Hate to end a good ride on a bad note

So I pinched a nerve in my neck a few days back. Must have done it the same time my vertebrae went out of whack. Head had a slight list to one side. I got in a huge 4,000 meter OW swim that day but on day two things didn't go so well. 

Oh, I tried to workout on day two. Didn't work out so well with the running and the cycling. After two personal failures to establish a decent bike ride or run, I gave up the day. I blamed it on the physical pain, all the pounding in my neck. Then I realized a little bit later, I was just being a pussy. 

I was icing and heat wrapping my neck later that night, Day Two, pissed and feeling sorry for myself at missing out on a training day. But I tried. Twice. So, there's that, right? Decided to air pop some popcorn and watch Deadliest Catch on DVR. Son of a bitch, that show fricken put me in my place and I got pissed at how my day really was more a mental test rather than a physical failure. 

In this episode, these guys battled a arctic hurricane with thirty foot waves and larger, sub zero temps with the wind chill, working 15 hours outside. A wave crashes the boat, a crewman goes down and while he may or may not have a concussion, its found out he has a bone deep gash in his elbow that needs sutures. Thirty foot swells, no pain killer, no lidacaine, the Captain gives him four stitches on the kitchen table. That's hardcore and mentally tough. A bit later, another wave on another boat slams a crewman's head into a metal table and he takes three butterfly patches and goes back to work out on deck. 

I was not happy with myself watching this unfold. It was a testament to overcoming. I measured myself for the day and was found lacking. Lacking. I texted my chiropractor at 11pm telling him I would be there first thing in the morning. 

After I got myself adjusted, benefits of a training partner and friend who is also a chiropractor, my head is now recentered over my body. 70% of the pain is gone but the muscles are still pretty tight and tired. I get in a short OW swim, a decent workout for the day, but I'm in a lot of pain.

 Today, Adjustment Day +1, I go for nice ride. Not sure how my head is going to do for two and half hours in aero. Turns out, not so great. Everything below the neck is 5-by-5, but dammit my trap, upper back and neck are sore. And getting more sore, sorer, as the mileage climbs.

Answer if this has ever happened to you after a frustrating ride. The moment you stop for the last time and put your foot down, you are not sure if the first thing you're going to do is scream or throw your helmet at something solid. Anyone else?  I can't be the only one.

It is just all this unrealized anger, a feeling you need to have a undirected lash out, that you instead tamp down and ignore in order to control your heart rate, breathing, pace and sanity while riding. And by the cyclocomputer it probably looks like a good ride. Distance is there, cadence and HR are both in the right spot. Average speed is good. But as soon as you realize you don't need to touch your bike again for the rest of the day, you need like 3 seconds to just let all that pent up whatever-it-is to fly out of you. And then your fine again.

A decent day. More rehab and rest to end it. More training tomorrow. It's how I roll.

Pysching out the bullys

Mighty Mo plays flag football and practices twice a week at the game field. Depending on the night at least one other team will be there as well. Usually there is a team there that is coached by the prototypical guy you would never want to coach your child. Tall, fat, loud, hard on the players who are only seven and eight years old.  Accent puts him from New York or New Jersey. Not a knock, just an observation. 

This coach he is always yelling in practice about what is done wrong in the plays. Rarely does he praise what is done right. He is the kind of coach always using the word, "gentlemen" as if it softens the decibels or the criticism. At the end of the season that team is middle of the pack. So the hard riding has not exactly played out for them. 

Conversely, Mighty Mo's team is one of two undefeated teams in the same 7/8 age group.  They have a shot this weekend for winning the whole 7/8 division in football. His team has played together for three seasons with the same coaches, some of us have played together for four or five seasons on other teams. In fact in the winter off-season, the team wanted to hang out together still and joined a basketball league just to keep the comradery going. 

So far this has nothing to do with my post. 

Last night I needed to get in a run and decided I would do it while Mighty Mo was having practice by running around all the fields. I'd done this before. I ran for the whole practice, an hour, getting in a little over six miles. I had to run by this coach and his team on each lap of which 3 laps equaled a mile. So I went past, 18 or 19 times. At some point I got the impression that the coach was waiting for me to stop, as if my stopping, even because I went my planned distance or time, vindicated to him that I was a quitter. Each time I came by he got louder, as if trying to crowd my space with his voice. Some parents started looking at me for long periods of time as I ran down and past them and I got the impression that at some point during a break something might have been said about me. 

At some point, forty or so minutes into my run, I had flipped my switch from not really loving my run to loving it, accepting it, and knowing I could do this for hours and I didn't want to stop. (For me the first ten minutes of any run is a gamble if I keep going).  Mighty Mo's team finished practice first and it worked out perfectly for me distance wise and location on the field. I had to look towards the verbose coach a hundred yards away and he was certainly eyeballing me as if to confirm that he had silently bet I couldn't run the whole time and was disappointed that I did. I tossed him a head nod but he turned and walked away from me.  

