Day 18 of Craziness? Check.

You know how I know I'm tired? When I'm at the pool coaching and I don't feel like swimming afterwards. That has only happened about three or four times in my life. Normally you can't get me out of a pool. That and the fact that I lay down on the couch for "just a few minutes" yesterday afternoon and my son woke me up two hours later. Good thing he did too, or I wouldn't have slept at all last night. I had no idea how exhausted I was. A friend on Facebook called that "gettin' some granny sleep". Granny? Granny? Hell, I might feel worn out, but that word is a little much if you ask me.

The State FTC robotics tournament this weekend was awesome but oh-so-overwhelming. Picture 24 teams of 6 - 10 kids each in a school cafeteria with tile walls and sound bouncing all around. For 10 hours or so. Some folks might handle that well, but my poor son and I are both noise-sensitive and I'm sure we looked like turtles who just wanted a shell to pull our heads into. Still, it went great. Our team ended up in 5th place overall, which sent us into the final elimination rounds where we were soundly trounced by the #1 team. Still, we definitely belonged there at the championships, and I think the team realized that. I'm so proud of the guys and all their work on their robot and programming. The competitions are so exciting! But this caps several weeks of non-stop competitions and work on the robot. My brain feels fried like a well-cooked rubbery egg.

And now we head into pure craziness. Tomorrow morning, we videotape our black belt test to send to our head Sensei. Am I nervous? You bet. This is another place where all those years of triathlon pay off. I know how to channel my nerves into positive visualizations of a great test where all goes well. I know that even if I don't sleep well tonight, I can still perform in my zone tomorrow. And I know that when it all comes down to it, my body comes through for me. So I think all will be well tomorrow.

To cap that all off, as I was heading home from Portland late Sunday night, hubby was about to get up at 2:30 a.m. to drive to Portland to fly out to Reno to start his new job. He'll be traveling frequently, and so just as my week of craziness is winding down, I don't get to see my sweetie. Wah!

Coming up in the next month: black belt test, karate tournament in Washington with Mackenzie, Asa's dance team competitions in Portland, Master's Association meet (state swim championships). Wow, that's all? I think I may need a few more naps.

How Triathlon Helped Me Be a Better Robotics Coach

Here I am, surrounded by robot parts, cords, cables, batteries, computers, team t-shirts, snacks, bolts, tools, and random pieces of electronic gear. The high school robotics team I'm coaching is off to the State Championships tomorrow. I could be really overwhelmed right now.

Oh okay, I admit I AM really overwhelmed right now.

But the reason I'm confident that we'll make it to our championship tournament intact and with all necessary supplies has more to do with triathlon than anything else.

Packing up for a triathlon can feel like packing for a six-month Arctic expedition at times. Between the necessary gear, clothing, food, and hydration, it's a lot of stuff to remember. Fortunately, many years ago I created a Triathlon Checklist that lets me pack with confidence. I know if I just use the checklist, I'll arrive with everything I need to have a great race. So it was a natural step to do the same for our robotics team. One Excel spreadsheet later and we have a fool-proof item-by-item checklist that makes sure nothing gets left behind.

My years in triathlon have also taught me many other things that come in handy no matter what the endeavor:

• The race is often won by the most tenacious, not the flashiest
• Gear and money aren't everything
• If you get so nervous you can't sleep beforehand, use positive visualization to see yourself accomplishing everything you want to do
• Get to know your competitors, they are often as nervous as you and usually are really great people
• Having fun is the name of the game, so look around and enjoy what you are accomplishing

Whenever I try anything new or difficult, I am grateful for the lessons that triathlon has taught me. I know how to win, and how to lose graciously. I know how to pick myself up from a crash and keep going. I know what's really important is to enjoy the journey to the start line, not just what comes afterwards. Triathlon has been a gift in my life that just keeps giving.

Have a great weekend everyone, I'm off to stuff robot parts in bins!

Look Ma, No Bruises? Paleo Strikes Again

My karate partners reported something shocking. Both women were cautioned by their doctors about domestic violence, given helpline phone numbers, and information about the women's shelter. Why? Because their arms are covered with "defensive wounds", aka bruises from our karate class. Their doctors thought their husbands had been whuppin on them. If that wasn't so sadly all-too-common, it would be funny.

So now the big question is this: why, when my partners and I have been hitting each other, our forearms colliding a few hundred times per class, are my arms not covered by bruises? Why, when I leave class with them red and blotchy and starting to purple do they look like this just a few hours later?

The answer came when I was browsing though a Paleo eating forum (there's a forum for everything, isn't there) and someone posed the question: "Does anyone else notice that they don't bruise easily any more?"

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I noticed that. My arms and legs used to be covered with bruises all the time. And now they're not.
One person had this to say in response:

Another aspect of the paleo eating lifestyle is that the blood vessels, veins, capillaries slowly become more pliable and elastic. Thus when the body is abused, the veins and capillaries have some give and do not break as easily to leak blood under the skin.

Also the vascular system is not as rigid due to some microscopic removal of plaque that had been layed down before elimination of non paleo foods such as wheat and sugar. Also the vascular system has opened up a tiny, tiny bit thus allowing more blood to flow with less effort by the heart muscle.

The resulting increased flow of blood, the pliability and less rigid vascular system due to changing to a paleo eating lifestyle are aspects of why people are able to correct their high blood pressure with diet alone.

Now that may be speculation, but it sounds plausible to me. For sure, my body feels completely different. It heals faster, I don't have the stiffness of beginning arthritis in my fingers that I've had for the last couple of years. My muscles are barely sore after tough workouts, and now my bruises barely appear and then they're gone. All evidence that the paleo diet is effecting change on a deep and cellular level in my body.

Am I Going Over to the Dark Side?

I know many of you have seen this video already. It's actually responsible for almost wrecking my laptop. I was watching it and my son was standing behind me drinking orange juice, he laughed so hard he had a monitor spew moment and I ended up cleaning orange juice off my keyboard for an hour. It's very funny for precisely the reason that there are so many little elements of truth in it.

But as I thought about it after (okay I admit) multiple viewings, I started to wonder which character I most identified with. And to tell the truth, I'm not quite sure. I think I might be going over to the dark side of ultra running. I haven't worn my watch on a run in ages. I seem to gravitate toward trails and now hate to run on the streets. I've started thinking "A 50k run really doesn't sound all that bad". My bike hasn't been off its rack since my last half-Ironman in September.

Now a lot of that is just because I'm training so hard in karate right now, I barely have time to get a couple of runs or swims in during the week. When you add in the snowy/sleety/hailing/nasty weather we've been having, getting the bike out is less than appealing. And I may have some exciting triathlon news to share (soon) about some upcoming races.But in the meantime, I feel torn in two. I'm coaching people who are training for races. We're doing track workouts and pool workouts and using heart rate monitors and GPSs and gadgets and here I am wandering in the opposite direction, going for long rambling aimless trail runs. No periodization, no goals in sight. I guess we'll just have to see when the warm weather hits whether or not the hardcore triathlon bug will bite me again, or whether I'm beyond hope.

Amazing!

The bad news is, I missed my run on Friday and my swim on Saturday. That's because the robotics team that I coach was busy all day Friday (and actually up until 10:30 Friday night) getting ready for their big competition. And Saturday morning we were up by 5:30 to head off to the tournament. We didn't straggle back home until Saturday night at almost 11:00 pm, which made me grateful for good endurance since this was certainly one very long day.

