Just the Facts Ma'am

My dad was a career law-enforcement officer all the years of my childhood, going from a police officer before I was born to the FBI to a rural county sheriff in Oregon to a US Marshall. So it was no surprise that shows like Dragnet and Columbo are the ones I remember gracing our old cabinet TV in my childhood. I have vague before-bedtime memories of Columbo's flashlight searching through the darkness and Joe Friday's gruff voice through my bedroom walls Although Sergeant Joe Friday never actually said "Just the facts ma'am" ("All we want are the facts." was the actual phrase used), this cultural idiom is more or less one of my triathlon training mantras.

So it is that I couldn't resist going out yesterday and trying another 10k time trial to see if my iron regimen is having an effect. I've had the general feeling that it is for sure as my workouts have improved greatly this week but I'm the kind of triathlon geek that wants the cold hard facts (Ma'am)

Two weeks ago, in a red-blood-cell deficient oxygen debt, my 10k mile splits were:
8:45 pace, 8:50, 9:07, 9:20, 9:43, and 9:58. Total: 55:37 or a 9:16 average


Yesterday I went 8:49, 8:51, 8:53, 8:51, 8:50, 8:45 for a 10k of 54:35 or an 8:47 average. Not yet into my normal zone for this year but signifigantly better than two weeks ago! And best of all I felt like I was cruising at a steady hard aerobic pace, not falling apart at the seams like two weeks ago. Yippeee!

Kick Your Ass Up and Down the Pool With This One

One thing I'm really loving about doing the Crossfit Endurance (CFE) workouts is that its got me thinking of new and different ways to approach swimming sessions. I have to say that many of the CFE workouts just don't translate all that well to the pool. Like the 20:10 workout for instance. You're supposed to sprint for exactly 20 seconds, then stop and rest for 10 seconds. You can imagine how well that goes over in the lap lane of a public pool. Sure, go all out, passing everyone right and left, then stop dead still and watch everyone pile up behind you like a traffic accident in rush hour. That would really make you the most popular person in the lane, right? Luckily, a 50m takes me just about 20 seconds exactly so I just rest at the ends, but it leaves me wondering what other folks whose lap times don't coincide so neatly do in their lap lanes.

Nevertheless, I've been thinking more on how to translate intensity in new and different ways into my Master's Swim workouts. After all, there's only so many ways you can slice and dice lap swimming before it gets repetitive. The set I wrote up for this morning's Masters workout ended up being a really good one:

6 x (25
50
75) all on the :60, no rounders.

These are ALL hard. So you do a hard 25 on the :60, then a hard 50, then a hard 75. You can pick a different interval than :60, but it should be one that you can BARELY complete the 75 on with maybe a couple of seconds rest, then you're back into the 25. Don't let the 25 become a cruise, you've got to hit it just as hard as the 75. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. It's a toughie!

Hemo Back At Work

I'm happy to report that all of my little bone marrow factories are once again in production and I can feel more of those lovely little red blood cells circulating around carrying oxygen to brain and muscles. Does anyone else remember this terrific film that they showed in 6th grade science class, Hemo the Magnificent?? I think of this whenever I have to worry about my body's blood-cell-making capabilities... I think I might just have to order a copy to show my kids, it's really a classic and the best explanation for the circulatory system I ever remember having seen...

In any case, I'm feeling much friskier and I'll have to try another time trial in a week or so to see if things are really back on track. In three weeks we're going to run the Cascade Lakes Relay again, and since the legs of that race take us runners up to 7,000 feet or so, I'll need a few oxygen-carrying blood cells on my side!

Kaizen

At the end of every karate class, our sensei says "Kaizen!" and we clap three times. The translation according to our dojo is "Constant, Never-ending Improvement". Wikipedia gives it as "a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life."

There is power simply in the saying of a word, especially saying it so emphatically, like an exclamation point at the end of every karate workout. It's a reminder that when we go out the door, our commitment does not end. And not just our commitment to the practice of karate, kaizen is a principle that can be applied to every aspect of life. Of course, kaizen appeals to the engineer in my brain: "Is there a more efficient way to hang and fold my laundry?" I try hanging the t-shirts together so that I can fold them all at one time, matching the socks up as I pin them out. I think about kaizen when I prepare food - is this the best most nourishing thing I can give my body right now? Give my kids' bodies? And of course kaizen goes hand in hand with triathlon training. How can I make my hand position more efficient in my swimming stroke? Increase my running foot turnover? Make my bike position just slightly more aero? And it's tailor-made for the Crossfit approach. Crossfit is nothing if not the practice of kaizen.

Even my work encompasses kaizen. One thing I love about coaching, in fact, is the notion that all of the people who come to me are there because they are in search of improvement, and I love helping them achieve that goal. No matter where they are in ability, they are each striving to make themselves better. It's really a brave act, when you think about it (especially as an adult) to come and seek out a teacher, to try to improve. There are many who never do. I see the same swimmers in the pool year in and year out who never change their stroke, never vary a nanosecond in their lap times. Perhaps they are practicing something else, something more zen, more appreciative of the present moment, I don't know. But I do know that the people who are seeking kaizen are the ones that really appeal to me.

And of course, all of us who have taken the parenting leap benefit from the notion of kaizen. I hope I never get to the point where I believe I am a "good enough" parent. I rarely read the "mommy blogosphere" for this reason, it seems that there has been a swing or shift, almost a rebellion against the notion of trying to become a better parent. Instead, mommy bloggers in droves are embracing and even elevating their moments of mediocrity, laughing about investing in their kids' counseling funds, and handing themselves a "bad parenting award" as if that's a good thing. I'm sure much of this is in response to the perfect-parenting notions of the early internet days, the "I breastfed my cloth-diapered organically born-at-home baby longer than you did" competition that seemed rampant for awhile. But somewhere in between the two is more than enough room for some kaizen, I think. I don't need to be a perfect parent, but I never want to stop striving to become a better one.

Student, athlete, employee, parent, spouse, friend, even blogger - the concept of kaizen can bring all aspects of life into sharper focus. Hmmm, now how do I blog better..... all suggestions are welcome...

KAIZEN!

Yah, I'm Thinking That's It

My Crossfit workout today SUCKED... wind that is. I was gasping like a fish out of water, seeing dark spots in front of my eyes. Things that are normally relatively easy like wallballs were killing me. I was getting kind of pissed with myself to be honest 'cuz I hate it when I can't seem to do what I know I can do.

And a few other things have fallen into place, like the fact that I've had RLS (restless leg syndrome, for those of you never plagued with this horrible feeling like electric ants are crawling all over your legs when you're trying to sleep) and the fact that I've been munching on ice like crazy (though I could excuse that with the fact that it's in the 90's here for the first time this summer). Those are both good indicators for me that the ol' red blood cell count is way low. It's like living at 10,000 feet elevation, anything you try to do is twenty times harder.

So in the end, my little temper tantrum with myself being over and all, it's a good thing, because it means that most likely everything else is on target and once this gets cleared up I'll still be on track for a good race or two this year. Stay tuned....

Made of Iron, But Not the Kind You're Thinking Of

Looking back on my 10k TT debacle this week, I'm also looking at another possibility: my old friend Anemia might be back in town. Just realized that I ran out of iron tablets a few weeks ago and it's been on my to-do list to pick up some more. The way anemia works is it sneaks up on you. One day you're running 10 miles and before you know it a week or two later you're gasping for breath when you walk up the stairs. Luckily, there's a pretty easy fix, and since I started taking iron tabs again last night, hopefully I'll know whether or not that's a contributing factor soon enough.

I know some people get anemia in pretty mild forms, in fact it's common in women and very common in athletic women. For some reason, I seem to have a real problem making red blood cells, and have since I was a kid. Various tests have been run over the years with no conclusions about my faulty blood cell factory (no I don't have leukemia, no I don't have nutritional deficiencies, etc. etc.) In fact, it was serious, life-threatening anemia that derailed my first Ironman attempt and had my doctor threatening me with a blood transfusion (not to mention threatening to take a baseball bat to my bicycle if I even got on the thing again until my hematocrit came back up).

