Busy day today. Swim for an hour with 30 minutes at race pace. Bike for an hour with some race pace in there. Short brick off the bike. Tomorrow starts the thin edge of the taper, just an easy swim. Thursday: easy run. Friday: easy bike, short brick. Saturday: short, light run and then it’s game time! BOOYA!!!
My youtube upload yesterday failed, so I started again this morning. The upload just finished but may be being encoded. If the vid doesn’t work, try back in a bit.
Rode a new road today, no speed bumps on this one and closer to home. It’s a nice road, a little narrow, but not heavily trafficked and with very few potholes. It climbs from the highway up into the nearby mountains.
No, I didn’t go bike mountain climbing today, that’s not what a taper is made of, but I did ride down and up the foothills… twice. The 1st time down was lotsa fun! Fast! Oh my fast. The 2nd time, I got stuck behind a tractor trailer pulling a massive backhoe and belching black diesel death clouds as it went. Course, I still had to do the climb, but didn’t get the super-fun of the descent. Oh well
I rode with the GoPro again, some nice scenery on this ride and the camera angle is a bit better. I’m uploading now, but it says 5 hrs to go (yea not great bandwidth down here). I’ll post a followup with the youtube link when its done (probably in the morning).
Some things I’ve found about the Torhans 30oz system that I have:
the lids need a way to secure them to the bottle or straw in case they pop off the top (yea it happened today, check the video)
the straw needs a bite valve – until the fluid level is down 50% you risk wearing a spray of your hydration whenever you take a drink
the aero cowling on the straw needs a dab of glue to stay on the bottle
don’t fill it until you’re planning to immediately put it on the bike (or fill it after you install it) because there’s no way to stand it up
(but with all these “issues”…) having a straw in my face is way more efficient and probable way to for me to onboard hydration. I’m using the Torhans for fuel and the speedfil for water. I’ll probably put about 800 calories in the Torhans and have a bottle behind my saddle with another similar 800 calorie bottle to refill the Torhans with.
Did some speed work in the pool today. Didn’t get to swimming until later in the day and the ocean was crazy, the pool was definitely a winner. Had it to myself and it was easy to judge sprint lengths, etc.
Mid-day today was groomin’ time. Went in and got plucked like a Christmas Goose. I’m now all smooth, aero and hydro-dynamic. LOL. No really… I felt smoother and “slicker” in the water tonight. Maybe its psychosomatic, but I’ll take every edge I can get Today was also the day that I had planned and scheduled my toe nail trim.
I scheduled my toe nail trim?! You bet! Ever trim your nails a bit too close and have a tender toe for days? Ok, imagine having that tender toe, trapped in a cycling shoe, or running shoe for hours. Not fun? You bet! So, what do you do? You trim your nails early so that on race day, if you were too aggressive, you’re not suffering. Yea this is me leaving little to chance. But hey! Be prepared, eh?
Nutrition is one of those topics that is done to death, and I think there’s a very good reason for it: Everyone is looking for the “one true way”. I don’t believe there is one true way for everybody. In fact, I think that beyond certain truisms, like “eating fewer calories than you expend will cause you to loose weight” or it’s converse, nutrition is a very very personal topic. I believe that what works well for me, may fail terribly for you. This may be true for genetic, cultural or societal reasons. I can’t say. I also may just be full of shit, I’m ok with that too. I’m not a nutritionist, but I have experimented a lot with my diet and nutrition and, through trial and error, I’ve found what works for me.
Posted on Jan 27, 2012 under fitness | Comments are off
Yesterday was my last day of training intensity leading up to IM Panama. Today is rest day, tomorrow’s run is about 60% the duration I have been doing on my Saturday long runs. Sunday’s ride for the brick is also about 60% and reduced intensity. After the intensity of the last few weeks I’m kinda looking forward to the taper and recharge, tho I know as it progresses I’m going to start getting antsy.
It’s all good tho, a lot of the taper will be happening in Panama as I’m getting used to the heat and humidity. Once I hit Panama I’ll probably be trying to swim daily. Because of the low impact of swimming, a long taper isn’t required and getting used to openwater swimming again and adding salt water to the mix will be important on race day. (The last thing I want to do is swallow a lot of salt water and shut down my stomach in the 1st phase of the race.)
The taper comes at a great time too: I seem to have developed a bit of a shin splint with my poor run on Wednesday. A little rest will do it a lot of good.
Posted on Jan 25, 2012 under fitness, Geek Out! | Comments are off
Some count 7, others 4, yesterday talking to a buddy, I came up with 9 distinct disciplines of long course triathlon training: Swim, Bike, Run (the obvious 3), Nutrition (everyone includes this), Rest/Recovery, Work/Life Balance, Stretching and Cross-training, Mental Preparedness and Education. You may agree or disagree with my categories but lets walk through them.
Swim, Bike and Run: won’t spend any time here. We all know that you need to train to perform. 2 pieces of sage advice that I’ve heard around these: Train your weakest sport, race your strongest (obvious, but so many people avoid their weak sport and train their strenght, what’s that!?) and The definition of crazy is repeating the same actions expecting different results (you have to mix up your training or you’ll plateau – again obvious, but frequently overlooked).
Nutrition: A great deal has been written on nutrition. I’ll follow later in this series with my personal nutrition practices and beliefs. Too much to say here for an article on “many disciplines”. Stay tuned.
