Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy!

Sometimes I wake up and pinch myself because there are so many good things in my life. Today is one of those days.

Ostensibly, I should feel like crap. Today is Day 6 of the Tour of Sufferlandria. From Monday-Wednesday this week, I've already put in 8 hours of training. What I've needed to do is eat like a champion to keep up with this. My legs are alternating between feeling like concrete and "not too bad." Daily stretching and trigger point work helps with that. Swimming seems to help, too. I don't have a swim scheduled for today, but may go anyway just for an easy 1500. It seems that running super easy is helping, too. Finally, caffeine. Yesterday morning I felt like I feel during a 20+ hour Ironman training week (which isn't that far off--13 weeks!) at some point where I would rather not work out but know that I can get through it. I debated whether to skip the swim, and decided what the hell, let's swim, but let's drink Coke. So I drank a Coke (in a water bottle) while I swam, and swam like a champ. The workout had a really long warmup and then 15 50's alternating speed with easy. A short and sweet workout. I nailed the 50's--and I even used paddles. Then I ran :15 on the treadmill super easy, then headed to the track and did a bunch of running drills alternating with fast laps. It was fun to zip around the track, since I'd been doing solid track workouts for 8 weeks. Despite having drunk Coke, after a few hours of work I went down for a short nap. It seems my pattern of working out some early, working super early a few hours, then a nap is good for me, although I don't know how much longer I can keep it up. I have never napped so much in my life! I am fortunate to work at home and be able to manipulate my schedule.

I ate 4 meals yesterday. First up was my usual banana/wheat germ muffin and hardboiled egg for breakfast. Then I swam and drank Coke during that and a few sips of Gatorade while I ran. Then I drank Endurox R4 and had a toasted, buttered English muffin with lox on top. Then I had a Lean Cuisine before I got on the bike, and for dinner I had a big salad with about 3/4 lb. of broiled sockeye salmon! Initially, I ate 1/2 the salmon filet, thinking I'd wrap the rest for today, but it was so good and I still felt hungry, so I ate some more and then wrapped the rest. About 2 hours later I polished it off! I think I also ate a banana, some prunes, some almonds, some jelly beans and string cheese. I have no idea how many calories in all that, but this morning I feel ready to eat again, so I must be fueling myself well.

So the first thing I'm so happy about is that I don't feel like complete and total crap despite the training load I'm carrying, so soon in this training cycle.

Another thing is that the dress I am sewing for my friend's wedding is nearly finished, and it's absolutely beautiful! It occurred to me that I have a warped perception of my body size--I wouldn't say I'm completely dysmorphic, but I think what's happened is that since I don't wear dresses very often I forget just how small I am. I look at this dress I'm making and think, "how the fuck am I going to fit in that?" But then I put the pieces on, and it's fine. I actually bought a dress recently, too, and when I took it out of the package, I wondered how the hell I would fit in it, but I put it on and voila! I'm a size 0-2 depending on manufacturer, I guess. I am still used to how sizes used to run years ago, when I was a perfect 3 and sometimes even a 5. So in my head, I'm a size 3, so 0 and 2 don't make sense to me! Back to sewing--the dress is an Oscar de la Renta design. The pattern is from 1989! I had the pattern and the fabric that long and never sewed it. It's simple yet elegant. I will post a picture of the dress when it's done. I'm making it out of raw silk, which is very delicate and will snag at the slightest wrong touch, so I am being very careful to have clean hands and filed nails as I work on it.

Another source of happiness is that a friend I am coaching is doing quite well in her training. She's only raced once so far, but I have very high expectations for her and will just have to see how it goes, but so far so good. I really care more about how well she does than me. Although good thing she's not in my age group! Another friend that I gave a training plan to is working through an injury (not caused by my training plan!) in a way that I think will leave her in a much better place. I think this will finally be the impetus for her to get on a regular strength routine, which I've advocated to her for years. But other than not being able to run temporarily, I think she's doing well, all things considered.