The good news is..... OUR TEAM WON THE TOURNAMENT. Yep, that's what I said. Even though they're a very young team (mostly middle schoolers in a high school division), and even though it's our rookie season, they did it. Totally amazing, they completely blow me away. This means that we'll be heading up to Portland for the state championships next weekend.

Which also means I'll probably miss next Friday's long run and next Saturday's Master's swim. But I think I can live with that.

Oh Beep Me!

You might have noticed my new little Powerpuff Girl countdown timer on my blog sidebar (True Confession: I actually have -- and sleep in -- the Powerpuff Girl pajamas pictured above...). The timer is there to remind me every day that I need to focus my attention on my karate practice. As of this exact moment, it tells me I have 27 Days, 20 Hours, 2 Minutes and 47 seconds until my black belt test.

Or not.

Our Sensei dropped this little bomb on me: We'll have to do the test twice. The first time will be on video, which she'll send up to Morris Mack Sensei, head of the American Shudokan Associatio. There, he will give a Caesar-like thumbs up or thumbs down. Assuming we pass that, then comes the pre-test at our dojo to make sure we're not going to waste the time of all the black belts who will come to judge us for the actual test. Then there's the test, which is now 27 Days, 19 Hours, 48 Minutes and 31 seconds away (but who's counting?).

So, what this means is that I have to be ready to test in less than two weeks for the video. Ulp. I am ramping up my game every way I know how: eating well, sleeping eight hours a night (you might notice I miss a few day's blogging now that I'm not staying up late here on the computer), practicing daily by myself, in class, and with my partner, focusing my attention and practicing positive visualization and affirmations.

One thing that's working in my favor is my years of conditioning: strength, endurance, and speed. I don't really have to work at any of that right now because it's already stored in my body and brain. That's a big bonus that I never thought about before, but it's a gift from my triathlon and strength training. I know I can last through the test without becoming fatigued. That's one thing I know will go right at least.

Beyond that and for all the rest, I just have to pray that I'm ready.

Girrrl Power and Triathlete's Dream Set

For the first time ever, we had more women than men at the morning Master's swim practice this a.m. So awesome! For many many years I was the only woman in the pool with the Master's, and while I adore all the guys I swim with, I have to admit it's really cool to have some girrrl power in the pool! Some of these ladies are smokin' strong too, and with any luck we'll be able to field a great relay team at the Association Championship meet in April.

Today's workout was a toughie, designed to get people ready to swim long with a strong pace, this is a great set for triathletes or open water swimmers, as well as people aiming to swim the 500, 1000, or 1650 in a meet.


Warmup:

200 each: Swim, Kick, Drill, Pull
4 x 75 Build Each

Main Set:
5 X 500  + 100 EZ 
Before each 500, do 10 pushups on deck then get a hard start and really push the first 25.  After the first 25, settle into a sustainable, aerobic pace.
#1:  Swim
#2:  Pull buoy.  Breathe every 3 the whole way 
#3:  Swim, faster than #1
#4:  Pull buoy.  Same breathing pattern as #2.
#5:  Swim, aim for fastest split of the day


100 EZ

4200 yards

Help! My Alarm Clock Is Killing Me!

Why do the Master's Swimmers look so shocked every time I show up for the 5:15 am workout? They get a good laugh in at my expense because I am SO NOT a morning person and it shows. I only fill in for this crazy time slot, I don't do it full time and now I know why. On my second week now of being a slave to my alarm clock, I'm getting nothing else done.

You see, night time is when I actually make things happen. The kids are asleep, or at least in bed. My early-to-bed-early-to-rise hubby has wound down for the night, and the house is all mine. ALL MINE. I get to type random stuff here on my blog, I get to catch up my 80,000 emails, I get to see a few friends online, read some stuff, fill my brain. Then around midnight or so the old grey matter winds down, I stagger off to bed and wake up at the very reasonable hour of 7:30 or 8:00. Without the alarm clock.

Sigh. I'm turning off my computer now. I'm setting the alarm for 4:30. At least I've got a good swim workout to get revenge on anyone laughing at me on the pool deck in the early morning hours. I'll post it tomorrow... if I'm not asleep that is.

Just When You Thought A Carbon Fiber Bike Was Expensive

I was checking out the beautiful and amazing-sounding guitar that singer-songwriter David Wilcox was playing tonight. I was looking at it when he was on stage thinking Damn, that looks like he's playing a carbon fiber guitar! The customary blackish-greyish hatchmark pattern glimmered in the light, and who but a triathlete wouldn't recognize that pattern? The first real triathlon bike I ever bought was this Giant Cadex, the first carbon fiber frame I'd ever seen. I think this photo was probably 1989 or so. It was unpainted, and it just looked like a black checkerboard. You gotta love those Scott DH bars on the front end. The first Aero bars I'd ever seen, too. Boy was I a mover and a shaker with that setup! . The neon grip tape too. And that styrofoam Gyro helmet, and white Oakley glasses, yeehaw!

But back to tonight's concert. As it turned out, the guitar was carbon fiber after all. Custom made by Rainsong, it's a David Wilcox limited edition, with a price tag of $3,995.00, which makes a triathlon bike look downright cheap!  Still, when David plays that thing, it's priceless. I dare anyone to go to a David Wilcox concert and not come out with a smile on their face and in their heart. It's like a bicycle on a windless day on the smooth open road. It's like that runner's high that just won't leave. Like the zen you feel on a really good day in the pool when you get out and your whole body sighs in contentment. That's how his music makes me feel.

As a bonus, it was date night with the hubby, a little pre-Valentine's night out. In our 19 years together (OMG, did I just write that?) we've seen David perform many times, and it's always wonderful. In a way, David's music feels like the score to our life's journey together. So in honor of that, I'll share with you some lyrics that seem appropriate for Valentine's Day, something I'd say to any one of my friends, including you. These are from Burgundy Heart-Shaped Medallion, from the album How Did You Find Me Here?

If I had a spell of magic
I would make this enchantment for you
A burgundy heart-shaped medallion
With a window that you could look through
So that when all the mirrors are angry
With your faults and all you must do
You could peek through that heart-shaped medallion
And see you from my point of view

The Ironmom Extra Mile: More than you ever wanted to know about early aerobars!

Paleo Challenge Report Part 2: What I've Been Eating

A couple of quick notes about the Paleo eating plan and the Paleo Challenge:

1) This is not a diet in the usual sense of that word. Originally, diet meant basically what you eat. Like birds eat a diet of seeds and bugs. But now if you say "I'm eating a Paleo diet", what immediately pops into people's minds is "weight loss". While the Paleo diet seems to induce weight loss in a lot of people, especially if they're typically eating a lot of simple carbs going into it, that's not the main focus (for me at least) of trying to eat this way.

2) The main focus is health, across all body systems. Good health feels like this: You go to sleep easily, you pop out of bed with lots of energy, you can perform all sorts of demanding tasks during the day both mental and physical without feeling tired or lethargic, and your body systems all function well.

Okay, that being said, it seems like eating this way might take some getting used to. So what's a typical day on the Paleo Challenge like? Easier than you might think.