I love to prove people wrong like that. 

How do you track your workouts?

My preferred online training log, Buckeye Outdoors, suffered a catastrophic failure this month due to storms and flooding and I lost almost two years of training data. Some of this has been backed up by monthly screen scraps but honestly the last six months I have been slacking and its all gone. I have no idea how many miles or hours I have invested in my fitness for 2011. I am a little bummed but it is not something I dwell on much except that I miss the affirmation it provided me and the ease of processing. 

Now I am looking for a different system, maybe change things up. Here is a list of possible ideas.

Spiral notebook-there is always something affirming about putting pencil or pen to paper. The vast majority of my over two decades of exercise recaps are in some form of paper. From time to time, I still transcribe my bike computer or watch data to a notepad for future uploading online, so it is a medium I still use. To the right is just a few years of training logs. I have a full box of them elsewhere. The pro is I prefer the stubby pencil and paper medium. The con is that I rarely review my data or forward totals. 

Journal or diary-Whether it be 3x5 note cards, legal pad or DayRunner, which I called 'My brain', I write almost everything done, with as many head injuries as I've had you would too.  This is hand in hand with spiral logs. The pro is that with a page a day,  I can list all my daily activities including workouts and I am very comfortable with it. The con is that something I really like, DayRunners are generally heavy and large at dimensions of 5"x8"x2".  And again, I have to manually figure ongoing totals. 

Weekly or monthly calendar- I would probably go with a one piece calendar for the whole year. I can mark in totals along the side as the weeks progress. The pro is that I can see trends much better which is important to me including days off, upcoming events. Its a great perspective. The con is that as someone who is used to writing lots of information I will barely enough room in the daily block to list Type, Time and Distance. And again, manual totals. 

Phone application-I have always tried to convert from notebooks to handheld tracking and it has never worked out. I've scanned iPhone apps for two years looking for something I would use for workouts and business and no apps have appealed to me. That doesn't mean I know everything and I'm interested in digging deeper here. The pro is that I always have my iPhone with me and input is super easy. The con is that based on my last two online training websites, I am trusting less and less the ability to have recall with data. 

Computer spreadsheet-I would love to be able to use a decent excel spreadsheet but I don't have the creativity or ability to create my own. The pro is that is can be saved and printed out for back up. The con is that it based on previous attempts I can add all kinds of data but get lost in the trees so to speak because it just looks like one long page of stuff. 

Training website- Before Buckeye, I used Training Peaks and Workout Log. All were excellent sites dedicated to tracking fitness. All have flaws in either cost (as in I don't want monthly fees) or they loose all their data. Not opposed to a dedicated site and I might go back to one as they are very easy to use and review, the easiest of all options but loosing all that info because I stopped my membership or the site crashes are starting to be deal breakers. 

Watch upload site online or on your computer-interestingly enough I just switched to a Garmin training watch. Garmin and other fitness watches like Polar have software that allows you to upload your watch data to a online site or a software program you load onto your computer. Using Garmin Connect has been an amazingly good experience for me and tracks more data is a visually pleasant way that I've ever had before. Regardless of any future method of tracking, I must or will continue to upload data from my Garmin to this site. The con is that, what if I stop using Garmin?

Lots of options here. I suppose for next few days I will simply upload to Garmin Connect and use some sort of stubby pencil and paper routine. Depending on how feedback is on what you think, I could change that. 

So, what do you use? 

5 or less is the goal

I often get into arguments with people over diets. Yet I realize t is hard to change someones opinion on a diet they have started because its something they have convinced themselves is going to totally change their life forever. The fact is that practically every diet test for long term success has about the same five year success rate of 5%. The other fact is that this is contrary to the immediate short term results that dieters often get their new plan and believe if they lost three pounds a week the first month, they will do that every week.

Don't even get me started on all the things people think DON'T have calories; like alcohol. I once talked to a personal training client who after reviewing her food journal and workouts for the last month and not lost any weight. Knowing she was a female in her twenty's I said point blank, "Your food journal is incomplete. Based on your profile you'r either not put candy or alcohol in the journal." She looked at me and said, "Alcohol has calories?"  Good grief. Turns out she had four long island ice teas, three times per week. But wasn't including it because she thought it didn't have calories, it was like water or diet coke. 

Regardless, after putting down almost every diet, people ask me about what diets work. I could include a few that I believe can do the job but here is the real secret. Shhh. Don't tell anyone. Ready?  You. Don't. Need. A. Diet. 

