Living Life

Another outstanding training week

All great training sessions this week.  Most of it was long and steady trying to make the machine turn.  I got two steroid injections, one in the hip and one in the knee, and see the doc in two weeks about ankle issues.  I decided to test those injections by finishing the week with a higher intensity, Crossfit style session.

My treat this week was accidently meeting one of my Black Dog teammates in a pool session.

Speaking of Black Dogs, I can't stress enough how a team, coach, partner, or mentor can boost your training.  When you're alone, it's easy to slack off and take it easy when you shouldn't.  While there's nothing wrong with having a easy paced life, when you hook up with someone else, that drives a commitment to a name, a reputation, and most importantly, people.  That commitment has a high probably of significantly increasing your training input, and your performance output.

I'll be starting next week with a good swim at the lake tomorrow.

Last week's training

This last week has been full of victories.  I got some good base training in as well as one intense pool session which fatigued me more than I expected.  That suggests I was doing it right.

I met some great folks this week, a local tri club dubbed the Black Dog Tri Team.  A great group of folks with great character who want to help others with similar interests.  We did some good open water training this last weekend which was outstanding.

There are a few stressors I need to get better at overcoming in the water:

- the cold usually causes a tightening in the chest

- the wetsuit compresses my chest and tires my biceps out (few others seem to have the bicep issue)

- getting away from shore

- choppy water or other swimmers knocking me around

I'm finding the best way to overcome these stressors is to experience them as much as I can.  I can simulate a few of these in the pool, but there's nothing like getting out in the lake to complete the training.  I'm feeling very confident I'm on the right road.

I'm missing some weight and martial arts training; much of my effort is currently geared to tri's and I don't seem to have much energy for any other training.

This last weekend my wife and I had some great bike rides culminating in our participation in the Santa Fe Century (25 mile leg).  Part of the path was on the freeway; that was exciting...

Best wishes to all my training partners; it's a great life we live.

Tri Road, 2nd week of May

Had a great week of training last week, mostly base aerobic training, although I didn't get in as many sessions as I wanted.  I did manage some swim training in a nearby lake.

I'm noticing very good improvement with 2 weeks of base training, and I'm not feeling a general, overall ache that I used to feel with more intense weight training.  I'm going to add some intensity this week, but probably only one session.

I got to the cardiologist who surmised the arrhythmia I'm experiencing is likely due to an electrical crossover between the top and bottom of my heart, but nothing I need to worry about with the few times and short durations I experience.  Now just have to get some joints checked out to see how to finalize my training adjustments.

Santa Fe Century

Just signed up for the Santa Fe Century, 25 mile version with my wife. Sharing events can be extremely fulfilling!

Where does that motivation come from?

I've been asked a few times, how do I stay motivated to physically train?  I had to think about that for awhile, because I didn't really know the answer.  The motivation just seemed to be there, but I didn't know exactly why.  I may still not know the full answer, but after some reflection, I did discover a few things about myself.

 

First, there's a lifestyle that has shaped me into what I am today.  I recently left an organization where I worked 80 hour weeks for many years.  With all that work, there were still many opportunities for me to receive feedback about not doing enough.  I'm not bitter, it was a volunteer situation and I feel good about what I did, but the cost was brutal.  My health suffered, my fitness waned, my waist size increased... and my capabilities declined. 

 

Now, I'm no longer with that organization and feel extremely liberated.  My current job requires 45 to 50 hours per week out of me and the rest of the week is mine!  It's like I have a whole new lease on life which is extremely motivating.  I want to experience all that I missed.  I often sleep only a few hours because I don't want to miss what the next day will bring me.

 

A second factor that shapes me is I have a deathly fear of becoming old.  I don't want to be that person that has to use a walker to get around, afraid of falling off a 4 inch curb and breaking my hip.  I've seen physically fit people age well, and I want to be that.  In addition, I don't like the fact that a few years ago I could so something, but can't now.  So every time I train, every time I lift a weight, run a distance, etc, I'm fighting off the grim reaper and I'm continually proving to myself that I'm not getting old and frail.