From as early as eight years old, I had pica, a condition in which you crave eating strange things (dirt, chalk, ice, paper) and which is frequently caused by anemia. While I was a vegetarian later in life, my family definitely wasn't that way when I was growing up. I remember once when my dad was the grand marshall of the rodeo, one of the bucking bulls threw his back out and they had to shoot him. So we had 400 pounds of "Black Magic" or "Hell's Fury" or whatever the bull's name was in our freezer that year. Needless to say, I wasn't anemic for lack of eating red meat. But I got in trouble frequently at school for eating chalk and paper, and at home I ate so much ice that my dad dismantled the ice maker in our refridgerator. Of course, no one knew that my strange eating habits were really the result of a medical condition, which was very curable.

Once in college, I unknowingly compounded my problems by becoming an athlete, and then a vegetarian. What followed was 20 years of serious battles with anemia in which my blood count would get so low that my doctors couldn't believe I was still standing in front of them (not to mention training for triathlons, climbing mountains, etc.). I'm just stubborn that way I guess. The red blood cell count of a dying cancer victim and I can't be dissuaded from my plans. Eventually after my docs endless pleading and the fact that I could no longer tolerate the massive amounts of iron I needed to take just to stay on the low end of normal, I gave up my vegetarianism. That was just a few years ago and though it took awhile to adjust to eating meat again, I think that's what allowed me to train and complete the Ironman finally (and no, the pun of that name wasn't lost on me at the time!)

So now, I really only have to take one small iron tab a day to stay in the boundaries of low-normal. It's not too much to stay on top of, except that for some reason my brain thinks I can slack off on this and still be okay. Until I'm not. Right now I'd place money on the fact that I'm not. Maybe that's not the only reason I had such a crappo run this week, but I'd bet that it's a big contributing factor. So if you've made it this far in this blog post, keep your fingers crossed for me. And if you know anyone who ever confesses to feeling urges to eat strange things like freezer ice or paper straw wrappers, maybe you'll know why!

Discouraged

So yesterday's run was supposed to be a 10k time trial. I did my warmups and planned on doing 6 laps + 200m around the 1 mile bark loop trail. Starting off, I took it a little easy at an 8:45 pace, which felt okay. My 2nd loop was about an 8:50, but the 3rd was a 9:07. After that, my legs had nothing left in them at all. Last 3 miles were 9:20, 9:43, and 9:58. Total: 55:37 or a 9:16 average, but it felt like HELL. Just a bit over a month ago, I cheerfully ran an "easy slow" 9 miles at a 9:22 pace and felt great. My last 10k in an Oly triathlon was 50:29 (8:24 pace), and that's after over an hour of biking and some swimming thrown in, not just a running time trial. WTH??

So I'm left wondering what the heck is wrong. I slept well, ate well, I feel healthy and rested. Why is my endurance shot to hell? I'm in my 5th week of the Crossfit Endurance plan, and I was hoping that I would at least be on par with what I was doing beforehand.

I've got a couple of theories going, but only time will tell which is right:

1) It was a fluke, we all have bad days and heaven knows, I've had bad workouts before

2) My body is still adjusting to the much higher intensity of the Crossfit Endurance workouts. Given another month or two, I will have adapted better and will be way faster

3) Intense workouts are great, but my body is really built for endurance, it's what it does best. So I'm short-circuting my natural abilities by focusing on faster work, and that's why I'm now slower.

4) All this short fast stuff has just shot my endurance to hell and my Oly triathlon in August is going to be a death slog of epic proportions.

Needless to say, I'm hopeful that it's #1 or #2. I've committed to this CFE plan until my Oly triathlon on August 23. If I'm wrong, that means I've only got about 3 weeks afterward to try to regain some endurance before my half-Iron in September. It's a gamble. Stay tuned and we'll see how it turns out...

Swim Workout: Long IMs and Short Intervals

It was a pool day (our Master's group alternates Saturdays at the lake with Saturdays in the pool), so this was the workout I put up for today. The "Long IM" set is done with medium intensity in freestyle and focus on your stroke sets. The sprint 25s are done with an absolute 10 second rest and are all out.


Warmup: 300 Free 100 Kick 200 Drill 100 Kick 100 Stroke 100 Kick
2 x 150 Pull Build


Main Sets:
150 Free
150 Long IM (Fly Free Back Free Breast Free)
100 Free
150 Long IM
50 Free
150 Long IM
50 EZ


3 x
(10 x 25 Hard, @ 10. sec rest
50 EZ)


Cool Down: 2 X 150 Pull, focus on using reaching forward, engaging lats
200 Swim, keep the lats engaged

3400 yards

I Told You The Lake Was Beautiful

Back in the Land of Low Tech

I'm at my mom's, with a dial-up connection after a week in the hinterlands of no-tech, low-tech seems almost fast. Funny how speed is all relative. I didn't do a ton of actual workouts this week. I brought my jumprope and a mat and did some bodyweight exercises when the killer mosquitoes weren't trying to eat me alive. Did you know that when you start sweating, it sends some kind of pheromonal signal to the entire mosquito population of the lake/wetlands you're camped next to and they arrive en masse and take battle formations over your body? I seriously look like I've got a case of the measles. I did get three runs in, and one amazing swim (wait until you see the photos I took of the lake, it seriously is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I've swum in a lot of beautiful places), and Mackenzie and I took the kayaks out for four days, plus hiking around the Lava Beds National Monument, in caves, around Captain Jack's Sronghold.

All in all, we had enough activity to keep me feeling great, enough downtime to devour three novels (can't remember when the last time I did that was!) Mackenzie worked his way through the first several of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. We brought my guitar, which Mackenzie is learning to play and we bought a couple of cowboy hats just because that's the kind of corny folks we are. Our camp rule was that you had to be wearing your cowboy hat to play the guitar by the campfire. Plus, it kept my head from burning. I forgot to bring my running hat though and I'm here to tell you that cowboy hats don't work well for running. At all.

Today I get to see Asa in the play she's been rehearsing all week (the Missoula Children's Theatre production of Jack and the Beanstalk) and then we're headed for home.

Training On the Road

Lots going on around here. My new Crossfit Endurance training has been going great, it feels very different to do so much shorter stuff, and no real long distance. This week has been crazy in so many ways. If you read my Blue Skies blog, you know that my daughter Asa's cat died of antifreeze poisoning. We're taking off in an hour to take Asa down to my mom's house for a week of a theatre camp, and Mackenzie and I are going camping, hiking, and kayaking for a week. So I'll be no-tech for at least a week, just doing my training and enjoying the great outdoors. It will honestly be nice to get away and maybe the pain of losing such a sweet pet will lessen a little bit being away from home.

Hope you all have a terrific week. Blue Skies from me.

Committing To A New Plan

So those of you intrepid readers who actually attempt to follow my meandering thoughts here probably fall into one of two categories. One who are already experiencing, or who are interested in the concept of the new workout experience in my life that is Crossfit. And the others, perhaps dedicated triathletes or other endurance athletes who really could care less to hear about lifting big hunks of iron or throwing medicine balls at walls.

If you're in the second group, you can tune me out about now, because I'm about to throw even more of my training eggs into the Crossfit basket. I'm embarking on full-scale Crossfit Endurance training, replacing any of my LSD (no, even though I live in the hippy holdout capitol of the universe, that doesn't refer to a mind-altering drug, it's Long Slow Distance training) with much more focused, targeted, shorter, more intense triathlon workouts. The reasoning behind this? As the Crossfit Endurance (CFE) website claims:

Studies demonstrate that the adaptations caused by anaerobic training are similar to high volume endurance training, however, this adaptation comes at much lower training volumes

As a very busy homeschooling mom, I'm extremely intrigued by the concept of training for endurance and ultra-endurance events on a much lower time commitment in terms of training hours. I'm willing to up the intensity of the hours I put in if it means more time with the family. But does it work? That's the big question of course. So since I have a good long-standing baseline of my triathlon times in various distances, I'm giving it a go for this summer's Olympic distance triathlon. With several months of CFE training under my belt, as well as my regular Crossfit workouts, I should be able to tell whether I'm: A) At par with my regular performance, B) Blowing my regular performance expectations away on a shortened schedule or C) Whether there really is no substitute for putting in the miles.

Based on the results of my Olympic triathlon, I'll decide whether to add back in some distance work for my September Half-Ironman.

So far I am on Week One of the total commitment to the CFE schedule. So instead of my usual Sunday Long Run (I'm sure you're all familiar with that one), I headed to the marked mile loop to do short time trials at high intensity. I have to say, the feeling afterwards with only 40 minutes of running was similar to last week's 10 miler, so maybe there's something in it after all.

