Everybody feels like shit every now and again. Recently, I've been feeling that way more frequently than usual.
That sounds pretty bad right? Right.
More specifically, I've been feeling stressed and tired.
That sounds a little bit more manageable than feeling like "shit".
See what I did there? I gave you information and it changed your perception a bit. First you might've thought "aww thats shitty Tim", but after that, you maybe thought "well you better sleep more and take some time to relax". This is the power of information.
So when I'm not feeling so hot, I try to figure out why. I read stuff like this article and it puts things into perspective for me. Number three on the list is the one that I'm confident I've been suffering from.
Around the time I raced Welland, I realized that my body felt bouncy and healthy, but my head just wasn't in it. I blamed things like the stress of school and a long distance relationship. I also blamed the pressure I put on myself to train hard and perform perfectly.
These things almost certainly were playing major factors, so since I didn't feel like training anyways, I took some time away from sport to recover.
So now that I'm starting to feel better, I'm starting to make sense of this whole mess. Burnt out adrenal glands (and quite possibly other hormone secreting glands as well) make perfect sense. Hormones are imperative to arousal which is what allows you to perform. Without arousal, you end up tired all the time, stressed and in absolutely no condition to train or race.
I'm fairly confident that if you looked at my training (including nutrition and other recovery activities) as a separate entity from the rest of my life, it would be fairly manageable. The problem is that sport is only a part of my life and I don't care who you are, you can't just leave everything behind to go train or race. It doesn't work like that.
If you're stressed at school or work, your body is full of stress hormones** and you they don't go away once you hop onto your bike. Stress is physical as well as psychological.
**cortisol is usually one of the main offenders here. It is also produced during exercise because its job is to free up energy through the breakdown of stored fats, glycogen and muscle tissue. When it is produced at rest (work, school, etc), it slowly eats away at your body. This is why stress is so bad for you.
So back to the original idea. Information is powerful. You can't fix anything without knowing what it is you're fixing first. Find out what the exact problem is and then do what it takes to feel better.
Whats my fix? My goal is to become a master of moderation and efficiency.
I'm starting to get back into training and I'm going to simplify my training as follows:
-Lifting weights: 3x/week boost muscular and joint strength, avoid injuries, reduce recovery times
-Endurance workouts: work up to one of each a swim bike and run per week
-Speed work: 2-3x/wk boost economy, very little recovery required, can be added to an endurance workout and break up the monotony
Thats it. Easy peasy.
Also, some stuff to do with studying, but nobody is interested in that...
So whats in the future? Deep River Tri is a maybe right now. I was initially going to skip it, but I'm so very tempted to race it now that I'm starting to feel strong again. Then on September 11, Muskoka 70.3 and October 1, the Toad, a 25km trail run with my bro. Following that, XC ski season all winter with probably some swimming and the occasional indoor bike and some type of running.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Sunday 24 July 2011
Riding In Traffic
One issue I deal with on a daily basis is navigating our road system on a bicycle. As anybody who does this on a regular basis knows, it can get pretty dangerous. In my opinion, its one of the most dangerous things I do, more dangerous than driving on high speed highways in my opinion.
The real problem with biking around cars is that neither cyclists, nor motorists know what is expected of each other. Usually there are two extremes: too passive or too aggressive, but to be in the safe, you need to know when to be passive and when to be aggressive.
Cyclists
Cyclists that are being too passive on the roads are the ones that don't stick up for themselves. They'll be found riding along the very edge of the road to get as far away from traffic as possible. This is an issue for two reasons. First of all, this allows cars to pass them without exiting the lane which means that if the road is around the same width as the car, there is a temptation for the driver to risk hitting the cyclist. Now say there is a hazard on the road and the cyclist is forces to swerve while a car is going past the cyclist. There will be no room to move, so the cyclist will either be hit by a car or crash into the hazard.
On the flip side, aggressive cyclists get fed up with this and decide to ride right down the middle of the lane, or even closer to the centre. There IS a time and place for this, but it's a small percentage of the time. Taking the entire lane is generally only a good idea when changing lanes, turning, or the road is thinning ahead (a bridge, ramp, etc.). Taking too much of the lane causes traffic to slow down so much behind you that drivers get too impatient and again, will be liable to pass too closely to you or run you off the road to avoid oncoming traffic.
One extremely effective way of controlling the traffic around you, other than by choosing the right place in the lane is to always look behind you in heavy traffic. This accomplishes two things: (1) it lets drivers know that you see them coming and (2) it makes them pass you at a "greater" (read: acceptable) distance. I'm not sure what the reasoning is for the latter, but it could be that they think you might take a left turn or maybe I just have an intimidating face. Either way, it works, so I won't complain.
Cars
Just like bikers, cars can be too passive. This is generally better than being too aggressive, but it at times it can be just as dangerous. A couple examples:
A car slows down behind you, waiting for an extra perfect special time to pass (or maybe looking at your bum). This confuses other traffic, which may result in an aggressive move from another driver, or just hold you up in your workout because you want them to pass you. This could be particularly dangerous if the cyclist is also being passive on the right hand side of a lane, but is waiting to take a left hand turn.
A car on a two lane street stops so that you can take a left turn. All the cars behind it, move into the other lane making it unsafe to cross anyways.
Drivers are usually too aggressive though. Passing cyclists too closely is probably the single most dangerous move a car can make. Another one would be passing a cyclist and immediately stopping to turn.
Transport truck drivers are usually the worst for this, because if they pull back into the lane too soon, they can easily run your off the road. I've been in more close calls of this nature than I can count.
One that happened to me just the other day was when I was travelling up a two lane street, trying to move from the right lane to the left in order to make a turn. The problem was that once I moved to the left hand side of my lane, waiting for a chance to make a lane change, all of the cars behind me changed lanes to pass me. This left me sitting between lanes, going slower and slower and cars passing me faster and faster. In the end I gave up and took the next turn.
