Hey Carbs, Fuck Off!

During the last year knowing I'm hypothyroid, I mostly observed what my body was doing with calories, as it had been a good while since I'd been formally training, and while I had thought I had all that dialed in perfectly in years past, I wasn't so sure this time around.  I am fairly certain that right now I am having a hydration issue (I seem to need a shit ton of fluids to the tune of maybe 2 gallons/day) that will hopefully resolve once we get my TSH level back to a reasonable level.

Meanwhile, I wasn't exactly delighted with my body comp these last few months.  On the one hand, I'd had several people tell me how muscular I appear, which I sometimes took as code for fat.  On the other hand, it wasn't like I was busting out all of my clothes.  I just wasn't my usual lean as shit Ironman self.  It's possible that some of this is just aging, particularly being firmly post-menopausal, it's possible that some of this is thyroid malfunction, but it's also possible that some of it is a lack of focus.

But cramming for an Ironman is not the time to do any sort of calorie restriction.  Still, I was somewhat careful, despite my joking about candy and such.  Once upon a time, I though 116 was plenty small for me, until I got down to 109-110 in 2009 and felt outstanding training and racing at that weight.  I've been around 113-116 this year, which isn't a complete tragedy, but still more than I would have liked.  From a calorie perspective, I knew I was fueling appropriately for the most part, and when I'm training around 20 hours a week, some candy/Pringles/Cheetos are almost required because they lack bulk, and after all the "regular" food, they are a good way to get in needed extra calories.

While in Cozumel, I looked forward to coming home, training less, and doing a cleanse of sorts on my diet.  Well I got the jump start to the cleanse by having a bit of Montezuma's Revenge or whatever it is I had for 3 days.  Much as I'd wanted to avoid Gatorade or any engineered nutrition for 2 weeks, Gatorade is the perfect antidote for severe hydration, so in it went and it fixed me up.

I'm not one to go on a 2-week eating binge after an Ironman, because a) I'm hypothyroid and b) I don't want to deal with having to drop 5+ pounds--it's just no fun when I am already tiny and don't need that many calories to maintain my weight, especially with reduced amounts of training.  So after I got over the brief illness, I stocked up my fridge with my low training staples--lots of salad ingredients, fruits, veggies, cottage cheese, yogurt.

It's been 2 weeks since IMCOZ and while my weight has changed only maybe 1 lb., my fat distribution is changing already.  I am reminded once again how simple it can be to drop weight if I just focus on less starchy (and thus overall as a % of daily calories) carbs.  Cut out the pasta and rice and presto.  I'm aiming for improved body composition more than weight loss, although mentally, I still have this picture of myself from 4 years ago when I was a lean, mean, ab-tacular fighting machine.  I did receive some comments on my abs in Cozumel, but I was like shit they're not all there yet! 

I have begun training again, but will only be in the 10-15 hours range for the next 6 weeks.  At that weekly volume level, I will stay off rice and pasta at dinner time (I may have some rice at lunch after my second workout of the day), and the leaning out should progress.  I will also be upping the intensity of training in a big way, so you put these two things together and voila, I should be good to go!  I am already back on the Gatorade during workouts, and Endurox R4 (only 1 scoop) for recovery (plus vitamins).

For my desired weight (110) and 10-15 hours of training per week, my handy carb chart tells me I should be doing about 3.3g carb/lb. of body weight daily (assuming 60% of daily calories from carbs), which is about 1450 calories/day from carbs.  Pretty sure I'm doing a bit less than that, and making up the calories with protein.  I want to get back in touch with hunger.  I'm not starving myself, but it's OK to be a bit hungry at times, and I will let my body catch up to calorie needs as I add training/intensity.

I am always amused at a person who asks me for weight loss advice when they tot out all their alleged good habits like "I eat really healthy and yet I can't lose weight."  My first question is, "What did you eat yesterday and about how many calories was it?"  Blank stare.  Wrong answer.  While some people think I count calories daily and track it, I don't, but I can tell you what I ate and about how many calories it was.  You learn and eventually it becomes automatic. 

I am starting to see some of the definition in my lower abs again, and that means I'm on the right track.  Next up I hope to add a bit more strength training to firm things up a bit more.  I have no idea whether I can get back those bitchin' abs I used to have, but I am going to give it the old college try.  I do know that I am already getting stared at at the Y while I'm on the treadmill, and I don't think it's because I look disgusting.  Maybe I will ask someone the next time I'm there!

Here I am in 2009 with my friend Brad:

Call me vain, but damn!  Can I get back in that shape at the ripe age of 57?  Give me 12 weeks.  I hope to be running the Red Rock Canyon Marathon in that kind of shape!

Week 1 of Coached Training in Review: Rise of the Borg Queen

Some of you who read my blog may not have gone far enough back in time to know that I am a dork/geek/nerd and like Star Trek. I have the Borg logo (a gift) from Franklin Mint that was given to me years ago. Some day I will have it made into a pin so I can wear it:

Anyway, I got through my first week of Joanna's workouts.

