Question of the Day: How To Read A Swim Workout

After yesterday's swim workout post, kgseymour asks:

I have a horribly embarrassing question -- can you tell me how to follow this workout? I love to swim, and do a lot of it, but have never been a swimmer competitively or anything, so I'm not too clear on how to go about reading this workout. That's going to sound so dumb to you, and I'm sure you have a post somewhere that explains it -- I just don't know where to find it. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

First of all, nothing to be horribly embarrassed about! Reading swim workouts is a bit like reading hieroglyphics or physics notation. If you're not used to it, it all looks like gobbledygook. When I teach my Swim Conditioning classes, one of my aims is to help people become comfortable with reading the whiteboard. At our pool, there are always three workouts written up on the whiteboard: My swim conditioning class, the latest Master's workout, and the Noon Coached Swim workout. So if you go to swim, you can always pick from what's up there if you can understand what it's saying. So being able to read the board is very useful, as it opens up the door to a whole bunch of different swim workout possibilities.


But, it can be really confusing! So here's a post from awhile back that has a link to a site that explains many of the abbreviations and terms. And here I'll deconstruct yesterday's posted workout to help make sense of it for those of you not used to reading these crazy things! My notes will be in red.


First of all, it's important to understand that my workouts are written up for a 25 yard pool. That means that every 4 lengths of the pool will be a "100" or 100 yards. If your pool is a different length (most common other lengths would be 25 meters or 50 meters) then you need to adjust the times accordingly. A 25 meter pool is a bit longer than a 25 yard pool.

Warmup: Note: perform the warmup at an easy pace and get your heart rate up gradually

200 Swim, 200 Pull  Swim 8 lengths (200 yards) at an easy pace. Follow with 8 lengths done with a pull buoy (no kicking, just arms)
4 x 50 Drill with board  This is the drill that I linked to in the post. Make sure you watch the video as it really gives you an idea of how to do the drill. 4 x 50 just means that you will do 50 yards (2 lengths) of the drill, take a brief rest, and repeat that three more times.
200 Swim  Swim 8 lengths (200 yards) at an easy pace.
4 x 50 Drill no board This time you do the drill with no kickboard. Again, four times you do 2 lengths with a rest in between
2 x 100 Kick IM Order  100 Kick means that you'll be doing 4 lengths with just kicking (no arm strokes), kickboard is optional. "IM order" means that you will follow the stroke order of the IM, or "Individual Medley", which is Butterfly, Breaststroke, Backstroke, Freestyle. So you'll kick one length of each, take a rest and repeat that one more time.

Main Set

Okay, this main set is kind of intense, time-wise. So make sure you have an easily visible clock, or a watch with a chronograph on your arm. Here's how it's going to work. You're going to pick a column based on your swimming speed. It may be that none of these columns will work for you, this workout was written for fairly experienced Master's swimmers, so if you need to pick a slower interval you can. Here's how to determine: Swim one length at a moderate-to-intense pace and time yourself. Take whatever time (in seconds) it took you, and add 5 - 10 seconds to that time. This will be your base interval time. So if it took you 40 seconds, your interval for every 25 (one length) will be 45 seconds. This means that your interval for the 50 will be 1:30 (doubling the :45 seconds) and for the 75 will be 2:15 (tripling the 45 seconds) and so on.

For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that you're going to use the 30 second interval. 

2 X 25     :20         :25          :30
2 X 50     :40         :50         1:00
2 X 75     1:00      1:15        1:30
2 X 100   1:20      1:40        2:00
2 X 125   1:40      2:05        2:30
2 X 150    2:00     2:30        3:00
2 X 175    2:20     2:55        3:30
2 X 200    2:40     3:20        4:00

You will  start your timer,  swim one length (25 yards), look at the timer. When the timer hits 30 seconds, you'll take off to swim your next 25 yards (one length). 

Now when the timer hits 1:00 (one minute), you'll leave for your first 50 yards (2 lengths). 

Come to the wall, look at your timer, when it hits the next 2:00 mark, you'll leave for the next 50 yards. 

Get to the wall, when your timer hits 3:00, you'll leave for your first 75 yard (3 lengths). 

Now you'll wait at the wall until the timer gets to 4:30 to leave for your next 75.

You'll leave at 6:00 and 8:00 on the timer for each of the 100s (4 lengths each), 10:00 and 12:30 for each of the 125s (5 lengths), 15:00 and 18:00 for each of the 150s, and so on. Each time the distance increases by one length, your interval will increase by 30 seconds. As the distances get longer,  you should get slightly more rest each time.

Approximately 60 seconds extra rest Now you take an extra minute of rest (but no more!)

Same thing going back down the ladder. Reset your timer to 0:00, swim 8 lengths (200). Rest at the wall and leave for your 175 when the timer hits 4:00. Leave for your 150 when the timer gets to 7:30, and so on.

1 X 200    2:40      3:20        4:00

1 X 175    2:20      2:55        3:30
1 X 150    2:00      2:30        3:00
1 X 125    1:40      2:05        2:30
1 X 100    1:20      1:40        2:00
1 X 75       1:00     1:15        1:30
1 X 50       :40        :50         1:00
1 X 25       :20        :25          :30

Total: 4100

Hope that's helpful and explains the workout. Let me know if it's still confusing or if you have any more questions!

Excellent Swim Drill and Saturday's Masters Workout

For last Saturday's workout, we did the Mega-Catch-Up drill. Here's a link that explains the drill with a great video!
And the workout, boy was this a toughie! Our lane chose the :25 interval per 25 yards (middle column), which seemed like it would be plenty of rest but we really pushed the set and it totally wore me out.

Warmup:

200 Swim, 200 Pull
4 x 50 Drill with board
200 Swim
4 x 50 Drill no board
2 x 100 Kick IM Order

Main Set

2 X 25     :20         :25          :30
2 X 50     :40         :50         1:00
2 X 75     1:00      1:15        1:30
2 X 100   1:20      1:40        2:00
2 X 125   1:40      2:05        1:30
2 X 150    2:00     2:30        3:00
2 X 175    2:20     2:55        3:30
2 X 200    2:40     3:20        4:00

Approximately 60 seconds extra rest

1 X 200    2:40      3:20        4:00
1 X 175    2:20      2:55        3:30
1 X 150    2:00      2:30        3:00
1 X 125    1:40      2:05        2:30
1 X 100    1:20      1:40        2:00
1 X 75       1:00     1:15        1:30
1 X 50       :40        :50         1:00
1 X 25       :20        :25          :30

Total: 4100

Happy Towel Day!

Happy Towel Day everyone, a most auspicious day to do an open water swim! Or, if you did a triathlon today, I bet you at least carried a towel to your transition area? It's always good to be prepared.

"...any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."


                           -- Douglas Adams, The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the funniest books ever written here on planet earth!

Landmarks

Every cyclist and runner has favorite routes: we know their length, we've memorized their contours, we see them in all seasons, all weather, every time of day. We know our times on our routes, they become touchstones to our training. I bet I'm not the only one who has secret names for landmarks along the way. Sometimes these landmarks are associated with time benchmarks so that I know if I'm ahead or behind my goal time when I hit them.

