8 Weeks To Your First Triathlon: Weeks 3 and 4

Holy Lost Time Batman! Robin has been busy. Between last week's birthday shenanigans for my mom and this week's marathon dance recital rehearsals for my daughter, plus the fact that hubby is traveling three out of every four weeks these days (leaving me to fend for the two kids and seventeen animals all by my little ol' self)  I got sidetracked in a major way. Not only that, but when it came to 11:00 every night I actually for once in my life did the sensible thing: I went to sleep instead of staying up and working on my blog.

But what that means is I'm a bit behind in posting my training plan updates, for which I heartily apologize!!  So without further ado, here are weeks three and four in the eight week triathlon training plan.

As always, you can find the whole plan HERE in Google Doc format

The plan in an easy-to-print  2-page table format is here

Week 2 is here.

Week 1 and the plan overview/explanation are here.

WEEK 3


DAY 1: BIKE 7 Miles

DAY 2: SWIM 6 x 100
10 minute warm up
100 Timed Swim (4 lengths of a 25 yard pool) at your medium (distance) pace
5 x 100, rest :60 seconds. Try to hold the same pace per 100 as your first one
10 minute cool down.

DAY 3: RUN 3 x 800 Meters + 1 x 400 Meters
Warm up  with 10 minutes of running or run/walk, do joint rotations
Run: 800 Meters or ½ mile, rest :60 seconds, Run 800 Meters or ½ mile, rest :60 seconds, Run 800 Meters or ½ mile, rest :60 seconds
Cool down with 10 minutes of running/walking
 

DAY 4: SWIM 2 x (200 + 50 Breaststroke) + 2 x 100
10 minute warm up
Today we’re going to add in some breaststroke to our workout. Breaststroke is a great stroke to use for sighting in an open water (lake) swim because you can easily keep your head above water.
200,  rest :60
50 breaststroke, rest :30
200,  rest :60
50 breaststroke, rest :30
2 x 100, rest :30
2 x 100, rest :45
10 minute cool down.

DAY 5: BIKE 8 Miles

DAY 6:  2 x 1200 Meters
Warm up  with 10 minutes of running or run/walk, do joint rotations
Run: 1200 Meters (3 laps of a track, or ¾ mile), rest :90 seconds
Run 1200 Meters, rest 90 seconds
Cool down with 10 minutes of running/walking


DAY 7: REST

WEEK 4

DAY 1: BIKE 9 Miles

DAY 2: 10 Minute Timed Swim
10 minute warm up
Use your watch or the pool clock to time yourself for a 10 minute swim. Count the number of laps you swim in 10 minutes. Write this down in your workout log.
10 minute cool down.

DAY 3: RUN One Mile Timed, plus 2 x 800

Warm  up  with 10 minutes of running or run/walk, do joint rotations
Run: One mile (1600 meters or 4 laps at a track), time your mile with a watch, rest 2 minutes
Then run 800 meters (1/2 mile), rest :60 seconds

Run 800 meters, rest :60 seconds

Cool down with 10 minutes of running/walking
 

DAY 4: SWIM 300 + 2 x 150 + 2 x 100

10 minute warm up
Swim 300 (12 lengths of a 25 yard pool), rest 2 minutes
2 x 150, rest :60
2 x 100, rest :45
10 minute cool down.


DAY 5: BRICK!

BRICK stands for “Bike, Run, ICK! Now you’ll find out why. Hint: Your legs feel funny when you run after biking.

Set up a “transition area” at your house, garage, a track, or even in the back of your car or van, where you have your running gear handy.

Warm up  with 10 minutes of running or run/walk, do joint rotations, then:

Bike 6 miles
Transition to your running gear and lock up or stow your bike
Run 1.5 miles
Cool down with 10 minutes of running/walking


DAY 6 & 7: REST

How To Be 70 Years Young

What we gain from training and racing might seem temporary: a finish line photo, a smile, the great feeling of a hard workout, a medal, maybe a PR. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we are actually remaking ourselves from the insides out. Maybe you can't tell the difference between two people standing side by side. Maybe it's not obvious in blue jeans and sneakers which one of them is the athlete and which is not. But if you looked inside of them, at how strong and sturdy their heart is, how robust their muscles, how supple their joints and ligaments, you would see that one of these bodies is going to last a whole lot longer and do a whole lot more than the other one. And if you could fast forward those bodies a few decades, the differences would be staggering, inside and out.

My mom turned 70 this week. Seventy! I can hardly believe it. A lot of seventy year olds might be content with a  visit from their daughter and grandkids. Maybe they'd hoist themselves off the couch for a peck on the cheek, accept a card or a present. What did my mom want for her birthday? To go kayaking. Yeah, isn't that the kind of 70th birthday you'd like to have some day?? So we loaded up the boats and headed off to the Long Tom River on her special day, and had a great time on this absolutely beautiful little piece of water. 

That night, my sis rolled into town on the Amtrak from Seattle, and she and my mom headed out to the coast to camp for a few days. I joined them on Friday night, and Saturday morning saw us all standing on the shore of one of my favorite little bodies of water, Cleawox Lake. My sister and I pulled on our wetsuits and swam (yes, insanity does run in the family!) and my mom kept us company in her kayak. We followed that with a hike around the lake. I love that my whole family is so active, so vital and alive. I love that I can share this with them, that my parents gave us this love of the outdoors and of challenging ourselves.  

More than anything, I love my mom. Happy Birthday Marsha! 70 Years Young.

Are You Missing An Opportunity To Train?

I am constantly amazed by how few triathletes commute by bike. It's one of the easiest ways to get in extra training time with far less time taken from your day than a normal workout. And if you think that because you've got traffic and stoplights to deal with that you're not getting a good cycling workout in, or that it doesn't "count" if it isn't on your supercool tri bike, think again! Over the past few years, almost 1/3 of my total mileage has come from commuting by bike, and my bike times are as competitive as they were when I was using my triathlon bike exclusively. As an example of how efficient this is, take my old commute of 11 miles each way:

In a car, the commute took me 18 minutes (no traffic) to 45 minutes (heavy traffic) one way. On the bike, it always took 45 minutes (bike lanes negated any influence from traffic jams). So on heavy traffic days, I could get an hour and a half workout with no extra time taken from my day whatsoever. On light traffic days, I got a 90 minute workout, while only using 54 minutes of time (when you subtract the time I would've spent commuting in the car). On average, I probably got a 90 minute workout for 45 minutes of time. That's a big time savings over a week or a month.

