Hooray for working from home so I can sit and ice today! After a long weekend of training my body is feeling much like what I imagine tripping down a flight of stairs would feel like. I have ice and compression everywhere from the waist down - glutes, calves, quads, hams, knees. But let's remember that it is all worth it coming into race day well prepared!!

It’s been about a month since I last posted.  Whoops.

In that time I’ve relaxed and taken some pressure off of myself which has made training way more fun.  Instead of fretting over my lack of mileage or whether I’m taking the right approach, I’m focusing on form and quality in the sessions I am able to fit in.

I even made it to two consecutive morning swims – a feat that’s taken a year to accomplish.  Meanwhile, edging into birthday season the nutritional commitments dropped off a hair; thankfully early enough that the impact should be minimal.  The Ironbehaviors of meal planning, meal prep and packing ahead have become an easy habit to maintain and I can feel the difference it makes in opening time in the weekday schedule.  No excuses!

The runs, though short, have become much more enjoyable and less anxiety-inducing.  I have even been able to jog down the steep hill on Bulls Ferry and through icy passes without knee and ankle angst! 

We are jetting today to PR for our upcoming 70.3 relay where I’ll complete the swim leg.  My swim is not quite as snappy as I’d hoped, but I’m still more than happy with the quality of pool time.

Now for racing strategy: historically I have not performed well in ocean swims open to the current, so I am conservatively aiming for a 34 min swim with a stretch goal of 31 min.  Breaking 30 min. this year would be a solid achievement in the half-Iron distance swim.  The key to this will be monitoring for cross-over in my pull and being mindful of field position with respect to the current.  Basically if I can keep a calm head, I am confident that I can hit the stretch goal mark.

David’s bike training has taken a strong step up in the last 6 weeks, also, as he’s prepared for the purportedly windy PR course.  My cycling angst was assuaged when I joined him in a CompuTrainer session two weeks ago where I comfortably conquered a 100 min portion of the Mont Tremblant course while maintaining my last recorded FTP.  Guess it’s time to record a new baseline!  …which I will be able to do with my newly installed PowerTap!  Can’t wait to give it a spin when I get home :D

I’m really glad that he’s in this with me because my competitive subconscious doesn’t want him to “get ahead” in his training over mine (even though we have two uniquely different training strategies and weaknesses, so why bother comparing…?).  Spending time with both clubs in NJ and in Chicago has also helped me get my head in the game and to stay excited about this adventure.  And this is only the off-season!  Imagine how much more exciting it will be once we’re really “in it”.

Another helpful excitement factor is that I am officially in the market for a new bike!  I completed my fitting before I left and am now in the process of negotiating the goodies that I want (and can afford).  David’s been a great help to assess the shop’s recommendations and to offer hand-me-down components and suggestions on future upgrades.  If everything works out I may be ready to unveil the new ride in about a month!  Gotta keep working to really earn it in the meantime.

With that I bid you adieu until later in our PR adventure.  Hopefully I’ll do better and post a race report early next week.

The goal this week is to a) relax and enjoy vacation and b) get out and run a little bit every day!

This was an unexpectedly odd week.  I finally got out of the Midwest late on Tuesday after two flight cancellations and so many near-missed-my-flight moments in the hours leading up to my departure (thank you Chicago construction & ill-timed plowing).  Work was a bit of bear so the days were long.  On Friday when I was finally about to fall asleep the building fire alarms went off and I awoke in horror that our building shared the same fate as the Avalon.  I grabbed my suitcase, computer bag, and snapped a photo of my bike on the way out, just in case the insurance company required it.  That adrenaline rush kept me up until 4:30 a.m., thank you very much.  Thankfully I had a really delicious din with a friend and that kinda made up for the dramas.

Anyhow, with respect to last week's goals I realized deviating from routine really makes an impact.  I only swam once and ran once (both were good, though), and my nutrition while away was decent, but not nearly as spot-on as when I am cooking at home.  So my goals for this week will remain the same: a) complete Jeff's exercises, b) be consistent in the pool and on the bike, and c) quickly get back into routine.

So far I'm off to a good start following an awesomely productive weekend - feeling properly set up for the week ahead.

As expected, this was a totally wonky week.  The travel and weather and lack of travel due to the weather made a nice mess of things and forced a bit of creativity and flexibility into the schedule.  First I was stranded in the Northeast for the blizzard that left a mere 4in of the 30in predicted; now I am stranded in the Midwest for the 6-and-counting inches of the 8in predicted between today and tomorrow.

Who needs a plan anyway?

My IronWill was fairly strong this week and I was able to get in most of the workouts I had planned (albeit on different days than expected), and my Inner Fat Kid (IFK - he'll come up a lot) only won twice.  Not bad!

