Tips for a Successful Open Water Triathlon Swim

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

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

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

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

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

Happy to be Alive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm Baaaaack...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long Time no Post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last Day of January and a Little Race Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope everyone has a great week!

Fashion Update/Listening to My Body

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Correct Questions and Ramblings

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

1. About 20 years (How long has it taken me to develop my current physique?)
   
2. Swimming (What do you think about when you swim for such a long time?)
   
3. Nothing. (What is your athletic background?)
   
4. When I am no longer able or I need a different challenge. (When are you going to stop doing all these long distance races?)
   
5. Because it has sugar, like Gatorade, but also caffeine. (Why are you drinking Coke while you run? I thought it was bad for you.)
   
6. More than that. (How much do you weigh? Like 90 pounds?)
   
7. No, my brothers and sisters are all quite overweight. (You must have really good genetics to look that way?)
   
8. No, I can’t. (You can eat whatever you want, right?)
   
9. 2 or more hours per day, on average. (How much do you work out?)
   
10. 4-6 times per week. (Do you run every day?)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Play Crackhead Jeopardy and Win a Prize!

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

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

1. About 20 years
2. Swimming
3. Nothing.
4. When I am no longer able or I need a different challenge.
5. Because it has sugar, like Gatorade, but also caffeine.
6. More than that.
7. No, my brothers and sisters are all quite overweight.
8. No, I can’t.
9. 2 or more hours per day, on average.
10. 4-6 times per week.

Radical Fitness Proposal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of 2010/Beginning of 2011

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

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

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

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





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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas Eve 3/3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the Nicest Thank You's Ever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love this "job!"

Going Big During the Winter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swimming (Freestyle) Revelations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First, understanding HARD.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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