Since it's National Bike To Work Week here in the U.S., many cities have events designed to help new bike commuters make the leap. In my town, they're serving up free breakfast to bike commuters, along with putting on seminars, giving away bells and tune-ups, and having a bike-powered concert. It's a great time of year to try commuting, and with gas prices going up, more people are turning to bikes than ever before.


If you're new to bike commuting, Paul Dorn has a nice page with tips on all aspects of the two-wheeled commute, and his Twitter Feed is full of helpful tips and articles. What are you waiting for? Get on the bike and ditch the cager commute.

Sunday Snap: Lost in the Woods

You know how in those old Grimm's fairy tales, the kids that get lost in the woods leave a trail of small stones or crumbs to follow? It doesn't work that way for me. If I lost my son in the woods, forget about the pebbles or the breadcrumbs, I would follow a trail of computer parts and accessories to track him down.

The good news is that the boy is an absolute genius with computer hardware. The bad news is that our upstairs hallway looks like the Island of Misfit Hard Drives. He gets these old computers and scavenges them for any usable pieces, then creates a Frankenstein hybrid computer with bits and pieces from all of them. He just built a computer for his sister last week, which of course totally made her day. Now she's got one in her room that she can use for homework or watch movies on. He even made sure it had all the software she needed installed. Of course, for a day or two he would roll his eyes when she would call out "Product Support, oh Product Support, I need help!" from the top of the stairs. But he would trudge on up and help her troubleshoot. What a guy.

And the really really good news is that he's going to be building me a computer starting this week, something to replace the ancient limping-along-on-its-last-legs Dell I'm using right now. I'm probably the last person on earth using Windows XP. No wait, I know my mom still uses it, so that makes two of us. But I've had this thing for almost 7 years, so it's definitely time to upgrade. And at least I won't lose anymore blog posts to the Blue Screen of Death when he's done.

Of course, he wanted to put my computer in this crazy Gamer computer case. Okay, I admit that the red LED lights are cool, and the fact that it has several fans to keep everything cool is probably a good feature. But c'mon folks, gamers are just a little nutty about stuff like this. A computer case called the "Scout" or the "Sniper"?? Get real! I mean, I don't even name my bikes silly stuff like that (okay, I did have one named "Hi Ho Silver", but my kids named that one when they were small). We settled on a less ostentatious case that still had the cooling fans, you'll be happy to know.

So now I have to get some sleep so I can get us all to karate in the morning, and I have to go peel my teenager away from his beloved hardware treasure trove. Happy weekend to all.

Why Chuck Norris Jokes Are Dangerous

They've been tweeted, Facebooked, and made into Demotivational Posters, and everyone with kids has heard a hundred or so of them. But why are Chuck Norris jokes not just dangerous, but a threat to our society in general?

Because they are the worst kind of lie, the kind we tell ourselves. We like to convince ourselves that hard work doesn't matter, that people like Chuck Norris become skilled, fast, powerful, strong, and fit because of their impossible super powers

Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.

We'd like to think that, like Rocky Balboa or the Karate Kid, Chuck Norris went to some mystic guru-like sensei, worked hard for about, oh, 8 weeks or so, and emerged as the Karate Champion of the World and a Universal Badass. But the truth is that Chuck Norris, like anyone who has achieved anything meaningful, worked very hard to get there. He studied, he trained, he fought, he even lost, he learned from his mistakes and went back to fight some more, and to train some more, and to train even more. And eventually, he became very very good.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of us believe that we should instantly be great at something when we first try it. Or if not instantly, we should, in a matter of weeks, begin mastering the skills. Instead, Malcolm Gladwell argues in his (excellent) book Outliers that true mastery takes about 10,000 hours. TEN. THOUSAND. HOURS. Cogitate on that one for awhile. He gives many examples of successful businessmen, athletes, and entrepreneurs that show how each one had a combination of opportunities that allowed them access to those 10,000 hours. Of course it also takes skill. But skill alone is not enough. Even highly skilled people have to work hard to get good.

What does this mean for those of us who are trying to transform ourselves? In a way, I think it can bring a sense of relief and peace. If we release ourselves from the expectation that we'll be awesome overnight, that we'll acquire the necessary skills in an immediate time frame, then we can gift ourselves with the opportunity to simply suck for awhile. We can then take our time, we can allow ourselves to learn and grow and get better in our own way. We can also allow ourselves to not only make mistakes, but to learn from them. Instead of letting a failure derail us from our goals, we can pick ourselves up and carry on. After all, even Chuck Norris failed his first black belt test. It didn't stop him though, did it?

When we turn away from the American "Magic Wand" approach to mastery and instead accept the notion that meaningful change is often slow and incremental, we also avoid what author David Wong calls "Effort Shock". In his excellent essay How the Karate Kid Ruined the Modern World, Wong argues that Effort Shock (similar to Sticker Shock where we realize that the price of something is far higher than anticipated) comes when

We have a vague idea in our head of the "price" of certain accomplishments, how difficult it should be to get a degree, or succeed at a job, or stay in shape, or raise a kid, or build a house. And that vague idea is almost always catastrophically wrong.

So the next time you're prone to be hard on yourself for failing to live up to your (probably unrealistic) expectations about how something should come more easily, remember that meaningful change comes one step at a time. And that if someone is standing in your way, it's quite likely that person is you. Or, as Chuck Norris himself (the Universal Badass himself) says:

You can usually see your way around the blocks that other people put in your path, but the blocks you create yourself, the ones that come from inside your own thinking, seem rooted in the ground and as wide as the horizon. As indeed they are, for you yourself are standing in the way. The way around the block is from the inside.

