I just wanted to let everyone know that I am not going to be posting alerts to new post anymore unless they are worthwhile post. I don't want to be letting everyone know I've posted, and sticking it in all their feeds when it sjust me bitching about how much I want Taco Bueno or how sore I am.
When I have something worthwhile, or when race season picks up again, I will probably start posting more and putting alerts back on twitter, facebook and G+.
I still plan on posting hopefully every couple of days about the things I come across when trying to adapt to offseason training and stocking up on the gear I need.
I hope I am doing a good job with this blog and have not scared everyone short of my girlfriend and mom away. Feel free to comment or email me if you have any issues with the blog, want to share a story or link (and Ill go ahead and tell you no, I do not want a free Ipad 12. Keep the spam to yourself) or have any advice you think will be useful. I welcome discussion.
“When you want to succeed as badly as you want to breathe; then you’ll be successful.” - Eric Thomas
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Hello soreness my old friend...
Took the ol' strength training workout for a spin yesterday. Yep. Im sore.
Im uber sore. I forgot how deep the soreness can reach into your thighs and lats. While it makes it difficult to not look constipated at work, it means its working to some extent.
I definitely feel it will be better once I split it into 2 days. It will also probably be better once I never go back to the Midwest City YMCA, that place is ghetto and ill-laid out. When I am trying to super set squats with leg extensions and leg curls, I do not want to try and meander my way through the treadmill forest and cross a 3 lane track. Just saying.
Despite the soreness, I got in a 500 m swim today. This is the last time I will exit a pool at 500 m. My short days need to get longer and I need to get some 1+ mile days in the mix. Its going to be so boring, but I have to get started on training for the international tri in June.
I did some research today on cold weather clothing and It did not make my "more clothing vs. trainer" decision any easier. To purchase a wind jacket, baklava, gloves, arm warmers, leg warmers and shoe covers, I can jsut purchase a used fluid trainer... and thats if I get the cheapest of all the above items, not even the nice stuff. Good thing is we have a few days that should be in the 50's and 40's so I will probably go purchase some gloves and a baklava and head out for a ride. I need to be out on the bike since I will probably be too sore to do anything else.
Well off to bed. Hopefully I can find a cheap pair of gloves and baklava tomorrow at Sun & Ski. I do not feel like spending 150 bucks on just those two items at Schlegels Bike.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Don't call it a comeback
So yea, November happened. I've talked about it enough. Time to learn from my mistakes and kick December's ass.
I've nailed down a strength training schedule that I think will work for now. I plan on adapting it more for my needs after a couple weeks, but I found one that basically worked what I wanted so I am going with it.
I'm using a plan outlined on active.com by a man named Mark Allen. If you have not heard of Mr. Allen and you are a triathlete. Google it. Now. You could also go check out a book "Iron War" by one of the writers for the Triathlete magazine. Its an amazing story about how he and Dave Scott legitimized this whole crazy sport of suffering that we all love. They pushed this sport to the mainstream, while also pushing the limits of human endurance and performance. They are quite heroes.
The original article can be found here, along with his outline on how to work into this workout. How I am using it is below:
I am curious if I will have the same aches this go around with the training. When I was last training, I had some crazy pains in my forearms during curls that I could never identify a cause for. Hopefully that is gone. I still have a ton of articles to read that pertain to strength and developing the physique of a triathlete, I will filter that knowledge in later in the month.
As for my goals, I have decided that I will start where I left of in November for my running. While I only managed a measly 36 miles in November of running (my girlfriend will knock that out in a week, not even in peak training.... ugh) I will, not will try, will get to 100 miles. So 64 miles in December.
As for cycling, I'm still out. I got 3.5 hrs last month and almost 60 miles, but I would rather try and tell a crossfitter that crossfit is stupid than ride an indoor bike again. (PS. If you have never met a crossfitter and heard them talk about theircult gym, consider yourself lucky. They are obsessed to the 10th degree. Not a bad thing... but not an awesome thing either... sorry guys) I am working on getting a trainer or rollers and will makeup for my lack of cycling then. It is Oklahoma though, so it may get warm enough to ride soon. Who knows.