The problem with drivers is that most of them don't know what it's like to ride on city streets, so they don't know how to treat cyclists. My solution: everybody needs to ride a bike more often.
One final piece of advice: cyclists need to communicate clearly with body language. For example, when you are turning, you use signals, when you come to stop signs, do a track stand and look straight at the other car, letting them know that they can take their right of way without hitting you and when you are passing a side street, you stair the driver waiting to turn into your lane down, making sure they see you so you don't get side swiped.
For more info, Road ID does a great series on how to ride in traffic.
The real problem with biking around cars is that neither cyclists, nor motorists know what is expected of each other. Usually there are two extremes: too passive or too aggressive, but to be in the safe, you need to know when to be passive and when to be aggressive.
Cyclists
Cyclists that are being too passive on the roads are the ones that don't stick up for themselves. They'll be found riding along the very edge of the road to get as far away from traffic as possible. This is an issue for two reasons. First of all, this allows cars to pass them without exiting the lane which means that if the road is around the same width as the car, there is a temptation for the driver to risk hitting the cyclist. Now say there is a hazard on the road and the cyclist is forces to swerve while a car is going past the cyclist. There will be no room to move, so the cyclist will either be hit by a car or crash into the hazard.
On the flip side, aggressive cyclists get fed up with this and decide to ride right down the middle of the lane, or even closer to the centre. There IS a time and place for this, but it's a small percentage of the time. Taking the entire lane is generally only a good idea when changing lanes, turning, or the road is thinning ahead (a bridge, ramp, etc.). Taking too much of the lane causes traffic to slow down so much behind you that drivers get too impatient and again, will be liable to pass too closely to you or run you off the road to avoid oncoming traffic.
One extremely effective way of controlling the traffic around you, other than by choosing the right place in the lane is to always look behind you in heavy traffic. This accomplishes two things: (1) it lets drivers know that you see them coming and (2) it makes them pass you at a "greater" (read: acceptable) distance. I'm not sure what the reasoning is for the latter, but it could be that they think you might take a left turn or maybe I just have an intimidating face. Either way, it works, so I won't complain.
Cars
Just like bikers, cars can be too passive. This is generally better than being too aggressive, but it at times it can be just as dangerous. A couple examples:
A car slows down behind you, waiting for an extra perfect special time to pass (or maybe looking at your bum). This confuses other traffic, which may result in an aggressive move from another driver, or just hold you up in your workout because you want them to pass you. This could be particularly dangerous if the cyclist is also being passive on the right hand side of a lane, but is waiting to take a left hand turn.
A car on a two lane street stops so that you can take a left turn. All the cars behind it, move into the other lane making it unsafe to cross anyways.
Drivers are usually too aggressive though. Passing cyclists too closely is probably the single most dangerous move a car can make. Another one would be passing a cyclist and immediately stopping to turn.
Transport truck drivers are usually the worst for this, because if they pull back into the lane too soon, they can easily run your off the road. I've been in more close calls of this nature than I can count.
One that happened to me just the other day was when I was travelling up a two lane street, trying to move from the right lane to the left in order to make a turn. The problem was that once I moved to the left hand side of my lane, waiting for a chance to make a lane change, all of the cars behind me changed lanes to pass me. This left me sitting between lanes, going slower and slower and cars passing me faster and faster. In the end I gave up and took the next turn.
The problem with drivers is that most of them don't know what it's like to ride on city streets, so they don't know how to treat cyclists. My solution: everybody needs to ride a bike more often.
One final piece of advice: cyclists need to communicate clearly with body language. For example, when you are turning, you use signals, when you come to stop signs, do a track stand and look straight at the other car, letting them know that they can take their right of way without hitting you and when you are passing a side street, you stair the driver waiting to turn into your lane down, making sure they see you so you don't get side swiped.
For more info, Road ID does a great series on how to ride in traffic.
Sunday 26 June 2011
Nothing like a good ol beat down - Welland Half Race Report
So I'm exhausted az. Poor grammar and a nonsense ensues:
5:20 AM Wake up, eat, drive
7:00 AM Arrive in Welland, ask random people with tri bikes if I can follow them to race site. They were pulled over at McD's. What triathlete stops there before a race. Maybe for coffee, but still... have a conscience.
7:20 Transition is all set up. I'm number 25, so I get to rack with the pros.
7:30 At least I thought I was number 25... Apparently my bib got jacked.
7:50 Tim: "Hey is my bib in that pile over there that you guys haven't looked in?"
7:51 Got my bib, head to pre race meeting. So much for warming up.
8:10 Wetsuit on, head to water. Swim a bit.
8:30 Gun goes off.
Race Time:
0:01 People get sassy in the Recharge With Milk Series. Two can play at that game. Or I guess in this case, several hundred.
0:10 Arms starting to hurt. Wishing I'd done more long sets in the pool and stuff...
0: 20 Getting a second wind now that the bulk of the swim is done. Girl beside me has good technique. Inspires my own technique to fall together
0:30 Approaching the swim finish. Wish I had've payed more attention in the pre-race meeting. Not too sure where the exit is.
0:31 Found some good feet. Hopefully they know where they're going.
0:32 Dry land at last. Now for the run to the timing mat, then T1
0:33:13 Official swim time. In hindsight, I'm a bit surprised. Thought it was going to be like 35 minutes.
0:34:27 Fast transition, even with putting bike shoes on before mounting. Feet hurt from gravel path coming out of the water. Hopefully thats gone in 2 1/2 hours...
...Foreshadowing: I wish that was the only hurt I got on the run...
0:40 Its a long bike ride. Trying not to blow up early.
1:00 Been riding into the wind for quite some time now. Averaging around 36km/h so far. Feels comfortable.
1:30 Theres a little over 30 people up the road. Not yet time to put the hammer down though. Still trying to conserve.
