feet. Although I have beenbaking since 8AM and still have something else to cook today, did 3 loads oflaundry, miscellaneous cleaning, other personal stuff and I’m pretty tired.

I forgot to mention last night I took my brother out forsushi for his birthday. I was so hungry I think I ate enough for 2 peopleeasily, even though just 2 ½ hours before I had to get a 6” Subway sandwicheven though I ate a huge salad for lunch. Yes, my metabolism is totally jackedup, but I have to be watchful now since I am going to take a good rest week nowand then I won’t be going nutso on the volume for awhile.

I’m pretty happy with what I’ve accomplished, training-wise,in the last 10 weeks, and think it has helped me build additional mental andphysical toughness. I know several people doing 100-day challenges and runevery day challenges, but I am not on that train because I know when I need totake rest days and give myself some time to do other things. Hard to believe it’s2012, but that means I am now officially training for an Ironman, and I’mpretty darn sure I’m going to pony up for Ultraman Hawaii, assuming they let mein! It’s all very exciting, and I am sograteful that I am able to do all of this at this stage of my life.

I hope everyone has had a wondrous, magical, fulfillingweekend!

Goal 2 of Ultraman "Test" Training Complete and Annual Totals

2012-01-01T09:37:00.000-06:00

Yesterday the plan was to head to the Y and do a 15,000 yardswim, or whatever I could accomplish. Originally, I was going to start at 9 after Masters, but I figured therewouldn’t be too many of them there and I wouldn’t need to stop, so instead Igot started by 6:35. This is the firsttime I can remember that the Y would have so many hours of lap swimavailable. I could have kept going until2PM, but was glad for when I did start.

I’d done a 9 and a 10 3 and 4 weeks ago, but before that nottoo much. My longest swim ever was13,500 about a year ago, so I wanted to go further this time. I knew 15 would be a stretch, but since I’dtapered down both my biking and running this past week, there was no reason Ishouldn’t be able to swim long.

As usual, when I wake up the day of these long swims, I hadto think how I was going to break it down. I’m not one of those people who does 100x100 or such, even thoughsometimes during really long swims I will do 20 or 30x200 if I feel likeit. 15,000 is a lot, and initially Ithought I’d break it into 6x(2300swim, 200k), but as I got going (in a lane allto myself!), I went 2500 before my first stop, then I did 200k. I felt good to go another 2500 straight, thistime with paddles on—in retrospect I should have waited until later for thepaddles, but oh well!. Next I did 300k,another 2500, then 500k, with some just on my back to give my pecs a littlestretch. At this point I’m up to 8500with 6500 to go. Sounds pretty daunting,doesn’t it? I decided since I had lots of available pool time that I’d breakthe remainder up as 1000swim, 200kick, which is basically what I did.

When I was up to 6500, the Masters people showed up (one ofthem had swum beside me for about 1000 before the other 2 showed), and I said I’dmove over a lane, which they were OK with. After my next 2500, I stopped to chat with them briefly, as I know oneof them. He asked what I was trainingfor, and I said an Ironman and an Ultraman. He said, “A WHAT?” So I had toexplain what Ultraman is and that I’d done one in 2010 and they got someinteresting looks on their faces. I toldthem I was going 15,000 today “just because” and let them get back to theirworkout and me to mine. Once theyfinished, one guy, who’s really good and fast, told me he’d attempted BigShoulders, which is a 5K swim in Lake Michigan in the fall, but was too coldafter one lap. I surmised he hadn’t worna wetsuit (not that he’d need one), and that was true. I would go hypothermic without a wetsuit inwater below 75 if I was in there any amount of time. He told me I was doing well, and that gave mea huge smile and impetus to keep on going.

With maybe 2500 to go, some guy got in the lane with me whoreally can’t swim. He doesn’t put hisface in the water, his hands are balled up into fists, but he sure istrying. I had to watch out so he wouldn’tsmack me, even though I could tell he was trying to hug the wall. I wanted to stop and tell him to PLEASE getsome lessons, as it’s painful for me to watch what he’s doing. Painful, said the woman who is over 12,000into a swim…

I actually sped up a bit as I marched through the 1,000’s,not sure why. I got the whole swim donein 5:04, thanks to some use of fins. Iended up kicking quite a bit, so it surprised me that I got it done in thattime (I did exclude the yakking with the Masters time).

Of course, the shower after was the best shower ever. I know I was moaning in there, and I don’tcare who heard me. It was a big effort,and I was hungry, but wanted to stretch in the sauna before I left. My arms were fine, which is good, if mystroke is OK, then my arms shouldn’t hurt—it should all be in my back andpecs. Which it was. Once I was home, I basically ate until I fellasleep—maybe 8PM. I know I am such awuss, but I fully expected to be tired out.

So that was all she wrote for 2011. Below you can see my training numbersincluding 2011. As you can tell, I had adip last year. If you understandperiodization, you can see that it was a good idea I stepped down. I was worried I wouldn’t even hit 5,000 milesof biking for the year which I would consider pathetic for me! But I did, and I’m shocked at how muchrunning I did considering I didn’t run AT ALL for 12 weeks. Still, the rest year will turn out to be agreat thing. I feel somewhat renewed, asI had a great summer of biking a lot, including a lot with my brother Mike, andlaid off the heavy swimming and running for awhile. Although since I’ve been back at it, I havebeen putting up a whole lot of training hours. But it’s time to kiss 2011 good bye, and look towards the new year.

I am kicking off 2012 with a week of running. 60 miles starting tomorrow. I’m going to run 10 miles each M-Sat. andtake Sunday off. I’m going to swim, butnot a whole lot. I might do oneride. Believe it or not, 60 miles willbe the most I’ve ever run in a calendar week. I did that 55 mile week 10 weeks ago for my birthday week, so 60 won’tbe anything. After that, I resort toregular volume (for me) Ironman training for 8 months! And no swims over 4k until June! Although something tells me I just might geta bug up my ass to swim longer every now and then.

So there it is. Ithink if you track your training and ever think you’ve “wasted” a season orwhatever by resting when forced down by injury, when you look at the bigpicture you will see it was probably a good thing. I managed to not run a marathon or do anIronman in 2011!

On Swimming Fitness and Triathlon

2011-12-30T06:47:00.000-06:00

There is a thread over on Slowtwitch that I’ve beenfollowing: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/QFT%3A_Paulo_Sousa_on_Swimming_P3698825/

To sum up the premise, there is an intricate link betweenswim technique and fitness, and that one needs to work on both, and thatsometimes the answer to the question as to why the technique is poor is to swimmore.

I remember back 2 years ago when I embarked on training forUltraman Canada and would report in on how much I was swimming, and I receivedcomments from several people that I was swimming “too much.” I did not think so, based on the number ofyears I’d been swimming (10, mostly self-taught) or the amount of yardage Itypically did (I was averaging about 9,000/week the year before).

Now for some people, perhaps younger women or men, swimmingfitness might come along quite nicely on what I had been swimming in the past,but for whatever reason, I felt like I needed to do more, in order to be ableto swim 10k THEN bike 90 miles THEN get up the next day and bike 170 miles THENget up the next day and run 52.4 miles.

When I first began picking up the yardage, I wouldexperience rather gnarly upper back muscles—ask my massage therapist! It was like the first year I trained for anIronman where my body was beat all to hell because of what I was throwing atit. But as I got used to more and moreswimming (still nothing compared to a “swimmer”), my body got stronger and Ihave to believe I became a more “fit” swimmer, and while I still experience “aerobicfatigue” after really long swims, my muscles are just fine. I’ve been told since that time that my strokehas improved, too, so based on my N=1 experiment and the fact that I was ableto complete Ultraman and not feel too badly, I feel that I did the right thingfor myself.

If I had begun swimming when I was a kid, or maybe if I hadbegun swimming even 20 years ago rather than just over 10, or maybe if I was inmy 30’s or 40’s rather than 50’s (where I have to fight to maintain musclemass), then perhaps I wouldn’t have needed to swim that much more for Ultraman. All I know is that I did not want my bikingability to have suffered from being preceded by a 10k swim.

Now even though I have increased my swimming, I haven’tincreased it that much. It’s not like I’m banging out 20,000+ yardsper week—I only went up to about 12,000/week average. I can’t prove this either, but it seems theincreased swimming has made me a better biker and runner. I’m not saying faster—rather my overall aerobic conditioning has improved and thelonger stuff feels easier.

Have I become a faster swimmer? No, but I can maintain my Ironman swim pacefor really long distances now. Now I amworking on shorter, faster stuff in the pool, too, but I am more concerned withbecoming a more fit swimmer, which to me might consist of increased speed atshort distances, but also the ability to hold pace over longer and longerdistances. I’ve read that among the 3sports that swimming speed declines the most rapidly as we age, and so I amjust trying to stay ahead of the curve and not get any slower. If it’s true that swimming is most impacted,it behooves me to work more on swimming, especially since it doesn’t have thecost of trashing my legs like biking and running do, and is much easier torecover from (at least when the swim is 2 hours or less!).

I am lucky in that I live ½ mile from my pool, so I don’tincur much travel time, and I even like walking there and back in goodweather. If I get motivated again thissummer, I’ll ride a bike to the outdoor pool that’s 5.5 miles away, becauseeven that noodling around biking improves my bike fitness.

What does all of this mean to someone training for anIronman or longer in terms of how much swim training they do? I think it depends on your swim background,time available to train, age and proximity to a pool. People always talk about how you really needto bike A LOT to be a good cyclist and how it takes up the most of yourtraining time, and also how you need to run A LOT to be a good runner but youneed to be careful how much you run so you don’t get injured while also bikinga lot, but then many people say swimming is “all technique.” I call bullshit on this based on my N=1experiment. The more I swim, the more mybrain seems to figure out what my body is doing in the water and has more ofthat kinesthetic sense (aka “feel for the water”) that eludes the less talentedswimmer such as myself. How do you measure your swim fitness? I think a good test would be swimming a lotand then getting on your bike and seeing how much your power outputdeteriorates as compared to someone who is a “better” swimmer but equalcyclist.

Everyone is obsessed with training producing more speed,which is logical, but in triathlon, if you can’t bike for shit, your run isgoing to suck; if you can’t swim for shit, your bike AND run are going tosuck. It all comes down to how much oneis willing to sacrifice in one sport’s training at the expense of theothers. I don’t plan on setting a swimPR at Ironman Canada, but my hope is that some of my improved swim fitness willenable me to bike and run faster, even though I will be training those sportsto not lose any speed and maybe even find some more.

Like I said, I get that people think they will get a betterpayoff by swimming less and biking and/or running more. Depending on your swimming background, ageand experience in the sport, that may be the best tactic. For me, I plan to keep on swimming. If for nothing else than as I get older and possiblybecome unable to run and/or bike, I hope to be able to swim well into my 80’s.

What say you?

Don't Try This at Home

2011-12-28T04:16:00.003-06:00

Last week I noticed a flyer at my Y that said "freefitness testing 12/26-12/30." Since I like tests, I headeddownstairs to the training desk to ask just what would be done. I wastold they might do a body fat measurement with calipers, and I think theymentioned a VO2Max test. In 1999, I had a pretty good workup done of bodyfat, VO2Max, strength, flexibility and maybe some other things. I havethe printout someplace. I found out that the person conducting the testwould be John, the son of one of the Directors at the Y, and I've spoken toJohn numerous time. He's majoring in Exercise Physiology in college, andhe runs track for his school and is quite good. He qualified for Bostonat his first marathon, and I don't remember just how we met, but I think heflagged me down one day when I was on a treadmill for at least a couple ofhours.

Two days ago, John called me to schedule my test, so I decided on yesterdaymorning at 7AM. I would have started earlier, but since he was just goinginto the Y to do these tests, I figured I'd let a college kid sleep in. Iarrived a few minutes early and John a few minutes late, and he had to go findthe key to the training room, so while he did that, I wandered around, went upand down the stairs a few times, and just chilled.

First they (another trainer, Shawn, was working with John) measured myheight, then they put me on the Tanita scale for weight and body fatmeasurement. I hadn’t weighed myself ina few months and wasn’t looking forward to this, but it was just fine. 113. Tanita said my body fat is 21%, but we know it’s wrong. I feel like I am around 15%, maybe a tadlower, based on how visible my abs are, but I could be wrong. Blood pressure was taken, and was a bit offsince I’d been awake since 3AM and had had coffee. Resting pulse 56. They asked me what my true resting HR is andI think last time I checked something below 45. Next we headed to the cardio room for the VO2Max test.

I was asked to warm up on the treadmill for maybe 5 minutes or so, and thenwe began the test. They would record myRPE and HR. Obviously this isn’t themost accurate test protocol, but it’s sufficient. For the first interval, I reported an RPE ofnegative 6! John thought the test wouldtake a long time for me, but I told him I’m bradycardic, and that we’d see aquick jump in my HR at some point. PlusI hadn’t done any high HR stuff in almost a full year! Plus I was still recovering from Saturday’sworkout. At any rate, predictably atwhatever the highest incline they had me at and speed, my HR jumped, we heldthat for a bit, and then the test was over. After the calculations were done, my VO2Max estimate was 57. This made sense, since I’d had it measured in1999 at 58. Even allowing for standarddeviation, that’s a good number for someone my age. Now, I don’t live up to the charts forpredicted 5K time based on VO2Max, but I believe that my combination ofbradycardia and high VO2Max is what makes me good at the long distance stuff.

After the VO2Max test, they measured my hamstring flexibility (very high asexpected) and my waist to hip ratio (.71—they were laughing when they did this). Shawn commented that I should be put into alab and studied, and I would be happy to do this. I once tried to get into the GatoradeInstitute which is not too far from me. But I am sure that many of my long distance friends are also blessedwith hefty VO2Max numbers. I am happythat effectively I haven’t “lost” any VO2Max points in 12 years. Now back in 1999 when I had it measured, Ihad just quit smoking 3 months prior, and I’d been running all of oneyear. What does this tell me? My VO2Max is somewhat genetic. So all I can say is that I am trying my bestto live up to it!

When we were all done, I headed to the track to knock out a couple ofmiles. There was a woman running thatlooked to be doing an easy pace, so I just glued myself to her. I don’t know if this bothered her or not—I wasn’ttrying to give an impression that I was faster than her for sure, especiallysince I had some nice lactate in my legs. I made myself run right with her, figuring she was running just below9mpm, and I was right. She abruptlystopped after ¾ mile, and I kept going, and picked up my pace a bit. Then I headed to the assisted pullup machineand knocked out a bunch of pull-ups and triceps dips, then it was home to work.

Just before noon, I did a 1:15 trainer ride that wasn’t too pleasant, but itwas short, so I can’t complain, and then later in the afternoon I did a :45strength session.

It feels good now that I’m in a full bike and run taper for next week’srunning festival, and I’m looking forward to my 15k swim on Saturday, orhowever far I get in 5 hours. I am alsolooking forward to 2 weeks from now doing some higher intensity running andbiking, now that I reminded my heart that it can beat a whole lot faster when Ineed it to!

Happy impending New Year!

Goal 1 of Ultraman "Test" Training Complete

2011-12-25T08:03:00.001-06:00

Since Ride 'n Tie on 11/20, I've been building up some serious training in order to prepare for some big training events. Looking back, I have no idea when or why I decided to string all of these together, except that I did 2 out of 3 2 years ago since I was formally preparing for Ultraman Canada.

#1 is complete. Yesterday I did an 8300 yard swim in 2:49 followed by 100 miles on the trainer in 5:02. 2 years ago I did a similar workout only I swam 9100 and biked 90. Per my previous post, I was feeling pretty fit. Aside from some hard bike workouts not sucking so much, I could visibly see that I was losing some fat around my midsection (more to go--still haven't weighed myself in a few months, but clothes fit just fine). Another indicator of high fitness that I didn't mention was that I was sleeping less. For about the last 2 weeks, I've been waking up at 3:30-4:00AM. While that left me a bit tired a few times, it came in handy yesterday when I had to get up at 3:45.

I slept really well and woke up with the alarm going off. I felt well-rested, and needing to do something like a race. I had a hard-boiled egg and one of my homemade muffins, and at about 4:15 I downed 400 calories of Ultrafuel. Yum--the taste of a big workout! I'd fixed 8 bottles of Infinit, packed 3 into my swim bag, and got to the Y just before 5AM when it opens. Of course they don't open the doors until 5, so I can't actually begin swimming right at 5, and I'd need to be done by 8AM when Masters takes over.

I was on deck and with all my crap ready to go and began swimming at 5:08. Already I knew this would mean I probably wouldn't get in 9,000 yards. But that was OK. The water was warm. Maybe 85. That combined with there only being 1 hour from when I ate breakfast and maybe :45 since I'd drunk the Ultrafuel conspired to force me out for a potty break after 1,000 yards. If this were an actual race, I would have woken up before 3AM and had all the calories in before 3:30. Oh well. It does suck getting out of the pool and using the bathroom all wet!

Got back into the pool and was swimming just relaxed and easy--no need to be a hero today. With about 2000 more I had time to do, a guy that I've swum next to before got in at the shallow end. What goes through my head when people enter the pool in the shallow end is what the hell, why would you do that? The blocks are on the deep end, of course, and you can just jump in and avoid the whole get used to the water a little at a time thing. Anyway, I strapped on my Tyr paddles and started in and about 500 in, this guy clips me on the left hand. Well really he got a nice crack from the paddle. It wasn't my fault--I was totally hugging the lane rope, but after that all I could think was that he needs to practice taking up less room. I did watch him a bit, and he doesn't rotate enough and that conspires to have his strokes go wide. I really wanted to stop and point this out to him, but that would cost me additional yards, so I let go of it. And still the guy hogged the lane! At the walls, even though he wasn't doing flip turns, he would somehow gravitate toward the cross. To punish him for his poor technique and hoggishness, I swam faster so he could enjoy being chicked.

When they started moving a lane rope for the stupid aqua aerobics, I still had my lane if I wanted, and could have swam another 700 to get up to 9,000, but it just didn't seem necessary, and I wanted to get on the bike and finish this workout at a reasonable hour.

Because I'd dumped in about 700 calories right before I swam, I only drank 2 bottles of Infinit, but that was just fine. I showered and did my post-swim stretches in the sauna. Even though the pool was warm, I was plenty chilled and wanted to try and raise my body temperature a tiny bit before heading out into the cold.

I got home, lubed up the bike shorts with Chamois Buttr, suited up, grabbed a fresh bottle of Infinit from the fridge and headed downstairs to get on the bike. I decided to watch some old Ironman videos. I started with 1991, and still get a kick out of the styles of clothing they were wearing then. 1991 was my warmup. I rode in the small chainring for an hour, spinning madly at about 100rpm, and got in just shy of 18 miles for that first hour. I noticed that my upper body didn't feel too bad, even though I'd swum 3500 yards with paddles on!

After the first hour, I switched into the big chainring, and instead of watching my speed (or the videos for that matter--I find it hard to pay attention to TV while on the bike), I just looked at my speed average, wanting to bump it up and up. 1991 was over in 1:15, so next I watched 1992. Again, funky fashions and haircuts. They made some of the interviewed pros look like they were gearing up for a porn shoot with their dreamy eyes and soft lighting. Hilarious!

1992 ended with me being 2:45 into my ride. By that time I think my average speed was just over 19. My legs were hurting with the effort since the week before I'd only gone 3:30 on the bike, and I've been doing a lot of running to gear up for something in 2 weeks. But since I knew I didn't have to run off the bike or do anything the day after, I just kept pushing.

The next year of Ironman I watched was 2004, the year I did the race. As soon as they showed Nina Kraft, I immediately thought "cheater." I flashed back to my own race and how ungodly windy it was that year (I understand it has not been that windy since for the race), and tried to focus on knowing where the racers were on the course, since 2004 is the last time I was in Kona. Average speed continued to rise.

After 2004 ended, I put on 2005, and promptly declared this the year everything turned PINK! At least on the women. I like the color pink myself, but I am glad I never got a pink bike. I still remember when I got fitted for Skull Kingdom that many people thought I'd get a pink bike. Glad I didn't go there!

Once my average speed got to 19.8mph, I figured that was "good enough," and I began trying to do math as to when I'd hit 90 miles. Originally that had been my goal--90 miles or 5 hours, whichever comes first--but since I was clipping along quite nicely, I decided to go for 100 miles, since someone I know had done a 100-mile trainer ride the day before. It always entertains me when I decide to take up math during a workout--I can become confused between time arithmetic (e.g., adding up 1:30 and 2:45 expressed as hours:minutes) and regular decimal arithmetic. Throw in mph and you get some real math fun!

Anyway, being at 19.8 meant I'd hit 100 miles in just over 5 hours, so I just made an effort to not drop below that. When I was 3:30 in, my stomach couldn't handle any more Infinit, so I took a :30 minute break from taking in anything, then I switched to Gatorade. Besides, this would taper me off the caffeine so maybe I could sleep later on! The Gatorade tasted good, and that last hour seemed to go by in slow motion. Now I was watching my total mileage and deciding how long to stay in a particular gear--would I go by time or my mileage? I was all over the place, and didn't get excited until I had only 10 miles to go. At that point, I completely ignored the TV, someone on it was probably running, and I thought about pros who used to race Ironman who are now completely out of the picture.

When the computer turned over to 100, then I looked at the elapsed time and 5:02, so all good! While this effort is not that big in relation to the many ultra-athletes I know who have done much crazier stuff, I felt pretty good getting this done on basically a 3-day crash taper.

I had to wait a few minutes for my stomach to settle down, and although I had a 1+ lb. slice of my homemade pizza ready to heat up, I decided I'd eat that later and instead just have my normal lunch of a Lean Cuisine and some Endurox R4. In the shower, as I washed down, I could feel the sensitivity in my arms and legs, and knew I'd need to load up on clear water as well. What I really wanted was beer to begin killing some of the pain and soreness, but waited until after I'd eaten a normal lunch, then I did a good stretching session while sipping a beer.

Today I will do no workouts, and formally begin a run taper for my 60-mile week which starts 1/2. In between, though, event #2 is a really long swim. A year ago I did 13,500, and want to bump that up to 15,000 this time. I really haven't swum enough long swims for 15k, but still I think I can do it. Or at least I'll try! My Y will have lap swim pretty much all day on NY eve, so I will just bring along plenty of calories and try and get it done.

On a good note, today I slept until 6:15! I am predictably tired and hungry, as I know I didn't make up all my calories yesterday, but I planned ahead and am treating myself later on to my version of nachos. If I get motivated, I plan on going to a movie. If not, I expect I'll be laying around doing some reading. I finished 1Q84 on Thursday, and I have to say it's the best fiction I've read in a long, long time.

It's a snowless Christmas here, but the sun is shining so maybe I'll take a short walk and contemplate all the blessings I have in my life!

The Feeling of Very High Fitness

2011-12-19T09:24:00.008-06:00

There is a special feeling I get when I know that I am Very Fit. Fit as in I could knock out a decent 1/2 or full Ironman or something longer. It is difficult to describe the feeling, but it's something that strikes seemingly out of nowhere. The feeling is nearly as good as the feeling I get when I finish a race. It means I am performing at a high level. It means I'm ready to race, if that's what I'm aiming for. It means I am absorbing training. It also means I'm just about on that edge where if I push too much further, I might just crack, meaning it's time for some serious recovery time, which if I were racing would mean a formal taper.

It is a bit odd for me to have this feeling right now since I don't have a formal race for another 5 weeks, and you might take that to mean that I have peaked too early. But since I take my training as seriously as my racing, and since I am "gearing up" for a few big things, the feeling is right about on schedule, which means I have constructed a "good" plan and that the upcoming "events" should go quite well.

During training, anyone with high aspirations is keeping track of their fitness levels via power output, actual race paces, training sets and possibly HR measurements, although I personally don't currently use a HR monitor. Since I effectively had an off year, while I came back to a pretty high level of bike fitness over the summer (mostly due to just riding hard whenever I rode with others), I didn't really start working on my running until September, and I didn't seriously start working on my swimming until October, and then I didn't start trying to hit any bike power benchmarks until November. While my top end paces aren't quite there yet, my nearly top end paces are. Maybe it's my personal physiology or maybe it's a function of age or maybe it's a function of the long distance training lifestyle, but I will actually acquire quite a bit of speed-endurance by just adding volume. And that's effectively what I've done for the last 3 months. This goes back to what some coaches espouse as an off-season training diet--lots of moderate pace volume. While all of my training has not been moderate pace (I did a lot of "go as I feel" workouts), much of it has been, so I guess you could say I've been training "old school." But it works for me!

I am always amazed at how quickly my speed-endurance comes back after any sort of break, but that is probably from the years of this level of training I've done. While some people may experience their feeling of Very High Fitness when they are hitting top end speed markers, I tend to feel it when I've got my speed-endurance back. Anyone who's raced with me knows that I have a tendency to not slow down very much, and that is a quality that is to be cultivated for long distance racing. I also think I have a very good idea of what pace I can handle on any given day, and I will tend to go out at that pace and just hold it for whatever amount of time I'm supposed to achieve. This sense of my own ability and matching my pace to it is something that's been honed over many years. It is also due to me being pretty honest with myself, which is not something I see in many athletes.

Aside from the more geeky explanations above, this feeling of Very High Fitness is awesome. It makes colors look brighter, food taste better and I want everyone to be able to feel this way. But of course, that is not how it works. The only reason I feel like this is because I've put in the work. And I've even been scaling back on some of my training plans, as I can (SHOCK!) sometimes go a little crazy. I feel really ready for my next 3 "events," which are a 3-hour swim/5-hour ride end of this week, a 7+mile swim end of the following week, then I kick off the new year with a 60-mile run week. Ideally for Ultraman Hawaii, it would be good to execute these same 3 weeks in, oh, the month before the race, and without looking at my ATP I'm sure I have something like that in there, but I wanted to lay down the fitness base NOW for a couple of reason: 1) I wanted to test whether or not I really have the desire for another Ultraman; 2) I am going to switch into lesser volume/ higher pace mode in January for a few months and 3) I want to be ready to really pile on the bike miles starting late March. So right now the focus is running and swimming, then I switch to balanced speed across all 3 disciplines, add lots of bike volume starting in late March, and this plan gets me through Ironman Canada, after which I start the hellacious 12-week training block to get me through Ultraman Hawaii.

Speaking of Ironman Canada (and I already posted this to Facebook), I suppose it was my feeling of Very High Fitness this weekend that got me thinking that I should establish my race objectives, and so I did and here they are:

Swim: 1:20:00
T1: 4:30
Bike: 6:25:00
T2: 5:30
Run: 5:00
Total: 12:55:00

I know that doesn't look like a fast Ironman time, but I'm 55, and that finishing time actually could place me in top 3 of my AG, depending on who shows up. I did 13:14 at IMLP in 2009, and IMC is an easier course, so I think this is doable. A few people think I can go faster, and maybe I can, but for where I think my fitness is right now, I think I could tweak things just a bit and make those times. I am really looking forward to scaling back on the training for a few months, excited to see how I'll do swimming with 3 speed workouts each week instead of just 2, and super excited to knock out a bunch of biking come springtime!

I am sort of toying with the idea of retaining a coach, but on the one hand I think I know how to get this done, on the other hand I'm also really good at training myself almost into the ground. Stupid high motivation! I almost want to solicit coaches to tell me why they want to coach me, instead of vice versa. I think I would make a novel coachee, considering my age and experience. I'm not directly trying to qualify for Kona, I just want 2 things for next year: 1) an Ironman PR and 2) to be able to finish Ultraman Hawaii. Anything else is gravy!

So if you know any coaches who think they might want to take on the Crackhead, shoot me a message.

I feel like I've really matured (ha ha yes I'm old but still) as an athlete in the last 2 years. I was struggling for a bit with the idea of should I be doing this much at my age, am I living the life I want and all those sort of questions, and the answer is that as long as my body allows me to do this, I will keep it up since I enjoy the hell out of it. Now what happens after next year I have no clue, but I am perfectly OK with that.

Giving Back, Paying it Forward or Whatever You Want to Call It

2011-12-13T10:15:00.003-06:00

There are some people who think all I do is train and lord my race accomplishments over everyone else. Sure I will admit I get a chuckle when I see a car with a 13.1 or even 26.2 sticker on it, but I allow myself that. I will never be a Goody Two Shoes.

In reality, whenever I have the time, and believe it or not, I DO have the time, I am happy to offer nutrition and training advice, review a training plan, give advice about an injury, and I always revel in someone else's racing accomplishments, no matter how small. There is nothing like seeing the joy on someone's face when they are telling me about how they PR'ed at a 5K or did their first workout of "x" distance or time. I also have a huge eye for detail and seem to notice before others when someone's physique is changing for the better, and I am happy to point out that I've noticed.

I just don't happen to be a paid coach, personal trainer, physical therapist, registered dietician, and I'm not a certified anything except maybe pathological athlete, which is what I like to list for my occupation (either that or "Crackhead") on race registration forms. I have coached a few people and may do it again once I'm formally retired from my current job, or I may get some sort of certification. Or not.

It is funny to me that from time to time I've had someone tell me that I am not very approachable. Whenever I hear that, I am thinking "that is YOUR problem" much like when my ex-husband told me I am intimidating I knew it was HIS. You either have the inner strength to approach others and not be intimidated by them or you don't. In any case, I randomly approach people in exercise situations when I think they are ready to accept it. Not everyone likes to be told that they could swim better, run faster, stretch in a more productive way or use better form during various strength exercises. But I've learned to tell those who can accept it, and sometimes they still end up telling me they thought I was unapproachable, and I get a huge laugh about it.

I don't write too much on this blog about these encounters because they happen so frequently that it's hard for me to keep track. Just this morning, I was talking to a guy I know asking about progress on his knee issue and someone else that I don't know personally except we smile at one another because she's as big a workout fanatic as I am (although she doesn't compete, which I don't get) indicated she was listening in, so when I was done with the first person, I spent some time with her and will be sending her an email with some information I know she could use.

Yesterday while I was swimming, a woman who was bold enough to joke with me once during one of my 2.5+ hour swims by asking me what was in the bottles--was it beer--was swimming next to me, and during my warmup I asked her if she was aware of the degree that she was crossing over. I spent a bit of time not trying to get her to fix it (it will take some time) but rather to just encourage her to be AWARE of it. She tried to flag me down later when I was in my main set and I just breathlessly pointed at the pace clock and said, "Sorry, I'm on the clock now."

Last week there was a woman in the sauna who said she'd talked to me about a year ago (I didn't remember her) and she provided me with some followup and I listened and could tell she was still making mistakes in her attempt to become a regular runner, and she was very receptive.

