Living Life

Oct Wrapup

Last race of the season, I did another swim leg of a half ironman. This time it was the Austin 70.3.  As before, I was with great teammates Susan Pope and Melinda Wight. 

 

It was a beautiful race that I fully enjoyed, presenting a minute faster time for a 100m longer swim as compared to Galveston in April.  I was graced with some good fortune on this race.

For November I'm entering into a bit of an eclectic base phase.  Customarily I'd start my volume training now, but my brain is a bit mush from the lack of variety of training.  I intend to do one week rotations, keeping swimming as a base for all weeks, but rotating focus each week on weights, yoga, and biking.  The 4th week will be a bit random or used as a rest week.  I plan to do this for two or three months, then hit more traditional training in time for next race season.

All the best to everyone out there.

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!

Good results

Working this machine, and with good coaching, swam 1000 yds today in training for PR of 20 seconds faster than last, best time. 

Haven't been working the machine that long, so I doubt it's had much impact yet.

 

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.

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.

Yoga postures

Here's a yoga sequence I consistently practice, a series of standing poses strung together.  I admit, I'm not very good at this type of exercise, but I do get a good feeling when complete.  I build up to this sequence by breaking down the individual poses and stringing together shorter sequences prior to this.  The whole effort is about 20 min long. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ookPK2OI190

I'm at 162 lbs here which is a good weight for me, but it's obvious I still have a bit more around the middle than I like. :)  It is slowly, but consistently dropping.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

The Purpose of Life?

Not sure anyone has the answer to this question, but I have found that contributing to the world provides a certain amount of contentment.  I think the type and amount of contribution that brings contentment likely varies depending on the giver.  I've also found that people remember the contributions you make. 

This probably isn't the answer for everyone, but maybe it's a good start.