Saturday was a 3-hour ride with a 20-minute run off the bike.  For the ride, there was about 1 hours worth of intervals where I was to "ride at a pace that you would like to be able to hold for 5 hours."  Initially, I thought 22mph, but that has been feeling easy lately, so I decided to go for 24.5-25mph, and did it!  Now, this was on the trainer, so my actual outside pace won't be there yet, but still--neat mental trick to tell me to do what I think I would *like* to do, and voila!  I got in 67 miles in 3 hours, and I wasn't toasted when I finished.

For the run, the objective was to warm up for 5 minutes building to a pace that I "would like to run in my next race, be it a sprint or whatever."  Well, I thought that since I'd effectively done a 1/2 IM ride, that I should shoot for 1/2 IM pace.  And right now where my run fitness is, that puts me at a 9:30 pace, until I prove otherwise.  So I did that, and while I can't say it felt easy, it did not suck bad at all.  I was shocked, considering how hard I'd ridden the bike.

Key in executing this workout was using my custom Infinit, and the fact that I stopped drinking it on the bike with 20 minutes to go, to let my stomach settle.  A week ago when I did a similar workout, I drank right up to the end of the bike, and I felt like crap when I started to run.  My point here is that it's important for me to always be thinking as if I were racing, whenever I am doing race-similar workouts.  I had a flash while running that gee, I might be able to go faster all around this season, and the thought momentarily frightened me.  Or should I say, I had an emotional moment.  There's a lot to be said for the mental aspect of this and letting yourself believe you can really go faster, and this is one of the main reasons having a coach right now is good for me.  I am just doing what I'm told without reference to what I think I should be able to do.  So no holding back!  It is all just numbers, and I love numbers, but numbers do not have emotions, so why should I be afraid of any particular number in training any more, right?

The workout was also aided by listening to some more of my old party mix cassette tapes (before they are converted to MP3), and hey, when you listen to Crack FM, every fucking song is great!  I was laughing that I should have gone hard every time The Clash, David Bowie or XTC came on, but that was pretty regular.  Here is the full playlist of what I listened to--I have left off artist names except where I cleverly put the same song back to back by 2 different artists.

• Money (Stones)
• Money (Flying Lizards)
• Cars 
• Heart of Glass
• Two Swords
• Down in the Cockpit
• Helicopter
• ME-262
• TVC-15
• Numbers
• Walk Away
• Think it Over
• Trampled Underfoot
• What's the Matter With You?
• Shattered
• Being Boiled
• Psycho Killer
• I Dream of Wires (Gary Numan)
• I Dream of Wires (Robert Palmer)
• Clues
• Dominance and Submission
• Respect
• Satisfaction (Stones)
• Satisfaction (Devo)
• Don't Lose Your Temper
• Red
• I See Red
• Under Pressure
• Hit me With Your Rhythm Stick
• Another One Bites the Dust
• Fashion
• Pocket Calculator
• Through Being Cool
• Too Much Pressure
• Clampdown
• Mob Clash
• White Riot
• Rebel Rebel
• Suffragette City
• Call the Uh-Oh Squad
• Chips on my Shoulder
• Pressure Drop
• Down

The music was so good I never turned on the TV!  I sang along whenever I could, and it was a nice change of pace not to be listening to hip hop, which is my typical trainer music.

So Saturday was awesome.  After I finished, I ate lunch, stretched, got waxed, went to Best Buy to pick up a wireless stick for my Blu Ray player, went to Binny's to get some Barolo and Barbaresco (shit Italian reds are still buco expensive), then I was next to a Home Depot, so I figured, what the hell, go in and look at stuff.  Today I will have my contractor come over with carpet, granite (for the bar top), paint (walls) and stain samples (wood trim and cabinets behind bar), but I thought I'd get a head start on that in the store.  I called Jim while I was there to tell him what I was looking at, and we talked about some other stuff, too.  Bonus, I found mini blinds that are copper colored for the windows, which will set off the bar hood nicely.  My bar hood is going to be covered in this copper:

The walls will be painted Almond Cream (I chose that sample and reviewed with Jim), the wood trim and bar cabinets will be medium walnut stain.  I like the granite called Black Galaxy because it has copper flecks in it, but there are some other colors I looked at online that would work too--just have to check availability and cost, although I am spending a bundle on the bar!  The front and side of the bar will be glass block with blue LED lights inside.  It's going to be way cool!

So I ended my Home Depot expedition because I was so fucking hungry and needed to get home and eat some more.  I pounded what I thought to be an appropriate amount of calories to replace what I'd burned (I probably burned 2,000 or so) and fuel up for Sunday.

Sunday's workouts called for a 4,000 yard interval swim and then a 2-hour run.  Fuck, that swim was hard--I won't write the workout here, let's just say it was a mix of 25's, 50's, 100's and a couple 800's, but I swam well, I thought.  Per the Masters coach, I started focusing on not crossing over, and during my warmup guess what?  Faster.  Huh.  This will take a few weeks at least to fix, but I can already see that fixing that alone is going to be huge, as I noticed that my rotation and kick all seem to work better together.  I tried my best to practice that throughout the 4,000 yards, although I did let myself "just swim" for some of it, otherwise I actually screw up my stroke even more.  The point of this is to "just swim" and have it be good form, right?  I can over think this, so I need to be careful of how many things I'm thinking about while I'm trying to get my swim on.  Masters coach also told me to do a better job of finishing the stroke, but I am putting that on hold until I fix the cross over.  Why?  Because I can tell that if I don't cross over, I am doing a better job of finishing!