 

I think both of these things lead to a mindset that I celebrate life every day through physical movement.  I love physical movement of all types.  It's almost euphoric to be able to move my body.  Probably because I didn't live well before, and because I'm afraid of getting too frail to live well in the future, my motivation comes from the joy of living experienced by physical training.  Everyone is different, this mindset won't work for all, but it's perfect for me.

 

Oh, and a nice by product, I'm getting better, my waist size is decreasing, etc.  But this is a by product, while the goal is to have fun living well.

Cochiti Lake Triathlon

I have decided to hit this race:  Cochiti Lake Tri.  I don't have alot of time to prepare and over the last few months my training has not been conducive to tri's.  Alot of my recent training (weights/karate) focuses  on recruiting as many muscle fibers as possible to do short work.  The triathlon, however, is about recruiting as few muscle fibers as possible in order to generate efficient body movement over time.

My first goal in training is to get a mental control over the distance.  The swim is easy for me to complete, but not easy for me to excel at.  I can do the bike and run right now if I pace correctly, however I have a tendency to move out a bit too fast (fast for me :) ) and then have little energy left to actually finish. 

For the next few weeks I'm going to be working the bike and run distances in bricks.  Yesterday I was on the Bosque trail and rode about 15 mi (forgot my bike computer) and ran 3.  I was going to repeat today but my legs are pretty tired.  During the week I don't have alot of time available for long trainings, so I'll work shorter distances at higher intensities.  For the swim, I'll work intervals in order to increase my speed.  

Right now, I swim the 1500 in a pool in 33 min, I bike around 15 mph, and run at about a 10 to 11 min pace (after the bike).  The race goal will be to exceed those times in all 3 legs.

Now a question for those out there; right now my bike fit puts quite a bit of pressure on my arms and I need some ideas on how to fix.  I recently got a fit redone and love how my legs not interact with the bike.  Before I was trying to maximize pressing down on the pedal, but now I'm doing more leg extension which is feeding a good spinning action.  My first experimentation for relieving pressure on the arms will be to tilt the seat back a tiny bit and see what happens.  Any other ideas out there?

How far down on squats?

So, when doing squats, how far down should you go?

Traditional training wisdom says go no further than the upper leg being parallel due to increased pressure on the knees if you go lower.  I haven't seen any evidence that supports or refutes this.

Currently, I squat all the way down to a full squatting position, hips nested all the way down.  To do this, I have to drop about 70 lbs from what I could do if I only came down to parallel.  I started doing this when a friend of mine who was a powerlifter in college stated he followed a professional powerlifter who also trained squats going all the way down.  Supposedly, this individual did so because he felt it helped him in the clean.  With a heavier weight, you can't jerk it up as high which means you've got to get lower to get under the weight.

So far, I haven't had any knee problems, but I'm also not pushing real heavy weight (note how much I have to drop to squat all the way down). 

Any thoughts out there?

What is "your" rest requirement?

I'm on a fascinating journey of discovering the optimal amount of intensity vs rest time.  To help me experiment, I am tracking specific results of training as well as mood and perceived readiness.

My last training session was 3 days of hard training, then I was very sore and fatigued.  I did one light weight training day and the day after I felt fatigued, but not sore.  That felt like the perfect time to rest.  Based on perceived readiness, I'll probably do one or two more days of rest and stretching and then I feel I'll be ready for some hard days again.

I'm finding there's no book, magical formula, or steady routine that will cover all situations.  There's too many varying factors that affect performance for me to have confidence in a never changing rhythm.  Detecting the right time to execute the right training is truly an exhilarating journey.

Workout adjustments

Here you'll find a previous post on my workout plan:

http://nikchapapas.typepad.com/nik/2009/09/my-workout-plan.html

But I've had to make some adjustments.

I found that plan was way too robust and I couldn't maintain it. What I'm finding now is that if I train hard one day, I'm often sore the next and stiff the one after that. The sore day often becomes a rest day, the stiff day works out well for yoga, and then I can usually hit it hard the following, 3d day. That still varies; sometimes I can hit a few good days back to back, but I have found my recovery time has changed significantly over time.

Great training today

Ran quarters today and got some of my best times in a long time.  I really needed that victory.  Hope all's well with everyone else out there.