I was out on a ride the other day, one I've been doing for over 20 years. As I passed by some of my own personally named landmarks (Frog Song Hill, Dead Marshes, the Hot Pocket), I thought about the human need to give name and meaning to things. One of my favorite books to take on travels around my home state is the heavy tome Oregon Geographic Names by Lewis A. McArthur. Giving the history behind names of everything from towns (Rome, Oregon was so named because some nearby rock formations nearby looked like Roman ruins) to rocks (there are, not surprisingly, three Haystack Rocks, though the one at Cannon Beach is probably the most famous), creeks (Fiddle Creek was so named because in 1894 two men passed through the area aiming to buy cattle. One broke his leg and they had to hole up in a cabin to wait for it to heal. He wished repeatedly during the time of his confinement for a fiddle to help him pass the time) and rivers (the Rogue river's name has been disputed for years with one camping claiming it came from the French "rouge" meaning "red river" and others saying that's nuts because it's a clear blue-green river that never runs red and that even the French in the area called it "La Riviere aux Coquins" -- or "Rogue River" in French -- after the local Native Americans who the settlers found "troublesome").

Even worse in the geographic names department, I spent my entire youth going to church camp at a place called (I am not making this up) "Dead Indian". Dead Indian Methodist camp was named after Dead Indian Creek, which flows right through the camp. Oregon Geographic Names tells this story: In 1854, some settlers found two dead Rogue River Indians in some deserted wigwams near the creek, and supposed that Klamath Indians had killed them in a fight. They named the stream for their discovery. Fortunately, the camp has now been renamed "Latgawa" after the local Native peoples. In their own language (which they shared with the Takelma who lived in the same region), Latgawa means "those living in the uplands".

As I bike or run or hike through the valleys, hills, and by the rivers of my community, I envision the peoples that walked here before me. I know that they, too, had names for places. Although most of those names are gone, some reminders remain. The Willamette River runs through my home town, and the name comes from an original native place name (although there is much debate about the spelling) that means roughly "where the river ripples and runs fast". Even better, near the river in 2002 the Kalapuya Talking Stones were installed, reintroducing words of the Kalapuya language in a beautiful and artistic fashion. The one I run by most frequently is set in a hazelnut grove and says "Ga-Ach-Li" or "Peaceful in Daylight". There are also stones that say "Kanaa" the "going across place", "Hi-Dwa" - "in a wooded area" and many more. They are tangible reminders that peoples have been walking these trails long before the bike paths of my time, and the hazelnut groves of the white settlers time.

My strangest personal landmark name was on a ride I did frequently when I lived in Washington. The ride went out from my work at Microsoft onto Redmond-Fall City road, I could go all the way up to the incredible Snoqualmie Falls on this ride. Coming back into town, there was a bit of a hill -- not long but short and steep -- and parked at the top in a little gravel turnout there was a worn brownish van with a sign painted on the side that said "Man Bullets". I never stopped to find out what that meant, but it always intrigued and to tell the truth scared me a little. Nevertheless, that became "Man Bullets Hill", even long after the van disappeared.

My place names keep me connected to the world around me. My rides and runs are not just about paces, lactic thresholds, and when to eat a gel or powerbar. They are about being in contact with the greater world, seeing the green peacefulness of the forest overhead, hearing the birds, tasting the water in the air from a creek running hidden beside the road.

And what about you, do you have personal names for places that you run or ride by? Share a few!

Eleven Miles Never Felt So Good

Yes, Robin 2.0 the Endurance Model is back! After what has seemed like a crazy string of interruptions to my regular training (including the twisted ankle, the detour into "Crossfit Endurance", and the broken arm), I finally feel like I'm back in the Endurance saddle again. An eleven mile run of mostly hills today left me feeling elated and strong. I was trying to hold a 10:00 per mile pace, nice and slow. On the way out, my benchmark went by a little fast at a 9:42 pace. Imagine my surprise when the same benchmark on the way back home, nine miles later clocked in at 9:26. I was clearly feeling stronger and stronger as time went by. That's the way  I want my season to be headed!

This week, my first-time triathlon peeps and I are doing our final tough workouts (biking and lake swim on the docket for the next couple of days) and fine-tuning transitions, then we're tapering, packing up the camper van and heading north for the Blue Lake triathlon the first weekend in June. Getting excited now! It's like the broken arm and all of the rest are fading into distant memories (well, except when I swim long, then the arm starts to remind me it's not all there) and we're headed forward into the triathlon future. Now just don't let me trip over my own two feet in the next couple of weeks!

Crazy-Making Weather

I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I get rain. I understand that spring is rainy, and sometimes windy, and sometimes a little stormy. But the last two weeks have been ridiculous. All day long, we alternate schizophrenically between sun and rain, hail, sleet, driving crazy winds (the kind with tree branches flying off and going tumbling through the air, not like gentle spring breezes), and pouring drenching ridiculous rain. You can't plan to do anything outside even a few minutes ahead of time, you can look outside and it's sunny and by the time you've grabbed your running shoes there's so much water pouring out of the sky it's like a bathtub got turned on your head.

It's driving. me. crazy.

Literally, I feel like a maddened beehive got turned loose inside my head, it's making me nuts. Can't get outside. Can't garden. Can't bike or run. I can take running in the rain, trust me I do it about 5 months out of the year. But running in a downpour with tree branches hailing down on your head and thunder cracking around? No thanks.

Luckily, we got a small break in the weather for the Ride of Silence on Wednesday, although not surprisingly the turnout was very low (gee, you think the hail, sleet, pouring rain and driving winds had anything to do with that?). That's the saddest I've been in a long time, so maybe that has contributed to my mood. As a mom, hearing a parent speak about losing their child to a collision with a car? That's almost unbearable. And yet, my kids ride bikes. How can I not have my kids ride bikes? How can I not ride a bike? Even knowing what's out there, the possible death that awaits with every driver who is distracted or in too much of a hurry? Should I just have my kids turn into these sofa slugs who get driven everywhere then? Like the blobby kids who pour out of the minivans at school drop-off lines or even at soccer games?

But what about the 10 year old killed at a crosswalk that the Ride of Silence arrived at on Wednesday. The teenager who hit him was going 65 miles per hour, and pulled around a car that had stopped for the young boy walking his bike across the street. He pushed the boy's bike 211 feet before finally skidding to a stop. Thinking of these things makes my head hurt. It makes my heart hurt. I have a 10 year old, no mother should have to lose a child like that, to someone else's impatience in their automobile. Maybe these are some of the bees in my head. Maybe it's not all just the weather.

Still, I can't wait for the weather to clear so I can... get out on my bike? What does that say about my brain then. Hmmmm....

Tri Coach: Three Principles of Training

I'm starting something new here at Chez Ironmom Blog. For awhile, I've been writing up swim technique tips from time to time, usually the kinds of advice that I find myself giving to my swimmers frequently and thus are worth writing down and sharing with others. I've tagged them all with the label Swim Coach. As a triathlon coach, I find that something similar happens with triathlon advice. Most of the very basic stuff gets repeated over and over, and is probably worth sharing here, especially for people who are just starting out on their triathlon journey. So I'll be writing those up from time to time and tagging them with Tri Coach so they're easy to find.