1:45 Dropped the ball in the bottle exchange by dropping a bottle. Its gona be a dry final kilometers.
1:50 5km out and back section. Getting a good view of the field. Nigel and Wolfgang way off the front having their own race. Stomachs starting to want variety. Too many gels, too much water. Gona hold off on feeding for 5k or so.
1:55 View of the field behind me: fucking cheaters, every single one of them. The 20 or 25 people behind me have formed two packs. If you're not strong enough to ride 90km on your own, stay home. I hate you. You are all bad people.
2:00 Time to move up in the world. Dropped the hammer and moved up to around 17th position.
2:10 Apparently other people also dropped the hammer. The pace quickens, holding on, but unsure if its a good idea.
2:25 Getting passed by drafters is really frustrating. Talking trash.
3:00:57 Feet on the ground. Decided on socks in T2.
3:02:00 Exit T2. Trying to put on hat, and put gels into a pocket already filled with sticky gel wrappers from the bike
3:25 First 5k right on goal pace, trying to reel in Scott Dickie. Feeling good, but its still way too early to make a move.
3:26 Apparently I'm not feeling good. Quads are cramping. Dropping way off pace.
3:35 Walk-running. Stomach is finally ready for nutrition. Taking everything at aid stations.
3:50 Yo-yoing past runners now. Its just as comfortable to run just under 5 min/km as it is to go slower.
4:10 Kid gives me a bunch of sponges. Tell him he's the man and he's pumped. Decide to see if the the legs will be able to tick over until for the next 5km
4:20 Nope. That was a lofty goal. Still walk-running, hitting 5 or 6 cups per aid station.
4:30 Home stretch. Running. Not sure how much is left, how long I've been running for or how fast I'm going. Eyes barely open. Almost running into people. Put on sunglasses so that people don't stare.
4:40 2k to go, but the quads are so still. I think I'm going to fall over. Gona have to take a break on the side of the path. Nobody's around me anyways.
4:45 I look like Terry Fox. My quads are so stiff that I can barely bend my legs.
4:50:42.6 Finish. Crowd is loud and happy. I am beat down and humbled. Standing is not an option. The volunteers don't seem to think this is out of the ordinary.
4:52 Where is my chocolate milk and hamburger? I was promised these things, but they are nowhere to be seen.
So yea. That was the day. Pretty rough race, not what I was hoping for. As far as I can figure out here is why:
Stuff that went well:
The bike: the training was there and it was too early in the race for nutrition to screw it up
Transition: didn't mess around, so my times were pretty close to the winners
Run Technique: even when I was deep in the hurt box, I'm confident I looked pretty decent.
Stuff that didn't:
The swim: need more consistency in the pool and longer sets/strength sets. Lost a lot of strength over the winter due to illness and haven't been able to get back into regular gym sessions.
Open water skills were 7/10 which probably wasn't a major factor.
Nutrition: bottle exchange skills need work. Should've slowed down for the 2nd bottle exchange. Took in a little under 2L on the bike, would've liked 2 1/2 or more.
Need a stronger stomach to take in more gels. I was hoping for 8 or 9 on the bike and took in 6. On the run I got 1 in, was hoping for 2 and had a 3rd just in case. Probably would've gona better had I taken all 3.
Salt??? Might've played a roll in cramping.
Run: The speed is there. 1:26 in the Waterloo Half. The strength is missing. Gotta run hills, do squats and get the bulk back in my quads.
So what am I going to change:
More volume. Long bricks especially. Not enough fatty acids are being oxidized.
More strength. It'll help the bike split and hopefully solve the bike-run problem.
Stop doing most of the other crap and do mostly sprints as my intensity. Easier to recover from than longer intensity work. Not going to do too much threshold work either. Thats what races are for.
5:20 AM Wake up, eat, drive
7:00 AM Arrive in Welland, ask random people with tri bikes if I can follow them to race site. They were pulled over at McD's. What triathlete stops there before a race. Maybe for coffee, but still... have a conscience.
7:20 Transition is all set up. I'm number 25, so I get to rack with the pros.
7:30 At least I thought I was number 25... Apparently my bib got jacked.
7:50 Tim: "Hey is my bib in that pile over there that you guys haven't looked in?"
7:51 Got my bib, head to pre race meeting. So much for warming up.
8:10 Wetsuit on, head to water. Swim a bit.
8:30 Gun goes off.
Race Time:
0:01 People get sassy in the Recharge With Milk Series. Two can play at that game. Or I guess in this case, several hundred.
0:10 Arms starting to hurt. Wishing I'd done more long sets in the pool and stuff...
0: 20 Getting a second wind now that the bulk of the swim is done. Girl beside me has good technique. Inspires my own technique to fall together
0:30 Approaching the swim finish. Wish I had've payed more attention in the pre-race meeting. Not too sure where the exit is.
0:31 Found some good feet. Hopefully they know where they're going.
0:32 Dry land at last. Now for the run to the timing mat, then T1
0:33:13 Official swim time. In hindsight, I'm a bit surprised. Thought it was going to be like 35 minutes.
0:34:27 Fast transition, even with putting bike shoes on before mounting. Feet hurt from gravel path coming out of the water. Hopefully thats gone in 2 1/2 hours...
...Foreshadowing: I wish that was the only hurt I got on the run...
0:40 Its a long bike ride. Trying not to blow up early.
1:00 Been riding into the wind for quite some time now. Averaging around 36km/h so far. Feels comfortable.
1:30 Theres a little over 30 people up the road. Not yet time to put the hammer down though. Still trying to conserve.
1:45 Dropped the ball in the bottle exchange by dropping a bottle. Its gona be a dry final kilometers.
1:50 5km out and back section. Getting a good view of the field. Nigel and Wolfgang way off the front having their own race. Stomachs starting to want variety. Too many gels, too much water. Gona hold off on feeding for 5k or so.