Another really great thing is that a friend of mine is moving to Cincinnati from Dallas area, so we will be close enough to drive and train with one another! I coached him in 2013, and he's less than half my age, but we have a great time together always. I've been at a few of his Ironman races, and we've done a few together. He even offered to help me out with my Ultraman training! Even if we get to spend 2 or 3 times a year together, that will be just great. He is one of those rare athletes who is not afraid of anything, training or racing-wise. Sometimes when we talk, we make up stupid shit that we want to do. Brad came up with this:

Well, he came up with the format--I came up with the name and T-shirt logo. I may end up doing this as part of my Ultraman training. Doesn't it look stupid? We even thought how funny it would be to do the last day, a sprint, in an actual race. We'd be dying and going so slow, maybe even DFL, even though we'd look like these fast racer types. I've done sprint/Oly/half IM a number of times, and I've done sprint/Oly/half/full IM once in 2009 to prepare for Ultraman Canada. Working back down the pyramid would be the tough part! But doing these things is all about pacing and letting go of your ego. But there is a tremendous training benefit to these NothingMan events. They just toughen you up and give you this incredible confidence in yourself that you can do ANYTHING. Brad is that rare young man (a talented triathlete!) who understands that you can't go out and hammer every workout all the time. I think that's from his background as a bike racer, among other things.

Anyway, how much fun would it be to do Tri Like an Egyptian? If I can swing it next year, I'm doing it, but at least 4 months out from Ultraman. If I don't do that, then I'm hoping Brad will team up with me for 24 Hours of Triathlon. That's something we've been meaning to do together so maybe next year will be the right time. Luckily, he has an amazing wife that I am also friends with who would help crew for us. Morgan is an awesome woman! I got to witness the marriage proposal back in 2010!

I think it's hilarious that a guy less than half my age wants to train and race with me, considering I have other men friends that feel like they are competing with me (and I am faster than some of them) whose egos get bruised easily. Poor babies!

While I haven't yet raced in 2015, that's coming up in about a week! Shit! Then I will truly know how I'm doing. I actually didn't race too badly in 2014 considering my late start, so it will be interesting to see how I do.

In 7 weeks I'm going to Florida with a friend to race a 1/2 IM, and then I'll also be doing an Oly the next day. Because I'm stupid. But I will get to see some friends down there that I haven't seen in awhile. So the racing part is just an excuse to go down there!

I've been moved up a notch in Synthroid dose, and soon I will have enough data to present to my doctor to show that I will probably need to cycle dosage and be monitored closely while I am in these big training cycles. I went to see a pulmonologist, and have a full lung function test next week. It will be good to have that data, again, so I can check that regularly and know what constitutes 100% for me. At the appointment, they said my blood O2 was good and my lungs sounded clear. The test will verify whether what I'm experiencing is asthma or COPD. It could be either, but treatment is effectively the same. I got an air cleaner, and that is already helping, so for sure I know that my allergies have been acting up. It's possible I also have GERD--I'll get that tested, too, and while I hate taking meds, I have reconciled myself to doing what I need to do.

I feel pretty optimistic I will finish the Tour this time, although I have a healthy fear of Saturday--there are 3 videos strung together, starting with one of the hardest of the bunch! But, I am discovering that not everyone can do every workout exactly as specified. I feel pretty strong, but I'm evaluating whether to try and actually do a long run tomorrow. At least I have a massage scheduled! Every time I do these crazy things, I learn more about what my body can handle and what constitutes a reasonable training load. I am still pleased with how much I am able to do at my age, all things considered.

So today I am going to just be happy for all the wonderful things in my life and be optimistic that in general, things will continue to go well, that I can keep training like I am, and that I have some decent race results this year. I'm trying not to look too far ahead, but 8 weeks out is reasonable, I think.

Life is great!

Critique my Refrigerator and Pantry

From time to time, I catch shit from people about things I choose to eat and drink, like Coke, jelly beans, Pringles, etc. But unless you've been inside my fridge and watched me eat on a daily basis, what the fuck would you know about my day to day diet?

So in the interest of full disclosure, I hereby present pictures of my fridge contents:

Above is the business part.

Top Left:

• Bottles of Gatorade. These are used during swimming, biking and running. Behind the Gatorade bottles are my bottles of Endurox R4, which has been my preferred recovery drink for 15 years.