Here's one I find myself regularly harping on with athletes. It's a bit of advice that you can probably find in almost every triathlon book, video, course, and comes out of the lips of most coaches on a regular basis.

Yet it is the SINGULARLY MOST IGNORED advice by most athletes. I myself managed to ignore it for years, to the great detriment of my own training. So pay attention :-)

The three very simple, important, and basic rules of endurance training are:

1. Rest: Possibly the hardest thing for many triathletes to do is to take adequate rest. Get at least one full day off per week (I didn't do this last week and ended up over-tired and with a poorer ability to hit my key workouts hard). If you can catch a 15 minute nap during the afternoon time, that's good for the body and soul as well.

2. Go Easy: On "Long, Slow" runs and bikes, don't ignore the "Slow" part of the equation! It's easy to train at too fast a pace when you're going long. Slow should be easy, it should feel too easy. If you're training to go long, your long runs can be done at marathon pace + :30 or +:45 per mile. That's going to feel really slow. Let it!

3. Go Hard: On intervals, sprints, time trials, hill repeats, GO HARD. People who go a little too hard and too fast on their long, slow, easy days often fail to hit the hard days hard enough. Hard workouts suck. Hard workouts hurt. No one wants to hurt, gasp for air, feel like puking. But that's what hard workouts are about. They're quick and over in a relatively short amount of time so suck it up and make it count.

If you don't go easy enough on easy days and hard enough on hard days, you risk spending most of your training time in the gray zone - not slow enough to work your endurance systems and not hard enough to build muscle strength, power, and speed. So you short-change your own goals.

The Fifty-Fifty Run

Sometimes things are best when they're comprised of different components. When I was a kid and the ice cream truck would come around, my dad would always buy us a "Fifty-Fifty Bar", which is one of those orange and vanilla concoctions that they now call a Creamsicle. They don't taste as good now as they did back then, probably due to the fact that they used to be made of vanilla ice cream and something with actual orange in it. Now two of the first four ingredients are corn syrup (there's both the regular and the high fructose kind) and the rest of the ingredients have nothing to do with either vanilla or orange or ice cream. But I digress...

Yesterday I had a long run to do. Hubby wanted to run four or five miles, and my friend Kay wanted to run four or five miles. Put two and two together and I got a half of a long run with one, and a half with the other! After loop one, I just rang Kay on my cell phone and told her I was 10 minutes from her driveway, she met me there and I just kept rolling into the second half of my run. Not a bad way to go: the fifty-fifty run. If you're an athlete doing a long slow day, and you've got friends who don't want to go that long, it's a good way to still get to run together.

This morning I had a tough Crossfit workout to do, involving five rounds of an 800 meter hill run, plus 30 kettlebell swings and 30 pull-ups. Although I have recently graduated back up to using a green (narrower) band on the pull-ups, I had to go back to a thicker band for this workout given that it would be 150 total pull-ups. Still, I'm grateful that my arm is now working well enough to do the pull-ups and the kettlebell stuff, and miraculously my legs felt pretty darn fresh on those runs!

But, now I'm jonesing for a Creamsicle, the real kind of my memories. Maybe I'll have to make up some kind of Creamsicle smoothie with vanilla protein powder and call it good.

Three Ironwomen Gone, and a Ride of Silence Approaching

Three women training for Ironman Lake Placid were killed by a single driver, and three other cyclists were injured in the same accident. One of the cyclists who survived described the accident as "like a bowling match". Just imagine.

I don't know why it makes it so much harder, but knowing that one of the triathletes was my age, 44, makes it especially chilling. You think "I was on a road on a bike today with pickup trucks going too fast and coming too close to me." So as a cyclist, what do you do? Not train on roads? Not train outside? Why are our lives forfeit when people can't take a few extra seconds to pass cyclists safely? These cyclists were riding single-file.

It's funny because on my ride this morning I was looking at my average speed for the ride and remembering Jane Higdon, an amazing local triathlete who was killed on her bike here by a truck 4 years ago. She once told me that she didn't put much stock in average paces because she typically averaged 17 mph on her long rides. I have no idea if that was true or if she was just trying to make me feel better, because she was simply an amazing cyclist who turned in a smoking 5:48 bike split on the tough IM Canada course when she was my age. But it's always helped me not to obsess too much about what my average pace is and to concentrate more on other things during a ride.

All of which sadly brings me to an event I wish would never have to happen again, but obviously does. The Ride of Silence will happen next week this year, on May 19 at 7:00 pm in hundreds of locations world-wide. You can check their website to find a location near you, and help bring attention to the seemingly never-ending issue of cyclists injured and killed on public roads by motor vehicles.

Facing the Wall

In karate class today, we worked on a whole bunch of different stuff. Quick memorization of moves and patterns, agility ladder drills, kicking and punching the wall (accuracy!), perfecting kata, and more. After every completed exercise, we each had to return to the same spot and stare at the wall until everyone was done.

What's harder, performing the drills, or standing absolutely still and facing the wall?

How many times in a long race do we figuratively have a wall to face? How many times is it just us and the contents of our mind, trying to still the chatter and perform our best? How deep can you go when you need to?

There were times today when I had to snap myself back to attention when the sensei gave us our next drill. You can get pretty deep in concentration when there's just you and a wall. Try it sometime!

Finding Your Climbing Power

It's that time of year: when we look at our upcoming races and the terrain we'll need to cover, and we start to get more specific in our training. If your races involve hills, that means training on hills. Over the years, I've been lucky enough to cycle with some great hill climbers and learn a few tips that have made me a better climber. I'm still learning and growing as a cyclist, but here's a few things I've learned along the way:

While it might look dramatic on TV to be climbing while standing on the pedals (in fact, I had to laugh out loud when I watched the Ironman Florida television coverage - the footage they got from the bike course was of athletes standing on their pedals to climb the only "hill" on the course, an overpass. The triathletes were just stretching out their legs after miles and miles of flat windy riding, there was no other reason to get up off your seat on that tiny incline!), in reality you're often better off staying seated while climbing. This is especially important if your build tends toward the sturdy and muscular and not to the slim and whippetlike. A top road biker who is an expert climber will generally weigh (in pounds) no more than twice his height (in inches). Yes, that's  144 pounds for a 6' tall male. If you haven't yet (or never want to) achieve this body style, every extra pound you carry will cost you in the climb.

Staying seated has many advantages: it keeps your weight partially supported by your saddle instead of by the muscles in your legs (a rule of thumb is that you use about 10% more energy as soon as you stand up to climb), it uses less of your core and arm muscles (fewer muscles engaged equals less oxygen consumed), it utilizes your legs and glutes more effectively with less wasted motion, and it allows you to keep up a faster more consistent cadence.