First of all, I try to think of each meal as about 2/3 vegetables, 1/3 meat or other protein. I've tried to get really good about prepping a bunch of vegetables all at once so I've always got a supply on hand of vegetables cut and ready to go for anything I want to cook.

BREAKFAST:

I like to start out my day with a whole bunch of veggies, scrambled up with some eggs or sausage or bacon or even some hamburger left over from last night. For hubby and I, I basically fill my cast iron skillet with vegetables before adding 4 eggs, so there's a good wallop of vitamins, anti-oxidants and protein to start off our day.

Once a week on Sundays, I cook up a big batch of "Paleo Crepes" made with almond meal and coconut flour. I put the extras in the fridge and the kids eat them all week. I usually have them on Sunday morning with a bunch of berries.

LUNCH:

If we're at home for lunch, I might cook up a nice stir fry. Throw a bunch of veggies in the pan and add some frozen shrimp. Toss in some garlic, onions, ginger, a spritz of sesame oil, some Bragg's Liquid Aminos  which add a flavor similar to soy sauce, and you've got a really great lunch in five minutes.

If we're out of the house, I might take along some turkey or chicken slices and a bunch of snackable veggies like carrots, red pepper slices, celery, etc.

DINNER:

For dinner, I try to get creative and find things that fit well with my Paleo desires, but that the kids will also like. Taco Night is a good one, because I just make a huge Taco Salad (with no chips or taco shells), and the kids make regular ol' Tacos.

Other favorites are:

Pasta (I make a big meat and veggie sauce and serve it over steamed cauliflower for myself/hubby and pasta for the kids)

Soup: My homemade chicken or turkey is a huge favorite, and if we roast a whole chicken or turkey I can make an extra meal or two out of it by boiling up the carcass and making soup. I make it good and spicy with lots of veggies and pepper.

Fried Chicken: I've discovered I can make this by lightly rolling the chicken pieces in coconut flour. The kids declared it "delicious". I served it with some big bowls of steamed broccoli. Yum!

That's about it. I try to rotate through stuff so I don't get bored. I try to make sure I'm feeling happy about what I'm eating, and getting lots of fresh and steamed vegetables in there. If I feel like I need a few carbs during a heavy workout day, I'll throw in an apple or some dried fruit. Snacks are often nuts, jerky, or coconut chips (my favorite).

Paleo Challenge: The Report, Part 1

I finished the 30-Day Paleo Challenge this week, re-starting it after the stomach bug caused me to resort to saltines on Day 5.  For the most part, I found it was very easy to do.

The Sugar Monster

After just a few days, my sugar cravings were completely gone. You might remember that just a couple of months ago I was craving sugar like a heroin addict looking for a hit. So to have it depart so suddenly, to be able to open up a cupboard and look at a pound of chocolate, or to dish out an entire pan of lemon bars to hungry teenagers and not have a single bit, that's pretty amazing, right? Well, I think it is. I've lived with the Sugar Monster my entire life. I remember walking to the store as a 12 year old to replace with my crumpled up bills of allowance money an entire quart of ice cream I'd eaten, so my parents wouldn't find out and get mad at me. How screwed up is that? I ate so much sugar, I had a yeast Army living in my body. I actually got thrush as a teenager and the doctor said that was so unusual he'd never seen it except in babies and seriously ill old people.

So the fact that this Sugar Monster was just {poof} GONE is amazing all by itself.

The Thyroid Horror Show

The next issue I was wondering about was my thyroid. One of the things that spurred me to take the Paleo Challenge was that my doctor had recently decided to lower my thyroid medication (possibly because the earlier switch to mostly Paleo made my thyroid actually start working again, hooray!). Whenever they muck with your medication, Bad Things Happen. Like you hair starts to fall out, you get incredibly cold, your skin gets scaly, muscles get achy, and you gain weight like nobody's business. The last time my medication got mucked with I gained 13 pounds in about three weeks. It's crazy. So this time when they changed my medication I watched all of this happen and decided that if Mostly Paleo was good news for my thyroid then 100% Paleo might just stave off the Thyroid Horror Show.

You know what? I was right. By the time I started on the Challenge, I'd reduced my medication (per doctor's orders) by 25%. I was already starting to experience some of the thyroid symptoms (very very cold for one thing) and had gained 5 pounds. But by a few days into the Challenge, it all stopped. Within a week I wasn't cold anymore, and my family was happy that I didn't have to roast them out with the heaters. My muscle cramps stopped. The weight gain stopped, and within three weeks I'd lost it all back to my regular body weight. Pretty powerful stuff.

No Carb Exercise???

Through it all, I've continued both aerobic and anaerobic exercise. I've run as much as an hour and a half on the trail with no carbs whatsoever (and doesn't that run counter to conventional exercise "wisdom"??). My typical pre-workout breakfast is a big egg-and-veggie scramble. No bagels, toast, or even a banana to get those carbs flowing. Post workout snacks are jerky, and maybe some carrots. For fruit I've mostly stuck to frozen berries that we picked last summer. I have had a few bananas and half an apple here or there, but no serious carbs.

So without fueling with carbs, I've worked out an average of 13.5 hours a week, with a low of 11 and a high of 15.5. I've done weights, crossfit, trail running, kickboxing, Master's swimming, karate, track workouts, and taught Karate Conditioning without feeling underfueled or under-recovered. In fact, my recovery is pretty amazing.

For instance, my Tuesdays  include an hour to hour and a half of Karate in the morning, then an hour long hike with my dogs at noon, two hours of Karate in the evening (which often includes bodyweight work like pushups, situps, squats), and Karate Conditioning at 7:00. By the time I get home, I've exercised for 4 - 4.5 hours, some of it very high intensity (like today included sparring matches). I wake up Wednesday morning feel fresh as a daisy.

In A Nutshell: The Wrap-Up

At age 44, having that kind of energy is, well, nothing short of miraculous. So that's the first installment of my Paleo Report: Sugar Cravings Gone, Thyroid Stabilized, Incredible Fueling for extreme workouts. I call that success.

Tomorrow: What did I eat?

Under Armour Is Not Swimwear, And Other Swimming Guidelines

Miss Manners I'm not, but folks there's a few important bits of pool etiquette that we should all be aware of, for our own protection. Here's just a few that have sprung to mind in recent pool sessions:

1.) Guys, Under Armour is not swimwear. In fact, it's quite a bit more revealing than the infamous red cycling shorts, especially when wet. Go buy yourself a Speedo. If you don't want to wear the traditional style, the "jammer" style looks just like Under Armour long shorts, yet not transparent. Go with black. Trust me.

2.) If you make noise underwater, we can still hear you. Sound travels better underwater, so if you happen to make sounds akin to a humpback whale's mating call while lap swimming, we will all hear you. Ditto if you hum along to Lady Gaga on your SwiMP3

3.) However, even while keeping Rule #2 in mind, Humming Keeps Water Out of Your Nose During Turns. As long as you're not too loud about it, a little hum during flip turns lets air out your nose and keeps the water from rushing in when you're upside down. Just don't sound like a humpback whale.

