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.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
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…
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…
Saturday, January 26, 2008
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 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.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, January 18, 2008
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
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.
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.
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