Sometimes I am approached by a person who then proceeds to regale me with all the excuses for why they are unable to make effective changes to their diet or exercise program. Nowadays, as soon as I hear the excuses coming out, I simply state, "This conversation is over." It is a waste of my time AND theirs to continue. I recently read about a study that concluded people needed to be "ready" to make changes. DUH. But how do you know when someone is ready? When I am speaking with a person, it's when they ask questions, and actually listen to my responses. When I hear them say something like, "I am going to try that TODAY." There needs to be signs of receptivity AND a desire to take action.

I never paint a picture of health as being something that can be achieved/maintained mindlessly and with little work. I firmly believe that the MINDFUL part is the most important. If you are not aware of what you are doing, how can you possibly make a sincere effort to change it? Unfortunately, many people actually believe that they can multitask which is just shorthand for giving a half-ass effort to more than one thing at a time. Receptivity to change begins with being in the present moment, whether it's comfortable or not. And this is where many of the 2012 resolutionists will fail. Instead of just focusing on some small dietary or exercise change and GETTING IT DONE, they will simultaneously be obsessing about how hard it is or how they are making a sacrifice or hate it or begin preparing excuses for when they fail. Just DO THE THING without judging it and surprise yourself at how much less it sucks! Certainly for dietary changes, this is completely necessary! Many people shove food into their maws without thinking at all, and then go on to complain about how they have no time to shop for or prepare healthy food, blah, blah, blah. Start small. Buy a few pieces of fruit and then EAT THEM. How hard is that? Actually enjoy the fruit while you are eating it. The flavor, texture, the wonder that it exists in a natural package and is good for you! Master that and then move on to the next thing.

One of the most profound books I have ever read (and that is easy to read, at least if you don't try and read too much into it at first) is Dan Millman's "Way of the Peaceful Warrior." I don't remember exactly who recommended it to me, but I recommend it to anyone I can. Different people will get different things out of the book, but one of the things that has stuck with me is to DO WHATEVER IT IS YOU ARE DOING. If you are washing dishes, then WASH THE DISHES. If you are writing a blog post, then WRITE THE BLOG POST. If you are eating a piece of fruit, then EAT THE FRUIT. Don't be doing something else or thinking about something else. This is a variant of "wax on, wax off" from the movie "The Karate Kid," which when I first saw it seemed to be about the drudgery of "wax on, wax off" but in reality was about JUST PAY ATTENTION TO THE WAX! This is all about being "in the moment," a very big theme of this blog and my own personal life. Sure it might mean that from time to time I am late starting my own workday because I took time to help someone else along on their own life journey in an area where I think I have some knowledge to share. Other times (like when I'm "on the clock" during a swim), I can't give to someone else. I don't profess to be able to get this right 100% of the time, but I try my best.

Thus when spending time with a person who I believe to be receptive to me, I try not to load them up with too much information at once. This has been a work in progress for me, since I've been accused (and rightly so) of "dumping" information on another person, especially in the workplace. If I am fairly confident that the other person is able to absorb as quickly as I can dump, though, I'm totally game. But that doesn't work in too many situations, so I've learned to scale back. What's interesting is that physically, I am like how most people are mentally, and I've told everyone who has offered me swim technique advice that. Don't tell me to do this and that with my arms and hands and legs and head. Tell me ONE THING that I can focus on at a time, and maybe I will get that one thing right.

But I digress. I get a real sense of satisfaction when someone reports back to me that they tried something I suggested and that it worked. A few weeks ago, this happened while I was butt naked in the shower, and I ended up giving the next lesson completely naked with a few onlookers (it was swim technique, fyi).

It is important to me to share knowledge whenever I can. I don't want to die having known a bunch of stuff and that's that. My own Dad did that--he was so smart, and he could have taught or at least mentored younger people, but never did as near as I can tell. To me, knowledge is like love--no good hoarding it, and I seem to have tons of knowledge, so that is my contribution to the world!

Chugging Along

2011-12-12T11:28:00.002-06:00

The time off I had reminded me again that I have to consider all the things I'm doing in addition to training in terms of recovery. At the end of the second week, I did a 10,000 yard swim on Friday that went well, on Saturday I ran :30 and biked 2:45 and then on Sunday I felt sick. Looking back, I accumulated too much time working in my yard (6 hours on one day) that on top of the training, put me into a fatigue hole. So I skipped my Sunday long run. But I still got in 17 hours of training Mon.-Sat.

Last week I was back to work and as predicted, felt fine after taking a day off. I got through all of last week's training just fine, except for the day when I swam, then lifted, THEN ran and remembered that I should not lift before I run (works for some people, not for me). I have this week and next week pretty high volume (including one 8-hour training day), then I get to taper off for a few weeks, run a lot, and then I revert back to "normal" IM training (what I've been doing is Ultraman base building).

The last 4 weeks of biking have been tough--getting back to doing the really hard intervals takes some getting used to, but I can see the improvements week to week and that is a great feeling. The workouts don't suck as bad. They always do suck at some point, but that is part of the program. I don't quite yet feel like I'm back in my 2009 biking shape, but getting closer to that weekly.

In terms of running, I am just now formally reintroducing tempo runs, and my tempo pace is down right now, but that's fine because the push right now is to just run a lot and not worry so much about pace. That will change once I'm through my 60-mile run week, when I can run less but with a solid tempo run mid-week plus tempo work during my long runs.

Swimming has been really enjoyable lately, and I am getting back a modicum of speed--for me, anyway. Mondays and Wednesdays I am doing shorter (up to 3,000 yards), harder workouts and still banging out a really long swim on Fridays. The speed work M/W is beginning to show on the longer swims, which is great! I am not expecting to get much faster, but it does seem to help me to be a really "durable" swimmer. When 7,000 doesn't feel so bad (what I did last Friday), I pretty much feel durable. I am anxious to see what happens once I drop that really long swim and sub in another interval workout. It's been, what, like 3 years since I've done that during the winter, and I am really looking forward to it!

I know how many people scale back their winter training a lot what with holidays and such, but I am just the opposite. For me, winter is a great time to get in a lot of swimming and running (less biking), whereas once it's warm in the spring, it's time to really pile on the biking miles. Works for me!

I had an interesting discussion with some folks at the Y yesterday. They wondered why some people would do a race like Tough Mudder, where they might come out with scrapes and bruises and sometimes receive electric shocks. I tried to explain that there are different variants on the sorts of races/events people do--I gravitate towards the long distance, but also appreciate the short and sweet at times, but shy away from what I perceive as dangerous (for me). Some people like the thrill of obstacles and such, and I get that. The question I got was why do people CHOOSE to do these things? All I could say was because we CAN and we like to push our limits, and I said that I couldn't understand why some people choose to be overweight and/or inactive or unhappy. Someone tried to argue that people don't choose to be overweight, and I just didn't have the time to get into it, but what the ability to do anything well (maintain one's body, for example) boils down to is the desire to LEARN the right way and then to be MINDFUL of executing it and accept the ongoing WORK required to excel. Sometimes I might joke about how easy some of the things I do are for me, but in every case, it has required those 3 things. Take any one of them away and you have a person just getting by. I guess I still have that fire in me, which means I must be absorbing my training well!

I am reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It is great so far. This is the 3rd book by him that I have read. One of the things I really like about his writing is that he makes some of the weird thoughts his characters have seem so "normal," even logical. Maybe that means I have weird thoughts myself, but I have always believed that. All I can say about this book is that this morning when I woke up and looked outside, I checked to see how many moons were in the sky, and thankfully, there was only one!

Winter Base Building and Time Off

2011-11-28T06:05:00.003-06:00

Whew! I've been off from work for a week now, and it was much needed. Years ago, before triathlon, before I was married, I would take at least a week off every year and just enjoy my regular life. As much as I enjoy traveling, especially to a beach, I've always believed that if you can't be satisfied with your regular life then you aren't truly happy.

I made a list of a bunch of things to do, but my top priorities are getting my yard all put away for the winter, cooking some dishes that take some time and freezing for the months to come, and training and recovering well.

A week ago, I did the Ride 'n Tie race with my friend, Kevin. It's 2-person teams that go for 10 miles switching off one person running and the other on a bike. It's a running race, though, as the objective is to enable each person to run as fast as possible and then maybe recover a bit on the bike. Kevin said we'd finish in like 1:10, which I couldn't believe, even though he's a much faster runner than I am. My running had been going well, but I wasn't exactly doing 200's on a track in the last...um...10 years. Plus I didn't really get how we'd know when to switch. Kevin said like every 150 yards, but that seemed short, and besides I have no sense of yards except when I'm swimming. He started off running and I started on the bike, we managed to get the first switch right, and then he dropped the bike and I couldn't find it. I thought I saw him running ahead but wasn't entirely sure until I caught him and he asked where the bike was and I didn't know. So I fucked up. Kevin ran back and got the bike and caught me, and meanwhile I was dying trying to keep up a sub-5K pace. After that, I "learned" how to communicate better, and by the halfway point, we seemed to be in a good rhythm, and we started picking off other runners. I may not be fast, but I don't slow down much, and I could see runners dying from going out way too hard. When we were close to finishing, Kevin said we'd crack 1:15, but I had no concept of time, so I just kept going, and somehow we finished 1:10:47 I think was the clock time! No matter how I figured it, I had to be running faster than I've ever run at least part of the time. I was sorry to have caused us to lose time by not finding the bike the one time, but aside from that, I had so much fun doing this! You just have no time to think other than RUN AS FAST AS POSSIBLE AND KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR TEAMMATE. What a liberating thing!

Another friend of mine, Jeff, and his teammate, also Jeff, finished in like :50, so I was a slacker compared to that, but hope I can do better next time. I have a little souvenir from the race, which is that I strained my abs. I wasn't sure it was my abs until last Thursday, when I tried doing some crunches on the stability ball and about fell over from the pain! I subbed out elliptical for 2 runs last week, and hoped I wasn't too badly hurt since I'd planned a 1/2 NothingMan for the weekend.

On Thanksgiving Day, I was thinking that if I got motivated to wake up early the next morning, I could fit in a 9,000 yard swim, even though I'd only planned on 7,000. You know you're sick when getting up at 4:15 on a vacation day to swim 3 hours feels like the right thing to do...so I fixed Infinit bottles for that plus a 3-hour trainer ride I'd do on Saturday.

The 9,000 swim actually went quite well, considering I'd only done 6,600 the week before. I even managed to sprint against some others at times, even during my last 1500 with the pull buoy and paddles on. The lifeguard, Andy, commented that my form was pretty good, improved from the last year, and it felt like it.

Well, thank God I didn't have to work after that swim. Something about 3 hours in the pool that really wears me out! But I wasn't dying, and in the early afternoon I got motivated to do a few hours of yard work since it was really nice out.

I'd planned a 1/2 NothingMan for Saturday, but since I'd swum 9,000 on Friday, I didn't really see the point in heading to the Y just to swim a paltry 2100 on Saturday, so it was going to be 3-hour ride and 2-hour (maybe) run. Only I didn't know if I could or should run. I figured that worse case scenario would be 2 hours on the elliptical or some combo of that and rowing machine.

When I began my ride, I could feel the effects of Friday's swim plus the 3-hour workout I'd done on Thursday. I started out in the small chainring and figured I'd hold that for :45, then I switched into the big chainring and did a few ladders up and down the cassette. For the first :45 I averaged 17.5mph, but for the remainder like 21.5, so I finished up 60 miles (which was my goal anyway) in just under 3 hours. I changed shorts since I was so disgusting and put on my running shoes and got on the treadmill. I started out walking for about a minute, then decided if I could run really slowly, I would be OK with that. So I moved to 5mph, which felt like walking still, but was happy that my abs didn't hurt. It really bothered me in a way to run that slow, but it also made me laugh that it was so EASY! Gosh my endurance has come a long way that a 3-hour ride was nothing before. I ended up doing a ladder with maximum speed 6.5mph, and after maybe 1:30, my abs felt a bit uncomfortable, but I felt safe in continuing, and I wanted to get 12 miles in, and it took me 2:07. It was mind-numbing to have run to slowly, but at least I knew my abs were on the mend!

Yesterday I took a full rest day and just grocery shopped, cooked, watched some football and hit the sack early. Today I am going to see how running on the indoor track feels--I'm hoping my abs are much improved, but if I feel them hurt at all, I'll go back to really slow treadmill.

I also finished making a training schedule assuming I do Ultraman Hawaii next year. I am still not sure that I want to do it, as doing a build for that after Ironman Canada will be major suckage to do 6-hour rides in September and October which are historically shitty weather here. But, it would only be 12 weeks of hell training after IMC, and my results at UMH would have to be whatever they are on that level of training. While I will put in a whole helluva lot of training for IMC, and I will consider that my A race, it will be tough to keep going after that for an even longer distance race, but as long as I stay healthy, I can do it. I learned from my UMC training that I really do need those recovery weeks now, and have built them in along the way.

Speaking of which, I know my back still isn't 100% where I want it to be, but I'm feeling really good on the bike again, and apparently I can run like a bat out of hell if need be (and I am blissfully oblivious as to just how fast I am going), so now I need to just keep riding the wave. I have a few more big workouts planned between now and the end of the year (a 9,000 swim/90-mile ride and at least one 10k swim) that will put me in good shape to back off on the volume for about 12 weeks and crank up the intensity, then I'll begin adding volume again in March, but not worrying so much about swimming until June, where I'll begin doing 5K swims on Fridays, and that will have to hold me through IMC, after which I'll have 12 weeks to bump up my swim again (shouldn't be hard now, since I know what it takes and my body understands), stay at high volume of swim and bike and just duke it out to be ready for UMH.

I could post my ATP here but then if I showed it to you I'd have to kill you. Trust me, it is aggressive, but that's how I roll.

Happy training, racing, holidays and LIFE!

Fashion Update

2011-11-13T16:02:00.002-06:00

Thought I should probably post something here.

The bike shoe shim experiment goes well. I expected various muscles to object to the change in stress, but they are gradually acclimating. My left VMO was very upset for a few days making my kneecap hurt, but I knew it was that muscle, worked through the trigger points, and all is well. My left QL is also reactivating and getting upset, but my massage therapist digs what feels like a knife in there and it, too, will be fine. At the same time, I am feeling subtle changes in my back that I can notice when doing core work and swimming. I seem to be picking up a little bit of speed in swimming, that I would attribute to my spine being more stabilized which is key during rotation. Biking (all on the trainer now) is coming along well. My calves are starting to hurt, which is pretty normal when I am doing hard intervals. Nothing I can't stretch/work out myself. I feel so much more centered and comfortable on LGL now that it is quite the treat!

Running is coming along, too. When I run shorter (:30-:40), my top end speed is coming back, and that is without any sexy training! Although I am back on Wednesday tempo runs that are sandwiched between Tu/Thu hard trainer rides, and I'm enjoying the resulting muscle soreness.

I've been putting in a lot of hours at work, and I'm tolerating it only because I'm taking some time off soon. I am really looking forward to cooking and recovering well from my workouts.

Next Sunday is Ride 'n Tie, which should be a buzz. My teammate is putting pressure on me to do well, but I will approach it more as fun plus some hard running.

Today I'd scheduled a 1:40 run. Yesterday I ended up working over half the day, and didn't begin my bike ride until about 12:30. I was tired from working so many hours the prior days, so I used some Infinit for 1:30, which got me through the 2:15 ride, but which then had the effect of keeping me awake well past my normal bedtime. I think I slept 6.5 hours, which is so far from my typical 8.5-9 that I felt like crap when I woke up, compounded by having taken Advil PM. I felt like I had a hangover. I didn't want to use Infinit for today's run in order to guarantee that I will sleep well tonight, so it was just Gatorade.

I went to Greene Valley again, and it was in the mid 50's already when I started around 9:15. I felt like ass. I was tired, my stomach was fucked up (I drank a Coke figuring I could use the extra calories plus some additional caffeine, and I'd eaten a bunch of garlic yesterday), and after 5 minutes I wondered how much I could actually run. My muscles felt fine, but I had this sense of wanting to puke for over an hour. Still, I was running about 9mpm, which is fine for me for a long-ish run. Even though I had short sleeves on, I was sweating a good deal, but there was a good, stiff south wind that helped. The clouds in the sky were beautiful! Maybe it's just me noticing more, but the clouds we've had this fall have been spectacular. It must be the fall skies.

After running for just over an hour, I felt a little better, but still pretty much like ass, but at least I knew I could complete the run. I went to the Y after and swam 1000 just to chill out, ate lunch and went to the grocery store. The checker rang up my 2 mangoes as 32 mangoes for $32.00! Luckily I caught it on the screen, pointed it out, and then she proceeded to try and charge me for another 32 mangoes for $32! I was trying my best to be jocular. To the next woman in line I said, "I bought all the mangoes they have." Meanwhile, the checker is now waiting for a manager to void the errant transactions. I knew I didn't have $150 of groceries today! Luckily I was so tired I didn't care, and things got straightened out and now I'm home and just chillin' and watching football.

In other news, I have a new neighbor in the house next door which was foreclosed. She's a nice girl, recently divorced, and I gave her a bottle of wine yesterday to welcome her. She is already busy making improvements to the house and cleaning up the yard, which is so nice, since it's been about 5 years since that yard was taken care of! Meaning I won't have to pick up someone else's leaves or do extra weed control! That is so nice!

I also reconnected with my little sister, and it's hard to say how much joy that brings me. It's been over 2 years since we'd spoken, and I am just relieved to know she's OK, and hope to plan a visit as soon as she's up to it. She asked me if I still wanted one of her fruitcakes, and I was like HELLZ YEAH!!! I cherish things that other people have made with their own hands more than any other gift I can ever think of, because it's the gift of their time. She makes the best fruitcake (soaked in copious amounts of rum), and I enjoy fueling my training with it for a few weeks.

One more week of hellacious work and then I get some well-needed time off. It was supposed to be for Ultraman Hawaii, but I am OK with not going anyplace this time. I want to feel what it's like to not work, to train and rest, to cook and work in my yard and visit a few people. Sort of test the waters for being retired. Sounds like a good enough plan to me!

Sanity and Hope

2011-11-01T14:16:00.003-05:00

I am in the process of creating an Annual Training Plan (ATP). I have a whole checklist that I go through to set one up, and the result is about a year's worth of training, plus I schedule haircuts, massages, bikini waxes, and dentist, eye, ob-gyn and mammogram appointments. Plus I pencil in when I am going to get bikes tuned up, driveway sealed and assorted other recurring home maintenance things.

It starts with race selection. The only thing I am registered for so far is Ironman Canada. With the success I had at my 55th Birthday Workout Extravaganza©, I decided to consider doing Goofy Challenge again, provided I could con someone else into doing it with me. Well that didn't pan out, but I decided that instead, I will just run 60 miles for the week, and that will be a good bout of running. It's easier to recover quickly and get back to training after that than it would be if I ran a marathon, just like a few weeks ago. While I am ramping up slowly (no good reason to train too hard right now) and could run more already, I'm giving myself some rest.

My 60-mile run week will be done as (6) 10-milers, 1 a day Monday through Saturday, Sunday off, a few swims in there and one bike ride just to keep me honest. The following week I will take off from running and get back on my swimming and biking.

Through the end of this year, I will keep doing long-ish swims on Fridays so that I can knock out my 3rd annual 10k+ swim. I mean, why not? Plus since I won't be biking so much I have the time to swim, so I may as well.

After the 60-mile run week and a tiny rest, I will begin "conventional" Ironman training. I mean conventional for me. Still probably more than a lot of folks would be doing, but it will be less than what I was doing in winter/spring of 2010 preparing for Ultraman Canada. In fact, I won't even do any swims over 4K until June! Imagine that! I am considering Ultraman Hawaii for next year, but learned a few things in the last couple years: 1) I can pile on the endurance quickly in any of the 3 sports; 2) I can ramp up to something big in like 8 weeks. So based on that, I'm going to "just" do Ironman training through Ironman Canada, and then if I decide to do Ultraman Hawaii, I'll be able to get ready for it (ready as I can, anyway) in 3 months.

With this leisurely ATP, I am going to sneak in a 1/2 NothingMan during Thanksgiving week, see if I can sneak in a 9,000-yd swim/90-mile ride (aka Day 1 of Ultraman) during Christmas week, the 3 indoor triathlons that start end of January, Triple T end of May, and maybe an Oly or 2 during the summer, seeing as how Ironman Canada isn't until end of August. Or, I will just bike a lot! I have a bunch more work to do on the ATP, as in checking its progress so far, it shows I would have done 938 hours by Ironman Canada, and that just can't be (I hope!), although since I arbitrarily decided that my training season began 8/8 (which meant the prior season was 52 weeks), I kicked things off with a bunch of solid training. I still have to build in serious recovery weeks so I don't blow myself up.

So, hopefully, I will end up constructing an ATP that yields a solid (I strongly believe a PR is still possible at my advanced age) performance at Ironman Canada, keeps me sane and allows me to still have plenty of fun even while I'm training at a high level.

And now for the hopeful part: I've known something is up with my back for awhile, and it dawned on me last week that I'd messed with the cleat shimming on my left bike shoe, or rather, it had been messed with, plus I got a new bike with shorter cranks, and all this together may be the root of my issues. I had someone look at me on LGL and we re-shimmed the left shoe, and I will test it out for a few weeks. I did my first ride today and it felt so much better than it's felt for, well, over a year. If this yields good results (and there will be other ways I'll be able to detect improvements other than while on the bike), oh man, then it would mean I really was able to absorb all that 2009-2010 crazy train stuff I did. And that I have better performance in me, and it would just be such a confidence boost! But only time will tell...still, I am hopeful.

Meanwhile...I need to dispense with the unused Halloween candy. I ate too much of it, and then wasn't even around for the handful of trick-or-treaters. I feel motivated to clean up my diet for this season ahead. Even though I'm an old lady, I intend to be a fast one!

The Rest of the Birthday Week

2011-10-24T11:37:00.002-05:00

This is really long...maybe 2 cups of coffee or 2 beers or whatever you like!

I took Friday off from work. For me, a rest day from training never feels like rest unless I am also not working. I wanted to be really rested for the weekend, and had a massage scheduled for 2PM. I did some organizing and cleaning around the house, including cleaning LGL prior to putting her on the trainer, since I figured that’s where I’d end up riding on the weekend. Turns out I didn’t need to change the rear tire (I put an older, worn out tire on the back for the winter), as the tires were already worn.

My house is only ever clean in the winter when the bikes, helmets and shoes are all put away. For the rest of the year, my kitchen table has one or more helmets, running hats, sunglasses, gels and other stuff on it. I put all that away!

I didn’t feel too bad from having already run 44 miles in 4 days, and thought about doing some core work. I didn’t really need to, but I felt a little restless only having put in about 7.5 hours so far for the week. I ended up doing a :45 session, which included some leg stuff (none of it was more than body weight), and it induced a bit of tiredness. I ate lunch—2 eggs over easy fried in butter and an English muffin toasted with butter. I had a craving for butter, which typically means I need some fat. I don’t eat butter very often—maybe once a month or less, including using it in cooking—so when I want it, I have it! Fried eggs are a comfort food that I’ve loved for years—they go down easy even when I’m sick.

After lunch I fixed my bottles (10) of Infinit, and it was nice that I had some left over from running that would get used. Then I had a massage, came home and showered, went to grocery store for basics, and then contemplated what to eat for dinner. I wasn’t really that hungry, but knew I needed some good calories in me for the weekend. I had wanted sushi, but wanted to save that for when I was more hungry. I had some leftover Hawaiian rice (I’d made a batch of this to eat during the week—brown rice, macadamia nuts, bell and jalapeno peppers, golden raisins, pineapple and garlic) and thought I should eat some more of it, but was sort of sick of it. Still, I couldn’t see wasting it so I had a flash that I should be able to make fried rice. So I located a recipe and made it. Using more eggs! I ate a big plateful of that for dinner and felt like I was set.

I woke up Saturday morning at 4:30 with the alarm and felt pretty good on 8 hours of sleep. I only ate a toasted English muffin with some sugar-free jam for breakfast, since I’d be in the pool soon enough and taking in calories there. Coffee goes without saying!

I’d wanted to be swimming at 5:45, since I needed to be finished by 8AM when Masters swim begins. I ended up starting my swim at 5:50, which made me smile since it has 55 in it! With about 200 yards to go, 2 of the Masters folks showed up and wanted to circle swim in my lane, which was fine. I picked up my pace a little so they didn’t have to swim around me. My total swim time, including rest and feedings, was 1:52. I never felt tired, but I was never sprinting, either. 5500 yards down!

I showered and did my usual post-swim stretches in the sauna, got dressed and headed home to bike and run. I felt bad that I wasn’t doing the Y’s Breast Cancer 5K, but I always feel I am out there setting a good example to others when I’m working out and smiling.

I’d finished the proper amount of Infinit while swimming (1.75 hours worth), and thought I should eat a banana, but didn’t feel particularly hungry. Still, I ate ½ of one, suited up for biking, and got on the trainer.

Well, well, well. I don’t know about anyone else, but swimming for nearly 2 hours tires me out somewhat, so I started out super easy on the bike, maybe going 16mph is all. Then it hit me that this wasn’t a race, that I was going to do the same thing tomorrow, so I figured I’d ride easy for 1.5 hours and then see what I felt like. So I stayed in the small chainring for 1.5 hours. My legs felt fine, but I suppose I was starting to feel the accumulated fatigue from the running I’d already done, and hey, I’m an old lady! I had absolutely no worry that I couldn’t complete the day, though. I have put myself through a lot worse in training. Still, I highly recommend doing really long swims (5500 isn’t really long but it’s long enough for some people) and then biking for at least 2 hours—it is just a different kind of “ugh” you feel.

I was on top of my Infinit consumption and managed to almost finish that banana along the way. After 1.5 hours, I switched to the big chainring and picked up the pace. I did ladders up and down the cassette for full miles, and then ½ and ¼ miles, just to pass the time. I caught some World Cup skiing on Universal Sports, but mostly I was just jamming to tunes. Lindsey Vonn won her first GS, which was cool.

I finished 55 miles in 3:05, which was good enough. I’d hoped to do it in 3 hours flat, but I haven’t really been on top of my bike fitness since August, so it didn’t concern me. While it was fairly nice outside, I opted to run on my treadmill, which would be easier on my legs, completely flat, and then I wouldn’t need to carry any liquids with me. The water fountains on my route have been shut down, and I would definitely need something for 5.5 miles.

I left my bike shorts on, since they provided some compression. Again, I decided there was no reason to push my pace, but after running super easy for about ½ hour, I decided it might feel better to run a bit faster. I ended up doing 5.55 miles in :53, for an easy 9:33 pace. I felt fine the entire time, and was glad to be running instead of biking! Which goes to show you that the more frequently you run, the better it feels. I had almost wanted to run on Friday, but stuck with the original plan of that being a rest day, aside from the core workout.

Stupidly, after I’d showered, I was in bare feet on tile floor and slipped, and my left knee (the one with no ACL) gave way. I didn’t fall down, but it’s never a good feeling to feel your knee twist and buckle like that. I had a slight concern this would impact biking and running on Sunday, but I wouldn’t know until then. It didn’t hurt to walk, though, but I decided to ice it.

I drank some Endurox and decided to stretch before eating, as I didn’t feel all that hungry. It is best for me to stretch right away after a workout, but it doesn’t always happen that way, especially on weekdays or even during the summer when I ride long away from home. But I know I should make time to stretch at least 5 minutes right away after a run, bike or swim, because that is when the muscles are already warmed up and receptive to it. The left knee seemed fine while stretching.

I ate a Lean Cuisine, as I was going out to dinner later and would chow down, yakked with a friend about training and racing for a bit, then went to get my monthly bikini wax. I was told there was a great Halloween display up the road—a giant Satan right across the street from a church! On my way home, I drove past it and laughed hysterically. I do need to get a photo of it, and also this great display I’d seen earlier in the week while running—it’s 2 life size skeletons playing tennis, with Frankenstein as the line referee, a really great looking giant spider on one tree and a raven perched on another dead tree limb. I have to get a picture of this one, too!

Next, I had dinner with my brother Mike, at Clara’s, which is a restaurant that makes all its pasta fresh. We shared a great antipasto, and then I had eggplant lasagna, or I should say half of it, and then spumoni for dessert. Before dinner, I’d calculated I needed another 2,000 more calories to break even for the day, and I think I got close, enjoying a couple of beers with dinner.

We ate dinner early, and I found myself feeling pretty worked over once I got home, so I watched maybe ½ hour of TV, and then headed to bed to read a bit and get to sleep early. I didn’t need to get up until 5:30 on Sunday, since the pool doesn't open until 7.

When the alarm went off, I think I hit the snooze 3 or 4 times, knowing that I had plenty of time to get in my swim with lap time on Sundays going until 11. Still, I didn’t want to dawdle too long, because fact is that I need to eat two meals after the workouts are completed.

I felt a little gnarly when I got out of bed, but not too bad. The left knee seemed fine, so after coffee, and this time, I had my usual hard-boiled egg with the English muffin, since I felt like I might be a bit behind on calories. I am pretty tuned in to my body and can distinguish hunger pangs related to time of day versus lacking calories from the prior day.

I began my swim at 7:21, so a bit late. I got in a lane with this woman that I don’t particularly like swimming next to—she has a wide arm swing on both sides (i.e., NOT high elbows). I keep wanting to tell her to get TYR paddles with a point on top—those will force you into high elbow or else you can’t swim with them. She uses rectangular paddles a lot, and I just don’t know what she’s getting out of them. Anyway, I knew I’d be there longer than her, so no worries. Swimming felt good, and I didn’t really feel tired. Of course, the prior week during my “taper,” I’d done back to back 4500 swims, so no big deal. Plus, while training for Ultraman, I’d typically swim up to 3500 on Thursday morning and then swim 2-3 hours on Friday morning. I know all of this swim talk is nonsense to lifelong swimmers, but I have only been swimming 11 years and do other stuff, too. My swim time for 5500 was 1:50, so a teensy bit faster than Saturday.

Once again, after I showered, I went into the sauna to do some upper body stretches and also just to warm myself back up. Even though the pool temperature both Saturday and Sunday was a bit on the high side for my liking, after I swim for 2+ hours, my core body temperature is lowered a bit, so a few minutes in the sauna is a good thing.

It was warmer outside on Sunday than Saturday, but I’d still need to bundle up quite a bit for outdoor riding, so I deferred again to the trainer. I wasn’t feeling calorie depleted, but had the desire for some actual food, so I opened a 200-calorie pack of cheese filled crackers to get some savory flavor going in my mouth while riding.