Swim is still at 4 miles. This was easy. I only knocked out a 1 mile last month, that was only due to laziness. I will get 4 miles easy this time.
Another great site to get tri specific training information is trifuel. Here is a link to an aggregated strength training list.
I also vow, right now, to stop sneaking Taco Bueno lunches at work. It has to end. Im going to miss those party burritos. Diet, or at least a more conscious observance of food and nutrition, starts now.
The key is knowledge. Knowledge of how badly I burn out. Knowledge of how I need to warm up prior to a swim to make it more effective. Knowledge that my half marathon is only 5 months away, and my international distance tri is only 6 months away. Knowledge that my new shoes seem to be broken in finally and my new compression sleeves for my legs work magic. Knowledge that I can do this. That I will do this. I will not give up, go too hard, overcompensate, race old men on the treadmill, use the cold as an excuse, fail to embrace the suck and pain.
December is so going down.
(check in throughout the month to see whether I epic-ally win this, or epic-ally burn out and become obese)
I've nailed down a strength training schedule that I think will work for now. I plan on adapting it more for my needs after a couple weeks, but I found one that basically worked what I wanted so I am going with it.
I'm using a plan outlined on active.com by a man named Mark Allen. If you have not heard of Mr. Allen and you are a triathlete. Google it. Now. You could also go check out a book "Iron War" by one of the writers for the Triathlete magazine. Its an amazing story about how he and Dave Scott legitimized this whole crazy sport of suffering that we all love. They pushed this sport to the mainstream, while also pushing the limits of human endurance and performance. They are quite heroes.
The original article can be found here, along with his outline on how to work into this workout. How I am using it is below:
SS = Super set (run the excersises on top of each other without a break in between. Rest between sets)
SS: Wide grip bench press 2 x 15 reps
Lateral Pulldown 2 x 15 reps
SS: Barbell squat 2 x 15 reps
Leg extensions 2 x 15 reps
Lying leg curls 2 x 15 reps
SS: Tricep kickbacks 2 x 15 reps
Lying tricep overhead extension 2 x 15 reps
SS: Curl 2 x 15 reps
Dumbbell lateral raise 2 x 15 reps
SS: Backwards lunge 2 x 15 reps
One leg, weighted calf raise 2 x 15 reps (each leg)
Leg Press 2 x 15 (this is a great way to blast out the finish of a good workout.)
Sit-ups (one set. Focus on center, left then right abs)
Plank 1 x 60 seconds minimum
90 second rest in between each particular set or SS; 45 sec rest while inside a SSThis is a pretty large single workout, especially since I haven't weight trained since August. I will most likely add in some more cardio/core to the end and split this into 2 workouts. Maybe add some more focused sets where I lack. I plan on trying this out for a few weeks; focusing on form, not weight. The goal is not to look like an ed hardy d-bag, but to tone up and prevent injury in the spring. This will also help me cut down on my weight.
I am curious if I will have the same aches this go around with the training. When I was last training, I had some crazy pains in my forearms during curls that I could never identify a cause for. Hopefully that is gone. I still have a ton of articles to read that pertain to strength and developing the physique of a triathlete, I will filter that knowledge in later in the month.
As for my goals, I have decided that I will start where I left of in November for my running. While I only managed a measly 36 miles in November of running (my girlfriend will knock that out in a week, not even in peak training.... ugh) I will, not will try, will get to 100 miles. So 64 miles in December.
As for cycling, I'm still out. I got 3.5 hrs last month and almost 60 miles, but I would rather try and tell a crossfitter that crossfit is stupid than ride an indoor bike again. (PS. If you have never met a crossfitter and heard them talk about their
Swim is still at 4 miles. This was easy. I only knocked out a 1 mile last month, that was only due to laziness. I will get 4 miles easy this time.
Another great site to get tri specific training information is trifuel. Here is a link to an aggregated strength training list.
