Internal Mono(b)log

Note: Yes there are 2 “Day 12″s because I can’t count.  🙂  Noticed today and corrected.

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Kim and I made Vegan Creme Brulee for desert tonight. A little off my eating plan, but a small (very small) diversion and OH MY GOD(!!!) was it good.

We made 1/3 of the recipe, which was probably 1/2 as much as the 2 of us wanted, but realistically about as much as we should have at a sitting ;).  Cashews, Maple Syrup, Agar, Arrowroot Powder, Almond Milk and a little sugar… wow!

Rough nutritional analysis (per serving) via nutritiondata.com:

• Calories: 208
• Fat: 7g
• Carb: 31g
• Protein: 7g

Recipe via VeganGoodEats.com here: http://vegangoodeats.com/2010/07/la-creme-brulee-sans-la-dairy-pour-le-vegan/

With some patience and perseverance I managed to score myself a Garmin 910xt with a heart rate strap.  I was on the fence about these units until I started to research the battery life with the GPS on: 16 hours in pretty amazing in my mind.

DC Rainmaker has done his normal, stellar job of a detailed review of the Garmin 910xt and I won’t replicate it or even try to here.  See his blog for all that in depth content.  It really is extremely well done and well worth the read.   In general, if you’re looking at gear, check his site, he does an amazing job reviewing gear at a depth level that I sometimes have a hard time consuming, never mind producing! 🙂

What I’ll give you here are my initial impressions of the 910… kind of a reader’s digest view of the Rainmaker review if you will 🙂

Likes

• Pool swim mode: it’s nice to be able to collapse 2 devices (swimsense and 310xt) into 1.  The pool mode works well and the screen is much easier to read than that of the swimsense
• Battery life is stellar. Though I haven’t tested it yet, the quoted specs are great!
• GPS sensitivity feels much better than the 310’s: it seems to find satellites faster and keep lock in poor weather better
• Has “Training Effect”, which I haven’t currently used, but will explore (TSS is, in theory, coming soon and I’ll look forward to that for sure)
• Because the 910xt is ANT+, all of my existing ANT+ devices “just work”

Dislikes

• The smallest pool length it allows for is 20m.  My neighbourhood’s YMCA’s pool is 18m.  Hopefully a future firmware update relaxes the 20m limit.  I can’t see any good reason for it to persist.
• It appears that in order to upload swim workouts to TrainingPeaks I have to export them from Garmin Connect and then manually import them to TrainingPeaks.  This is pretty clunky and hopefully new releases of TrainingPeaks device agent or the Garmin ANT Agent resolve this
• No Heart Rate data on the swim.  Currently Polar is the only manufacturer of a strap-based HRM that transmits on frequencies that can be received in the water.  Why Garmin doesn’t do similar is beyond me.

Curiosities

• I have the quick release for the 310xt and anticipate getting it for the 910xt, though given the size of the 910 adding the quick release may just make it too unwieldy
• I’m really curious about the battery extender, though given the published battery life expectancies, you’d only need this additional battery life if you were doing ultraman or some other super-long event.

In Summary

If you’re a data addicted triathlete, like me, this is probably the closest to the ultimate training watch on the market today.  I can’t imagine you regretting the purchase.  Shame about the backlog but I know that Garmin is working hard to get caught up.

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.

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Today I’m enjoying every sip of every coffee, every slurp of Yerba Mate peppermint tea, every nibble of 99% cocoa solids chocolate. I may even have a caffeinated tea at some point and if I do I’ll make sure to slowly savour and enjoy it as well.  Today is my last caffeinated day until the morning of IMPanama.

I don’t drink a LOT of coffee (typically a cup or maybe 2 a day).  In my training, especially before intense workouts, I may use an ergogenic aide like First Endurance’s Pre-Race to help push hard and reach conditioning levels at the top ends of my current abilities. But, for the next 2 weeks, I’m doing a reset.  If my body has built any tolerance to these substances, the next 14 days will be enough to undo some of that habituation and allow their full effects to be felt and capitalized upon.

Does caffeine make a difference?  Well, based on a number of scientific studies, research papers, and other scholarly works there’s no clear answer.  In my laboratory of 1 (i.e. me) I know that coffee has a laxative effect (that I’ll certainly miss over the next 2 weeks), but that it also has a performance enhancing one.  First Endurance Pre-Race has been clinically shown to improve performance and one of it’s ingredients is also caffeine.  We also know that many of these ergogenic substances, over time, work to deplete your adrenals.  Giving my adrenal system time to recharge has got to be a plus.

So, I look at it this way:

• since my experiments have shown it beneficial for me (even if only psychosomatically), and
• given that I’ll be on vacation from work starting Tuesday (i.e. not having to wake at 5am to workout before work, being able to nap when I’m tired, etc), and
• given that doing a detox every now and then is generally a “good thing”.

My 2 week caffeine fast can do nothing but good.

