Chris and his quad

So that there is proof he ate a large burger, here it is! Doesn't that look delectable?

LateBird Tri Race Report

This past Sunday a group of us from the Emery's squad competed in the J-Hawk LateBird Triathlon. It was an absolute blast! I almost forgot how much fun (and frustrating) triathlons can be, since it has been over two years since my last race. Anywho, I figured that I should detail out the day from my perspective for our captivated readers.

Kari, Matt and myself started off the day loading up the car, completed the first pre-game dump, ate breakfast and left to pick up Sarah on our to the triathlon. It was a fairly uneventful car ride. Sarah complained a little for being awoken from her slumber at dawn. That's ok. We had several missions to accomplish: Matt's first triathlon ever along with Kari and my ambitions.

When we got there, we checked in with registration and I asked for a brief run-down of the bike course. I wanted to try to get out on the course for a bit of a warm-up. After we were set up in the rack, we got changed and I headed out for my warm-up. It was a little more brisk than I was anticipating, so I made the decision to go with arm-warmers after all. I got inside just a little before my wave started for the triathlon to eat my last few calories and hand some to Kari before I jumped in the water. I also was able to discuss swim speeds and how we'd handle passing in the lane if the need arose. Then my wave was summoned behind lane 1 to begin our swim.

I felt a little more sluggish in the water than I was hoping for. I still knocked out a 6:52 for my 500. While that is not bad, it was not what I felt capable of doing. I climbed out of the pool and raced to my bike. Then I began my frustrating struggle with my arm warmers. It took me a while, but I finally got them on (Chris passed me in transition to only piss me off further). He started in wave 3 and I am a faster swimmer, so I had about a minute lead vanish because of my arm-warmers (really pissed me off). I took off on my bike chasing him and trying not to lose sight of him. Unfortunately, the course is winding enough that I lost track of him fairly early on in the bike course and tried to settle into a rhythm.

As I made the turn for the turn-around, I saw Chris (only about .25-.5 miles up the road). This motivated me to keep powering on, now that I had him in my sights again. Prior to the race, I asked Andy to give me time updates on any potential time gaps between myself and Chris, since I knew he would not start before we finished. As I entered into transition for the run, Andy told me that Chris had about 3 minutes on me. Basically, when Chris and I saw each other, it motivated both of us and he took a little more time out of me.

Off on the run course I go. Thankfully, the first water volunteer at the top of the first hill gave me a cup of water and directed me along to the off-road run course. It was not as challenging as I had prepared for, but it was definitely a difficult course. On the section of the run course that was next to the road, I saw Kari trucking into transition (she also started a wave behind me and I figured she was about 10 minutes behind me). She was doing awesome and looking strong! It was also really weird to never see another competer throughout the run. The volunteers were also a little shocked to see me show up, since I was only the third person on the course. I knew Chris was in front of me, but I had no idea where I was (no mile markers like on the bike course). As a result, I was really struggling with determining how much I should try to pour into the run without blowing up early. When I finally saw the finish line, I had a load of gas left and tried to finish as strong as possible.

At the end of the day, I ended up having a lot of energy in my reserves. While finishing close to my goals (swim=7 min, actual=6:52 min; bike=37 min, actual=38:38 min; run=21:30 min, actual 23:00; top 10 overall, actual 9th; win age group, actual 3rd), I was really pissed/motivated/frustrated that I had a load of energy still in the tank when I finished and only had 1 minute separate myself from 6th position overall. It definitely inspired myself and Kari to set goals for the EarlyBird and plan to race come May 1st.

On a happier note, all of the Emery's squad kept their IT bands in check to be able to bring in quite a haul of medals. Matt finished his first ever triathlon after only 3 weeks of training! Kari placed 5th overall for women and won her age group in only her second triathlon ever! Chris won his age group and took 4th overall for men! Julie took 3rd in her age group! Andy won his age group and took 2nd overall for men! Brent won his age group! Finally, I got 3rd in my age group and took 9th overall for the men. There are more details about the results on the Race Results page and photos on the Race Photos page.



Last but not least, following the triathlon, Chris, Julie, Kari, Matt, Sarah and myself headed over to Sobelman's for a delicious meal. Chris was peer-pressured into eating a quad. I believe that he enjoyed it! It is definitely a wonderful place to go for a post-race meal!

An awesome journey

Over the past few months, I really stepped my weight loss up a notch. While I was never fat (6'3" and 225-230lbs in December), I was definitely getting a little chunky over the winter. If you are not careful, stress and inactivity will do that to you. As some of my stress was dissipating and I was able to get back into some routine of a training program, the weight started to come off.

I participated in a running study, which gave me an opportunity to see where my weight was during the end of March/beginning of April (212lbs). Basically, my training regime was helping me shed some weight, but my goal racing weight is in the 185-190lb ball park. I believe that I raced each of the last few years between 190-195lb. I am still a big guy, but I need to be lite to try to keep up with the mountain goats in some of the hillier races.