When I got on the bike, I noticed my left knee felt just fine, but that once again, I felt a bit whacked from the swim, and I suppose, from the day before! So I started out really easy. I don’t know what time it was, but once Universal Sports was active, I caught men’s World Cup skiing, and my country man Ivica Kostelic was in first place, and I watched Didier Cuche mess up his second run. I really like Cuche (or maybe I just like saying his name), and you know how the smallest stupid thing makes you laugh or smile during a long workout? Well, seeing that I tuned in just when he was coming out of the gates made me giddy. Dumb, I know, huh? Well then Ivica eventually got booted off the podium by Austria and France, and Ted Ligety was up. I like him, too, but he has been a real wild man the last few years. Still, he had been first after the first run, and I really paid attention to his second run. He nearly crashed out, but recovered from almost laying on the ground and went on to win the day! It made me laugh that it was October and I’m watching skiing already but then I thought there is always snow somewhere in the world! Just another one of those thoughts that enters my head while I’m doing long stuff.

Anyway, I stayed in the small chainring for 1:15 and then went into the big chainring. I was able to pick it up somewhat, urged on by the thought that the slower I went, the longer 55 miles would take me! I had hoped to go faster than on Saturday, and after maybe 25 miles I really, really wanted to just quit. It wasn’t that I was that tired, it was the usual why the fuck am I doing this, it doesn’t matter, it’s starting to suck. But I have found that it’s important to allow myself to have these thoughts and just really focus on them because I know that the switch will go off soon enough. And it did, and I kept going, if for no other reason than it was a commitment to myself.

Well, it took me 3:09 to go 55 miles. I almost stopped riding at 3:00 because I just wanted off the bike. Those mental demons trying to get to me again! It was pretty nice outside, and I could have run outside, but once again I didn’t want to carry anything with me so onto the treadmill I got. My left knee didn’t feel 100%, but neither did it feel like running was going to hurt it. I made myself go a bit faster than Saturday just because I wanted to be done with all of this. I ended up doing 5.56 miles (I wanted to end the week at 55.11 for some odd reason) in 51:30, or 9:16 pace. This run felt like ugh from the get go, and I think I must have been behind on calories, but even though I was, I didn’t want to put anything in my stomach, which is an odd feeling, but I’ve been there before. So, I just sipped a little Gatorade every 15 minutes, knowing I wasn’t running for very long and that I’d be able to eat when I finished.

I hopped off the treadmill and didn’t feel like eating right away just like the day before, so I rinsed out my bottles, drank Endurox, then finally showered and stretched a bit, and decided on eggs for lunch again. I suppose all the caffeine irritated my stomach a little bit, but I wanted butter, I wanted eggs! I laughed that I should have made Hollandaise sauce while I was at it! I should have, since I really love Eggs Benedict!

I ate lunch, briefly thought about mowing the lawn, but decided I didn’t need any more exercise, so instead I drove to Walgreens to get a Sunday newspaper and check out the Halloween stuff. I got some neat skulls on sticks that you can put into the ground, but I will put them out in the spring just because!

I put a chicken (stuffed with 2 heads of garlic cloves) into the oven to roast, and before it was done, I finished my eggplant lasagna from the day before. That was good, and then I had some chicken when it was finished but no dessert!

Today I am taking a rest day from training, and will see how I feel tomorrow—I’d like to hit the pool in the AM and then go for a short (1 hour) bike ride later in the day, maybe even outdoors!

Now I’m in the process of deciding whether to do Goofy Challenge again in January—my run fitness is pretty good, and I’d like to extend that streak and pretend I’m training for Ultraman for a bit. But then after Goofy Challenge, I would drop down to “regular” Ironman training to prepare for Ironman Canada.

It was a good 55th birthday week—I ran 55.11 miles, biked 110, swam 12,700 yards and did some core work for a total of 19.85 hours of training. Not bad for “not” training!

55th Birthday Week Workout Extravaganza!

2011-10-20T14:28:00.003-05:00

I turn 55 this coming Saturday, October 22. I just did my 4th 11-mile run of the week, and my legs are sore. Let me be more specific—my quads are sore. Calves are fine, hamstrings are fine, quads are on Day 2 of DOMS.

Let me back up a bit. If you have been following me, you’d know that I took a 15-week break from running earlier this year due to a flare up of sciatica, most likely from some herniated disks in my lumbar spine or else just muscle imbalances. I began serious running again the week beginning June 13. Around mid-August, it dawned on me I was turning 55 this year, and it seemed a good excuse to do some training stuff I’ve never done before.

The logical thing would have been to run 55 miles on my birthday. However, I did not think this was a good idea, having only 7 weeks to build from a 31-mile weekly total to being well prepared for 55 straight. It would just hurt too much, and I’d need a good deal of recovery afterward. But I figured I could easily run 55 miles total for the week ending with my birthday.

But just running 55 miles in a week is not that big of a deal, and besides I would want to swim and bike. So to make it interesting, I decided to play around with the number 55 and figure out how to add in some swimming and biking to the week as well. I thought it would be fun on both my birthday and the day after to do a 5500-yard swim, 55-mile bike and 5.5-mile run. Now if I could complete that in 5.5 hours, I’d be golden, but it will take me a little longer. It should be more like 5:55! That is still good—all 5’s, right? Yes, I am a math geek.

So with the weekend workouts planned, the question became how to do the remaining 44 miles of running, and I decided that I would run 11 miles Monday-Thursday, and then take Friday off because I figured my legs might be a little trashed, and it would be good to rest up before the double NothingMan thingies. So that’s what I decided on. And then I laid out a plan to get me from point A to point B. I didn’t really tell too many people what I was planning, because a part of me didn’t know whether I could do it (and I’m not done yet, eh?). I’ve certainly run this much. I’ve done a ½ IM and full IM on back to back days, and I’ve swum over 12,000 yards across 2 consecutive days, and oh yeah there’s that one Ultraman I did. So really, this isn’t such an epic week (besides I hate that overused word), but its purpose is to celebrate that I’m turning 55 and I can do this, and it will help me decide whether I want to go longer than IM distance next year. In a silly way, it sets the stage for my next few birthday weeks, where I will need to add distance to each day :)

I am pretty used to training 2+ hours per day on work days, so going down to just 11-mile runs has been interesting. I am so damn efficient (and small) when I run—I only burn maybe 85 calories per mile. I ran outside on Monday and Tuesday on my usual semi-hilly route from home in the cold, blustery wind. My route was 5.5 miles out and back, and I was into the wind on the way home. I drank my caffeine-laced infinit, which was great, but caused me to not sleep well for 2 nights, so for yesterday and today I switched to just one can of Coke plus Gatorade. I just need to order up a batch of my custom Infinit with no caffeine in it, because I really did like using it for running. My outdoor runs were done as run 9’/walk 1’ and even doing that I averaged 9mpm both days! I figured I’d better do some walking lest I do the first run too fast and pay for it later in the week. I was kinda shocked I could still average 9mpm even with walking! When I had first returned to running back in June, I was doing that and averaging 10mpm, so even with absolutely no sexy run training (no deliberate tempo work or intervals), I’m doing pretty well again on the running front!

Yesterday the weather turned really windy and rainy, and I decided this was a good enough excuse to run on the treadmill. Plus, I run slower on it than when I do outside—I’m just one of those people that always runs faster outdoors than indoors, even though I know people who are just the opposite. I also decided that it didn’t matter if I only ran 10mpm on the treadmill. I mean, who cares? I’m putting in some good mileage.

Yesterday’s run came out to 9:47 pace, and today’s run was 9:34 pace. My quads were pretty sore after yesterday’s run, so I gave myself a good leg massage and did some good stretching. Today, my quads felt beat up after maybe 6 miles, but I knew it wouldn’t get any worse, so it’s all good. After I finished today, though, it was the first time in years where I could feel an ache in the front part of my psoas muscles. That used to happen regularly on long runs back when I wasn’t as fit as I have been the last 5 or 6 years.

I didn’t schedule anything besides the 4 11-milers through today, but this morning I just had to go and swim. Swimming loosens me up. It made me laugh that I was the fastest swimmer in the pool while I was there and I was just going easy. I could tell that not lifting this week gives me a bit more speed in the pool, and I do need to remember that, since I’ve been lifting heavier this year, and it will pay off eventually!

I really enjoyed my short swim—1700 yards—which felt like just a warmup, and I felt super smooth with great form. I can’t see myself just running ever again—swimming just feels really great, and I’ve worked hard to be decent at it, and I don’t want to have an emaciated upper body like some pure runners!

It’s been interesting these last few days in that I really haven’t needed to chow down like I usually do on weekdays when I’m putting in 2+ hours of training. Sucks. Oh well, I will really hit the feed bag Friday-Sunday evenings. My brother is buying me dinner on Saturday night and I’ve warned him I will be eating for two!

Tomorrow I am taking the day off from work, getting a massage, and maybe I will do some abs work, or maybe not. And fix bottles for the weekend.

I realize that in turning 55 that I will need to turn in my cougar card. I am already calling myself an old lady, but hey, I’m a super fit old lady, and happy to be so! I’ll post after I get through the weekend, assuming I get through it in one piece. I expect Sunday to be tough, but if it wasn’t, what would the point be? I will be starting my 56th year of life on a high note with the ability to take on any challenge I fancy!

On Training a Lot, Recovering, Planning, Weight, etc.

2011-10-10T10:45:00.004-05:00

So my last post I realize was written from a perspective of having actually been training quite a bit. Lucky for me, I keep detailed records of my training, that includes assorted notations such as getting sick, skipping workouts, shortening workouts, other life activities.

When I went back a ways and looked at things, it was clear that I've actually been training at a pretty high level for many weeks. DOH!

I have officially passed a full 12 months without doing an Ironman or beyond. In 3 weeks, I'll have passed a full 12 months without running a marathon! The tug of long is still there, and I will find ways to experience it without a 4+hour single run or 12+hour single training day for a few months yet. I, like many people I know, have a warped sense of what constitutes "a lot."

This week I am unloading from 5 weeks straight of pretty good training. I am in good enough shape for an Ironman--not a best effort, but maybe like 14-15 hours. I've had to let biking take a back seat to running, which is fine, and will also set me up for the winter months of Ironman prep training with shorter, more high intensity biking, and the same for running. I'm feeling pretty good about my running right now--on Saturday I ran 14 in the flats of Greene Valley and capped it off with 2 repeats up and down the big hill there, and it didn't even suck! Well the part where I was bonking after 14 miles sucked, but some more Coke perked me up and I absolutely loved the hill repeats!

I was reading on an old forum I used to frequent about racing "weight." While I may sometimes appear to be weight focused, it is really body fat. I will say it's become a tad more challenging to stay lean having gone through menopause a few years ago, but it still boils down to quality of diet and calories burned training. I eat less starch now than I did 2 years ago, having replaced it with more vegetables and fruit. I still enjoy a beer every day as long as I am doing quality training of at least 12 hours a week. I am lifting heavier than I used to but with less repetitions, and that seems to be good for my muscle mass and energy level. I know when I'm at an optimal body composition based on how I feel running up a steep hill and climbing on my bike up a steep hill. Time was when I'd do that and be thinking, "I wish I was lighter." Right now I feel just great in both situations. It's really subtle, but the sense of carrying my body uphill while running feels less like dragging and more like floating. If it doesn't feel that way, then either I am woefully out of shape or just plain too fat. Since my weekday running route features some good hills, I get many opportunities to test myself!

Periodically, I still weigh myself and take and record measurements just to see where I'm at and observe where my body wants to store its fat. The sad reality is that post-menopause my body wants to store more fat in my lower abdomen. Sucks, but it's true. So I will just need to continue vigilance in the name of vanity and competition! I don't want to have to go out and buy a whole new "I'm an old lady" workout wardrobe because I can't bear to bare my midsection any longer! Well maybe I do already look disgusting, but based on the looks I get while out running, I'm still way ahead of the game for my age.

While earlier this year I had trouble mentally coping with a period of injury and then a general decision to not race much at all, I feel pretty good about it now. I just read this article, and it really spoke to me. Over the last 2 years, I have added in more recovery weeks and days than I used to include in my training plans, and I could use even more. But underlying all my training has always been good nutrition, adequate sleep, regular massage and other ways to keep it real. I have no regrets about the past 10 years of high volume training, but I think maybe, just maybe I might have another good 10 years in me, so this recuperative period is welcome. Plus, in about a month I am going to have a serious sit-down with myself in terms of thinking about the "R" word (retirement), or at least moving on to something different. I'm not unhappy where I am--I don't really think too much about happiness as a general state of being--I am more interested in enjoying the current moment. And right this minute I am typing and haven't worked out yet today, but my body craves movement, so off to a short run I will go and enjoy the fact that it's still shorts weather here!

Am I Losing My Toughness/HTFU?

2011-09-20T09:46:00.003-05:00

It's been odd for me to have taken almost a year off from serious racing, but I know it was necessary. One of the things it made me realize is that all the planning and travel associated with racing adds a lot of stress. It feels easy to me to be in a groove of just training--the eating to train, eating to recover, stretching, sleeping, fixing bottles, equipment care, etc. But then as soon as you are close to an "A" race, you are tapering, but much of that time subtracted from training is now being spent on packing, setting things up at work to go away, confirming and sometimes changing travel plans. I guess I'm really a homebody at heart--I really don't enjoy driving like some people do, and I am so accustomed to my serious quiet in the evenings.

So now that I am beginning to plan a year of training AND racing, and with all the experience I have behind me as to what works and what doesn't work (I learned a helluva lot from my first Ultraman training experience), I find myself in the midst of a training block and wondering if I can accomplish what I have set forth on paper. And I wonder if I am about to push myself too far given that I have only been back to somewhat serious training (even though it was without specific goals other than I felt I had the time and motivation to work out that much) for 3 months. I wonder if I really rested my body enough and whether I will still be able to do what I did a year or two ago. When I was in my 40's, somehow mentally I still had a picture of youth in my head. Now perilously close to 55, I'm not so sure how youthful I still am. Of course, I fantasize that I can still go head to head with people much younger than I am, but I won't really know until I formally test myself again, will I? Well, not that I need a formal test--as I said, I have one coming up in a few weeks that will tell me a lot.

About a month ago, I ran into someone at my Y that I hadn't seen in a while, and he asked what I'd been up to, and I told him that my body conspired to have me take some down time but that I was back at it just not so intensely. And he told me that last year while I was training for Ultraman that I had been "wacky." I didn't agree with him or react in any way, because I knew that his opinion was coming from his frame of reference. I would fully expect many people to view the process of preparing for an Ultraman as wacky, crazy, all-consuming. I can look back on it myself and know how utterly focused I was, day in and day out. I didn't want anything to get in my way or affect my plans. Nothing except myself. So yeah, when my custom bike wasn't ready when I'd expected, I freaked out. When my foot went south on me I freaked out. Who the hell wouldn't? Sure my mission was not life and death, but sometimes these things need to feel that way to you in order to give them your full attention.

Training hard and with focus to me is no different than someone mastering a musical instrument or a game like golf. I'm pretty used to people calling me crazy because the thing I'm trying to master has nothing to do with how I make a living but it has EVERYTHING to do with how I live! The notion that effort has to be associated with money is just stupid. And this is, I feel, why it's easy to become lazy and complacent about one's health, allowing it to deteriorate to the point where drugs and/or a serious intervention are required. But I digress.

So in having experienced a break and now being "in training" again (there, I admitted it), I wonder if when I feel tired or sore if I am just being a pussy or I just forgot what it feels like or maybe I am just old. Last Saturday, I ran just over 13.5 miles for the second time (the first time was a week before at IMWI) since January 31. I knew I'd made a training error going from about 10-11 miles to 16 or 17 at IMWI, but I didn't expect 13 or so to feel so hard. But for whatever reason, Saturday's run felt hard and after about 7 miles my legs were rather stiff and sore, but I kept going. I was running a decent pace for that distance (9:05) for me, and I guess there is some sort of muscle memory there because I just couldn't go slower, and I didn't want to, because that would just prolong the time I spent out there. Still, when I finished, I looked forward to a nice recovery swim, and ended up swimming 2200 yards--a bit more than I needed to do, but it felt good. I wondered if I was pushing it too much too soon or if I just needed to HTFU.

Sunday morning I felt sluggish and sore still, but I needed to ride. It was raining when I woke up, and I thought it might quit later on, so I laid out clothes for outdoors (no need to be miserable most of the time is how I roll) and decided to start indoors at the Y. I haven't set up a bike trainer yet, and I'm OK riding on the Life Fitness bikes there occasionally. Still, I took enough fluid and calories for a 4-hour ride, and once I got going, I decided I didn't want to change venues even if it stopped raining (it didn't). I eased into the riding, and at least my legs didn't feel stiff anymore, and I seemed to have decent power. Still, after 2 hours, I started asking myself if I really needed to do more. So I mentally went over this alleged training plan for the next few weeks and concluded I should keep going, so I did and finished 4 hours, stretched, and when I got home I figured out where I was on my calorie needs for the day.

And then it hit me. Whenever I take a slight break from my normal hard training routine, such as beginning a new year's training cycle, it takes me a while to get back into the whole eating to train thing. I think a lot of the prior week's tiredness was a combination of lack of sleep while in Wisconsin plus insufficient calorie intake. So I made a point on Sunday to keep eating a couple hundred calories every couple of hours.

Yesterday I felt pretty good when I woke up, good enough to put in a decent swim workout, and I did--3200 yards. I was slow as molasses, but that is because my swim training has been lacking for a few months. Still, it felt good. When I got home, I felt like I needed a bunch more calories, meaning I must have still been behind from the weekend or even the prior week. So I ate some more with an eye towards easily digestible since I planned on running around noon, and I prefer running on a nearly empty stomach. I ran 7 miles and noted my right quad being very tight, so I worked on it later in the day, and this is all probably from all the downhill running I did at IMWI and then also on Saturday that I was just not accustomed to. I had a great dinner of sushi with my brother Mike, and today I feel pretty good and woke up and banged out a :50 strength session.

Still, I wonder if I am tough enough to do some of the things I am planning on doing. I now know so many really talented athletes that make me look like I'm doing remedial level stuff, and it's hard not to compare myself to them. In the same way that when I think I am suffering from life issues (real or manufactured in my head), I do not like to make too big a deal out of it since I know that there are many people with far worse issues. After all, I am relatively healthy, have a good job, a roof over my head and don't lack for anything material. So I suppose I sometimes apply the same thought process to my physical self.

I might just be in an adaption phase or perhaps I am in an altered mental state where my perception of my self has changed. At least I am very aware that I don't need to do the level of training I was at a year ago--at least not for health. And that I can probably go about it in a slightly less frantic way. Yet the more of it I do, the better I seem to feel, even if it comes with other squirreliness that is associated with the racing and planning stress, not the training. It goes back to that observation that the hours upon hours of endurance training provide a form of meditation to me. I don't question that any more--I've accepted it. If by spending the time to train as much as I think makes me feel "normal," then why should I question it? I have cleverly avoided elaborating to anyone just how much I've been doing the last 12 weeks lest they think I'm nuts. Let's just say that my tolerance for a lot of training is higher than most. 12 hours to some people feels like a lot, but to me that feels like nothing. Of course, if that was 12 hours of running, I'd be toast ;)

In summary, then, I guess I'm in yet another transitional period, and you'd think I'd have learned by now that much of what I'm feeling is normal (for me at least), but this is the thing I love about the human brain--it selectively forgets some things so everything can feel all new again. Isn't that wonderful? It would be awful if it always felt the same every time I started up a new training cycle. Even though I've been putting in good hours lately, without the stress of a race coming up soon, many times when I'm out there the word sublime comes to mind. I think I've become better able to enjoy the experience of just having the luxury to go ride or run or swim for hours on end and appreciate that my body can do it, that my mind loves it, and I don't really care what anyone else thinks about it.

Maybe I am just asking myself the wrong question--maybe it's not about whether I'm still tough maybe it's the old question am I comfortable where I am and the answer is yes. Part of my drive comes from knowing that one day I won't be able to do all this, but that day is not today.

Ironman Wisconsin Spectating Report and Updates

2011-09-13T09:30:00.006-05:00

Two weeks ago I began becoming concerned over my lack of any motivation to make plans for next year. Mostly I was worried (if you can call it that) that I would end up standing in line yesterday to register for IMWI after being there all weekend. However, I was reading in the Slowtwitch forum that registration for IMCA was still open--the poster was also waffling as to whether to pull the plug and sign up. I like IMCA--I liked it in 2004, I enjoyed riding the course again last year during Ultraman Canada, and I could see myself going back. So after I was finished working on 8/31, I went to the website to check whether registration was still open, and it was. I clicked on the link to active.com. I filled stuff out. I went to get my credit card. I was actually a bit nervous! Not because I have any qualms about being able to do an Ironman--it was just that as soon as I click that SUBMIT button, it means I've made a commitment to train. So I did it. And just like that I went from no plans to sketching out in my head how I was going to train for it. And thinking that maybe I will also do Ultraman Hawaii. Who knows? After I finished registration, I checked the IMCA participants list and found a bunch of people I know who are going, one who raced IMWI this weekend--Melinda. It will be her 6th Ironman and my 16th (unless I decide to sneak one in beforehand).

In thinking about how to train for this next season, I can now draw on so much experience, having already gone through a UM cycle, so I will do things differently. Through May, I will be doing my "normal" IM training, except that my Friday swims will be at least 5,000 yards (but no more than 6,000). Then, beginning in June, I will begin doing longer swims and changing to my UM weekly training pattern (it's a secret!). I want to do American Triple T, 24 Hours of Triathlon, IMCA, then a "broken" IMWI (full swim Friday; full bike Saturday and marathon Sunday), then buckle down and get ready for UMH. I don't see myself doing any 50-mile run races, but that could change. If I do, it would need to be in January-February timeframe.

And now back to IMWI...

I had a great time up there. This was my first trip this year, unbelievably! Usually I'm up there 4-5 times. I had my car all tuned up and a free place to stay with friends Brad and Morgan (who are getting married next month), and Melinda (Morgan's mom). I pulled up to this house Friday afternoon (after a PR drive--I guess I did some "light" speeding) and was immediately accosted by 2 labs. I figured they were friendly, but not completely sure, so pulled out of the driveway and called Brad, since I didn't want dogs all over me while trying to unload my car. Turns out there were 3 labs in the house (one is old and injured), all friendly, all wanting tons of attention. Melinda was already there, and Morgan was arriving later in the evening.

I'd made a plan for us to have dinner at Heiney's, but first we were going to drive the course with my narration. A bike course never feels as hard in a car as on the bike, but there were a few times when on the steeper climbs we could feel and hear the car shift gears down. While we were driving around, we kept checking for Morgan trying to get to Madison from Orlando (Brad drove from Dallas and Melinda flew in from California). Meanwhile, another friend, Adam, was already in town, and he opted not to drive around with us but would meet later for dinner.

Morgan almost missed the connecting flight from Detroit to Madison, but somehow she got on, so that was good so everyone was accounted for. Brad, Melinda and I finished driving one loop of the course and then maybe 1/2 more and then we headed to Heiney's, where Adam arrived maybe 2 minutes after we did. Good food, good beer, lots of great conversation and laughs! I noted that the collective training/racing mileage at our table was quite high! I think I ate the most food of anyone at the table, which is odd, since I'm the smallest, but I'd been training all week and well, I hadn't been to Heiney's in a few years so I indulged myself.

Brad dropped Melinda and I off at the house and went to retrieve Morgan from the airport--the airport was maybe 3 miles from the house. Chatted with her a bit and we all got some sleep.

Saturday my plan was to ride the stick (what lots of people call the out-and-back portion of the IMWI bike course) plus 1 loop. Brad and Melinda needed to get their bags and such together. We all slept in, so I didn't get in my car until maybe 9:30, and as soon as I got on the road, I was in gridlock, and figured out why when I saw all the people with red shirts on--the Badgers were playing. After barely moving for about 15 minutes, I turned somewhere and got on a different route, but all told it took me almost an hour to get to where I could park and start riding. I parked at Olin-Turville Park (free!) and it was a beautiful day and I was happy to ride.

Except that I have barely biked on any hills this year. So in the back of my mind was how much it would suck, so I figured I'd just ride nice and easy. I wore my full pirate kit, so at least in my head I looked spectacular on LGL! I had so much fun riding--I saw maybe 4 other cyclists out, as I'd started late and the bulk of them were racing and sequestered, and there was very little car traffic due to the Badgers game. It was the most peaceful ride I've ever had on that course, and I delighted in the fact that I still know the turns without a map and could flash back to the 2 times I'd raced there and the countless training rides I'd done. I rode all the big climbs seated, and only stood to stretch and on the 2 sharp rights up tiny, steep climbs (on to Sugar River Road and from G onto 92). I averaged 16mph, which felt nice and easy to me. How about that?

When I got back to the house, I showered and then we headed to get groceries for dinner--your basic pasta with meat/marinara sauce, garlic bread and we had cookies and ice cream for dessert. I don't think any of us ate dessert, but I really chowed down as I did not eat lunch after my ride. Adam joined us for dinner, and I talked him through as much as I could about the bike course. We showed him around the weirdly laid out house, where you could easily sleep maybe 20 people on various couches! I knew it would be a late night and then early wakeup, so I did my best to make sure I had my own stuff ready for race day, as I planned on running one loop of the run course and then going out for spectating.

Luckily, these folks "slept in" until 4:30AM--I would have been up at 3AM, but hey, I wasn't racing! The dogs had a barking fit at some point during the night, so I have no idea how much sleep I had, but didn't care--I wasn't racing!

Brad had scoped out a parking garage 1 block from transition on Pinckney Street, and we got there and got a spot for $4! I drove my own car since I had more crap in there and Brad's was full of bags, 1 bike and 3 people. Morgan and I got to hang out with Brad and Melinda until about 6:30. Then Morgan and I went to find a spot on top of Monona Terrace to watch the swim, which was fun (my pics from the race are posted to Facebook). I think there were about 2800 starters, and the swim start was crowded, but it appeared from our vantage point that things spread out nicely. After ensuring that Brad and Melinda and Adam (and the other 20 or so athletes I knew were racing) were finished and on their way, Morgan and I walked back to the cars, where she would nap and read, and I suited up to go for a nice run.

There were arrows on the roads for the marathon course, but not much else, and there are a million turns, so I messed up slightly but got 13 or so done in about 2 hours running time plus more to stop and get fluids. I ended up running through Camp Randall stadium twice, which made up for some wrong turns and course cutting at the beginning of the loop since I couldn't exactly get onto the actual course start. It was hot for me to be running, so I knew the heat would get to the racers at some point. Just as it had been fun and peaceful to ride on Saturday, it was awesome to run on the race course without much other runners until I was along Lake Mendota. I was happy I got to run through Camp Randall! It didn't seem as big (around the perimeter of the field I mean) as I remembered from when I'd raced before. Several people along the way thought I was maybe in the race, and I'd laugh and shout, "I'm WINNING!" That was a ton of fun. Anyway, that run course isn't exactly easy, but I don't think it's as hard as Lake Placid's run course. But I was only running half of it and hadn't biked 112 miles before so what do I know? When I was almost back, I saw two college students walking with a huge pizza someplace for their lunch. I told them they better go faster otherwise I would steal their pizza (I'd run 13 on maybe 200 calories). They offered me a slice, but I declined since I had to keep going about another mile. But wasn't that nice of them?

I got back to my car and cleaned up as best I could and changed tops--I left my run shorts on because I expected I might end up running some more. Morgan and I headed to go get some lunch and saw the first pros head out to run, and we began checking for updates on others' race progress. Some looked good, some not so good. We got sammies at Subway and camped out to eat in a bus stop stand, and then we began the job of run spectating. As always it was great, except that we got concerned about Brad and Melinda (and I got concerned about another friend, Denise) not seeing bike splits and then getting close to the bike cutoff. Meanwhile, a lot of people I know came through, and I got choked up a few times watching them do their thing. I was reminded again of just how hard this is no matter how long it takes you, and that people who say ANYONE can do an Ironman are fucking crazy.

Finally Brad came through and I jogged alongside him for a bit to understand what happened. He'd had bike mechanicals and a mental meltdown (I won't tell his story--it's his to tell). I'm sure I told him to suck it up and just get going. Not too long after, Melinda came through and asked me to run with her, which I did for just over a mile. She'd also had bike mechanical issues, but no mental meltdown. She'd be fine. After I was certain she was OK (she was justifiably upset), I turned around and ran back to town. Of course, people thought I was in the race even though I wasn't wearing any numbers. It was fun to be cheered for, even though!

We never saw Adam come through--somehow we'd missed him--but he ended up with an Ironman PR on the day, which I attribute to the fact that I lent him one of my race belts. My gear is lucky! Seriously, though, Adam raced smart and well, he's pretty fit after doing TWO Ultraman races last year.

I got worried about Denise until I finally saw her coming back from her first run loop, and then I was so happy to see her and actually run with her for a bit. She was running great (running is her thing), and I knew she'd finish strong.

Morgan and I tracked Brad and Melinda and figured out they were keeping each other company out there on the run course. I don't know the entirety of what went on out there, but at least we knew they'd finish, so around 9:15 Morgan and I headed toward the finish line, got some more Subway and settled in to watch people finishing. It was great even though I was pretty tired, having run 17 or 18 miles and standing around jumping up and down and screaming for hours, but hey, I wasn't racing! We saw some girls with so much flashing light glasses and decorations on themselves that I really liked--I ended up calling them "spectating machines." I need to find stuff like they had, because, well, I should really dress up more for spectating!

I got to see Denise run down the chute and was so happy for her to finish, after having a broken back and recovering from it. I caught up with my former coach, Rich, and got to chat with him briefly--he'd returned to do the race after a 3-year hiatus from racing triathlons, and had a great 10:20 something time. Then it was time to bring in Melinda and Brad. We figured Brad was hurting because we saw Melinda by herself and she waited at the final turn into the chute. Then they both came in, and Morgan and I were so happy for them! I've done enough of these things and had several horrible races, so I know how it feels to have had problems and not meet your goals, but the reality is that ANY Ironman finish is a good one.

Congratulations to all the Ironman Wisconsin finishers: Ebe, Dawn, Katie, Carl, Dino, Brad, AJ, Adam, Hayes, Denise, Russ, MJ, Rich, Jodi, Melinda, Joel, Blaine, Spencer (Kona slot), Vicki. If I forgot anyone, I'm sorry!

Morgan and I had already retrieved their bags and taken Melinda's bike back to Tri Bike Transport, so the last thing to do was to get Brad's bike. Morgan and I did that while we left the 2 racers by the parking garage so they didn't have to do any more exercise. We walked to the cars, Brad put his bike up top his car and drove back to the house, talked through the usual post-race stuff, agreed on a wake up time, and tried to sleep. Of course the dogs had to have another barking fit which seemed to go on forever, but maybe it was 10 minutes.