I also vow, right now, to stop sneaking Taco Bueno lunches at work. It has to end. Im going to miss those party burritos. Diet, or at least a more conscious observance of food and nutrition, starts now.
The key is knowledge. Knowledge of how badly I burn out. Knowledge of how I need to warm up prior to a swim to make it more effective. Knowledge that my half marathon is only 5 months away, and my international distance tri is only 6 months away. Knowledge that my new shoes seem to be broken in finally and my new compression sleeves for my legs work magic. Knowledge that I can do this. That I will do this. I will not give up, go too hard, overcompensate, race old men on the treadmill, use the cold as an excuse, fail to embrace the suck and pain.
December is so going down.
(check in throughout the month to see whether I epic-ally win this, or epic-ally burn out and become obese)
November Failures
Ugh.
This is not what I wanted to be writing in December. I didn't even get to 50% on any of my goals and Im currently still sick, as I have been since thanksgiving.
This was not how I was supposed to begin the off season. Almost no real, insightful research done. Almost no advancement in any area of the multi-sports. I guess that I need to call this character training and move on with my life. Whining and refusing to look at my November spreadsheet do not make this past month any less real.
I am going to post my December goals tonight. Its already the 5th and I need to get them down and started. Sickness be damned.
I will admit that I have learned to be more realistic. I tend to be a little too aggresive (read: delusional) when setting goals or benchmarks for myself. Going from a high workload prior to my tri in September, to a fairly lazy October, to a hyper active November was terrible. I developed pain in my legs and right knee from overuse (I think). I burned out on all my goals. I lost control of any glimpse of a diet I was holding.
Long story short; too much, too fast can be detrimental. I know that probably everyone knows this already, but its good for me to write this down and look at it. I need to be more conscious of my decision, and their long term effects.
I plan on getting back into the flow of things and hitting the gym later this week. I am fairly depressed of how cold it is already. I despise riding the bikes in the gym, and just want to be out on my bike. I have debated buying a trainer to ride indoors, but its not really in the budget right now. Next year.
The solutions is to buy some shoe covers, full gloves, helmet cover, gator and wind jacket so I can ride in the 40's and 50's. I tried to ride around in the high 30's (with none of these things) following my girl around the Tulsa Marathon route while she ran, but could not feel any of my extremities afterwards. It was awful.
Sidenote: There is a fine balance between going fast to finish a ride because it is cold, and going slow because it is WAY colder when you ride over 20mph...
I will get my goals posted later and update the graphs at the bottom tonight after work. Maybe I should print out my progress in November and put it on my wall. A not-so-subtle reminder to get the work done and not try and overdo it at the beginning.
This is not what I wanted to be writing in December. I didn't even get to 50% on any of my goals and Im currently still sick, as I have been since thanksgiving.
This was not how I was supposed to begin the off season. Almost no real, insightful research done. Almost no advancement in any area of the multi-sports. I guess that I need to call this character training and move on with my life. Whining and refusing to look at my November spreadsheet do not make this past month any less real.
I am going to post my December goals tonight. Its already the 5th and I need to get them down and started. Sickness be damned.
I will admit that I have learned to be more realistic. I tend to be a little too aggresive (read: delusional) when setting goals or benchmarks for myself. Going from a high workload prior to my tri in September, to a fairly lazy October, to a hyper active November was terrible. I developed pain in my legs and right knee from overuse (I think). I burned out on all my goals. I lost control of any glimpse of a diet I was holding.
Long story short; too much, too fast can be detrimental. I know that probably everyone knows this already, but its good for me to write this down and look at it. I need to be more conscious of my decision, and their long term effects.
I plan on getting back into the flow of things and hitting the gym later this week. I am fairly depressed of how cold it is already. I despise riding the bikes in the gym, and just want to be out on my bike. I have debated buying a trainer to ride indoors, but its not really in the budget right now. Next year.