At the end of April, Kari found an app for our iPhones that would allow us to track our caloric intake and expense. Perfect! I immediately plugged in my goal weight of 185lbs and weight loss plan of 2lbs/week. I quickly learned how bad some foods are for you and how much I was theoretically burning on my workouts. I took things a little extreme and would typically underestimate how much working out I was doing and overestimate how much food I was eating. As a result, I am currently sitting at 181-182lbs (depending on the time of day) a mere 4 months later. I have not switched the program into maintenance mode just yet, because I would like to get it down to 180lbs prior to the Fall when my activity decreases. The goal would be to maintain that weight for the winter by recording calories in and out, so that I do not have to cut weight during the race season.

Probably the roughest part of the whole weight loss thing was dealing with off/recovery days. They were days that I typically did not do anything physically active. Unless I saved calories from hard workout days, I usually did not have a whole lot available to eat on my rest days. Oh well. It is almost over!

Ok, so the purpose of my post was to highlight a youtube video that my podcast informed me of. I subscribe to a few podcasts, one of which is the Best of Youtube podcast. Today's video was very good and fit my story a bit. Here was a guy who was in a lot worse shape than me who changed his life through action. While I have not been on this planet long, I have learned that if there is something that you want, you need to go for it. Success does not happen to those who sit idly by hoping for a change in circumstances. It comes to those who are actively pursuing it. One definition of success that I've heard and like quite a bit is: Success is where opportunity and preparedness meet. My question to you is simple. Are you preparing for success so that opportunity does not pass you by? Or are you just waiting to get all of your ducks in a row? (Hint: Ducks never get in a row without the help of a string)

Enjoy the video!

His blog is pretty good too

J-Hawk Latebird

Wave start times for the J-Hawk Latebird are available. As of now, I will start in wave 2, Chris and Kari will start in wave 3, Matt will start in wave 4, both Julies will start in wave 7, Brent will start in wave 8, Andy will start in wave 36 (the fastest wave!), and Anna will start in wave 45. If there are any other Emery's people out there who I missed, please comment when your start time is. We want to be sure that we are there cheering each other on, if possible! There are also plenty of spots available for those who have not signed up yet (i.e., Steve).

One more week! Train hard!

Let's Talk Overtraining

The big "O".

 

Get your mind out of the gutter.  I mean "Overtraining".  First, I am writing it as one word.  I'm not sure it is, but I am too lazy to look it up.  So, one word it will be to me.

 

I've been thinking and promising these thoughts for a while.  A real world example has prompted me to actually write it down.  Or, in this case type it down.

 

Second, a brief review.  We train so that our body will adapt.  Some train to just make it without dying.  Other train to make it in less time than it took last week, last year, last decade.  Adaption is our goal.  By training we stress our bodies, expect them to repair themselves, and then expect them to get better.  Here is the formula (Forgive the engineer/scientist thing it will not last long):

 

Training=Stress

Repair=Recovery (Active or Inactive)

Result=Faster or Stronger

 

Training + Repair = Result

 

Simple substitution yields:

 

Training + Recovery = Faster or Training + Recovery = Stronger

 

Without going into a bunch of Gaussian Elimination, I will tell you what that silliness yields.

 

We all know what training is.  And, we probably all know how to do.

 

We all also know what our desired result(s) are.

 

That leaves us with recovery.  I would actually argue that both training and results are a function (fancy calculus term here) of recovery.  Thus:

 

Results f(Recovery)

 

Training f(Recovery)

 

Note two things are linked to recovery.  IT IS NOT Recovery f(Training, Results).

 

The amount of recovery needed will depend to the volume and intensity of training.  But, it will also depend on what you are trying to get out of your training (results).

 

Enough talking in math circles.

 

You can train all you want.  Or, you can try to.  At some point you have to allow your body the time and ability to heal itself in order for it to adapt.

 

What does that mean?  It means all your workouts can't be at warp speed.  It means that you can't do three-a-day workouts for six months straight.  Without recovery, be it moderate/slow paced workouts or complete rest, you will very quickly see results flushed down the toilet.

 

What do I do?  I make sure my workout plan involves some active recovery, and I make sure that my plan included one complete off day a week.  I do at least one swim, bike, and run workout a week at about 60% effort.  That means a nice swim for the sake of swimming, a bike ride where I suck wheel most of the time, and a jog.  Side note: while jogging I look for dead bodies.  It always seems that joggers find dead bodies all the time and I log enough miles that I should find one soon.

 

What is/are the sign/s of overtraining?  Google it yourself. 