Top Right:

• Coffeemate, low fat Hazelnut. Yes, it contains sugar. I like it.
• Behind the Coffeemate is coffee. For years I used to ship 100% Kona coffee here, and it was delicious, but I don't drink as much coffee as I used to (3 small mugs in the morning), and I am good with Starbucks or Gevalia or whatever looks good at my grocery store.
• Bottles of Infinit. These are here for the Tour of Sufferlandria. Normally, I only use Infinit for rides of 3+ hours or when I both swim and run in the morning before work. For the Tour, I'm drinking it every stinking ride because I want the caffeine and race-type fueling. I have 3 custom Infinit mixes that I use as needed--for Monday-Friday of the Tour I am using my lower calorie mix, and for Saturday and Sunday I'm using my fairly high caffeine, higher calorie mix.

Second Shelf, Left:

• Eggs, eggs, eggs! The small bowl has hardboiled eggs. I eat one for breakfast every day.
• Herring. This is a snack food for me. I like it from time to time. 

Second Shelf, Right:

• One container of brown rice.
• One container of a chicken/vegetable dish that was in my freezer, that I will eat either for lunch or dinner today depending on how I feel. It will go over rice.

Drawer, Left:

• Various protein snacks live in here, such as string cheese (sometimes Cheddar), braunschweiger (yep, I love that stuff), regular American cheese, Canadian Bacon and Lox, depending on what I'm in the mood for. The lox and Canadian bacon are for when I do a swim/run combo and I need to eat a significant snack after, which consists of an English muffin buttered with one of them on top.
• Corn tortillas (you can't see them). For when I want a bit more carbs with dinner (to soak up some sauce) or an ad hoc tortilla wrap.

Third Shelf, Left:

• Homemade banana/wheat germ muffins (in the bags). I eat one of these for breakfast every day, with a hardboiled egg. Gluten! GMO wheat! Sugar! Canola oil! These things will surely kill me!
• Behind the muffins is a big chunk of Parmesan cheese, that I periodically grate to go on top of salads or rice.

Third Shelf, Right:

• Cherry tomatoes, for salads
• More containers of brown rice. I made about 8 cups for the week, and it keeps well.
• Yogurt. This is what I consider dessert, when I want it.
• Bread. GMO wheat! For when I want toast or the odd sandwich.

Bottom Drawer, Left:

• Lemons. I use these when I roast a whole chicken. The chicken is stuffed with 2 separated heads of garlic, a halved lemon and some rosemary.
• Salad greens. I could buy the greens loose, but I'm lazy and I like the easy variety of the packaged ones.
• A small container of pignoli. For salads.
• Garlic. You can't see it, but there are 4 heads in there.

Bottom Drawer, Right:

• Coke! Because I like it during long runs on the treadmill in winter, to load up calories before long workouts, or when I've delayed a mid-day run or bike past lunchtime and need calories but can't eat lunch because then I'd need to wait even longer. On average, I probably drink 1.5 Cokes per week.

Above is the door. It contains condiments (ketchup, mayo, mustard, BBQ sauce, Chinese sauces), grated Parmesan (in the Jewel container), Starbucks espressos for emergency caffeine, almond milk (used in my breakfast muffins), a package of coffee (because it wouldn't fit in the freezer), bread crumbs, lemon juice, spare Coffeemates, Kringle Cream (it's awesome), Limoncello (it's also awesome), English muffins (which I will swap out for the homemade ones in late spring) and...BEER.

Above is the main part of my (smallish) freezer. In here are chicken (whole roaster and drumsticks), some steaks, some fish (salmon), a chuck roast, coffee, meatballs (in the Dean's containers), a Lean Cuisine (I usually eat one of those for lunch), and various containers of tasty things I've cooked in bulk and then frozen so I can use them on weekdays when I have zero time to cook. Also stuffed in there are a couple of slices of my deep dish pizza and lasagna in the tinfoil.

Above is the door of my freezer. Butter (butter keeps extremely well in the freezer), more coffee, and containers of various tasty things like pesto (I make a huge batch every August and dole it out as needed throughout the year), pasta sauces and rice toppings. And a few small ice packs.