In order to stay seated, you have to use your gears wisely. Many triathletes who are not yet comfortable on their bikes tend to avoid shifting as much as possible. You wouldn't do this in your car, where you would hear your engine lugging or over-revving when you refused to shift. Your body is doing the same thing when you don't shift to keep your cadence constant. So picking the right gear for the start of the hill and then staying on the shifters to maintain your cadence in the 70 - 90 range is crucial. Keep those pedals spinning and your heart rate in a manageable zone as you cruise up the hill. Hammering a hill and flooding your muscles with lactic acid (especially in a race) might look cool in the moment, but is a recipe for disaster. Those lactic-flooded legs will feel dead on the run!

If you do need to stand, either to change body position, give your back a break, or because the hill is too steep to stay seated, work on keeping a steady line while rocking the bike back and forth underneath you. This is a skill that will come with practice, but many triathletes weave and wobble when they stand on hills, potentially endangering any athletes trying to pass on the side. So when you're out training on hills, be sure to get some practice with standing climbs. Use your body weight to help you push down on the pedals and let the bike travel side-to-side underneath you, but not too far (6 - 8 inches is enough). Observe the track of your wheels and make sure you're still traveling in a straight line. Don't lean way far forward over the handlebars as this takes efficiency away from your legs, try keeping your weight centered over your cranks as much as possible. Don't forget that just before you stand you may need to shift into a higher gear to account for the increased power of a standing climb.

Best way to get good at hills: stop fearing them and start doing them. I know I used to hate hills but now I kind of find that I like them. I've started tracking my times on some local doozies so I know when I'm getting better over the course of  a season, and even when I've started off a new season with better climbing skills than I started the last one. This year's Crossfit training has made me a stronger hill climber with lower body weight and more power, so I'm eager to see how I'll stack up against my benchmark hills this season!

The Traditional Mother's Day Lake Swim

It's become a Mother's Day tradition in our family: don't give mom flowers or anything silly like a blender, take her to the lake and let her swim! Since today looked like it would be rainy, we set out yesterday for this beautiful lake near the beach. This year I was joined by a couple of friends who are training for their first triathlon. They just got wetsuits so this was their first open water swim ever. What an experience!

The water was surprisingly pleasant and the skies were blue. The kids and dogs all romped around on the beach and we took off in the sunshine. Remember your first open-water experience? It can be a little panic-inducing. I get a bit of the heebie-jeebies the first open water swim of the year too, and I've been doing it forever. But they both did great! They were even brave enough to set out across the lake, leaving the shore behind. During last week's pool session, we worked on sighting but there's nothing like trying to swim straight out in the open water. It's a skill for sure. One thing I try to do is pick something on the horizon to sight on - a tall tree, a building, a hill - that's behind what I'm aiming for  in the water. That way I don't have to really focus super hard, I can just get a quick glance and make sure I'm on course.

I am usually a pretty straight swimmer in the lake, but one thing I noticed is that my left arm fatigued a lot faster in the wetsuit and so after awhile I started curving off to the left. I've got a couple more weeks before the triathlon to get that arm even stronger so I can swim straight.

We were given the gift of a beautiful day, clear warm(ish) water, good friends, and the ability to swim, swim, swim. So to all the moms out there, I wish you a wonderful day filled with whatever brings you joy. Happy Mother's Day!

Brick Baby, Brick!

I know my season is starting later than many of you all out there, mostly due to not signing up for any Spring Sprints due to the broken arm. But my first race is 4 weeks away and so the first brick workout of the season was today and man, it felt great!

Only big question on my mind: I run WAY smoother and WAY more comfortably and probably a bit faster in my Vibram Five Fingers shoes. They are, however, a major pain to get on and getting them on fast would be difficult. Should I attempt to use them in a sprint triathlon? Would the time savings in the run, plus overall just FEEL of my run (remember, running is my weakest sport and it rarely feels this fun) be worth the hassle of putting them on?

I'm going to try some timings (timed runs in toe shoes vs. regular shoes, timed transitions with toe shoes vs. regular shoes) and attempt to answer this question in the next two weeks. I have no doubt it would be worth it in an Oly distance, but I have my doubts for the sprint. Stay tuned...

Gardening Club, Sustainability Discussion Group, Recipe Sharing, and Oh Yeah, Triathlon Training

As our little group of aspiring triathletes is warming up for a training run, the conversation inevitably turns to topics like.....

... whether or not to mulch the tomatoes against a potential frost, best designs for backyard chicken coops, books like Food Not Lawns, or  In Defense of Food, recipes for flour-free muffins, seed saving, or what we want to can, freeze, and store food-wise this summer.

I bet you thought I was going to say heart rate zones, tempo vs. long runs, brick training, and nutritional periodization! For many athletes, sports are a distinct thing that they do, separate from their regular life. And perhaps they eat a little more nutritiously to fuel their workouts, or perhaps they just buy more power bars and binge on pizza. For many of us (and I have definitely been in this camp before) we work out so we can pig out. I used to love the fact that I could eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's because I'd done a 15 mile run that day. Don't get me wrong, it's a definite advantage of the multi-sport lifestyle that we can afford a few more nutritional indulgences since we burn so many more calories. And there's definitely nothing wrong with a pint of B&J's. Especially if it's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch......yummmmmmm

But these days I'm seeing a synergy starting to develop between my athletic pursuits, my passion for sustainability, and my interest in good nutrition starting at the ground level with my garden. When I started blogging several years ago, I created three blogs: one for triathlon training, one for sustainability/gardening, and one for our homeschooling and parenting. As the years have gone by, I've found it harder and harder to figure out where to put many of my blog posts. Is eating directly from my garden an offshoot of the Paleo eating that I'm doing to fuel my body for sports and thus should be posted here? Or is it related to my Urban Farm blog because of its environmental sustainability and ties to local eating, or is it something I do to bring better nutrition to my family and to raise healthier kids and thus should be covered on my Blue Skies blog?  I've toyed with the idea of combining blogs, but I think most of the time it works better to keep them separate because people interested in backyard chickens probably don't want to read my swim workouts and vice versa.

Yet an increasing number of my triathlete friends, both online and in person are planting gardens, getting chickens, buying local meats and produce, and moving toward a position of food sustainability and locavore eating. It makes sense that if you're going to work your body to the maximum, you should fuel it with the best possible sources. So we'll probably be having BRiCk workouts this summer. That's Bike, Run, and Canning green beans!

Taking a Deep Breath!

You know how when your life is just going on from day to day, things seem to work pretty well. But then along comes something really important, something you really want to accomplish, and that's when stuff gets dicey. For instance, say you want to get something done on your computer, like creating a video. All of a sudden, batteries fail, and the ones you thought were charged are not, and then you can't find the cords to connect the camera to the computer because the kids were using them to make stop-action animation. And the camera cards are all filled up with photos of animated pieces of claymation. Then the music you want to use won't load because the file got corrupted by iTunes, and the movie editing software keeps crashing. It's like the whole world is conspiring against you. Aaarrrrgghhhhh! At least my hard drive didn't crash this time.