4.) If you thought that your humming travels well underwater, the incessant beeping from your pace watch can be heard off the coast of Guatemala. A couple of laps while using one is fine. Anything more is grounds for a kickboard or two that "accidentally" float into your lane. Just sayin'

5.) If you jump into the shallow end to start your swim off with a bang, it creates a sort of tidal wave that fills the mouths of all swimmers near you unlucky enough to be trying to breathe. We really don't want to think about where that water's been, so don't make us drink it.

6.) And this one is serious: If the sign says "Parental Supervision Required", that does not mean you can leave your four year old on the pool stairs while you chat with your gal pal in the hot tub. Especially if you can't see your four year old from the hot tub. Especially if your four year old doesn't swim. I'm not paid to be the lifeguard at any pool, but I can't tell you how many youngsters I've saved from possible death by drowning  (in public, private, hotel pools, hot tubs, lakes, rivers, and creeks). Supervision means to supervise. Please let your kids grow up to be swimmers old enough to be annoyed by the man who created the tidal wave in Lane 1 and is now making the whale sounds with every breath. Thank you.

Anaerobic Endurance Workout: Death By Ten Meters

Anaerobic Endurance. Now there's an oxymoron. Or is it? Once you go anaerobic, there's not that long that you can last in such a state. Yet, if you can keep coming back to that state with just a very little rest and push yourself again, it offers a huge benefit for your body. Many studies are indicating that this is the best way to ramp up your metabolism.

With that in mind, I put my Karate Conditioning class through the "Death By Ten Meters" workout tonight. Except that the main room in the dojo is about 20 by 50 feet, and I had 14 people to squeeze in there, so I sent half of them to each wall and they ran to the center line and back for each "lap", making sure to touch the ground on each side. It ended up being 50 feet, or closer to fifteen meters for each with a turn in the middle.

Here's how this workout goes:

Set a timer to repeat every one minute.

The first timer goes off, you run one lap of ten meters (fifteen in our case). You get a lot of rest since you don't go again until that minute is up.
The second time the timer goes off, you run two laps.
The third time, you run three.
You get the picture.

With each passing minute you run more and get less rest. Eventually, you can't squeeze in another lap. Several of us in class made it to eleven laps. We almost made it to twelve but got caught by the timer before we could complete the last lap. I've also done this one on a football field, which is more like Death by Ten Yards instead of meters, and with a bit less ground to cover we made it to 17 laps.

Afterwards, while we were all gasping for air and trying not to puke, I managed to explain that this sort of workout is perfect for Karate Conditioning because what you need a lot of in Karate is A) explosive power and B) The ability to continue generating that power with very little rest for a significant amount of time. By making sure you touch the ground on each lap, you're essentially throwing a lunge into the mix, and forcing your body to generate power out of that lunge to start each sprint. Perfect for the application to karate.

If you're an endurance athlete, you might be asking why you'd want to inflict this kind of pain on yourself. Nah, why not just go do another 6 miler at a reasonable pace? The answer is that endurance athletes are often weak in key areas, like hips and glutes. This type of workout will tax your muscles in new ways and give you a more robust body that's less likely to get injured. There is also a fair bit of evidence that anaerobic workouts have a lot of carryover into endurance as well.

So go ahead, kill yourself ten meters at a time.

Days of Sun and Roses

True Confession: I hate running in a rain jacket. I hate the way it makes that swish swish sound, especially if you have the hood up. I hate the way you get clammy and sweaty inside, even if it says "breathable" on the label. I hate the way none of them are ever, EVER waterproof. Note: if you're a raincoat manufacturer and you think you can prove me wrong, please send me one to test here in Oregon's wetter side. I've tried so many!

I always feel better when the sun comes out to stay for a few days, even if it's cold and the trees are still leafless and bare. Taking the dogs for a walk when it's NOT pouring down rain is a real treat. And running in the sun with only a couple of layers of clothes? Heaven. In the last two weeks, I've only run twice, total. I've missed my trail runs with Adventure Dog. I've missed my little slice of peace and quiet and time to myself. In the chaos that was this weekend, I quickly became overwhelmed with noise and activity and needing to be "on" all the time.

So today's run was wonderful, blissful, regenerating. The sun has climbed in the sky 'til it's no longer hovering on the southern horizon. It's capable of generating some warmth, enough to let me remove a layer about 20 minutes into the run. And now I feel almost human again. Friday's trail run should put me the rest of the way there.

I know some of my East Coast friends are in the aftermath of some hellish storms. They've been shoveling feet of snow and unable to get outside easily. I wish I could package up some sunshine and send it to you all.

Sunday Snap: Killer Robots

I start this week off being so proud of my son Mackenzie (he's the blondie in the back of the team line-up) and our whole robotics team. They did AWESOME in their tournament this weekend, which was their first ever using the bigger FTC robots. They designed, built, and programmed this bad boy in the last 8 weeks and it performed really well. They ended up coming in 7th overall in the tournament, which was a big surprise.

Mackenzie was one of the two team "drivers", the robot operates autonomously at the start of each match (following the programming that the team did ahead of time) and then is driven by two drivers from the team, one who controls the wheels and one who controls the attachments that can score points by removing batons from a dispenser and placing them in goals. This is tough stuff people!

My entire write-up of the event is on my Blue Skies Blog here with lots more photos and descriptions. If you have a kid or know a kid who has a mind for engineering, I can't say enough good things about the FIRST program for robotics. This is Mackenzie's 5th year, and my 4th year as the team's coach and it has been an overwhelmingly positive experience each and every year. Our country and our world will depend on the minds of our young engineers. Encouraging them is a top priority.

Kill Yourself in the Pool: Swim An Entire Swim Meet

I gave them fair warning. I threatened to do this last year. Half of our Master's team went off to a swim meet in Portland this weekend. The rest of the swimmers who showed up for practice today were met with quite a workout!

Here's what I came up with: We're going to swim the entire siwm meet. Every event, in order. Lots of groans. Especially when they realized the last event is the 1000 Free. Oh yeah, and there's a 400 IM in there, and a 200 Fly, and a 500 Free. Oh yeah.

Today's workout: "The Swim Meet":

Warmup: 150 Swim, 150 Kick, 150 Pull

500 Y     Free
100 Y     Back
200 Y     Fly
50 Y     Breast
100 Y     Free
200 Y     Breast
50 Y     Fly
400 Y     IM
100 Y     Breast
200 Y     Free
50 Y     Back
200 Y     IM
100 Y     Fly
200 Y     Back
50 Y     Free
100 Y     IM
1000 Y     Free

Warning: Weekend of Craziness Ahead

Remember the Dr. Seuss book 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins?? That's me for the next three days. I'm going to be wearing about a dozen different hats, and I keep waking up nights worrying that I'm going to drop one of the things I'm trying to juggle between now and then.


My prayer this week: Please God, don't let me mess up and screw up someone else's big day!


From now until Sunday:

• Two training sessions with athletes I'm coaching
• One all-day robotics team meeting (I'm the coach) Friday in which (hopefully!!!) the team can get their robot ready for competition on Sunday
• Coaching the Masters swimmers on Saturday morning
• My daughter dances at "Tea With Tights", must remember all 80,000 costume bits and accessories, plus hair, makeup, blah blah blah
• I'm the official Dance Team Photographer at Tea with Tights. Must remember to charge camera, clear card, bring lenses, tripod, etc.
• Possibly another robotics practice after dance thingie on Saturday if the kids don't have the robot ready yet
• Up at 6:30 Sunday morning to drive 120 miles to robotics tournament
• Tournament over at 7:00 pm Sunday evening. Drive 120 miles home.
• Collapse. 