Stay Tuned as the Experiment Continues.....

Swim Workout: Rotating Intervals of Doom

I like to put a good swim workout title like that up on the board, just to get the blood flowing in all of the Master's swimmers. When the first thing out of their mouth is "oh shit" when they look at the board, maybe that's a good thing? Then again, our Master's group could sometimes be renamed as the "Swim, Bitch, and Sandbag Club" and I'm threatening to order swimsuits with that embroidered on the butt. Sometimes I feel like half Den Mother and half coach.

In any case, I think this workout is a fun one. Not too complicated and the yards go by fast. The key is to keep the non-fast intervals at a medium pace, not a slow one and you'll be working your endurance as well as your speed. In the main set, you switch up which one of the intervals is your hard one (first one is the 25, next one is the 50, and so on) and do the same with the 2nd part of the main set (first the 125 is hard, then next time through it's the 100, and so on).

Warmup: 350 Swim 250 Pull
4 x 100 Swim/Kick/Drill/Swim by 25s

Main Set:

4 x (25-50-75-100) – Rotate Hard, rest are medium @10 sec. rest

50 Active Recovery

4 x (125-100-75-50) – Rotate Hard, rest are medium @15 sec. rest



Pull 2 x 200 - Build

4 x 50 All Out/Cruise by 25s @ 1:15

100 Cool Down

4150 yards

There's Not Much Better

There aren't many things better than getting to swim outside in the sunshine. Unless your daughter decides to come with you and swim laps, that is. We had a great time in one of the first truly hot days of the year. It's cool when your kids get old enough to do these things together. When they were younger, finding time to work out was about finding babysitters or using jogging strollers. Now we just do it together. Love it.

You Know You've Done a Hard Workout When...

Your hubby phones and your arm muscles literally can barely lift the phone to your ear, and then the whole time you're talking your arm is shaking like a leaf trying to hold it there. Guess it's time to find the charger for my bluetooth headset if I'm going to keep doing workouts like this...

Crossfit Update #4 and The Inadvertant Monster Hill

As I've maybe mentioned before, one of the things I like about Crossfit is the ability to measure and track your progress over time. So when I saw that yesterday's workout was going to be "Grace" (many of the Crossfit workouts have women's names), I was excited because I did Grace in mid-March and knew what my stats were. Grace consists of 30 reps of the Clean and Jerk at a weight you can manage to complete that, and it's done for time. Coach Jeremy puts a slide on the wall showing our stats from the last time we did this workout - in Crossfit, all stats are written on the whiteboard in the room, and then photographed by the coach. Additionally, many gyms use Beyond The Whiteboard to track stats online, with graphs and other cool features. In March, I was able to lift 60 pounds and it took me 8:47 to complete. Yesterday, two months later, I could lift 70 pounds and it took me 4:28. Ten more pounds in half the time! Yet I remember back in March being completely tapped out trying to complete it in 8:47. Now that's amazingly cool! Can't wait to see what I can do next time. I'm reasonably sure this newfound core, arm, and shoulder strength is behind some of my swimming gains lately.

On the other hand, in the afternoon I went for a bike ride and headed out on a new road I'd never explored before. It was really lovely, one of those roads you want to just keep going on and never turn around. I was hoping to find out that it looped around to one of my favorite rides. After a couple of miles, it started climbing what looked like a small ridge. My legs were a bit toasted from the morning's Crossfit, but no worries I just took it easy and spun up the hill. Then it started climbing some more. No problem, I still wanted to take it light on the spent quads, so since there was no traffic I zigzagged across the hill. Then the grade REALLy went up and I was standing on the pedals AND zigzagging and my quads were screaming but by that time I could see the top of the hill above me and no way was I going to give up at that point.

When I finally puffed out on top, I realized that I had inadvertantly climbed up the back side of one of the most killer hills around these parts. Ha ha, joke's on me. So much for a nice light afternoon ride. Still all told, my legs felt okay and didn't even hurt too much at today's Crossfit workout where we got to squat with big heavy weights. Yeah, that's me on the right saying "oh my achin' hamstrings!":

Ride of Silence Reminder

Just a reminder that the annual Ride of Silence is this Wednesday all across the U.S. and in many other countries as well. You can find rides in your area at: http://www.rideofsilence.org/

DATE: May 20, 2009
TIME: 7:00 pm
WHERE: Hundreds of locations world wide
Join cyclists worldwide in a silent slow-paced ride (max. 12 mph/20 kph) in honor of those who have been injured or killed while cycling on public roadways.

Race Report: Lebanon Sprint Triathlon

Remembering last year's heat-fest, with similar projected temps for this year, I decided to take proactive action and bring along a little neck cooler. By the way, many of the links with directions to make these also mention that soldiers serving in desert regions need them, so if you're a person who likes to sew, make a few extra and help keep some soldiers cool! They really work, and I had a much, much more enjoyable run this year than last.

But I'm getting ahead of myself in the race report. This is a small local race that nevertheless draws a really fast crowd, including a lot of the local university's triathlon team, so it's fun and competitive at the same time. I felt pretty good about my training going into the race, I've been averaging about 8 hours a week of tri-specific training, and 5 - 7 hours a week of extra stuff like Crossfit and Karate. I thought I had a good taper this week (more on that later, hah!), although the weather was so beautiful (after so much rain!) that I inadvertantly rode a little bit further on Thursday's supposedly "easy, short" ride than I should've (the beautiful road beckoned and I answered).

The race started at 8:00, but since it had a pool swim, my wave wasn't until 10:00, I had plenty of time to ramble around. After racking my bike, I got settled in to warming up, and satisfied Section 1.0 of Robin's Race Code, which goes something like this:

1.0 Always find at least one first-timer and encourage them
2.0 Give verbal encouragement to everyone on the course that you have breath for
3.0 Thank every volunteer and police officer on the course
4.0 Congratulate fellow athletes (especially first-timers) after the race

I got to chat with Tri-newbie Will, a first-timer who had a great time in his inaugural triathlon. Also, my daughter's piano teacher Becky was doing her first race with her husband and son also in their first triathlon, and they all finished with smiles to go around. Since there were so many heats, I had plenty of time to cheer the folks in the earlier waves. My own cheering section was absent since Asa had another dance performance back at home and Wayne was on costuming and transport duty.


Here's my goals, from an email to my Crossfit coach:

Last year I did the same race in 1:14:23. Splits were:

7:30 Swim
36:30 Bike
27:45 Run
2:40 Transitions (total T1 & T2)


Ideally this year I'd like to be:

<7:10 Swim
36:30 Bike
<27:00 Run
2:30 Transitions (total T1 & T2)
For somewhere around 1:13

Onto the race: My wave of the pool swim was the fastest swimmers. I was 2nd in my lane, the guy who was in front of me had estimated 6:40 for his swim, I estimated 6:55 for mine. He was a big guy so I was hoping for a great draft! No such luck, he petered out quick and kindly let me pass in the first couple of laps. I had to lap the girl who was swimming behind me as well, and felt strong and smooth in my swimming. As I climbed out of the water and glanced at my watch, I was really really happy to see 6:44. Then I remembered that I started my watch when the first wave went, which gave me a time of 6:39. Niiiiiiice..... As far as I could tell, there were only a couple of guys who got out of the pool before me.

T1 was about 1:20, so far so good. Out onto the bike course. This course is so pretty, I really love it. All intersections well monitored by local police (thanked them as I zoomed past, taking care of RRC 2.0) Out into rolling countryside with beautiful pastoral views. Normally the bike is kind of a no-brainer for me, I just pedal away like mad and enjoy. It wasn't going so smooth this time. Big-time quadriceps cramping going on. Has never happend to me before, very confusing. So I had to back my gear off a notch and take a bit faster cadence, dropping my speed slightly. A little bit of worry about what this means for my run, but other than that I just tried to enjoy the course. Out and back course means I get to see everybody else. Confirm no women from my wave in front of me, two guys from my wave smoke past me but that's it! A couple of women about 3 - 4 minutes behind me, must try to put some more room behind me. Although quad cramps a mystery, I cruise into T2 in 37:30, a bit slower than I wanted to be but at least legs feel okay.