 

Here is what I have seen recently.  When Ben started "Tri Training" again he added all kinds of stress to his happy training routine.  He started running and even started some swimming.  I'm not Ben (He is much younger than I), but I would call that added stress.  When you go from just riding your little bike to being a triathlete, you are upping the ante as they (I still don't know who "they" are) say.  What he didn't do was add recovery at the same time.  He really added a lot of running and swimming.  But, like I noted, he is younger than I and knows his own body. 

 

How do I know?  Well, we went for an easy Sunday morning ride.  We don't usually ride on Sundays.  But, I had taken off to attend some family chores (see below post)on Saturday, so 60 miles of no work fit in both our schedules.  To fast forward, Ben had a bad day on his bicycle.  He had more issues than I could pay attention to.  Granted, I have a short attention span.  But, he did not have fun.  I actually thought he was practicing for marriage or something.  I'm not sure how many days in a row he worked out previously.  I was coming off a complete day off, so I was fresh as a daisy.  Or the sweaty male equivalent of a daisy.  I was tootling on my bike and Ben was working way harder than he should have been.  What Ben found was the point at which his body could no longer repair itself from the training that he had been putting it through.  Ben, very quickly, figured out that he overtrained himself.

 

Now, everyone's limit will be different.  There is diet, sleep, life stress equations all that to add to the above equations (Gaussian elimination is really necessary).  Once you've been there you will not quickly forget it.  I try to, but sometimes fail at, being 5% undertrained rather than 1% overtrained.  Sometime training is too fun to stop.

 

Your mileage may vary.

There is More to Life than Triathlon

Yes.  Believe it or not.

 

Now, I'm just as OCD about my tri training and participation as most others.  I think it is important to have as plan, stick to it, and be constant in your training.  But, let's face it, most of our chances of going pro as slim.  Triathlon is a great way to get, and keep, one's body healthy.  It is a great group of people to hang out with.  And, it is just plain old fun.

 

But, there is a point of diminishing returns.  What I am talking about here is both over training and about negatively impacting one's non-triathlon life.  The second, of course, assumes that you have a life.  If you don't, that sucks for you.  Get one, you'll like one.

 

First, to the second.  With Ironman Wisconsin around the corner, I have witnesses a lot of triathletes not talking about tapers, runs, or bike rides.  They are talking about how their families are all looking forward to when, "Ironman is over."  Now, I don't know what their family dynamics are like, but I can speak to mine.

 

I would like to do Ironman.  At least one, but I know myself and one would probably start a trend.  My wife knows this too.  I've sat down with the numbers and with my training schedule.  For me, personally, to do an Ironman would require about an extra eight (8) hours of training a week.  Side note: When I say "do" an Ironman I speak to maximizing my personal performance at one.  I would not like to "just do one to finish it".  That is not to say that just finishing an Ironman is not an accomplishment.  I just feel that if I am going to do that volume of training, I want to maximize whatever my performance would be at that race distance.  Back to the story:  So, I need about eight more hours a week for about three months.  For Ironman Wisconsin, that would mean for the months of June, July, and August I would have to keep my training schedule about the same as it is now during the week, but would have to add Saturday and Sunday training.  See, right now, I only train for two hours on Saturday.  I do a kind of long run and a short swim on Saturday and Sunday is my off day.  I think for Ironman I would need Saturday for a long bike and medium run and would have to add a long run on Sunday.  I would make Monday an off day, but still.  Now, what does that have to do with the subject?  In order for me to change my training as such, I would seriously impact my family's schedule.  And, I would make seeing Daddy on the weekend more difficult.  Believe me, Julie and I have discussed this at length.  She understands that I want to do Ironman.  And, I understand what function I play in our family unit.  Together, right now, I remain content to race one Half Iron distance and a bunch of sprints.  Maybe next year I'll do a couple or three halfs (not halves).  We'll see.

 

So, to the second point from above, I have a lot of fun training for and racing triathlons.  But, I have a lot of fun being a husband and father.  I do what I can to prioritize and get in my tri training done.  But, through much negotiation with Julie and some actual understanding, I know that husband and father are better life titles than triathlete.  Some of the guys I've recently overheard talking along with what they are saying about their families, have lead me to think that either one, some, or all of the following may have taken place in their lives:

 

1.  They did not really understand how much training is necessary to do an IM.

2.  They did not express how much training is necessary to do an IM to their family.

3.  Their family did not really understand how much training is necessary to do an IM.

4.  There was not a family discussion about doing an IM.

5.  Real life priorities were not kept during IM training.

 

I can definitely see how any or all of those above could happen.  A couple of those are holes that could just keep getting deeper if you let them.

 

In the end, as non-professional athletes, what are those fifteen minutes off your Ironman time worth?  If you want to go to Hawaii, I'll bet just about any travel agent will book the flights for you.  Heck, what is that silly piece of tin with an attached ribbon from your local tri worth?  What are they worth when you weigh them against your life outside of triathlon?

 

As for over training.  I'll touch on that in an upcoming post.  I have to admit that I am just tired of typing right now.

 

See ya.