I'm thinking I might not get my workout in this weekend.

The Flipside: What Happens When An Endurance Athlete Goes Anaerobic

I've been tired lately. Like really tired. Go to bed at 10:00 tired. Take a nap in the car while my daughter is in her riding lessons tired. Tired like training for the Ironman tired. At first I thought maybe it's this Paleo eating thing, I remember the last time I felt really bonked out from the lack of carbs for the first couple of weeks. But that should've passed by now.So I took a look at my exercise/food/sleep journal to try to tease out what the problem is.

Oh. Yeah. There it is. I added up my hours for the last few weeks. 10+ hours of karate a week. Plus an assorted 3 - 5 of running and swimming. Yeah, that makes 13 - 15 hours a week of training, or about what I averaged for the longer weeks of my Ironman cycle. On top of that, it's flipped from what my training was for the last few years, where my endurance workouts made up the bulk of my training, with a bit of sprints, hills, and anaerobic stuff thrown on top. Now most of my training is anaerobic with just a smidge of endurance and boy does that anaerobic stuff kick your booty. Today I went to three karate classes. In each one we did several sets of 50 punches in a squat position, alternating with sets of kicks. That was the warm up.. By the third class, I was taking bets whether my arms would fall off before my legs collapsed beneath me, or vice versa.

Couple that with the fact that I've largely been doing trail running instead of street running (my favorite trail run gains 1000 ft in the first mile alone) and that means that even my "easy run" days are a lot harder than they used to be.

So if I'm not up late posting here on my blog anymore, you know why - I've collapsed beneath my down comforter and I'm sawing logs. Or more likely dreaming of kata.

Vitamin D: Are You As Smart As A Chicken?: The Sunday Snap

 

When it comes to Vitamin D, are you as smart as my chickens? Whenever I let them out to free range on a sunny day, the first thing they do is come right around the the porch on the south side of the house and commence to sunbathing. Yes, that's right - these chickens are sunbathing! They fluff up their feathers, stretch out their little chickeny feet and soak up some rays like a bunch of bikini-clad ladies on a beach.

Personally, I find it very interesting that pastured chickens, those allowed to free range around outside, produce eggs that are 4 - 6 times higher in Vitamin D than eggs from chickens raised indoors. In fact, a chicken's comb will grow extra large if the chicken is kept in darker conditions, the chicken's body is attempting to increase the surface area of the comb to capture more sunlight. As you can see from my sunbathing birds here, they like to loll around on their sides, spreading out their wings and making sure their feet are in the sun, exposing every bit of skin they can to the sunshine, especially now in the winter months.

Many of us humans stay inside from sunup to sundown, going from our climate-controlled homes to our tinted-windowed cars to our sealed-box office buildings without stepping out into the outside world at all. This sets us up for a big Vitamin D deficiency, and researchers are just now beginning to understand all of the implications (including increased risks of cancer and even the flu) of becoming deficient in Vitamin D.

So what's a poor Northwesterner to do? Well, speaking for myself, I make sure I get out whenever I can, riding my bike to work, walking to the store, walking the dogs, running outside instead of on a treadmill. Even in our winters, that gives me time out in the real sunshine as often as possible. Also, I started taking Vitamin D supplements, following new guidelines that show that adults should take 2,000 I.U. a day. Since Vitamin D is linked with thyroid disease (something I already have issues with), I'm trying to stay on top of it as much as possible.

I found this article by Dr. Mark Hyman to be interesting and informative. I especially like his conclusions that the Dietary requirements should be based on "the collective knowledge from paleobiology, basic science, gene expression data, and large population studies." instead of on isolated trials that treat a complex nutrient with thousands of implications for the human body as if it was one single compound with one outcome. I've noticed that this word "paleobiology" is coming up more and more in everyday scientific articles. Huh, you think we should be looking at what our ancestors did and understanding how we evolved to be the creatures we are today? Yuh think? Heck yeah.

In the meantime, we can follow the example of the humble chicken, make sure we get our Vitamin D in every safe way that we can. I'm taking my book out on the porch now, right next to my sunbathing chickens!

Swim Pacing and Sprint Faster: Saturday Swim Workouts

I didn't post last week's Saturday Master's workout so today you get a "two for one" deal and I'll post this weeks as well.

Since we're entering swim meet season for the Master's, you'll notice that I'm working on some very specific stuff in these workouts, namely pacing, starts, turns, and sprinting. Let's start with pacing. Do you know your paces for different speeds? Can you accurately set out to swim a specific pace and nail it within a second or two? A lot of swimmers could use more work on pacing, especially if they want to swim a distance event (whether in a swim meet or a triathlon). There's nothing worse than setting out at too fast a pace for a Looooongggg swim and feeling dead by halfway through. So this first workout puts some very specific work on knowing your exact paces down to the second.

In the main set, you will pick your absolute fastest pace for the given distance, then calculate out your paces from that. For instance, the 9 x 50. If your fastest 50 was going to be 35 seconds, and you have nine 50s at one second increments, that means your 50's will be at 44, 43, 42, 41, 40, 39, 38, 37, 36, & 35 seconds. For the 75's, if your fastest is a :58 and you have seven of them at 2 second increments, your 75's will be at 1:10, 1:08, 1:06, 1:04, 1:02, 1:00, and :58. The first ones will feel VERY slow. The later ones will feel very fast!

WORKOUT #1: Know Your Paces

Warmup:
2 x

(200 Swim
4 x 75--> 50 Drill/25 Kick)

4 x 75 Swim: Build Each

=========
Main Set:
9 x 50--> Descend in 1 second increments, rest :10
7 x 75--> Descend in 2 second increments, rest 10
5 x 100--> Descend in 3 second increments, rest 10
3 x 125--> Descend in 4 second increments, rest 10
1 x 150--> ALL OUT

Rest 1:00 in between each set
=========

200 Pull
5 x 50 --> Work starts and turns
5 x 50 ALL OUT @ 1:00
200 EZ

WORKOUT #2: Sprint Fast, Now Sprint Faster

This workout concentrates on getting some yards in the different strokes. At the end, just when you're good and tired, you get a killer sprint set that will knock your socks off.

Warmup:
200 Swim
4 x 50 with good long underwater dolphin kick off the wall
4 x 75 IM kick (dolphin, back, breast by 25s)

200 Swim
4 x 50 backstroke with good long underwater dolphin kick off the wall
300 Pull
============
Main Set:
4 x

(50 Fly @ 1:00
100 Free Smooth and steady @ 1:45)

 4x

 (50 Backstroke @ 1:00
100 Free Smooth and steady @ 1:45)

4x

(50 Breaststroke @ 1:00
100 Free Smooth and steady @ 1:45)

Now:

ALL HARD:

25 rest :30
25 r. 10 + 50 r. 45
25 r. 10 + 50 r. 10 + 75  r. 60
25 r. 10 + 50 r. 10 + 75 r. 10 + 100

WOW!