Above are the top shelves of my pantry (it's a closet). Some cooking vessels, including a lobster pot, a tart pan and my good cookie sheets, and on the lower shelf are my flours (gluten! GMO wheat!), rices (brown and jasmine), sugars (brown and white granulated), and spare food wraps.

Above is the remaining shelves of my pantry. Lots of good things in there! Various sauces for Chinese cooking, couscous, sardines, tomatoes and tomato sauces, Chinese vegetables, olives, anchovies, beans, soups, sauerkraut, salsa, wheat germ, almond milk, ketchup, pickles, coconut milk, chile sauce, canned fruit, garlic chili paste, and there's a bunch of pasta in there.

So yes, I do eat some processed foods, I do eat some sugar (aside from naturally occurring in the fruit I eat which is typically bananas, dried figs, prunes, and seasonal fruits like berries, mangos), I do drink beer and the occasional aperitif or cordial (I have a pretty good wine rack in my dining room, too!), and I do take in engineered sports nutrition. I prepare my breakfast and dinner foods from scratch, and go out to eat maybe once a week or every 2 weeks, preferring sushi, good Italian and lately Caribbean.

I didn't take pictures of other food areas, like spices, oils and crackers. I use a lot of olive oil. Salads are topped with olive oil and creme of balsamic. I have fallen in love with the specialty Triscuits--cracked black pepper, sweet potato and roasted sweet onion. Sometimes I'll have a few with cheese on top as a snack, or have a few with dinner. I have a bag of fun size Paydays that are in reserve for long bike rides or whenever I feel like it. I have a package of Keebler cheese/peanut butter crackers that I like when doing long (3+ hour) rides. I have some jelly beans.

I cook on weekends only unless I have a day off work. Broiling a steak or fish or chicken does not constitute cooking to me. Cooking is a dish requiring prep time, at least 5 ingredients, and some watching. I've come to know a bunch of recipes in my favorite cookbooks that I make over and over. Pasta sauces are for when I'm training > 15 hours per week. Rice toppings are good any time. The pizza and lasagne are once a year deals, since they take a shitload of time to make. I'm still trying to decide if/when I will make my annual batch of green chile--it's another dish that takes the better part of a day to make, but I have no room in my freezer currently! I can now start extracting containers from my freezer, and when I have removed 4 or so, then I can make my next thing and freeze it. What happens is that by summer I have a whole bunch of different things in there to choose from, which is really nice, and they supplement grilling outdoors. In summer, I'm usually training like a beast and eating more pasta, and there are many pasta sauces I like that require very little time, and so I will make one when I feel like it (spaghetti carbonara, walnut pesto, sausage/cream, on and on!) and eat it for a few days.

Could I eat more cleanly? Of course. But I do pretty OK, I think, eating appropriately for the amount of training I'm doing, a good amount of fruits and vegetables (I have fruit for morning snack and on top of salads and in some rice toppings, and dinner features a lot of vegetables and some at lunch), a good amount of lean protein, appropriate use of starches, and I'm not a big dessert person. I do indulge in the occasional McDonald's, but that's about it for out to eat junk food. In my daily diet, most of my sugar comes in the form of sports nutrition. There's that little bit in my coffee, breakfast muffin and lunch. Sometimes I go through a phase where I'll have tuna and vegetables for lunch. It's healthier than a Lean Cuisine, but I also like a hot meal at lunch. I don't feel like I'm sacrificing. EVER. Do I think my racing would be better if I cleaned up my diet even more? Fuck no. It's important to me to enjoy life even though I train fucking hard. Good food is one of the rewards of hard training. I'm cognizant of the need to replace and top off my glycogen stores, not get fat, and time my meals and snacks based on my training. This is what works for me. Time to finish breakfast!

I love food--I love shopping for food, I love making food, and I love eating it. But I am also aware of nutrition, and I think I have it covered!

Tour of Sufferlandria 2015

Last year, I attempted to do the Tour of Sufferlandria for the first time. I failed at completing it, miserably. In retrospect, I failed to recover properly from Ironman Cozumel.

This year, no Ironman to recover from, and I've been doing 1 or 2 of the Sufferfest videos for the prior 7 weeks. And I sort of tapered this week--while I did some tempo running on Wednesday, I cut back my long run from 2 hours to 1:30, and ran it super easy on Friday.