We all got up just after 6. I was just going to pack up and drive home, and the rest of them went to the finisher's gear store and then would begin their respective travels. I PR'ed my drive home, unpacked, downloaded/uploaded photos, then went for a 1:45 bike ride on the MTB. I was very tired, but it was a beautiful day, and those are going to be few and far between soon enough, so I just enjoyed the sunshine.

I got some good sleep last night, but still am not caught up, but that will happen this evening. Now I can get to planning my season for next year!

What to do, what to do

2011-08-29T09:02:00.004-05:00

Rode the Bike Psychos 200k yesterday, in my fastest time ever (126 miles in 6:53). It helped that it was an absolutely gorgeous day (upper 70's / low 80's but 60's at the start), and I had rabbits for the first 70 miles. I tried to keep up with Jeff at the start, but knew I couldn't hold his pace without seriously blowing up. This was only my 2nd 100+ mile ride this year! Jeff led us out at an aggressive pace, and I was also a bit cold, so it was fun to be cold (but it felt nice) and feel my heart just about jumping out of my chest.

I forgot how this ride isn't really all that flat, and that makes it fun. I especially forgot that on some of the nice downhills, you can't see what's ahead because of the curves, and then I got stuck in the big chainring climbing up at the end. But at least I was prepared for the Vermillion River climb on the 200K loop. Since I really haven't ridden any hills this year, I was pleased that my climbing skills weren't totally in the dumpster.

Whereas last Sunday when I rode about 93 miles and my quads were feeling wasted about 90 miles in, yesterday I felt just great the entire time. Jeff introduced me to some other CMF's (Crazy Mother Fuckers) who are doing the Virginia Triple Iron in early October (Kamil and Chuck), and they were having trouble hanging with Jeff, too, but we rode together for the 200k loop, and they invited me to do another loop since they were shooting for 150 miles total. While I could have done it (and now I think I'm stupid for not doing it), I decided not to in the interest of maybe having a busy day at work today and having pushed my own recent envelope a bit.

So after 70 miles were done, I just focused on collecting "targets" (riders ahead of me) as best I could. Gotta stay motivated somehow! We did have some wind on the way back, and while I wanted to push less into the wind, I didn't want to spend any more time out there than necessary.

At the second to last aid station, the volunteers were drinking Corona's, and I remarked how cruel that was, but on the other hand, I had cold ones waiting for me at home, so the sooner I finished, the sooner I'd get my reward (WILL RIDE FOR BEER!). I did stop at the last aid station just to get water, and wanted to ride the remainder with others, but couldn't find anyone who could keep my pace, so I let some go and then caught and passed them. Then I was looking at my watch thinking I might beat my best time if I kept pushing. So even when I was only a mile from the end, I was going as fast as I could at that point, kept passing people, and I succeeded in beating my time at this course by a few minutes. I was also motivated by the promise of ice cream sandwiches at the end, but they were out, so I settled for a popsicle, that turned out to be a nice treat anyway.

I've had a lot of fun "not training" a lot for the last 11 weeks, and in a way I feel guilty that I'm not doing something "big" anytime soon. Meeting some CMF's who are more "C" than me only intensified that feeling. I could ramp up for an Ironman in 8 weeks or maybe even do the Double Iron in October, but I still seem to be good with where I'm at right now. I am starting to think about my original 2012 plan which was Ironman Lanzarote and then Furnace Creek 508 (and maybe also Ultraman Hawaii). I can see gearing up for Ironman distance over the winter (less biking but more swimming and running), then bumping up the bike mileage (as I always do over the summer anyway).

All I know is that I've really enjoyed this summer with no pressure on me to do anything, and I'd like to continue that through October. Maybe a few running races just to convince me I can start running more, and then settle in with the treadmill for the winter and the trainer, although the prospect of that is totally depressing right now. But, for me, training a lot in the winter makes it feel not so bad, plus I can sleep in a lot more on weekends.

I will just keep mulling over my options and look forward to going up to IMWI in 2 weeks to cheer on many friends. Whatever I decide to do will come to me. It feels good to be pretty fit and have options!

"Partial" Weekend

2011-08-22T11:31:00.003-05:00

I had planned on riding with my brother, Mike, on Saturday on the MTB, but when I woke up I just didn't feel right. And my legs (quads, in particular) hurt really badly. The quads thing may have been from doing too many squats on Friday, but part of the pain felt like I was also super dehydrated, which I didn't think I really was. I ended up spending most of the day in bed feeling like complete and total crap. It felt like maybe I ate something bad the day before (could have been some juice I drank from a can that was expired--I tossed it all out), although I never did vomit.

Sunday's plan was to ride 100 miles at the Rotary Ride. Although they didn't offer a 100-mile option this year, I could combine the 80-something with something else or just repeat part of the course. When I woke up, my legs weren't aching, but my stomach felt a bit off still. I dawdled in getting ready and finally left just after 7AM. I drank most of a Coke, and the fizziness felt good in the tummy. I'd made a 5-hour bottle of Infinit. The weather was peachy perfect with a high predicted in the upper 70's and mild winds.

I started riding at 7:55AM. I didn't feel particularly energetic, and convinced myself that due to yesterday's failure to do anything, I should be OK only doing 85 miles, but that might make it tough to do 200k next Sunday at Bike Psychos. Even though I started late, I began passing people right away. One guy I passed then decided he must be faster than me even though I caught him, and he repassed me about a 1/2 mile after I'd passed him. I thought fine, maybe he was just chillin'. But his pass didn't last long at all and I caught him and passed him again for the win. I always laugh when a guy does that--if you are going to pass me, then BE FASTER THAN ME!

I caught a group of girls that I think were training with their coach--5 or 6 of them. Initially I thought I'd hang with them, but they weren't going very fast, so ahead I went. Later in the ride, I took a wrong turn and added about 8 extra miles, but then I caught up to the same group of girls maybe 15 miles later. They left an aid station about 5 minutes before me, and I caught back up to them at a dangerous intersection. I'd already sensed that some of these women weren't expert riders, and I was right on the money when one of them pulled a stupid turning maneuver. At that point, I decided I needed to ride away from them, so I hit the gas and passed them all and didn't see them again for awhile until the coach went off the front and passed me--I knew she was really fast but just pacing the group. I told her she had the patience of a saint, and she said something like, "Well it's worth it to ride with others." I guess that might have been meant as a diss to me since I was riding alone, but hey, to each their own. I would not have felt safe riding with that group--well maybe the coach, but not the rest of them. I like to ride with others, too, but I'm OK riding alone.

There was a guy who I introduced myself to when finished that I rode up on a few times, and he was riding nice and steady. I complimented him on his riding, and turns out he's doing his first Ironman in Wisconsin soon. I bet he will do well, as he wasn't out there trying to be super speedy macho dude, which is how you ride successfully in an IM.

I forgot to mention that when I was about 60 miles in, my quads were burning like hell. I guess that's because the week before I didn't ride much because I did that race, and then the week before my longest ride was only 68 miles! I was momentarily worried that I would need to be sagged off course, but thought I should just ride easy for a bit and would be fine. I rode easy for maybe 5 miles and then started catching people again and sped back up and forgot that my legs were sore. So I guess it was sort of an HTFU-ish ride. Oreo cookies and Infinit seemed to give me plenty of energy to finish strong. So I got in about 93 miles which was close enough to 100.

I'm still a bit wary about doing 200k on Sunday, but it's not like I'm running lots so I should be fine. I'm predictably tired today, though, and my stomach is still a tiny bit unsettled, but I will be fine. Another gorgeous day today, going for a super easy run!

OK, I guess I can still call myself a triathlete

2011-08-15T09:36:00.003-05:00

This is a little race report and a little random rambling.

I did the Bangs Lake Olympic yesterday. I knew I wasn't optimally prepared, probably worked too hard during my taper last week (3 hard brick workouts when I hadn't done any since January?), but my goal was to just do the race, enjoy it and see what kind of time I could do. On paper my goal was 2:57:14, but I actually did a bit better, 2:56:18. Still not a great time, but hey, it's an official Olympic PR for me (last time I did one was in 2000?).

I think the worst part was waking up at 3AM so I could drive an hour to get to the race venue to pick up my packet and set up. I haven't woken up that early in a year. Even with copious amounts of caffeine, I did not feel great. Oh well, everyone else woke up early to race, too.

I found some friends at the swim start (Kevin, Marla and Katie--only Kevin was racing), and so it was nice to do a bit of catching up. I walked over to the lake and stepped in--it felt quite comfortable and I was almost surprised it was cool enough for wetsuits. As I stood there in the water, I thought to myself, and said out loud to another athlete that my last open water swim was 10k. They asked me about that, and I told them just a little about Ultraman. It made me quite calm to think that I only needed to swim 1500 meters.

The swim start was uneventful--I was in the next to last wave (old ladies). The water seemed a bit warm, so it makes me wonder where they took the temperature, but I digress. The air temperature was awesome--maybe low 60's. The day's weather called for cool (high maybe 72), cloudy and some north winds.

The water was a bit choppy, nothing serious, and it was hard to sight due to swimming right into the sun, and there weren't many course buoys, and there was a current pushing me off course, so I probably lost some time doing that, but for the most part I just swam and tried to stay on course. The water was pretty murky, so a little over halfway through, I swam up on some guy who promptly kicked me in the face. I have a nice little shiner on my left eye. He apologized, and I probably lost a minute or two readjusting my goggles and getting my bearings, but it wasn't as bad of a kick to the face as the one I got at Ironman Brazil in 2006, so all good.

When I got out of the water, a girl from a few waves before me said, "You had a great swim!" I said, "No I didn't, I kinda sucked." I guess in relation to hers it was good, but I was a few minutes behind schedule. Oh well, time to get on the bike, my favorite part.

I took a little too long in transition because, well I wasn't winning any awards. But there was a long run to transition, too, so I just wanted to be methodical about transition. I didn't feel too cold, but was glad I'd worn a sleeveless bike jersey (from Ultraman) over my bra top. We headed northwest into some wind, but it wasn't bad at all. Maybe 10MPH is all? I cautioned myself to warm my legs up, and even going what I thought was easy (still no computer on the bike), I started passing people. This continued the whole time. As is typical of shorter, local races (but I've experienced in Ironman, too), there were a lot of riders who were oblivious to rules or pure common sense. The course wasn't closed, and while there were a few sections of road where the asphalt wasn't in good condition so you wanted to ride more towards the middle of the lane, there were plenty of places where the roads were just fine and people were riding far left. Near the end of the bike course, one guy was practically on top of a double yellow line, and I warned him to move right so I could pass. He started screaming that I should pass on the right, and I yelled back that this wasn't a closed course, but then I just kept riding. I thought that if he had any balls he'd pick up the pace and pass me, but that never happened. There were also a few times when I had to shake guys drafting off of me. I guess they forget it's illegal and figure that if there aren't draft marshals (there were none as far as I could tell), then draft away.

When I had finished my first lap I thought I was riding too fast to run decently and tried to settle down a bit on the second lap (45 seconds slower on second lap), but didn't really, I guess. I really enjoyed the bike course--plenty of gentle rollers (I wouldn't call it hilly) where you could keep speed going if you know how to ride. I only got passed by a few guys with disk wheels from the last wave. I should have gone with the disk, but I've been too lazy to mess with it. Oh well, I was quite happy riding about 21MPH for the bike leg.

I had an OK T2 and started running and didn't feel too bad but really wanted to start out holding back. Well, we started climbing soon enough, and I would characterize the run course as hilly! I sucked on the run, knowing I'd paid for my fun ride and just overall lack of run fitness. I knew I was running 10mpm (my goal was 9:41) and that was just that. At one point, someone behind me had read my jersey and asked, "Is that all one race?" That made me smile, and I said, yeah, Ultraman is one race over 3 days.

As it turns out, I was last in my age group. 2nd out of 2! Isn't that funny? It really hit home that I am old seeing only 2 in my age group. Wow. Maybe next year I can win it ;) I am pretty sure I can find 10 minutes if I'm trained up, which would be fine for me.

Did doing this race make me want to go longer? Maybe a 1/2 IM. I did enjoy being back in a race situation, and was happy to note that my swim fitness hasn't tanked that badly (I need to swim at least 10K/week to be strong), and my bike fitness is pretty good (especially for an old lady!). But my running is still off, but that's OK. As is typical, on the drive home I had visions of races dancing in my head, but given that I don't have any planned yet am thinking about riding 100 miles on Sunday, it made me wonder why I am going to do that and then a 200k the next week? Oh yeah, because I really like biking!

On the way to the pool this morning (a nice, cool morning for a walk), I began thinking why am I bothering to swim if I'm not training for anything? I had to remind myself that I do enjoy swimming, especially in the summer, and it seems to be good for me--otherwise I might just bike myself into the ground! I have to decide how much swimming I want to keep up. I really should get back up to about 10k/week, but even 9k would be good. My pool is going to close for 2 weeks starting this Sunday, and I have to decide whether I am going to (gasp!) drive to another pool to swim or not. I probably will, because the one I will go to (even though the daily fee is a rip-off) is a nice pool and has an awesome hot tub which will be a nice change of pace. So I will try and think of it as a "vacation" from my regular Y, and then when the Y opens (I told them to call me if they will let me in to swim once they have refilled the pool and it's ice cold before opening to general public), I can go back to enjoying my morning walks there (while missing the hot tub!).

So Saturday I got stung by something while out riding in my left forearm. The reaction seems to have increased today, not sure why. It reminded me I should start carrying my Epi Pen when riding. Typically my sting reaction gets worse each time I'm hit. Then yesterday I got kicked in the face in the swim, so this morning while swimming, I'm wondering what will be the third thing? And then it happened--some clueless woman swam right into me! Luckily it wasn't a bad collision--she just tapped me on the head while doing imitation backstroke. She said she didn't know the rules. I tried valiantly not to blow my stack too badly, and I think I succeeded in not throwing out any expletives other than "What the hell are you doing?" The rest of my swim I wanted to stop and tell her I hoped she doesn't have a driver's license. But I'm over it. So I got my 3 hits in a row. I hope I'm good for awhile!

I am really fortunate to have other triathlon friends who are younger than me because, well, there aren't many women my age doing this! I am enjoying my "recovery year" and am OK with having no plans at this time. I do know I need a real vacation, and that will be in the offing.

Tips for a Successful Open Water Triathlon Swim

2011-08-12T08:50:00.006-05:00

There have been a few deaths recently during triathlon swims. This post in no way purports to prevent such deaths, makes no assumptions about the fitness level of the deceased, and is not in any way a criticism of race directors in terms of safety measures. This post is more a reaction to having seen a video of people floating down the Hudson with swim noodles in the recent NYC triathlon and thinking maybe some of those people really weren't prepared.

If you do a lot of triathlons, many or most of these things become routine and you don't even think about them, but I've never seen all of this information in one place, and since I think I know a little about triathlon, I figured I'd just write it down for the benefit of others. As always, feel free to pass this along to anyone you think it might benefit.

So, in no particular order, here are my tips, some of which I was reminded of today when I donned my wetsuit for the first time in many, many months, since I have a race on Sunday:

Know that you can cover the race distance comfortably. You will know this because you've practiced it and timed it at least once (preferably 2-3 times) during training. The cutoff for an Ironman swim is 2 hours 20 minutes, which comes out to 3:19/100 yards. Using that standard against some shorter race distances, at that pace it would take you 54:13 to complete an Olympic distance swim (1.5k), 58:26 for 1 mile, and 1:10:06 for a 1/2 Ironman. You can extrapolate to a sprint. If you can't complete a training swim equal to race distance at slightly faster than that pace within 2-3 weeks of your race (without wetsuit--because if you are counting on the wetsuit alone bringing you in under the cutoff then you are delusional), then you have no business doing the race. Period. Go get some swim lessons, swim more, keep timing yourself, repeat. If you are chasing the swim cutoff in any race, you are setting yourself up for problems on the bike and run since you will come out of the water pretty wiped. Why some triathlon coaches aren't up front with their athletes on this, I have no clue. Now, this does not mean every time you swim you should do a long continuous swim. Just the opposite. You should be doing intervals most of the time. I won't get into swim training--that is best left to a swim coach, which I am not! But suffice it to say, that doing at least one continuous swim of race distance or greater goes a long way towards instilling confidence that you will be fine on race day. You will build superior endurance if you complete a cycle of about 8 weeks where once a week you do a swim with total yardage greater than race distance, especially for Ironman. If I can swim 5,000 yards, for example, it makes 4,200 not too bad. I won't get into what this means for races longer than Ironman!
If you are going to race in a wetsuit, then you must wear it for at least one practice swim of equal or greater distance than your race. Why? It will feel different swimming in it, you want to make sure the darn thing fits (especially if you borrowed or rented one), you want to work out the kinks of lubrication and positioning, and you want to check for and repair any tears and practice taking it off quickly. I have known people to not wear their suit for months only to put it on race day and have it rip nearly to shreds! Finally, if you have the opportunity to wear it several times, note what the water temperature was and how cool/warm you felt. Different people feel different at different water temperatures. For example, I am just fine in a wetsuit in 83 degree water. Some people will overheat so badly that it's just not worth the buoyancy advantage to wear the wetsuit at that temperature. Please note that the lubrication isn't to get the suit ON--it's to help get it OFF quickly and to prevent chafing. I do a stripe of Bodyglide on outside and inside of forearm, upper arm, upper leg and lower leg, and I lube my neck (starting right at the hairline) and under armpits/straps liberally.
One or two days before your race, cut and/or file your fingernails and toenails. Women might want to also put a coat of clear nail polish on them. This lessens the chance of tearing your wetsuit, and is also a nice thing to do so that if you contact another athlete during the swim that you don't scratch them. I dislike it when I get scratched by another athlete during the swim, and I wish everyone tidied up their nails pre-race!
Be aware of the race's water temperature cutoff for the use of a wetsuit. This can vary from race to race, so know what it is and be prepared accordingly. This is another reason to ensure that your practice swims can be completed a few minutes faster than cutoffs without wetsuit.
Your wetsuit must get wet 1-2 days before your race. Either you wear it for a swim and let it hang dry, or you soak it in a sink/tub for a few hours and then let it hang dry. Why? A wetsuit is meant to be wet, and the neoprene expands and becomes more pliable when wet. This is why it is difficult to put on a dry wetsuit. It is just not pliant. When the wet wetsuit dries, it retains some water like a sponge, only it won't feel wet.
You will do one of your practice swims in whatever clothes you plan to wear on race day. Your clothing selection may differ depending on whether you will be wearing a wetsuit or not, so plan for either. A tri top with pockets or a bike jersey, for example, is not good to swim in if you aren't wearing a wetsuit. Those pockets will fill up with water. Same thing with anything loose. You want to be sure you are comfortable with all the pressure points of sleeves, straps, zippers, ties, etc. If you are going to wear arm warmers under your wetsuit, it's a good idea to make sure that the suit doesn't become overly tight by the addition of a few millimeters of fabric. If you plan on wearing your number belt under your wetsuit (I wouldn't wear it during the swim if not using a wetsuit!), you might want to test that out, too.
You will try and do one or more practice swims in open water. This isn't possible for everyone, but if you can do it, do it. Obviously, best case scenario is you do it in the body of water you will be racing in. Become one with the weeds and fishies! Even better swim with a bunch of friends and kick and smack one another as you go! Like this.
You will practice wearing a race-type swim cap and whatever goggles you plan on racing in, both placed on your head as if it were race day. Preferably you do this when you complete your race distance plus time trial. If you are used to removing your goggles after your 500 yard warmup, then again another 1,000 yards later, and so on, it is good to get used to what those same goggles feel like when they are plastered on your face for a solid hour. If you are going to put your goggle strap under your cap on race day, try that out in training. This is a recommended race day strategy since if your goggles get dislodged due to contact, they won't come off all the way.
If you wear contact lenses most of the time but don't usually wear them in the pool, again, you need to wear them for a few practice swims since you are going to wear them on race day, right? I wear contacts, and my experience is that I cannot tolerate chlorinated water getting into my goggles, but if I am in fresh water and a bit gets in, it won't irritate my eyes. I wear my contacts every time I swim. I am blind without them!
Swim with your watch/Garmin/timing device and chest strap, if you use one. If you are going to wear it on race day, swim with the damn thing on. I don't wear my watch in the pool any more, and I didn't wear it in the Ultraman swim, so I'm covered. Decide whether your wetsuit is going to go over the watch or not. You might want to loosen the strap slightly. Or not. The heart rate monitor's chest strap will feel different under a wetsuit, too.
If you will be wearing a timing chip on an ankle strap, it's best if it can go under the wetsuit leg so nobody can grab it and pull it off you. If your wetsuit legs need to go higher than would allow this, then when you put the chip strap on, have the end be on the medial side of your leg, again to prevent it being ripped off your leg. I'm guessing some folks duct tape over the strap which pretty much prevents the thing from coming off!
Know where the sun will be during your race to guide you in your choice of goggles.
Know the layout of the swim course, including where (on your left or right) and how frequent the buoys will be placed and where you will position yourself at the start. In a mass start, really fast swimmers start at the front. In an Ironman swim if you are back of MOP or BOP, you might want to let the front pack go for a minute or more, but definitely ask about positioning from others who have done the race.
Practice your race day nutrition in training. Which means that, yes, at least once you are going to get up at O-dark-thirty to eat and drink prior to your swim. Why? So you have some clue of how your stomach is going to feel when you load it up and then stuff yourself into a wetsuit. Or even if you aren't wearing a wetsuit, you jump into a cold pool and take off at your race pace with whatever you had for breakfast in you. My rules of thumb for intake prior to races: Sprint: 300 calories 2+ hours before race start. Sip Gatorade or water until race begins. Olympic: 400 calories. 1/2 Ironman: 600 calories. Ironman: 700-800 calories. For Olympic plus, I try and get the calories in 3+ hours prior to race start. You might want to go so far as to practice your day before nutrition as well. I highly recommend this, as, for example, tacos with hot sauce and beers the night before a race might not sit too well the next day during the swim. I steer clear of fiber for dinner the night before and always the morning of a race. This also goes for your caffeine consumption. I don't taper off caffeine, so I don't do anything different on race day than any other day, but if you are going to supplement with caffeine on race day, practice it in training for sure. I also will eat 2 salt tablets (Lava Salts or Succeed! caps) right after dinner the night before a 1/2 or full Ironman. If you are going to do this on race day, and you haven't raced as much as I have, try it out in training.
Learn how to breathe on either side. Even if one side feels "better" than the other (which is true for most of us), there may come a time when you have to use the "worse" side, for example, if you are getting smacked by waves on the one side. Even if your race is in calm water and you intend to breathe on your good side the entire time, it helps to breathe bilaterally in training to develop a balanced stroke.
Know how the swim exit works. If you will be forced to run over sharp rocks or gravel, you should be prepared to have a pair of flip flops at the swim exit.
Do at least one swim-bike workout. You can combine this with one of your race distance plus practice swims. Why? So you know how hard you can go on the swim and not feel like ass on the bike, particularly since you should be dropping right into aero position right away. I would do at least 1/3 of the race bike distance in this workout. This helps you learn how to transition from swimming to biking as well. Rule of thumb is no intake on the bike for 15 minutes for anything shorter than 1/2 Ironman, and then I wait 30 minutes for Ironman.
Know how to sight and swim in a straight line. There are many ways to practice this in a pool, so do it! If you don't practice sighting and get to a race and find yourself lifting your head a lot, it will stress you out and tire you out.
Do a warmup swim on race morning if at all possible. Even 100 yards can be helpful. A warmup can prepare your body for the water temperature (good or bad) and help work off some of the unnecessary pre-race adrenaline. If you absolutely can't get in the water to warm up, do some kind of warmup--running, biking, jumping jacks, some pushups (pushups are actually good because they will warm up your lats a bit) to help get rid of jitters and, well, warm up. Just like you are supposed to warm up in every training workout that you do. If there is no room for a swim warmup, it still helps to get into the water and get used to it. If you are wearing a wetsuit, let some water in through the neck. If the water is cold, this will help the suit do what it's intended to, which is to keep you warm by letting your body heat up that little bit of water that's inside the suit. If the water is really cold (under 65F), I find this is crucial.
Get comfortable peeing while wearing the wetsuit. Sounds silly, right? Well, most of us do pee in the suit before we start, but for longer than a sprint, it helps to be able to pee while you swim, too. It's relaxing, will warm you up if the water is cold, and then you avoid having to take a porta-potty stop in transition or during the bike leg. Yes, you can pee in it while standing around waiting for the race to start. It will just come out the leg.

Wow, the list is longer than I thought it would be! Feel free to comment with any additional tips you might have. Considering the swim is the first event of a triathlon, making it successful can set you up for a great day!

Happy to be Alive

2011-08-09T09:38:00.002-05:00

I am tapering for my "big" race this Sunday--an Olympic distance that I have no goals for other than to work as hard as I can. I have been "not training" quite a lot--8 straight weeks of 17+ hours. But it's all been fun. Still, I know I need some rest when I sleep almost 11 hours as I did last night!

I tend to forget all the close calls I've had with cars while out biking and running. Yes, running! A few years ago, I switched from running mostly on the roads near home to running on the sidewalks, after I read that the hardness of asphalt and concrete are much closer than I once believed. Plus, I figured sidewalks are safer. Well that has not always proven to be true, and yesterday was another example.

Drivers have become worse and worse over the years, believing that they can focus on driving a 2-ton piece of metal while also yelling and grabbing at their kids, putting on makeup, gesturing wildly while talking on their cell phones, etc. Me? I still use my turn signals and rarely if ever talk on the phone. I am very conscious of pedestrians, runners and cyclists because I am one myself. At intersections, I look left and right. I try and drive very defensively and mindfully.

You would think running on sidewalks is not so dangerous, right? You would be wrong. I can't tell you how many times I have been cut off by cars when I have the right away even when there is a stop sign or stop light. Cars rolling through stop signs or barely stopping. People parking their cars so they block the sidewalk making it impossible to tell if someone is backing out of the other side of the driveway. I know most urban areas conspire against locomoting without a car and this is a factor in the soaring obesity rates. But I digress.

Yesterday I was about 1.5 miles from home when I was cut off by a minivan turning right into a driveway into a daycare center at a park. I was on the sidewalk, the driver was on the cellphone with a child in the back seat standing up not wearing a seat belt. The kid was waving his arms wildly and the driver was oblivious as to why someone would be on the sidewalk doing anything, I guess. I was running downhill, and I saw the minivan, so I hit the brakes. The minivan was clearly exceeding the speed limit and not paying attention. I was a bit miffed, and wanted to give the driver a piece of my mind. The driver was now parked in front of the day care center and I began walking that way. I decided not to confront, just to use the water fountain and give a look like, "Did you even fucking NOTICE me?" The driver was texting, I think. Really trying to ignore me.

There had been a lawn service truck with trailer behind the minivan, and he had pulled into the parking lot. The driver smiled at me, and so I asked if he saw what happened, and he had. He said, "She cut you off." He said he'd seen me running at least 1/4 mile back and knowing that he was turning into a park where (huge surprise) lots of children hang out and play that he should slow down before turning in.

Once again, I was just happy to be alive. About15 minutes later, after I'd done some strides in the park and run a bit more, I got to an intersection with a stop light and noticed that something was still there that I'd encountered on a few previous runs. It's one of these. The first time I saw it, I didn't know what it was and since I have a collection of small toys I've found while out running and biking, I was curious to see what it was. So I unscrewed it and figured out it was bubbles, so I made a bunch and was laughing. I mean, how can you not smile and laugh while making bubbles? I did get some odd looks from drivers probably wondering why someone who is clearly out for a run was making bubbles at a busy intersection. That day (I think it was over a week ago), I decided some kid probably was missing his/her toy, so I put the wand down and left it there. I must have run by it twice more last week and either forgot about it or didn't want to take time to play with it. But yesterday I saw it was still there. There wasn't much soap left in it (meaning others had stopped to play with it, too!), but I worked to get whatever I could out of it, having forgotten I had almost been killed just a short time before. This time, I noticed a few drivers who actually smiled at seeing me acting all childlike, but there were also some glum faces. When I was convinced I was out of soap, I put the wand back down under the stop light and ran home.

Why were those bubbles there? Maybe someone was secretly filming at the intersection to see who would play with them. I may have to go and buy some more bubble solution and refill the wand and check and see that it gets used. At any rate, I forgot all about the minivan, and certainly about being angry that it had happened.

During this break from serious training, I've noticed many people smiling at me while I'm running. Sometimes I think they wonder why that old lady is running half naked (I still get glares from plenty of women). Sometimes I get looks while I'm riding Skull Kingdom that I'm some sort of heathen (why else would I have skulls all over my bike?). But the smiles are great. It makes me wonder whether I hadn't noticed them before or whether I look happier and that is why they are smiling at me. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

What was the point of this post? A few things: pay attention while driving, be grateful and don't forget to stop and play with random toys!

I'm Baaaaack...

2011-07-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been since April that I have posted here. Things are much improved, and while I am not currently planning any marathons, 1/2 Ironmans or longer for the rest of the year, I am back to "working out vigorously." I caution against calling it training, since the only race I have planned is an Olympic distance in 3 weeks that I serendipitously got an email about a few weeks ago. I was so shocked that there was a triathlon that I could still sign up for close by, that I immediately went to the website, read about it, filled out the registration information, and then I was afraid to hit the SUBMIT button! How's that for irony? I may suck terrifically, or not, but I intend to enjoy the experience and find out whether I still have a hankering for competition.

I have been back to running for 6 weeks now, and last week was the first week where all the running I did was running, i.e., there was no walking. My first 2 weeks back it was a 1'run/1'walk thing, then 1'run/1.5'walk, and then I just went for it. It didn't help that I began running again in the hottest part of the year, and we really have had some major heat. But that was probably a good thing, because I had to reaccustom my legs to the pounding while heat acclimating and working on raising my threshold. I didn't do any speed building workouts until this past Saturday when I went and ran on the indoor track and got a taste for running near my old 5k pace. OUCH! But there is no rush for me to get fast.

The reason I started running again when I did was because I had a dream the prior week that I was running. When I woke up from that dream, I decided, fuck it, I am going to give running a go next week. And I did. And of course it did suck, and I thought maybe I felt something afterward, but the next time I ran again, I was fine, and declared that I was back. I thought I should do some formal program for "return to running," but I sort of just winged it. Since I hadn't been doing anything hard for weeks on end, I knew my heart would hold me back more than anything, so I just let my heart be my guide. But I will tell you that the feeling of running again brought me so much joy! I really had gone through a grieving period there, which is common when athletes are injured, and knowing that I could run again was just the best!

I had also not been outside on a road bike while I was down from running, and I was dying to ride Skull Kingdom since I'd had the new aerobars put on last fall and never used them. That bike fits me like a glove, and it felt good to ride, and the next day I rode 55 miles on my MTB so I figured I was good to go for a 60-mile road ride, which I did. Everything felt good.