Speaking of Masters, the coach agreed to work with me 1:1 on Tuesdays at 6:30, but I will "just swim" with the group on Thursdays.  I can't believe how well this is all working out--it's something I should have done years ago, but the Masters coach understands what I am trying to accomplish this year, and I think he's as excited to work with me as I am with him!

OK so back to the workouts.  I finish the swim, and all I can think is when was the last time I swam hard 4,000 and then ran 2 hours? Um...NEVER.  So this should be interesting.  The weather was awesome yesterday, so I suited up to run outdoors at Waterfall Glen, my hilly trail (crushed limestone) not too far from home.  As expected, the parking lot was full, but I got the pole position at the trail head, as someone had just left.  I haven't done a long run outside in several months, let alone a hilly one, so I had no expectations for it.  Plus I did have some residual fatigue from that swim and maybe a little from Saturday.

I forgot to mention I drank Infinit again during the swim, and that's what I loaded into my Fuel Belt for the run.  With the amount of training I'm now doing, anything 2+ hours requires it.  Plus I needed the caffeine ;)

I was shocked at how "not bad" I felt when I began running.  I did walk the hills at miles 1, 2 and 6, because who was I kidding I had not run hills in a long time.  But I did do a few hill intervals on Friday, and (Coach is probably laughing at me) I could tell that the hills just didn't feel that bad.  Also I could tell that my weight is probably perfect, and that I feel super strong.  It's been awhile since I felt fat running uphill, which means time to drop some pounds, but I felt pretty darn light yesterday.  Maybe I was just depleted, LOL!

Anyway, I ran 12.7 miles in 1:57, which is 9:15 pace, even though I walked and kept trying to slow myself down, and felt like I was running through sludge at some points from the cumulative fatigue.  But when I was like 1/4 mile from finishing (I ran one loop which is 9.65 miles, counter-clockwise, then continued on out for 1.something miles and back), I was just so happy to be finishing that I pumped a fist in the air and shouted FUCK YEAH and sprinted it in.

I was on a schedule again yesterday, so no time to stretch and exult in my good run, so I drove home, unloaded my swim and run crap, put LGL and more bike crap into the car, showered, drank a bunch of water, and headed to meet a friend for sushi.  He is such a nice guy that he drove from way up north (Barrington) to meet me for lunch, and he got there ahead of me and the table was laid with sushi goodness when I arrived!  On the way there, I called him to say I'd be maybe 10 minutes late, and when he told me the table was already covered with sushi, I got so excited that I turned left on a red light!  Whoops! See this is why I typically don't talk on the phone while I'm driving.

So we pounded sushi (I did, at least), had a few beers, many laughs and great conversation, then we parted ways and I went to the bike shop to pick up Skull Kingdom and a new aero helmet:

Will that look sweet or what?  But wait...there's more.  I decided I want skulls on it, so I'm ordering these decals, one for each side:

They are reflective.  I printed a pic of it and cut it out and put it on the helmet so I could see what it will look like.

While I was on my way to the bike shop, I realized I could have eaten more, but oh well, when I drove home from the shop, I was starving and all I could think was what do I do first when I get home--take out my contact lenses, put the chicken in the oven, shovel calories?  I opted for guzzling more water, taking out contact lenses, prepping the chicken and putting it in the oven, then I cracked a beer and stretched my brains out, ate some dried apricots and almonds and cheese.  By the time I was done stretching, the giblets were cooked, so I ate those, then made a salad and ate that, and when the chicken was done I had a thigh and drumstick.

You would think I had enough food for the day, but you would be wrong.  I woke up at 1:15 this morning hungry, so I got up, had a piece of string cheese and a 225-calorie Powerbar, went back to sleep, woke up at 4:30 hungry and ate breakfast.

On my online training log for Joanna, I wrote, "I'm tired" on yesterday's run workout notes.  She emailed me back, "Your friends will be pleased."  My response was, "Yes they will be.  But I am like the Borg and adapt quickly and get stronger."  One of my friends used to say I reminded him of Seven of Nine, but I think the Borg Queen is more like it:

I feel pretty good this morning.  All I have to do today is run for an hour and lift maybe :45.  All good.  As long as I keep up with my calories, I'm all good.  Here's a sampling of what I bought at the grocery store on Saturday (I shopped before I hopped on the bike):

Oh, and I'm SO glad we switched to DST.  Now I wake up at 4:30 instead of 3:30, which is great!  I knew that the time change would start to get me back on track, AND I slept 9 hours last night, so since I'm almost done designing for the remodel job, I won't be waking up thinking about 10 million things I have to do!

Just Add More Carbs!