The exciting news for the week is that I had my first meeting with Jeff - my newly appointed IronCoach.  I chose Jeff after interviewing five other coaches from around the country.  Jeff is AWESOME and I am so excited to work with him.  He's the perfect balance of neurotic/passionate/knowledgeable that I was looking for.  And he has a degree in chemistry which only bolsters my respect for him.

Jeff's philosophy is to start by identifying the holistic gaps in form, attitude, and the body's energy balance (fuel/metabolism) and to make strategic adjustments during the foundation-building phase so that the bulk training phase won't collapse.  Not too different from many coach's methods, but his level of detail and clear explanations link everything together in a "eureka" kind of way for me.  His feedback is brutally honest and of course I take it personally (that's the point, right?).  This only serves to motivate me to fix what's broken now so I have the greatest chance for success down the road.

We went through a series of tests and assessments and came out with three key areas of focus:

• Improve metabolic rate
• Improve hip alignment & hip flexibility
• Improve upper body recruitment & flexibility

What does this mean in context?

• Metabolic rate is a metric for how efficiently the body uses fuel.  For athletes this translates to improving the fat-burning to carbohydrate-burning rate = better endurance and lower body fat = lower re-fueling rate required during exercise and higher power-to-weight-ratio potential (speed!).  I expect my challenge will be to lose weight without sacrificing muscle (power).
• Proper hip alignment is a biggie for all three disciplines for improving efficiency.  It's extremely important on the run and bike because misalignment can lead to injury due to stress on the joints from force of impact and repetitive motion.  I was surprised when Jeff pointed out that my hips/glutes/core are strong but inflexible, but it made SO much sense when he explained its effects on hip alignment and on my swim stroke: my hips don't fully rotate which limits my stroke extension and ultimately shortens my distance per stroke (lessening the lever's range of motion = less power).  It's also why my knees angle slightly in toward my bicycle frame and why my running stride is truncated on my left side.  All of these = less power = slower speed.  WOW.  Who knew I'd use this much physics outside of school.

• Finally, Jeff also pointed out that I use my shoulders, namely my trap, to overcompensate quite a bit in upper body movements rather than recruiting more arm, chest, and core muscles.  This explains why my shoulders are always in knots.  It's explained by what I didn't realize was a more serious injury back in high school when "something popped" in my rotator cuff while maxing out on the bench press.  Our athletic trainer coaxed it back to health with a two-week treatment of heating pads and maybe some stretching.  Ruh roh.  Again, this links back to power which...you get the point.
  

Jeff gave me specific homework to particularly focus on this critical issue in the hips.  Tried 'em yesterday and am already feeling it in my glutes - yeah!

It's officially been one month since the blog was started, so let's quickly recap progress:

• New routines: started strong but has tapered off.  Keep focusing and reduce bed/wake time variation to <2 hrs.
• Swim: increased from 0 sessions/wk to 2 - 3 sessions/wk.  Already feeling stronger and my fatigue threshold (when I notice a marked difference in pace & oomph) has improved from about 1500 yds to 2100 yds.  Keep committing to the pool and doing drills 1x/wk, focusing on hip rotation, stroke extension, and holding left side catch.
  
• Bike: increased from 1 session/wk to 2 - 3 sessions/wk.  Not yet consistent & need to start introducing drills and intervals, focusing on knee alignment and left calf/quad participation.
• Run: maintaining 2 - 3 sessions/wk, but not consistently.  Continue including dynamic warm-up and strengthening exercises, focusing on hip/knee/foot alignment and controlling bounce.
• Nutrition: started so well but fell off!  Continue making conscious decisions, respecting "the pause", and committing to weekly meal plan.

Plenty to focus on next month!  This week's specific goals will be to a) consistently complete my hip exercises and to b) continue after consistency in the swim and bike.

This was a trying week.

It highlighted the powerful effect of emotional stress on critical inputs to training: sleep, nutrition, and motivation.

The week started off fairly well with the day off for a national holiday.  I made good use of the time off and honored my resolution to get into the city, and I still had time to chip away at things around the house.  Tuesday back at work yielded unneeded stress when a colleague struck a nerve for the last time that I could tolerate.  Thankfully I stewed on it while making dinner for the week and over an hour of masters swim, so not only did I contribute toward my goals, but I felt a wee more grounded by bedtime. Wednesday was a travel day and I ate the catered lunch.  Including an only marginally satisfying brownie and too much chicken marsala.  That was a little disappointing considering that my cravings had mostly dropped off.  I was exhausted when I got home and napped for 2 hours (!!) squandering a majority of the evening; I DID get on my bike for a little bit, though, out of guilt.  Unfortunately while on the bike I saw several news stories of the devastating fire that pummeled a community a mile north, and the empath in me couldn't tear away until well past bed-time.  Then I couldn't sleep because I was fretting over the families, the destruction, and the “oh crap I don’t have an emergency action plan” thought train racing through my mind.