Thanks heavens for my teenage technology wizard, Mackenzie to the rescue! He got me all straightened out, worked the camera, taught me how to edit in the movie making software, and generally smoothed it all down for me. The end result is my video submission for Team Evotri. They are adding a new member to their team, and their mission statement is eerily similar to my own personal one:

Team members will "dedicate themselves to maximizing their potential, to sharing what they learn from their experiences, and to making a positive contribution to the endurance sport community." That's why I've had their Evotri Ambassador link in my blog for some time, I believe that they are approaching endurance sports with exactly the right frame of mind, and so when they announced that they were looking for another team member, I definitely wanted to put in my submission.


For me, being on their team would be the triathlon opportunity of a lifetime, so if you have some spare good thoughts this week, send them my way and cross your fingers that my video speaks to them and that I'm what they're looking for. There's lots of great candidates submitting videos, so it will be tough competition. Then again, so is the sport of triathlon and so is life!

The Hills Come Back Alive

Our little home Crossfit gym has spawned a group that's going to go and do their first triathlons at Blue Lake this year. So with the weather getting marginally better, it's been time to head out on more runs and bikes and spend less time throwing kettlebells and medicine balls around.

We've done some great track workouts, often taking the bikes and trainers down to the track to do bike/run repeats. Friday we met up at a local park that's at the bottom of a butte with a nice road running to the top providing a few hundred feet of elevation gain over a short distance. Just perfect for hill repeats! This is the first time I've been on the hills with my arm, and it held up pretty well. Until you do something like injuring your elbow, you don't realize what a horizontal load you place on your arms when you're climbing on the bike, but it takes a lot of strength in those muscles and joints to stabilize the bike as you stand up and grind up a hill.

All is well though, and I think I'm good to start adding hills back into the repertoire. Hooray!

No Such Thing As An Ugly Day

On Thursdays I take my daughter to her Mime class (my son's running gag to her is "you need to practice your Mime!", on account of that she's our noisy child and he's our silence-craving introvert, LOL) and usually I head out the door with a fellow mom for what we've come to call the Thursday Mime Run. Yesterday though she didn't appear so after heading inside for a drink of water, I paused in the doorway to survey the thunderous black clouds and an impressive amount of water falling from the sky. A mom scuttling out the door to her minivan said "Isn't it a shame it's such an ugly day?"

I thought about that as I began to run. At first it seemed as if she might be right. It hasn't been very warm lately, and there's nothing like getting instantly soaked to the skin to put a damper on one's happy running feelings. Often when I'm confronted with a situation that is less than ideal however, I search for a phrase that I can dwell on that will change my attitude toward those circumstances. This time it was "the rain is washing all of my stress away and leaving me refreshed."

You know what? What you tell yourself is what you live. Misery evaporated and the rain became a beautiful and invigorating thing. I began to notice things, like how fresh everything smelled, how the air near the ground was still warm from reflected heat and the rain was turning to steam all around me, how some birds were still singing even in the downpour. I began to not just endure the rain but to revel in it, even to enjoy it. My pace quickened, I spread my arms in an embrace of the day and a smile broke out on my face. Ten minutes into the run, the clouds above me parted and rays of sunshine streamed down in place of the rain. A heron swooped overhead, fields of wildflowers looked spectacular in the stormlight, and a flicker alighted in the tree next to me, flashing his orangey wings. My feet were now virtually flying along the path by the river, my eyes taking in the water spilling over the banks, swollen from days and days of stormy weather, with the roar of the rapids blocking out all other sound.

By the time I was done, the sunny hole in the clouds was closing up, my clothes were almost dry, and the rain was sweeping back towards me from the clouds to the North, but I made it back to the studio before it could douse me again. Rather than run in an ugly day, I chose to see the beauty and had one of the best runs I can remember in a long time. It was a great reminder that we are what we choose to see and do.

All's Well That Heals Well

My 3rd and final X-ray today showed my arm to be (finally) totally healed up! I have the green light to do anything that feels comfortable with it, and now I don't have to worry that if I crashed my bike or (heaven forbid) tripped again while running I would require surgery and pins, metal plates and all sorts of nastiness like that.

I've never split a bone like this before, I've only cracked them across the center. And I've never broken the bone at the joint either, so this is all new for me healing-wise.

The Report Card:

Running: 95%
You'd think a broken arm wouldn't affect running at all, but I was watching some video of myself running from today and guess what, my left arm swings out and away from my body instead of tracking straight backwards. It's not huge, but it's there, and it makes my torso twist more than it should when I run.

Biking:80%
I haven't really started climbing hills yet where I'll have to stand on the pedals and put a lot of stress on my arms and elbows but I can bike the flats to rolling hills with no problems now. Thinking of doing some flat time trials in May. Wheee!

Swimming: 70%
My arm straightens almost all the way out to a full glide, but I still can't keep my left elbow high to catch and pull much water, so my right arm starts to really fatigue about 2500 yards into my workouts as it's taking the lion's share of the workload.

Karate: 25%
I haven't done any contact at all since the accident, but that can start to change this week. Yeah!

Crossfit: 35%
I've had to substitute so many of the exercises in Crossfit, but I'm starting to work them back in with lighter weights now.

All in all, I'm on track to get myself all back in action. My doctor said that by 8- 10 months, I'll have all of the mobility back out of this arm that I'll ever have, so that's good incentive to listen to my physical therapist and be good about doing my exercises!

Swim Coach: Out of the Brain Rut

When you go to the pool, do you swim the same workouts? How about the same intervals? Do you always start at the same end of the pool, use the same kickboard and pull buoy, bring the same water bottle? Is your workout in a brain rut? Remember that exercise is a mind-body connection and if you're only exercising the body half of the equation, you're missing half of the workout. Just like your body, parts of your brain can become lazy with inactivity. We know that exercise helps improve brain function and actually protects against cognitive decline, and so does changing up your mental stimuli on a regular basis, forcing the old gray matter to forge new neural paths.

When I plan workouts for myself or my swimmers, I like to throw in the occasional curve ball, change things up a bit. I don't always include intervals that end in :00, :15, :30, etc. We don't always end up on the same end of the pool, do the same drills, or use the same pool toys. Today some of my swimmers complained about the odd intervals, I am forcing them to do mental math at the end of each set to determine the next send off, plus every other set ends up at the other end of the pool. But I guess I figure if my swimmers aren't complaining about something, I'm not writing good enough workouts up.

So here's today's Saturday Master's workout.
You can see the drill here . This is one of my favorites, and if done correctly can halt the lazy drift into the catch that many swimmers unconsciously perform.


SKILL: Catch on surface, high elbow
DRILL: S2CC  (Shoulder to Cheek Catch)

Warm Up
300 Swim
4 x 50 S2C Drill
4 x 50: S2CC Drill
2 x 100 Kick IM Order


Main Set

200 – Moderate @ 3:10
2 x 175 – Neg. Split @ 2:55
3 x 150 Descend @ 2:20
4 x 125 Descend @ 2:00

Rounder
5 x 100 Drill S2CC on EZ interval 1:45

6 x 75 @ 1:10  Descend x 3’s
7 x 50 @ 50     Descend x 3’s and hold last fast
8 x 25  @ :30 Descend x 4’s, last 4 EZ


Total: 3900

Vibram Five Fingers Success Story

Here's a great little story about a runner who overcame an IT Band injury and completed the Boston Marathon in Vibram Five Finger shoes, which he has only been running in since February! I think this is really interesting because my hubby was unable to run due to knee problems until he recently got some Vibram KSOs. Now he can run without knee pain where he couldn't before.