Had my usual breakfast of some coffee and a Powerbar. Rode CF to the outdoor pool and drank about 10 oz. of Gatorade during a 3200 meter workout. Rode home. Finished the Gatorade. Had 2 more cups of coffee. Ate a Twinkie (low-fat--why did I buy those???). Ate 2 huge peaches. Drank 1/2 can of Coke (with the mysterious amount of calories since I know they lie on the can). Ate 2 pieces of fruit slice candy. Went for a run. Wasn't exactly bonky, but could tell my muscles are not fully loaded with glycogen (no pics today--wore the swimsuit I ran in yesterday which got cleaned up during this morning's swim). Kept telling myself while running that I should eat rice or pasta for lunch. Drank 12 oz. Gatorade during my :50 run. Got home, forgot to make bottles of Endurox, crap need to drink some warm. Put pot of water on stove to boil. It's going to be pasta, baby! I think I ate almost 1/2 lb. of pasta with some walnut pesto on top. More like wolfed it down. I needed that! Tonight I may have rice with dinner just to punch up my carbs even more. Thing is, all I need to do tomorrow is run for 1:40, but I think I'm 3 days' worth down on glycogen. Could explain why I'm all sore, too.

Stupid Crackhead! You'd think I'd know better, right? Sure, I do, but sometimes I just get sick of the starchy stuff. No worries--I just need a little here and there.

I saw Chuck at the pool today, and he told me that he circled back for me in his car on Monday during the storm that I waited out. What a nice thing to do! I told him I just waited for the lightning to stop and made it home between storms. I'm lucky to know some really great people like him. On our ride back from the pool together, I told Chuck about my bonk yesterday and we had some good laughs about bonking and how "regular" people don't understand how that happens and how desperate you can get when bonking! I would have snatched anything sugary from anyone yesterday! In retrospect, I should have eaten some pasta last night, but I didn't (1/2 of a PB&J sandwich right before bed). Oh well!

When I say I'm "training," it means I'm paying attention to all that minutiae, like how much carbs I'm taking in, sleep, stretching, all that. I was trying to "not train," but I have failed miserably. I guess it's back to actual training now...stupid NothingMan!

Today's Ride

Before. Wow, I look kind of excited. The outfit is a combo--the top is something I got in Hawaii years ago but hardly ever wear because of the fabric, but it seemed like just the thing to wear with the bottoms, which are Zoot. They are actually a tad too big, oh well, my booty hung out and I don't think anyone cared. I sure didn't.







After. It was H-O-T. 90 with a heat index of 96. Did I say it was hot? It was hot. I rode for 2 hours on Bitchie, drinking really warm Gatorade. Yum. I stopped once to pee at a church (hey God doesn't mind if I water the grass, right?). I didn't feel tired, but I didn't feel great, either. Did I say it was hot? It was hot. REALLY hot. Thankfully it wasn't too humid. But it was HOT.

The forecast calls for even hotter on Sunday, but it could change...most likely to EVEN HOTTER.

Oh well, tomorrow will be a fun day. Farmer's Market to restock the fruits and veggies, a nice run in some sort of swimsuit, a nice swim to keep the tan going, grilling, maybe mow the lawn, fix some bottles, keep working on the house...all good.

About one hour to beer and groceries, a little stretching and some din din. I think I'm going to treat myself to a little pasta tonight. For some reason I'm wanting a bit more carbs. Not like I'm underfed or anything.

I was thinking of this song while riding. One of my favorite Clash tunes. I saw them live years ago back when I was into the "punk" thing. I still feel like a punk. Only a Crackhead punk.

The Truth About Tapering, Part IV

I had a nice swim yesterday--just got in and swam 2200 meters straight (close enough to 1/2 IM distance, right?) with the pull buoy. I could tell I've really been giving it to my arms lately. As usual, I swam in the gutter lane, where the jets of incoming water are shooting in at a pretty high speed. They toss me around a bit, so I know I'm not swimming as fast as I might be able to, but that's OK. The water was nice and cool.

When I finished, I had to tell myself that I was done and didn't need to do more. On such a lovely day, I can imagine just hanging out at the pool for an entire day. Someday I need to do that--swim like 2,000, lay around, swim another 1,000, lay around--you get the idea. I did manage to stretch for a few minutes in the pool.

Riding home, as always, felt harder than the ride there, even though I hadn't used my legs to swim at all. When I got home, I finished up the bike bottle of Gatorade and poured myself my post-swim cup of coffee. I also noticed I was very hungry, meaning my evil plan to deprive myself of carbs was working. So I ate a 1/2 pint or whatever size it is of raspberries and 1/2 pint of blueberries, and within an hour I was still starving so I made myself an egg salad sandwich. This, mind you, is all before 9:30AM!

I did a bunch of work and something came up that put me on delay for my brick workout. In the meantime, I was feeling plenty tired and decided I needed to violate my no mid-day caffeine taper policy, so I drank a can of Coke and ate one of those Gu Roctane things. The Gu tasted pretty good (blueberry pomegranate flavor), but I didn't notice anything special about how it felt. I also know now that I will want Ultra Violence in my Fuel Belt for the IMLP marathon and not Coke, although I'm going to start defizzing a liter of each tonight (professional defizzing, you know!).

And then I saw clouds rolling in, checked the radar, and WTF it looked like it was going to rain! Usually a threat of rain gets me to giddy up, but even though I put on the aero helmet and was pretty much naked on Ultra Bitch, I decided it best to hold down the intensity yesterday. With the extra pool riding I've been doing plus the extra yards because I'm doing meters (trust me, in my case it adds up!), I realized I'm doing a bit more than I need to be doing and need to get my legs rested. So in addition to riding easy, I also cut the ride short by about :15. When I got home, I got ready to run, and my legs still felt iffy, so I decided I didn't need to run for :30, but anyway the clouds were really building, so I just started running around the block (my block is pretty big), and adding on all while watching the clouds. Of course, it was impossible to avoid hills, so I turned onto one of the steepest closest to home, I'm running up it mumbling, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," but it's OK.

