So much to do, so little time

So moving into this cycle I pledged to myself that I will focus more on the cycling leg. I felt that I really needed to put in some miles and get my biking up to par with my running and swimming. However I feel that I'm detracting from my goals in the other two disciplines.

Ever since doing a 7:09 pace on a 5-miler a few weeks ago, I've been dying to get in some extra running to make sure I can manage a sub 7 min/mile pace on a middle distance (6.2 miles) triathlon run leg- by the end of the year.

In addition to that, it has always been a goal of mine to swim sub 1:30 pace for the 1500 m.

Obviously, there's not enough time in the week to FOCUS on all three legs. As a result, I've come up with a compromise. Sort of.

1) I will bike a lot more. That much is a given, I can't disregard my weakest leg in attempt to meet a milestone in my stronger legs.
2) Running will remain consistent. I won't up the effort level since my first cycle was extremely successful. If I went any harder, this additional intensity plus the increased bike volume will definitely put me in injury territory.
3) I will be totally deconstructing my swim technique. That's right, it's taking way too long for me to reach 1:30 cruising pace. I must be doing something wrong, and that something is focusing mostly on fitness and not enough on technique. Over the next month or so, I will not be doing any hard workouts but will be meticulously fine tuning my stroke. I've read a lot of literature and talked to some pretty knowledgeable swimmers and I think this is probably the right step to take.

So thats that.

The Dawn of a new Cycle!

So now I'm solidly into my second cycle!

After my 8k race I took a full three days off. No workouts, no nothing. It felt great and by the 4th day I was brimming with energy and ready to go.

To make things even better, I finally got the balls to ride outside. Yup, after 1158 INDOOR miles I manned up, got myself a bike helmet and headed out to the wild outdoors. My first ride was extremely shaky. I felt like I was always a second from veering violently out of control and thrown to the ground. For an hour I hung on to the bull horns for dear life. It definitely was not a pleasant experience.

However, that ride just made me even more determined to get comfortable on the bike. The very next morning I got up at 5:30am to make sure I could ride without the distraction of traffic and joggers.... and my god was it different. Somehow, overnight, I become much more competent on the bike. I wrote something about this phenomenon in an earlier post. Now I'm definitely a firm believer of 'sleeping on it'.

As of that second outdoors ride, bike training has overtaken swimming as my favorite discipline... not my strongest (by far), but definitely the most enjoyable. Riding alone at the brink of dawn is one of the greatest feelings ever. Catching the sunrise over the horizon, feeling the wind in your hair, seeing the ground past by you in a blur, feeling the surge of endorphins in your veins as you take a descent at 25 mph... these are sensations that mere words cannot do justice.

Sometimes I lie awake at night, my heart beating hard in anticipation of the next morning's ride.

PR demolished!!

Yesterday I ran for a sub-7:10 min/mile pace for 5 miles demolishing my old record of 7:58 min/mile (for the same distance)! What made it even more surprising is that I did it on less than 3 hours of sleep. I attended a wedding the night before and had to wake up at 3am for a flight to get into the city by 7am and make it to the starting line by 9:15am.

For the duration of the race I focused on my form and it seemed that I never pushed myself beyond my limits, ending the race with the seemingly perfect amount left in the tank. I have to say that I’ve never paced a race this well before.

Afterwards, I grabbed some grub with a bunch of friends who had joined me for the race. After lunch I went home and started doing chores around the house. I didn’t really feel tired at all, so I moved from one errand to the next. At 5pm I decided to take a quick nap before dinner.

When I came to it was 10pm. I was totally knocked out of the past 5 hours!! I realized for the period after the race I must have been operating purely on adrenaline. I quickly whipped up some dinner and promptly went back to sleep- knocking myself out again, this time from midnight till 6.30am - for a grand total of 11.5 hours of sleep for the evening.

Thus concludes a highly successfully triathlon periodization cycle. My first ever, and if this is any indication, a start of many fruitful cycles to come. I will be taking a day off, and will slowly transition into the next cycle which will peak again in late August.

Oh JOY!

No rest for the wicked

The countdown has begun.