T2 is just under 1:00, I remember to take my neck cooler with me and I'm off on the run. Quads feel wooden, but miraculously start to feel better. Still don't know what's up there. Had a nice run, but my left foot starts to hurt, look down and see I'm running kind of funny I think still due to the quad cramping, I'm turning my left foot slightly out. It will probably hurt tomorrow but it's only 3 miles so I just carry on. Only one woman passes me, but she's on a relay team, so no women from the my wave have passed me, yay! Forget to get my run split on the watch, but cruise in with a total time of 1:12:39. Doing the math gives me a run time of 26:09, which is an 8:25 run split. Not too bad for this early in the season.

After I got home, I took a look at my training log to see if I could pin down the mystery quad cramps, and I think I have the culprit. Although I tapered off well on all of my workouts (no Crossfit last week, reduced volume in tri workouts, etc.), because the weather got nice I was doing all of my running around town on my commuter bike instead of the car, and I used the tandem to take Asa to her dance and theatre rehearsals. So though my tri training tapered off, my bike volume actually DOUBLED last week. Commuter miles and especially tandem miles are very quad-heavy because there's a lot of stopping and starting with heavier loads (plus I live on a hill, so doing the hill every time I come home). That's not a good way to taper! I'm making a mental note to taper not only my tri training but to make sure I don't overdo the bike commuting before a race. I rolled out the quads last night and they feel just fine this morning, no knots just a little tired.

All in all I'm happy because I beat my time from last year AND my goal time for this race. Not a PR, but a good time for an early season sprint!

Annual Mother's Day Swim, Sans Wetsuit

Seems like I'm making it a bit of a yearly tradition to go to a lake on Mother's Day and swim, and this year we had the extra incentive of wanting to launch Mackenzie's Christmas present kayak for the first time. My mom came up for the weekend and brought her kayak, and the two of them had a grand time on the water together. Somehow in all of the fussing around trying to get the kayaks loaded, I forgot my wetsuit.

Well, let's just say that I swam anyways but that water was C-O-L-D!!! Probably mid-60's if I had to hazard a guess. I had an immediate vagal reflex reaction (which means water was definitely below 70 degrees) where I just suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe and had to take a few breaststrokes just to work through it and get my heartrate back to normal. For those of you who haven't experienced this, if you do a swim or race in cold enough water and feel a panicky can't breathe kind of feeling immediately, just stop and let yourself adjust. You can often circumvent this response by making sure you get your face wet with cold water first. I did move past the reflex and then it was cold but tolerable and I probably swam for about 15 - 20 minutes before I got chilled enough that I had to stop. Oh, and I forgot about one other fun thing that happens when you swim without a wetsuit in lakes that are frequented by geese... swimmer's itch! It's driving me mad today.


Since the beginning of my Mother's Day weekend was fairly horrible, it was nice to end it on a good note doing what I love the most. Well, actually it ended with a yummy salmon BBQ when we got home, courtesy of my grill-meister hubby. So all's well that ends well.

Tabata Swim

If you've never heard of the Tabata Protocol, here's a great little article from Men's Fitness Magazine that explains the basics and a little bit of the history. Crossfit utilizes Tabata intervals in their workouts, and originally the Tabata Protocol was developed for speed skaters, but very few triathletes I know have ever heard of them. I did find an article on Active.com's triathlon section on utilizing Tabata intervals with a bike trainer, which is a good way to ease into trying Tabata, if such a grueling workout could ever be "eased" into. Though it only lasts 4 minutes, the puke-factor is really high with this workout. It's Intense, with the capital "I".

The Tabata basics: 6 - 8 intervals consisting of 20 seconds going ALL OUT followed by only 10 seconds of rest. Yeah, it's a killer. But Izumi Tabata, Ph.D., a researcher at Japan's National Institute of Fitness and Sports studied the effects of this workout and discovered that not only are those 4 little minutes of extreme workout effort and minimal rest better than traditional intervals (with their 1:3 workout-to-rest ratio), it's better than aerobic conditioning itself at improving your aerobic condition.

I decided to try to have a little fun with Tabata intervals in the pool and my Master's swimmers this week. Whenever I decide to unleash something new and different on them, I always try it out myself first (see, I'm not totally heartless), so I did this workout myself last week, and with my Master's folks on Saturday. Tabata intervals lend themselves pretty easily to most sports, everything from bodyweight exercises to punching bag workouts to running on the track can be done Tabata-style. But swimming is a little different because it's hard to stop quickly and you have to keep turning around. With 4 - 5 swimmers in a lane, logistics were the hardest thing to overcome in planning this workout.

What I decided to do was just have each swimmer start in a different part of the lane, and have everybody circle-swim. I was the whistle-blower for the 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off routine. Now with swimming, I wouldn't try this workout unless your technique is already good. The main reason is that speed and endurance in swimming, unlike almost every other exercise you might do, is about 90% good technique. So swimming Tabatas with poor technique might improve your aerobic conditioning, but it also might make you slower in the pool. If you're already a reasonably good swimmer though, give this one a go.

In the warmup of this workout, and the earlier intervals, focus hard on good, good, good form. That way when you get to the Tabatas, you're set up to keep form and add power.

===========

Tabata Swim

Warmup: 8 x 100 Odd Free, Even Choice
4 x 75 25 Drill, 50 Swim
2 x 100 Powerup
50 Swim Golf

-------------

6 x 200 Desc. x 3 Int. = 1st 200 + 15 s.
6 x 100 Desc. x 3 Int = 1st 100 + 1- s.


-------------

Tabata Swim x 8
Tabata Kick x 8
Tabata Pull x 8
Tabata Swim x 8


150 Cool

4150 Yards

Unburying the Abs Update

Back in December, I posted this about trying to work on my core and staying accountable for healthy food choices. Since then, there's been some ups and downs. I never did manage to go sugar-free for very long (the siren song of dark chocolate proved too strong), but on the whole I've moved from eating pretty darn healthy to eating much healthier.

Most of my focus has been on getting my carbs from nutrient-dense fruits and veggies instead of from nutrient-sparse grains and trying to eat more protein, which keeps my blood sugar stable and keeps me from feeling spacey every few hours. It has the added benefit of reducing packaged foods (which tend to be mostly grain-based) and bringing my eating ever-more-local, which is always a goal of mine. All of our meat, eggs, milk, and most of our fruits and veggies are bought locally, and in the summer all of the veggies come from the garden, so this also saves money, packaging, food waste, etc. As with so many things, what is good for the body is also good for the environment, local farmers and merchants, and the community as a whole.

Also, I committed to working out my core every day, via a challenge over at TriFuel. I haven't been as religious about it as some over there, but making it part of my routine has really helped. Between adding Crossfit and keeping my karate training going, now at a brown-belt level, I'm working my core muscles more anyways. My back feels a TON better than it did over the winter, totally recovered and stronger than it was before.

With all of this, I started noticing that everything was fitting looser, and lo and behold I've lost about 4 pounds, and about 2% body fat. Not something you really notice on a day to day basis, but it all adds up. So I took an updated photo and wow, I could really see the difference.

Photo #1 is from December 2008, Photo #2 is from April 2009.

Crossfit Update #3

About a month and a half into this Crossfit experience now, and I'm just starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of things. I really like seeing myself progress, this week I switched up to a lighter band for doing pull-ups, which is one step closer to being able to do them without a band.

As you might guess from a software engineer and triathlon nerd (you know all us triathletes just love our stats and spreadsheets) one thing I like is the trackability of Crossfit. Many of the workouts are named and come around every so often, so you can see what you did last time (weights, reps, time) on a particular workout and evaluate your improvement. Most Crossfit gyms use a whiteboard to keep track of everyone's time for the day, and ours utilizes a website called beyond the whiteboard where you can track your workouts on cute little graphs, and compare with your gymmates and with Crossfit members from other gyms.

I'm continuing to struggle with integrating Crossfit into my triathlon training however. Because my schedule as a homeschooling mom, and a new puppy owner, and an urban gardener, and swim coach, etc. is so sporadic, I've always just slotted in my triathlon workouts whenever I can. However, that doesn't work so well when a Crossfit workout is scheduled at a particular time. For instance on Thursday I was planning to go for a 1.5 hour bike ride in the morning, and then do the 5:00 pm Crossfit class. However, life intervened and I didn't get to ride my bike until almost 3:00. That means I finished my (hilly) bike ride and rushed off to Crossfit. After the Crossfit warmup (pullups, situps, squats, ring dips, back extensions, etc.) this was our workout:

Walking lunge 100 ft.
21 Pull-ups
21 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
18 Pull-ups
18 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
15 Pull-ups
15 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
12 Pull-ups
12 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
9 Pull-ups
9 Sit-ups
Walking Lunge 100 ft.
6 Pull-ups
6 Sit-ups

and that all was topped off with a 2 minute Max Squats (how many squats you can do in 2 minutes). Needless to say, with the hilly bike ride, starting into all of those lunges my legs were already toast! About halfway through the Max Squats I could feel that they were just going to seize up on me and I had to stop. I think our Crossfit coach maybe thought I was nuts or something (these Crossfit folks usually don't just stop in the middle of a workout). But at some point, something has to give and that day it was getting the full benefit of a Crossfit workout because I had already really taxed my legs too much.