So now, knowing that I could run and bike normally again, I had to decide how much "training" I wanted to do on a weekly basis while not killing myself. I decided in 4.5 hours of running, 6.5 hours biking, 3 hours swimming and 1.5 hours of strength training. Add it up, it's 15.5 hours a week! That's still a hefty amount, but I threw it out there as a sort of maximum amount, subject to how I feel.

So a few weeks into being able to work out normally, and I hadn't been swimming much, I registered for the triathlon in Bangs Lake. Then I figured I needed to swim a bit more seriously, as I'd been on 2 a week swims just noodling around. And I would need to ride harder, so I did a 60-mile ride on 7/4 and managed about 18.5mph. A week ago I rode 82 at 19mph. So I guess my bike fitness is nearly back. Swimming will come back enough to make it through 1500 meters without much effort (and probably slowly). On the running side, I just need to stay consistent with my running, and not stop. I am not taking formal walk breaks anymore, but if I feel like I need to rest I just stop. It is tough to say how much of that in the last 2 weeks has been due to the extreme heat and humidity or to me just sucking. I'd say a little of both!

So after all that, I wrote up what I learned from this layoff, and here it is for your reading enjoyment:

I needed the break. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I wouldn’t slow down or take a break until forced to. Now having taken a long break from running, and from high amounts of swimming and biking, I realize just how much I was beating the crap out of myself and how fatigued I was. ALL THE TIME. But I have no regrets. Should I choose to ramp up for another Ironman or longer, I will do my best to incorporate more rest, and a long layoff (4+ weeks) at the end of the cycle.
3 marathons plus a double marathon in one year is probably too much running for me.
The more I exercise, the easier it is for me to eat cleanly. I seem to crave better food when I’m exercising more.
Keeping good workout records is a good thing. Even though I didn’t recognize the signs indicating I needed a huge break early enough, now I can look back on my own records and see that seemingly small things I was noticing were truly significant.
Sitting (as has now been shown in scientific studies) is REALLY bad. Since I’ve been putting in a good amount of overtime since I switched positions last September, I was sitting more. I have made a conscientious effort to stand whenever possible while working, and have given up sitting in an actual chair. Sitting on the stability ball seems to be a good thing for me.
I need to exercise, and some of it has to be hard. It seems to help with my mental demons. It is true that when I don’t work out so much I get depressed. I was. Exercise has always been a form of meditation for me. When I don’t do it, or it isn’t as vigorous as I’d like, I am prone to distorted thinking, which is the hallmark of depression.
Nothing feels like running except RUNNING. Even though running rarely feels easy to me, especially having started back up in the heat of summer, it’s the effort of moving my body through space and experiencing the reality of gravity that, even though it often makes me grimace, somehow makes me feel better for having done it.
Walking can be good exercise, but you need to do a lot of it to equal the benefit from 25-30 miles per week of running. And unless you live in a highly scenic area, it gets boring. But I’m glad I walked a lot. I have gotten in the habit of walking to and from the Y to swim, haircuts, wherever. When used for transportation, it’s a good thing. Saves money, too! I am learning that walking can be great for recovery as well.
The way I experienced sciatica is different than the norm. I didn’t have the shooting pain down the backs of my legs—it hurt to sit for longer than 15 minutes and my feet hurt in different places at different times. Rest combined with some different exercises and stretches, and sometimes less stretching, must have corrected the muscle imbalances causing a disk to be out of place and put pressure on the sciatic nerves.
I never thought I’d drink Gatorade G2. Now I figure that unless I am training over about 13 hours a week that I should stick with G2. Over 13 hours, I will go with full strength Gatorade or maybe continue using G2 for swims, as long as said swims are less than 1.5 hours.
Strength training is still awesome. I think everyone should do it. Why? Because when you can’t run or bike, you will still maintain some semblance of muscle, and there are some movements I do during strength training that provide a test of key areas. In my case, I could elicit hamstring pain (sciatic) while doing standing leg curls. I never went beyond the point of extreme pain, but once I could do them with no pain at all, I knew I was close to being able to run again.
It’s fun to be incognito. By that I mean, not telling new people I meet about what I have done in the past and instead focusing on them. Corollary: Let my legs do the talking!
I’ve had the pleasure of biking (MTB) with my brother Mike a few times now, and I hope we do it like once a week in the fall. I ride to his house (about 11.5 miles), we ride together, and then I keep going and ride home.
It would be easy for me to slip back into my old ways of mega-training. In the 5 weeks that I have been running, I have built back up about 30 miles of running and 160 miles of biking per week. I am still slacking at swimming, but no need to put in big yards unless I’m going for IM+ distance. I am amazed at how quickly my fitness is returning. I do want to do one or two century rides and a 200k ride, and I am doing an Olympic distance triathlon (at which I will suck) in 3 weeks, but I have no burning desire for a ½ or full IM. Not even a marathon! What that means for next year and beyond, I have no clue. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time, though! I do enjoy being fit, and biking is still my favorite thing.
It has been nice to have the time (and energy) to spend some quality time in my flower beds, even though I still have a ways to go. I did not plant anything new this year—I have just been thinning things out and trying to stay ahead of weeds.
I developed a bad habit of watching more TV than I used to. I need to get back to reading, but I need to decide if I want to stay with paper books or get some sort of electronic reader. Despite working in high tech, I am notoriously slow in adopting new gadgetry. I still like knowing that at the end of a day, I can tuck into bed with a good book and when I’m ready to go to sleep, I can just throw it on the floor and not worry about breaking something! Plus, the physical presence of various books all over the house reminds me of things in a way that no single piece of equipment ever could. Like cookbooks stacked on top of my microwave reminding me of something I haven’t cooked in awhile, or art books on coffee tables reminding me of beauty or my bookshelf full of sports-related books.
That first Coke after a long layoff sure tasted good! Since I only drink it right before a workout or on long runs, the flavor signifies go fast or go hard! The same is true of my custom Infinit mix. Not that it tastes great, but I am usually able to ride pretty hard when drinking it.
I sweat A LOT. I just don’t notice it as long as it’s evaporating. In the high humidity we had here last week, though, I looked like I had been in a pool while out running after maybe 15 minutes. Yesterday I biked indoors at the Y with no fan blowing on me and I was making puddles. I would wipe the sweat off my face and arms, and it would be back in under 10 minutes. I already knew I sweated concentrated in terms of salt, but it was a good reminder to visually see just how much as a reminder to stay on top of hydration.

I can't say how often I will post here, but it should be more than during the last 4 months!

Long Time no Post

2011-04-11T14:40:00.003-05:00

The 3 people who read my blog have asked what's going on, and the 3 people who regularly communicate with me on Facebook, so here goes...

I'm on injured reserve. Some sort of muscle imbalances plus some amount of training a lot for 10 years I guess. Sciatica, which is just a symptom, not a root cause, is the order of the day. I waited too long to do the needful--once I was experiencing symptoms bilaterally, I knew it was time to do something.

Did the doctor and a bit of physical therapy. I don't have the $ to go to a pro sports physician, and I know more about myself than most PT's can tell me, so I excused myself from that 2 weeks ago.

I haven't run in about 4 weeks and just started biking last week. I have kept swimming, but stopped the super long swims on Fridays. No sense in doing them when I'm not officially training! I am not registering for Ultraman Hawaii.

I guess this is the rest I've needed for a long time. Right now I'm just happy that I can bike some, although it's not all on the road bike yet. I've been doing some walking, but it bores the heck out of me. If I lived in the mountains, I'd be hiking a ton, but I don't live in the mountains, sadly, and last time I checked, you can't rent a mountain in Illinois.

Since I figure I have had some sciatic symptoms for about 9 months, it could take awhile to undo this. One thing the PT did tell me was that I have weak abs. Well, I don't think they are truly weak--maybe my back is just a lot stronger. So I have been doing extra abs work, which can never hurt. I have also needed to change up my stretching, because some stretches just weren't working any longer.

At one time I had a few hypotheses about how I got to this point but I really can't put my finger on anything. Not like I can't use the break, though, right?

Yes, it's made me depressed. Not so much taking a break, but not knowing when I will be 100% again. I'm not debilitated--it just hurts if I sit too long (which I try to avoid), and running seems to aggravate it. I'm not in lots of pain--it's just annoying. I want to wake up, get out of bed and not feel ANYTHING in my glutes/hamstrings--then I will know I'm truly good to go.

I recognize that I need to be careful because I could easily overdo something else and make things worse. Someone asked me about water running, and I have no desire to do it. I have lost my drive, and soon I will be OK with it, because I am not fatigued all the time and can do other things. Mostly I just want to be able to go on some long rides!

I think my mega training days are behind me now, and that's OK. But I still want to stay in the triathlon game, and am itching to get back to it, but I am going to take my time with this so I heal up right. Like I said, one of these days I will wake up and nothing will hurt and I will sit down and nothing will hurt and then I will begin thinking about competition again. Until then, I'll keep swimming, lifting, biking as much as tolerated and stay generally active. I will say that going from what I was used to down to 11-12 hours a week makes me feel truly lazy. Plus I need to be more careful about my diet. I don't think I've gained any weight, but I can see how easy it is to overeat if you're not working out much at all. No more constant snacking or eating until I'm completely full at dinner time. Sucks!

I will learn from this as I always do--how to recognize and be even more tuned into things going on in my body. Last year was just so crazy that I can see how I misinterpreted some things. Add to that a built up tolerance to pain and discomfort and there you go.

Well this too shall pass I just hope it's before summer!

Last Day of January and a Little Race Report

2011-01-31T14:34:00.004-06:00

Thought I should check in here for all 3 readers of my blog ;)

So I had my "day I thought I might be sick and took a complete day of rest instead" on 21-JAN, then I trained well over the weekend. On Monday, I felt suitably worked over, but still managed to swim. My legs felt a bit sore (not just fatigued), so instead of running, I just walked on the treadmill, doing a hill workout. Didn't feel tired doing it, but as soon as I got off, I felt super tired. This is not uncommon for a Monday. Being at work is just "that much more" stress that it can put me over the top, fatigue-wise.

Tuesday morning when I woke up (after having slept 11 hours), my legs were SORE. I am pretty good at distinguishing fatigue from sore related to a particular workout, but this was much worse. It was my body telling me to rest my legs totally or things would just get worse. So I did. I had a run and bike scheduled, and I just skipped them, hoping the one day of rest would be all that I needed.

Wednesday morning I swam again and when it was time for my tempo run, my legs were feeling pretty good, and I had a really good run, so good call on taking Tuesday off. I ran again Thursday morning, and did a hard ride later on which went well.

I wasn't looking forward to Friday's long swim. I know I technically don't need to do all these long swims right now, and I know I have the fitness to build up to 10k whenever I want, but the reality is that doing a 2+ hour swim before work is a different animal, and if I get out of the groove for just a week, they seem to tax me more than I'd done one the prior week. Which was the case. I only swam 6700 (should have gotten in 7000 but I jabbered too much before starting), and even with all the right nutrition and such, I was pretty whacked the rest of the day. I had a small desire to make up for my lost Tuesday run, but instead I finished lifting for the week. I do find that I feel better after the long swims if I do about 1/2 hour of SOMETHING. I am so used to a morning and then mid-day workout during the week that it has become almost necessary.

Saturday I only had to do a 2:15 trainer ride because I would be racing on Sunday. The mental ease of this "short" of a ride compared to 3 hours was awesome. Initially I hadn't planned on running afterward, but I thought what the hell, 20 minutes shouldn't hurt, so I did, and it didn't feel too bad. When I finished, I watched World Cup Skiing (alpine) for a couple of hours. I have become addicted to it, especially since Ivica Kostelic is in the overall lead. He's Croatian, like me, so I am rooting for him. Whenever I'm on the trainer, I've been watching Universal Sports, and I've caught a lot of skiing and just started following it.

Sunday morning I felt a little worked from Saturday's workout. I think I've been biking pretty hard, but the Ergomo on LGL is shot so I have just been basing my intervals on speed. I may be riding harder than I think or vice versa. I know my heart rate is in the dumpster, as I just never feel like I'm taxing my heart anymore (more on that later). I had written a warmup for the race of 15' on the treadmill and 15' on the bike (and whatever swim I could get in at the race venue).

My legs actually felt pretty good running, so I guessed that I actually had a bit of race day adrenaline going! What a nice change of pace! When I got on the bike, same thing. I had a slight concern I might be warming up too hard, but who can say?

I got to the club where the race was being held with not much time to spare. I did check out what kind of bikes they were using this year--some alien things I'd never seen before, and neither had anyone else. They put you in the most god awful position like you are going to fall into the display unit, and the saddles are designed for a 10 year old's butt. Oh well, everyone has the same issue.

I got into the pool and it was pretty cold for me. I had a gutter lane and was next to a big guy that I pegged as not the greatest swimmer. I was so concerned about gunning it on the swim or hyperventilating that I just took it super easy--TOO easy. I did feel like I was getting slammed into the wall with waves much of the time. When I got out, I wasn't the least bit winded, so yeah, I can swim faster than that. My volunteer lap counter remarked at how fit I am. It wasn't because of my swim speed, though!

When I got on the evil bike, I had no clue what strategy I should use. A friend said that the resistance was more than you might suspect, so I stuck with what I had used all the other years on the Precor bikes. It seemed to work for me, and I got in more mileage than I thought I would, which seemed to confirm that my bike training has been spot on. But I think I can do better in the race 2 weeks from now.

I did have to lay on the floor for about a minute after I got off the bike, so I think I gave it a good go. Now onto the run. I have not felt good about my run speed for a few months. It seems to be coming back to me, but I have felt like I've been struggling. Still, I just wanted to just run evenly and not slow down. I left my watch with my bottle of Infinit on the sideline.

I just took off and let the rabbits go. I kept telling myself "it's just 15 minutes" and tried to keep a steady pace. I did not look at the race clock because I didn't want to know how much I was sucking. I did get lapped once by a few people, but I also lapped 4 or 5 people in my wave. If I had taken off my headphones, I would have known that I stopped a bit early, and I could have banged out another 1/32 of a mile maybe. I did go and look at the results board and see that I got 2nd in my AG. I was a bit surprised, because I figured I sucked enough for 3rd, but I was good with 2nd. The woman in 1st aged up this year, and she's a much better swimmer than me, but I was surprised she didn't pass me on the run. So maybe there's hope for me in the next race...

I never felt that "heart jumping out of my chest" sensation while running. I think my heart rate just doesn't go too high anymore. I can wear an HRM on the treadmill and bike, but I hate the way the chest strap feels, but I might give it a go just to see where it is.

I got a massage and then headed back to the treadmills to run 1:15 (which sucked), caught the end of a friend's race, got another massage, watched the elite wave and then headed home. Even though I'd gotten about :35 of massage, I felt compelled to stretch some more at home. I got lucky that Universal Sports was just beginning to show more World Cup Skiing, and I got to see my main man Ivica win the Super Combined.

Today I managed to swim 3,000 yards in the morning and actually ran for :20 at lunchtime. I am still pretty tired, and will need a good night of rest to recover some more tonight. I am being watchful of my fatigue status because I have a "real" race in 4 weeks--Gasparilla--and I need to be 100% healthy for it. I have been training A LOT, but I also need to keep my eyes on the prize--my "A" race isn't until November. Still, I expect high performance out of myself all the time, so it's a delicate balancing act I have to follow.

In other news, I'm really enjoying baking stuff for my breakfast. Muffins are so damn easy to make, and you can fudge the ingredient composition a bit unlike for say, a cake. Last Friday night I made some carrot/raisin muffins, and I punched up the protein content with some wheat germ. They are really tasty! On Sunday I made a walnut cake (OH NO!) because I had some walnuts hanging around that needed using. I calculated the calories in the entire cake and decided that 12 pieces were in order, and I can have a slice whenever I want! I have also been cooking up a storm this winter and have to be careful lest I have no room in my freezer.

Now I will just wait for this alleged blizzard to show up. Other than making it inconvenient to get to the pool (I can walk if I have to), I'm all set. I have plenty of food, Gatorade, beer. I'm not looking forward to moving a bunch of snow, but it will need to be done. I may swim tomorrow morning just because Wednesday is supposed to be hellacious, and then I don't have to go anywhere until Friday, so by then the roads should be passable.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Fashion Update/Listening to My Body

2011-01-23T15:53:00.003-06:00

It's winter, and it's the time of year when I typically catch a cold, most likely from training hard and not taking rest days and blah, blah, blah.

So Thursday morning I just didn't feel up to running, but I figured I could at least do a walking hill workout on Hal. I did 35' and then felt like running and ran for 10'. A few hours later, I could feel a tickle in the left side of my throat. I took note and pondered whether I should get on the bike or not.

I did get on the bike, and actually worked pretty hard for 1:15, but I figured that was enough (I only left off :15 of the designated workout). As soon as I got off the bike, I felt like I had jelly legs, but later on I went ahead and fixed 6 hours worth of Infinit for a 2.5 hour swim Friday and 2.75 hour ride Saturday plus a run afterwards. I did not load the coffee pot for the next morning as I usually do.

Friday when I woke up, the sort throat was gone, but extreme fatigue was there. I'd slept 10 hours and wanted to go right back to bed. I notified work that I wouldn't be working, grabbed a book that I'd already read (Angeles Crest--A Memoir) and got into bed and read a lot. By noon, I was feeling like I needed to move around (because I typically feel worse with zero exercise), got up, made some coffee and eventually went to the grocery store and felt good that I got something done on a sick day. I was also letting myself indulge on more carbs (a few Fig Newtons and some crackers) than I had been for the past few weeks.

Friday night I was still fatigued, but did not want to go to sleep too early which I took as a sign of maybe I'm not really sick. I'd also checked my training schedule and realized it had been 4 weeks since my last recovery week, and the last one I'd taken I ended up doing 17.5 hours anyway so that explained a lot!

I slept really well Friday night and needed to begin training by 7AM in order to make a massage appointment at 12:15. I decided to get on the bike with only Gatorade in case I really was sick and I didn't want to risk not being able to fall asleep later because I'd ingested too much caffeine. I decided to ride easy, and managed to get in my full 2:45 ride. Towards the end, I pondered whether I wanted to, could or should run afterward. I ended up getting on Hal and actually feeling pretty good! But I kept the running to z1/z2 so I wouldn't tax myself too much. I got in :35 and was pretty much OK with it.

The massage was great as always, and after that I wasn't good for much, so I just took it easy and hoped that I would feel OK today. I ended up sleeping almost 12 hours last night! I made a note to myself that maybe I should cut back my caffeine intake and sleep another :15-:30 a night, even though I am finally averaging 9 hours/night again. But another :15-:30 nightly would make a huge difference.

This morning I felt a little sluggish from sleeping so much I guess, but no runny nose, no cough, no shortness of breath, no sore throat, so it was time to go for a run at the Y. I gave myself the option to just run easy and to cut it short if I didn't feel up for it, but as it turns out, I felt pretty good and managed 15 miles! How about that! I stretched a bit and then hit the pool, but didn't feel like spending too much time in there so I only did 1000 yards. So what--this week I didn't swim much.

I just did an analysis of what I am typically eating on a weekday and it looks like I'm not eating enough carbs. I did notice this week that I was starting to crave more carbs but not feeling particularly extra hungry, but at least this confirms it. I am more or less down to my race weight (109), and I'm starting to bike a bit more and running a decent amount, so it makes sense that I'd be craving more carbs. I think it just means I need to add more starch at dinner time. My protein and fat numbers (20% of calories) are right on the money, but I need to boost those carbs. As much as I would like to just grab a few bags of candy, I am going to hold off for another few weeks, and then I will let myself just go for it.

I honestly think that if more athletes took a hard look at what they are eating, how much they are sleeping, and bumping that against their training, they'd see where things need adjusting in order to feel better. For me, it's a constant effort to track things so that I can look and see where I might be slacking. There's a fine line between not enough carbs and too many, and since my training is constantly changing, I need to monitor that because either way is bad.

My hope is that tomorrow I will wake up after about 9 hours of sleep feeling refreshed and ready to go. I have 4 more hard weeks and then Gasparilla and a scheduled rest week which will be sorely needed. Even though I skipped Friday's swim, I still got in 15.5 hours of training this past week, which is rest-Y for me, but next week is another 17 hours scheduled.

Oh well at least I get to have fun chowing down on more carbs!

The Correct Questions and Ramblings

2011-01-14T11:18:00.003-06:00

Below are the answers with the correct questions from my previous post for all 2 people who still read my blog:

About 20 years (How long has it taken me to develop my current physique?)
Swimming (What do you think about when you swim for such a long time?)
Nothing. (What is your athletic background?)
When I am no longer able or I need a different challenge. (When are you going to stop doing all these long distance races?)
Because it has sugar, like Gatorade, but also caffeine. (Why are you drinking Coke while you run? I thought it was bad for you.)
More than that. (How much do you weigh? Like 90 pounds?)
No, my brothers and sisters are all quite overweight. (You must have really good genetics to look that way?)
No, I can’t. (You can eat whatever you want, right?)
2 or more hours per day, on average. (How much do you work out?)
4-6 times per week. (Do you run every day?)

A friend notified me about another event that I am going to do called 24 Hours of Triathlon. I already have a team mate, and I am pumped about doing this. I guess I will need to alter my training schedule a little for this to allow for a taper, huh? It's perfect timing for me, though--by that time I'll be more than ready for another Ironman-ish training day, and bonus, doing it as a team will just be fucking fun!

In other news, I "only" swam 6100 yards this morning. Boy does it feel nice to not be feeling whacked on a Friday! Although my bike and run training is picking up again, so I'm already at a pretty hefty weekly volume. I am getting some run speed back, and my biking legs seem to be coming back, too. Putting together my typical winter Ultraman training week and executing every workout to the letter is quite challenging. It goes like this:

Monday: AM :15 upper body and core strength then swim up to 3000 yards (intervals); mid-day easy-ish run up to :50.
Tuesday: AM lift 1-1.5 hours; mid-day bike 1:30 including 1:00 of hard shit.
Wednesday: AM :15 upper body and core strength then swim up to 3500 yards (intervals); mid-day tempo run up to 1:05 and whenever I can fit it in try and finish up my lifting.
Thursday: AM easy-ish run up to :50; mid-day bike 1:30 including 1:00 of hard shit.
Friday: AM swim 5,000-9,500 yards in sets of 1000, 1500, 2000 or whatever I feel like that morning.
Saturday: Bike 2:00-3:00 including 1:30-2:15 of hard shit; :30-:40 brick run
Sunday: Long run 1:40-2:15 ascending pace including :30+ z4, 1,000-1,500 easy swimming/drills.

It usually takes me 6-8 weeks to get to the point where I can nail all the fast running, hard biking and hard swimming while I am also trying to lift heavy! But it's all worth it--when it starts to come together, I feel awesome and then ready to go longer on the bike come springtime. At that point, my weekly pattern changes and all hell breaks loose as I try and get in 8+ hours of riding a week.

On another positive note, I am about at my race weight. All I did was cut out candy and some snacks. I'm trying to eat more fruits and veggies and less processed food and am doing well on that front, but I also know that when the composition of my training changes to go heavier on the biking that I will once again need to introduce snacks and candy. I can't wait!!! I had breakfast with a friend on Tuesday and he asked whether Twinkies were banned from my diet. NO WAY! I never ate that many of them anyway. I miss gummi bears, Pringles and Cheetos. They will all make their appearance in a few months! Salt and sugar, baby!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I plan on it!

Play Crackhead Jeopardy and Win a Prize!

2011-01-09T15:20:00.002-06:00

A friend of mine at the Y today told me I should get a T-shirt printed up with the top 10 answers to questions I get from people about my body/fitness/workouts/races.

So...here are the answers. Whoever correctly comes up with the questions will win something of my choosing:

About 20 years
Swimming
Nothing.
When I am no longer able or I need a different challenge.
Because it has sugar, like Gatorade, but also caffeine.
More than that.
No, my brothers and sisters are all quite overweight.
No, I can’t.
2 or more hours per day, on average.
4-6 times per week.

Radical Fitness Proposal

2011-01-03T04:55:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I did my long run on the treadmill at the Y. When I was about 8 miles in, a woman who looked to be at least 30 pounds overweight got on the treadmill to my left. I'd never seen her before, but that's not surprising as I don't keep track of everyone who enters and exits while I'm there.

She turned to me and I saw her lips moving, but couldn't hear her over my music. I took my headphones off and said, "I'm sorry--what did you say?" She said, "I'm going to look like you in 6 months."

My immediate reaction was just to smile, and why not? I was feeling pretty good considering on the way to the Y I was seriously considering bagging the run altogether, as I was feeling the effects of 6 consecutive 16+ hour training weeks. It wouldn't have hurt at all to skip the run, but I really wanted to swim a little, so I had to at least show up, and once I got going, I felt great. I forced myself to start out slowly and decided I would "reward" myself with some Coke after 30 minutes.

After I collected my thoughts, I replied to the woman, "This took about 20 years," which I'm pretty sure took her by surprise. I know many people focus just on how it looks, not the infrastructure behind it such as the cardiovascular fitness, strength training, attention to diet, etc. Still, whenever someone asks me how long it took to achieve my current condition, I typically say it's a work in progress, but that so far it's been about 54 years...

I realized that what I said to the woman might have sounded a little stand-offish, so I then said, "But it's never too late to start, and I thank you for the compliment and good luck with your goals." She then proceeded to start up the treadmill at a pretty slow pace to just walk, and I gave her a few minutes to get going and try and do it right, but she was holding on!

I figured since she struck up conversation with me that I now had the green light to offer some advice. I took off my headphones and started gently with my usual joking around of, "Is that how you walk outside? Do you have a walker?" She said no, and then I did my usual spiel. I did something new this time, though, and said, "Let me show you how to walk with good form." I now realize that many people don't know how to walk! I slowed down my machine to 3.8mph and demonstrated--head up, chest open, arms relaxed--basically good posture moving forward. I told her that many people get this idea in their head that if they make the machine go so fast or on such an incline that they have to hold on that they aren't getting the workout they imagine and that they need to first learn how to walk at a pace where they don't need to hang on and can do it well.

That woman let go of the machine until I was finished, and then I went to the track to finish up my own run. As I was running around the track, I saw many people walking. Some of them clearly were not there to exercise, and some of them had absolutely horrendous posture. I'd say that maybe 15% of them were actually walking with good form.

And so I've figured out my next career--teaching people how to walk. Think about it--the number of kids who still walk to grade school is way down, many kids drive to high school, and then the amount of walking people do just goes down from there. When you walk a lot for transportation, you learn to walk fast, you learn to walk with good posture--because if you don't, it really doesn't work so well.

And then people get older and fatter because they are eating the same amount and not even walking anywhere. And then I see them on a treadmill giving it the old college try only they don't know how to do it properly. Or they sign up to train for a marathon where they are hoping to run but they don't even know how to walk properly.

Isn't there an old saying that goes WALK THEN RUN? Maybe I'm onto something...

After I finished up my running on the track, I went back into the cardio area and saw my new best friend on one of the weight machines. I didn't have time to walk over and show her the proper way to use it, so I just made a thumbs up sign and said, "Keep it up!" I'll just wait and see if she shows up again next Sunday. Wait until I let her in on the huge secret that the way I look is more a function of how I eat than how I exercise!

End of 2010/Beginning of 2011

2011-01-01T06:55:00.006-06:00

Yesterday I did my longest swim ever--13,500 yards--to cap off a great 2010:

PR'ed the marathon plus combined 1/2 plus full at Goofy Challenge in January
Won my AG at the Midwest Indoor Triathlon Series (all 3 races)
Finished Ultraman Canada (oldest female finisher!) and therefore qualified for Ultraman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii (racing in 2011). UMC featured my longest ride and run ever!
Did my 4th "full" NothingMan
Ran another marathon just for fun at Ironman Florida
Weathered a cornucopia of foot/hip issues--still working it all out--and still managed to race
Worked through a lot of self-confidence issues en route to UMC

I really can't complain about 2010. Stepping up to the Ultraman distance was the highlight, and not completely blowing myself up in the process was the reward. In retrospect, making the decision back in 2009 to do it was one of the biggest decisions in my life. I still get asked every so often (yesterday being the most recent) how training/racing Ultraman compares to Ironman. IMO the training is much harder not so much because you might be training more than you would for Ironman, but it does test your mental fortitude in a much different way. And the Ultraman race itself gives you 3 straight days of holding it together mentally vs. the single day of Ironman. To me, that is what makes Ultraman the bigger challenge--many people who are capable of a strong Ironman finish might have the physical goods to finish Ultraman, but you can't know of the mental component until you actually try it. Also, whereas with Ironman you can't get by without being a strong cyclist, for Ultraman everything is magnified--each leg is long enough that you can't afford to suck at any of them.

For those of you who are number junkies, below is a calendar year summary of my training for the last 4 years:

As you can see, I did a lot of swimming! My bike and run mileage came down from 2009 a bit, but overall what this shows me is that I can (sort of) sustain around 840 annual training hours. For 2011 and UMWC training, I hope to bring up the biking hours, since UMWC will have a much harder cycling portion than UMC did. I am going to take a chance on my run volume--while it would be nice to sneak in a 50-miler, I'm going to err on the side of biking more. That is the puzzle that is Ultraman--how much of what to do based on your strengths. For me, I know that the stronger I can bike, the better I will run.

Now about that longest swim yesterday. I was for sure going to do at least 10k (11,000 yards), but since I'd gotten ahead of myself on long swim for the prior 3 weeks, I figured I should be good for 12,500, which is just over 7 miles. That would make for a nice, overdistance swim. I can't get more than 3.5 hours of contiguous lap swim time at my Y, so when I want to swim more than that I have to go to Good Samaritan and pay to swim. I don't mind paying for this amount of lap time, since the Good Sam facility is really nice--the pool is always cooler than at the Y (81-82 typically vs. 84-85 for the Y), the lap lanes are never crowded when I go there, and there's a huge hot tub that is awesome for the post-workout relaxation.

Usually I make up how I am going to break up these long swims before I get to the pool, and since I had 12,500 in my head, I figured on 10x1,250, which is odd since I like doing even 100's! But then I thought about my refueling plan, which is to gulp down Infinit every 30 or 40 minutes, so while I was doing the first 1250, I had a bright idea of doing 250 kick or backstroke or drills or something after the straight yardage, and that would bring me to 1500 before I'd need to drink Infinit.

So now in my head I am doing 1500 repeats, and now I'm doing math to get to 12,500. 8x1500 is 12,000. So I settled on 9. Don't ask me my logic! 9x1500 comes out to 13,500, and I began thinking whether I could do this much--last week's long swim was 9800. That's a pretty significant jump, but I've done 11,000 before so I figured that 2500 more would be doable.