4 x 50 Starts and Turns
200 EZ

A Date With The Black Belt

What do Pythagoras, St. Augustine of Hippo, and myself have in common? As it turns out, a bit of an obsession with numbers and the meanings behind them. I don't like to think of myself as superstitious (who does, in this modern "logical" age?) but I admit that I have a set of personal numbers, and our family has a family number that just seems to keep cropping up in everything we do. I won't give away our family number, but let's just say that everything from phone numbers to license plates to driver's licenses to the tail numbers on our old airplane keep repeating the same four digits in the same order.

My personal number though is 19. My birthday, my wedding anniversary, and other important dates keep cropping up around the number 19. So although I hate to admit it, I was really happy when my Sensei told me that our black belt test would be on March 19.

In various numerological systems, the numbers one and nine translate as follows:
1: Individual, agressor
9: Highest level of change

That seems auspicious for a black belt, no? No one can do this test for me, it's a purely individual effort. And it would certainly reflect the "highest level of change" if indeed I can achieve it.

Or how about the Chinese (Cantonese) interpretation:
一 [jɐ́t]  — sure
九 [kɐ̌u]  — long in time

I like the notion of "sure" as it relates to the coming test. I'd like to feel REALLY sure about it when the day comes. And "long in time" is certainly appropriate. This year will mark my 5th year in this dojo, and 10th year total in the martial arts. My black belt test will be a culmination of many years of effort and practice.

So I'm very happy to have this date hanging out there, a date when everything I've been practicing will hopefully come together in one perfect moment where I can demonstrate what I've learned. Not unlike a big race like the Ironman, so much preparation has to go into it. It's one of those things that can't be faked or shortchanged.

When I was younger, many things came easily for me. I came to associate myself with being "successful" in my head. But what that meant was that I was very afraid to try anything that would show me to be "unsuccessful". If indeed I tried something and I failed, I had to immediately make an excuse as to why I didn't succeed. I was feeling sick that day, I twisted my ankle, I was distracted by some important thing. Eventually, I tried fewer and fewer things that I didn't think I could accomplish.

Martial arts was one of the first things I ever tried that was really hard for me, and that I couldn't immediately succeed at. It's a practice that takes years and years to master. There's no way to cheat it or to learn it quickly and easily. You simply have to put in the long, hard work. Several times I quit, for various reasons. Then, five years ago I made a determination that this time I was going to see it all the way through. And now it comes down to this:

Two months. Eight weeks.

That's all the time I have left to solidify everything I know into my muscle memory. Make sure it's buried in concrete in there so every technique is as good as I can make it, and every move gets remembered. I'm training as hard now for this as I trained in the last two months for the Ironman. Twelve hours a week of karate, plus my usual conditioning work (swimming and running and weights).I go to sleep and I dream in karate. It all comes down to this.

RELAX... In Between the Punches

Have you ever learned something new, only to have it pop up over and over again in all kinds of circumstances? That's how my week has gone. In my karate training, I have lots of power. Power is not my problem. Relaxing is my problem. Especially when the sensei is watching, I get so tense I'm wearing my shoulders for earrings. Not surprisingly, this has always been my issue with running as well - carrying a lot of unnecessary tension in my upper body.

Funny thing is, I coach swimmers and one of the main tenets of swimming is you have to be able to relax your recovering side while all of the muscles in your stroking arm are tense. You have to be able to relax your feet and ankles while your hamstrings and glutes do the hard work of kicking. So I should be able to apply that knowledge of simultaneously relaxing and tensing in other circumstances right?

Except that it's really really hard to do. Karate is humbling for me. One of the reasons that I love it is that it teaches me on a daily basis how hard it is to learn this stuff. And that's how hard swimming is for many of the people I'm coaching. Swimming always came naturally for me. I was one of those kids that people called "a fish". I firmly believe I was a dolphin in a former life, that I've always lived underwater until now. That's why I'm so clumsy on land. And maybe that's why my feet are the size of flippers.

So my lesson this week is to relax in between each block, kick, and punch, and only tense my muscles at the last possible second. It doesn't sound all that easy, and trust me it's not as easy as it sounds. Our muscles are so tied together in our brains that undoing those connections of which muscle to tense and which to relax takes time and some mental effort. At the Chi Running seminar this weekend, I also got a great refresher on relaxing my ankles and feet while running, something I struggle with more than any other aspect of Chi Running.

If I think about it, there is also a great application in the rest of life. There are times when tension and action is necessary, and times in between when we need to relax. If we fill all of that time with activity and stress, everything suffers including the things we want to be able to do well. We need the Yin as well as the Yang. Just as I struggle with relaxing the non-necessary muscles, I also struggle with allowing myself time to just be, time without busyness and action. How do you get yourself to relax, either mentally or physically?

The Ironmom Extra Mile: More reading on the Han Dynasty Synthesis and the meaning of Yin and Yang within Taosim at WSU's Chinese Philosophies site

Chi Running Refresher For Injury-Free Running

Running used to be pain. Knee pain. Hip pain. Shin splint pain. Plantar Fasciitis pain. Maybe some of you are experiencing the same kinds of running injuries that I used to. Running injuries are so common among runners we just kind of get used to them. We talk about them in coffee shops.

"So how's the marathon training Charlie?"
"Oh okay. The knee's getting better. I got a bit of an IT band thing going right now."
"Oh yeah, me too. I got one of these foam rollers and some orthotics and I think that's helping."

Only it doesn't help. Or maybe it does and you just get some other injury for overcompensating for the first one.

Then six years ago I found Chi Running, and it was like my running found religion, hallelujah! No more pain! Throw away that knee brace, and run free. It wasn't a quick fix solution though. When I started using the Chi Running techniques, I went to a small track near my daughter's dance studio and did the following, over and over and over again:

• Adjusted my posture, my core, and my Chi
• Leaned forward at a slight angle
• Started running with good form
• Made it about 200 yards before my good form fell apart
• Stopped and started over again.

After awhile, I could run longer and longer before my form fell to pieces. That year I ran a marathon with no knee brace, no IT band pain, no injuries whatsoever. And here's the kicker....

I have run pain- and injury-free for six years since that first Chi Running workshop.

You heard me. Pain and injury free. Well, except the time I tripped over my dog and broke my arm, but I'm not counting that one.

So today I went for a refresher at Keith McConnell's Chi Running Workshop here in Track Town USA. It was really helpful to correct some of the areas that have gotten a bit sloppy in my form. All of that rocky, rooty, hilly trail running has also helped erode my technique as well. I went for a flat run the other day and noticed I was not near as smooth as I used to be. 


For several hours today, Keith explained the techniques and had us do all kinds of fun little exercises with feedback to make sure we were getting it down. Then we went out to run (unfortunately in the pouring rain) for more technique work.  


Also, athlete Julie who I am coaching to train for a half-marathon has been having some knee pain while running, and I suggested she do the Chi Running thing. She was instantly impressed by how effortless the running felt during the workshop, without that usual five minutes of warmup hell where running just feels sluggish and wrong. I think the techniques we learned today will help her get to her half-marathon goal with an easier stride and no running injuries or problems.

I'm looking forward to many more years of smooth, chi-filled, painless and injury-free running. For those of you starting to think about barefoot running or running in the Five Fingers toe shoes or other minimalist shoes, I highly recommend Chi Running as a great way to transition from the traditional heel-strike stride to a barefoot-friendly midfoot stride.

Free Your Inner Animal!