Here's  a quote from this article, the guy had a terrific time of 3:25:15 and an almost even split (hard to accomplish).

I felt so great; my split between the 40K and the finish was 10 minutes, close to a 7:25 pace! I felt like I could have just kept running a few more miles after the finish and had never felt so strong at the end of a marathon (which I attribute to the efficiency of running in VFFs). I ran the last five miles with a huge smile on my face. I had forgotten how fun it was to run naturally and pain free! Two days later, my legs feel great, and my IT Band has not acted up at all. While this race was far from a personal best, it was the most fun I have EVER had running.

Now that's impressive! If I ever run another stand-alone marathon, I think it will have to be in my VFFs!

ERG? URGH!!!!

Wow, it's been awhile since I did a workout intense enough to bring on an attack of the almost-pukies. In triathlon training, almost nothing comes close to approximating the intensity of an erg (rowing machine) workout. Probably the closest thing would be doing crazy sets of killer 200s in the pool. When you're biking or running, half of your body is more or less resting, and while the intervals can definitely be tough, they are not the all-encompassing pain of a total body interval that you get in the pool or on the erg. I've heard it said that competitive swimmers have to have a higher pain tolerance than the general public, and I'm willing to bet that competitive rowers are right up there with them.

With the arm out of commission, almost anything you can do in Crossfit that's puke-inducing (burpees, wallballs, thrusters, etc.) were out of the picture for me for a long while. Today's workout was 5 x 500m on the C2 Rowing machine, with a 3 minute rest interval. Crap that was hard! Well, first of all I wrote down the workout wrong, it was only supposed to be 4 x 500, so we did  a little extra. But I'm glad we did because mentally, you can do four of almost anything, but that fifth one is a killer. 

So two weeks ago, the arm wasn't to a place where I could row under 2:00 for a 500 meters. I had to take it slow and deliberate. While I still don't have my full range of motion and extension so my pull stroke is still pretty short and choppy, I was able to go 154.7, 152.7, 151.7, 153.3, 153.0 for my five intervals. That's a big improvement in just a couple of weeks, and I should see those times drop a bit more as I get my arm mobility back.

Allez Allez, It's the Finish Line!

Just a fun reminder to always finish like a winner...
Warning: brief nudity in the final moments (3rd cyclist)

G'day From Iron Mum

I got the biggest grin when I was looking at which sites link back to this one and found that in Australia my site is referred to as "Iron Mum". So hi to all of you reading Down Under.Our family has big plans to visit there for my son's 18th birthday in about five years and have started saving our nickels toward that trip. One thing I love about the internet is how it connects so many of us from around the globe, and we get to learn a little bit about each other's cultures, speech, and ways of life.

I'm heading off for the weekend to my mom's house (read: dial-up internet only) so until Monday, g'day from Iron Mum!

Taking the Starch Out Of Our Easter Crepes

Traditions are important in our family, and special occasions often have special foods associated with them. For as long as I can remember, I've cooked crepes for Easter Brunch. I used to make Key Lime Crepes, which in my opinion are just heavenly, but my kids can't stand the key lime filling, go figure! So I switched to berry crepes. This year, eating in a more Paleo manner (and now hubby and daughter are doing the same), I had to revamp the old recipe. Betty Crocker, meet Grok the caveman!

I was a little worried about my no-wheat-flour version of the crepes since often using coconut flour and almond meal creates a grainier texture that doesn't hold together well. So I subbed 1/4 C. tapioca flour for some of the flour and that made a huge difference. The kids and the hubby all declared that these crepes are way better than the original recipe and that I should always make them this way. A new tradition has been born!

Although they are heaven with strawberries or blueberries, these are actually so yummy that you can eat them plain, and I'm thinking they would make a great biking power food, you could wrap up a banana, some almond butter, or something else yummy inside them as well.

Nutty Almond-Coconut Crepes


1/2 C. Almond Meal
3/4 C. Coconut Flour
1/4 C. Tapioca Flour
1 T. Maple syrup or honey
1/2 t. Baking Powder
1/2 t. salt
2 C. Milk
2 T. Coconut oil
1/2 t. vanilla
3 large eggs


Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whip eggs and add wet ingredients (tip: when using coconut oil, I make sure to warm it to melting temperature first, and I also slightly warm the milk so that the coconut oil doesn't re-solidify when it hits the batter). Adjust milk content to create a slightly runny batter. Pour 1/3 c.at a time in hot cast-iron skillet and rotate skillet to coat a thin layer of batter in a large area. Flip when golden-brown.

Nope, Not Today

Went to the pool. Looked at the water. Didn't even look appealing, that's so rare for me. I almost always always always love to swim. Got out, went to the hot tub, then the steam room, then the shower.

I guess there IS such a thing as too much swimming. Who knew???

State Meet Day Three: Lessons Learned

Wow, I learned a lot this weekend about swimming in multi-event, multi-day meets. Namely, that lactic acid accumulation sucks, and that nutrition and hydration get complicated when you need to time them appropriately for sprinting at your maximum pace. I guess I had gotten used to the triathlon race-day groove: get up early, get my shower, eat a big breakfast, take a Clif Bar and some Accelerade to the race start and some gels in my pocket. That's about it. It's different when you need to warm up at 8:00 am, do a distance race at 9:00 am, sprint at 9:50, cool down, warm up again, sprint at 11:00, sprint at 12:30 and at 2:00. What the heck do you eat, and when?

Needless to say, I threw my Paleo diet out the window. The idea of eating chicken drumsticks and yams while trying to keep up a grueling start/stop/sprint/rest schedule was beyond me. I got up in the morning, made my famous breakfast oatmeal custard and took some Clif bars and bananas along for good measure. I actually did eat some chicken breast at one point on Saturday, but that was Not A Good Idea and I didn't repeat it. I did figure out my groove for how long to warm up for each event (hint: A LONG TIME) and my arm never really felt sore until the end of the last day, somewhere after the 100 Fly and before my attempt at participating in the 200 Free Relay.

It's funny, but I don't remember thinking of any of this when I used to swim at meets in college. I guess warming up didn't matter so much because I was younger and springier, and I probably just ate whenever, whatever and didn't worry about it. If I remember right, it involved lots of pasta and pizza and our coach bought enormous boxes of donuts on the way to the meet (early day gels, just not in liquid form).

Our team had a great third day at the meet. Two of our swimmers set state records, lots of PRs all around, some fun swimming on relay teams. For lack of other female swimmers on the last day, I even got to swim in the final relay, clocking a :30:81 for my 50 yard split, even with having to start in the water and not on the blocks. So that makes me wonder what I could do if I actually worked on sprinting again. Hmmmmmmm!