Learn to think kindly of yourself, to pay yourself the respect you'd pay someone else. Learn to greet yourself the way you'd greet a stranger - politely, open to the possibility that you might be about to make a friend for life, aware that the person standing in front of you could be anyone, could come from anywhere, could be about to accomplish anything. The stranger could be about to make any number of dreams come true. And having greeted the stranger, realize that all those things are equally true of yourself.

Week 2: Eight Weeks To Your First Triathlon

This weekend's Iron Girl race clinic went really well. I had a blast talking about everything first-timers need to know to do a Sprint Tri. And Julie brought her mannequin Francine, and we had fun demoing how to put on a wetsuit (that is, if you have no arms and your torso detaches at the waist). Fun video of that adventure on her blog!

My printer inconveniently ran out of ink, so I couldn't bring copies of my favorite Triathlon Checklist along, but here it is on the web for anyone who wants to use it for a race!

Here is the 2nd week's installment of the training plan Eight Weeks To Your First Triathlon.

Week 1 can be found here

The entire 8-week plan can be found here

The entire plan, 1-page Table Format is here

WEEK 2

DAY 1: BIKE 6 Miles
This is the same as last week, but we’re going to start building on that later this week

DAY 2: SWIM 2 x 150 + 3 x 100
Same as last week’s 2nd workout, except we’re throwing in one more 100:
10 minute warm up
2 x 150,  rest :60
3 x 100, rest :45
10 minute cool down.

DAY 3: RUN 2 x 800 Meters + 1 x 400 Meters
Warm up  with 10 minutes of running or run/walk, do joint rotations
Run: 800 Meters or ½ mile, rest :60 seconds
Run 800 Meters or ½ mile, rest :60 seconds
Run 400 Meters or  ¼ mile, rest :60 seconds
Cool down with 10 minutes of running/walking


DAY 4: SWIM 2 x 200 + 2 x 100
10 minute warm up
2 x 200 (200 = 8 lengths of a 25 yard pool),  rest :60
2 x 100, rest :45
10 minute cool down.


DAY 5: BIKE 7 Miles
Hopefully any soreness in the core, legs, and "biker butt" is abating and we can start extending these rides.

DAY 6:  One mile Timed Run
Warm up  with 10 minutes of running or run/walk, do joint rotations
Run: One mile (4 laps of a track or use MapMyRun.com). Time this mile with a watch, even if you have to walk part of it. It’s good to know how long it takes you to complete! You can be amazed later when it takes you so much less time.
Cool down with 10 minutes of running/walking

DAY 7: Rest

Rest days are very important, do not try to fit in "extra workouts". Do not neglect to rest!

Your Incredible Power To Change Yourself

Alice Bradley has a heartbreaking post on her blog Finslippy today. I suspect that many many people can identify with what she's going through. She feels uncoordinated, like athletic endeavors are not easy for her. She has flexibility issues, strength issues, and things like yoga, kung fu, bellydancing, and now Crossfit have defeated her best efforts over the years.

So she asks whether or not she should stick with Crossfit, try something else entirely, or just give up.

I started to type out an answer there, but it quickly got enormously long. And it seemed to me that the answer is really crucial to what this blog is all about: that the power of incremental change can occur for everyone. That doesn't just mean the athletically gifted, or those that things come easily for. That means everyone.

I want to share my perspective on this here, not just as a coach, but as a mother (after all, this blog is named IronMOM for a reason). With my son's permission, I am sharing his story of overcoming huge odds to persevere and transform himself  and his body via his sport.

Alice, I hope this answers your question. I hope it makes you realize that you have the power within you to make that same kind of transformation. And for all the Alices out there who are not as brave, who are still sitting on the couch and wondering if there's any hope for them, I hope this gives it to you:

=============

Alice,  Oh, my heart hurts for you just reading all of this. But I do NOT think all hope is lost, and here is why:


1) I can assure you that the instructor is not laughing at you inside his head. I have coached a Crossfit-like class (as well as teach swimming, kickboxing, and karate conditioning) and I can tell you that there are many many uncoordinated people in this world. As an instructor I have an enormous amount of respect for any of them who show up in my class. You know why? They are the brave of the brave.
That's you.
Brave.
Because most of the people who have these same issues are not showing up. They are at home on the couch where it is much safer and much easier. I am in awe of the folks who come to my classes and work hard to get where other people get so easily. I'm betting your instructor feels the same way about you. He should.

2) I have seen first-hand the amazing power of just sticking with one thing, and what it can do for your life. Not just from the people in my classes, but from my own son. He is 14 now, but he was born with Sensory Integration Dysfunction. This means that many things were very very difficult for him, from the first day of his life. The world was too loud, too harsh, too scratchy, too smelly.

And talk about uncoordinated? When he was four, he still could not cross the center line of his body with either hand. It was like his brain had a doorstop that it could not cross. He couldn't dress himself, or do any of the things a normal four year old could do. Lots of therapy later, he still had the motor skills of a child half his age.

He also had vision integration problems, his eyes didn't work together so he constantly ran into things and fell off of chairs just trying to sit down. His hand-eye coordination was non-existant, he couldn't read or write without a great struggle and effort. More therapy: Vision therapy this time.

On top of this, the sensory integration issues when he was a toddler had made him a toe-walker (even the carpet felt too weird to step on). His Achilles tendons shortened to the point that he could hardly put his feet flat on the floor. He had Barbie feet, like someone who had worn high-heeled shoes for decades.

At the age of nine, I took him to a karate dojo. I knew I had to find just the right one, because he was still a very sensitive kid. And you can imagine with all of those strikes against him physically, that if he was someplace where people would be harsh on him or make fun of him for what he couldn't do, his self-image would take a beating. I needed someplace where he would be pushed to excel, but where he would be supported in his journey. Luckily, I found such a dojo. He has now been studying there for five years.