I did the first 4 rounds of 1500, then I got bored and decided to do intervals of 250's, which was good mentally, because I could do 5x250 of something and then my 250 of kicking or whatever to give my face a break from the goggles, give my arms a slight break, or whatever I wanted to do for it.

Much of doing this long stuff is about managing those voices in your head--the ones telling you that what you are doing is boring, that it hurts, that you don't really need to do this. You need to be calm and relaxed mentally while working through the pain and boredom issues. Although I don't really experience it as boredom so much as staying in the moment--focusing on the next goal, which is to finish the current repeat or the current set. Then once I finish one piece, instead of focusing on how fucking awesome I am for having gone so far, I forget about that and look to the next goal.

I had just about finished 12,000 when a guy I know but haven't seen in about a year showed up. I was unusually lucid at this point in that I recognized him and got a huge grin across my face. A part of me thought I'd done enough and could just stop. After all, 12,000 would have been my longest swim ever. But I got to talking to Shawn a bit and he asked me about my last year and I was wearing the swimsuit that I wore at UMC and also my race swim cap (in retrospect a good idea for these long swims--the race caps don't compress my head as much as my regular swim caps!), and as we got to talking it was fun to see his eyes bug out when I confirmed that yes, I had done Ultraman 5 months ago!

Shawn said he only had time for 1500, and I told him that was "all" I had left, and so off we went. I don't really think I was going to bag that last 1500, but sometimes the universe steps in just to make sure I stay true to my objective. Shawn finished before me (as I expected--I was a bit tired at this point), we chatted a bit more, and went our separate ways.

I don't think it was such a big deal for me to swim that much, although I was very happy at how much stronger I've become in the last year. I won't say that swim was a snap, but it didn't tax me as much as the 10k swim I did a year ago did! I even had visions of maybe doing some sort of ultra swim event, but I know I would need to develop some more speed before I do that. Hmm...now I'm thinking 2012 may be the year I get that swim coaching I've talked about and cut back on the yardage. Funny how these things come to me.

I have no plans to swim longer than I did yesterday during 2011, but I did make a few changes to my training plan and will do another 4.5-5 hour swim (crap maybe I will go longer!) 3 weeks out from UMWC. Now if I can just fit in another marathon someplace...

The thing I've learned about training plans is that it's good to set down your overall plan (ATP), fill in the blanks, and then make adjustments to things based on actual performance along the way. Which might mean going faster or longer at times than initially planned. It makes me feel like I'm not so locked into my original plans. But some of that comes with the years of long distance experience I have, and that is a great thing.

I am going to kick off 2011 training with a 2:15 trainer ride and my first brick run since...NothingMan IV!!!

May your 2011 see you hitting your goals--not just the original ones you made, but the adjusted ones you make along the way!

Christmas Eve 3/3

2010-12-26T05:59:00.006-06:00

Every year, if possible, I try and do a big workout the week of Christmas and the following week, since I get a day off of work.

This year I penciled in a 3-hour swim followed by a 3-hour ride. Last year I swam 9100 yards and then rode 90 miles on the trainer, so this years' workout should be a snap, right?

No. It major-ly SUCKS to bike after a really long swim, although I guess it didn't suck so badly at UMC--but I was excited because it was a race.

Last year, I had the day off work before the big workout, but this year not. I did a relatively easy 1-hour trainer ride on Thursday, a 30' easy run, and nearly an hour of heavy lifting. In retrospect, I'm not sure how I fit all that in, but that is true of many of my weekdays.

When I woke up Friday morning, my entire upper body was sore from the lifting, so I figured the swim would be interesting. I had my usual pre-race/pre-big event breakfast of a Power Bar Triple Threat and 400 calories of Ultrafuel. Every time I use Ultrafuel, I'm amazed at how within 5 minutes of drinking it down my nose runs profusely (and I just looked it up this is called Gustatory Rhinorrhea). If I didn't know that this was a normal side effect of ingesting so much sugar in a few gulps, I might think I was sick! I got to the Y before the doors opened at 5AM. They opened the doors a few minutes late, but I was OK with that. I knew I'd have time to swim at least 9,000 yards.

I think I must have stood on deck a few extra minutes because I didn't start swimming until 5:08. Most times I do these really long swims I start to make something up in my head about how I am going to break it up depending on how I feel as soon as I wake up, but I also change the plan while I'm going. I felt like starting out with a nice 2500 straight swim. The water was a nice temperature--just about 85--although I would have liked it to be colder. My arms hurt right away, even though I had stretched before I started and even worked on my forearms. Oh well!

Next I did 500 of something involving fins--I don't remember exactly, but there was some drill work in there and just some kicking on my back so I could stretch out my lats. While doing that, I thought about what I wanted to do next. I decided on doing 250's as 200 free/50 kick at a pretty good clip (for me). Initially, I thought about doing 10 to knock out another 2500, but then since I was able to speed up a little as I went, I extended that to 12, then 14, then 16, knowing that the more of these I did, the less I would have left when I finished them. Each one was done with 20 seconds or so of rest. My arms were not happy, but I needed to press on. After I finished this set, part of me really wanted to just stop swimming, and I could have, as 7,000 yards would have been "enough," but I had the day off and plenty of time to swim at least another 2,000 yards, so it would be stupid to quit.

It was nice to take off the goggles for 300 kick after that! It goes without saying that I was pounding down Infinit in between these sets. Many swimmers came and left up to this point. As my calves took turns cramping slightly, I decided the next set would be with the pull buoy. I used to do the pulling part right after my "warmup," but have switched since a few weeks ago to save the pulling for last. Why? Because it fucking sucks. If I can still manage to work my way through the water this way, it should make me stronger. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

Based on the clock time, I knew I'd have time to at least meet last week's 9500 yard swim. I even had designs on hitting 10000 yards, but I wasn't sure whether I was going to be cut off at 8:30 or not. So I just kept going. My next set was 1500 pull. Shortly after I started, another guy got in the lane next to me, and he seemed to be just off my feet. All I could think to myself was, "Hey buddy I've got 7,000 yards on you already and I'm dog tired you should be able to go faster than me considering you're about a foot taller than me!" But he never got out in front of me, and when I stopped after 1500, he did too, and said, "You aren't stopping now, are you?" You can imagine the possible retorts going on inside my head--even though I might not have been counting so well at this point, I tried to maintain a sense of humor here. I told him that was 8800 yards so far and that yes, I was going to keep swimming until we were kicked out. He asked me whether I swam in college! That made me laugh--I mean, I'm slow, and he is slower than me. I told him no way, I've only been swimming for 10 years and that he had better get ready to go a bit faster as I was going to put on the big paddles. I didn't have time for chit chat, so off I went, and he came after me.

I don't remember how long it took me to lap him but it wasn't too long. I got in another 1000 yards before the guards began moving the lane ropes for the water aerobics class. Even though I was slightly disappointed I didn't knock out the 10000 even, hey, 9800 isn't bad for a day's work, is it? And it was more than I'd planned anyway, so all good, right?

I took my time in hoisting myself out of the pool, as I was in no hurry. A man I know asked me if that was my longest swim to which I replied, "Hell no. The Ultraman swim was 10K." For some reason, I guess it never stuck in his head all the times I told him what I'd been training for during the summer, but all is forgiven ;) I honestly don't expect most people to even comprehend what I'm training for. I promptly began babbling about I don't remember what, but I know I was talking at a fast pace. That's what happens when you are done swimming so much.

I took a nice, long, hot shower and then spent some time in the sauna stretching, feeling good that I'd swum that much but not really looking forward to getting on the bike. Still, it had to be done, and I'd brought my biking clothes with me to the Y and changed into them, spent some time catching up with a friend, then headed home to do the riding.

When I finally got on the bike (10:10AM--I fucked around too much in between workouts, but oh well nobody cares but me, right?), guess what was on Universal Sports? SWIMMING! This made me smile. It really is about the little things, I guess. It was the short course world championships from Dubai. Man, those athletes must hate swimming in a 25m pool as much as I hate 25 yards!

That lasted a little while and then downhill skiing was on. This got me more motivated, since I would try and ride a little harder for each run down the hill, and I got mad when a few men crashed--it messed up my rhythm!

My legs felt fine all the while I was riding, but if you've never tried it before, I highly recommend swimming for 2.5-3 hours and then immediately getting on a bike. Please report back how sucky it feels. Although near the end of the 3 hours I finally didn't feel all that bad. After all, I have done this before. The first time you do something like this, it doesn't really feel that bad because of the excitement of the unknown, but after you've done it a few times, you realize just how much it truly sucks, especially when you are going nowhere. Now, I know that when I'm doing this in Kona next November, it will hurt a lot (especially that most excellent fuck-me-in-the-ass 1500 ft. climb right out of the ocean), but at that point I will be going somewhere and the excitement of being back in Kona after not having been there since 2004 when I raced the Ironman should help carry me through.

When I am doing these things, there is this constant voice in my head saying EYES ON THE PRIZE--EYES ON THE PRIZE. And indeed, now my eyes are on my New Year's Eve swim, where I hope to do 12,000 yards as long as I can get enough continuous lap swim time. I'm going to be careful to get all my lifting done by Wednesday so that my upper body is somewhat rested. I know that my upper body will hurt at some point during the swim, but I will welcome the pain.

One of the Nicest Thank You's Ever

2010-12-23T06:39:00.003-06:00

Yesterday morning I went to the Y for my usual winter Wednesday routine: chinups, dips, pushups, dead bugs, bridges, jump rope, a little stretching (to forestall calf cramps) then a swim followed by stretching in the sauna.

As I was about to head into the pool, Betty came into the locker room and began thanking me profusely for correcting her on the treadmill starting maybe 3 months ago. Betty was "running" on the treadmill but holding on to either the side rails or the control panel frequently. She had the machine on a pretty good incline, too. I gently asked her why she was hanging on for dear life and explained that not only was it not good for her back, but it was faking a workout that could be much better. She took it pretty well initially, with a combination look of "who the fuck is this woman?" and "she looks like she probably knows a few things."

Over the next few weeks (this was before I had a treadmill at home so I was still running at the Y on weekdays), whenever I would see Betty on the treadmill and catch her holding on, I would just look at her and remind gently to stop doing that, and to either slow down the speed or reduce the incline or both. A few times when I would talk to her, I would also have the discussion about ego, and that lowering the incline and/or speed in order to be able to run WITHOUT HOLDING ON was going to yield an overall better workout for her. Literally, I was trying to teach her to LET GO!

A few weeks later, Betty commented to me about how much more she was sweating now without holding on. And as the weeks passed, when I would see her on a treadmill, I rarely saw her holding on anymore.

Yesterday she just began gushing about how thankful she was that I had approached her way back whenever that first was. She told me she now understood why people LIKE TO RUN! She said she had been READING UP about running on the Internet and had seen stories of women MUCH OLDER THAN HER who had taken up running and run marathons and beyond. She said she now knew that it was NEVER TOO LATE TO START to become fit. She said she wants to RUN A HALF MARATHON NEXT YEAR!

My objective with her was never to get her to go longer or even to race. My goal was to encourage her to use proper running form so that she could get a better workout. Now, before I ever began correcting Betty on the treadmill, she had spontaneously commented to me about how muscular and fit I am, as she'd seen me changing countless times in the locker room. So I figured she had some idea that I might know a thing or two before I first approached her while she was working out.

All I ever wanted for her was to feel what it was like to do the thing she was trying to do WELL. And of course, when you do things the right way, they usually FEEL GREAT! I was just so tickled to hear her go on and on about how excited she was about how good she feels, that she is running more at a time than she ever dreamed she could, and she told her husband all about me and she asked me about actual running clothes.

I am always careful to tell people who want to know what all I do that what I do isn't what it takes to be fit--that a person can do far less than me and be quite fit and eat a varied diet and not feel like they are constantly sacrificing. Typically I tell people 1 hour a day (focused work that is a mix of strength and cardio) plus a clean diet and you can allow yourself a cheat day every week and you are good to go. I know that many people are challenged by their work schedules, children, whatever, so I can understand a struggle to put in the time. But when a person gives me excuses about not being able to fit in an hour a day, my first question is, "Do you watch TV?" I can pretty much guarantee that working out for one hour will leave you feeling overall better than watching TV for an hour.

I don't have time to help everyone I see at the Y who is using equipment wrong, doing crunches with ghastly form or doing the same thing every day and wondering why they are at a weight or fitness plateau. But if I can help one person here and there, I am good with it. That has been my MO for a number of years now--walk the walk, talk the talk, but don't preach BE LIKE ME.

After I swam, I did head to the sauna to stretch for a bit, and a woman in there was doing crunches with god awful form--jerking her chin to her chest, curling her back, raising herself up too high--for starters. I asked her if she'd like a few tips on how to do these with better form so that the work accomplished what she wanted. She bit. I showed her. She asked if I was a "personal trainer." No. How do I know about this stuff? Been doing it for years, a combination of self-taught plus learning from whoever would take time with me and being OK with being corrected when I was doing things wrong.

Now isn't that what life is all about? Learn from others, teach yourself, and leave your ego at the door so that you can be open to new ideas.

I love this "job!"

Going Big During the Winter

2010-12-19T17:55:00.002-06:00

I backed up last week's almost 19 hours with another big week. Here's how it went down:

Totals	Week 19: 12/13/2010-12/19/2010
Swim:	ATP: 15300 yards in 5.58 hours Scheduled: 15300 yards (8.68 miles) in 5.58 hours Actual: 16400 yards (14996.16 m / 9.31 miles) in 5.82 hours; 30% of weekly workout time Longest swim 9500 yds (5.39 miles) Approx. 2037 calories burned
Bike:	ATP: 5.5 hours Scheduled: 5.5 hours Actual: 116 miles (186.68 km) in 5.5 hours, Total TSS=0 28% of weekly workout time Approx. 2475 calories burned
Run:	ATP: 5.75 hours Scheduled: 5.75 hours Actual: 34.43 miles (55.41 km) in 5.83 hours (30.43 miles/4.83 hrs run; 4 miles/1 hrs hike) 30% of weekly workout time Approx. 2350 calories burned
Strength:	ATP: 1.5 hours Scheduled: 1.5 hours Actual: 2.43 hours (1.68 regular; 0.75 extra crap) 12% of weekly workout time Approx. 608 calories burned
All Sports:	ATP: 18.33 hours Scheduled: 18.33 hours Actual: 159.74 miles (257.08 km) in 19.58 hours Approx. 7470 calories burned (9790@500/hr)
Sleep:	8.71 hours avg./night
Stretching:	3.35 hours stretching, 0 hours massage

It's funny to me that my MO used to be "more biking never hurt." Now it's swimming. I didn't really go overboard on the swimming, though--it's just that since I've been on this early to bed, super early to rise regimen, I figured I'd have time on Friday for 9500 yards instead of just 8500 as scheduled. The 9500 did not feel bad at all! I can remember back last year when I began approaching 8,000 yards and how traumatic it was, but I am much, much stronger now. Plus I'm spot on with my night before, pre-, during and post-swim nutrition which makes all the difference in the world.

I have also been trying to add on 10' to the end of my long runs, if only to do strides, just because I am doing all my non-long run running at home on the treadmill, and I do enjoy spending time on the track, so I've been doing the last 5-10' of my long runs on Sundays on the track at the Y. I am just not in the mood to add any extra biking right now since I'm just on the trainer, but if I can structure it properly, I plan to swim outdoors again this summer which means I'll ride a bike there and back and pick up some extra miles.

It is nice to be able to do a little more than I've scheduled and know that I won't trash myself. 15-30' extra on a long swim is not a big deal, and neither is 10' of extra running. It's all good. Except when it's during a recovery week. Even though I am doing those (this coming week is one), I usually look at the schedule and think I can add this or that and it won't matter. But it would matter. So what I do instead is make a "big day" during the recovery week where I just combine two days into one, and then it feels like I did "enough." For example, this coming week, on Friday I will do a 3-hour swim and 3-hour ride together, and then Saturday is basically a day off. There is great value in me doing a 6-hour workout like that, and then taking the next day off. Maybe that doesn't sound too recover-ish to some people, but it works for me.

I am now thinking that instead of just swimming 10k on New Year's Eve that I should go overdistance and swim like 12,500. It just feels like something I should do. I know I can swim 10k, but I know I can swim 12,500, too, and it is not like running a marathon in terms of recovery so I am going to see if I can get enough lap swim time at a pool to do it.

After this week, my next 18+ hour week won't be for another 7 weeks, so it should feel to me like I am getting a whole lot of rest between now and then, right? I think so. Even though a lot of the time right now is swimming, it is still a lot of time to put in and the rest will be good. I've picked up on my sleep, too, so hopefully that good habit will stick with me.

Putting in lots of training hours in the winter can be a great thing for one's overall endurance. You just need to be careful to not put in too much intensity (which is true of high volume weeks, period) and back off when necessary. Last week I felt pretty worked by the time Sunday arrived, but today my long run felt pretty great, and so I know my body has adapted to the buildup I've given it. Of course, I did have about 9 weeks of low volume, so I shouldn't be surprised, but still it is always a bit of a shocker to the body when you throw 17+ hours at it, but I've done this many times before, and it always feels really great when I'm good with it.

So even though many coaches and training plans espouse an "off season," actually winter is a great time to put in some big volume plus decent intensity, depending on your overall fitness. It lays the groundwork for you to then decrease the volume just a bit and add more intensity, then progress to even higher volume. Plus it makes you mentally tough to be putting in the big training when everyone else is slacking!

Swimming (Freestyle) Revelations

2010-12-16T05:50:00.003-06:00

So I've been swim training for 11 years now. Through today, in that time, I have swum 4,852,056 yards. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Nope. Let's take a conservative daily yardage estimate for a high school swimmer of 5,000 yards. That's 35,000 yards/week. How long did it take the high school swimmer to hit my lifetime yardage?

4,852,056 / 35,000 = 138 weeks, give or take a few days

So that high school swimmer finished my yardage (and then some, probably) by third quarter of their junior year, assuming 2 weeks off per year. Now, that swimmer only got to be on the high school team because they had been swimming since, oh probably the age of 8. So I won't even begin to try and calculate what their accumulated yardage was before they hit high school.

All that I am pointing out is that when a typical triathlete (even ME) says, "I am swimming a lot," well, not so much. Swimming well and fast takes years of ingrained technique coupled with kinesthetic awareness (they are probably the same thing), so that when the coach standing on deck says to do X with your hand or Y with your feet, your brain and hands/feet are connected in such a way that you can actually just COMMAND yourself to do those things.

In my short years of trying to learn how to swim better, I have had lessons along the way. Initially I took some Total Immersion lessons, and I think they are great for getting down some of the basics of balance and body roll. Some people will develop that mind/muscle link much more quickly and acquire good swimming technique in a short amount of time. I am just now beginning to "get" this, in part because I am spending more time in the pool (I believe that despite what some people say that you DO need to put in the time), and feel like I have already sufficiently developed my kinesthetic awareness in biking and running.

I have had a swim coach observe me and tell me that I am doing a few things well:

I am on top of the water, i.e., my legs aren't sinking.
I have a non-intrusive kick (i.e., my feet/legs are in correct position even though my kick isn't particularly propulsive).
When I breathe, it is just my head following my upper body, not actually turning my head. This is something I worked very hard on last year, and I know how much I've improved because I rarely have actual neck soreness for "all" the yards I put in lately. Plus when I switch over from road bike to tri bike, my neck muscles aren't going WTF from the combination of lots of swimming and holding my big stupid head up.
I can breathe bilaterally, and in fact, I spend much of each workout doing so, even though I swim faster when I breathe to my left only (more on that later).
I have a ton of endurance. DUH.
I have decent body roll--at least I am not swimming flat like a barge.

Along the way, I have received tips about whether my fingers should be open or closed, hand entry position, underwater sweep, etc. The open/closed fingers thing is pretty easy for me to implement. Doesn't take much thought. When you move into hand entry position, catch and sweep territory, though, despite it sounding like you are just being asked to do something with your hands and arms, it is much more than that.

The revelation I had two weeks ago (and this is probably written down in some swimming book somewhere) is this:

Swimming well and fast is about using your legs, hips and core (call this your "roll") to put your body into an optimal position so that you can push the maximum amount of water back with your arms.

In other words, if I don't have that roll down, or I don't synchronize that roll with what is going on with my arms, I am not going to be able to move as much water as I would if they were working well together.

So, yeah, you want your hands to be in a certain position and enter the water in a certain position and your elbow to be high underwater as you begin your catch and then oh, it would be nice if you made that nice "S" underwater during the sweep. Easy to say, but the only way to achieve all that is if your feet up through your core are putting you in the position to allow you to do that.

Thing is, I know what it feels like when it's all connected and working properly, but now I can talk to myself and focus on getting that position right and feeling how that affects my ability to get my arms in the right spot, does that make sense? That is just how this works for me. Other people, like I said, might have their body/brain "get it" much more quickly than me.

For the last 9 weeks, I have been doing triceps dips (other stuff, too, but not important here) before I swim on Mondays and Wednesdays. I was already on the chin/pullup thing, and it has the bars to do dips, so I figured, what the hell. I developed this habit of watching my arm position in a mirror while I do these, because I know what good form is for dips. A nice right angle occurs at some point, and guess what it's just like the high elbow thing in swimming.

I have known for many years about the high elbows thing in swimming not just above water but also below. I think I've got the above water thing down pretty well. The last 2-3 years, I really worked hard on my left side form, because I am right-handed and I figured my right side was doing a good job so I should spend some quality time with my left side. And I made improvements to the point where when I swim breathing only to my left, I swim faster than my formerly faster right side. It has puzzled me as to why this is. Hang on, I'm getting to the point.

So last week I'm thinking about this and why have I now become faster breathing on my left and combining this with a hyper-awareness of my body position so that I can pull more effectively and it dawned on me since I had just done triceps dips before I got into the pool that maybe my right arm doesn't have that high elbow thing going on underwater like I thought it did. So now I'm swimming and I change around my breathing patterns and pay attention to what is going on with my left arm vs. my right arm, and BANG there it was--all this time I thought my right arm knew what it was doing I was wrong. When I breathe to my left side, my right arm is doing a pretty good job, but when I breathe on my right side, my right arm is all lazy and pulling almost with a straight arm. So there you go--when I breathe to my right, I am not moving the maximum possible amount of water back. But it's more than just the arm motion--once again, in my quest to improve my left side, when I rotate to that side it is the "proper" amount, and I am lazy when rotating to my right.

So...I have started focusing on my right side, and it is not just the high elbow but rotating to that side enough so that the high elbow feels natural and ends up causing that nice "S." It all started coming together yesterday. I did my usual pullups, dips, pushups, bridges, dead bugs and jump rope before I swam, and then I was determined to work on my right side in the pool. I could now feel, in my head and in my arm, when I had my arm in the right position (because I rolled properly to begin with), and during my warmup, part of my right triceps actually hurt a bit. But then it settled down, and all was good. I did not use yesterday's session to try and see if I am getting faster--that will take time--but the mind/body connection is being made.

So I guess what it took for me was to start doing something outside the pool that created a connection in my mind that I was able to carry over into the pool. How great is that? This is exactly why I think there is value in doing things besides S/B/R if you don't have that varied a sports background, because you will do things with your body that will train your mind in a way that can enhance your chosen competitive sports. I think that the more of the muscles in your body that you can sense in isolation and link in your brain so it knows precisely what is going on, the better rounded you will be. I remember back from when I was into the bodybuilding thing and how you are supposed to really focus on a particular muscle when you are doing a movement to isolate its primary motion. If you get that right, you can really sort of just become that muscle momentarily, and it's a great feeling.

I am not going to get super fast at swimming any time soon, but I have hope that I can at least move farther into that all important kinesthetic awareness, and since I'm spending lots of time in the pool, I have lots of time to practice!

Understanding "Hard" and I Get Shit For...

2010-12-15T04:25:00.003-06:00

A couple of topics that came to mind yesterday and this morning.

First, understanding HARD.

While on the trainer yesterday banging out this workout:
WU: 15' wup, 3' su, 9' Z3, 3' cd
MS: 4x8' (2') FT,
10' 80-85%
10 x 30/30's

which I began at 12:45PM (and I had done an hour of "strength work" at 7AM including legs), I was thinking about CrossFit, P90X, TRX and assorted other relatively recent fitness programs (or if you want to call them religions, fine). I train, first and foremost, for ultra distance triathlon, but I enjoy being in some semblance of "good shape" (not any strict definition) and have a streak of vanity that when combined, push me to continue doing my "strength work." I don't do CrossFit and have never done a P90X or TRX workout. But I think I understand HARD.

My frame of reference for HARD came about many years ago when I was on a bodybuilding kick of sorts. I got into heavy lifting and at one time in my 30's would lift 4-5 hours a week, and this is not including rest time in between sets. I thought some of those workouts were pretty hard.

Fast forward to 2000 when I began training for my first Ironman. While I wasn't doing particularly intense workouts (the objective was for me to finish so it was primarily overdistance work), my body interpreted the training as hard. But it was hard in a different way than the heavy lifting. Still, I kept up some strength work during this and every so often I would ask myself which was harder--the heavy lifting or the long hours of endurance work. It was hard to say, but I knew when I finished that first Ironman that it was hard.

After the first Ironman, my body adapted, and the long endurance sessions became easier, and due to developing additional mental toughness and being able to recover better, of course I got faster for my 2nd Ironman doing effectively the same training as for the first one. But just as in lifting to build muscle, you need to keep upping the ante if you want to improve.

It was in 2004 that I began training on the bike with a power meter and my eyes were opened to a new world of hard in terms of bike workouts, like the one I did yesterday. Oh my did I figure out in a hurry that I hadn't really been working that hard in my biking. But because I really do love riding bikes, I was so motivated to explore this new world of hard (plus I have always been competitive even just with myself), and since then, I have enjoyed putting up big TSS numbers during bike workouts, and my cycling fitness shows for it.

A nice side effect of this bike training was that it carried over into swimming and running. I no longer was afraid of pushing myself to a point of fatigue or muscle soreness in selected individual workouts. Now, I've learned that I can't do that every single workout, but I do know that I have to incorporate a certain amount of intensity in order to maintain and even improve my fitness/speed. Keep in mind that I do not try and stay as fit as I am right before Ironman or Ultraman year-round. It is just not possible or even a good idea. So I do let myself lose fitness for a few weeks in the fall (I'm already through it), and then I begin rebuilding myself, measuring things along the way (mostly speed, and power on the bike) to see where I'm at. Measure and test. Work harder. Rinse and repeat.

I enjoy reading anecdotal stories about people who have gotten into CrossFit or P90X or TRX and proclaim that it has had this profound effect on their endurance sports. Well, from a physiological standpoint the answer is, uh, NO. If you want to be really good at swimming, for example, you swim a lot, you swim fast sometimes, you practice perfect technique a lot. There are no peer-reviewed studies that show traditional lifting or CrossFit or P90X or TRX will make you into a better swimmer. Or biker. Or runner.

But (and here is the revelation) I think that for some people, doing these non-endurance things (hell it could be any number of other exercises) teaches them what HARD really is, and then they carry over that notion into their target sports, and voila, they improve because they learn that they weren't pushing themselves THAT hard before and have redefined it! Or maybe those things give you that nice looking muscular physique that you've always wanted, and seeing yourself turn into that motivates you to work harder at your other sports.

So I don't think it matters, really, whether a double-blind study can be constructed to prove or disprove that some other form of exercise besides your target sport helps your sport. It's how you perceive it.

In my little study of N=1, I am glad that I had a background of serious weight lifting once upon a time to imprint in me one level of HARD. But I needed to redefine my HARD in terms of my chosen sport to progress. For me it took a power meter and some really tough bike workouts, and also a change in my run training.

So to those people who like to argue that the only way to get faster at S/B/R is to do those things a lot and sometimes very hard and that any other forms of exercise are a waste of your precious time available to train, GREAT! Let's all just agree that from a physiological standpoint you are correct, but as we also know, the human mind is extremely powerful and in many cases, our bodies can and will do something as long as our mind is convinced we can, even if we have to fool ourselves by taking up some other seemingly contrary form of exercise to convince it.

So maybe when you are doing your CrossFit or P90X or TRX or elliptical or jump rope (I'm a big fan of jumping rope and other silliness that I don't talk about) or hundreds of squats, consider not just how this makes your body feel and perform but your mind.

And now onto my other topic--things I get shit for.

I get shit from some CrossFit adherents. Hey--I don't advertise every single thing I do to prepare for my competitions, and no it is not all LSD, so shut the fuck up. I respect what YOU do. There are things you do that I cannot (or choose not to) do, and there are things that I do that you cannot do (or choose not to). Maybe when I stop wanting to do triathlon I will switch over to the dark side. Or maybe not. I really like my bikes ;)

I get shit for making a big deal about 4 extra pounds on my body. Really? REALLY??? Are you just jealous because your standards aren't as high as mine? Do you want to bring me down to your level? Is my choice to be highly fit inconsistent with your definition of what a 54-year old woman should be doing? What if I said my cholesterol was borderline high (which it isn't)? Wouldn't you expect me to do something about it?

I get shit for training as much as I do, as if I somehow have an easy life, and therefore, it allows me to kick the shit out of most canned training plans. Last time I checked, my life is no easier than most. I work full time at a job that can be quite stressful at times (I'm not complaining), I have no other income to fall back on should I lose my job, I choose to own a home and be accountable for maintaining it and I don't have any children who are going to look after me in my (already?) old age. If it makes you feel better, I have a fucking easy life. There. Are you happy?

I get shit for my sky high standards. OK, you got me there! It is who I am. I enjoy being good at things, receiving accolades at work for being a high performer, collecting the occasional hardware in a triathlon for placing in my age group, learning about the details of how the human body and mind function so maybe I can maximize my own function. Sure I could have a completely different life, but I like the current one. So for those of you who keep wondering when I am going to stop all this and live like a regular person, I guess you are going to have to wait a few more years.

'Tis the Season

2010-12-12T13:10:00.003-06:00

...to get in some solid training hours with a different mix than spring/summer. Here's what I did this week:

Totals	Week 18: 12/06/2010-12/12/2010
Swim:	ATP: 14350 yards in 5.17 hours Scheduled: 14350 yards (8.14 miles) in 5.17 hours Actual: 14850 yards (13578.84 m / 8.43 miles) in 5.1 hours; 27% of weekly workout time Longest swim 8500 yds (4.82) miles Approx. 1785 calories burned
Bike:	ATP: 5.25 hours Scheduled: 5.25 hours Actual: 110.15 miles (177.27 km) in 5.25 hours, Total TSS=0 28% of weekly workout time Approx. 2363 calories burned
Run:	ATP: 5.75 hours Scheduled: 5.75 hours Actual: 32.27 miles (51.93 km) in 5.52 hours (28.27 miles/4.52 hrs run; 4 miles/1 hrs hike) 29% of weekly workout time Approx. 1937.86 calories burned
Strength:	ATP: 1.42 hours Scheduled: 1.42 hours Actual: 3 hours (1.72 regular; 1.28 extra crap) 16% of weekly workout time Approx. 750 calories burned
All Sports:	ATP: 17.59 hours Scheduled: 17.59 hours Actual: 150.85 miles (242.77 km) in 18.87 hours Approx. 6835.86 calories burned (9435@500/hr)
Sleep:	8.5 hours avg./night
Stretching:	3.17 hours stretching, 1 hours massage

I have one more fairly big week coming up and then a rest week and then lots of running to prepare for Gasparilla, although I've been running a lot for a few weeks now.