There it is. You don't need to diet to lose weight and eat healthy. You need to watch what you eat, eat in moderation, eat a variety of food but you don't need a diet plan. You really don't ever want a plan that restricts what you can eat by saying, NO this, NO that. For example, a diet soda has zero calories so go ahead and drink it, right?  But you should already know that artificial sweetners make your body crave real sugar, which is why it is hard to drink just a small amount of diet soda. Now you know why you reach for the Big Gulps and 44 ouncers. Did you know that although it has about 15 calories a packet, a 16 ounce unsweetened ice tea with 2 sugar packets will completely satisfy your sugar craving and make you feel less thirty?  The point is, do not dismiss a real food because it has a few calories as opposed to a processed chemical additive that has none. 

As a rule of thumb, I first teach people to listen to the voice in their head. You know the voice. The one that says, "Put that down...You've had enough already...Not the smarted food choice you're making."  Listen to that voice, obey that voice and you can eliminate between 250-500 calories a day. 

Read labels. I know, cliche'. But don't read them trying to remember what to avoid on your specific diet. I tell people that the healthiest choices usually have the fewest ingredients and create a variety of food that allow you eat really good, unrestricted foods for a lifetime. (More on that below). I tend to preach a five ingredient rule but sometimes find that seven is most realistic. I know, five to seven ingredients seems like a lot. Caveat. Don't count dyes, don't count the 'less than 2%' ingredients, don't count the internal ingredients of an ingredient in spite of it healthiness. Meaning you grab a V8 and the #1 ingredient is a Juice and then in parenthesis it lists six different fruits, you're going to be okay.  If the item is Wheat and then in parenthesis it lists a few different types of their wheat compound, you will be okay. What you are looking for is a food that has five primary ingredients. 

One food I use as an example is peanut butter. PB may be the most versatile food on the planet, plain or added to just about anything. Everyone loves it. It is a caloricly dense food and filling. A stick to your ribs food. It can be a dozen ingredients full of artificial colors, flavors and preservatives or one ingredient, a pressed nut. Of course there is also all kinds of nuts being used now like hazelnuts, almonds and so forth. Keep the ingredients low and you cannot go wrong. Another example is crackers, generally forbidden on restrictive programs. Did you know a Triscuits has only three ingredients but a Wheat Thin has about ten. 

Of course I am talking about individual food choices, not respective of serving size which is what you should be watching on your own or have monitored by an educated professional nutritionist or trainer. When it comes to combining foods into a meal the rule still applies to the individual foods but not the overall meal. What I mean is that a vegetable soup (canned or homemade) could have a dozen separate ingredients, just make sure each one is less than five ingredients. 

There are of course holes in my approach and this conversation would lead into a several follow up conversations regarding the psychology of why a person eats what they do, how they eat it, when they eat it and the process of redirecting their food profile on a regular basis for several months. But the fact is the same, eat as healthy as you can, don't over eat, exercise to create a daily calorie deficit and build a faster metabolism.  Real food is always preferred to processed. 

And oh yeah, diets suck. The vast majority of people who try a diet fail.  diet that tells anyone to eat less than 1,000 per day, spend money on their supplements as opposed to OTC, avoid something, tells you its for your blood type, eye color, is pure marketing crap. 

In the middle of the end

I think if a real editor looked at my titles she would hate me. They have nothing really to do with my post topics but its the first thing that comes to my mind when I try to grab the spirit of it. 

I have passed the mid-week point of what I consider a decent week of training. Nothing has been outside of my normal training boundary but its constant pressure on my body to see how it bounces back for the compounding effort placed on it. So far so good. The only hiccup this week has been my long run was cut by 2/3 due to the efficiency of an auto store repairing a component in one hour not the scheduled three. I think most people would shout for joy at being done with a car shop two hours early. I think I got robbed of 12+ miles running.  I just couldn't pick that up anywhere throughout the day. 

I feel stronger. I feel good. I feel tired but not exhausted. Compared to baselines I took of certain courses a month ago and comparing to this week, my speed is up, heart rate is down, body is responding. 

I would be remiss to not mention some of the odder things happening to me during all this. I think that most endurance athletes have been through this in big build phases at some point; I am talking about those minor physical manifestations that are unique to each of us and constantly change from year to year. My eyes ache. I must have gone through a bottle of visine already trying to keep them lubricated. Already a bit of a perpetual tenderfoot, I have spot on a heel that hurts when I walk barefoot. Cycling shoes, running shoes, Vibram 5 Fingers, no problem. Skin, not so much. My legs are fatigued but the best therapy hasn't been standing in my 62* pool, or soaking in my hot tub or using my running 'stick' to roll out the muscle; its been lying front down on a thick fleece blanket and the texture of the fabric seems to ease the discomfort in my legs. Maybe thats all too much information. However I think that almost anyone training for something like an ultra run, ironman  triathlon or similar event can attest to such temporary changes in their body. Some probably much more uncomfortable than what I've listed here. 