Fast forward to today. He is a brown belt, in his last degree and preparing himself to take the black belt test. I watched him today perform a kata in front of the whole class, solo.

His stances were deep and steady, you could never imagine this kid's heels couldn't touch the floor at one point in his life. A deep karate stance takes a LOT of flexibility in the Achilles tendon.

His spinning side kicks were fast and accurate - could you imagine that his vision, balance, and coordination were once so poor that he couldn't figure out how to sit on a chair without falling off? That he ran into door frames just trying to walk through a door?

His punches are so strong and fast, you would never know that once his muscle tone was reported by a therapist to be "poor" and "floppy". Or that at age five, he couldn't stand on one leg, or hop with both feet together.

I am proud of my son, not because he's a gifted athlete, but because he's a determined one. He is living proof that no matter how weak, inflexible, and uncoordinated you are, if you just show up every day and TRY, it will get better.

IT WILL GET BETTER.

You will get stronger. You will get more flexible. You will get more coordinated. It will happen. I know this. I wish I was there to give you a hug and tell you in person. But this will have to do.

Are We There Yet? Another Killer Distance Workout

In preparation for our long distance swims this summer, we've had some doozies of workouts lately. Here's the one I wrote up for Saturday. Previous to this, I don't think I've swum over 5,000 yards in, well, many many years, except for our annual New Year's "Year in Fifties" Swim. But this workout was 5700 yards, and let me tell you I ate about half a chicken, a bag of salad, and 3 bananas when I got home and I was still hungry as a horse.

Warmup:

2 x (100 each: Swim, Kick, Drill, Pull)
4 x 75: build each (each 25 faster within the 75)

===============
2 X:
(
900, rotate lane leader every 75 (we had five people in our lane, so this gave each of us a small drafting break)
600, alternate by 50's swimming with fists closed, and swimming with hands open
400 Pull
200 Fast
50 EZ
)

200 Cool Down

Meatza: Now Teenager Approved!

How do you get a teenager to give up on his beloved pizza? Well, that question would stump the great minds of our times. Mackenzie has been going gluten-free for nine days now. Not totally paleo, but at least a move away from eating non-stop grains. His previous diet, though it included lots of great protein, fruits, and veggies, also was full of cereal, bread, pasta, & pizza, and I don't have to tell you that at fourteen, 5'10", and with two hollow legs, this kid could demolish an entire pizza in about two seconds flat.

So what's a paleo mom to do? Make him a Meatza, of course. I used this terrific recipe from Justin Owings blog, and it came out terrific.

What was the teenage verdict?

"Wow, this is awesome!"
"Best meat dish yet!"
and
"I think I like this better than pizza!"

He puts all that food into his size 14 feet,
 I'm sure of it!

Say what? Sounds like one happy teenager to me. Best of all, only one piece filled him up (which was a quarter of the Meatza shown in the photo). Yeah, those hollow legs have a hard time finding satisfaction with loads of carbs, but a good dose of free-ranging grass-fed  protein and he was satisfied.

And of course, he ate another slice for breakfast.

Win an Iron Girl Race Entry!

How would competing in your first triathlon empower and transform your life? Tell us and win an entry to Iron Girl's Portland women's triathlon (sorry guys, even if you look totally cute in a running skort, this is a women's-only offer). Plus, you'll get six weeks of coaching from me, either in person (if you live in the Eugene area) or via email if you live elsewhere. You'll get to join Julie from ChubbyMommyRunningClub.com as she embarks on her journey to her first triathlon.

I've always been a huge believer in the transformative power of triathlon in women's lives. Time and time again, I've stood at the finishing line and watched as women cross the line a different person than when they started the race. This is why Iron Girl's mission of empowering women to a healthy lifestyle through women's-only races is something that I feel very positive about partnering with. This contest will run here, and on Chubby Mommy Running Club's blog.


Details:

1. Write an entry describing yourself, your journey, and why competing in this triathlon would empower and transform your life.

2. Email your entry to:

everymom2ironmom   at   gmail   dot   com 

   (replace at with @ and dot with . )
   Entries are due by May 15

 3. A neutral source (most likely my husband) will print out all of the entries and remove any identifying information.  Julie from Chubby Mommy Running Club, Mandy from Just Breathe Movement Studio and I will read through them all and pick the lucky gal who will win the free race entry.

4. Even if you don't win, you can get $10 off your race entry by using this coupon code: IGBLOG . You can register for the race here.

Eight Weeks To Your First Triathlon: Training Plan

Are you ready to do your first triathlon, but unsure of how to train for it?  Think it will take you all year to get ready? Think again! In just eight weeks you could be toeing the line for your first race.

In conjunction with the Iron Girl triathlon series, and Julie of the Chubby Mommy Running Club, I am putting on a Triathlon Clinic this weekend to get women ready to do their first Sprint distance triathlon at the Iron Girl race in Portland. As part of that clinic, I've developed an eight week training plan to get you ready for your first race. Once a week, I'll be posting the week's plan here, along with tips and hints. There will be some give-aways as well, so stay tuned!

There are very few things you need in order to participate in this plan. They are:

1. A pair of running shoes
2. A bicycle & helmet
3. A swimsuit and access to a body of water
4. The ability to swim at least a few laps (if you're starting as a non-swimmer, you'll need to go get some good swim instruction before beginning this plan)
5. A notebook to record your workouts and times
6. Good health: as always, it's a good idea to check with your doctor before beginning any plan of exercise, especially if its new to you.

That's it! The workouts in this plan can be done in any order, though I think it's a good idea not to do the same exercise back to back, especially running. So try to alternate activities as much as possible.

The short, printable table format version of the workout is in a Google Doc here:
8 Weeks to Your First Triathlon: table format. (stick this one on your fridge)

The long version with more explanation is here:
8 Weeks to Your First Triathlon! (read for all the details!)