And doesn't this photo make you hope that you look this strong at age 70??? He set a state record in the 200 backstroke by 8 seconds, which is an amazing margin, with a 2:44, which is way impressive in my book. This is on the blocks as the anchor for our one of our relay teams. Our guys took 2nd and 3rd in the relays.

Although I forgot to go and pick up my ribbons (dang!), I ended up the meet with two 4th place in my AG (100 and 200 Free, no surprise there as I had no sprint in me), three 3rds (500, 1000, and 1650, again no surprise since my distance stroke was not as affected), and one 2nd (100 Fly, which was basically one long slog up and down the pool - not pretty. Must. Swim. More. Fly. before the next meet). My time on the 500 today was a reasonable 6:44. Overall, very happy and excited with my first meet in over two decades, and now I am off for some much-needed sleep!

State Master's Championships Day 2

More fun today, the meet really filled up on Day two with over 250 swimmers there. Wow, that was really something! I tried my hand at the 200, which totally stunk. I might be able to swim distance with my arm, but I really really cannot swim any faster at all. And the 200, you're kinda supposed ta swim fast, KWIM? I just don't have the strength or joint control in the left arm to catch and move the water (all of those things I talk about in swim class and coaching all of the time), so I couldn't get up any steam. Clocked in at 2:30.

The 1000 was better. Based on my 1650 time, I figured I could swim a 13:53 for the 1000. My arm was a little on the stiff side this morning from yesterday's swims, so I gave it a looooong warmup. As it turned out, I came in at 13:47, and my splits were darned near even at 6:53.5 for each 500. With my wall start instead of the blocks, I was a good couple of body lengths behind everyone at the first turn, but I started reeling them in one by one. My teammates said that the way I was picking up steam if I'd had another 50 or two I would've had everyone in the heat. As it was, I ended up 3rd in my AG, not too shabby.

So far for me: two 3rd place AG, one 4th. plus having a great time cheering on my teammates. One of my Master's practice lanemates set the state record in the 100 IM in the 70 - 75 AG and he had to break 1:15 to do it. That's pretty darned fast. No make that really darned fast! I also love seeing some of our newer swimmers competing for the first time and finding out what they're capable of. One of our younger swimmers beat her estimated 1000 time by a minute and a half! And it's just so heartening being around all of these terrific swimmers, I especially find the older age groupers to be really inspiring because we are capable of so much more than we think we are as we age. These people are amazing and they truly look terrific, healthy, and fit. A role model for our whole population, for sure.

Not So Bad After All

First day of the swim meet, I only had the 1650 to swim. I had no idea how I would do, how the arm would feel, how fast or slow I would be going. That made it a very strange return to swimming competitively, but strangely also took any pressure off since it all seemed like a total crapshoot as far as expectations.

I put down 24:00 as my entry time, about a 1:27 pace. I can't go off of the blocks due to the still-fractured arm, but did a wall start. My goggles fogged instantly because I forgot to dunk them (geez, I feel like a newbie at this, it's been so long!) and I think I missed about the first 6 turns and couldn't see my lap counter at all. My goggles finally did clear about about the 1000 yard mark but by then I was in the groove. The arm fatigued some, but not as bad as I thought it might and I think I picked up steam toward the end. I did a 23:03, something around a 1:23 pace. Not as fast as pre-broken-arm, but not as bad as I thought it might be.

Even more exciting than anything I was doing, our swimmers did really awesome. One of our guys set a state record for the 400 IM, 55 - 59 age group clocking in a PR (by 3 seconds!) with 4:52 (holy smoke!). Another swimmer did his first 400 IM ever, and came in just over 5:00 and 2nd in his age group. Another, who started out in my Swim Conditioning class a couple of years ago and has really worked on his stroke and moved up to Masters set a PR in the 1650 at 24:14. Plus just watching some of the A-MAZ-ING master's swimmers: a guy who swam in the 1956 Olympics, and is still clocking in outrageous times, I think he was seeded in the 1650 with a 22:00. Wow. And another gentleman in the 85 - 89 age group who swam it in 28:00 (I know more than a few triathletes who couldn't match this guy who is twice their age.)

More excitement tomorrow: the 1000, the 200 and some relays. Sunday will be the 500, the 100 Fly, and the 100 Free plus relays. They did say I could swim on the relays and do a wall start instead of a block start, so if we don't have enough women for the relays, at least that's an option and I can fill in.

How Not to Taper

Violating all of my own rules and best interests, I played hookey on my karate class, blew off my notion of tapering this week and took advantage of the beautiful break of spring weather (in a week of pouring rain, sleet, and hail) to take my bike along the ever-lovely McKenzie river.

There was a sun shining overhead, there was not the tiniest draught of wind to be felt other than that made by the speed of my bike, the roar to my left was a rushing waterfall, the brilliant sentinels to my right were wild apple trees covered in blossoms. Orchards lay in spring green with fields decked out in emerald and all the while the river coiled and uncoiled, rushing and calming to the side of the road. Sometimes you climb way above it and look down on the rapids, sometimes it's right off of your shoulder drowning out anything else. I've ridden this road for over two decades, when I was in college its hills used to intimidate me. How amazing is it that at almost 44 years old (in two weeks!) they seem like minor bumps in the road now, to be spun up while gazing out at the scenery?

There are times when cycling fills my heart to bursting with joy and I have to yell down the hills "Wheeeeeeeeyaaaaaahhhhh!" like a crazy person. Today: such a day.

Blood Sucking Vampires

Oh, I know vampires are all cool these days with Edward and kin running rampant across t-shirts and movie screens. But the evil blood sucker I had the ill pleasure to encounter this morning wasn't one of those glamorous types. She was disguised as a kindly old health care worker, but beneath that mild visage lurked the heart of a Marquis de Sade.

You have to understand that I don't have good veins, from a phlebotomists' viewpoint. While my blood pressure is great and the vessels obviously sturdy, somewhere in the vicinity of my elbows they head deep underground where the blood-suckers can't find them. So today when we had a mandatory "health screening" for hubby's employer (read: the insurance company would jack up our rate tremendously if we didn't comply), I cringed inwardly, thinking I knew the torture that lay ahead. Every now and then I get a wonderful phlebotomist who can hit my veins like the kiss of a butterfly, but usually it's more like a sledge hammer. This one started out as no exception, missing the vein entirely and then going on a little fishing expedition with the needle.

The problem was, while she was playing "here fishy fishy fishy" she struck a nerve. Well, now I know where that saying comes from, 'cuz let's just say I about came unglued. And if you know my now-legendary pain tolerance you know that most people would've revolved out of their seat screaming foul curses at that point. Me, I groaned and breathed like I was in the last five minutes of labor, a kind of "whoo whoo weeeee" panting thing. But at least I kept all of the blue words locked inside my head.

Four hours later, my arm still feels like she shot it through with a nail gun, pain radiating from my shoulder to my wrist, but it's slowly getting better. Seriously, this hurt way way way more than breaking my other arm. And just think, my swim team mates told me not to hurt myself this week, I didn't think a "health screening" would be my downfall!