4 days till the race. Ideally, I should be tapering fulltime now, however I can't resist pushing it a bit. All this time off is getting in my head... I feel like I'm brimming with nervous energy, all of which is seeking release.

I was supposed to go for an easy run today and I ended up doing a 22 minute tempo run. The moment I stepped outdoors my legs tore off its shackles and sprinted, literally, for freedom.

The good news is that it felt great. A year ago, the pace I'm was hitting today would have left me a lot more out of breath that I was. In retrospect, even though physiologically running hard today was probably not a good idea, the confidence boost it gave me probably more than made up for it.

Ok. Back to the serious business of resting!

One more peak!

So this first "peak" of the season is aimed at two events- 1) The bike FTP test I took last week. 2) The 5 miler I have at the end of this week. Even though there is no swimming involved in this peak, I really feel that the results of these two events will really reflect upon my training for the past 4 months. They aren't triathlons, nor are they really big 'A' type races by any stretch of the imagination, but I truly need to do well to give me the confidence to push my training to the next level.

The results of my first test went above and beyond my expectations. My FTP jumped a solid 16% in 10 weeks from 202 to 234. I couldn't be happier with those results.

Now I have a week till the second test and I'm starting to feel the pressure again. My PR for the 5 miler is a 39:52 (about 7:58 min/mile pace) set last year around the same time. I'm really hoping to break 38 minutes (~7:45 min/mile pace) next week. In my hearts of heart, I know, just KNOW I can do it.

Considering the results of my bike test, it seems that the principles I've been applying to my training *should* be working. The hard work has been done, now I just need to calm my nerves and go out there and reap the rewards.

Another Loss

Arthur C.Clarke, arguably the greatest science fiction writer of all time has passed away. The world has lost yet another great mind.

I remember devouring his Space Odyssey series…powering through 2001 to 2010 to 2061. The ideas he wrote about blew my mind wide open. I was taken on a pretty wild journey, made more real by the fact that everything he wrote was based on true scientific principles. I distinctly remembered being even more thirsty for his writing, following up Space Odyssey with the Rama series. And boy, did it not disappoint. Without spoiling the plot, the series opened my eyes up to a whole new perspective on stellar systems in general and ours in particular (a highly recommended read!)

At the time I made a mental note to read the rest of his novels (which thankfully are many, he was quite a prolific author). Until now I’ve been putting it off, but now I’m set on purchasing his latest book, slated to be released later this year- Last Theorem. Which is probably something about Fermat’s Last Theorem.

I will have to credit him and Carl Sagan for fostering my (and probably millions of other’s) curiosity towards the cosmos.

RIP.

234!!

That's right. 234 is my new FTP!

That's a 16% jump in 10 weeks! I couldn't be happier with the results. At this rate, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities to hit 280 by the end of this year.

If anything this test has given me the extra motivation to push myself harder through training. How bad can pain and suffering be when it can bring this much joy? (albeit slightly delayed)

My First Peak

So I’m finally reaching my first “peak” EVER and I’m super psyched.

The culmination of my sweat, blood and tears since November will be in full display tomorrow! Well, at least in the bike leg. My bike class is having a 40 minute FTP test to see how much we have progressed in the past 10 weeks. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect but I’d be lying to myself if I said I wouldn’t be disappointed with anything less than a 10% improvement. My initial test put me at 202.

225 is my goal for tomorrow.

There, I said it. Now the pressure is on me to produce the results.

My Body Hates Me

I realized yesterday, the morning after my tempo run, that my body is not built for endurance running. At least not at the competitive level.

I woke up with searing pain in my upper abdominal area. Whenever I would clench that muscle (sitting up from bed, sitting up from a chair) I would get a nice dose of nausea and stomach cramps. At first I thought it was appendicitis, but I figured the pain would then be on the right side not the left side. Referring to my trusty Trigger Point Therapy Workbook I searched for a trigger point that referred pain to the upper abdominal area.

BINGO.

I found the culprit below my ribs, right on top of the painful area. Pressing into that muscle wasn't as painful as with some of knots on my lower leg but it did induce a really uncomfortable, borderline nauseating feeling. Fortunately, the pain subsided by the time I got to work. What a relief.