1:55 View of the field behind me: fucking cheaters, every single one of them. The 20 or 25 people behind me have formed two packs. If you're not strong enough to ride 90km on your own, stay home. I hate you. You are all bad people.
2:00 Time to move up in the world. Dropped the hammer and moved up to around 17th position.
2:10 Apparently other people also dropped the hammer. The pace quickens, holding on, but unsure if its a good idea.
2:25 Getting passed by drafters is really frustrating. Talking trash.
3:00:57 Feet on the ground. Decided on socks in T2.
3:02:00 Exit T2. Trying to put on hat, and put gels into a pocket already filled with sticky gel wrappers from the bike
3:25 First 5k right on goal pace, trying to reel in Scott Dickie. Feeling good, but its still way too early to make a move.
3:26 Apparently I'm not feeling good. Quads are cramping. Dropping way off pace.
3:35 Walk-running. Stomach is finally ready for nutrition. Taking everything at aid stations.
3:50 Yo-yoing past runners now. Its just as comfortable to run just under 5 min/km as it is to go slower.
4:10 Kid gives me a bunch of sponges. Tell him he's the man and he's pumped. Decide to see if the the legs will be able to tick over until for the next 5km
4:20 Nope. That was a lofty goal. Still walk-running, hitting 5 or 6 cups per aid station.
4:30 Home stretch. Running. Not sure how much is left, how long I've been running for or how fast I'm going. Eyes barely open. Almost running into people. Put on sunglasses so that people don't stare.
4:40 2k to go, but the quads are so still. I think I'm going to fall over. Gona have to take a break on the side of the path. Nobody's around me anyways.
4:45 I look like Terry Fox. My quads are so stiff that I can barely bend my legs.
4:50:42.6 Finish. Crowd is loud and happy. I am beat down and humbled. Standing is not an option. The volunteers don't seem to think this is out of the ordinary.
4:52 Where is my chocolate milk and hamburger? I was promised these things, but they are nowhere to be seen.
So yea. That was the day. Pretty rough race, not what I was hoping for. As far as I can figure out here is why:
Stuff that went well:
The bike: the training was there and it was too early in the race for nutrition to screw it up
Transition: didn't mess around, so my times were pretty close to the winners
Run Technique: even when I was deep in the hurt box, I'm confident I looked pretty decent.
Stuff that didn't:
The swim: need more consistency in the pool and longer sets/strength sets. Lost a lot of strength over the winter due to illness and haven't been able to get back into regular gym sessions.
Open water skills were 7/10 which probably wasn't a major factor.
Nutrition: bottle exchange skills need work. Should've slowed down for the 2nd bottle exchange. Took in a little under 2L on the bike, would've liked 2 1/2 or more.
Need a stronger stomach to take in more gels. I was hoping for 8 or 9 on the bike and took in 6. On the run I got 1 in, was hoping for 2 and had a 3rd just in case. Probably would've gona better had I taken all 3.
Salt??? Might've played a roll in cramping.
Run: The speed is there. 1:26 in the Waterloo Half. The strength is missing. Gotta run hills, do squats and get the bulk back in my quads.
So what am I going to change:
More volume. Long bricks especially. Not enough fatty acids are being oxidized.
More strength. It'll help the bike split and hopefully solve the bike-run problem.
Stop doing most of the other crap and do mostly sprints as my intensity. Easier to recover from than longer intensity work. Not going to do too much threshold work either. Thats what races are for.
Thursday 16 June 2011
Race Report - KW Classic
Well it has been over two weeks since my last post and almost a week since my last race, so I think it's about time to write a post.
Last Thursday, I was coaxed into riding the local O-cup bike race. 9 laps of 6.5 km with a bunch of tight corners and a pretty steep climb. I thought "hey I own a bike, maybe I should do that!"
As is the tradition with O-cups, I registered about an hour before the registration closed and the next day my preparation began. The Friday before the race was the culmination of the last 6 weeks of training in the form of a 3 hour ride that included 4x30min just below LT with a hard run off the bike. That went well, but I would've preferred to have a bit more time to recover from it.
Anyways, Sunday came and I jumped out of bed at the crack of 6:15, demolished some power-cheerios and exploded out the front door to meet a couple of guys who were also racing. We rode south to he race and made it to the check in before it closed. Once we figured out how to mount our numbers on our jerseys, there was no turning back.
The warm ups came off with 10 minutes to go and with 9 minutes to go I was shivering almost as violently as the cycling that was about to be dealt out by the likes of Tim Rhodes.
The start was really anticlimactic. Just as soon as the pack got moving, there was a 180 degree turn around that we would have to take on at the start of every lap. Everybody was really jittery, especially a couple of equally inexperienced triathletes who obviously didn't realize bike races are about looking cool because they were wearing compression socks. I immediately saw that I was far superior, at least in fashion sense...
Once we got up to speed, the real fun began. Corners in a pack are pretty exciting, especially at 60km/h with people on either side of you. So yea, that happened. Then came the hill. I didn't get a good look at it the first time because some clown fell off his pedals and was subsequently ripped on by the entire field. Poor kid.
The next lap was about making my way to the front, because the pace felt so pedestrian that I was sure the people I was riding with would be dropped. The hill still felt pretty manageable at this point. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry, so I hopped out of the saddle and everything was gravy.
Lap three came and with it, a couple of accelerations that made the pack really jittery. People seemed to be slacking off half the time and sprinting the rest of the time. I was starting to get confused.
I can't quite remember if it was lap 4 or 5, but at some point I missed the memo that one of these accelerations would be the real deal. It was a downhill where people were just grinding the biggest gears. I wasn't feeling that kind of power in my legs, so I had no response. The field slipped by and as soon as I realized this, I set about the impossible task of bridging back to the pack.
It didn't take long for my entire body to be bathed in lactate. I put my head down and pedaled. And pedaled. I got to about 100m of the pack. A lap later, still 100m. One more lap. Still 100m. Then they started to slip away.