Here's the first two weeks:

WEEK 1

DAY 1: BIKE: 6 miles

If you're like many people, you may need to dust off your wheels first! Air up your tires, check your brakes, and make sure your helmet is adjusted properly. If you need to know how far 6 miles is, use MapMyBike.com and map out a route for yourself. Ride 6 miles at a comfortable pace. If you're unused to riding this far, you may feel some "saddle discomfort", or as we triathletes like to call it "bike butt". This too shall pass.

DAY 2: SWIM: 5 x 100 yards

10 Minute warmup, then:

Today we're going to do a Timed 100 yards (or meters). In most lap pools, that's four lengths of the pool. In some larger 50 meter pools, it will be two lengths, and in some shorter health club pools, it will be five lengths. If you're unsure, ask your lifeguard how long your lap pool is.

Look at the clock (most lap pools will have a pacing clock) or your watch. Swim 100 yards (or meters) at your medium pace (something you think you could sustain for a longer distance). Look at the clock when you're done. This is your pace per 100 yards.

Now we're going to swim a set of four more 100 yards/meters. We write this in a swim workout like this:

4 x 100

After each 100, rest exactly 60 seconds. Keep track of your pace for each 100 and see if they get slower or faster. Write down your paces when you're done.

Cool down with 10 minutes of easy swimming. You're done!

DAY 3: RUN 2 x 800 Meters 


Run or run/walk 10 minutes at an easy pace. I like to stop here and do some joint rotations to warm up my knees, hips, and ankles.

Now we're going to run two half miles with a minute rest in between. You can do these at a track, if you have access to a local school track, or you can use MapMyRun.com to map out a little half mile course for yourself in your neighborhood.

Run half a mile (800 meters or twice around a track). Rest one minute. Run another half a mile (800 meters).

Cool down with a 10 minute run/walk, and that's it. If you want to keep track of your pace as you progress, write down how long each 800 meter (half mile) took you. If you need to walk, don't worry. Just keep moving and you'll be fine. Remember, there's no rule against walking in a triathlon, and many athletes do it.

DAY 4: BIKE 6 Miles
Same as Day 1 of biking.

DAY 5: SWIM 2 x 150 + 2 x 100


10 minute warm up

Swim 150 yards/meters (6 lengths of most pools) at your medium pace. Rest :60 seconds. Swim another 150
Rest 2 minutes.

We write this as: 2 x 150, r: 60

Then swim 100 yards/meters (4 lengths), rest :45 seconds, swim 100 meters, rest :45 seconds, swim 100 meters.

We write this as 3 x 100, r: 45

10 minute cool down.

DAY 6: RUN 1 Mile

Warm up  with 10 minutes of running or run/walk, do joint rotations

Run: 1 mile, or 4 laps at a track

Cool down with 10 minutes of running/walking

DAY 7: REST


Do not underestimate the importance of REST! Taking a day off every week is crucial to your training as the swimming, biking, and running.

That's it. You are now one week closer to your goal!

Memorial Day Murph - A Way To Remember

We are exactly one month from Memorial Day. For many people, that day has come to mean little more than a barbeque, or the unofficial start of summertime activities. But it's more than just a three day weekend, it's a day to remember the men and women who have died in the service of our nation.

If you want to be inspired by one such group of dedicated servicemen, head on over to the Memorial Day Murph site and read about Operation REDWING and Medal of Honor recipient Lt. Michael P. Murphy. For years, Crossfit Affiliates have honored this fallen warrior with the workout "Murph", and now there is a yearly day to do this workout as a means to raise funds for several charities: the Wounded Warrior Project, the Lone Survivor Foundation, and the Lt. Michael P. Murphy Memorial Scholarship Foundation.

This workout is not for the faint of heart (or body), it involves a 1 mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 pushups, and 300 squats, then another 1 mile run. I imagine it's going to take me a fair while to accomplish (hopefully I won't have to take a nap in the middle to complete it). And since I can't do 100 real pull-ups, I'll be using one of the Crossfit pull-up bands to help me out there. But, we've got a month to get ready, so if anyone wants to join me in doing the Memorial Day Murph, it doesn't take a lot of equipment or space, but it makes a big difference.

The Ironmom Extra Mile:  History of Memorial Day

Curing Allergies With Free Range Eggs

This is the view out of my dining room window right now, and as you can see it's full of trees. I live in one of the worst cities in the U.S. for allergy sufferers. The things that make this city so beautiful (lots and lots of trees and gardens) also make it a pollen factory in the spring. As allergy sufferers go, I count myself pretty lucky, I've only really been affected by a bad allergy to maple pollen, which means that for about four weeks in the spring, my nose and eyes go haywire. 

But, as you can tell, right outside my window is an enormous maple tree, just hanging with pollen bombs releasing this cargo into the wind. One step out the door and my eyes start itching immediately. But since it shades our chickens and provides home for our resident squirrel village, I would never think about cutting it down. I've just endured through maple pollen season.

Until now.

Three years ago, I noticed that my chickens ate the pollen bombs that dropped into their pen like candy. A lightbulb went off in my head. I remember drinking these nasty little vials of very dilute poison oak extract as a kid, in hopes that my awful poison oak allergy would diminish, and I know friends who get allergy shots with the same purpose. What if I inoculated myself against maple pollen by feeding it to my chickens?

Thus started a three year project of Operation Pollen Eggs where every morning when I let the chickens out, I pick as many pollen bombs as I can carry off of the trees and throw them in the pen. The chickens eat them like crazy, I eat the eggs. That's it.

The first year, I didn't notice much difference. Every foray outside left me miserable. But I started it late in the season.

The second year, I started earlier, as soon as I saw the pollen starting to bloom. I noticed something funny. By about mid-pollen season, I wasn't nearly as affected as in previous years though it was still noticeable.

And this year? No pollen allergy at all. None. I can romp around under the maples with abandon. An eight mile run through the forest and not so much as an itchy eye. And this is from a woman who used to want to claw her eyes out after a foray outdoors in May. I owe it all to my free-ranging, egg-laying, pollen-bomb-eating chickie ladies.

The benefits of eating good, clean, local, real food never cease to amaze me.