I remember the first time I took the intensity up a notch I came down with outer ankle pain a day later. Fortunately for me I had bought my first trigger point book by then (The Pain Free Triathlete) and I managed to massage out the pain.

However the problems did not end there. The next time it was behind my ankles (trigger point was mid calf area), then next came lower back pain (psoas), the next was shin cramps (muscles running down beside the tibia) and now with me massaging all these muscles daily, I was hit with the upper abdominal pain (adding yet another muscle group to the list I have to manage).

My point is that my body is definitely not naturally built for this kind of running. If not for trigger point therapy, I wouldn't have made it past the first ailment. I probably could not have just joined the track team and excelled. But science is truly the great equalizer. Knowing that I can manage this pain naturally, I feel like nothing can stop me now.

Back with a Bang!

Prodded along by the nagging of my number one fan, I have made it back to the world of blogging! :)

These past few weeks were definitely not wasted weeks. After getting sick in early February, I sorta got thrown off track and my blogging lost steam. The good news is that I stuck to my training plan and now I'm in a solid build phase leading up to my bike class test next Saturday and a nice little 8k towards the end of March.

I realize that peaking for these events are pretty pointless but I couldn't keep basing. I NEEDED to see the fruits of my labor. I NEEDED to add speedwork. Especially for a person who's planning to focus on Olympic distances I had to get some intensity in.

With that said, I'm feeling pretty good about my run leg. I was able to do a 20 minute tempo run at 7:30 min/mile pace. I remember destroying myself trying to hit a 8 min/mile pace in an 8k race last year, so this is a huge improvement. I'm excited.

As for the bike portion- I have no idea how much I've progressed. I have yet to ride outside. And the computrainer classes kept me working at certain percentages of my FTP, so I really have no way to gauge my improvement- thus far. The weekend after next is our end-of-class FTP test and I'm hoping to have at least a 10% improvement (203 to 223).

But swimming... ahhh swimming. The apple of my eye, my pride and joy...
My progress in this discipline has been above and beyond my expectations. It was only in November that I waddled along at 1:55/100 pace. It was only in December that I decided to pick up bilateral breathing. It was only in January that I started incorporating flipturns. Now those skills feel like second nature and I'm cruising along at 1:35/100 pace in my warmups. I was hoping to be at this point by the end of this year, but I may have to revise my goals. If I can drop my cruise intervals to 1:25/100 by the end of this year, I would be estatic!

Introspection

This past week has been a rough one on me. Ever since pushing myself too hard last Monday and coming down with a minor affliction of URTI (upper respiratory tract infection) I’ve been totally lost- figuratively of course. My whole schedule was thrown out of whack and perhaps I wasn’t ready to deal with level of change that I had to go through. For a few months now, my life revolved around my training. The perceived intensity of which was exacerbated by the fact that I have a full-time job and a decent commute to and from said job. Once the body chills hit, I was pretty much forced to give up that lifestyle at the risk of making the whole ordeal much, much worse.

Ironically enough, this was the first time since I started training that I actually had the time to think about HOW triathlons fit into my life and WHY I’m actually dedicating so much of myself to this pursuit. The questions came heavy and hard and I did feel my resolution waver. I needed to be sure that I had the right reasons to pursue this dream, especially considering how much I’m planning to invest towards it.

I talked to my friend who got me into this the first place and he told me about his motivations. Why he needed this drive, and how it supplements his life. As I listened, I realized that everyone has different motivations to embark upon the same journey. Even though the destination may be the same, the driving force may be vastly different and such was the case with us.

The Streak Endeth

And so it has come to an end... my workout streak dating back to Dec 17th, 2007. That was the last day, till today, in which I did not do a swim, bike or run session (or any combination thereof).

I made the decision to not hop on my trainer after I felt the beginnings of an upper respiratory infection. For me URI, historically, lasts for weeks on end. It's a painful ordeal and at this point I'd rather not put any more stress on my immune system than necessary and hope against all hope that what I have is just a sore throat.

How life has not intervened to end this streak earlier is beyond me. I grinded through Christmas, New Years, a foot injury, ski trips but alas, it the fear of a URI has stopped me dead in my tracks.

February 5th, 2008- a date which will live in infamy.

