First Week of Coached Training and Food Channel

I've made it through 4.5 days worth of coach's workouts.  They have gone well.  I have another 1:20 bike to do today yet, but without that I'm up to almost 11 hours for the week.  I should reach around 19:00 by the end of the week.

Needless to say, at this level, I need to eat often and ensure I am replacing all my glycogen stores every day.  I think I must have been behind yesterday, because here's what I ended up eating for dinner and beyond last night:

• 2 beers
• about 5-6 oz. spaghetti with blue cheese/bacon/red pepper sauce and liberal grated Romano on top
• A medium size salad of butter lettuce, grape tomatoes, copious olive oil, creme of balsamic, and a sprinkle of grated Romano cheese
• 2 Stoned Wheat Thins crackers spread with light braunschweiger (yes, I like that)
• 2 raspberry Fig Newtons

My workouts yesterday were a 3400 Masters swim and a 1:45 ride that included about 20' of VO2 Max intervals.  Before dinner, I went through the following:

• 32 oz. Gatorade
• 1 can Coke (for first hour of ride)
• 1 serving Endurox R4
• Breakfast muffin plus hardboiled egg for breakfast
• Some sugar-containing cream in my coffee
• 2 pieces of String Cheese
• A 300-calorie Lean Cuisine (Indian chicken somehow) for lunch
• 2 bananas
• A handful of roasted almonds
• Probably some other stuff I don't remember.  All I remember is eating constantly.

Sometime after 7PM, I passed out in front of the TV, and then woke up around 8PM.  I felt like I needed some more calories, so I ate a Powerbar Triple Threat and went back to sleep.

When I woke up this morning, I wasn't starving, but within 30 minutes and a cup of coffee, I had breakfast, and the eating cycle began all over again.  I looked in my freezer wistfully, knowing that all the good things in there are going to be consumed faster than normal.  I am trying to avoid buying candy for snacks, but I'm thinking I probably should just go ahead since my calories needs are going to rise in the next few weeks.  On the white board in my kitchen where I note needed supplies, I just wrote CARBS.

Anyone who wants to buy me a meal better watch out!

Metamorphosis

I thought I should write something quick about how my physique has changed through the years of doing all this nonsense.  I began triathlon (2000) in a sort of pudgy state--not fat by normal standards, but carrying a decent amount of weight that wouldn't do me any good biking or running.  I erroneously thought I could eat whatever I wanted, and we all know that just isn't true no matter how much training you do.

Fattie! Crackhead's first Ironman--Lake Placid, 2001.


I naturally began dropping some fat off as I continued to train, mostly due to becoming stronger and working at a higher intensity (note to people trying to lose weight by staying in their "fat burning" zone--that's a crock of shit--work hard!).  By 2004, I'd become fairly lean, and had gotten my eating habits back under control--mostly by monitoring quality of intake, but again, I was also upping the intensity.

Here I am at Ironman Canada 2004.  Who would have predicted I'd be swimming the full length of that lake 6 years later in Ultraman Canada?

Here I am finishing IMLP 2009, pretty much as lean as I've ever been, but there was some seriously muscle going on there, too. FYI, that is the time to beat at Ironman Canada this year, and hopefully by 20+ minutes!

I maintained through about 2008, perhaps leaning out just a tad more, but nothing too noticeable.  In 2009, I stepped up my training again, and as expected, it was reflected in my body comp.

Next, I began the Ultraman training cycle--lots more swimming, more strength work, and I decided no good would come from me obsessing about how much fat I was carrying--I might even need it for the race!   The one thing that did change, though, is my upper body became bigger from all the swimming.

My hips remained boyish, my ass remained huge, but I got me some shoulders, and put on a bit o' fat.  All good.

Since then, I've watched my diet more carefully to keep the fat off and improve my health, and it showed in recent blood work I had done.  Great cholesterol readings, fasting glucose, liver/kidney function.  All of it.  Doctor pronounced me pretty damn healthy for 55 years old.

During 2011, I only raced twice, and somewhere along the way, I decided I should up the weights.  It was time to revamp the strength training anyway.  The net result is interesting.  Yesterday, I dropped off Skull Kingdom for her annual tuneup and had my guy, Rich, look at me on her.  I haven't ridden Skull Kingdom since last September.  Between then and now, I kept up my heavier weights and did a boatload of swimming.  The result?  The only way I could describe it was that I felt "pinchy" in my chest/lat area.  Lo and behold, and I've known this for a few months, my pecs and lats are bigger than ever, and especially the lat development has necessitated a few changes in my bike fit!  I asked Rich what he did, and he moved my saddle back 5mm and my bars down maybe 2.  I told him that I am pretty sure that after I ride it for a few weeks that I will want the bars dropped some more.  I was really happy I had him check me out again, and I'll be back in probably a month for a re-check.  I don't have a picture to show for this, but will get one in a week when I pick up Skull Kingdom.