So, over the next few weeks, while you’re enjoying your morning brew, have a sip for me!  I’ll be drinking peppermint or some other herbal tea, Caflib, coconut water, almond milk or juice.  I’ll join you in a “Cup o’ Joe”on the 12th!

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.

My sponsoring bike shop, Blacksmith Cycles, has loaned me a set of Madfiber Wheels for IMPanama.

If you’ve never seen these wheels they’re pretty spectacular!  They don’t have spokes per se, but rather, carbon ribbons that are an integral part of the rim and the hub.

They’re super light, pretty stiff, faster, deeper and more aero than my old zip 404’s.  These will come with me rather than my 404s.  I’ll have the following wheels in my arsenal:

• Madfiber Front
• HED Trispoke Front
• Madfiber Rear
• Zipp 808 Rear
• Zipp Disc Rear

I expect that unless it’s terribly windy, I’ll be running the disc at the back and the Madfiber or trispoke in the front.  During my taper and acclimatization rides in Panama I’ll be riding both combinations to see which I prefer and keep the other as a backup (just in case) for race day.

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 picked up a Tyr Torque Pro Speedskin for IMPanama.  Apparently the water temperature will be in the 80s (26-27C) and definitely not wetsuit legal and wanting to get any legal boost I can, I figured a speedskin is a plus.   My Torque arrive a few weeks ago and on Sunday I finally had a chance to take it for a dip.

The suit arrives in a specially designed box that rivals any packaging Apple could come up with.  You immediately get the feeling that you’ve bought a quality product that has spared little expense.  The suit itself is well made: the zipper is strong, the stitching smooth and flawless from what I can see and the fit, while snug, is flexible and “suitable” (sorry, couldn’t help it) for the task at hand.

I took the suit for my Sunday easy swim: just an easy 2k at the local Y.  Sometimes the pool is empty, but lately, with all the New Years resolutions in play, it’s been pretty crowded so my expectations of doing any kind of 2k time trial were very low.  Unfortunately, my expectations were correct.  The pool was kinda silly-busy and the “fast” lane was filled with breast-stroking, unaware, “casual swimmers”.  What this meant to me was that I wouldn’t get any hard data about how much faster the suit would make me.  I did manage to get some data and some perceptions though and I’ll share those here.

I did manage a few lengths over the 2k without being impeded, those lengths were clocking in at the 1:32/100m range, where my normal swimsuit pace lately  has been about 1:40-45/100m.  One place that the suit was VERY noticeable was pushing off from the wall: it’s hard to describe but with the same effort you seemed to cover more distance and just felt smoother.

I’ll definitely get more data on the suit and have a post-race followup on it, but my first impressions on the design, manufacture and textile selection are all very positive.

There is one negative with the suit.  After my 40 minutes in the water, most of the adhesive logos were literally falling off the suit.  I’d left some in the pool somewhere.  Some were just barely holding onto the suit.  The rest came off in my hands with no effort.  I contacted Tyr asking “what gives?!” and they just directed me to the retailer that I got the suit from (I kind of felt brushed-off).  The retailer Swim2000 tells me that this is a common complaint and the cause for many returns.  That Tyr will accept the return without issue, even after IMPanama I can just exchange it.   So on one hand, it’s great that Tyr and its’ retailers stand behind the product and offer a great return/exchange policy; but, I have to admit, given the price-tag of this suit, such a blatant manufacturing glitch should be addressed before the consumer gets the product in the first place.  Further, I think that Tyr’s response should be (at least it would have been better received by me): “We understand this problem exists with some suits and we’re working to address it in manufacturing. Please accept our apologies and get in touch with the retailer where you purchased the suit to arrange an exchange.”

Anyhow.. I’ll stop ranting.  The purpose of the suit is not to display Tyr’s logo, but to make you faster in the water. It’s goals seem to be met. More data to come.

It’s all started feeling very real lately: Panama IM that is.  Flights and accommodations have been booked for a while, but lately I’ve starting finding myself thinking about what to pack, how and when to pack.  Wave start times have been announced and more vicerally my training during this last build cycle (which ends this week sometime) has been intense!  I’ve been loving the intensity, but I’ve learned to look forward to, and take full advantage of my rest days.  🙂

Today it’s 19 days to the race and I’m feeling good.  My nutrition is dialed, my equipment is behaving itself, my body is healed and uninjured and I’m in full-on risk avoidance mode (it it’s not helping me toward my goal and has even a remote chance of causing a race-limiting injury, I don’t do it).   Both eyes, mind, spirit (and hopefully hands will be) on the prize.

I’m going to attempt to write a daily (or near daily) ramp-up blog post here for the next 21 days as I do my final ramp up.  I’m going to take my GoPro camera (a chrismas gift from Kim)  and so I’ll shoot some training videos,  scenery videos while I’m there and try posting them here.

This is gonna be fun!  Can’t wait 😉