Trigger Point Therapy

Following the recommendations of some folks over at ST I decided to give "The Pain-Free Triathlete" a try. I ordered it online last week at http://www.julstro.com/order.html.

The book arrived this Saturday and by Sunday evening I had already gone through the book and started poking and prodding "trigger points" all over my body. I sure did find a lot. I didn't realize that my muscles were so contracted at so many parts of my leg. I'd be kneading my calves and it would hurt soooooooo good. There would be moments where I'd scream in pain as I found a particularly spasmic muscle.

I was particularly impressed about this one excerpt about lower back pain. Apparently it's caused by the Iliopsoas muscle located deep in your abdomen. So in order to alleviate it, you'd have to press in your side, about 2-3 inches from your navel. Unfortunately, I'm quite ticklish and whoever said that you can't tickle yourself apparently didn't know what they were talking about. Releasing the tension in the Iliospsoas through fits of laughter and pain has to be considered one of the more interesting experiences I've had as a wannabe-triathlete thus far.

But back to why I was so impressed. The book mentioned that people who suffered from this lower back pain tended to have really tight outer quads as well (due to certain biomechanical connections of the two muscle groups which are too complex to explain here). Lo and behold, when I tried to feel for the insertion point of my quads, I found it as hard as steel cables. Trying to relieve that muscle has been one hell of a trip into the world of sadomasochism.

Back on Track!

So for two of the past three days I’ve been able to go to bed at 9:30. That mean’s 8.5 hours of sleep for me, and boy does that extra 30 minutes help! I feel that my calves are less sore and that my heel is feeling much, MUCH better. Who woulda thought a bit of that extra sleep would help this much.

Not only that, I’m quite proud of the fact that I’ve been able to keep pace with this 15 hour training week. Next week will be another good test of my discipline with 16 hours slated, but I’m feeling better and better about my body being able to handle this workload.

Bedtime.

Tired... oh so tired

My current Base Phase 4-week mesocycle got off to a rough start when I came down with a foot injury last Monday. In the last post I mentioned that it was diagnosed as a heel bruise as opposed to plantar fasciitis- which is a huge relief. After a week of not running I finally gave it a go this morning- running to leisurely 4.7 miles in 50 minutes. And it felt good!! I’m psyched!

The unfortunate by-product of last week’s lack of running was that I had to compensate with a proportional increase in cycling and swimming. I managed to rack up a solid 130 miles of biking which was significantly greater than my prior weekly high of 90 miles.

In addition to that, I really pushed myself in the swim this past week as well. I’m inching towards the sub 1:30 pace /100 yards realm. Every session I feel a bit more streamlined, I feel my catch is that much more solid. However I’m also leaving my workouts much more exhausted. I’m not sure why that is… am I pushing myself harder than usual? Or am I just not fully recovered from prior workouts?

Regardless, today is the first day of week 2 of this mesocycle and I’m EXHAUSTED. I racked up a good 14 hours last week. I’m aiming for 15 hours this week and then 16 hours the following. My recovery week won’t be till Feb 11th-17th and I’m beginning to wonder if I can last till then. I’m getting a feeling that 8 hours of sleep a night might not be enough time for my body to recover. Unfortunately, now that I’m biking an hour and a half nearly every evening, I’m not sure whether I’m going to have to time to shower, eat AND get another extra half an hour of sleep.

24 hours a day is just not enough. I spend about 9 hours at my office everyday, then I need 2 hours for the commute, that leaves me 13 hours on the weekdays for working out, eating, showering and sleeping. If I need 8.5 hours of sleep, then I have 4.5 hours left. Take about 2 hours for working out each day, and about 40 minutes for two showers I have barely 2 hours for cooking and eating and any personal time- each day.

These next two weeks are going to be daunting…

So its not Plantar Fasciitis! Sweet!

So after running like a maniac on my new Nike Frees 5.0, I came down with a foot injury. Everytime my heel struck the ground, even while walking, pain shot up my body. I was limping to work, limping from work, and all-around limping. The symptoms sounded like plantar fasciitis except for the fact that this was not a morning thing, and stretching the tendon did not alleviate the pain. I started pressing around the soles of my feet and found that there was no pain... all the pain originated from the medial side of my foot! This was definitely NOT consistent with PF symptons, by this time I'm really puzzled and a tad worried.