By Thursday the proverbial wheels were wobbling their way off.  The time I would normally spend preparing for the day’s meetings was replaced with time spent gathering and dropping off donations for the fire victims – a good deed, but poorly timed.  I felt unprepared and rushed all day, and then I gathered more donations at work and went to drop them off only to get deferred to another location (for which I would have taken a less traffic-jammed route) AND I got blocked into the parking lot by the governor’s media entourage.  So frustrating.  An hour and a half had passed by the time I dropped off the donations and got home, and by then my motivation and emotions were shot and I was a vegetable for the night.  I had the time to get to masters, get on my bike, do anything.  I also couldn't bat away this craving for carbs, so I blew my nutrition targets when I buckled for some chocolate zucchini bread that’s been in my freezer since August.  It was delicious.  And then I was tired but didn't go to bed at a reasonable time (doing nothing important) and then couldn't sleep.   There went my chances at making masters in the morning. 

Tally it up and you find three decisions that I could control to keep myself on track and I (very stubbornly) chose not to.

Friday was a wash – I was officially out of steam.  Saturday was better, marginally.  Made it to the pool and nutrition was somewhat reasonable save the post-swim nachos at the movie theater.  Did not need those in my life, but I was famished.  Lesson here is to pound a little more protein before leaving the house.

So what did we learn?

• ALWAYS have high protein snacks on hand (not just most of the time).
  
• These are the times to test your willpower.   Put motto of the year #1 into action: just do it.
  
• Recognize when your emotions are driving your decision-making and overcome your stubborn, emotionally crazed b-word.
  
• Keep after your consistency goal.  Timing of meals, initiating bedtime routine, etc.  Forcing these habits will make it harder to let the B win.
  

Next week is a travel week, so it will be another test.  We’re also expecting a blizzard – a further complication! - so this week’s goals are to: 1) stop crashing! Fix the sleep/nutrition problems and 2) maintain focus while traveling (i.e. be creative with your training and nutrition schemes).

 A lot of interesting things happened this week.  So many it's hard to remember them all!

First, we are officially signed up for our PR 70.3 relay!  I absolutely cannot wait.  I've never been to PR, and I'm excited to go with David and to meet his family there and to take a vacation in such a talked-about location!  I haven't been out of the contiguous United States since July 2013 - way too long - and I've technically never been to the Caribbean (although Belize kinda counts...). 

This means I officially HAVE to start getting to the pool at least twice a week between now and mid-March.

Second, since so many friends and teammates are doing big races this year, there's a lot of buzz over Facebook, text, and email which has been incredibly helpful in the motivation department.  Thanks to Diane, Lisa, Nicole, David and Theresa for fueling my effort this week.  More than once I was ready to bag the workout when I received a message from one of them discussing some training-related topic that spurred my self-driven guilt for even considering bailing on my training commitments.  That left me with two runs, a big swim, and two strength sessions under my belt.  Now we’re talkin’!

Third, last weekend I read out loud two of my favorite blog posts with family, and reading aloud made me pause to think about what the topic really means in my own life. You see, David and I are polar opposites in how we approach training.  We both start by doing our research, but I tend to fret over every last detail - in a nearly debilitating way - whereas he just goes and does whatever new thing he is trying.  We even chatted about this before I had to fly home from the holidays.  This is a common theme among the athletes or role models in my memory bank, so my new mantras for this season will be the Nike cliché: "Just do it." and "Act like an Ironman today!".  For some reason the second one seems to be a powerful reminder of the challenge ahead and the impact of the possible choices in a day, and the Nike cliché shuts down the voice of doubt in my mind.

 Thank you my love for helping me see the crippling effect of this particular personality trait!!!

 Finally, and most interestingly, the nutrition experiment yielded surprising results this week.  Near the end of last week my energy levels started sky-rocketing, an effect I noticed when I started paleo last January.  My energy continued to soar this week at work.  It’s fantastic and I want it in my life.  The other effect wasn’t quite so positive.  By Thursday I couldn’t kick an extreme craving for salt and carbs despite doing so well the rest of the week – I buckled and hoovered two Belvita breakfast bars (after my clean din of sweet potato/kale salad with steak). It was a bit disappointing after the discipline of the last 11 days.  I found the anser the MyFitnessPal nutrition log.  The paleo diet’s key principle is to minimize consumption of acid-producing foods, in particular grains, dairy, sugar, and legumes – our standard carbohydrate sources.  I’ve been eating SO cleanly that my carb levels have hit an all-time low regardless of the 3 – 4 servings of vegetables across my meals.  Meanwhile my proteins & fats are on target by weight, but completely out of proportion  with the carbs being so low.  Sodium and potassium are also only half what they should be.  OK, now we’re getting somewhere!  The question is – how to fix it?

