Living Life

September Wrapup

September was an educational month for me.  Volume wise, I exceeded expectations in swimming (45k yards), but was under in biking miles (141mi).  However, I pulled multiple PR's in the pool this month and a PR on my hilly bike route.  Working with Nancy Rehm from Fortemultisport, I'm trying to focus more on quality of training vs volume, and I'm liking it.  I also incorporated a rest week this month, picking the last week to be a little lighter than the others.  Again, I'm also liking this training modality.

For Oct, I'm not focusing on volume, and therefore not writing down all my expectations for the month.  I'm in a good routine now and know what I plan to do every day, so I want to shift from "doing it" to "doing it well."  So, the points of doing it well are what I chose to write.

 

Aug Training update

August was another challenging month.  I had trouble with more fatigue issues and had some work travel, but didn't expect the overall impact I experienced.  I suspect I lost some focus along the way.  Here's how August played out:

 

My bike mileage was way off, somewhat due to some stormy weather.  That caused me to refocus on using my trainer, which resulted in some enjoyable stress workouts.  I also pulled out my swim trainer and incorporated it into my training and am seeing good results in the pool. 

I also determined that tracking yoga and weight training by number of sessions is not really productive.  The purpose and quality of each session feels more worthy to understand than the number of actual efforts. 

I also determined that I had too much focus on the volume of effort for biking and swimming and was not paying enough attention to the quality of each session.  Therefore, instead of calling my volume a goal, it's going to be more of just a number that I may or may not hit.  The more important number might be any improvement in time throughout the month.

So, speaking of improvement over time, but July and August have taught me that I'm probably not getting enough rest.  So for Sep I'm actually planning rest days.  Nancy Rehm from Forte Multisport has suggested building in a rest week as well.  While that's not on this chart yet, I expect to change somewhere within the month to a reduced level of effort, and call that my rest week.

When my body did force me to rest, in August, I had some good efforts.  While nothing peaked well in biking, I pulled a PR for a 1000 yard swim by nearly 30 seconds from a previous, best effort.  Now if only I didn't have to have a job so that I could sleep more each day...

Happy training everyone!

Training update, July 2017

July didn't turn out as well as I wanted, but it considering some of the challenges and comparing to June, it wasn't bad at all.  I hit a wall where I had no gas, and took some days off that weren't planned.  Then I traveled and trained during the travel, but it was very hard for some reason.  When I returned home, I was achy and in some unexpected pain.  I think I may have had some sort of bug, but the symptoms were real weird.  I guess that's part of being a biological organism. I really started to feel the yoga coming together.  Still have a long way to go as I'm learning, but I think that means I'm improving.

Here's how the month shaped up:

I think August is going to shape up just fine.  I probably need to re-evaluate my rest plan, but I think I'm looking forward to having a good month.  At my age, I think I'm on a great road and really enjoying the lifestyle.

I had the privilege of wearing the badge and beret

But also had the privilege of working with heroes.

 (picture links to video)

Swimming videos

Here's some recent vids we took of swim strokes.  We do need some practice with the camera :).  The idea here is to review and figure out what to improve.

These two videos are at a controlled pace:

 

This one is at full speed:

And this is my butterfly:

The most telling one is this overhead as it shows my feet are way too far apart.  That's a very surprising revelation.  My coach has been telling me about this, but I didn't realize how bad it was :).

More videos coming.

Father's Day!

Superb Father's Day in AUS on this dive!  My life isn't perfect; there's a still a few things I have to do, but it is pretty danged cool and much better than I deserve.

 

Reporting in for June

So here's numbers for June.  Look at that abysmal bike mileage! 

Actually, June contained a significant amount of travel where I didn't have access to a pool or my bike.  Getting back into the routine after the body had been "off" for that long was also challenging.  Finally, I determined to address knee pain that I had ignored for two months.  Thankfully, x-rays show nothing significantly wrong with my knee, and the doc says I need to pay more attention to tracking and pick exercises that will promote aligned movement of the kneecap.  My foot does pronate significantly, so I'm not surprised the knee could be having this issue.

One nice discovery comes with improved yoga.  During traveling, yoga becomes an easy reach.  At the end of the month I experienced significant improvement in my one legged balance poses, feeling more solid and holding a balanced position much longer.  These are the achievements I look for in yoga as I think balance, strengthening hip flexors, etc, will serve me very well as I get older.

I've got an aggressive schedule planned for July.  I'm not sure I'll be able to hit these marks, but at this time, they do seem in reach.