I had a physical therapist friend of mine (how convenient is that? I give him some cake and he diagnoses my condition) take a look at my foot and he concluded that it is NOT plantar fasciitis. BIG sigh of relief. Turns out to be just a bruise. I'm not sure how it got there, but it might have to do with the 10 min 7:30 min/mile pace I tried on the new Nike Frees. I may have to slowly work into those shoes.

This week has become somewhat of a cycling /flip turn intensive week. I've biked just about every night (except last night so that I'd remain fresh for the VQ training session today) this week.

Yesterday evening I decided that my heel hasn't healed enough to run yet, so swimming was probably the best idea. And I'm usually a morning pool person, so I wasn't sure what to expect with the Friday evening crowd. I walked into the locker room and there's this guy with his 6 year old daughter hanging out right next to my locker. I slowly take my time unloading my stuff and hoping that they'd be gone before I change into my swimsuit... but no!

So I'm standing there debating what to do, should I tell this guy that there is a family locker room? That I don't want to strip down in front of his daughter so maybe he should... LEAVE?

However I wasn't in the mood for a confrontation so I just wrapped a towel around my waist and struggled out of my boxers and into my swimsuit and booked to the pool.

I felt truly sluggish in the pool. I don't know whether its because I've been sleeping 7 hours instead of 8 for the past few nights... or whether I just went out too fast in my warm-ups. My motivation was waning, my arms were heavy and lungs were burning. I decided to grind it out and ended up doing a much longer workout than I expected to- just to prove to myself that I can HTFU when it matters.

And boy did I sleep well last night.

I'm FAMOUS!

Ok, not really. Not even close.

However, I WAS delighted to see a reference to my flip turn post in Slowtwitch's interview with Peter Vanderkaay. I mean, this dude was in the US relay team that beat the Aussie team that included Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett!

Anyway, check out the interview here:
http://www.slowtwitch.com/Interview/A_chat_with_Peter_Vanderkaay_188.html

About three quarters of the way down is the reference:

ST: In a recent heated ST forum discussion the question came up if flip turns are important for triathletes who swim mostly open water races. Do you have any words of wisdom here?

Peter: I am definitely not an expert in the realm of triathlon but I would say that flip turns would help in the pool because it retains speed in and out of the wall. That is also the goal in open water swimming so maybe it carries over. I definitely don’t think it would hurt to do them.

I'm glad I chose to start doing flip turns. If Peter Vanderkaay says it is so, then it is so.

Death of an Icon

Bobby Fischer has passed away. As one of the few subjects of my admiration, I felt compelled to write something about this titan of a man. He was one of the greatest chess minds that ever lived and he was as uncompromising in his principles as he was in his chess game. What made him so great was not just his talent, which alone could have made him an elite player, but his drive for perfection. He studied chess harder than anyone else, he practiced harder than anyone else, and with those two ingredients mixed in with his prodigious talents- he was nigh unbeatable.

I found this quote about him:

“It was Bobby Fischer who had, single-handedly, made the world recognize that chess on its highest level was as competitive as football, as thrilling as a duel to the death, as esthetically satisfying as a fine work of art, as intellectually demanding as any form of human activity,” wrote Harold C. Schonberg, who reported on the Reykjavik match for The New York Times, in his 1973 book, “Grandmasters of Chess.”

Reading that, it saddens me to have not immersed myself deep enough into the game of chess to truly appreciate the genius of his games. My dabblings were just enough for me to note brilliance only when they were laid out for me in game notes. Unfortunately that small sampling has only made me want more. At this point in life I can only imagine the beauty of his moves.

Hopefully one day when I have the time, I will be able to dedicate my attention to this art and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be privvy to a whole new world of aesthetics. Unfortunately, I have also questioned my mind’s ability to grasp the beauty of truly great chess moves. The thought of me dying without being able to achieve that level of comprehension terrifies me. Sometimes, I guess, ignorance is bliss.

RIP Bobby.

