On Swimming Fitness and Triathlon

There is a thread over on Slowtwitch that I’ve been following: 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 between swim technique and fitness, and that one needs to work on both, and that sometimes the answer to the question as to why the technique is poor is to swim more.

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

Now for some people, perhaps younger women or men, swimming fitness 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 able to swim 10k THEN bike 90 miles THEN get up the next day and bike 170 miles THEN get up the next day and run 52.4 miles.  

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

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

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

Have I become a faster swimmer?  No, but I can maintain my Ironman swim pace for really long distances now.  Now I am working on shorter, faster stuff in the pool, too, but I am more concerned with becoming a more fit swimmer, which to me might consist of increased speed at short distances, but also the ability to hold pace over longer and longer distances.  I’ve read that among the 3 sports that swimming speed declines the most rapidly as we age, and so I am just 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 the cost of trashing my legs like biking and running do, and is much easier to recover 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’t incur much travel time, and I even like walking there and back in good weather.  If I get motivated again this summer, I’ll ride a bike to the outdoor pool that’s 5.5 miles away, because even that noodling around biking improves my bike fitness.  

What does all of this mean to someone training for an Ironman 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 need to bike A LOT to be a good cyclist and how it takes up the most of your training time, and also how you need to run A LOT to be a good runner but you need to be careful how much you run so you don’t get injured while also biking a lot, but then many people say swimming is “all technique.”  I call bullshit on this based on my N=1 experiment.  The more I swim, the more my brain seems to figure out what my body is doing in the water and has more of that kinesthetic sense (aka “feel for the water”) that eludes the less talented swimmer such as myself.   How do you measure your swim fitness?  I think a good test would be swimming a lot and then getting on your bike and seeing how much your power output deteriorates as compared to someone who is a “better” swimmer but equal cyclist.  

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

Like I said, I get that people think they will get a better payoff by swimming less and biking and/or running more.  Depending on your swimming background, age and 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 possibly become 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

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

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

First they (another trainer, Shawn, was working with John) measured my height, then they put me on the Tanita scale for weight and body fat measurement.  I hadn’t weighed myself in a 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 tad lower, based on how visible my abs are, but I could be wrong.  Blood pressure was taken, and was a bit off since I’d been awake since 3AM and had had coffee.  Resting pulse 56.  They asked me what my true resting HR is and I 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 then we began the test.  They would record my RPE and HR.  Obviously this isn’t the most accurate test protocol, but it’s sufficient.  For the first interval, I reported an RPE of negative 6!  John thought the test would take a long time for me, but I told him I’m bradycardic, and that we’d see a quick jump in my HR at some point.  Plus I hadn’t done any high HR stuff in almost a full year!  Plus I was still recovering from Saturday’s workout.  At any rate, predictably at whatever the highest incline they had me at and speed, my HR jumped, we held that 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 in 1999 at 58.  Even allowing for standard deviation, that’s a good number for someone my age.  Now, I don’t live up to the charts for predicted 5K time based on VO2Max, but I believe that my combination of bradycardia and high VO2Max is what makes me good at the long distance stuff.

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

When we were all done, I headed to the track to knock out a couple of miles.  There was a woman running that looked 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’t trying to give an impression that I was faster than her for sure, especially since I had some nice lactate in my legs.  I made myself run right with her, figuring she was running just below 9mpm, and I was right.  She abruptly stopped after ¾ mile, and I kept going, and picked up my pace a bit.  Then I headed to the assisted pullup machine and 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 it was short, so I can’t complain, and then later in the afternoon I did a :45 strength session.

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

Happy impending New Year!

Goal 1 of Ultraman "Test" Training Complete

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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!