At this point I realized I wasn't going to be catching them, so I decided to wait for somebody to ride with. It had been about three laps since I'd seen a rear wheel up close, so I was pretty tired. The only problem was, nobody was in sight behind me.
The rest of the race wasn't that exciting. I was more worried about recovery at that point, with Welland half iron coming up on the 26th. I found a couple of guys to ride with and on the final lap, showed them how to ride up a hill and finished with a bit of dignity.
All said, I had a good time and learned a lot. I would definitely race more bike races, but I'd prefer to have some more specific training first.
Another thing I learned is how to clean water bottles that have been left with a bit of gatorade in them over the weekend. Rice, baking soda, dish soap, shake.
Results
Last Thursday, I was coaxed into riding the local O-cup bike race. 9 laps of 6.5 km with a bunch of tight corners and a pretty steep climb. I thought "hey I own a bike, maybe I should do that!"
As is the tradition with O-cups, I registered about an hour before the registration closed and the next day my preparation began. The Friday before the race was the culmination of the last 6 weeks of training in the form of a 3 hour ride that included 4x30min just below LT with a hard run off the bike. That went well, but I would've preferred to have a bit more time to recover from it.
Anyways, Sunday came and I jumped out of bed at the crack of 6:15, demolished some power-cheerios and exploded out the front door to meet a couple of guys who were also racing. We rode south to he race and made it to the check in before it closed. Once we figured out how to mount our numbers on our jerseys, there was no turning back.
The warm ups came off with 10 minutes to go and with 9 minutes to go I was shivering almost as violently as the cycling that was about to be dealt out by the likes of Tim Rhodes.
The start was really anticlimactic. Just as soon as the pack got moving, there was a 180 degree turn around that we would have to take on at the start of every lap. Everybody was really jittery, especially a couple of equally inexperienced triathletes who obviously didn't realize bike races are about looking cool because they were wearing compression socks. I immediately saw that I was far superior, at least in fashion sense...
Once we got up to speed, the real fun began. Corners in a pack are pretty exciting, especially at 60km/h with people on either side of you. So yea, that happened. Then came the hill. I didn't get a good look at it the first time because some clown fell off his pedals and was subsequently ripped on by the entire field. Poor kid.
The next lap was about making my way to the front, because the pace felt so pedestrian that I was sure the people I was riding with would be dropped. The hill still felt pretty manageable at this point. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry, so I hopped out of the saddle and everything was gravy.
Lap three came and with it, a couple of accelerations that made the pack really jittery. People seemed to be slacking off half the time and sprinting the rest of the time. I was starting to get confused.
I can't quite remember if it was lap 4 or 5, but at some point I missed the memo that one of these accelerations would be the real deal. It was a downhill where people were just grinding the biggest gears. I wasn't feeling that kind of power in my legs, so I had no response. The field slipped by and as soon as I realized this, I set about the impossible task of bridging back to the pack.
It didn't take long for my entire body to be bathed in lactate. I put my head down and pedaled. And pedaled. I got to about 100m of the pack. A lap later, still 100m. One more lap. Still 100m. Then they started to slip away.
At this point I realized I wasn't going to be catching them, so I decided to wait for somebody to ride with. It had been about three laps since I'd seen a rear wheel up close, so I was pretty tired. The only problem was, nobody was in sight behind me.
The rest of the race wasn't that exciting. I was more worried about recovery at that point, with Welland half iron coming up on the 26th. I found a couple of guys to ride with and on the final lap, showed them how to ride up a hill and finished with a bit of dignity.
All said, I had a good time and learned a lot. I would definitely race more bike races, but I'd prefer to have some more specific training first.
Another thing I learned is how to clean water bottles that have been left with a bit of gatorade in them over the weekend. Rice, baking soda, dish soap, shake.
Results
Saturday 28 May 2011
Loving the new bike
Thanks Christmas, Bank of M&D and Gearheads for the fancy pants transition pro that I'm riding this season. Its a very welcome change from the soft ride. Stiffer, more aero, more comfortable and all that good stuff.
I also have an adamo road saddle on it which took a while to get used to, but now that its on there, I really love it. The idea is that it allows better blood flow and keeps you on your sit bones, rather than your perineum (gooch). It took three of four rides to get used to and I think that its just as much a mental switch as anything else. You have to sit on it as thought its a skinny saddle (for some reason this concept reminds me of Homer Simpson absorbing speedos between his buttocks like at 0:32), even though its like 4 times as wide as most road saddles. At first there was some pressure from its girth, but that just kind of went away. Once I got used to it, I found the saddle could take a lot more of my weight that I was used to. I'm pretty sure I'm putting out more watts than before because of how it takes my weight. So thats working out really well.
I also got a new fit with the new saddle from Damien at Gearheads and thats been working out really well. I'm a little more aggressive on the bike than before, so I ended up moving my aerobars forward a little to take a bit of stress off my shoulders. I was able to get a change to ride into head winds today too which felt a lot easier than a few weeks ago, probably due to training, better aerodynamics and the new saddle. I also have a spacer under my left foot because my left tibia is shorter than its counterpart and thats helped me to generate power across the bottom of pedal stroke on that side.
All in all, I'm pumped about my bike and fit. No pain anywhere today (4x30min tempo intervals) and with some excellent post workout nutrition, hopefully no pain tomorrow either!
Welland half iron is now on the visible horizon (June 26th) and I'm really excited about that. If all goes well, it'll go something like this: :29+:01+2:24+:01+1:30=4:30. That would put me in the top 10 from last year and be a substantial personal best.