I managed an even :15 of running, and just as I approached my house, it started sprinkling, and my neighbor directly across the street had just arrived back in his car, and he says to me, "You made it just in time, kiddo!" You know that just made me smile hugely, because I'm thinking here I'm 51 and someone is calling me kiddo! Anyway, literally as soon as I got in my house the sky opened up, and I was happy for it, because we needed the rain. Later on I got a haircut, and when I got home, I decided a salad was not going to cut it for dinner, so I did have some rice. Part of my heavy leg feeling is the carb deprivation so we'll see if I feel more normal today.

So when I add up yesterday it was still 2.6 hours of "work," and through Thursday, I'm up to 9.5 hours of training (lots of swimming). Today I'm going to swim 1/2 hour to 45 minutes, depending (I hope it quits raining), but I am not riding a bike to the pool. Later on I'm running 1:15 and that will be that for today, a good stretch, hopefully I'll see my friend Lila passing out painkiller (booze) after work, and then I'll really start my preparations for next week. My new Fuel Belt arrived yesterday (yeah), so I need to play around with that plus race belt plus streamers. The forecast calls for rain tomorrow, so maybe I won't do that 2-mile open water race, who knows? At this point it doesn't matter, but I'm sort of looking forward to that sprint on Sunday!

The Truth about Tapering, Part I

I thought I'd do something for posterity here and record as much as possible about my taper--how I feel, what I'm doing, what I think works, etc.

My "official" full taper began yesterday. I began my run taper pretty much 2 weeks ago (my longest run was 3 weeks ago now). I began my strength taper last week, and yesterday was the start of my bike taper. I don't really start my swim taper until next week--there's really no point to that with me since I'm not a fast swimmer. But I can tell you that swimming 2.4 miles won't feel hard to me on race day, since I'll have done it like 4 or 5 times in training, and my weekly yardage has been up there (I might hit about 16,000 yards this week).

So, how did yesterday go? I woke up after 8.5 hours of sleep, which hasn't happened in a couple of weeks. But when I woke up I felt like crap. My eyes were puffy, and I felt a little dizzy, like I have a sinus infection coming on. Some of this I am attributing to the annual changing of the diet, because by about this time in training, I am fucking sick of carbs, I mean stuffing myself to the point of discomfort because I need the calories. I have switched over to more protein (which I probably need anyway), and am now trying to eat a ton of fruit and veggies. My GI tract doesn't exactly like this, but too bad. I'll get back on carbs a few days before the race, or maybe even this weekend, since I'm racing Saturday and Sunday!

Anyway, I wanted to at least swim yesterday. It looked like maybe rain, and my legs felt like shit, and I just couldn't justify using my car to get to a pool, so I decided to walk to the Y, which is only about .5 miles from home. I decided to do a drill workout, as for some reason I had this 3400 yard monster on my training plan! WTF, I did not need to do that! It actually felt good to swim--the water was a decent temperature, and it was nice and relaxing. One of the things I dislike about taper is that you have all this extra "think" time. For me, exercising is an opportunity to get away from all the thinking. So it was nice to swim and well, just swim.

After I finished, I spent a little bit of time stretching in the sauna, and then walked home. I enjoyed the walk and took my sweet time. When I got home, now work was facing me, and as usual, once I'm officially tapering, I find it difficult to focus on work. But I did my best, and got lucky, I suppose, because my boss is on vacation this week. Not that that gives me license to slack--but it gives me even greater flexibility, and when I'm done for a day, I'm just done.

I wanted to also get in a strength workout yesterday, but my muscles were telling me NO FUCKING WAY TAKE THE REST OF THE DAY OFF. So I did, but since I couldn't concentrate on work and really not much of anything else, and since I wasn't exercising and don't want to eat too much, and I really didn't want to be thinking either, all I could think is I want a drink. So now I had to distract myself from that thought since it was maybe 2:00 in the afternoon and I'm supposed to be working. So I gathered up all the paperwork required for getting to the start line (driving directions to Cindy's and then Lake Placid, packing checklist, to do checklist, 3 days before race day and including it checklist including transition bags, proof of registration, daily workout and life schedule from now until race day--fuck, it's a lot of crap, but it works for me), and started organizing things. I finally had ordered the last of the gear crap (a pink Fuel Belt and rain jacket) that should hopefully arrive before I leave in a week.

I think I got all the papers together around 3PM and then decided, what the hell, I'm having a cocktail. So I poured some vodka and cranberry juice (the juice was left over from Triple T) into a mug from my very first marathon (I guess this made it a special occasion), and took everything outside to think about. I also fixed myself a foot bath, because my feet have been taking a beating while I'm doing yardwork because I'm such an idiot and always wear flip flops and so my feet are constantly getting scuffed on the heels and filthy, and even though the pool removes a lot of the dirt, I needed to work on my heels.