How To Get Faster, Better, Stronger Using Kaizen

 

As I coach people on a regular basis, I see them over time improving their skills, strength, and conditioning. But a few improve so dramatically it's like watching a shooting star.

So what can you learn from these shooting stars? What is the secret to their achievements? Once again, it all boils down to kaizen, a Japanese word for "constant, never-ending improvement" I was talking with Dan Mayhew, one of my swimmers, after practice on Saturday. I had just noticed something in his stroke after observing him underwater for part of the practice. Keep in mind, I give stroke tips all the time to my swimmers, this is not uncommon. But what Dan said next is: "I'll add that to my comments file."

Yes, Dan keeps a list of everything anyone's ever said about his stroke. He also keeps videos illustrating the principles about his swimming stroke that he wants to improve on. He is constantly working on those elements of his stroke that he wants to get better. No surprise, over the years I've known Dan, he's gone from a back-of-the-packer who struggled with many aspects of the stroke (give the guy a kickboard and he could kick all day and not go anywhere) to swimming in one of our fastest lanes.

Luckily, Dan works for this cool new company called Vizme. They make it easy to encapsulate text, videos, pictures, and all kinds of information and media in something called a Token. You can share these tokens via email, Facebook, Twitter and all kinds of social media. So here's Dan's swimming token. As you can see, he has a comment file tracking everything anyone's ever said to him about his stroke, from lane mates to professional coaches. After that, he has links to all kinds of videos and tips that he's used to make himself faster.

This is the key to improvement in any sport - the active seeking of information. Then steadily applying that information to get better. My athletes who do this shoot forward in an arc of improvement that's awe-inspiring.

Here's how to harness the power of kaizen in your own sport:

Pay attention: Athletes around you frequently give helpful advice. Some people ignore this, and some get downright upset about it. Notice that Dan tracks it in his Comments file. Sure, perhaps all well-meaning advice isn't worth taking, but if you pay attention to it you may notice some common themes (you can see in Dan's notes that the dropped elbow keeps coming back to haunt him from many different people's observations).

Keep Track: It's hard to notice trends unless you're tracking them. If several people have mentioned something, perhaps it's worth changing or researching. You can use something as simple as a notebook or logbook, or something as cool as Vizme to track things you want to be working on. Otherwise, it's out of sight, out of mind.


Focus on One Thing At a Time: Pick something you want to work on, gather information (whether from your coach, a video, a seminar, an online training tool), and focus on it until you see improvement.

Don't Give Up: That  may seem like simplistic advice, but I think the one thing that derails most folks is simply throwing their hands up in the air when improvement doesn't come as quickly or easily as they'd like. If you work through the tough spots, chances are that the results you're seeking are just around the corner.

Whose Toes Are Those??

There are two great passions in my life, things so overwhelmingly "me" that I can't separate where I begin and they end. One is swimming, and the other is photography. Even without a camera in my hand, my mind is always seeing with a photographer's eye. I can't help it. So it's always exciting to me to see one of my photos get published (especially when I get paid for it, and can squirrel money away in my photography equipment fund).

In this case, it's doubly cool, because:

A) It's an article about barefoot running, which I'm always excited to see get good press. This one is in Outdoor Sports Guide and

B) Those are my feet! And my original Vibram Five Fingers Sprints.

And to tie both of my interests together this year, I just got a little camera for my birthday that can go underwater, at least for a few feet. So hopefully I'll be able to shoot some underwater video for swim coaching, and for articles here.

Unleash Your Inner Iron Girl: Training For Your First Triathlon

Ever thought you could do a triathlon, but didn't know where to start? Wanted to do one but weren't sure that you could? Trained for one, but felt overwhelmed by all the gear and advice? Help is on the way!

I'm beyond excited to announce that I am partnering with the Athleta Iron Girl triathlon series, to help women train for their first triathlon. I will be coaching Julie, from Chubby Mommy Running Club through her very first triathlon ever, and I will be sharing my training plan for her, nutrition tips, transition setups, and everything else helpful along the way in weekly installments here on my blog. All you have to do is follow along and play from home. I'll have all the info you need, right here.

Julie will be posting her experiences as she tries on her very first wetsuit and clips into her very first pedals over on her blog, so make sure you head over there to catch the hilarity as it unfolds.

If you are in the Eugene, Oregon area, you are welcome to join us for a kickoff event on May 7th at 1:30 over at Just Breathe, at 2868 Willamette St. You can RSVP on our meetup page, or just show up!

Also, it gets better. We'll have some prizes to give away here and at the Chubby Mommy page, including a race entry to the Athleta Iron Girl Portland Triathlon on June 26. Exciting stuff!

If you're looking to start later in the summer, I'll also be personally training to compete in the Athleta Iron Girl Lake Tahoe event. So if you want to join in the fun of a beautiful late summer triathlon in such a gorgeous location, you can join me there.

Aging Up: A Birthday Run Through The Primeval Coastal Forest

 What do you want for your birthday? A dreaded question from someone who doesn't really need anymore stuff in her life. Fortunately, my hubby doesn't take offense if I have no interest in some bauble or another (I'm convinced that he married me because I hate the mall). He knows how to treat a birthday girl right, which in my case means packing the kids and the dogs over to the coast for the day. And apparently God knew that after so many unending days of rain, I needed a clear sky over my head. So though it was not exactly warm or sunny, it was not raining, and that's all that mattered.

After some pleasant hours spent racing sticks down a creek, exploring tidepools, flying kites, and chasing the dogs around, I got to pull on my favorite Five Finger toe shoes and go for a run up this fabulous trail. It starts at the beach, winds up and over this big promontory, climbing high above the lighthouse, and down the other side to a wide stretch of largely inaccessible and empty beach. The forests are lusciously green and primeval, with gigantic wind-twisted trees and beautiful ferny mossy floors. I really can't say much more about it with mere words, other than that it was perfect in every way. And I would've run faster if I could've stopped myself from taking all of these photos with my cell phone. 

So here's a visual tour of my beautiful birthday run.