My ability to sleep over 8 hours a night is returning, although I have gotten into a bad habit of going to sleep around 7:30 and getting up at 3:30 or 4AM. That allows me to check on things at work before my morning workout, do a workout, work some more, then do another workout mid-day. I have always liked early morning, and if I can get a few things done plus a workout before my main block of working hours, I'm a happy camper.

My left hip/glute complex is doing quite well. Amongst other things, my massage therapist helped me identify that I had some nasty ass trigger points in my hamstrings. Hamstring trigger points can refer pain up into the glute and also down into the feet. I have nearly resolved them, though, and think I have 100% flexibility back in my left leg. Quite a change from 4 weeks ago!

I am having my old running orthotics refurbished. Meanwhile, I'm using some OTC's from Sole--the moldable kind. I can really tell my feet have become quite picky as to which shoes I run in, and I'm back on the lightweight New Balance 904's (that model is now history having moved up to 905). Even though I wear them out in less than 250 miles, I just feel better running in them.

I am still only down about 2.5 pounds, and would like to shave off another 2-3. There is no more candy in the house, and I'm being watchful of my overall intake. I know some fat has come off and I've tightened up my midsection, so I'm moving in the right direction.

I'm feeling pretty good on the bike now, and (gasp) I may have even raised my FTP, although I am not currently measuring watts. I can tell on the trainer by my average speed, and it's going up, and I'm able to hold a pretty good gear for a long time now, even when I'm starting out already tired, like yesterday I ran 30' and then walked an hour and then got on the bike for 2:15. Not bad considering I'd swum 8500 on Friday! And then today I ran 1:55 and then swam 1,000 (just to chill out) and felt pretty solid.

I'm still not at a point where I expect to be too fast either running or swimming, although I am seeing hints of speed in the pool and on the run. That is fine for now, as it's a trick for me to maintain the volume I need to be at and also be working on speed. Too much intensity plus high volume is a recipe for disaster. I was glad that today after running 1:40 pretty much Zone 1 on the treadmill that I was able to bust out some just over 5k pace running on the track.

During Friday's swim, I got bashed on my left hand by a crappy swimmer next to me. Dude tried racing me a few times, and I was more than happy to speed up to show him who's boss. So I guess he decided to reward me by clocking me real good. I had to stop and ice my hand for a few minutes, and it's still a little tender even today, but no significant damage. Add that guy to the list of people who shall forever be afraid to swim next to me, which is fine by me! I practically hug the lane rope and yet these dufuses manage to hit me every so often. The guy had hit me once in one of my calves before he got my hand, and when he hit my hand, I stopped and said "That's TWICE." He knew it, too. He immediately high-tailed it for the end of the lane and got out. Fine, buddy, stay away from me.

Then this woman got in the lane with me, and she will always get in my lane even if there are other lanes with only 1 person. Why, I have no idea. Within a few minutes, I noticed she had moved my stuff on deck. She had nothing with her. I was kicking to cool down so I asked if she moved my stuff and she said, "Yes, it was in the way." In the way of WHAT? You standing on deck for like 10 minutes deciding when you were going to get in? I told her to never touch my bottles. I don't want someone else's germs on those when I am drinking out of them, you know? I know I'm such a bitch, but too bad. She's a crappy swimmer, too, and she's clipped me many times with her imitation backstroke. There needs to be lane signs that indicate not speed, but "able to swim on one side of the lane and not touch the other person in the lane and also not touch the person in the adjacent lane." I have been clipped by someone in the next lane, too, doing imitation breaststroke or backstroke and sometimes by wide-swinging front crawl. Hey people--I know I'm cute and all, but STOP TOUCHING ME!!! As long as it doesn't hurt, it sort of just makes me laugh. If it's a good swimmer, I don't even mind.

I have also been having discussions with the Y management about the pool temperature. On Wednesday it was EIGHTY SEVEN! That is nearly deadly if you are lap swimming. On my way out, I saw the guy who allegedly maintains the pool and asked him why it was so warm (it is supposed to be kept at 84), and first he says something about how hard it is to keep the pool cool enough (what the fuck when it's only 15 outside????), then I called him on that statement and then he comments on the old ladies who ask him to make it warm. So I had a chit chat with the facility director, and inquired as to whether the temperature was a negotiable thing. I thought so, it is NOT. And she's all like she needs to study how it's done, and I tell her NO, I have swum at many pools, many with cavernous buildings and windows and all that and SOMEHOW they manage to keep the temperature within a narrow range. Today I saw some clipboards with paper and pen attached for people to write comments, and I saw someone had written about how the pool is too cold and I wrote back THE TEMPERATURE IS NOT NEGOTIABLE. All they have to do is post something that the pool is X temperature as a compromise to lap swimmers and others, and that is what it will be kept at so SHUT THE FUCK UP. I would like it colder than 84, but I am OK as long as it doesn't go a hair over 85. If it stayed like that, I would have no complaints. But over 85 and into 86 or 87, and I am very uncomfortable, as are other lap swimmers. Oh well, yet another thing to make me spend time on something I would rather not. But many people will do nothing, and that is just lame.

I just sent email to Ultraman Hawaii folks asking when I can apply. I assume they will let me in for next year ;) I was lucky to have a long conversation with a friend who did both UMC and UMH and got to hear all about Hawaii. It will definitely be harder on Day 1--way more climbing on the bike. I do intend to do more bike training this time around, as I want to be well prepared to hopefully PR in Kona. I can't do much about the heat, although I will do some specific heat acclimation workouts in the weeks before I get to Hawaii, and I will get there over a week in advance, depending if I can stay with someone else and work from there for a few days.

Some days I can't believe my life is the way it is. My life isn't perfect, but I have the physical strength and health to do something I love A LOT and I'm doing distance I could never even CONCEIVE of just 5 years ago. How great is that?

And now my plan is to lay on the couch and watch a Bears game. Even though I'm not a big fan of winter, it is nice in that I'm not doing super long rides and there is no more yard work to do (except incidental snow removal) on weekends, so laying on a couch I will do!

My Tips for Weight Management

2010-12-03T09:42:00.002-06:00

It is well established that there is an epidemic of obesity in the United States. While I am a huge proponent of exercise as a method of weight control, exercise alone will not prevent a person from gaining weight. One needs to develop good habits and stick to them. I think a big reason many people ignore their bodies is that it requires work to maintain them, and gee, I work 8+ hours a day to earn a living already why should I have to work on myself?

It is work—at least initially. Some people have grown into adulthood not knowing how to cook, having no knowledge of good nutritional practices but believing that life is so hard that we must give ourselves treats every single day, and because the excess weight itself is not accorded disease status, the pounds just pile on until they do create a disease like hypertension, Type II diabetes, achy or worn out joints, shortness of breath or cardiovascular disease. If you are nearly or already obese, you will develop one or more of these diseases, guaranteed.

So what are people supposed to do? I say buck up and do some work to acquire knowledge and get some discipline going so that you can go through the rest of your life with increased health and vitality. Towards that end, here is a list of 10 common sense things to choose from that I think anyone can do to help manage their weight:

Swim once a week or so in a public pool. Sometimes wear a 2-piece bikini (Speedo for a man). Embarrassed to be seen in a swimsuit? You should be. Lose some weight, fatso.
Do NOT keep more than one size of clothing for yourself. Fit into what you have—if it starts becoming tight, lose some weight, fatso.
Make your treat/cheat foods something you don’t keep in your house. EVER. Why? You know you are weak—we all are. Always go out to buy it at the time you want it. Will the extra effort to go foraging for it be worth it every single time? Probably not.
If you are in your car and having a craving for something, drive right past the place where you can get it and keep going for 5 minutes. If you still want it, then go back for it. Betcha many times you won’t turn around.
Always have something that is healthy and really tasty available in your house that is either already prepared or takes minimal preparation. You know you love many good, whole foods that are super tasty—you just need to surround yourself with them.
Learn what it feels like to actually be hungry every now and then (except at breakfast time). If you think you’re hungry, drink a big glass of water. If 5 minutes later you still feel hungry, then you really might be.
NEVER skip breakfast. If you are eating correctly, you should wake up hungry—not eat-everything-in-the-fridge hungry, but you should need something. Not giving your body, and particularly your brain (which runs on sugar) something to overcome the fast that you just had (that is why it’s called BREAKfast) makes you more likely to make poor choices as the day wears on. Unfed brains make stupid decisions.
Always have a piece of fruit (or 2) 2 hours after breakfast. At least you will have eaten one serving of fruit for the day, right? And if you ate your breakfast and the fruit, maybe you won’t make bad choices for lunch.
Try to plan 1 or 2 of your meals each day, either the day before or in the morning. That way, if the 3rd one goes to hell, at least you did well for 2 out of 3. It’s easiest to plan breakfast and lunch, and if you get adequate calories there, you are less likely to pig out at dinner time.
Learn how to cook. It need not be elite French restaurant quality food; just simply prepared, whole foods like baked or grilled lean meats, steamed vegetables and salads. You can live on just those foods, you know. As you learn about cooking techniques and seasonings, odds are you will discover that simply prepared food is quite delicious and doesn’t always require the addition of butter, cheese or breading.

Notice that several of these tips involve the dreaded planning—yes, that’s right. You might actually have to make a list before you go to the grocery store, you might actually have to peruse recipes every now and then, but I like to think of it more as being mindful. People become fat because they aren’t mindful of what is going in their mouths and how it makes them feel—and then they go on a “diet” that requires all sorts of planning and restrictions yet somehow that work is OK with them. That is just messed up. What is a good habit if not work that has become routine? I think it’s easier and simpler (and less stressful) to practice the good techniques until they become habits than it is to go into defensive mode repeatedly.

Do I fall off the wagon? Every now and then. But I only allow myself 4 pounds in the wrong direction (my current baseline weight is 110, so 4 pounds is 3.6% of it). That is my signal that I have been eating mindlessly. I saw that number about a week and a half ago. I am down1.5 pounds and feel better already since I'm not eating so much sugar (leftover Halloween candy). So I'm not perfect. And there's a lot more to me maintaining my weight/body composition than the average person, but sometimes it comes down to the basics, just like for everyone else.

I eat a very varied diet. I prepare my breakfast and dinner on most days--lunch is usually a Lean Cuisine (yes I could do better but even I err on the side of convenience at times). My typical snack foods are fruit, string cheese, sometimes pretzels, sardines, a bite of leftovers. When I'm training about 15 hours or more in a week, I find I need to supplement with some more sugary foods, even candy. But I still try and keep 2500-3000 calories per day coming from good, clean food sources (including deliberate sports nutrition). I "cook" usually just on weekends--microwaving something from the freezer or throwing a piece of fish or meat into the oven or making a salad doesn't count as cooking to me, and I have precious little free time during the week like many people, and not just because of my training.

I only note this because I have the same weaknesses as anyone else when it comes to food--I don't have "good genes" or anything like that. I have to work at weight maintenance just like anyone else. I have just tried my best to ingrain good habits. Time was I ate like complete and total crap, and I felt like crap for it, too. I do love cooking, and reserve my high fat treat foods like deep-dish pizza, cream-based pasta sauces and Italian deli wonder sandwiches on focaccia bread for times when I have rather big workouts scheduled. So in a sense I train to eat! But even before triathlon, I could eat those things on my one cheat day per week, and it worked out just fine.

Maybe you can find 1 or more things in this post that you want to add to your arsenal. If you have other ideas, feel free to comment as well!

Painsgiving Report

2010-11-28T13:20:00.009-06:00

I just renamed Thanksgiving to Painsgiving, since it seems every year since around 2004, I've concocted something of 1/2 Ironman or more to do during the weekend. 2011 Painsgiving will be Ultraman Hawaii ;)

This year's menu was 5K on Thursday, 2x2x2 on Friday, and today was a 1/2 marathon.

The morning of the 5K I was up early (at least I'm not getting up before 4AM now, which is an improvement), and feeling guilty that I hadn't done any strength training this week. So around 5AM I thought I could knock out an abs/core workout that has some traditional lifting thrown in there. It took about :45, and I didn't even consider the affect it would have on me running a 5K.

Did I feel at all ready for a 5K? Fuck no. I'd done a marathon just 3 weeks ago (actually 2 weeks and 5 days), and had run very conservatively since then. And I had just worked out my left hip/glute issues, and my true running form was just coming back this week. But, in a perverse way, I was looking forward to the pain of it, because it's been since last winter that I did any 5K-type racing (the indoor triathlon series). I figured, what the hell, maybe my legs will wake up--you never know on any given day.

In my mind and heart, though, I knew I would be lucky to run 9mpm, so if I could achieve that, it would be a good thing. Well, I did--9mpm on the nose! The race did suck, I did feel the effects of that :45 of strength session beforehand, but I didn't stop or give in to the demons in my head telling me it didn't matter if I walked. Because it did matter. One small step for Painsgiving--one giant leap for my return to fast running. I took 11th in my age group, which is abyssmal for me, but hey, on the day I was fine with it.

After I got home (I did an :11 warmup and of course, ran home from the 5K for about :45 total running) and checked on a situation at work (yes, I did), I got on the trainer for an hour and just rode real easy. I alternated between watching Ironman Hawaii 2008 and the AKC Dog Show. I actually enjoyed the dog show more ;) Hey, it was just a 1-hour workout, and I didn't need to go very hard.

I fixed all my bottles for the Friday festival of pain--6 hours worth of Infinit (YUM I LOVE IT) and 300 calories of Ultrafuel to top off the tank in the morning. After this, I cooked for about 4 hours, and my freezer is now full of caloric goodness. I had a big serving of the bacon/bleu cheese pasta and a lamb chop. I couldn't help but have a few beers (3) while I was cooking, too, after all it was Thanksgiving.

Friday I woke up at my customary 4AM and could tell I had a slight hangover, since I am a complete lightweight, but I knew I would, so tough shit, right? I figured swimming would shake some of it out of me anyway. I had my regular breakfast of English muffin and hard-boiled egg and downed the Ultrafuel. I packed my swim bag for the swim and brought my bike clothes to change into afterward. It was pretty cold outside, so I really bundled up so I wouldn't get chilled at all with the short walk to the garage and then to the Y from the parking lot.

I began my swim at 6:03AM, so I was late by 3 minutes! The water at first was too warm--it was maybe 85--and I wanted to puke for like 3,000 yards. Warm pool water plus hangover plus 600 calories just 1 hour before will do that to me. But then a miracle occurred! They began dumping in cold water, and I could feel the temperature lowering. I knew it was getting to the correct temperature because I wanted to drink it. That's my personal benchmark of an 83 to 84-degree pool. I know 84 still sounds warm, and I would prefer 82-83, but even at 84 I am chilled for several hours once I get out especially if I swim 1:45 or more.

I got in 6,000 yards and drank 2 hours of Infinit and no longer wanted to puke. I showered, stretched for :11 in the sauna (what the hell I can do whatever I want during a NothingMan, right?), changed into bike clothes, but not my bike socks yet because it was so cold outside I didn't want my feeties to get cold to/from my car. I had already pumped the rear tire of LGL and had loaded 5 CD's to cover my 2 hour ride plus 2 hour run plus fudge factor, so without too much slackerage, I got on LGL.

Riding felt fine--I rode in SCR for :30 and then went into BCR, and while I didn't hammer, I think I put in a solid 80-85% FTP effort for the remainder. I ended up at 39 miles total, which was great. I didn't feel bad riding at all, and smiled inside how a 6,000 yard swim warmup just isn't that big of a deal to me anymore!

I drank 2 more bottles of Infinit on the bike and got a fresh one to start running. How nice to be able to just change into running shoes and not leave the house and I'm running! Although...as soon as I started running, that's when I really felt hungover--no surprise there! I knew the run was going to suck, even though I decided to only try and run 10mpm, a nice easy pace for me.

The first hour went pretty well, but then mentally I began to hate it. Not surprising, considering this was the longest run I'd ever done on Hal. Even though you would think a treadmill is a treadmill, there's something different about running on one with a bunch of people around you in a gym versus all by your lonesome in your house. So even though I have music of my choice on speakers and not on headphones, a fan blowing right in my face, and a really nice treadmill, it's just not the same to me mentally yet. But I'm getting there.

After about 1:20, I was really wanting to just bag the run. I rolled through all the usual questions--am I in pain? No. Am I out of fuel? No. Am I untrained? No. It was all mental. So I lowered the speed just a hair for about 5 minutes, and then all of a sudden I was just fine.

I was all patting myself on the back and shit until I looked back at last year and realized that on Thanksgiving weekend 2009, I'd swum 7,000 yards, biked 3 hours and ran 13.1! What the hell, I am such a fucking slacker! But then I thought if I actually pull off a 1/2 marathon in 2 days, I will have redeemed myself, in a perverse sort of way.

I was pretty toasted the rest of Friday and much of Saturday, although on Saturday I did manage to finish sewing the new bedskirt:

If you can correctly guess the number of skulls on my bed in the picture, you will win a prize! Yes, the bedskirt has a bunch of dead people on it. It made me a little nuts while sewing it, because when you are working with a large thing like that, it gets unwieldy, and one seam around the perimeter takes a long time. I did the gathering while sitting in bed feeling like I was going to pass out, but I wanted to get this project done, and now was the time. As soon as it was finished, of course I put it on the bed and changed the sheets so everything would be all skull-y. Sleeping on fresh sheets the night before a race is always a nice thing!

After I finished the bedskirt, I had Swedish pancakes and beer for lunch, then tucked into bed with another James Patterson book ("I, Alex Cross") and finished it, and then it was lights out and I passed out for about an hour. It was blissful, since when I woke up and it was light outside, I had no idea what day it was. It has been a long, long time since I'd napped so soundly, and I was even groggy when I woke up--like I wanted to sleep even more. But I didn't go back to sleep because I wanted to sleep a normal schedule for today's race.

I woke up today around 3:30AM but made myself lay in bed until nearly 4AM which is my new rule (no getting out of bed before 4AM). I got up and had a Powerbar Triple Threat and coffee, then began obsessing about what to wear to race in. The weather report said only like 32 at the start (9AM), and this was like my 5th pretty cold race start this year (Goofy Challenge was record lows both days and it snowed; that Monster Dash 1/2 marathon on Halloween was ice cold; the 5K on Thanksgiving was cold, too), and I did not want to have cold legs for the race at all. So I decided to go with my running underpants underneath my good Pearl Izumi fleece-lined tights, polypropelene sock liners, my regular super thin Wigwam socks over those, a regular bra top, a short sleeve technical T from Northface 50 last year, and my fleece-lined PI top. I decided to wear fleece gloves and hat.

At the last minute, I grabbed a large outdoor trash bag to put on myself while waiting at the race start. It took about :35 to drive to Schaumburg. On the way there, I cracked myself up because I thought I should ask someone to guess what I was doing because I had: a large jar of Vaseline, a small cooler full of Coke and a large trash bag. The correct answer would be: running a race in the cold! Then I had another good laugh since sometimes I cut the head and arm holes in the trash bag with scissors, but this time, I thought I'd just "poke myself through" as needed, and that made me laugh hysterically to myself. It's thoughts like this that make all this shit totally fun to me.

I got a good parking spot, and walked over to pick up my bib and chip and goody bag. I had on some flannel pants and had not yet put on my running shoes as I wanted to keep my feet warm in my fake fur-lined Merrell clogs. I also had on a thick thermal fleece jacket--I wasn't taking any chances about getting cold before the start. After I got my stuff, it was back to my car, and I started it back up, not feeling guilty for burning some gasoline to keep myself warm. I decided I wasn't getting out until 8:45, since I was just maybe 50 yards from the start line.

I poked the trash bag to start my head hole and put it on in the car, and then got out to use it as my personal porta-potty. See, the trash bag has many uses! When it was go time, I lined up behind the 2:15 pacers, because I had no clue if I could even pull that off today.

I started with the bag on but ditched it after 1 mile, as I was sufficiently warmed up. My feet felt nice and toasty (but not too toasty), and my face was good since I'd smeared Vaseline on my cheekbones, up my nostrils and on my lips. I tell ya--Vaseline is good stuff! My first mile was 9:34, and I thought I'd gone out too fast, but whatever--if I crashed and burned today, it would be no big deal.

Through about 6.5 miles, I was behind the Garmin Twins--2 girls who both had Garmins on--I could see them strapped to their arms and they were running some sort of exact pace. So I just stayed right on their butts, literally! But then we hit this hill, and I thought, OH FUCK this won't feel good, and although I'd easily summitted all the lesser bumps in the trail, this one had me walk a little, and I allowed it. So I lost the Garmin Twins, but could see them just ahead of me for most of the rest of the way.

I started to hurt around 10 miles in, and it was no surprise, plus we hit either a false flat or something like it for about 2 miles. At just over 11.5 miles, I pulled out a crack baggie with some of Dad's ashes in them, and I just lost it. I grew up not far from Busse Woods where we were running, and Dad used to take us there many Sundays when I was really young to go see the elk. Yes, there is a small herd of elk in northern Illinois! We would go there and look at them in the cold or snow, and I had not run in Busse Woods since Dad passed away 3 years ago. So I took myself off the asphalt onto the dirt and tried to collect myself. When I got back where the fences are for the elk, I let his ashes fly into the woods and got on with finishing the race.

I went 2:09. I wanted to do 2:08 for some reason, but at least I had gone under 10mpm, so I was happy with that all things considered. We got a cute medal, and our goody bag has a nice technical long sleeve shirt. There were lots of eats and drinks afterward, but I just wanted some warm PowerBar whatever the hell it was (it tasted close to hot chocolate) and then get to my car to put on dry clothes.

On the drive home, I thought to myself how cool is it that I was able to do all these endurance things over Painsgiving while Day 3 of Ultraman Hawaii is going on and I also have friends racing in Ironman Cozumel. While my run speed is now just on the rebound, I feel good that I got in a 40-mile running week, and feel ready for some 50+. I mean, holy crap, I have done a lot of shit this year--3 sprint triathlons, one half Ironman, one Ironman, one Ultraman, 3 half marathons and 2 marathons.

I am quite thankful for my health and fitness, and I am considering Painsgiving a success! Now I am just waiting to meet my new grand-nephew, Scott, who I am already calling Great Scott, and have some sporting gift ideas for...

If you are in the US, hope your Thanksgiving was a good one, and if not, hope your weekend was great, and now I will go back to watching coverage of Ultraman Hawaii and Ironman Cozumel!

More of My Outlier Story

2010-11-24T11:20:00.004-06:00

I want to fill in a few more blanks here so that the whole thing makes sense.

In my 20's, I was a rollerskating whore. I also took a bodybuilding class around the age of 26, and was told by the instructor that "if I wanted to, I could pack on a bunch of muscle." I guess that means he thought I am an endomorph, how funny considering certain people (I call them jealous assholes in my head) seem to get a kick out of calling me skinny now, which would imply that I'm an ectomorph who has trouble adding muscle mass. Which is it? If I don't do a lot of cardio, I know I can put on muscle pretty quickly...keep reading.

Right after I got married, I stopped rollerskating in order to adopt more of the hobbies of my husband (fishing, canoeing, camping, drinking, ping pong), although I did not take up running 2 miles at a time occasionally--I just wasn't into running.

In 1991 at the age of 35 (still married at this point), I became tired of being skinny and flabby. I enjoyed the way I felt in my 20's when I was at least doing about an hour of aerobic exercise a day, and I also liked lifting weights. So with one of my bonuses (from being a workaholic), I bought a weight machine that I still have and love. I also bought some dumbbells to round out the weight collection. I started working out with that stuff, and in about 3 months' time, my then husband remarked to me, "Don't you think your arms are big enough?" What the fuck, man. It's not like I was a steroid bitch. Sure, I was showing some bis, tris and delts (nice ones, too), but I still had a nice ladylike coating of fat over them. Still, that comment sat with me.

In 1992, I became fed up with the workaholic lifestyle, received a poor, undeserved performance review (my then manager was fired soon thereafter, so my instincts about him were right on the money), and quit my job with the blessing of my husband. I just wanted to take a few weeks to breathe and figure some things out. I don't remember how long I took off, but it wasn't too long, and I secured another job easily. I continued lifting and began adding some cardio to my week because I thought it was the right thing to do.

In 1994, my husband asked for a divorce. That sent me reeling, and 3 months after the process got started, I was laid off from my job. I pulled a stupid maneuver and went rollerskating after a few too many drinks, crashed and ended up with a broken arm and good concussion that made me pass out a couple of times in front of my Mom. I wasn't exactly at my best.

I picked myself up and got onto the job hunt, which at first depressed me. Here I was going through a divorce, lost my job, crashed on skates drunk, my self-confidence was at an all time low, and I am supposed to be all smiley and confident walking into job interviews. The first 2 weeks were hell, but then things turned around and all of a sudden I had 3 job offers. I took the one that required the shortest commute with the most pay.

Since I was so happy to have found myself in a slightly better place, I rewarded myself with a trip to Kona before I began my new job. I had a great time, basically laying on the beach drinking and snorkeling. It was awesome.

I made some fast friends at the new job, had some post-divorce wildness (I won't go into details), and joined the health club in the office building because it seemed like a fun thing to do. I was invited to join a step aerobics class. I thought, OH NO I AM A SPAZ (Spaz is my brother Mike's affectionate name for me), but I caught on soon. And then I liked it so much that when they told us to take our heart rates and mine was quite low, I took it as a signal that I needed to work out harder.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

I kept doing the step class to the point where I was so good at it that I could sub for the teachers when they were sick. There was a parade of trainers at this gym until 1998 when the guy who led the step class changed it up to a circuit format including jump rope, jumping jacks, assorted step things, etc. When it turned to summer, we headed outdoors and it got even more fun because now we incorporated sprints. I had never run before, but I was cool with the sprints.

One day, I thought, "I wonder if I can run around this outdoor path all the way." And so I did, and it felt easy, so I did it a few more times. One of the runners I knew said, "You just basically ran a 5K." I didn't know what that meant, but I found out, and also that every weekend in the Chicago area in spring through fall you can find a 5K race, so I thought I'd try one out.

I puked at the end of my first official 5K in 1998, but loved it. The reason I puked is because I took my then usual handful of vitamins like 2 hours before the start, and so they didn't really have time to digest much with the nerves and all, and hence I puked heartily at the finish. In fact, I found the nearest garbage can and heaved into it once, backed off, and then went back for seconds! Someone asked if I was okay, and I said, "Just leave me alone once I finish puking I'll be just fine." And I was.

Next, these "runners" began talking about marathons. Not me, NO FUCKING WAY NEVER! And fall of 1998 I agreed to run the last 5 miles of the Chicago marathon (or at least try to) with a friend. The week before, I realized I had never run that far ever, so after my usual 3.5-ish mile run, I ran another 5. It seemed like I could do it, so I was happy I would be able to keep my promise.

That year they had a 5K that began about 1/2 hour before the marathon start, so I did it, and then I took the El out to the 21 mile point of the marathon. I met up with my friend, and she was running maybe 8:15's and I couldn't run that fast, but I think I kept with her for about a mile, and then told her to go. I still ran all the way in and they tried to give me a medal and everything (I did have a bib on from the 5K).

My friend tried to convince me to do a marathon and again I said NO FUCKING WAY. I went to Kona on vacation the day after the Chicago marathon. The second day I was there, I decided to just run a bit more slowly and see how far I could go. I ran 7 miles. Then 2 days later, I ran 9 miles. 2 more days later I ran 11. I decided right then and there that I could run a marathon.

When I got home from Kona, what should appear in my mailbox but a flyer for Team in Training's program for the Anchorage marathon in June, 1999. I signed up, and also decided I'd do Chicago marathon later that year.

Now, it was in April of 1999 and I was in Kona again on vacation and I did an 18-miler to prepare for Anchorage, and it was on my way home from Kona that the fateful discussion about Ironman took place. I had not even done my first marathon and I was thinking of Ironman.

I find this all very entertaining to recall. See I just listened to people who took time to know me and see things in me that maybe I couldn't see myself at first. And now I've done 15 Ironmans, 8 open marathons (2 of them being on my own) and one Ultraman.

My dear Dad (rest in peace) did not at first understand why a seeming smarty (he considered me the brightest of all his children and I believe he was correct) would want to get involved in endurance sports. I pointed out that Alan Turing, for one example, was into endurance sports. Albert Einstein was known to go on 3 hour walks. My point being that endurance and deep thought (even mathematics and physics!) are very compatible pursuits. So I guess I was convincing Dad that I wasn't an outlier. And he did come to understand how the physical stuff balanced me out emotionally and intellectually.

There. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Outlier?

2010-11-23T05:25:00.007-06:00

A few days ago on Facebook, I shared an article about recovery. Someone chimed in that it didn't mention one of the obvious factors in recovery--one's age. I took that to be a given, in that it's widely recognized that as one ages, the ability to recover from hard workouts diminishes somewhat. To which I added, but if one practices good recoverability, then as one ages, the impact of aging alone can be significantly mitigated.

And then I was called an outlier. I didn't take that as a compliment or insult--just something to ponder. I took the comment to mean the second of the definitions below:

out·li·er (outlr)
n.
1. One whose domicile lies at an appreciable distance from his or her place of business.
2. A value far from most others in a set of data: "Outliers make statistical analyses difficult" (Harvey Motulsky).
3. Geology A portion of stratified rock separated from a main formation by erosion.

I don't now nor have I ever considered myself an outlier athletically. I didn't come from "good" parents (good in the sense of being gifted athletically or genetically), I didn't deliberately engage in sports (unless you count riding a bike maybe 2 miles to an outdoor pool in the summer and flopping around for an hour or so) until my 20's (and even then it was just rollerskating), and I didn't begin serious training until I was the ripe old age of 42. All I have done is make choices and seized opportunities that improve my ability to train hard and recover from it.

I will now tell the complete story of how I got to where I am today in triathlon. This may bore the hell out of you, but I enjoy writing about it and have never really gotten the entire thing together at once, so here goes.