Same thing happened the next day when I ended up doing a 7-mile run way too close to the evening Crossfit. I don't honestly know how all this will work out in the long run. I can easily see integrating Crossfit into winter base training, but it remains to be seen whether or not I can continue working it into my training as I approach the more intense months of summer race schedule. First race is in three weeks, so I guess we'll see how that goes. I definitely think I should not Crossfit in the taper week!

Swim Workout: How to Add Speed Without Adding Churn

Many times when I'm working with inexperienced swimmers I will perform the following metric. I have them swim 100 at their slow or long distance pace, then with adequate rest a 100 at their medium or middle distance pace, then rest again then 100 sprint. Often the result will be that their slow, medium, and fast 100's are only separated by a second or two, or are exactly the same speed. Sometimes the "fastest" one is actually slower than their "slow" despite the fact that they are way more winded after swimming "fast".

The reason for these strange results is that for many swimmers when they try to swim faster they drastically increase their churn. This leads to increased drag and despite the fact that they are working much harder, they are actually not swimming any faster at all.

If you have never tried this metric, try it sometime after a good warmup. Ideally your slow, medium, and fast speeds should be separated by 10 seconds or more.

The following workout is meant to help with these issues. The main set is comprised of "descending" (meaning: getting faster) sets. For instance, the three 50s, 100s, etc. are to be swum at a distance pace (pace you would swim 1500 at), middle distance pace (pace for 300 - 500) and sprint (pace for a 100).

On the first one (distance pace) I have my swimmers focus on swimming smooth. I use the mantra "slow is smooth, smooth is fast, therefore slow is fast", repeating that over in my head when I swim a distance set. This keeps your focus on a smooth, low-drag stroke. Use a 2-beat or relaxed 6-beat kick.

On the second (middle-distance pace), I have the swimmers use the exact same smooth stroke, but add power. By this I mean as soon as you instigate the catch in your stroke, you pull back on the water with more power. Everything else stays the same.

For the third (fast pace), use the same smooth stroke with power but add in a strong kick. This should be your sprinting stroke - a hard kick with a smooth and powerful stroke, but relaxed and smooth recovery.

Keeping all this in mind, here's the workout:

Warmup:
200 Swim, 100 Kick, 4 x 50 Pull DPS (Distance per Stroke)
8 x 75 Kick/Drill/Swim IM Order
4 x (25 - 50 - 25) 5 sec rest, 10 sec rest, 5 sec rest - Start to add some speed here on the 50s

Main Set:
Descending - 1: Smooth, 2: Smooth with Power, 3: Smooth with Power and kick
3 x 50
3 x 100
3 x 150
3 x 200

Cool Down:
100 Choice

Total 3100 yards

Swim: Middle-Distance Dream Workout

I'm a little behind in writing these up, but here's last Saturday's Masters Workout. This one is aimed at the middle distance of 500 - 800 yards, perfect for tuning up for your spring Sprint triathlons. The key to this workout is picking a tough interval for the broken 500 ladder in the main set. You want to pick an interval that roughly matches your 500 pace, with a little rest. So if you normally swim a 500 on a 1:20 per 100 pace, pick an interval pace of 1:30, which means you'll do the 50s on the :45, the 100s on the 1:30, and the 200 on the 3:00. There is no rounding up in this main set, it should be continuous at a strenuous distance pace.

Warmup:
Swim 300, Kick 100, Swim 200, Pull 200
8 X 50 swim, IM Order (if you can't do the full strokes yet, do IM drills)
6 x 75: 25 Kick (no board), 25 Drill, 25 Swim

Main Set:
2 X
(50 - 100 - 200 - 100 - 50 Free
4 x 100 Odd DPS Pull, Even Kick
)

6 x 75: 25 Hard, 25 Cruise, 25 Hard (the Hards should be ALL OUT)

Cool Down:
100 EZ

4,000 yards

Today I'm 43. I Run Up Mountains.

Yesterday I was out biking with hubby doing errands around town. We were about to leave the Builder's Garage Sale (would've been better to bring a truck than our bikes, honestly) when this man walked up to me and out of the blue says "Do you run up mountains?"

Um....not recently

"Well," he said, "you just look like you could run up mountains"

and with that he walked off.

Today is my birthday. My 43rd birthday. I can't count the number of people who have told me "you don't have to tell me how old you are." I could care less how old I am. I'm 43. 43 years on this planet. There's nothing to be ashamed of, being 43. 43 trips around the sun. Why do we treat it like it's some horrible curse???

I'm 43 years old, and while I haven't run up mountains since hubby and I trained to climb Kilimanjaro in 1995, I could do it at any point I chose to. Isn't that the coolest thing about keeping your body, your mind, and your spirit in tip-top condition and feeling young?? I COULD run up a mountain tomorrow, if I felt like it. And you never know, I just might.

And while no one in our family ran up any mountains today, Wayne and the kids ran down some sand dunes with our new pup, Callie. Now Wayne is a pretty speedy runner, but this dog is something else. Doesn't she look like she's channeling greyhound in this picture???

Speaking of Callie, it's amazing how much more healthy and vital she's gotten in the almost two weeks we've had her now. When she first came to live with us, she slept a lot and seemed almost lethargic. Little by little she pepped up and just in the last few days she has become quite another dog altogether. I know our neighbor who rescued her said she was infested with fleas, ticks, and worms when she first found her and she was still getting over all of that, so this is probably just her returning to good health, maybe for the first time ever. She has definitely filled out and filled up with energy now!

So for my birthday, I got what I most wanted - no presents, just the presence of my kids and hubby. We took an impromptu run to the beach. Despite having a ton of work to do around the homefront (we are currently remodeling the front of our house/deck) we grabbed a half a day since the sun was shining and headed west. The sun and sand were beckoning, and I got to play a little bit of frisbee with my kids, watch them run around with the new pup and...

What birthday would be complete without a swim? This is a lot earlier than I usually get in the lake, even with the full wetsuit. But the water looked too inviting to pass up and of course I did pack the wetsuit along just in case.... I'm guesstimating it was about 57 degrees, cold enough I had trouble talking when I got out due to my lips freezing. But still, it felt marvelous, simply grand. As soon as I took that first stroke, I was in heaven. Sunlight sparkling on the water droplets flying off of my fingers, and the sound of the small waves in my neoprene-covered ears. In my head, Beethoven's full orchestral Ode to Joy started playing, perfectly timed to the rhythm of my strokes, and I felt that peculiar joy of being so very alive down to the last nerve ending in my little toes.

I may be {gasp, cue drumroll....} 43 years old... but I can still run up mountains, or swim laps around a lake any time I choose.

Banish the Popcorn Knees

I typed this up in response to a question on Trifuel's forums about how to do a proper flutter kick. I thought it might be helpful to share some of this info here, in case kicking is anyone's personal bugaboo (all you triathletes out there who always train with pull buoys, maybe???)

If you're having trouble with the freestyle kick, chances are, you’re doing one of two things. You’re either bending your knees too much when you kick, which is the most common kicking mistake people make, or you’re not bending your ankles/feet enough.

First, the “popcorn knees” (I call it that because if you flip over and kick on your back, your knees will look like popcorn popping out of the water). It’s only natural to do this, we humans bend our knees to do everything else, but in the pool it costs us a lot of extra energy and drag to do so. To see if this is your issue, kick on your back holding the end of a kickboard very loosely in your hands with the kickboard itself extending (floating) over the tops of your thighs and knees. If your knees hit the board, you have popcorn knees. But wait, some people cheat by simply bending their knees but keeping their feet underwater. So what you need to do is kick with your feet breaking the surface but without your knees hitting the board, then you will start fixing this issue. I like this drill because you can tell what you’re doing and whether you’re getting better without a coach there, it’s self-correcting.

