Testing my theory

Week 3 of this grand experiment which is training for Ironman Texas started yesterday. Yes, I'm doing the same thing that about 2800 other athletes are doing, training to complete the race. But over the next 5 months, I've got a couple other goals that add at best some complexity to getting to the finish line.

One, I'm trying to lose 40 more pounds and finally get to my goal weight. The other goal I have...well, really it's not a goal. It's more like a strategy...is to get through the whole 6 months without getting burned out. This year, most of the people I watched train for Ironman, almost without exception, came to a point in the training where they were burned out. There was story after story about athletes just having to take a break. Some took a week, two weeks, even a month off training just to regroup and revitalize. I have a theory on this. It's not based on any experience or on anything I've even read. My theory is that it's not the training that burns an athlete out. It's all the other stuff we try to cram in. It's as much LIFE in general that burns you out during IM training as it is the training itself. My theory states that if you can keep balance EARLY in the training and go into the last half FRESH and in a good place, you can get through the 2nd half without getting burned out.

I believe the training is much like the race. First of all, you've got to start the training rested. You've got to be fresh. Then, my theory is that the first 2/3 of the training is much like the swim and the bike. You may feel good and want to go out hard but if you go too hard on the bike, You're gonna crash on the run. Likewise, if your life is out of balance EARLY in the training, you're gonna burn out and gonna get to a point later where you want to quit or want to take a month off. I believe just like staying in Zone 2 on the bike, you want to keep your life as simple as possible during the early months of training. Can you go harder? Yes. Do you have some time now to do some things? Volunteer for this event? Go to that place? Meet with these people? Attend that party? Run this race (just for fun of course)? Work those extra hours? Yes, early in the training it may seem like you can fit it in. But my theory is that THIS is what causes the burnout that comes later when the training gets HARD and the hours longer and the intensity greater.

So early on in this training, I want to be bored. I want to be finished with work, finished with my home stuff, finished with my workouts and sitting around wondering why I'm just sitting around. I mean work, family, and training. That's ALL I'm putting on my plate. If someone wants to do something, the answer will likely be NO. If I have an opportunity to volunteer, the answer is probably "next year". Of course, if you know me, you know this goes against what I'm all about. I love to go, go, go and do, do, do. But to accomplish this goal, I have to be a little selfish. It feels weird but I've gotta do it.

To this end, part of testing my theory is to take every 3rd Tuesday off work between now and May 21. These Tuesdays all fall during my recovery week. That's 8 extra days off. Doesn't sound like much but I think it's going to be good for me. I picked Tuesday because my massage therapist doesn't work on Monday. I'm using that one day every 3 weeks to sleep in, get stuff done around the house, get a massage, and basically just chill.

My goal, my strategy is to NOT burn out. Everyone's telling me it's gonna happen. It's inevitable. Well, if it does, it does. I'm not going to be stubborn about it. But if I'm right, and taking care of me EARLY in this training keeps me fresh and keeps my life balanced, I'm going to be able to see this training all the way through to the end and not skip a beat.

It's just a theory.

"In Me" - Casting Crowns

If you asked me to leap
Out of my boat on the crashing waves
If you ask me to go
Preach to a lost world of Jesus saves

I'll go, but I cannot go alone
'Cause I know I'm nothing on my own
But the power of Christ in me makes me strong
Makes me strong

'Cause when I'm weak, You make me strong
When I'm blind you shine Your light on me
'Cause I'll never get by living on my own ability
How refreshing to know You don't need me
How amazing to find that you want me
So I'll stand on Your Truth, and I'll fight with Your Strength
Untill You bring the victory, by the power of Christ in me

If you ask me to run
And carry your light into foreign land
If you ask me to fight
Deliver your people from satan's hand

I'll go, but I cannot go alone
'Cause I know I'm nothing on my own
But the power of Christ in me makes me strong
Makes me strong

'Cause when I'm weak, You make me strong
When I'm blind you shine Your light on me
'Cause I'll never get by living on my own ability
How refreshing to know You don't need me
How amazing to find that You want me
So I'll stand on Your Truth, and I'll fight with Your Strength
Untill You bring the victory, by the power of Christ in me

To reach out with Your hands
To learn through Your eyes
To love with the love of a savior
To feel with Your heart
and to think with Your mind
I'd give my last breath for Your glory

'Cause when I'm weak, You make me strong
When I'm blind you shine Your light on me
'Cause I'll never get by living on my own ability

when I'm weak, You make me strong
When I'm blind you shine Your light on me
'Cause I'll never get by living on my own ability
How refreshing to know You don't need me
How amazing to find that You want me
So I'll stand on Your Truth, and I'll fight with Your Strength
Untill You bring the victory, by the power of Christ in me
The power of Christ in me
The power of Christ in me

Goals

I met with Catherine last week to talk about nutrition for IMTX training. I had a couple of options on who to get to do my nutrition. On the one hand, my coach, Gaye, is a registered dietitian and extremely knowledgeable about sports nutrition, especially for endurance athletes. This one-stop shop for coaching and nutrition might be a little more convenient but for me, there's really not another option besides Catherine. She's my friend. She has taught me so much about weight loss. To the point, Jan and I love her.