So I put the foot bath under the chair, sit down, and man it was hot on my feet, but I got used to it, and then I sipped a cocktail and pondered all the shit I need to get done, including doing 3 races (2 this weekend and then the big enchilada). But now that I had all the paper shit together, it didn't seem that daunting, and the foot bath felt nice, and I just tried to relax and enjoy everything.

After about 1/2 hour of that, I fed my foot water to the potted plants on my patio (I sure hope they like peppermint feet water!), scrubbed my feet and put lotion on them, checked back into work with a new attitude, and hung out and solved a few work crises before killing it for the day and then going to massage school.

I was starting to feel better, at least not sickly, and chalked it all up to the taper. The massage felt really great, but I wanted more and deeper, knowing that I really need it. I hope that my buddy Mike will come through for me with a bonus massage later in the week. I told him I really need it!

I ate another ginormous salad for dinner after the massage, and it was tasty. Of course, TV was crap, so I called it a day around 8:30.

Today I woke up at 3:30AM. Why? Because I had to take a shit. Why? Because I've been eating so many luscious fruits and veggies. Nice. I was pissed, but also glad that I had gone to bed so early so at least I got 7 hours. I looked at the weather, and there was a big blob of a storm just to the west, and I was sad because I really wanted to swim outdoors. But it was early, so I had time.

I didn't feel sickly this morning, however, my nose was running like a mofo. Once again, I hoped I wasn't catching a cold. I did some more organizing, more shitting (I still claim that lettuce is a waste of my time especially when it seems 1/2 of it just comes out the other end), a little weed pulling, and then when I checked the Doppler around 5:30AM it looked like the blob has dissipated and was going to stay south of me, meaning all clear to bike to the outdoor pool!

It was really humid, so I didn't bother putting a shirt over my swimsuit to ride. I noticed right away that my legs did not feel like ass! I was pretty happy about this, and also, once I shot Nasonex up my nose, it stopped running, so probably I don't have a cold! But I did notice that my deltoids are a bit fucked up, probably from the large (for me) amounts of swimming I've been doing. If that's my biggest problem today, fine by me!

The sky still looked a bit ominous as I rode, but then I got to thinking I've never been rained on while on Clipless Fuck, and didn't care if it did rain on me, so it was all good. The pool was relatively uncrowded, and I was just basically going in to flop around a bit. I did an 800 warmup and then 1500 pull with a 100 kick cooldown. Easy peasy. The water was a bit warm, but once again, I totally enjoyed swimming. People always ask me what I think about when I do straight swimming (1500 being pretty short, though), and so I will now let you in on my secret. I think like this:

one one one one one one one one one one one
two two two two two two two two two two two
three three three three three three three three

and so on for each length of the pool. Occasionally a stray thought will enter my head like I wish I would see some hottie swimming next to me, but that's really about it.

I enjoyed the short swim, enjoyed the shower afterwards (what is it about showering in nearly open air that is so great???), enjoyed the ride home, and started thinking about my next workout. I felt kind of bonky on the ride home, which is perfect, because that means my eating strategy is right on. I want my body to be SCREAMING for carbs by next week. Until then, I can manage a drop of a few pounds (I'm about 3 high right now...they should come off easily) and then my muscles will literally soak up the carbs next week like a sponge!

In the meantime, though, I am suffering a little with a growly stomach, angry muscles, a sense of deprivation (no more Cheetos or Twinkies for about 3 weeks when I start to ramp up for NothingMan, although I continue to take in Gatorade during workouts and following proper recovery protocol), the coming and going of various symptoms of illness and injury, but I'm nowhere near being excited about anything. Mostly I'm just happy when I am able to relax and not be too worried about anything. I've got all my handy-dandy checklists organized, and now I just need to get through every day and do what I need to do. I hope I start to feel a bit more peppy for the weekend races (2-mile swim on Saturday and sprint triathlon on Sunday), but if I don't, I'm not going to get bent out of shape.

But I guess I should be somewhat excited, because this is Ironman number:

Got my Metabolism Checked out

I found a place nearby that has Body Gem equipment and had an appointment at 7:00AM today to get measured. I was not allowed to eat anything or drink anything except water this morning. So of course, last night I had trouble sleeping because all I could think about was food! I actually did get up at 3AM and had to eat 1/2 a Power Bar because I was so hungry. I took a thermos of coffee with me so that as soon as the test was done I could drink a cup.

I had this done 3 years ago, and my numbers haven't changed much, allegedly. Which is a good thing, because it's easy for one's metabolism to slow down as the years pass due to decreased activity and/or decreased lean mass. I think I'm actually training harder than 3 years ago, and while I haven't had my body fat measured in awhile, I'm pretty sure I'm retaining my lean mass.

So what is the number? My RMR is 1400. That means that if I sleep all day, that's how many calories I burn. So obviously, you bump that up for daily living activities like, oh, working, preparing food, etc. That stuff, which I believe was underestimated, gives me an additional 300 calories per day. Then, based on my age and what I reported for the intensity of workouts I do and the volume, I am able to add another 500 calories per hour for whatever exercise, be it swimming, biking, running or strength, that I do.

Now, all this is computed in some software, and it's still just a guess. I think that the RMR is probably right, but I think that my daily activities give me about another 500 calories, so I'm going with 1900 for my BMR. During the week I'm doing about 2 hours of training a day, which means on weekdays I should be at about 2900 calories per day, which feels about right.