In order to kick correctly without the knee bending, you should be feeling it in the tops of the backs of your legs (upper hamstrings) and in your glutes. You can stand at the end of the pool and tense those muscles and then start kicking and try to feel the same muscles firing.

Second, the ankle/foot flexibility. Usually when people start trying to kick with straighter legs, they also lock their feet/ankles up. This is the pat-your-head-rub-your-tummy syndrome. As you try to bend one thing less, you also bend the other thing less. To counter this, stand on the pool deck and kick one foot as if you’re trying to kick peanut butter off of your toes, in a toe-flipping kind of motion. Notice how your leg doesn’t bend much but your foot flops around. This is the sensation you want while kicking – very little knee bend, lots of up and down with the foot. Now get in the pool and stand at the end and do the same peanut-butter-toe-flick. Then start kicking. Chances are, you’ll be moving quite a bit faster than you were before. But then you might find yourself slowing down again. If so, stop where you are (do not reinforce poor kicking technique). Repeat peanut-butter-toe exercise, start kicking again. Repeat if necessary.

This is one of the hardest issues in swimming to tackle (besides breathing). Be patient with yourself, it might take a bit of time to conquer this. After all, on land we never walk around with straight knees and floppy ankles, it’s an inherently un-humanlike motion. So it’s something we have to teach ourselves to do.

Silk Purse Run

The sow's ear: yesterday was one of those days from Mothering Hell. Well, okay I exaggerate because I know that somewhere in the world are mothers who are worrying about getting enough food and water for their kids' survival. But it was straight from Pampered Westerner's Mothering Hell. First of all, dear darling daughter went to a sleepover on Friday night, which meant that of course (word "SLEEPover" not withstanding), she got NO SLEEP. So by Saturday evening she was a raging ball of melting down 9 year old. She's normally a feisty little thing, but cheerful and kind. Not so when she gets no sleep. She collapsed at 7:00 pm in her room after much door slamming and didn't wake up again that evening.

Fast forward to 12:15 am, NOW she wakes up, of course. And can't get back to sleep. By the time I install her in our bed, shoving various cats out of the way, I'm wide awake. Which turns out to be a good thing because I sit bolt upright and realize that in all of the hoopla, I forgot to do the Easter baskets. Though she is nine, she is a firm believer in all things magical, like Easter bunnies and Santa Claus (not sure how much of this belief is willed at this point, but whatever). So there I am at 1:00 am putting together Easter baskets. Except that I forgot to buy artificial Easter grass, so what I'm really doing at 1:00 am is cutting up the remains of a roll of birthday streamers into a Easter Basket Grass Simulant. It takes awhile. By 2:00 am I'm back in bed and maybe asleep by 2:30. Daughter, now duly rested after 12 hours of sleep is of course up at 7:00, excited about Easter baskets. I'm feeling already a little whupped.

We get the eggs dyed (supposed to happen yesterday evening, but due to sleeping daughter it's now last minute). Mackenzie, 12.5 year old son goes out to the guinea pig pen to take them to their outdoor hut and comes in saying that something's wrong with his guinea pig. Turns out she has prolapsed something bloody and awful looking out of her nether regions. Pretty much I know at this point that she's a goner, but he and I take her to the emergency vet hospital, bundled up in a towel. The kids have had their guinea pigs for over 5 years now, and I know that they've been approaching the end of their normal life span, but I was hoping for a peaceful passing in the sleep that's more common with smaller animals, not this. Poor little thing, she's such a sweetheart. Vet confirms that it's probably a prolapsed cancerous uterus, and that otherwise she looks to be a very well cared for guinea pig but that she's now come to the end of her days. Horrible decision to put her to sleep after son asks about life-saving surgery. A "damn it", fist in the eye and stifled sob instead of a tearful hugging breakdown are just some of the few indicators that my baby boy is venturing into manhood with not just physical but emotional territory these days.

The rest of Easter goes relatively smoothly - family brunch with my usual strawberry crepes and then for the first year Mackenzie plays Easter Bunny while Asa takes the dog for a walk, and this cheers him up immensely - he loves taking on these older roles. By 5:00 in the afternoon I knew that I SHOULD go for a run, but I had no energy whatsoever. I literally felt emotionally drained and completely lethargic and did one of those long debates about whether or not it was better to just give up or to force myself out the door.

I ended up running with my friend Kay, and I'm glad that she got me out the door. Sometimes it's strange but with exercise you really can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Sometimes the very hardest times when you can barely force yourself to start out seem to end up the best. After 20 minutes, Kay turned toward home but I was feeling so good I just kept going. 75 minutes later, I came back in, soaked to the bone with rain but feeling just terrific. It was one of those runs where everything just came together and felt great - strong, smooth, and effortless. I really needed it and again it made me grateful for the blessings of exercise in life's harder moments.

In memoriam, RIP Acorn, one of the sweetest little critters around. This is a funny photo that Mackenzie had me shoot of her, playing on his GameCube.

Nothing To Do With Triathlon

Okay, so I have to just do a teensy weensy little callout here to the fact that my kids are in People magazine this week. Along with our garden, and one of our chickens. No kidding! In the article about turning lawns into gardens.

Dog Days

Haven't had much time to post this week, something completely unexpected happened... we got a puppy! Although it's hard to believe, it's been two years since I had to say goodbye to my best buddy Sabre. The kids of course have wanted another dog, but we've just told them it had to be the right dog at the right time, and we knew that someday it would come along. Well, I guess this was the week!

Our neighbor took a trip to California and ended up rescuing a puppy down there from a bad home situation. She's a 4 month old Jack Russell terrier mutt/mix (we think with some beagle), and she's a real sweetheart. But of course she's also still a puppy, which means a lot of work. Overall though she has a great temperament, not a barker and a real snuggly pup.

I don't know if she'll ever be the running companion that Sabre was. And honestly, I think out of the four of us I'm the only one who really wasn't ready yet to get another dog. She's very cute and very sweet, but she really hasn't taken my heart like Sabre did. Maybe because he was all mine from the start and he and I spent so much time together, or maybe just because there's this place in my heart that I can't really open up yet. Only time will tell. But it's been just great for the kids. They knew Sabre their whole lives, so it was very hard for them not to have a dog around. So far they're doing a great job taking care of her, I'm hoping that lasts!

And so now we have eighteen, yes count them, eighteen animals! Oy! I keep having this panicky feeling when I've left the house that maybe I've forgotten something. Guinea pigs in their outdoor pen, check. Baby chickens have food and water, check. Hens are out of their coop for the day, check. Cats fed, oldest cat had medicine, check. Now dog is with us, check. Phew.

Swim Workout - Building Speed

Some of our Masters swimmers are headed to a big swim meet in two weeks, so this is my last pre-taper workout for them. It's a hard one. I seriously thought I was going to puke after that last 200, haven't felt like that in the pool for long time.
The 200's and the 100's in the main set are on a fixed interval. The key to this set is setting a relatively long interval so you can hit the Hard parts HARD. Our fastest two lanes were taking a 3:20 interval for the 200s and 1:40 for the 100s, coming in on 2:15 - 2:35 for the 200s and 1:05 - 1:20 for the 100s. So plenty of rest, hit the hard parts hard, and the medium parts are not easy or cruise but medium.

Enjoy, and don't eat within a couple hours of attempting...



Warmup:
8 x 100 Odd Free, Even Choice
6 x 75 25 Kick, 50 Swim
6 x 50 Drill/Swim IM Order

Main Set:
5 x 200:
#1: 50 Hard, 150 Medium
#2: 100 Hard, 100 Medium
#3 150 Hard, 50 Medium
#4 Cruise
#5 All Out

50 Easy Recovery

5 x 100:
#1: 25 Hard, 75 Medium
#2: 50 Hard, 50 Medium
#3 75 Hard, 25 Medium
#4 Cruise
#5 All Out

Pull 5 x 50 – 1st stroke every lap with weakest arm

10 x 50 Sprint 25 ALL OUT, flip hard and cruise back 25 @ 1:00

Cool Down:
5 x 50 Progressively slower

4100 Yards

April Runnin' Fool

I got a real good one over on my hubby today for April Fool's Day. He was madder than a wet hen before I started busting out in laughter. And I successfully avoided being the butt of any April Fool's jokes from my kids. Those of you who have ever had a mischievous 12 year old boy or impish 9 year old girl know exactly how hard that is to accomplish!!