Hypoxic Day 3

As usual, my alarm clock went off at 6 in the morning. I dragged myself out of bed, brushed my teeth, changed my clothes, ate a banana and mixed my post-swim recovery drink. By 6:40 I was on the train to my gym.

However something was different today.

I got off the gym stop at the usual time (around 7) but I noticed that it was brighter than it has always been. It occurred to me that nearly a month has passed since the winter solstice but I had never thought of how the different sunrise times would affect my perception of morning workouts.

No longer was I trudging to the gym in the darkness of the pre-dawn hours. The sky was a bit brighter, there was more activity (or was that a figment of my imagination?) and I could nearly smell spring on the horizon. Obviously, I look forward to warmer weather, but there’s something to be said about the sense of accomplishment you feel after a workout done when half the time-zone is in slumber.

In training news, I did accomplish what I set out for today’s swim goal- 4x400 with flip turns. To think that just 2 days ago I was struggling to do flip turns on 100s, I couldn’t be more delighted. Sometimes I’m blown away at what our bodies are capable of, especially in terms of adaptive muscle memory.

This reminds me of the snowboarding phenomenon. I remember when I first tried to snowboard, my first day couldn’t have been worse. I couldn’t go for more than 10 yards without falling flat on my butt. By the end of the day I was bruised all over and ready to give up. Unfortunately (or fortunately, in the long run) I was on a planned 2 day ski trip and was forced to snowboard again the next day. However, when I got on my board the second day, everything came so much easier. It was magical. I didn’t really understand what happened then but it seemed that overnight my muscles had somehow imprinted all the kinesthetic subtleties that I’ve acquired during the day’s attempt at snowboarding- from heel-toe balance, to lean degrees, to foot stance, etc…into my body in preparation for a repeat of such an activity.

With that in mind, I decided to test the body’s ability to memorize and optimize certain actions again, this time with flip turns. I made it a point to swim with flip turns consistently and in greater degrees of strain over the past few days… and the results were mind blowing. This machine which we call our body is one hell of a piece of art. It nearly makes one believe in intelligent design- but that’s a whole different can of worms.

Hypoxic Update

Day 2 of flip turn/Hypoxic training. I felt good heading out the door this morning. I did 18x100 yesterday and today I was determined to get in some 200s with the flip turns, oxygen debt be damned!

I hop into the pool next to this girl who's absolutely flying (not the stroke, but the speed). I mean, one moment I see her in the corner of my eye breathing down my neck, the next moment she's gone. Shortly after, I see her in the distance gaining up on me again and I realize that she had lapped me so fast I didn't even see the bubble trails. It was sickening. Turns out she swam for an NCAA Division I school and now shes a triathlete.

That was when it truly dawned upon me how tough the competition out there really is...

In less humbling news- I did 8 sets of 200s, all with flip turns! It seems like my body is adjusting to this drop in oxygen supply incredibly well. I'm going to be aiming for 4x400's tommorrow. That may be pushing it a bit, but I'm cautiously optimistic after today's results.

Commuting Reveries and Hypoxic Training

An odd thing happened to me on the train back from work.

I was seated right next to the train door, staring into space, with The Gypsy Kings blaring on my ipod. The subway in my city is pretty old and the train makes one hell of a ruckus as it rolls along down the tracks. The matching rhythmn of noise and motion was oddly soothing. I felt tired. So tired. My eyelids drooped and my head nodded off to one side.

All of a sudden I'm home. Not physically home, but HOME home. An overwhelming sense of nostalgia rushed over me. I was transported to a place that seemed so far away, to a time that seemed so long ago. It smelled like home. It felt like home. Estoril? Hong Kong? I still don't know.

And the moment is gone. Just as quickly as it came, it was gone. I tried desperately to grasp on to that feeling. The long summers, the simple joys... not a care in the world... all slipped through my fingers.

Now as I write, I can barely remember the feeling. I just know that I want it back. But I'm back to real life... and to unraveling the mysteries of hypoxic training and it's recovery rate.

Slowtwitch delivers YET AGAIN!

Wow. I'm speechless.

I threw up a post on ST last night asking about flipturns. I then responded to an early poster and promptly headed straight to bed. The next morning I get up to see 37 responses to my post. Sweet!!