You go up and over this big ridge. The lighthouse makes sure the ships don't hit it in the fog.

 The trail is so steep that it's full of switchbacks. At some point, the trail builders just gave up on switchbacks and installed some rough stairs. Great for training those glutes, hamstrings, and quads! My dog Sophie takes it all in stride.

Trees grow out of "nurse logs", old fallen trees that have since disintegrated, providing food for the new young trees to grow up on.

Spectacular views of the rugged Oregon coastline are a trail runner's best reward. In this photo, you can see how much elevation the trail gains, since I started running down on the beach!

 The forest is unbelievably green and lovely. Here, the valley falls away beneath me in a sea of ferns, moss, salal,  and evergreens.

Eventually, the trail pops you out onto a windswept beach, where you feel like the only human alive on the planet, dwarfed by the massive Pacific Ocean, and soothed by its roar.

 If you pay attention, you find beautiful little Zen moments all around you. I could meditate on this tableau of a stick and a rock for hours.

Sandstone cliffs to the right of the beach are carved by wind and waves into intricate patterns

In some places, the soft sandstone has been carved out from under the very roots of the trees, leaving them suspended in space.

 

Seaweed tangles adorn the beach with the woven netting of a former kelp forest

Everywhere along the beach, you must leap across small streams. Each is patterned with beautiful swirls of different colored sand. Every one of these creek bottoms could be considered a work of art.

 I arrive at the end of my run tired but ecstatic. In a state of bliss unparalleled in modern existence. How often do you get to feel like the only person on earth? To run alone and silent through an ancient forest. To look across the expanse of miles of beach and see no one, hear nothing but wind and surf. My spirit is renewed.

We drive to Mo's, a staple of our coast trips. The best chowder house on the Oregon coast. Our friendly waitress snaps a pic of the family for us. I am so blessed to have this wonderful family around me on my birthday.

I have this marvelous Paleo feast of blackened salmon and steamed and seasoned green beans. Double yum! Plus some of Mo's awesome clam chowder.

Okay, so it's not Paleo, but I top it off with Mo's homemade marionberry cobbler with some local vanilla ice cream. Heaven on earth. A perfect way to age up and turn 45. My day could not be any better. I am so thankful to have a family who gave me what I really wanted for my birthday, a beautiful home state with gorgeous parks and trails, and a body that can do amazing things like running up and over mountains. 

I am truly blessed.

What You Can Learn About Swimming (and Biking and Running) From This Accountant

Meet Warren. Meet Warren's pace clock. Well, he doesn't actually own the clock, but he's very attached to it. We have to pry it out of his hands at the end of every Master's swim practice and tell him he can't take it home to put beneath his pillow at night. The story of a man and his clock gives us insight into how we might become better at endurance sports...

You see Warren is an accountant, of the very-best-in-town variety. And he doesn't just use his acumen with numbers in his working life, he brings it to the pool with him too. One of Warren's best attributes (besides his speedy pace and terrific draft) is that he is an absolute wizard at pace management. Pacing is one of the skills that many athletes simply struggle with. It takes experience, self-awareness, and concentration to learn good pacing, but like any other skill it can be improved with time. Unfortunately, as any triathlon swim start will show (or the end of the Ironman marathon), many triathletes could take a few lessons in pacing from Warren here.

Our Master's group is preparing for an epic 5+ mile swim of Crater Lake this summer, so we're really starting to ramp up some challenging distance workouts these days. This week's set was no exception. We did a set of ten repeats of:

300 yards at an aerobic (long distance) pace
Exactly 5 seconds rest
50 yards at just past the Anaerobic Threshold
Exactly 10 seconds rest

This set is 3500 yards long, so it's imperative that you start with a pace that can be maintained with good form throughout. Our lane decided we could hold a 4:15 for the 300's (1:25 pace per 100) and a :40 pace for the 50's. Over all of those laps, all of those 100's, Warren's feet hit the wall right on the 1:25 for each and every one.

How did he do it? What does it take to be able to say "I'm going to go out at XXX pace." and actually do it? Here's a few pointers from the master. Though they are swimming-specific, they can be applied to any sport. As it turns out, Warren is also an endurance cyclist who will be riding the dreaded RAMROD this year (which supposedly stands for Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day, but which most cyclists translate as Ride Around Mount Rainier Or Die), a grueling 152 mile event with 10,000+ feet of climbing. So pacing is as critical in that event as well, and anyone who aspires to long-distance cycling, running, swimming, or multi-sport events could take notes:

1. Self-Control:  If you need to go out at a slower pace than you're used to, you have to get in the right mindset. Don't let your ego get in the way. We might've been able to get away with a 4:00 pace for those first few 300's, but then it would've eaten away at us and the last few would've felt like death. This way we felt strong throughout. It's hard to go out slow and feel like you've got a lot of throttle left. It takes self-control. Many a marathon runner or Ironman athlete has lived to rue their early pacing decisions, so this is a good lesson to learn.

2. Experience: The way to be able to pace effectively is to know your paces in the first place. Learn to love your clock (or watch). In the pool, you can check it briefly just before you turn at the end of each 50. If you run, spend some time at the track or use MapMyRun.com to map out some mile markers on your regular routes. Bike computers and heart rate monitors can give you some great info too. You don't have to become a Clock Slave, but using it judiciously brings more knowledge. The more knowledge you have about your paces and how each of them feels, the easier it is to set out at just the right speed.

3. Constant Vigilance: If you find yourself off of your pace, adjust immediately. Because I was conveniently drafting behind him, I knew what Warren was doing. Each 300 was divided mentally for him into 100s, and he knew he was aiming for 1:25 with each 100. He was checking the clock at our 50 splits, and the second 50 of each 100 was adjusted. If he found himself a second fast on the first 50, our second one was slightly slower. If he was a second or two too slow, I saw the afterburners come on and his kick picked up as we dropped that second or two from our second 50.  This kind of rigorous attention to pacing helps you learn to keep on top of it. Then in the heat of a race, you can make sure you're going out at the speed you want to return in.