Here's a great post with a video that Julie from Chubby Mommy Running Club put together of yesterday's training session, where I took her through an "Animal Day" workout designed to strengthen her core and supporting muscles (no, running is not just about the legs, at least not when you train with me!). We did salamander pushups, bear walk, crab walk, spider crosses, and wall balls. And we ran. In the pouring rain. It's a funny video, and shows most of the stuff we did, so if you're interested in creating a great core body workout without a lot of equipment, give it a watch!

Several of these exercises came from Darryl Edwards' excellent blog The Fitness Explorer. In his FAQ section, he has lots of great little how-to videos for natural movement and bodyweight exercises.

Watching Julie's video, I only have a few thoughts:

1. I should never try to talk on camera after exercising. Sheesh, I meant crabs have EXOskeletons, not ENDO skeletons.We have endoskeletons, and they're quite useful little things, but you do have to surround them with muscles in order for them to work right.

2. I should remember that Julie ALWAYS brings her little Flip camera and I should dress appropriately. Big baggy white karate pants = not very flattering on film. I had just finished my morning karate workout and was already tapped out by the time she got there. Sweaty, sticky, hair all over the place. Yikes! Where's my hair and makeup people???

3. I'm glad that Julie is open to my unorthodox training methods. She's training for a half marathon and I only have her running three days a week. Each running day is a quality workout (track work, tempo, endurance), and is supplemented by three days of cross training and core strengthening. With anyone I train, my goal is for them to be a strong, well-rounded athlete, not just limp across the finish line of their chosen event.

1. Julie is a ton of fun to train with, you can see that by watching her on video. A good workout with someone fun can brighten your whole day!

Stone Age Diet Deserves Iron Age Pan

I'm trying to be really good about putting only the best food in my body right now (oh, I had to turn away and actually NOT LOOK at those Lemon Bars that one of the moms brought for snack time yesterday. Lemon bars! I didn't eat one). No sugar, no grains, just good quality veggies, meat, nuts, and a bit of fruits. The Paleo Challenge is going well, and other than the cold I had at the start, I feel strong and full of energy.

But regardless of the quality of our food, it also matters what we cook it in. Did you know that the off-gassing that occurs when you cook in Teflon and other non-stick coated pans can be fatal to pet birds? Talk about your canary in a coal mine! If it's fatal to birds, what is it doing to us? As it turns out, it's not good. The chemicals used in creating non-stick cookware can cause cancer, and birth defects. Companies like DuPont (maker of Teflon) have already paid millions of dollars in fines and lawsuits because of these issues.

The great thing is, there's an age-old alternative to non-stick pans. It's the good-ole' cowboy standby, the cast-iron skillet (or griddle, or Dutch oven). It takes awhile to get used to cooking on cast-iron. In my case, it was a few months, in hubby's case. Well, let's just say he's still in training and occasionally sticks the eggs to the pan. Once you get the hang of it though, cast iron is a near perfect cooking medium. Here's a few benefits:

1. Cast Iron heats completely evenly across the pan. No hot spots or cool spots.This makes it great for things like pancakes.

2. Cast Iron lasts forever. You could inherit a rusty old cast iron pan from your great-great grandmother, and as long as it doesn't have any cracks or nicks in it, you can scrub it out, re-season it (more on that later) and use it for dinner.

3. They're non-stick when well seasoned and they actually get better with age. The longer you use them and the better they're seasoned, the easier they are to cook with.

4. You don't have to worry about scratching them. You can use whatever utensils you want.

5. You can actually increase your blood iron levels by cooking in cast iron. If you tend toward anemia like I do, this is a huge health benefit.

Researchers found that cooking in an iron skillet increases the iron content of many foods. Acidic foods that have higher moisture content, such as applesauce and spaghetti sauce, absorb the most iron. In fact, for 100 grams of each (about 3.5oz.), the applesauce increased in iron content from 0.35mg to 7.3mg, and the spaghetti sauce jumped from 0.6mg to 5.7mg of iron.

6. You can stick them right from your stovetop to your oven. I do this when I cook a good steak: get my cast-iron pan heated way up, throw the steak on and sear it on each side for about 90 seconds, then put the whole skillet into the oven and bake it for about 5 minutes. It stays nice and tender and juicy on the inside with that seared tasty outside. Yum!

7. It makes a really good weapon in a pinch. I would totally clock an intruder over the head with my cast iron if I had to. Just saying.

How to do it? There are instructions for seasoning your cast iron pan (as well as re-vitalizing old yard-sale or handed-down rusty skillets) on this website. I've found that when I'm done cooking, I just scrub it out with a plastic scrubbie and hot water (I don't even use soap), then put it back on the hot burner until all the water has evaporated. A quick rub-down with some oil (coconut oil works great) and it's ready to use the next time.

The Ironmom Extra Mile:   More great tips on using cast iron here at RichSoil.com.

Priceless

Two kettlebells on sale at Fred Meyer's: $35

Lifting the kettlebells with one hand onto the checkout stand: Easy

Look on the checker's face when she couldn't lift one of them with both hands: Priceless

Look on the checker's face when I picked them up and handed them to my 11 year old who easily put them in the cart: Even better.

Sometimes I forget how weak the "average" person is. We've come so far from the world of my great-grandma, a world where you might have to cart water in buckets from the well (at nine pounds per gallon, a three-gallon bucket is twenty-seven pounds, and I bet most people in 1900 could lift one with each hand easily). When I go to pick up chicken feed at the feed-n-seed store, the guy there always asks with concern if he can carry it out to the car for me. Nope, a forty-pound sack is something any woman should be able to lift with ease. But I bet even a lot of men can't do it these days, not without throwing out their back or something.

If you are not strength training, you're cheating yourself. If your strength routine consists of lifting weights that are suspended from a machine by a cable which is then attached to some muscle-isolating device (like a bicep curl machine), you're cheating yourself. You're cheating yourself out of all of the benefits of lifting free weights: Balance, core strength, strength of smaller muscle groups instead of just the big ones, coordination, and more.

I know free weights are intimidating for a lot of women (they were for me). We don't typically grow up being introduced to using them, and we may feel that they are for men who want to get pumped up with big huge muscles. It's worthwhile to take the time to find a coach, trainer, or program (like Crossfit) that helps you get used to lifting free weights. Whether that's a kettlebell, an Olympic weight bar, or a set of hand weights, learning to use them right brings so many fitness benefits. And it prevents the embarrassed checker syndrome!

No, There's Not An App For That!

Okay, what is it with people who don't want to wear watches anymore? I get it, you've got your Palm/Droid/iPod/Blackberry/iPad with you all the time so you don't have to have a watch. But seriously folks, if you're going to be an athlete, a watch really does come in handy. Really. It does. You'll have to take my word for this.

So Julie, from Chubby Mommy Running Club is training for a half Marathon (go Julie!). I'm setting up a program for her based on the awesome book Run Less, Run Faster (I highly recommend it). This program will have her running only three days a week, but all three workouts will be quality. An interval run, a tempo run, and a distance run.  The paces are all based from your 5k time, so I want her to run a 5k for us to base her intervals on and she emails me this morning and asks if there's something to make it easier to count laps, like maybe there's an app for that?