I also have an adamo road saddle on it which took a while to get used to, but now that its on there, I really love it. The idea is that it allows better blood flow and keeps you on your sit bones, rather than your perineum (gooch). It took three of four rides to get used to and I think that its just as much a mental switch as anything else. You have to sit on it as thought its a skinny saddle (for some reason this concept reminds me of Homer Simpson absorbing speedos between his buttocks like at 0:32), even though its like 4 times as wide as most road saddles. At first there was some pressure from its girth, but that just kind of went away. Once I got used to it, I found the saddle could take a lot more of my weight that I was used to. I'm pretty sure I'm putting out more watts than before because of how it takes my weight. So thats working out really well.
I also got a new fit with the new saddle from Damien at Gearheads and thats been working out really well. I'm a little more aggressive on the bike than before, so I ended up moving my aerobars forward a little to take a bit of stress off my shoulders. I was able to get a change to ride into head winds today too which felt a lot easier than a few weeks ago, probably due to training, better aerodynamics and the new saddle. I also have a spacer under my left foot because my left tibia is shorter than its counterpart and thats helped me to generate power across the bottom of pedal stroke on that side.
All in all, I'm pumped about my bike and fit. No pain anywhere today (4x30min tempo intervals) and with some excellent post workout nutrition, hopefully no pain tomorrow either!
Welland half iron is now on the visible horizon (June 26th) and I'm really excited about that. If all goes well, it'll go something like this: :29+:01+2:24+:01+1:30=4:30. That would put me in the top 10 from last year and be a substantial personal best.
Friday 27 May 2011
During and Post Exercise Nutrition - the Role of Insulin
About five months ago, my brother gave me this book called Nutrient Timing by John Ivy and Robert Portman and I've finally got around to opening it. I'm not even 30 pages in, but I've already learned something pretty cool. Basically, insulin is your best friend and then some.
Insulin is stimulated by an increase in blood sugar. Its primary role is to tell your body to store that sugar. Normally, that storage would occur as fat, but during and directly after exercise, things are a little different.
During this time period, the muscles are especially sensitive to insulin. If you take in a whole bunch of carbohydrates during and after exercise, your muscles will suck it all up and store it as glycogen. Sound good? Well theres more.
Insulin also affects the way your muscles handle protein. High levels of insulin (which you'll recall are brought about by taking in carbohydrates) increase the rate of protein uptake by the muscle from the blood. Insulin also increases the rate of protein synthesis and decreases the rate of protein degradation. That means you'll not only bring more protein in, but you'll loose less protein (a process that, unfortunately for athletes, naturally occurs following exercise). Insulin also decreases the release of cortisol whose role is to free up glycogen, fat and amino acids. Cortisol is released during exercise to give you energy, but once you're done exercise, it will only slow recovery. Insulins inhibition of cortisol is probably the reason that protein degradation decreases.
Insulin does one more awesome thing: it increases blood flow to your muscles. Not only that, but it targets muscle that have been damaged, bringing nutrients and eliminating wastes.
Here is the take home message: make sure that you take in carbohydrates during and after exercise. This will allow your body absorb protein better, break down energy stores less and generally speed recovery. Have your protein following exercise with a healthy serving of carbohydrates and have your giant plate of pasta as soon after exercise as possible (45-90 minutes).
Insulin is stimulated by an increase in blood sugar. Its primary role is to tell your body to store that sugar. Normally, that storage would occur as fat, but during and directly after exercise, things are a little different.
During this time period, the muscles are especially sensitive to insulin. If you take in a whole bunch of carbohydrates during and after exercise, your muscles will suck it all up and store it as glycogen. Sound good? Well theres more.
Insulin also affects the way your muscles handle protein. High levels of insulin (which you'll recall are brought about by taking in carbohydrates) increase the rate of protein uptake by the muscle from the blood. Insulin also increases the rate of protein synthesis and decreases the rate of protein degradation. That means you'll not only bring more protein in, but you'll loose less protein (a process that, unfortunately for athletes, naturally occurs following exercise). Insulin also decreases the release of cortisol whose role is to free up glycogen, fat and amino acids. Cortisol is released during exercise to give you energy, but once you're done exercise, it will only slow recovery. Insulins inhibition of cortisol is probably the reason that protein degradation decreases.
Insulin does one more awesome thing: it increases blood flow to your muscles. Not only that, but it targets muscle that have been damaged, bringing nutrients and eliminating wastes.
Here is the take home message: make sure that you take in carbohydrates during and after exercise. This will allow your body absorb protein better, break down energy stores less and generally speed recovery. Have your protein following exercise with a healthy serving of carbohydrates and have your giant plate of pasta as soon after exercise as possible (45-90 minutes).
Wednesday 25 May 2011
Recovery 101
Q: How do I get faster?
A: Train more (more intensity, more volume, etc.)
6. Other. Two more techniques which I'm quite fond of are recovery workouts and hot/cold application.
Recovery workouts are great to do 4-24 hours following a tough workout and up to several days following races. You try to go pretty much as easy as you possibly can for these and the purpose is to just get a bit more blood flowing through the muscles. Think of it as an extra cool down.
Alternating hot and cold can be done in a number of ways, but my favourite is with one of those cloth bags full or beans or oatmeal and an ice pack (other ways would be with a shower or two baths). Ideally, you should have the cold pack on for around 1-3 minutes and the hot pack on for 3-5 minutes and repeat 3-5 times (more if its really bad, but if its that bad, use more than one hot/cold session). I swear by the hot/cold--it has got me out of some really bad muscle damage.
A: Train more (more intensity, more volume, etc.)
Q: How do I train more without hurting myself?
A: Recovery better.
There really is no such thing as over training, only under-recovering. An athlete's ability to handle high training loads is really a function of how effectively that athlete is recovering. I'm going to try to explain most of the commonly used recovery techniques. I'll start with the obvious:
1. Sleep. Athletes need a tonne of sleep. Sleep as much as you possibly can and then have a nap later on. I've heard of equations like 7 or 8 hours plus the amount of time you trained that day. That would mean if you did 4 hours of training, you should sleep 11 or 12 hours at night. Thats a little bit of a lofty goal, but I still try to get 8.5-10.5 hours of sleep in a night. Sleep is when our bodies are most efficient at recovering, so get as much as possible.