In scheduling training for next week, where the Tour is in full swing, I've noted that all running and swimming is optional. I will swim tomorrow morning, and I have one more swim planned, but if I'm dying by Wednesday, I will skip it. Any running will be super easy, Zone 1 stuff.

Yesterday, the Tour kicked off with an easy video, Elements of Style, followed by The Long Scream. The Long Scream is a :30 Time Trial! Well, I'm still a triathlete and not just a cyclist, so I ran :25 before I hopped on the bike. The run was to be easy, and I went outside and had actually a pretty damn good run for going easy! I averaged 8:58/mile, in part because I saw the girls' cross country team running towards me for about 1/2 mile so I had to look good for them! But I also know that because I ran so easy Friday that I was able to go faster than I needed to.

Elements of Style was fun, and it made me realize I need to focus more on engaging my left calf muscles. I'm right-handed, and very right-body dominant, and my left knee is the one missing the ACL. My right calf is always more gnarly than the left one after biking, so maybe I can work on that. Then The Long Scream. Fuck. I forgot it was a TT. Now, many of the people doing the Tour are just biking or haven't been training a lot, unlike me. So I am doing the Tour rides as "best effort." I'm still putting forth a really strong effort, but typically I'm riding one zone lower than they are asking for some of the time. Still, I knew I'd ridden hard when I got off the bike and my legs felt like jello, and I disconnected my laptop from the TV and then yelled FUCK OFF at the TV as if that would turn it off!

But I didn't feel too badly, because I'd drunk a Coke before I ran, and I drank Infinit (with CAFFEINE!) on the bike. I'd planned a :30 swim after. I've been doing a :30 or so swim on Sundays after my long run, and I did one Friday after it, and wanted to do one to recover from the biking. I started drinking the Endurox R4 after I got off the bike just to keep some calories going in, and also a big glass of water.

I got to the pool, put on my flippers, took a big gulp of Endurox R4, and swam 1500 straight! I don't know what possessed me, but I felt good and didn't feel bored by swimming straight (and fairly easy). The power of caffeine! I finished up with 200 kick and got out and showered, and then went into the sauna to stretch a bit. As soon as I laid down in there I was like FUCK I'M HUNGRY, but I managed about 5 minutes of stretching. I don't expect to be too hungry after just 2:15 of working out (the total for yesterday), but I was. When I got home, I had another 1/2 chicken breast fricassee leftover, and on Friday I'd made about 8 cups of brown rice in my rice cooker, so I scooped out about 1 1/4 cups of rice into the bowl, microwaved it and ate it standing up in the kitchen because I was so damn hungry. And I cracked a beer, since I'd already drunk my recovery beverage!

And then I realized I was pretty tired. I was going to immediately go to the grocery store, but my body said LAY THE FUCK DOWN. So I did. I needed some more calories so I grabbed a small handful of jelly beans and ate them in bed watching whatever was on TV. After about 45 minutes, I motivated and went grocery shopping, and luckily I hadn't planned anything for the day, because the rest of it basically consisted of laying around doing nothing. Which I need from time to time.

I had the filet part of a huge porterhouse steak and a giant salad for dinner and another beer, then I had a generous shot of this stuff and passed out pretty early.

As I sit here writing this my legs don't feel too bad, but today's Tour stage is Blender. 1:40 of you want to kill someone. But that's all that's on my schedule today aside from maybe a little snow shoveling.

Next week, the Tour includes about 9 1/2 hours of riding. While I do that much many times during the summer preparing for an Ironman, um...the Tour intensity is just over the top. Still, my objective is to finish the damn thing this time, even if I have to tone down the intensity. Last year, I was toast on Friday. I'm sure I will be hurting badly by then, but I hope not enough to quit! I am going to mix up 11 bottles of Infinit for the biking and my alleged long run. There is no way I can get through all this without caffeine!

Huge props to anyone who does this and finishes it. It is not your average week of biking! If you think you train hard and have never done one of these videos, then you are delusional. These videos are the real deal and aren't intended for daily use! That's why this is such a fun thing to do in January!

Good luck to all Tour contenders, this is going to be epic!