So today I was a fool in a good way, a running fool, a smiling fool, a gearing-up-for-tri-season kind of fool. I had a great run today, the kind where everything finally comes together and feels just right. A light rain sprinkled down on me and each foot set down on the pavement in a kind of happy rhythm. My strides felt long and limber and my back felt miraculously free from the last remains of my autumn injury. And now the days are getting longer, I can run in the evening hours, which is my favorite time of all.

Happy Aprils Fool's Day to all the running fools out there...

Crossfit Update #2

This last week was my third week of Crossfit workouts, and so far I have nothing but good things to say about the program. It has really challenged me in ways that I hadn't thought about. Being a coach, I think it's good sometimes to put yourself in the position of being a beginner at something, of being new and maybe intimidated and frustrated with yourself. It definitely gives you a lot more compassion and insight into how the people you're coaching feel.

That's how I've felt from time to time with Crossfit. Many of their exercises do intimidate me. I've never done any kind of powerlifting moves like the clean-and-jerk or the deadlift. Even though I've intermittently gone and hit the weight machines in the gym for years, I've never done any kind of lifting that maxed out my muscles. All of the coordination necessary to do these moves is new and feels awkward to my body. Even looking at the big round black weights on the bars kind of wigs me out a bit, to tell the truth.

To the credit of our Crossfit coach Jeremy, I've felt very comfortable with the level of skills instruction in the Crossfit program. Each time we did a move that was new, we practiced it over and over with a piece of PVC pipe while Jeremy gave individual feedback on technique and position. Despite my worries (especially with my recent back injury), I never felt so much as a twinge when we moved on to doing these moves with weights. I've lifted way more than I ever have in my life, with way more repetitions than I imagined I could.

The great beauty of the Crossfit program though is the intensity of the workouts, the fact that they're timed, and the fact that you're doing them with other people which ups the ante and makes you really really push yourself. On Wednesday I tried to swim right after the Crossfit workout and it was hilarious because my body really just didn't work, at all. My muscles were limp noodles, I could barely raise my arms to take a stroke. After about 800 yards or so, I felt like everything started responding again, but that was a really strange interlude, and it shows how taxed you get during these crazy intense workouts.

So bottom line is that Crossfit has exceeded my expectations for workout intensity, general fun, safety, and good technique. I feel like I've learned a lot and been able to push my body in new ways. I'm starting to feel good results in my swimming and running too. My hips especially feel stronger in the run (all those squatting moves) and my lats and shoulders in swimming.

So far, this program gets an A+ in my book.

Swim Like an Egyptian

For this week's Master's swim, I reprised an old favorite workout of mine, the Hardcore Distance Set, which if you ask me every triathlete should be doing at least once a month or so. As I told the Master's swimmers today, if you don't feel like a quivering bowl of jelly when you're done with this one, you didn't do it right.

But since that workout is already on my blog, I'll write up last week's pyramid set instead. This is actually a reverse pyramid, which is psychologically a little harder than a regular pyramid (which, once you hit the top, gets ever shorter in distance). For this one, you'll want to pick the interval that you would come in on, then add the amount of rest indicated below. Keep your interval consistent throughout the whole workout. For instance, if you normally swim 100 yards in 1:30, the first 300 should come in on 4:30 and leave on 5:00, the last 300 should come in on 4:30 and leave on 4:45, and the same for all the other intervals in the set. Keeping your pacing consistent while reducing rest will give you a great edge in your distance swimming this summer.

Warm Up
200 Swim, 200 Kick, 200 Drill, 200 Swim

Build Set
4 x 125
1 & 3 Swim, 2 & 4 Kick
Build each 25, last 50 hard


Reverse Pyramid
1 x 300 interval + 30
2 x 200 on interval + 20
3 x 100 on interval + 10
4 x 50 on interval + 5
1 x 50 Active Recovery on 1:30
4 x 50 on interval + 5
3 x 100 on interval + 5
2 x 200 on interval + 15
1 x 300 on interval + 15

Recovery
200 Pull

100 EZ



Total Yardage: 4050

Happy Anniversary Baby, Let's Tri!

It's now official, Wayne and I signed up to do the Black Diamond race weekend. He's doing his first Olympic Tri (he's done a sprint before) and I'm doing my 4th Half-Iron (2nd on this course). I'm so excited to be signed up for this race and training with my guy. We just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this week with a quiet dinner at home with our kids. Yesterday went out for a five-miler run together. Life doesn't get much better than that.

When we met, he had just gotten out of the army, still had a military haircut and wore his camo pants everywhere. He was a pilot, just started flying jump planes at the drop zone I was skydiving at and I had sworn not to date another pilot or skydiver, ever. But you know, those magnificent men in their flying machines and all that. He won me over with his charm and his earnest plans for his future. I knew this was a guy who would always be moving forwards, never be dull or boring. Well, it hasn't been boring, I can say that much! From the depths of the ocean in Belize to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro to raising our kids together, it's been an adventure.

So here's to love, and many more miles together!

Tale of Two Books

When I used to skydive, we had a nickname for those non-skydivers who didn't really understand the lifestyle of those of us who lived to jump out of airplanes 12,000 feet in the air. We called them "Whuffos", as in "Wha-fo' you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" (there's no such thing as a perfectly good airplane, but I digress). It's a good question, and one that any sports nut or extreme athlete considers at times. Of course it's a question you get asked, whether it's "Wha-fo' you want to swim 2 and a half miles, bike 112 miles, and then run a marathon?" or "Wha-fo' you want to climb that mountain?" but it's also a question you ask yourself. Often in the darkest moments of self-induced athletic torture, say at the infamous mile 21 of the marathon, you have undoubtably asked yourself something along the lines of "Why the hell am I doing this???" Usually, your brain is too fogged over to come up with any kind of meaningful answer in the moment, but the next time you sign up, the question remains.

Two autobiographical books that chronicle the different adventures of very different athletic extremists are Ultra Marathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner by Dean Karnazes, and Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest by Lincoln Hall. Both of them take on this question of Why as they tell their stories of pushing themselves to the edge of human endeavor.


Of the two, I really enjoyed Dead Lucky a lot. For one thing, Lincoln Hall, though one of the world's top mountain climbers is an incredibly centered and introspective human. His Buddhist practices show through in the way he steadfastedly refuses to pass judgement on himself or on the actions of others. In this way, he is able to show us clearly through his own eyes, his amazing ordeal on Mt. Everest. After a successful summit attempt, he experienced mounting confusion (probably associated with cerebral edema, a not uncommon side effect of extreme elevations) and despite the valiant attempt of sherpas to get him down the mountain, he was eventually left for dead only a thousand feet below the summit. Climbers the next day were amazed to find him still alive, and his rescue and eventual recovery (minus some fingers and toes) make for a compelling story.

One of my favorite quotes:

Of course, all mountain landscapes are immutable and emotionless. There is a purity that exists in the absence of life there, and perhaps it is to make that beauty a part of ourselves that we climb mountains. Looking from afar is not enough. As climbers, we need to sacrifice or comfort, our safety, and arguably our sanity, as a tithe to the mountain. But no matter what homage we pay, we are the losers, spurned in love. A summit reached can be a one-night stand, big on experience but empty of meaning -- except to our egos. We need the mountains, but the mountains do not need us.

He also explains very well that feeling of rapture, often described as a "runner's high" that happens to many athletes when pushing their bodies and minds the furthest:

I had experienced thi kind of connection to a world beyond oneself on the hardest of mountains, when danger had put all of my senses on red alert. Afterward, as I descended from the last of the snow and steep rock, my senses remained tuned to the present moment. The sounds were more insistent, the colors were brighter, and my eyes seemed to take in everything around me without my mind asking them to look. It was an extraordinary feeling -- one of the reasons I climb.

I liked UltraMarathon Man a lot less, though there were moments of humor and insight. Though in many ways, the forces that drive someone to run 200 straight miles and the forces that compell them to climb the world's tallest mountain might seem similar, Dean Karnazes seems a lot more ego-driven and it shows in his writing. Not two paragraphs into the book, we're treated with "At less than 5 percent body fat, my body is ripped like a prizefighter's", a fact that he manages to repeat several more times throughout the text.

The quality of writing is also on a lower scale, with prose like "The night air was dry and fresh... I was able to enjoy the tranquility of the surroundings. It was a rare moment of serenity in an otherwise frenetic life."