 

 

End of Base, Beginning of Speed

March and April have been fantastic months!  March finished base training where I hit most of my goals; April started speed training, of which I have little experience, but am enjoying what I'm coming up with.  In March I pulled a PR for 20 mile bike on flats, riding at 18.5 mph, and towards the end of April I snagged a PR for a 300 freestyle swim (in practice) of 3:55. 

The real highlight of the last two months has been participating in the Galveston IM 70.3, doing the swim as part of a relay with two fantastic teammates!

I absolutely loved the race, the best thing being the talent that showed up.  Lindsey Corbin was there, Miranda Carfrae was supporting Tim O'Donnell, and I swear I saw Charlotte McShane, but I'm not sure.  Maybe that was just wishful thinking.  I ate supper the night before with Matt Russell who took 5th, but missed the podium by mere seconds.  We were talking about racing, conditions, weather, etc, because there was a storm rolling in the night before.  Matt was so cool telling us about some of his coldest races.  Speaking of the storm, we started with a 17 mph wind which put a good chop on the water, but then it kicked up to 20 mph for our biker and runner.  I experienced a nice dynamic of the relay.  We were all smiles, pushing hard, and having a great time, while everyone else was suffering because they were doing the entire race.  I was pretty ok with not smoking myself for 6 hours.

Mauricio Cruz won the race although Tim O'Donnell led every leg of the race.  Everyone was sure Tim was going to come in first, but Cruz rounded the last turn ahead of Tim a short bit before the finish.  The announcer was fairly surprised.  In the post-race interview, Cruz said O'Donnell has been one of his idols for a long time.  This reminded me of the saying to train until your idols become your rivals.

Here are my March and April stats which I'm fairly pleased with.

 

 

May looks to be the most aggressively planned month of the year.  I'll need to be locked in on scheduling pretty tight to make sure I hit these numbers.

As a bit of a side, as most would expect with a change in lifestyle, my weight is dropping.  I've lost 13 lb since the beginning of Dec, and while I think I'm near settling out to an equilibrium, when I look at myself in the mirror I perceive I have a little more of me to give.  I'm not doing anything special on diet, but making healthy choices most of the time.  I choose whole foods most of the time, over cooked or processed; I minimize breads, pasta, and cereals, but don't completely eliminate them (what's life without pizza every now and then?).  I eat red meat, but my most common meat is chicken thighs.  Eggs and fruit are most common for breakfast.  I do need to increase my discipline a bit more as I find I do reach for a junk food option a bit more than I like, when I am looking for quick energy or curing belly rumblings.  Here's how my weight has slightly declined over time; nothing big and fast, but this feels healthy and permanent, and all due to focus on lifestyle rather than dropping weight.

 

I am going to close out these thoughts with one final plug for my teammates.  My swimming wouldn't be where it is without the help of the team I swim with.  I'm always chasing the faster people which motivates me to push harder.  They are also giving me stroke advice which has proved invaluable.  While I don't have a bike team to get the same benefit, I have a network of bikers who are always talking to me about training methodologies, tools, etc.  While I can definitely do things on my own, I wouldn't be where I am today if there weren't others on this journey with me.  Thank you all!

Closing out February

So as I close out February, the 3d month of base training, I find myself happy with where things are going, but challenged by the negativity of not doing as well as I could have. 

 

I missed a couple of trainings that I could have made, so my volume could have been a little higher.  For some reason, that bothered me and overshadowed the fact that in this shortest month I had the most volume by far of any previous months.  So, while I should be happy at what I've gained, I find I'm a bit too fixated on what I didn't do.  I think for a healthy outlook, we need to stay focused on our accomplishments even if we could do more.

At the end of February I participated in a short course swim meet, choosing the same events of the same meet of the previous year.  All my times were improved from last year by a decent amount.  I attribute this increase to having a great coach and being on a great team.  There are folks faster than me that I'm trying to catch up to who have been helping me with technique.  There are also folks slightly slower than me that don't let me slack off.  Our coach is also very good at providing pointers and outstanding workouts. 

March is looking good.  While I will miss some days due to not having access to a pool and bike, I think I can put up some good numbers to finish out my base training phase.  The first major event of the season is on 2 Apr, the Galveston Tri where I'll be doing the swim leg of a relay.  I'll be seeing friends there that I haven't seen in over 20 years.

Keep living well, friends!

You Will Make It

I've been through a few things as I have traveled on this rock, and I know a few that have been through a few more things.  My experience teaches me that there is nothing in this world that can't be gotten through.  Not one thing.  The key is to realize, when you're in the fight, you don't think straight, so you just have to remember to breathe.  Just breathe for a bit more.  When you realize you're still breathing, you will start thinking straight, start realizing that you've got the skills to make it, and most importantly, that the fight is likely not as bad as you originally thought.