Oh, sure I'm damn lucky that I get to work out of my house. It wasn't always that way. I was a workaholic in my 20's and early 30's, regularly putting in 60-80 hours per week. I got married at the age of 29 and saw my hours spent working out decline to a pitiful amount--near zero. I found that that made me an unhappy person, although I thought it made my marriage better, because I worked tirelessly at it to try and be the perfect wife. You can't be the perfect anything unless you are being true to yourself, and I wasn't. I began a slow return to "working out," (which is what I had considered my exercise in my 20's to be--it was certainly not training), while continuing to pile on the hours at work.

I became happier with myself. I got divorced. I began a new job in the software industry, and there was a gradual acceptance of doing the computer/phone thing from home a few days per week. And if you were good at managing yourself this way (and I was) and being productive, you were able to spend progressively more and more time working out of home, until well now, where it's more the norm than the exception for many people in the industry to work from home full time.

So sure, I'm lucky that I get to work out of my house, but the opportunity to do so only came after I'd worked myself into the ground for many years. So I earned it, and then I began using it to my advantage. And I rediscovered the joy I get in movement, and it just escalated from there. From 1997-1999, I was only running and lifting (and a little miscellaneous "cardio"), maybe 8-10 hours a week, which is still a lot for most people, but it was manageable, and I wasn't yet working at home full time.

Then I got bit by the triathlon bug. Or, should I say, the opportunity presented itself. I had run 2 marathons with Team in Training, and my local group was starting up a triathlon program, and I was asked to be a mentor. ME! What the fuck, right? I knew NOTHING about triathlon and figured I had better start reading up, and so I did. I bought books, I found all the best websites from which to glean information, bought a decent road bike (which is now in the loving hands of my massage therapist), took some swim lessons (Cindy can attest those were good times indeed!) and pronounced myself a triathlete. A crappy triathlete, but at least I had some of the best gear around (not my bike yet, though).

Meanwhile, in April 1999, a dude in Kona had suggested that I would do an Ironman someday. Here's the back of my then business card that I made him write it down on:

Here I was practicing being a crappy triathlete (and I did suck) and this idea was now rolling around in my head. I announced at a summer track workout in 1999 (preparing for my second marathon, the Chicago marathon) that I was going to do an Ironman. I sure got some interesting looks. I wasn't exactly svelte at the time, and I didn't (and still don't) run very fast, either. So it was, at the time, a rather bold statement. But anyone who knows me, knows that when I decide to do something, I do it. I usually need to make myself a plan, and in my head, the plan was to do my first Ironman in 2004 or 2005.

As fate would have it, though, a person (let's call him Steve) suggested that I register for Ironman Lake Placid in 2001, and like an idiot, I did. So, OK, I was ahead of my plan, but I rationalized that I wasn't getting any younger (I was 43 in 2001), and what the hell, why not?

I got a coach (whose first triathlon was an Ironman, by the way, even though he told me right off the bat that I had no business doing an Ironman so soon), and he put the hurt to me real bad. I was able to do the training, but it was still a huge leap for me to go from 8-10 hours of training per week to an average of almost 14 per week. Along the way, I osmosed whatever I could about training and recovery, and thus began my quest to figure out how I could keep training at or above this level and feel better while doing it. As beat up as I was that first Ironman season (and I was told a few years ago by someone I admire that she could see just how beat up I was back then), I really did enjoy the training. I was still lifting, which I loved, and running, which I was coming to enjoy more and more, and I had always like swimming and biking, and I enjoyed the process of trying to get better at all of it. And also improve my race time, duh.

It took me a few years to get comfortable with the fact that it would be better for me (and my left knee which has no ACL anymore) to drop some weight in order to protect my running health mostly, but also maybe improve my race time. And then the lights went on about stretching and massage, and well, an athlete (such as it was) was born. It is no coincidence that I had an Ironman PR in 2004 that stood up until 2009, when I finally cracked it. Between 2005 and 2009, my life was a hell of sorts, with my Mom's declining health and then death, my Dad's death and then the whole executor thing which finally ended this past February.

I am rereading a book that I finally got back from a person I lent it to like 8 years ago called Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously. I can see myself in the book, as sometime around 2003 or 2004, I had decided I wanted to see what it would be like for me to really explore my athletic capabilities, despite a full time job and regular life. The author's Dad dies while he is on his quest for personal athletic excellence. Was it a premonition that I had read it back then before I went through the same thing myself? Who can know.

It is a wonderful book, and there are so many statements in the book that resonate so much with me, like:

"In the end, endurance sports are a test of yourself against yourself; they require nobody else, and sometimes they can hardly tolerate anyone else."
When Rob Sleamaker is watching the author reach for some chips to go with guacamole he says, "You know, we all like chips. But they have an awful lot of fat in them." And in that moment was born The Man Who Reads the Sides of Every Can.

And so it was the year 2004 where I got into Ironman Hawaii via lottery and was already registered for Ironman Canada that I made the conscious decision to go for it. I had no designs of qualifying for Kona or anything--I just wanted to see what I could make of myself athletically.

So maybe it was making that choice is what people think makes me an outlier? Well, if so, fuck it. Anyone can make the choice, and I don't want to hear any excuses like I'm married, I have kids, I don't work at home. I am not who I am by chance--it's by choice. I've worked damn hard in my career and athletically, and yes, I have sacrificed some things along the way, but in the end, I don't consider my life any better or worse than anyone around me. It's the life I chose, and that's what I like most about it.

Since then, I've discovered a bunch of things about myself, been through a bunch of life crap, and now here I sit being able to say that, for a person my age, I tend to recover quite well from heavy training. Outlier? Nah, I just work my fucking ass off.

Bike Porn!

2010-11-21T08:27:00.003-06:00

bling...bling...bling...Hello? It's SKULL KINGDOM! I finally got worthy aerobars on her and recabled her with red Nokons. All that's left to do is get flames on the rims...getting that looked into. She is truly the sweetest ride I have ever had or seen!

Ready to Settle In

2010-11-14T16:04:00.003-06:00

I am back to running. The legs are feeling pretty good, so I hope I can find some speed in them now that I'm about finished with a bunch of errands I did over the weekend:

See my chiropractor. We had a LONG discussion about me and my feet and legs and hips and back and running shoes and what works and what doesn't work. I was pretty agitated. I am not an easy patient. What we concluded was that the orthotics made for me in May had too wide of a heel cup resulting in my heels sliding all over the place while running which led to muscles in my hips, glutes and low back getting fucked up. They aren't totally unfucked up yet, but they are getting there. We decided to refurbish and replicate orthotics I had made like 6 years ago. When doc was looking at the old ones, he kept saying over and over, "these have a lot of mileage in them." Yep, about 8,000 miles!
Dropped off hazardous household waste (from my garage cleaning a few months ago) at a special drop-off center.
Deposited some checks into bank
Dropped off about 12 pairs of worn running shoes at a Nike outlet store for recycling, then since it's been years since I've been at an outlet mall, I spent a short time shopping and got a new pair of winter Merrell's and some Jockey underwear.
Got a massage.
Dropped off Skull Kingdom at The Bike Shop to get her new bars and Nokon cables put on. The new bars are SWEET! I'm also replacing an alloy cage on the downtube with carbon. These stylistic improvements had to be done--she wasn't worthy of my stable without this bling!
Got waxed
Went grocery shopping
Cooked up farfalle with salmon
Ate some of that pasta and drank an entire bottle of wine that I am paying for today
Bundled up and cleaned up after a bunch of perennial stems that I cut down during last week and covered a few rose bushes for the winter

All I've got left of yard work is to cover 10 remaining rose bushes, and I'll do that next weekend as it's still really not that cold here, but the weather will turn any day now.

As I was sweeping my driveway this afternoon, I was thinking what I will be doing next year at this time. I will be tapering for Ultraman Hawaii or starting to, anyway. I think that I will not have time to fix up my yard for the winter next year and will need to allocate money to pay someone to do it. I really do enjoy doing it myself, but the timing will not be good for me. But I still will get to enjoy all the flowers as they begin arriving just 4 months from now!

Every year about this time as I've taken some well-needed rest from training (yeah I know a marathon last week but still...), I think about how I was able to do the things that I did the prior year, and I am still amazed. But now it's getting time for me to buckle down and resume building that huge winter base that enables me to bust out the door in spring pretty strong. Only this time I actually believe I know what I'm doing and that will be a huge stress relief! I was worried that I had lost all semblance of speed for awhile there, but I proved my biking is still strong, and now that I have figured out my running issues, hopefully I'll be back running tempo and speedwork pretty quickly. I was reminded today, though, that running with a hangover is not exactly fun ;) I can't remember the last time I had a hangover--it must be at least a year--but hey the wine tasted great.

Now I make the transition to training indoors 100% (or nearly so), which is always a bit traumatic. I do like Hal, but I still hate the treadmill in general. But I have to say having one at home now is great. If it's dark out but nice weather, I can start indoors and then head out like I did this morning. And I can transition to the bike right quickly. After some nice outdoor rides this week, I was on the trainer today, and it sucked, but it also made me feel that feeling of "when I'm on the trainer I must work extra hard." It is just a psychological thing. And I'm getting my Ergomo head unit repaired, so I should be back in the power business on LGL which is cool. Can't wait to see just how much I suck (or not)!

I feel like I'm picking up after the last 5 years of my life--that I finally have time to do what I need to do for myself. Even though it appears I've been doing that anyway, it's the non-triathlon things that I had seriously slacked on, but I'm nearly back on track. I have made my estate plan, done my medical appointments, had much work done on my house, and I feel really ready for the next big adventure. Which I think means I will enjoy the hell out of this next year of training and racing! What a great place to be!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Over a New Bridge and Vigor

2010-11-11T04:16:00.006-06:00

I don't know how else to describe the way I am starting to feel other than "like myself." The past 5 years have been a whirlwind of life changes--parents passing away, coming into my own as a long-course triathlete, and now I'm on the verge of my next big life decision which is when and where to retire.

Why does that make me feel "like myself?" I suppose because it feels like I have a semblance of control over where my life goes right now, and I've reached another 5-year mark (I have observed a general pattern of 5-year cycles for myself) where I feel I've achieved a high level of competence at something (triathlon) where I can now just sort of go on cruise control for a bit.

I am just now realizing that I have reached another echelon in triathlon. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people who think that happened years ago. I still do not consider myself particularly fast or better than anyone else, but I now know that I am able to do things that I once thought of as pretty out there just 5 years ago. One way I can tell is how I've recovered from a marathon just 5 days ago. I feel more than ready to get back to running--there is no muscular soreness, I was able to ride pretty hard a few days ago and I've been a bundle of non-training activity. My brain feels wired up to begin pretty heavy training again, too. Since UMC, I've had numerous offers to engage in some pretty wicked events, but I have had to decline (except for NothingMan IV) for the sake of letting my body get used to what it just did in the last year, or my idea of an off season.

I'd been pushing my personal envelope for the last 5 years in terms of the amount and intensity of training I've done. I know some people think all has been pretty much the same during that period, but that's not true. Each year I try and incorporate something new, something more challenging and something harder. Sure there are a few events that I like to repeat from year to year, but that list is too big for me to do everything, and I'm just like the next person in that I like to try new things.

Part of me thinks I am too old to keep up my training level and part of me feels like I'm 25 years old! Something came to mind the other day that made me think of one of the things that drives me: I want to live vigorously as long as possible. My definition of vigor consists of:

better than average benchmark numerical measurements like blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar. This is achieved by diet and stress management.
lack of need for prescription meds. See above! Unless proven that I develop a condition that is genetic requiring meds, I will do everything possible to avoid them. I do use Nasonex before swimming in a pool, as I appear to have minor allergy (enough to send me into sinusitis) to chlorine/bromine.
better than average body composition, which is needed not just for me to remain competitive in triathlon, but as well to ensure my skeletal health, staving off arthritis and discogenic issues. I know too many people who are carrying 10+ extra pounds around that will be surprised when they begin experiencing chronic back, hip, knee or foot pain due to those extra pounds, so yes, size does matter! For me, as I already have joint issues (lack of some knee cartilage from a skiing accident and some disk degeneration which may be from the same accident or possibly just wear and tear), I have made and kept a promise to myself to not have any excess weight on my joints.
ability to engage in day-to-day infrastructure maintenance including yard work like gardening, mowing, basic tree/shrub trimming, shoveling snow, occasional gutter cleaning and generally hauling stuff around, as well as grocery shopping, cooking, driving, taking out the garbage
general state of personal and social content arising from connectedness with family and friends
financial security--enough money to cover my basic needs and then some and the ability to keep it that way barring unusual events. I could have left this off as it defines financial vigor, but for some people this interacts with the other components so I left it in
ability and desire to engage in deliberate moderate to intense exercise at least 1 hour per day on a consistent basis. Here I'm suggesting something where you are burning 500+ calories per hour, which is a good amount even for a small person, but I suppose that figure needs to scale somehow based on sex and weight. Note that I included desire here. While it appears to some that we have evolved to the point of not needing or wanting to exercise, I believe it is the other factors above that may interfere with desire. So I truly believe that a person who does not want to exercise has other areas of their life that bear examination.

I think that's a good, basic definition of vigor, yet when I look around me, the number of people that I know my age and older who meet it is quite small. As time marches on, we may be forced to relax some of these standards, but it need not be a noticeable drop. Maybe I just have high standards, or maybe people are just OK not being vigorous. I watched my Mom lose her vigor beginning in her 40's, and I just do not want to go down that path. If any of my personal components begin to decline, I will know that I have a problem. So when you are thinking of what constitutes health, I would say consider vigor instead. We are not designed to want to sit around typing into phones and computers in a temperature-controlled environment while we blissfully ignore tending to our physical and psychic vigor. So until we evolve into a small blob with a huge brain, I think we need to attend to our overall vigor.

Anyway, I feel pretty vigorous! During the last year, I became accustomed to a level of training that is pretty high. I have become used to it now physically and mentally, and yet I am able to maintain my other components of vigor. How great is that? I'm not saying I'm great--I'm just saying I feel great. And honestly, I wish everyone could feel this great. Too often, I am viewed as just this triathlon machine when in fact, I have to tend to the other areas of my life just like everyone else. I've had my moments where I feel unbalanced, lacking in one thing or another, but I'm completely OK with where I am right now.

I am also very grateful for everything that I have achieved in my life. I am trying to spend more time paying it forward in my own unique way, but I hope to do something more formal--I'm just not sure how/when that will occur. Some sort of volunteer work, perhaps. Apparently I am blessed with a capacity for a lot of output, and so it would be a shame to keep spending it just on triathlon!

I know that something can happen to me at any moment that could derail many of the plans I've laid out for the coming months, but for now, I am truly happy with where I'm headed and feel super ready to hit my training hard. It makes me laugh that I have wavered over the last few years about turning down the volume, when in reality, I think it was just my mind and body learning how to get used to it! So I can say that training for and finishing my first Ultraman has been a truly life changing event. But I don't see myself reaching higher and higher at this point, for I feel like I have crossed over a bridge into territory that many people will never see. I'm very grateful to be where I am and have a renewed sense of wonder about the next phase of my life's journey. What a wonderful place to be!

And Now the Fun Begins!

2010-11-08T17:19:00.002-06:00

I have confirmed with 100% certainty that the orthotics that I began using in May were the cause of my last 8 weeks of sub-par running.

I ran about 27.5 miles at IMFL on Saturday with no issues! I also now checked that I am almost back to 100% ROM on my left hamstring. I am really excited now about returning to good, fast running, as I've got some fun things coming up for Thanksgiving weekend.

Oh, by the way, that "marathon" at IMFL was my 25th. How about that?

I just found out that the town of Schaumburg is hosting back-to-back 1/2 marathons on Sat/Sun of Thanksgiving weekend. But I am an idiot and didn't sign up for Saturday, which has closed. So I signed up for Sunday. And I also registered for my local 5K, Bonfield Express, that is on Thanksgiving Day. But I really wanted to do 2x2x2 (2-hour swim, 2-hour ride, 2-hour run) during the holiday weekend, so I will do that on Friday. Saturday will be a rest day ;) I hadn't planned on running a marathon that weekend, but I guess I will get a broken one in, huh? How great! This will kick off my "official" training for Ultraman Hawaii 2011!!!

I am still plotting what to do about change of plans since I am no longer going to Japan for an Ironman next year. I could spend some $$$ and get into IMWI, or I could do another NothingMan. I kind of like the idea of another NothingMan, since that would be #5 for me, only this time I would do it the week before IMWI which is guaranteed to be good weather, as has become a tradition!

I had so much fun at IMFL with my friends Brad and Morgan, and Brad's parents (that I'd met last year at IMLP and saw again at Goofy Challenge), and now I met Morgan's Mom, Melinda, that also does IM. Brad and Melinda raced IMFL and both set huge PR's, so I was honored to be able to help them any way I could with pre-race nonsense and also a few race day tips. I'm not sure whether I was of any help, but I sure enjoyed witnessing their race.

I began running just before Brad came out onto the run course. I didn't expect to be able to run very fast, but that was just fine, and I almost regretted that I'd run a 1/2 marathon the week before, but oh well, this was just for "nothing" so it didn't matter. Once again, I realized just how much a "just" marathon sucks, as it hurts and it was cold, and I just HATE the IMFL course--it's totally flat with just these speed bump things that are just plain ANNOYING. After doing 1/2 the course, I really wanted to just stop, and one of the other kids in our entourage asked me how I felt and I said, "like crap," which was true, since I had eaten a bunch of things I don't normally eat and my stomach was doing flip-flops, and my legs weren't quite in shape for a marathon. But I just turned and kept on going.

When I finished my marathon, I saw that Brad and Melinda's entourage (I stayed with Morgan and Melinda) had migrated to the finish line, and I knew I wouldn't be able to find them in the melee, so I began walking back to the condo because I was freezing. But that was just agonizing, so I started running again. You should have seen the looks on people's faces because I did have...um...race-ish paraphernalia on my body, and I was running more! But it felt fine to run, and if I had put on warmer clothes, I would have run another 13.1 miles just because. But, I'm still glad to have completed a marathon plus.

There is something else really special that happened over the weekend to Morgan and Brad but I can't say just what publicly--it will come out soon enough (tonight). They are going to crew for me at UMH, but that's not the news ;)

Anyway, I'm just really excited about having had some time off from work and a great time with friends, and I'll see many of them again in February at Gasparilla Pirate Festival to run a bunch.

I am still pretty tired today (I forget just how much a "just" marathon tires me out), but coming around and am looking forward to getting back on a bike tomorrow. I did swim today, which felt great (I never did swim in Florida--just didn't feel like it), and also lifted a little bit, so I should be back on my game in no time.

I am renewed about beginning some hard training--my body and mind are ready for it, and now even my legs!

EVIL ORTHOTICS MUST GO!!!

2010-10-31T15:00:00.002-05:00

I have been battling some unknown condition in my left leg for about 8 weeks. One might think that I was just experiencing an overuse condition because of all the running I'd done in the last 2 years. I suspected my back might be out of whack, saw my chiropractor, he said nope that's fine, and he even instructed me to wear my orthotics more often. Meanwhile, it was sometimes hurting for me to sit on one or both sit bones like ischial bursitis. But you know me, I kept right on going, even adding lots of hill work just for fun.

I didn't always feel bad, but there was this hitch in my left leg that just wasn't right. I was icing my glutes after running or biking, and I also have been stretching the hell out of my left hamstring. The stretching is necessary for sure, but why that hamstring tightened up so much went undiagnosed.

Until last Thursday. I had begun noticing that my right foot wasn't enjoying the orthotics that much and that I had to slide my foot forward in my shoe for them to be positioned properly. I was running on Hal, and all of a sudden, I had this flash. What if the orthotics were putting my left foot into a position that affected my running mechanics leading to an overly tight hamstring and all the rest?

So for the last 10' of my short run, I ditched the orthotics and slipped on a pair of running flats. Right away, I noticed that I didn't have that hitch in my left leg, but I thought maybe because I was already warmed up that's why I didn't feel anything.

So yesterday, I just went from my house, no warmup or anything, without the orthotics again, and voila! No left leg funny business!

Today I had a half marathon scheduled--one I signed up for awhile back because the finisher medal is a belt buckle with a skull on it. I am such a sucker for skulls! So this morning I had to decide what I was going to do about the shoes. I haven't run that far without orthotics since last winter, and of course I was worried about my RIGHT foot since that is the one that was injured. But I figured worse case scenario would be I needed to walk a bunch, and so what, I am doing a marathon in 6 days so I really shouldn't be running fast anyway.

So I ran the whole thing without orthotics! While my time sucked because I haven't been able to do any fast running for weeks now, I ran and no pain anywhere, except maybe just my head since I had a wicked hangover from just a few beers yesterday. Also my upper body hurt like a mofo because I raked leaves for like 3 hours yesterday (why would I rest up for a half marathon anyway?). But after 7 miles, I decided to do run 5'/walk 1' just to ensure I didn't really beat the crap out of myself.

Since I hadn't run that far without orthotics, I do have some interesting aches and pains in my legs, but I expected that. Mostly I wanted to test out my hypothesis about the orthotics causing my left leg ailments. And I think I was right!

So now what do I do? Back to the ortho. I think the problem here is that my left leg has no ACL and this automatically puts my left leg and hip complex into a position that "works" for me, and the orthotics put me into a bad position. I probably can still benefit from orthotics, but I think I will need some redesigned ones. The right one is not working for me anymore, either, although it did fix the issue I had in April. I am sure that I am a non-standard patient case, and maybe what we will decide is to just do different things for each foot. It may be that the right orthotic is perfect for my right foot, but because the left one messed up my left side mechanics, the right side then followed suit and I grew to dislike the one on my right foot as well.

I do know one thing, though, that in my case, just scanning my feet is not sufficient anymore to construct orthotics for me. I had been trying to wean myself off them, and my old ones were actually fine, so maybe I can just get those reconditioned and off I go. I am pretty sure that my body has changed, too, so that makes things a bit complicated.

For now, if I can spend some weeks running on treadmill without orthotics and perhaps gradually reintroducing a new set then maybe I will be fine. Last year was not optimal for acclimating to orthotics--I basically got out of the pool, onto the road and within 8 weeks I ran a 52.4 miler in them! I already knew my body was finicky when it comes to keeping me aligned because I have experienced ITBS and other issues and because of that I changed where I run.

So once again it will be time for change, but if I can get my left hamstring happy again, that will be a great start!

In other great news, I got my bloodwork back and I have pretty good cholesterol readings--HDL is 70, triclycerides 76 and LDL 123. The nurse called me with the results and then mailed them to me and she said to keep doing whatever it is that I'm doing! All my other bloodwork looks just fine, too.

So now onto my next challenge which will be to keep both feet AND both hips happy!

Happy Halloween, too!

What Up

2010-10-25T11:07:00.005-05:00

I was "sick" Monday and Tuesday last week. Let's just call it exhaustion. It may have been helped by getting a flu shot, but after spending most of Monday in bed and taking it very easy on Tuesday, I felt normal again on Wednesday. Honestly, I wondered when I'd crash since I'd been trying to train hard, work hard, and run around like crazy to get a number of things done. Phew! Glad that's over!

I sprung to get my garage roof replaced as long as I was in the mode, and I finally finished the paperwork for the lawsuit against the old shingle manufacture. Hopefully, I'll recoup the cost of the garage roof.

I got my new mattress set on Wednesday. When the delivery guys arrived, I freaked out because it looked to me that they were missing a box. They said both box springs were in one box and the mattress in the other. The mattress looked right, but the box springs looks too thin. I called the company I ordered from, and she kept saying "we measured for this together." After a few minutes, she told me that the TOTAL height of the mattress plus box springs would be the same as I already had, which was news to me, and so we got everything set up, and I LOVE it. I can't believe I waited so long to get new mattresses!

Since the new box spring is lower than the old, my bedskirt is too long, and so I decided to make a new one myself. Of course, I want something with skulls, and I searched high and low online to find the right fabric. I found one I really liked, only nobody has it in stock. On Friday, I went to my local fabric store only to find it shuttered! Well when I checked online, it had a new address, and so I went there on Saturday morning and scored a different fabric by the same designer, and it's pretty wild, but it will be awesome. Plenty of skulls, and dead people, too!

It is nothing if not colorful, right?

On Thursday, I got my new treadmill, that I have named Hal, in honor of Hal 9000 from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here's a picture of Hal next to LGL on the trainer:

I ran on it the day it was delivered, and I did an incline walking workout on it on Saturday. I LOVE HAL! I still have not been on the trainer, which is a good thing, as we have had just fine weather for riding on the MTB.

Oh yeah--Friday was my birthday. 54 years old--even I can't believe that! My age is visible in my face and skin, but I feel pretty darn good and am not on any medication except for Nasonex before I swim to prevent sinus blockage. I'm getting my blood drawn tomorrow to check out my cholesterol, blood sugar and the usual host of other measurements. I hope that all comes out OK! I did get a prescription for Ambien to help with the not sleeping, but I think that it's just a combination of trying to do so many things. I am starting to sleep a little more, and I've only taken the Ambien a couple of times. I really don't want to take anything on a regular basis.

Friday night, a friend bought me dinner, and as birthday gifts I receive the BEST bottle of olive oil from Italy and also a Barbie doll:

She's a collector edition from the year 2000. My friend Matt's wife, Jen, got it from her Great Aunt. And now I am about to be a Great Aunt myself! I haven't decided exactly where to put her, but she will be on display.

On Saturday, I did a 5K Breast Cancer Walk that was sponsored by my Y. I walked because I didn't need to run, but I enjoyed fast walking with one of the trainers there and we kept up a good pace. I had already biked 1:30 on a Star Trac spin bike, which was fun, and then after the 5K I got back on Hal and did another hour. I had to work Saturday afternoon, and I was frazzled because I had to learn how to do all these new things, but apparently I am still employed today so I must have done OK!

Yesterday morning I did a big home improvement shopping trip--paint for touchups, new hardware for all upstairs doors, a lampshade, some more CFL bulbs, etc. Then I went to Greene Valley to run in the flats. I did 1:45 and felt great doing it, then I saw a rainbow, which was awesome, then I ran partway up the big hill (sadly, my last time this year) and down to get to 2 hours total. I returned home and raked leaves for about an hour and then finally ate like a pig!

We are still having nice weather here, so off I go for a short run and then maybe I can get some more leaves raked up later today!

Coming Around

2010-10-16T05:17:00.002-05:00

My life continues to be somewhat of a whirlwind of activity. Yesterday, I had the new roof put on my house. Despite the cost, I am so happy that I caught this before things began leaking. I now have all the required documentation to submit to the class-action lawsuit against the company who manufactured the shingles that were on there. Though it will cost me another $25 or so to ship the shingle sample and documentation to make my claim, I should recover about $1200, which helps!

I also had my annual OB-GYN exam yesterday and got a flu shot. My physician said it was time for a tetanus shot, but I'll wait on that. Actually I don't think I need one just yet. She probably doesn't have the record from when I was last bit by a dog in 2007. My left deltoid still is tender from the flu shot! In 2 weeks, I am getting a full blood workup and urinalysis done. With the stuff I put my body through, I will be doing this annually from now on.

I also paid for my new treadmill yesterday, that had been transferred from one store to the one closest to me. In the process, the price went down by $200!!! What a nice surprise! So now I just need to wait a few more business days when the installation group calls me to schedule its delivery and setup. I can't wait! I am doing a reorg of my downstairs where it's going. All I need in my house is an Endless Pool and I wouldn't have to go to the Y anymore. No way! I'll stick with going back and forth down the pool at the Y. At least it's only 1/2 mile from home. I may still go there on weekends to run on their treadmills, just because now that my long run is on Sunday, I like to go for a short swim afterward, and I dislike driving in the winter while I'm all sweaty. It will be awesome to do brick workouts this winter whenever I feel like it without trying to transition to outdoors!

Speaking of the treadmill, I ran on one Thursday. There is always an adjustment period, and this time was no different. Not only is my threshold down a bit, but the pulling motion of the treadmill feels unusual. But the good news is that my back and legs were delighted to be on such a soft surface!

I also went back to my chiropractor on Thursday. I took my 5 year old MRI's of my lumbar spine, and he discussed with me in detail just exactly what is going on there. The net net is that I have a bulge at L5-S1 that if I were an overweight, sedentary person, might be classified as like 7 or 8 out of 10 degree of impact. But because I am lightweight and highly active, John said that takes me down to about a 3. So really no big deal. Hopefully I am keeping things from worsening, too. John said he didn't think my glute/hamstring issues had anything to do with my back. It's just some bursitis is all, but that I should try and figure out whether it's caused by biking or running. I think it's from biking, actually, as I may have said before, the last few years as I really biked a LOT, I spent regular time on my MTB with the nice cushy saddle, but this past year I did not. So my lean butt took a beating. For the last 4 days or so, though, I have also been working standing up. It seems to me that sitting aggravates things, even though John says sitting is not the cause. So maybe it's coincidental that I am feeling much, much better by not sitting so much. I still need to continue stretching my left hamstring 3x daily. Its ROM has increased much since 2 weeks ago, but it's still not as good as the right.

My new mattress will be here in another week, too, and I also began work on my personal estate plan finally! It feels like I'm going through a massive life reorg/refurbish program. There were just so many things I put off while working on my Dad's estate and the stress prevented me from pushing myself further by trying to do a lot of my personal stuff. But that is behind me now, and I think I have become even more organized now. Either that or I am just procrastinating less.

I also just got a brand, spanking new iPhone 4G. I will activate the service this weekend and begin playing around with it. I know, I am slow on the uptake of some technology, but I'm sure I will enjoy this new gadget.

Today and tomorrow I will be running at Greene Valley. Today is hill day, and I will go up and down the hill probably 4 times, running at least half of it. Sunday I will run about 1:10 in the flats and then do a couple of hill repeats, and hopefully I can run all the way up! I can't believe it, but I am doing a 1/2 marathon in 2 weeks and then a marathon a week later! I'm pretty optimistic now that my full run fitness is nearly back and my butt will be just fine. After the marathon at IMFL, I drop my running back a little and pick up biking more, and it will probably be all indoors, damn! Oh well, at least I will have my house all fixed up, new phone, new treadmill, new mattress, new roof, and next I need to check if my new aerobars came in for Skull Kingdom!

Swimming is coming along nicely, too. I am picking up just a little speed, but realize that I need to really focus on my form continuously. That is fine by me--this it the perfect time of year for it. I only swam 5,000 yards yesterday. Funny how that feels like a 3,000 yard swim to me now!

Tomorrow I attend a baby shower for my niece. I have to con her into telling me the sex of the baby, which I will keep a secret, because I need to know whether I will be able to give some of my Barbie dolls away! Well I suppose if it's a boy and he wants Barbies, that's cool, too. I only have the one Ken doll, though ;)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!