The most interesting part of the book for me was the descriptions of the Western States Endurance Run, which I'd never heard of (probably like many folks). The course sounds intense and brutal, and the elevation chart in the text comparing it to the Boston Marathon is highly entertaining. However, some exaggeration on the part of the author lets skepticism sneak in to the reading of the rest of the pages. He ought to know better than to type something about his shoes falling off and shirt "dangling by threads" only to be followed with an actual photo of him at the finish with all clothing miraculously intact.

All in all, it's a quick read and with some interesting bits (the South Pole marathon is one of them) but overall the author's smug tone and continuous self-praise ("Sure I'm ripped, but it's not for the sake of vanity" is one gem) gets tiring after a while. Though ultra-endurance sports are appealing to me, this book sadly was not.

Inhospitable

So whaddya think....tomorrow would be a bad day to pick for a long bike ride????

Good thing I kept an eye on the forecast this week and got out for a nice one on Wednesday, followed by a terrificly warm run on Thursday. Tomorrow, it's strictly indoors for me, lest that lightning bolt strike anywhere nearby.

Crossfit Update

I'm in my 2nd week of Crossfit classes and am really finding it challenging and fun. I went last Tuesday and Thursday, and when I swam on Saturday I even thought I felt a little more power in my stroke. Maybe all those pullups! This week I'm going Monday, Wednesday, and Friday which is a little more challenging since on Monday I also have karate and swimming and by the time I was done with 3,000 yards of swimming on Monday night I had to call it quits. I could feel a soreness in my arms and legs that didn't feel like good soreness, it felt more like if I swam another yard I would regret it tomorrow kind of soreness.

So I think the challenge for me with Crossfit will not be in the workouts (though they're seriously challenging, but in a good way), it will be in how I manage to get my regular triathlon workouts in without either blowing up my body or just having fatigued tri workouts that are mediocre in nature. I'm still trying to work out how I'm going to accomplish all of this. I have nothing but good things to say about Crossfit though so far!

Proud

I have studied martial arts off and on for a good deal of my life. As a teenager, I took Judo at the YMCA from Sensei Santoya, a large, gruff but terrific teacher who intimidated the heck out of me (and whose son Teddy I had a mad crush on). Later in college I took Judo again, but found the level of instruction to be much lower, the testosterone quotient much higher, and the injury rate in the class too high for my liking (including my own broken toes).

When I worked at Microsoft, I started studying Goju-Ryu karate with Sensei Brent Hartwig, who was an excellent instructor. I really enjoyed the classes and improving my karate, beginning to learn kata, etc. but a former knee injury (skiing) came back to haunt me and I eventually had to quit again. Round kicks were my downfall.

So fast-forward to three years ago when I started training in Shūdōkan karate here in Oregon. I wasn't yet sure if my 39 year old body could take what my 16, 20, and 24 year old body couldn't, but I wanted to try. At any point I knew I might have to cut it short again. But I remembered in all of my martial arts studies looking up to the people who had achieved brown and black belts, seeing how proficient they were, and wanting to achieve that same level of proficiency.

Now I'm 42, and this morning I received my brown belt. I couldn't be prouder or happier to have made it to this milestone. I now have a year or more in front of me in which I'll be preparing for my black belt. I know it's still a long road, but this time I'm pretty confident that I will make it there, and hopefully beyond. I would like to keep martial arts in my life from now on.

I'm also incredibly proud of my kids, both orange belts/brown stripe. Besides their own proficiency in karate, which is important to me because one day it could even save their lives, I am proudest of their Excellent marks in the class in Confidence, Effort, Respect, Attitude, and Citizenship, and of the fact that our sensei remarked about how respectful they are to me and to each other in class as well. It's not always easy for a kid to study something alongside their parent, so I'm very grateful that it has worked out so well for all of us.

Swim Workout: Finish Hard

My swim workout for the Saturday Masters:

"Finish Hard"

Warmup:
2 X (200 S, 75 Dr 75 K 75 Dr 75 K)
3 x (100 S, 100 P ) Descend
===========

Main set

Distance Pace _________________Hard
rest 10 sec ___________________rest 60 sec
425________________________ 75
325________________________ 75
225________________________ 75
125________________________75
25_________________________75


============
Warm Down:

6 X 50 – 2-turn 50’s

6 X 50 – Stroke/Free by 25

100 Cool Down

3800 yards



You can think of the main set in terms of broken distance swims. For instance, the first one is a broken 500. 425 is at a distance pace, you rest 10 seconds, then the last 75 is hard. With 60 seconds to rest after that, you should be going very hard on that 75 hard. This is a tough set, but gets you used to finishing stronger instead of petering out at the end of your distance sets.

The "2-turn 50's" are for work on turns - swim at a moderate speed, and take an extra turn at the end, accentuating the glide and kick-out.

Brown Baby Brown!

Just a short note since it's a hectic day, I tested for my brown belt last night in Shudokan Karate-do. I haven't gotten my results yet, but the sensei who was grading me approached my partner and I after the test and said that it was a pleasure grading us because it's nice to be able to give out really high marks and we did great! Phew!!!!!

For this morning's swim workout, I felt a bit like I'd been run over by a truck, especially my arms. All of our defenses for this test were jujitsu throws using this torturous hand-twisting, and my right wrist is killing me. But overall, am very happy with last night's test!

Spoiled Little Pool Girl

I went swimming with two friends this morning at a local public pool and came shortly to realize how utterly spoiled I really am. The pool was about 84 degrees, I was sweating by the time I got halfway through my first set. Undoubtably it was the perfect temperature for the aqua-aerobics people causing the tidal waves in the first three lanes. There were of course no wave-breaker lane lines, just ropes with little plastic buoys every few feet that kept swinging wildly into my lane with every gyration of the aerobics grandmas.

Of course, there's also the stunning variety of swimmers, none of whom can organize themselves into anything resembling Slow, Medium, and Fast lanes. No, for the record, sidestroke doesn't count as fast. And just like on the roads here, you pass on the left, this is not Australia or London. Even my good friend Kay who I was swimming with who really is certifiably British passes on the left whilst swimming, so the rest of these people have no excuses.

Pleas to the lifeguard to open another lap lane fell on deaf ears as apparently the 6 aerobics people needed an entire half of the pool, as opposed to the swimmers crammed into the 3 lanes.

Ah yes, I really have no room to complain, I'm just another spoiled rotten private club pool swimmer. Times like these are when it really hits me between the eyes how good my life really is if this is all I can find to get worked up over. And sitting in the hot tub with my friends in the afterglow of swimming with the ice cold morning air contrasting nicely with the 102 degree water. Well as they say on the ads... Priceless.

First Crossfit Experience

I did my first Crossfit workout this week and so far I really like it. I'm not doing any this week, since my karate test is this Friday and I don't think it would be a good idea to be all sore and stiff before that. I am testing for my brown belt (ulp!)!!!!!!!

Overall, I think it's a great addition to a training routine. For me, I am especially interested in adding strength and power. I know I have good endurance, decent flexibility, and through karate I have been developing my speed, agility, hand-eye coordination, etc. My weakest link is strength. For instance, I cannot do even one pullup, and never have been able to in my life. I don't think I have very many fast-twitch muscles, I'm just a slow-twitch kind of gal. So, since I think we should always push our limiters, Crossfit is right up my alley.

I went to an early morning class, along with several other people. I was impressed by the level of technique instruction and monitoring for good technique. We started off with a warmup, then had some technique instruction on the clean and jerk, just using a piece of PVC pipe. Then we did some standing floor jumps, measuring how high we could jump. I can still jump a foot and a half into the air, not too bad. Before long-distance endurance training and 20-some odd years ago, I had a helluva vertical leap so I think I could improve on my vertical leap again with some practice and strength/power work.

We progressed onto using a medicine ball and the WOD (Workout of the Day) was 21 medicine ball cleans then 21 pullups, repeated 3 times. For me, I used the assistance of a big rubber bandy thing to do pullups which was great because for the first time I could get the feel of the total pullup movement, even though I can't fully support my own weight yet. I made it almost through two repeats, having to stop in the 2nd set of pullups after 16. Still, that's 37 more pullups than I've ever done!

It was a very positive experience with the other people there all encouraging each other and me. I really liked it. I knew I'd be sore the next day, but thankfully I stopped before I really wrecked myself.

I'm looking forward to more workouts!