You might not have guessed this about me, but I'm a bit of a technological Luddite. Yeah, I know I took computer science back when I actually programmed on the college mainframe. Yeah, I used one of the first Macintoshes (I can still remember having to swap out that little floppy disk a thousand times to do anything at all cuz the poor thing only had like 128k of memory. Yeah, I said "k", not "m" or "g")Yeah, I worked for Microsoft for 10 years. But I don't have much in the way of tecchie toys. I'm writing this on a computer that's running Windows XP. I don't even have a smartphone. And hell, I'd probably love to have a GPS, Droid, iPad, and Nike footpod thingie, as well as a Powertap and a few other techie tools at my disposal. But the truth is, they're really not necessary, they're just fun. And I can't justify spending the money unless it's actually necessary. Especially when I'm just about taking out a second mortgage to write a check for my daughter's dance costumes this year.

Now Julie is the opposite. She's a high-powered techno kind of gal. Her droid beeps, bloops, sings, and talks to her non-stop. She's conversant with more TLAs than anyone I know (that's Three Letter Acronyms for those of you who know even less of them than me). I sometimes have to stop her just to have her translate. She makes me feel like I'm stuck in the stone age. So I have to be able to laugh when she asks me about an app for counting laps at the track. An App.

You see, there's this thing called a watch. And they have lap timers, and if you press the little button on it, it gives you not only what lap you're on, but how much time it took to do it! So I recommended that Julie get one. If she was the only one who trained without a watch, I probably wouldn't be writing this. But it's such an endemic problem that last year when I was coaching a group at the track, I had to bring a bunch of my old watches just to make sure that everyone had one!

So for the record folks, a good little Ironman watch that's water proof, counts laps, gives you your splits, and has an interval timer is only about $30 these days. Even better, Ironman makes a really nice women's heart rate monitor watch which is what I've used for the last six years for my triathlons. At $99, it's all I need for my training and racing data. Just get one already.

Sunday Snap: The Wall of Green

This is the north side of the hills that fringe my town, where the Ridgeline trail runs along through fern and fir-covered forests. Luckily, there are several trailheads within five miles of my house, a blessing since I've become a trail addict and rarely run on the street if I can help it.

A friend of mine once said that when she goes out hiking in the forest, it all looks like a "wall of green". But as a trail runner, if you know the types of local vegetation, it can help you orient yourself on the trail. Why is this important? It might not be on a well-trodden path like the Ridgeline, but a week ago I was running on an unfamiliar trail system further from home. With only a glance at the map at the trailhead and very little in the way of trail signage, I could navigate my way through the looping trails and end up back at my car an hour or so later. Why? A couple of skills that help make you a good trail navigator.

1. Which way is north? One of the things I pay attention to is what grows where. Where I live, a forest that looks like this is almost certain to be on the north of a hill. The sides with southern exposure get too much sun and heat for ferns and moss to grow like this. You're more likely to see oaks and pines on the southern slopes, and that's also where the poison oak mostly grows (an important fact if you're as sensitive to it as I am.) Even on an overcast day like today, you can also see the direction that the sky is lightest, and here near the 45th parallel, that means you're looking south.

2. What's it look like on the way back? I like to build a good mental map in my head of where I've been on the trail so far, and this map requires me to orient to the points of the compass. I know which direction I've started out and when the trail bends, the map in my head bends accordingly. When hiking with the kids, I try to get them used to this sort of mental navigation, as well as turning and looking behind us so that we can see how things look coming from the other direction. On a hike last week, we came to a small tractor that was being used for trail maintenance. It happened to sit at an unmarked crossroads where five trails met. I asked the kids to turn and look back and tell me how they would tell which trail we had come in on - which one led back the way we came? "It's the trail that's right behind the tractor" they said. But I pointed out that the tractor could be moved. Oh yeah. "It's the one with bark chips from a freshly cut log, and a sharp bend to the east in about a hundred yards." That's much better. Sure enough, an hour later when we got back to the crossroads the tractor was no longer there. We were glad we were observant enough to know which trail to take.

3. How far have I come? Becoming a good estimator of time and distance is extremely helpful in any kind of trail or off-trail navigation. It's another area I practice all the time, and get my kids to practice too. Every time we go to the grocery store, I ask them to estimate the total price of everything in our cart. We all take turns and see who gets the closest. If I get the question "how long 'til we get there?" in the car, I tell them the miles and our current speed and ask them to give me a ballpark estimate for an answer. I'll ask them how big, small, or far away something is, or how much it weighs. I have to say, I kind of pride myself on my estimating skills. I can usually estimate how long or far I've been running within a tenth of a mile or so. Sometimes I take a guess and then look at my watch to confirm. The more you practice estimating and checking your estimates, the better you get.

Sometimes I wonder if the availability of relatively cheap GPS technology will leave us with a generation of poor navigators. Think of the WWII navigators who were trained to use a sextant and navigate by the stars! That's only a couple of generations ago. I've got nothing against a GPS (and I'd eventually like to get one, especially for the elevation logging capability), but it can't replace knowledge and common sense. With a combination of these skills, you can assess fairly accurately where you are in the world, whether navigating the streets of an unfamiliar city, or the trails of a forest. You never know when that might come in handy.

Saturday Swim Workout: The AMRAP

I learned of the term AMRAP in the Crossfit gym, perhaps it originates there, or maybe it predates Crossfit. In any case, it's a very useful tool to have in your arsenal. AMRAP stands for "As Many Rounds As Possible" and a typical AMRAP workout has a time period (20 minutes or 30 minutes) and a list of exercises (with the number of reps of each) that makes up one round. One great thing about the AMRAP is that you know how long you're doing it for. Usually not more than 30 minutes, so you know you have a defined ending point. Another great thing is that AMRAPS are very trackable and measurable. If you did 15 rounds this time, and 18 rounds in three months with the same AMRAP workout, you know you're faster, stronger, etc.

If you know me, you know I'm all about things that are measurable and trackable. I like know if what I'm doing is making an improvement in my fitness. And if I'm coaching someone, I want to know if I'm helping them to get better. So the AMRAP is a perfect tool. Plus, they make you push yourself hard, and that's usually a good thing.

So today's Master's Swim workout was an AMRAP. And just for kicks and grins, I made my swimmers get out of the water and do pushups in every round. A lot of our team is going to be training for some long swims this year, including a 10k competition. The pushups in this workout help simulate the type of arm fatigue that you feel in very long distance swims. I was pleased to note that a lot more of the swimmers could do decent pushups than the last time I inflicted something like this on them!

Here's the workout:

DRILL: One-arm crawl. Emphasis on keeping the non-stroking arm straight and steady, turning head to breathe instead of picking it up, and hand entry on the stroking arm.

Warm Up
4 x 75 D/S/D (that's 25 Drill, 25 swim, 25 Drill)
100 Slow Corkscrew – concentrate on Body Position
4 x 75 IM Order Drills
100 Corkscrew
4 x 75 S/D/S

Starts and Turns

10 x 50: Start Hard, good push off the wall, underwater dolphin, Good turn, cruise back

30 Minute AMRAP:

Swim 100
Pull 75
Kick 50
Pushups on deck: 5


Cool Down

EZ 100

6 x 50 Starts and Turns

EZ 100


Total Yardage:  2100 + AMRAP (8 rounds would be 1800 for a total of 3900 yards)