I ended up being busy at work so I didn't have the time to check up on the forum but by the time I got home, biked, showered and ate dinner there were 143 responses!

(This is the link, btw):
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=1633254

The first few pages were GREAT. I felt that Namssob did a great job of forcing the issue. Many of things he said reflected my own line of questioning. It is unfortunate that as the thread wore on, more and more posts were directed at attacking the attitude and swimming abilities of non-flip turners. The spirit of debate seemed crippled by the time the last few pages rolled around, but in general I felt that a great deal of knowledge was imparted.

There were definitely some great arguments on both sides. However I felt that the most compelling reason to swing either way, by theory of training specificity, was how flip-turns or the lack thereof, compares to the experience of open water swimming.

The very nature of a pool swim is inherently different from open water swimming due to the 'breaks' at the end of each lane. If you choose to do flip turns then you lose a few breaths for portions of your swim, if you choose to NOT do flip turns then you gain an extra iota of rest for portions of your swim. And THAT, in my opinion, is what the decision should be hinged upon.

I would be damned if I were to end up under-prepared for a race. My Olympian dreams are on the line here. So henceforth, I shall be doing flip turns.

Recovery Week! Yay!

Three long weeks of of pain... finally some respite! Oh the joys of a recovery week! What makes this even better is that these coming 7 days of relative 'vegging out' is PART OF THE PLAN. Yes, this rest period is supposed to make me stronger and ready for.... another three weeks of pain. So when I run 4 miles instead of 7, there's no guilt associated with it cuz I'm SUPPOSED to do it.

Do the wonders never end?

Anyway, I woke up at my leisure this morning. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep too well. It must be the spectre of another chapter of my life coming to a close that disturbed my slumber. I grind through the day looking forward to my evening swim.

I get to the pool at 6.30 PM and for some odd reason everyone there this evening is a veritable monster. The dude next to me is a tri instructor and he's hitting 1:20 splits. The girl on the other side is doing IM's non-stop. I managed to put on my blinders and focus on my workout.

2600 yards later I get out of the pool with a question in my head. Should triathletes do flip turns while training? I always seem to tire a lot faster doing them. And even though you can argue that it helps breathing technique and oxygen debt might be good to increase the concentration of red blood cells, wouldn't breathing less frequently have the same effect? Why go out of your way to execute an action that will have no bearing on your races at all when all it's potential benefits can be substituted in a controlled manner?

This seems like a job for the folks over at ST.

My first Computrainer Ride!

So I've been cycling for 2 months now! I got my new Canondale road bike in November and have been trying to ride on my 1UP USA trainer as much as possible. Unfortunately, I've never really biked competitively before so this has been a painful process. Over the weeks, I've been slowly upping my mileage till I hit 95 miles the past week.

I decided to sign up for a 10 week cycling class that will have us do training on a Computrainer. And man... those things are sweet. I love numbers and boy do they have numbers!

So we did a 40 minute time trial and I managed to maintain a 202 average wattage. I about died at the end. I found this little excerpt on google:

"Mr. Armstrong, for example, can maintain a power output of about 6.8 watts per kilogram of body weight for 20 minutes"

I believe mine was 2.8 watts per kilogram for 40 minutes. 6.8 ?!!??!?!? That's not human. I guess I have a ways to go.

Me and My Mission

Hello world!

Chances are, no one's probably going to be interested in what I do or how I do it so this blog will probably turn out to be some sort of an online diary for me. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to come back here and read through the long and arduous road to where I eventually want to be.

And where is it that I want to be?

I want to represent my country in international competition in the Triathlon event.

Ridiculous you say? Maybe... if you hail from a Western nation or an Oceania nation. I'm lucky enough to be from a country that is less than competitive in the field of Triathlon. Even within our weak region we rank close to the bottom.

Does this mean that this is a simple task?

Unfortunately not. I've never done a Triathlon before. My background was in swimming and I swam for three years in college (not very strongly at that). I started training for a marathon a few years back and I've never cycled competitively before. So yes, I've got quite a ways to go. But from these humble beginnings, I'm hoping to make something out of myself and maybe this blog will be able to keep track of my journey.