4. Negative Split: Have enough in the tank that the last half of your workout (or event) is faster than your first half. You can only do this if you follow steps 1 - 3 above. Too many athletes leave a string of crash-and-burn results behind them as they fail to pace effectively.

If you take the time to learn to pace effectively, you too could be smiling as casually as Warren here after swimming 5500 yards!

In case you're interested, here was our "Finisher 550", the set we swam at above threshold (fast but not all out) pace AFTER swimming the above 3500 main set:

25 on :30
50 on :60
75 on 1:30
50 on :60
50 on :60
75 on 1:30
25 on :30
25 on :30
50 on :60
25 on :30
50 on :60
25 on :30
25 on :30

Does It Matter Why We Run?

Maybe it's perfect timing to read something explosive and divisive like this as I prepare for a Triathlon 101 Clinic aimed at first time triathletes (Julie from Chubby Mommy Running Club and I will be putting this one to help women prepare for the IronGirl Portland Sprint Triathlon). Helping women experience the transformative power of doing their first triathlon is one of the real highlights of the year for me.

But you see, the "real" runner and triathlete over at Frayed Laces (self-defined as "real" apparently because she qualified for Boston and Kona) has her knickers in a wad because other lowly mortals dare to do marathons and then (gasp) have the audacity to call themselves marathoners. Even if they finish in 4 or 5 hours, or more! And they might even eat (bigger gasp) chicken nuggets at the end! Her attitude can be summed up by her closing words:

what I want to scream out is "I train 20 hours a week! I push myself in training to the point of puking! You're doing this once to cross something off your life goal list, and I train harder-harder-harder to get faster each year! I eat, sleep, breathe this sport!"
So, are there too many marathon runners? No, there aren't.  There are too many "chicken nuggets at the end!" marathon runners and not enough "eat, sleep, breathe" runners

As mind-boggling as it is, she thinks that in this world of mounting obesity and a medical/financial diabetes crises looming over our collective heads that will bury our health care system, that too many runners do it for the wrong reasons and should just... well... stop. So they don't sully those of us who are real athletes, you know.

As you might have guessed, I take exception to this viewpoint. You see, the most inspiring moments I've ever had at a triathlon have not been watching someone finish first. They've not even been the times I've finished first. They've been standing at the finish line and watching ordinary people finish. Not folks who can throw twenty hours a week of their lives into the "training" bin, not elite competitors gifted with athletic prowess, but ordinary people with families, jobs, small kids, and other responsibilities. Maybe people who have made the arduous journey from obesity to health. Or from anorexia to health. Or just from the couch to health.

I don't have to tell you that I'm a big ol' sap. I mean, I cry reading Frog & Toad stories to my kids. But when I stand at the finish line of a triathlon or a running race and watch what it means to people to finish, the sniffles start. Waterworks on. And when I've coached those people, seen them go from "I don't think I can run to the next block" to "Wow, I just ran 13.1 miles!" or "I'm afraid to put my face in the water" to "I just finished a triathlon with  a lake swim!", then I'm really sunk at the finish line. I bawl like a big baby.

You see, we're all on this big ball of rock together. It doesn't really matter if someone's faster than me, or if I'm faster than them. What matters is how I feel about my performance, and how I help others feel about theirs. One thing I can guarantee is that even if you're the fastest now, I mean the absolute fastest in the world, someone will come along eventually who will be younger and faster. We all turn 40 and 50, 60, 70, and 80 some day,if we're lucky. Unless we die first. No one is fastest forever.

Or perhaps you'll have an injury that sidelines you, or you'll get pregnant when you least expect it and decide to just become a recreational athlete, or focus on a career that doesn't allow for so much other activity. Any number of things. Some day, you will probably see things from the point of view of just being happy to finish. And I hope when that day comes, the faster athletes give you a high five instead of saying you don't deserve to be there.

Chuck Norris, The Ironman, My Kind of Shirt

Meet my new favorite shirt. First of all, I should explain that I often hang out with bunches of teens, many of them karate-heads. Chuck Norris' name comes up in conversation frequently. You'd think the guy's fame would ebb away some day, but not anytime soon, that's for sure. A subset of my son's friends even use Chuck Norris as a sort of mild expletive, as in "I hit my Chuck Norrising head on the door!" All of that combines to make this shirt irresistible to me.

 There may be one thing I've done that Chuck Norris (the "world's greatest human" according to this book) will probably never do, but I am still very impressed with his karate of course. I'm actually reading his book The Secret Power Within: Zen Solutions to Real Problems, and it's quite good.

By the way, I got the shirt from the folks at Punk Rock Racing, and they were amazingly fast with shipping and great with handling the transaction! This was my little funny present to myself after completing my black belt.

Seven Paleo Power Breakfasts

Most days my breakfasts look pretty similar: eggs, veggies, maybe some meat or spices. It can get boring, and often I resort to the same old breakfast over and over. Lately I've been experimenting on different combos so that I can keep my breakfast days interesting. Mostly it just requires having a few different ingredients on hand so that I can always switch things up.

So here's a few variations of healthy Paleo-style breakfasts (mostly Paleo, though some have dairy, by which I mean raw goat's milk or cheeses made from raw milk). I add the following to two scrambled eggs (or four if it's for hubby and I):

1. Smoked salmon, spinach, and feta cheese

2. What my kids call "Special Eggs", I scramble the eggs with sun-dried tomato pesto, then add sheep's milk feta cheese and chives

3. Italian-style: Fresh basil, oregano, red pepper, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes.

4. The Bacon Burger: bacon, onions, and ground beef (like a hamburger for breakfast, without the bun!). Slice tomato and avacado on top

5. Taco Eggs: Usually leftovers from the last night's taco salad: sliced tomatoes, ground beef with taco seasoning, grilled onions, roasted chilis. I scramble the eggs with some salsa, and then top heavily with guacamole

6. Shrimp and roasted red peppers with carmelized onions

7. The Mega-Veggie: Sautee onions, zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, and garlic, then throw in the eggs and scramble