1. Sleep. Athletes need a tonne of sleep. Sleep as much as you possibly can and then have a nap later on. I've heard of equations like 7 or 8 hours plus the amount of time you trained that day. That would mean if you did 4 hours of training, you should sleep 11 or 12 hours at night. Thats a little bit of a lofty goal, but I still try to get 8.5-10.5 hours of sleep in a night. Sleep is when our bodies are most efficient at recovering, so get as much as possible.
2. Fuel. Nutrition is right up there with sleep in terms of importance. Your body has many, many, many reactions necessary for energy production and tissue (re)growth. Eat a balanced diet and keep toxins out. I'm not even going to try to explain how to do this because there are literally volumes of information on the subject. Out of experience though, if I'm at 95% productivity on days where I eat well, I'm usually at like 60-75% productivity on days where I neglect my diet (like yesterday when I got back from a trip and had no food in the house). Make a habit of eating a perfect diet.
3. Take time off. It is normal to be tired in training. In fact, it is a really useful training technique. That being said EVERY good training plan has periods of rest (usually around a week) built into it (the standard would be once per week and every third week). Taking this time off allows your body to absorb (read, rebuild from) all the hard training sessions you've put in over the last few days/weeks.
4. Recovery from each session. After a training session I focus on two main things: putting fuel back into my body and reducing inflammation.
Fueling can get pretty complicated, but basically I have a calorie rich snack with a bunch of protein (often in the form of powder) and a whole bunch of carbs (from many sources). Your body most readily accepts food in the 20-30 minute window following exercise. Not only that, but if you don't fuel up during this time, you'll be using stored energy instead, which can be really hard on your body. You should have a minimum of 1g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight and about 1/5 g of protein per kg of body weight to facilitate muscle glycogen replacement.
Reducing inflammation is the other thing I focus on, because it is responsible for a lot of joint and muscle pain that might be left over from training. I like to use ice, compression, antioxidants and anti-inflammatories primarily. Ice and compression function in similar ways where they increase the pressure in your veins to push inflammation (ice uses your body's response to cold--vasoconstriction--, and compression is pretty self explanatory), blood and any byproducts of exercise out of your muscles (and joints too). These techniques are "necessary", because your veins don't normally have much/any pressure in them, so after exercise, the natural response is to have pooling of blood occur in your muscles (especially legs). A good warm down also fits into this category.
Antioxidants are found in coloured fruits and vegetables, wine, chocolate and plenty of other sources. They neutralize free radicals which are highly reactive molecules released during exercise. Left to their own devices, free radicals go around reacting with your tissues and can cause a fair bit of damage (muscle and joint pain).
The two main anti-inflammatories I use are advil/ibuprofen and omega-3 fatty acids (mostly from fish, olive oil and other oils and fish oil tablets). I've read that omega-3 fatty acids are much safer to use on a regular basis, so I don't take advil/ibuprofen unless its been a really rough day. Advil may also have a dehydrating effect, so its not a good idea to use during competition/training.
5. Preventative measures. I use stretching and strength as ways to prevent injuries (which result from under-recovery) from occurring. I try to do a little bit of prevention every day, generally relating to injuries I've had in the past. For example, I've had a lot of calf problems, so I stretch those a few times daily and I've had a few instances of ITBS, so I roll my IT bands once a week or more. The bottom line here is that you should expect that past injuries will return, so you should never stop doing your physio exercises.
6. Other. Two more techniques which I'm quite fond of are recovery workouts and hot/cold application.
Recovery workouts are great to do 4-24 hours following a tough workout and up to several days following races. You try to go pretty much as easy as you possibly can for these and the purpose is to just get a bit more blood flowing through the muscles. Think of it as an extra cool down.
Alternating hot and cold can be done in a number of ways, but my favourite is with one of those cloth bags full or beans or oatmeal and an ice pack (other ways would be with a shower or two baths). Ideally, you should have the cold pack on for around 1-3 minutes and the hot pack on for 3-5 minutes and repeat 3-5 times (more if its really bad, but if its that bad, use more than one hot/cold session). I swear by the hot/cold--it has got me out of some really bad muscle damage.
Thats a pretty non-detailed explanation of recovery, but it covers a large range of subjects. Feel free to ask any questions you like.
-T
Sunday 8 May 2011
Shaking up the long run
As anybody who keeps up to date with my blog knows, I had a pretty good show a week ago at the Waterloo Half Marathon (results). In this article, I'll explain exactly how that came to pass.
The reason I feel like I can explain exactly how is that I didn't really train that much, but I made it all count. My run training came in two parts: short transition runs and weekly long runs.
Short transition runs aren't going to do a whole heck of a lot of my fitness. The one thing they may have helped with is finishing strong--not necessarily fast, but finishing with good economy on tired legs. Other than that though, transition runs probably won't account for much other run specific gains (they'll be more helpful once the tri season starts).
That leaves the long runs. My long runs have all between 18 and 22km, but like I said, very high quality. The idea was that I'd insert one minute intervals, do them at an ascending pace or have a tempo finish for each long run during the build period in order to have bigger gains for fewer sessions and lower milage.
The purpose of the one minute intervals were to make sure I could produce a faster turnover and drop down to race pace of slightly faster towards the middle and end of the run. I used a fairly long rest period (more than a minute) and did 4-6 in total. The intervals were good because I was recruiting previously unused muscle fibers and being forced to recover from heart rate spikes.
The ascending pace long run had a focus on negative splitting, finishing strong and maintaining economy. This was another technique I used increase the number of muscle fibers recruited during the workout. I kept the workout under control by watching my pace on my Garmin and keeping my heart rate down. Pace usually started at 5:00-5:15 min/km and usually I ran the final 1-3 km at 4:00-4:05 min/km.