I also just got some more swimsuits (I know I don't NEED them!), and I've thought my existing ones were fitting me differently.  Well it's a fact.  I ordered up a size thinking it was my huge ass making them tighter, but it's not.  It's my upper body again!  The new suits are still pretty snug in my upper body, and I wish they were tighter in the ass area, but oh well.  I may still order my next ones down back to my normal size and just suffer with them being skin-tight. 

Aaaaaaaaaanyway...I find it fascinating how my body has metamorphosed throughout the years.  As of today, I can say with confidence that I will be shedding much fat--it is already difficult for me to shovel in enough calories, and I'm putting in some good intensity, too.  It will be interesting to see how I look just 8 weeks from now.  I've changed up my strength training again (as per coach), and I am still retaining solid pecs/lats work but now adding lots of lunges, so maybe my legs will look decent!  I know I shouldn't care what I look like but rather how I perform, but I can't help it--it makes me feel good to look good.  I've never thought I was particularly "face" attractive, so all I've got is this stinky old body to work with.  It has served me well, and I'm not forcing it into any particular shape--it will be whatever is the result of what I am doing now.  I promise to feed it well first for performance, but no worries I am getting plenty of flavor and enjoyment out of my food!

Here We Go

A few people have asked me why I decided to work with a coach again.  Here's why:

• To take my training to the next level.  More of the same would not have worked for me this year.  It was time for a big change.
• To perhaps take my results to the next level.  I have some serious goals for the year (PR at Ironman Canada; perform strongly at Ultraman Hawaii), and I couldn't afford to mess around in training in order to achieve those goals.
• To learn a bunch more training techniques.  I've learned about and adopted certain styles that have worked well for me in the past, but again, time for some changes.
• To take some pressure off myself.  Now all I have to do is show up and do the workouts!
• To have an objective third party looking in on me.  Lord knows I can lose perspective in terms of how much I'm doing (too much; not enough), how well or how poorly I'm doing (I am a tough critic of myself).  Coach does have access to my full history in black and white, and numbers don't lie.  She gets to interpret them, though, and set a course for improvement.

I couldn't have picked just any old coach, either.  I know many wonderful coaches, both locally and across the U.S., and there were several I considered, but it was really important for there to be a good personality/style match.  I'm not sure Joanna gets all of me, yet (I've been asked whether she reads my blog and my response is GOOD GOD I HOPE NOT--just kidding), but I think we are both the type of people who can size up others pretty quickly.

Last week was my last week of self-coaching for awhile.  I had a great week--partly because I came off those hard sprint races, and partly because this is exactly where I expected to be at this time!  I'm typically in this shape in mid-January, but that would be for a July Ironman, and this year's isn't until August, so I am more or less right on schedule.  I knocked out a 3-hour ride on Sunday where I hit all my power numbers and then some (hit the 56.1 mile mark at 2:33 in--at that point I'd done 30' easy, 1 hour at 80% FTP, and 2x(18' @ 85-90%, 6' @ FTP, 1' @ 105%, 5' easy), and then yesterday I had a solid 2:05 run with building pace, and got in 13.3 miles.

I am always surprised because it seems like all of a sudden I feel really fit, but it's all very much planned, and I shouldn't be surprised, but I think my brain enjoys the feeling of SURPRISE!  So I'm not going to question it.

I got my first 2 weeks of training from JZ and let's just say it's going to be awesome!  Good thing I'd been training like a Crackhead for the last few years, because if I wasn't, NO WAY would I be able to tolerate what's coming up.  So maybe it's a test to see if I can handle it--we will see.  All I know is I need to be religious about going EASY when that is what I am supposed to do, because there is plenty of HARD stuff where I will need to HTFU to get it done.  It's been a few years since I've been challenged in this way, and it's exactly what I need--not that I didn't challenge myself in training for my first Ultraman--that was a huge challenge and stretch, but now I've had another year for my body to really absorb all that and kick it up a notch.

On that note, I must go and get some training done.  This ain't no party, and this sure ain't no fucking disco!