At any rate, the guy who owns the place where I had the measurement done and I had a long discussion about me and what he knows and what I know and how I want to get into the health/fitness profession that was quite interesting. Thing is, even with those estimates, they can be wrong or off by a few hundred calories due to many different factors.

So what am I going to do with this information? One thing I decided is that I need to take in some protein after my morning swims. I always have some carbs, but I don't do the Endurox R4 until after my second workout of the day. But apparently, the swimming gets me revved up, and so I should give myself some protein to stop any catabolism. I think it's time for me to supplement with some string cheese, which will give me a nice little hit of protein and some fat post-swim.

I know that some of my metabolic fire is stress driven, too, and then I suppose doing a bunch of races is adding to the mix. It's all good. As long as I don't drop any more weight (I was at 108 this morning, which is not good--110 needs to be my absolute floor), I should be good to go.

Side note: the pic is me in this Desoto tri outfit I just got. I don't know--should I return it? The top is fine but the bottom is barely there. I suppose it's good enough to swim in. Hard to believe I have any modesty, but I don't want to look like an idiot. I know I wouldn't wear this just riding around--too risque. I have never liked my legs, but maybe with a tan, it won't look too bad. Comments are welcome!

Happy Feet and Not Enough Calories

I was feeling a little introspective and it got me a little down yesterday, but once I started making my toes all sparkly it fixed everything. It's tough to be unhappy with happy feet! I couldn't decide which color I liked more which is why I ended up doing each foot a different color. I have gone with 10 different colors at once. I thought I wanted the blood red, but once I put it on I didn't like it so much, but that got fixed up when I added the sparkle coating. Yes, I'm like a little girl sometimes with my love of pink stuff and sparkly stuff. But I have my limits. You will not catch me in a matched set of sweats with rhinestone lettering on them. Sandals with rhinestones? Sure. Diamonds? Hell yeah.

I woke up early again today feeling very hungry. I thought I had been eating non-stop in the evening, so after eating something right away, I added up what I had eaten on Tuesday. I can pretty much remember whatever I've taken in, harkening back to when I've needed to watch my intake more closely. I added up conservatively and it was about 2500 calories. I biked 1:25 and the Ergomo said I burned 830 calories in that time! I wasn't even going hard! And then I lifted weights for :45 which I figure is only another couple hundred calories, so I probably did undereat by about 500 calories or so. I'm not really sure. Which is why I'm trying to find somewhere I can get my RMR/BMR measured again so I know what I should be doing.

I used to be obsessive about wearing the HRM and noting the calories on the power meter and using those numbers to guide my food intake, but I no longer use an HRM and I haven't been looking at the bike numbers, either. I've sort of just been guesstimating what I think I'm burning, but if that bike number from yesterday is right, I am way underestimating. Yet I hate to just eat like a total pig until I gain weight--that seems stupid to me.

So today, so far I've swum for 1:05 (fairly hard) and I ran for an hour, slightly slower than tempo pace, and through lunch and recovery stuff, I've had about 1,300 calories. I think I need to eat a lot more today yet...I should probably get in about 1,800 more. I think I may need to start drinking a carb supplement . Or get back on pasta more often.

I think part of my problem is the nervous energy I'm burning up with my Dad's stuff. There is still some stress going on, I can't deny that, and one thing I don't need more of is stress or additional calorie-burning activities!

But I won't know until I find out some real numbers, so stay tuned...I really don't like it when someone says to me, "Nice problem to have." No it isn't. I need to time my calorie intake based on when I'm going to train (typically once before work and once in mid-day), and at some point I just can't put any more in. But I just thought of some other snack foods I need to start buying again--string cheese for one--and really it comes down to a couple hundred calories here and there, and that should do the trick!

Oh and there was some excellent scenery at the pool this AM. Swam this workout:

WU: 200 swim, 200 pull, 200 kick, 4 x 50 (10") Swim Golf
MS: 10 x 150 (15") as 100 Hard, 50 Easy.
100 easy swim.
2 x 200 (15") pull, Steady with excellent stroke.
8 x 25 (15") as 25 Hard, 25 Easy
CD: 100 easy swim

I was pretty fried after the 150's, but the rest was easy so no big deal.

Sports Nutrition 101

Somebody (not saying who) thought that working out for 3.5 hours with no calories going in would encourage more fat burning. Uh-huh.

DOH! Here's how I lay it down. This is part (mostly) science, and part (also mostly) experience. I've been at this awhile, and think I carry some street cred. If you don't believe the science part, get yourself 2 books: Physiology of Sport and Exercise by Jack H. Wilmore and David L. Costill, and Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition by Monique Ryan (although there are other good sports nutrition books out there, but I will stand by Monique all the way). Read them cover to cover and then check back with me if you think I'm full of it. If you don't know what glycogen is, Google it and read all about it.

When you are exercising, your body needs to burn carbohydrates. It can get those carbs from 3 places:

1. Glycogen stored in your liver (about 400 calories worth)
2. Glycogen stored in your muscles (1400-1800 calories worth)
3. Circulating glucose (sugar) in your bloodstream (depends on how much is there)

Exercising at less than 60% of Max HR (WHO DOES THAT???) will burn almost 100% fat.