Rest/Recovery: I never used to “get” rest/recovery days. I thought “I’m not tired. I’m ready to go! Why am I sitting around?! This is dumb!” Well through this last cycle of training I started to not only understand, but to look forward to rest days. The program I’ve been working on with my coach Ian McLean (owner of imfit.ca) has had me doing power and tempo work on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and longer duration endurance workouts on Saturday and Sunday. Providing a rest day on Monday and Friday. With the intensity of these last few build cycles, those rest days were welcome. In fact, even after the single rest days I could still feel some fatigue from the previous workouts. I can only imagine how poor my performance would be without the rest!
Work/Life Balance: I’m not a pro triathlete, I wish I was. I’m not independently wealthy, a lottery winner, or a trust-fund kid (if anyone would like to provide me ongoing financial aide without any repayment obligation, I’m all ears: go!). I have a spouse, job, a house and mortgage, pets, bills, renovations to do, etc. etc. etc. It’s important to make sure that you, as an age grouper, are fitting your training into your life, not fitting your life into your training. As training ramps up close to a race this may invert, but take care to restore the balance after the event. You may have to play catchup at work or at home to make up for your distractions as you got closer to the big day. Make sure you keep an eye on that balance. For me, I typically try to do my training very early while Kim sleeps, or when she’s at work, leaving us quality time together.
Stretching and Cross-training: Maybe this should be 2 disciplines, unsure. I’ve found 2 things as I train and race: the muscles I use get tight, the muscles I don’t use get weak. This is the perfect equation for muscle imbalance injuries! Think about it – just think about your arms: you swim, bike and run. Swim, pulling on the water/pulling yourself through the water – key word here “pulling”. Bike, arms largely unused, but if anything you’re pulling on the bars – again “pull”. Run, your arms are counterweights and typically just gently locked in a position and swinging from the shoulders – not pulling, but still fatiguing the “pull muscles” to keep your arm bent for hours at at time. Ever get elbow pain or forearm pain near the elbow? For me, this indicates that I’ve not been cross-training the contrary-muscles enough to keep balance in the joint. The same is true for run muscles, swim muscles and never overlook the benefits of a strengthened core (everything from below your pectoral muscles to your butt). Stretching, for me, is about releasing that contrary, constant, imbalanced strain: as you strengthen muscles will tend to shorten, you need to keep them stretched and long, while building that strength. Stretching is a necessary part of any conditioning program where you need to preserve functional movement. I’ve lately been doing Active Release Technique Therapy with Dr Tyler Linn at The Performance Health Center twice a week and have noticed great improvements in flexibility and recovery.
Mental Preparedness: Perhaps also mental toughness. Here I refer to a few things: having a mental game plan for “the day”: how will I handle “situation x” when things aren’t going perfectly; but also, mental toughness to get out in the rain, snow, sun, heat, etc. to go out when you’re tired and not “feeling it”. Chrissie Wellington and others have written a great deal on this. The toughness to have the discipline to keep to your plan, to race your plan, to keep your food log, to stick to your training program, to not lie to yourself. This can be a hard one for some people (myself included at times). Our ability to rationalize is incredible, as we get older (like older that 5) we can do this pretty effectively, especially to ourselves. Personally, I find “black and white rules” work super well for me.
And finally Education: you are a laboratory of 1. What works for me may not (likely won’t) work for you. My nutrition choices may not be yours. My running gait and style may work for me, but not you. My training program may work for me, but not for you. There may be new research released that indicates a better approach to some other discipline, you can educate yourself and choose to try it or not. All I’m saying here is that there is no 1 true and only way. Your approach and needs will change over time. Staying up to date with new products, research, training approaches, etc. gives you options. You may choose to incorporate or experiment with the new to see if it works (better) for you, or just put it aside because you’re happy with your current approach. It’s just good to have the choice. There are so many great resources available to athletes now from youtube, podcasts and blogs, online coaches, magazines, etc. There’s really no excuse.
As I said earlier, your mileage may vary with these groupings. They make sense to me
I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. The build quality of this unit is extremely high. It’s clear that TRX spent a good amount of thought to ensure they were building a strong, durable and safe piece of training equipment. The system also comes with a workout book that contains exercises and workout/conditioning programs.
I’ve only done the 1st 4 workouts in the series, but I can tell you for a 30-45 minute workout, you really feel it. Many of the exercises force the use of small stabilizing muscles and a lot of core strength. Strengthen the core and you get stronger everywhere.
Yes it’s a bit spendy, but it’s portable, well thought out and durable. I think it’s good value for the money and definitely a nice cross training aide for triathletes who spend a lot of time swimming, biking and running, but little time strengthening other muscles to avoid injury or become just generally stronger. Compared to so many other tools that triathletes spend money on, it’s pretty cheap. Compared to a gym membership, it’s very inexpensive.
Posted on Dec 19, 2011 under Factoids, fitness | Comments are off
This is a great video analysis showing the benefits of engaging the hamstrings as part of running technique. Turn-over drills make more sense to me now. Definitely something I’m going to start keeping in the forefront of my mind as I run.
Posted on Jul 28, 2011 under Factoids, fitness | Comments are off
Do you read the Sweat Science blog? If you don’t you may want to. Great articles over there all the time. Here are a couple of recent ones worth a read.
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Today was also the day that I had planned and scheduled my toe nail trim.