So, my coach, Gaye, wanted to know from Catherine what our plan was. Gaye wanted me to talk to Catherine about my nutrition periodization plan. See, Gaye is (as I am) interested in my performance for IMTX. She wants me to finish the race. And that's a great thing. I would expect nothing more from my coach. But Catherine asked me an interesting question. She asked, "Vic, what's more important? Finishing an Ironman, or living a long, healthy life at a healthy weight?" I thought about this for a few days before meeting with Catherine. I really struggled with why those two things would be mutually exclusive. Can't I live a long, healthy life at a healthy weight AND finish an Ironman? When Cat and I finally sat down, we just said, yes, the two things can be done but getting to my final goal weight is #1. I'm so on board with that.

It's funny 'cause when you talk about losing weight, that obviously involves eating less calories than you burn. And much of IM training is about fueling the "machine", replacing calories, keeping the tank full and fueling for the next workout. Really, IM training and weight loss are opposing forces. I talked to Gaye about my really wanting to lose weight and she said from her perspective, it would be a shame to go through all this training and not be able to finish because I'm not getting enough calories. I was like, "Yeah, that sounds right." Then Catherine dropped the bomb. She said, "What would be a shame would be to FINISH an Ironman and still weigh 260 pounds." And I've gotta hand it to her. That a REAL perspective and something I've gotta think about. See, I've accomplished a lot as an athlete this past year. But I've stayed relatively flat on the weight loss. So, another year has gone by and I'm still not at my goal weight, my ideal weight. Yes, I'm down 115 pounds from my highest weight but I'm NOT FINISHED. Just think, had I finished and gotten down to 210-215 by now how much easier my IM training would have been. And Cat is right. The real tragedy would be to go another 6 months, finish and Ironman, accomplish so much but still be over 250.

So, instead of talking about meal plans and our nutrition plan for the IM, Cat and I talked about my goals. Most importantly, we talked about my #1 goal.

#1, LOSE WEIGHT. My goal is to get to 210-215. The best opportunity to do that is during the first 12-16 weeks of training when my volume is high and intensity is low. So, we're looking at 2-3 pounds a week to get us most of the way to my goal before the higher intensity workouts start and I need to take in lots more carbs.

#2. Finish the training. My big goal is to finish this training and get to the start line. If I do that. If I get to the line healthy and ready and start the race, I will consider that a success.

#3 Finish the IM.

So, that's where I'm at. I'm logging everything that passes between my lips. Every calorie, every apple, every piece of chicken, everything. Counting calories. Carbing up with more fruits and vegetables and less grains and pastas.

Keeping the main thing the main thing.

Sore in some unfamiliar places

Well, yesterday was Monday...better known from heretofore as Pilates Day. I've always wanted to do Pilates. Not just mat Pilates but Pilates on that contraption thingy I've now learned is called a Pilates Reformer. Looks like a RACK to me. Reminds me of William Wallace in Bravehart after he's finally captured and they take him up in front of the town and the guy says, "Rack him!". Although I was not disemboweled or anything like that, the whole experience has left me in a considerable amount of pain just 24 hours later.

As long as "going" to another workout does not get too cumbersome, I'm seriously considering making a trip to Hardcore Pilates twice a week as part of my Ironman TX training. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to take me to the next level. I've given the advice on many occasion how it's important to work on your core but I've been somewhat hypocritical...well, completely hypocritical...as I've never worked on my own core. Like EVER!!! So, I'm thinking that I should see a lot of improvement real soon. I'm very excited.

Deconstructing the swim

I spent the better part of an hour and a half yesterday afternoon in a coached swim session at the BEAUTIFUL Pearland Natatorium. The goal of the session was to evaluate my stroke and try to identify why, while my swimming has improved immensely, I still don't feel "right". After swimming a 50 with coach walking the deck over me, coach noticed a GLARING flaw. And fixing this thing with my kick is going to mean taking my stroke apart and starting from scratch.

As daunting as it sounds to "start from scratch", I'm really encouraged as I've never really had a grasp of what the swim stroke is. I've done drills, I've catched, pulled, kicked, breathed, balanced, all those things you do during a stroke, but I've never really understood how it all fits together. Do you know how frustrating that's been? To know you're "improving" but that you don't really know how to put it all together. Well, thanks to Gaye, I'm starting to get a glimpse of how this thing works and I KNOW I'm going to be a better swimmer come May.

According to Gaye, the stroke begins with the kick. As with nearly all sports that derive their primary power from rotation of the core body, the body roll in swimming starts in the legs. To learn this at a most basic, foundational level, I put the fins on and got Vertical. It was strange to be in the water over an hour and not swim ANY but still learn so much and make so much progress. Most of what we concentrated on was what Emmett Hines refers to as the Vertical 6-Beat Rotation Rhythm Kicking Drill. Your can read about it in the article Bottom-up Swimming Part I, subtitled "Let Your Legs Drive Your Long Axis Strokes". After getting a feel for the kick in the vertical, I went horizontal, trying to keep the that Right-flutter-flutter-Left-flutter-flutter beat going. It was like an infant learning to walk. There were only glimpses of doing it early on in the session but as we progressed, I got better and better. It's gonna take some serious time to get this down but it's foundational. It's basic to the rest of my stroke so I've GOT to learn this.