When you exercise at 60-80% of your Max HR, about 50% of the energy comes from muscle glycogen and blood glucose, about 50% from fat, and a small amount from protein (muscle breakdown). The percentages of carbs vs. fats depends on the intensity.

When you exercise at over 80% of your Max HR, about 75% of the energy comes from muscle glycogen and blood glucose (fat can't be utilized effectively at this intensity).

Stay with me here, I'm getting to the point.

As a person becomes more fit, their body is able to burn a little more fat during aerobic exercise. This is accomplished by spending the bulk of the training time at 60-80% of Max HR.

A couple of things should stick out to you, but in case they don't, let me point them out (they are subtle but true):

1. If you spend too much time exercising at over 80% Max HR, you are teaching your body to burn glycogen preferentially for fuel. Your body just gets used to it. This is why I preach DO YOUR EASY STUFF EASY. There's a "dead zone" that is 80-85% of Max HR (depending on your fitness) that can be a waste of time to spend any of your training time in. Better to go easy or hard. And if you are going to go hard, GO HARDCORE AGGRO while you're at it!
2. If you put sugar into your bloodstream WHILE YOU EXERCISE, your body can use it pretty effectively.
3. If you don't put sugar into your bloodstream WHILE YOU EXERCISE, your body is going to exhaust its glycogen stores faster, which won't make you a better fat burner--it will just use up your glycogen faster, and if you exercise long enough, it will make you bonk faster!!!!

See if by not feeding yourself while you exercise you could make your body burn lots of fat, then why would someone eat during an Ironman? We all have TONS of potential fat calories (I, little Yard Gnome that I am, have over 43,000 potential fat calories) available. But like it or not, our bodies are going to go through that glycogen and whatever is in our blood before it starts tapping on those mega-fat stores. Our bodies need to preserve a few things: our brains, which live off of pure glucose (see this is why the first sign of impending bonk is that your judgment gets weird, or you get dizzy) and our internal organs. Our brains would rather shut down our muscles (i.e., make you stop moving) than risk injury to the internal organs. This is the extreme form of bonk.

Bonking occurs when your body cannot meet its carbohydrate needs during exercise from a combination of glycogen and blood glucose. But it's a little trickier than that. Let's say you exhaust your glycogen stores and then dump sugar into your bloodstream. It may be too late! You need to put so much in at a constant rate (generally to tolerance--my rule of thumb is to try and take in 50% of the calories I am burning, a little more while biking) so that your GI tract is able to process it and your metabolism keeps the "switch" turned on so that you keep using that circulating blood glucose for energy. You've all read or heard about athletes whose digestion shuts down, and that inevitably leads to a bonk or else they need to stop and wait it out until their GI tract recovers.

I ALWAYS take in sugars while exercising, even for as little as a 30-minute workout. Why? Because then I am always training my gut to process those sugars and send them to my working muscles. EVERY DAY. Now, of course that means that the stuff I take in during exercise counts towards my daily calorie needs, and of course it does, and maybe that means I get to eat less "food" than otherwise, but the tradeoff to me is clear. My body is trained to utilize fuel, and a side bonus is that I am not starving once I finish a workout (well, except when it's 2 or more hours, then pretty much I'm hungry).

How many people do you know who swear by "I just drink water when I train" and then watch them after a workout and they just undid all their hard work by pigging out? Not only that, but while they were busy exercising with no fuel, their brains figured, "Hey, we're being starved here," so the body went into fat preservation mode, NOT fat burning mode.

Even if a person is trying to lose weight or lean out, I would NOT recommend that they cut back on their training nutrition. Face it, if you are trying to be smaller, then you are going to need to get used to eating less across the board. Eventually, the calories you take in during training will need to drop as well, but initially the last thing you want to do is deprive your body of calories while training, which even MORE convinces it that you are starving it, and will slow your metabolism even further!

So if I were to state "Crackhead's Basic Nutrition Rules" they would be:

1. Eat frequently. 6 or more times a day.
2. Don't eat a lot of food, by volume, at any one sitting
3. Always be sipping Gatorade or your favorite training beverage during workouts, even if they are short. Do some math. Make sure you achieve proper fluid volume (4-6 oz. every 15-20 min., or 16-24 oz. per hour, adjust up depending on your sweat rate and heat), and that you are replacing 50% or better of your calories
4. Don't forget to include your training nutrition calories in your daily totals
5. Don't be afraid to be a little hungry when you aren't training.
6. You should NOT be hungry while you are training! If you are, pop a gel or something.
7. So that you teach your body to burn fat effectively, complete your workouts at the proper intensity. Don't be tempted to turn an easy workout into a hard one--it will do a number on your glycogen stores
8. Be sure to replenish after workouts. I use Endurox R4 on days when I train 1.5 hours or more, which is pretty much daily now. I drink it after my last workout of the day. You can also drink sports drink, but I think it's important to have some protein right away, too.
9. If you are trying to lose weight or just lean out, go a little higher on your protein calories and slightly lower on your carbs (but NOT DURING TRAINING!).
10. If you want to jump start leaning out, you probably should do some strength training. Lots of cardio has a way of making you want to eat to replace the calories you burned; whereas strength training helps you manufacture muscle and just burns more calories at rest.

Train (and NOURISH) on!