The solutions is to buy some shoe covers, full gloves, helmet cover, gator and wind jacket so I can ride in the 40's and 50's. I tried to ride around in the high 30's (with none of these things) following my girl around the Tulsa Marathon route while she ran, but could not feel any of my extremities afterwards. It was awful.
Sidenote: There is a fine balance between going fast to finish a ride because it is cold, and going slow because it is WAY colder when you ride over 20mph...
I will get my goals posted later and update the graphs at the bottom tonight after work. Maybe I should print out my progress in November and put it on my wall. A not-so-subtle reminder to get the work done and not try and overdo it at the beginning.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Staying in Touch
Sorry its been so quite around here lately. The holidays coupled with a cold have not made for the best training times.
I have conceded that I have not met my goals for this month, by a long shot, but I learned quite a bit. I will try and talk more about everything I learned and look back over the past month here soon.
I have conceded that I have not met my goals for this month, by a long shot, but I learned quite a bit. I will try and talk more about everything I learned and look back over the past month here soon.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Falling off the Bandwagon
I'm off, lying in the ditch somewhere...
I'm burnt out. I have realized that jumping from my October workouts (basically nothing) to trying a super advantageous November workout was a bad idea. The bricks everyday of the week except sunday and monday when I play tennis was silly. I am glad that I was able to keep it up for 2 weeks, but I am tired. Physically and mentally.
I have a ton of weird lower body ailments. I am assuming most of them are mental issues stemming from my lack of motivation and maybe some shin splint issues that have crept back up. The best explanation for the shin splint is overuse. I did not work up to my distances and workouts enough to let the muscle build.
Lesson learned.
I flaked out on my workouts thursday and friday of this week, and only got a couple miles in this morning before heading to Tulsa for the marathon. I am going to focus on working out 5 times a week, but I do not plan on doing any more bricks. I do not want to run myself too ragged and too exhausted (mentally and physically) and give up completely on my long term goals.
Its easy to see others lay out their workout plans and think/assume/decide that you can perform at that level. Its hard to know what else everyone has going on in their personal lives (read: not documented on the internet). If triathlons or endurance sports are your life, and how you make your money, you can probably afford to work on 2-3 different sports every day. When you work 8-10 hrs everyday, then have personal matters to attend to and then, on top of everything else, try to workout 2-3 sports every day; its a whole different story.
This underlines how much of a sacrifice this is going to be going forward. Training for a half marathon and a olympic triathlon will be doable, but once I move on to further distances, my life will be very cramped. I will go ahead and apologize to my better half for the lack of attention she may receive during those days (she may even enjoy not having me around all the time). All good things require sacrifice, I just need to decide in the coming years whether I am willing to sacrifice my personal life, and the ability to grow a family to achieve a full ironman distance tri.
(Some of you may say I can train very minimally and still complete a full ironman or redman tri, but you obviously do not freaking know me. I cannot just "complete" anything. Its one of my many quirks.)
More to come later, but rest assured this is not me giving up, bailing out or being a bitch (as several of my friends have asserted); it is more of taking a more logical approach to this. I have 7 months till my next tri, no need to be putting in a peak training schedule just yet and risk injury.
I'm burnt out. I have realized that jumping from my October workouts (basically nothing) to trying a super advantageous November workout was a bad idea. The bricks everyday of the week except sunday and monday when I play tennis was silly. I am glad that I was able to keep it up for 2 weeks, but I am tired. Physically and mentally.
I have a ton of weird lower body ailments. I am assuming most of them are mental issues stemming from my lack of motivation and maybe some shin splint issues that have crept back up. The best explanation for the shin splint is overuse. I did not work up to my distances and workouts enough to let the muscle build.
Lesson learned.
I flaked out on my workouts thursday and friday of this week, and only got a couple miles in this morning before heading to Tulsa for the marathon. I am going to focus on working out 5 times a week, but I do not plan on doing any more bricks. I do not want to run myself too ragged and too exhausted (mentally and physically) and give up completely on my long term goals.