This coming week brings more focus to: getting to the pool at least twice.  Getting on the bike at least twice, ideally three times.  And adding another veg or fruit per day.

Alright!  Week 1 wasn't tooooo bad.  My primary goals were to start waking up early and to get my eating back on track following a bit of holiday gluttony.  I'd say this week's goals were mostly met!  A lingering cold was a bit cumbersome in the early morning, and it keeps trying to break through so this notion may need to be dialed back until I'm 100% healthy again.
Since training wasn't the key objective, I only got in two runs but that's one more run than I squeezed in last week - baby steps!  The long run didn't feel fantastic but it also didn't kill me so I suppose I just need to get out and get going.
Meanwhile I have my meals planned and prepped for the upcoming week and every day has been logged - I really hope I can keep this up.  The nutrition log is already showing some interesting trends and I'm anxious to see how they relate to training performance.

Yesterday I decided to count the UCAN nutrition talk as the kick-off to the season since I found the environment so inspiring.

A fellow club member and nutritionist by trade shared some details around metabolic efficiency (ME) training - a topic I'm loosely interested in - and I'm going to try to capture the take-aways before I forget:

• ME attempts to train the body to consume fat over carbs via the macronutrient profile.  (Friel's books have discussed this and it's great to hear it reinforced)
• This is achieved by activating fat-burning through the right food choices & the right timing with respect to exercise (also discussed in Friel's books).
• Consume protein with every carb!
• When fat is the primary energy source (vs carbs or protein - muscle), less fueling is required during activity.  This also means less consumption of muscle = quicker recovery.
• UCAN is a strong compliment to ME due to the slow-burning super-starch carbohydrate (vs maltodextrin found in my current nutrition-of-choice) -- this mix allowed Matt to complete IMMD on 94 cal/hour ----- holy smokes

Since I already eat paleo I think it's just a matter of getting the macro ratios right and finding the right balance of fuel/electrolyte for training.  Last year during long rides I was using Hammer Perform and occasionally supplementing with my old go-tos (Stinger waffles or Stinger/Gu fruity snacks - love those), but I would occasionally wind up crashing after the 3-hour mark and then cramping/bloating on the run when I tried to shoot a Hammer gel, so I definitely didn't have it right.

This reflection will surface again later; until then, let's continue.

The greatest inspiration of the day came from Matt Bach, IMMD 1st overall finisher and fellow club member.  Matt shared the key changes that helped him nail his IMMD victory, and it was relieving to learn he had implemented the same principles that I would like to implement this year:

• Training with a power meter to optimize the output on the bike to the race distance
• Consistency

• Completing "critical workouts" - the workouts that push you out of your comfort zone
• Strength training in the off-season
• Improved nutrition (he did it via metabolic efficiency training and using UCAN nutrition)

This was inspiring.  This reinforced that I do indeed know what I need to do, now I just need to GO DO IT!


This week's objectives will be to continue what I started in week 1 and now to try to get in a little training when I wake up in the morning.  Check back again next week to see how I fare!

Alright party people - time to buckle down!  Starting next week.  After all, we're still on vacation. Today marks the inception of this site and mine and David's baby step toward our first Ironman (we're training for it together - precious, right??).  We started off 2015 with a light run around his park.  It was a rude reminder that we've been enjoying the holidays cozy-style for the last two weeks and haven't placed a toe in our running shoes (or any other athletic gear, for that matter) since last Friday.

Naturally I've been coping with the anxiety of starting after this beast trying to organize my life around Ironman training.  I stayed up NYE not partying, no, but furiously plotting out my typical training week, grasping for a visual of how I can best manage my time including training, eating well, sleeping enough, actively recovering, and somehow still maintaining my home, hygiene, and relationships.

It included a chores tracker to keep me honest about the "maintenance", a financial health check plan to keep my Iron-gear desires at bay, and Google reminders to....remind....me to be human and keep in touch with friends and family.  And to wake up for workouts.

For more on the type-A freak-out planning bonanza, check out the "Coping with Ironman Insanity" and "Musings" pages.  Meanwhile I'll wrap things up here by stating how excited I am to be finishing up this 17-day visit with a raucous game of D&D tomorrow before returning to the East Coast and jumping right into the IronPlan.

Last night to stay up late drinking and socializing for awhile - better enjoy it!