It is hard to say it's downhill through the end of the week because I have a lot of training going on between now and then. But based on how I have maintained already this week, regardless of what I throw at myself in the upcoming days, weeks and months I think I can overcome it. I think I can prosper. I think I can succeed. I think I believe. 

It's not enough to exist. I am going to live. 

Hear the wind, feel the sun

It is not often I ask my wife, "What happened in the world today?," but that is exactly what I have been asking her the last several days. Usually I am so plugged in that if you asked me about almost any situation in politics or Hollywood gossip, (god, yes, I know, how pathetic) I could give a long discourse. Not lately. 

My face is burnt and my back is already tanning in odd shapes around my shoulder blades and lumbar from my tri top. My ears still hear wind whipping by me even after being inside for hours and my legs are perpetually in a lactic state. I am training harder than I have in years. 

So far so good. The injuries that have sidelined me from triathlons, 3 years this month, seem to be under control. It appears that for now, I won't simply fall over in the road and die. There is still so much I want to do in sports and personal accomplishment. Regardless of the damage I have already done to myself, I believe there is more I can do to than just the platitudes of being a good husband/father to find satisfaction in myself. 

I am not the same endurance athlete I was pre-injury when I was engaged in Ironman distance events. I am physically lighter and stronger. Mentally I am more in the now, less mission oriented, which I think all my doctors and family was the hardest hurdle to overcome. (Long story short, in competition I can brainwash myself to ignore pain to an inhuman level, a literal fatal level.) I now listen to my body and my friends when I train and during the few running events I have done since, trusting them more than myself in this regard. This used to be a hard thing to admit. 

Call it a celebration, call it planning for future success, call it...possibility thinking, but I am upgrading passions. Switching my data technology to Garmin. Replacing fuel belts and updating apparel. Today I went into my team bike shop, Two Wheel Jones, and got a refit on my bike. A couple hours later both the bike and I got some very good news. As for me, my form is very good and at least mechanically I still fit my bike and maintain all the angles I need for proper fit. For the bike, my beloved Valdora PHX, we decided to get much more aggressive in my bike posture, raising here, lowering there, tweaks all around. Complete custom redesign of my aero bars. I can't wait to see how all the mad scientist thinking works out. 

There is still much to do. Its a big week for me. A transition week from thinking to doing. From dreaming to being. How does it end?  With a test. Not on a clock or a course, but in my head, in my actions, in my conversations. It is a test of personal honesty. It's a test of faith in others to do and say the right thing, not the easy thing. A test where quite literally a life hangs in the balance. 

A week can be a long time or no time at all. If you are not living your life, it goes quite slow. When you live it too your fullest it goes quite quick. Its a strange and tragic paradox. Between here and there is a lot of miles, hearing the wind, feeling the sun. 

It's not enough to exist. I am going to live. 

Ebb and flow of training doctrine

I was riding a fairly decent hill in the area, called 9 Mile Hill in Rio Verde, Arizona. It was my long ride for the week and I had pushed pretty hard to get where I was. As I was nearing the top, I got caught by another cyclist. Blew right up on me, but for the last little climb he decided to hold up with me and chat a bit as we stood up in the saddles trying to avoid any clear near granny. 

He was a young guy, mid-20's most likely. Total cyclist set up and kit. Me, almost twice as old in total triathlete set up and kit. The good news is that I was only 20 pounds heavier than this cyclist. He was actually very nice and between breathing and peddling we talked routes, how the day had gone so far, if we were training for something. As we finally got to a point where he could continue on into Troon and I was turning around, he says, "Hey good talking to you. I wasn't trying to blow by you before. But I guessed you're probably going to run after the ride and there is no way in hell I could do that." And with that he dropped gear and sped off like a torpedo. Yes, the comment doesn't make much sense but conversations rarely do that far into a ride.

That night I couldn't sleep well, so I got up early and rode on my trainer for 90 minutes. Later in the morning discussing comings and goings with Mistress I realized I had my days confused and had a window for training at lunch. So I punched up my training partner who said he was going to ride. Sweet two rides in one day. 

As we took off from his house he suffered a mechanical failure that would take to long to fix. So he said, "Got your running gear?"  Quick change of shoes and instead of an hour ride we did an hour run. Just goes to show, having the right gear with you means not being held back from training. 

I guess that is why I enjoy triathlon so much. It is not static. It is a constant motion into and through sport disciplines. Strengths, weaknesses, excitements, fears, gear, terrain, all combine into a method of training that keeps life fresh. It's nice to not be stuck in one sport. Even if your ego takes a hit watching a one trick pony blow by you.