Its easy to see others lay out their workout plans and think/assume/decide that you can perform at that level. Its hard to know what else everyone has going on in their personal lives (read: not documented on the internet). If triathlons or endurance sports are your life, and how you make your money, you can probably afford to work on 2-3 different sports every day. When you work 8-10 hrs everyday, then have personal matters to attend to and then, on top of everything else, try to workout 2-3 sports every day; its a whole different story.
This underlines how much of a sacrifice this is going to be going forward. Training for a half marathon and a olympic triathlon will be doable, but once I move on to further distances, my life will be very cramped. I will go ahead and apologize to my better half for the lack of attention she may receive during those days (she may even enjoy not having me around all the time). All good things require sacrifice, I just need to decide in the coming years whether I am willing to sacrifice my personal life, and the ability to grow a family to achieve a full ironman distance tri.
(Some of you may say I can train very minimally and still complete a full ironman or redman tri, but you obviously do not freaking know me. I cannot just "complete" anything. Its one of my many quirks.)
 |
| Start line of the marathon the day before. Luckily we are staying at a hotel that backs up to the end of the last corral, about 4 blocks from the start line. |
 |
| The infamous "better half" going over her race gear for the ump-teenth billionth time this weekend. |
More to come later, but rest assured this is not me giving up, bailing out or being a bitch (as several of my friends have asserted); it is more of taking a more logical approach to this. I have 7 months till my next tri, no need to be putting in a peak training schedule just yet and risk injury.
Just repeat: slow and steady, slow and steady
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Feeling Good
Quick post for the night.
I thought about the post I wrote about motivation all day today, before and after I posted it (I had written most of that post prior to tonight, I just saw that video and decided to post it during my lunch). Needless to say, I was pretty amped by the time I made it to the gym. I was even excited to get into the gym.
I decided to forgo running tonight as I am having some really intense shin pain. I planned on compressing them if I can find my socks and taking ibuprofen tomorrow and seeing if that fixed it. I concentrated on cycling and swimming. (excuse alert) I hate the seats on the bikes. I've said it before, I'll say it again.
There is no way to maintain a 100+ rpm cadence and not rub your thighs to death on the fat seat. Not everyone who uses the gym is obese and needs that giant and wide of a seat. I got in about 10 miles or so before I got tired of my legs and ass hurting from the seat. I hopped in the pool and knocked out 500m in 10 min and called it a night.
I'm running pretty far behind in my goals, and its looks dark and gloomy ahead for my chances of making all of them, especially with thanksgiving coming up, but I am going to try and give it my all. I have already drawn some conclusions that involve my workouts and setting goals from this, but I will hold off and bore everyone with those at the end of the month.
I don't know if I will be able to get a post in before the Marathon, but I will try and get something up about this weeks workouts, my new strength program, and the running expo before the race by Monday.
I thought about the post I wrote about motivation all day today, before and after I posted it (I had written most of that post prior to tonight, I just saw that video and decided to post it during my lunch). Needless to say, I was pretty amped by the time I made it to the gym. I was even excited to get into the gym.
I decided to forgo running tonight as I am having some really intense shin pain. I planned on compressing them if I can find my socks and taking ibuprofen tomorrow and seeing if that fixed it. I concentrated on cycling and swimming. (excuse alert) I hate the seats on the bikes. I've said it before, I'll say it again.
There is no way to maintain a 100+ rpm cadence and not rub your thighs to death on the fat seat. Not everyone who uses the gym is obese and needs that giant and wide of a seat. I got in about 10 miles or so before I got tired of my legs and ass hurting from the seat. I hopped in the pool and knocked out 500m in 10 min and called it a night.
I'm running pretty far behind in my goals, and its looks dark and gloomy ahead for my chances of making all of them, especially with thanksgiving coming up, but I am going to try and give it my all. I have already drawn some conclusions that involve my workouts and setting goals from this, but I will hold off and bore everyone with those at the end of the month.
I don't know if I will be able to get a post in before the Marathon, but I will try and get something up about this weeks workouts, my new strength program, and the running expo before the race by Monday.
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