Looking on the bright side of things, I can at least report that as of last night I can swim butterfly again. As all of my abilities slowly come back one by one, I get to see them for the blessings that they are. Flying across the water, it's a joy. So as long as my left arm hangs in there, and my right arm recovers from the encounter with the vampire lady, I should be good to go for Friday evening's swim-meet opener, the 1650!

Taper: Why, What, How?

Tapering is on my mind this week, since I'm doing a light taper for my swim meet this weekend (a fat lot of good it will do me, since my biggest limiter is really my arm and my form, but still...), and since peaking and tapering are perhaps some of the more talked about and least understood aspects of training, I thought I'd tackle the "why, what, and how" of tapering.

When I was swimming in college, I didn't really understand anything behind the Peak and Taper cycles that we followed for big meets other than the fact that the workload seemed to increase exponentially for awhile (including our coach having us swim with one, then two or three pairs of nylons on our legs--yes, even the guys--to increase drag), and then we had this wonderful week or so of "taper" where the yardage went way down and we could eat all the pasta we wanted. Then we'd shave down (arms and everything) and arrive at the meet feeling at the top of our game. Lucky for us, the coach did all the heavy thinking about building ourselves up and when to effectively taper off and rest. Mind you this was more than twenty years ago, and exercise physiologists now have an even greater understanding of the benefits of a good peak and taper. So how do you take advantage of that?

Many triathletes, whether new or experienced fail to adequately taper for a big race. The pitfalls of tapering are many: doing too little, doing too much, tapering too long or not long enough, not including intensity, going mentally bonkers from the reduced training, resisting the urge to squeeze in one too many quality workouts. However, if you can avoid the pitfalls, the benefits are also large.

What is a Taper? 

A period of 10 days to two and a half weeks preceding your most important races where you gradually reduce both volume and to a lesser degree, intensity in your training.

Why Taper?

A training schedule that builds to a good peak and tapers effectively for an "A" race leaves you with increased fitness across a broad spectrum of measures: stroke volume of the heart, greater blood volume, higher red blood cell levels,  greater strength and power in the muscles,  a reduction in lactic acid production at peak effort, a greater ability to utilize fat for fuel combined with larger muscle glycogen stores. Additionally, you should feel refreshed and rested with your muscles no longer in a state of exhaustion or rebuilding that is common in your training cycle. In essence, you should be able to perform in your race at a significantly higher level than you've been able to achieve in training.

How Do You Taper Effectively?

For many athletes, the taper may present the biggest psychological challenge in their entire training year. This is where your mental muscle has to come into play. If you've trained effectively and built to a peak, a taper may feel like you're "not doing enough". Far too many athletes sabotage their race day performance by squeezing in one or two last workouts that are either too long, too intense, or both. Since it takes your body about 10 days to fully integrate the benefits of a workout and fully recover from that workout, training at a high workload within that ten day period is generally more harmful than beneficial.

Length: There are two general rules of thumb that apply to the length of a taper.

1) The length of the race dictates the length of the taper. An Ironman-distance race or beyond calls for the longest taper - about two and a half weeks. A sprint distance can be shorter - a week if you're a first-time athlete who is not doing a lot of intensity, 10 days if you're including more high-intensity and focused workouts.

2) The fitness of the athlete also influences the length of the taper. If you have a great base of training and are an experienced athlete, you can actually taper longer than someone with a lower fitness level. When calculating the length of your taper, erring on the side of caution is always better than trying to make sure you get one last intense brick before race day.

Workload Volume

In a 2 - 3 week long taper, reduce the total workload volume by about a quarter each week. For a 2 week taper, cut back by a third, for a one week to 10-day taper cut volume by half. When you cut back volume, it's best to cut back on the duration of each workout. Don't cut back to just doing one longer swim, bike, and run a week but maintain your normal schedule and cut the length of each workout appropriately.

Intensity

This is where research has come into play - we now know that keeping some intensity in the week(s) of tapering actually helps improve your performance over just totally slacking off. This doesn't mean you slaughter yourself with intervals to keep the feeling of exhaustion that you've gotten used to in training, but within your reduced training volume keep a reasonable amount of intervals and intensity, and decrease this intensity over the duration of the taper (in other words, don't go out and hit the hill repeats three days before your race).

Basically, you want to keep the feeling of your race paces, just for shorter durations. You want to keep the feel of your swim start pace, your running turnover, your cycling cadence in these workouts, so focus your intensity wisely and include some intervals of near-maximal effort during your taper week. For instance, my swimmers this week did a main set that included four 200s at increasing intensities. Normally our main set would be twice as long with much more intensity, but by cutting back the total distance and keeping some fast swimming yardage (though a reduced amount), everyone should keep their feeling of their race pace without over-taxing their muscles.

Other Focuses

The pre-race week can be a good time to focus on the little details that might've escaped you until now. Practice transitions over and over and over. Look at the weather and at your gear, decide what to wear and try it out at the appropriate time in the morning to make sure you will be comfortable at race-day temperature. Make sure you have adequate stocks of your race-day nutrition and other essentials, firm up travel arrangements and print out those Google maps. Use some of your down time to mentally visualize a successful race. Many studies have shown the incredible benefits of positive visualization, so use this time to your best benefit by having a strong mental game.

Many athletes let the itchy not-doing-enough feeling of tapering overcome them, and you can fight this by making sure you have a game plan for your taper time.

If you see someone drowning, LOL

I wouldn't want to swim on this beach!

First Taper of the Year

The arm has made it through, so I'm planning on swimming at the Association championship meet next weekend with my Masters Team. I've only entered the ugly horrendous insane long events like the 500, 1000, and 1650 so I won't be tempted to do anything really stupid like sprinting. I'm also not going to be able to dive off of the blocks, but on the long events that doesn't make such a big difference anyways. I think I can hold a 1:25 to 1:30 pace on most of the long stuff, and at that pace I should at least be able to get some points for my team.

So begins the first taper of the year. No Crossfit for me next week, and I'll go a little easy on the physical therapy exercises toward the end of the week as well. I'd say that my arm has about about 95% of its range of swimming motion back, but the weak elbow joint makes my pull on that left side very inefficient. I swim a bit like a wounded albatross, but at least it's getting better every week.

April Foolery

Asa called up grandma (my mom) today to check in with her on the Paleo eating thing. They're going to be Paleo buddies. Now you have to know that Asa is the Carbo Queen of the household and breakfast usually means pancakes, cereal, oatmeal, etc. but she was having some scrambled eggs and broccoli. So after she got done chatting with my mom, I asked for the phone.

I told mom in a very serious voice that I had forgotten to tell her that she definitely shouldn't have any coffee while on the Paleo Challenge. She should go out and get some herbal tea right away because it would help her with the caffeine withdrawal side effects. I could hear this stunned silence on the other end of the phone and then a bit of panic creeping in, so I let her know I was April Fooling her fairly quickly. Luckily my mom has a terrific sense of humor (though she will never be able to live without her coffee, she's way down from the 6 - 8 cups a day she used to go through!)

If you're out there reading this mom, you know I love you! I was an April Baby and so in some ways I will always be your little April fool. And for those of you who don't know my mom, you can see I get my love of water from her. Even her little dog Maisy goes in the water.