Read Emmitt's article. It's great. Like I say, I'm really excited about where I'm going with my swim.

Last Ironman finisher is the real winner

Last Ironman finisher is the real winner

Bike Mod

I was lucky enough to have coach see me ride a few weeks ago and she told me something interesting last week. She said I don't look "comfortable" on the bike. She asked me if I was and I didn't know how to answer. I guess I'm comfortable considering I'm sitting my big ole' butt on a little 3 inch bicycle seat and considering I'm hunched over like the hunchback of Notre Dame. But seriously, the only reason I thought I might be comfortable is that I don't really know what comfortable means. Anyway, she said that my hips and knees are flailing out on the 12 o'clock side and that I may need a shorter crankset. My current one is 175 mm and Gaye suggested I go to a 165.

Trusting Gaye completely, I ordered a new cranset and bottom bracket. I had no idea how kind of expensive this mod would be. I'll put it this way, In the old days, I could have bought the whole family each a new bicycle for what this costs. But Gaye insists that without this, I'm not going to be able biomechanically to ride further than 50 or 60 miles and not be injured.

So, I'm going with a SRAM Red crankset.



and a SRAM Blackbox GXP BB with ceramic bearings. SMOOTH!!!



Hopefully, I'm all set now.

One More Week to Prep

I've been getting my house in order so to speak, getting some things in place that will hopefully improve my chances of success training for my first IM triathlon.

1) I met with my coach to talk about Ironstar, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and to get feel for what went right and what went wrong. We identified an obvious weakness with my bike fitness as well some modifications I need to make to my bike ASAP.

2) My regular training periods are going to be 3 weeks with 2 up and 1 down (recovery). Knowing my start date and those periods, I scheduled every 3rd Monday with my boss as a work from home day so I can get an extra hour of sleep (as opposed to fighting traffic) and not have to put on dress shoes and go into the office. Just a little thing but I think it'll help my stress level too as I can always get more done for Memorial Hermann while I'm at home working than I do in the office with all the interruptions.

3) Then every third Tuesday, I scheduled a PTO day where I'm off work completely. I'll get to do some active recovery that day with a nice bike ride in the morning, a nap, and an easy run in the evening. This will also give me some time to catch up on some honey-do's that I may be behind on due to weekend training.

4) Every Tuesday I'm off, I scheduled an hour massage.

5) I set up a new Training Peaks account and have been playing around with it for a couple weeks now. It's really going to make planning and logging easy. I don't like the interface for nutrition. It's really not usable which is a shame.

I still need to buy some more clothes. One thing I found training for the Half is that I spent a lot of time ironing and packing and figuring out what I needed to take with me every morning. I hate it when I'm too tired at night or just home too late to lay everything out. I end up putting it off until the morning and then spend a good hour ironing and packing when I should be out the door. Then I'm late starting my workout and then late for work which adds a lot of stress trying to catch up during the day. I'm going to Penny's or somewhere this weekend to get enough slacks that I can take them to the cleaners on Friday, pick them up on Saturday and have enough clothes to set everything out on Sunday for the week and not have to worry about it each day. Getting this part of my life organized is going to be HUGE for me. Getting out the door quickly, before traffic begins to build in the mornings is going to save driving time and save stress.

What else can I do? I've got one more week to get things in order before it starts.

The break is over

I think my break from the mental and physical rigors of training is coming to an end after 2 weeks of minimal activity and a little bit of overeating. I'm really getting antsy not working out. My plan for these few down weeks was to continue to run some and bike some and even get in the pool but absent a structured, prescribed schedule, my tendency from day to day is to just skip it. I work best when I plan my work.

So, I scheduled some workouts for this week. Gonna try to get on the trainer, do the Turkey Trot on Thursday, and get in a long run on Saturday. Time to dust off the cobwebs and get to work.

I've been preparing for the coming training season by scheduling a day off from work every 3 weeks during during my training. My schedule will be 2 up/ 1 down from now until my taper so it's easy to see when my down weeks are. I scheduled a massage every three weeks too.

So, training official starts Monday, December 6. Gotta get all my ducks in a row so I'm ready to hit the ground running, so to speak.

IMTX, Here we come!!!

Before November 7 and my Half Ironman race, Ironstar, all I would say about IMTX was "Well, I'm registered." I tucked that away, put it down, WAY DOWN, until after my half. Well, it's after my half and I'm prepared to say, "IT'S ON!!! I'm DOING Ironman Texas!!!"

I see a pretty incredible journey before me and I know I'd kick myself in the butt if I didn't chronicle my thoughts, struggles, victories, and experiences. So, in the spirit of Run4YourLife.blospot.com, I'm starting Tri4YourLife.com, this blog.

Let the journey begin!