Finally, the tempo finish long runs were ran at a slower pace until the last 3-5 km, when the pace dropped to around race pace or slightly lower. I generally tried to hit 3:58 or 3:59 km's, but sometimes hills got in the way of that. I thank the tempo finish and ascending pace long runs for feeling fresh until the last couple of km's last week.
I wouldn't suggest doing either the tempo finish and ascending pace long run more often than every other week for recovery purposes. They have other drawbacks as well in that it becomes tougher to do quality sessions later in the week and still recover properly. You also can't increase your distance that much when you do these because they're pretty tough already.
So there you have it: a fantastic training technique, but tough to use in a busy training schedule. If you do plan to use these workouts, make sure you recover like its your job afterwards.
The reason I feel like I can explain exactly how is that I didn't really train that much, but I made it all count. My run training came in two parts: short transition runs and weekly long runs.
Short transition runs aren't going to do a whole heck of a lot of my fitness. The one thing they may have helped with is finishing strong--not necessarily fast, but finishing with good economy on tired legs. Other than that though, transition runs probably won't account for much other run specific gains (they'll be more helpful once the tri season starts).
That leaves the long runs. My long runs have all between 18 and 22km, but like I said, very high quality. The idea was that I'd insert one minute intervals, do them at an ascending pace or have a tempo finish for each long run during the build period in order to have bigger gains for fewer sessions and lower milage.
The purpose of the one minute intervals were to make sure I could produce a faster turnover and drop down to race pace of slightly faster towards the middle and end of the run. I used a fairly long rest period (more than a minute) and did 4-6 in total. The intervals were good because I was recruiting previously unused muscle fibers and being forced to recover from heart rate spikes.
The ascending pace long run had a focus on negative splitting, finishing strong and maintaining economy. This was another technique I used increase the number of muscle fibers recruited during the workout. I kept the workout under control by watching my pace on my Garmin and keeping my heart rate down. Pace usually started at 5:00-5:15 min/km and usually I ran the final 1-3 km at 4:00-4:05 min/km.
Finally, the tempo finish long runs were ran at a slower pace until the last 3-5 km, when the pace dropped to around race pace or slightly lower. I generally tried to hit 3:58 or 3:59 km's, but sometimes hills got in the way of that. I thank the tempo finish and ascending pace long runs for feeling fresh until the last couple of km's last week.
I wouldn't suggest doing either the tempo finish and ascending pace long run more often than every other week for recovery purposes. They have other drawbacks as well in that it becomes tougher to do quality sessions later in the week and still recover properly. You also can't increase your distance that much when you do these because they're pretty tough already.
So there you have it: a fantastic training technique, but tough to use in a busy training schedule. If you do plan to use these workouts, make sure you recover like its your job afterwards.
Tuesday 3 May 2011
Strength from the knee down
DISCLAIMER: The following is largely a rant about cushioned shoes ruining a generation. I still do a fair bit of my training in this type of shoe, especially my long runs. I get away with it by being very mindful of the habits the shoes I run in can cause.
Below the knee? Are there even that many muscles down there? Yes. Lots. And they are really important for running health and balance. If you find yourself with foot, calf, knee, or even hip problems, you may be able to solve them by strengthening the base which you land on with each stride.
A quick anatomy lesson:
There are three compartments to the lower leg, or as we kinesiology kids call it, the leg (the thigh doesn't count as the leg for some reason...). These compartments are the posterior (rear) compartment which is primarily made up of the two calf muscles (they point your toe), the lateral (outside) compartment which has the muscles that move your foot laterally (outwards) and the anterior compartment which has the muscles that pull your foot up and medially (inwards).
The foot also has a tonne of muscles and ligaments which are important to your leg stability. Since the foot flattens out every time you take a step, these muscles and ligaments are important shock absorbers as well. Some of the muscles originate within the foot and other start on the leg.
Long story short, this is a really complicated area and that means there are lots of ways it can get injured. It also means there are lots of ways to strengthen the area.
A case for minimalistic shoes
Back in the days of yore, running barefoot or in your Birkenstocks were the only two options. In those days, people had strong feet and calves. They didn't get injured because every where they went, they were training these areas.
These days we wear our Asics everywhere we go. The shoes are named after clouds. CLOUDS. Thats how much cushion they have. They have arches that are packed with support so that your foot doesn't flatten out like it should and atrophy ensues. Its not over yet, woah no. Look at your running shoes and you'll see why they aren't cool to wear outside of your training group. They flair out at the bottom in this big fat wide base. They're designed so that you don't have to balance from side to side because you get this huge base of support.
They take it one step farther though. You add all this heel cushioning in and suddenly you have no need for your body's own natural shock absorber--your calves. When people ran barefoot everywhere, they landed on their forefoot and used their calves (and the flattening of the foot itself) to absorb the impact. Don't believe me? Look at a Kenyan. They still run barefoot and guess where they land. We don't have to forefoot run anymore because we have these big fancy (heavy) shoes, so we land on our heels out of laziness. Its less efficient, but its easier, because its pretty much walking. I for one, won't be a part of it.
My point: we don't use any muscles from the knee down anymore and its the shoe company's fault. They've started to realize this now though, and now you see minimalist running shoes on the market. They should really just be called normal shoes and let the big clunky trainers be called maximalist running shoes.
The problem is that nobody is used to running in minimalist shoes, so they're all going to get injured if they don't watch out. This is where the strength part comes in. Not just strength of muscles though, strength of ligaments and bones is included here.
So in one sentence, here is my message: To stay injury free, be in the best shape of your life from the knee down. You'll prevent overuse injuries because your natural impact absorbers will take care of all that. You'll prevent knee injuries because your improved balance will prevent any rotational and sheer forces. Finally, you'll fatigue slower because your running technique will never break down.
Great, Tim, now make this useful for me. Okay, here are some exercises.
1. minimalist running - don't go too far: build from 1 km up to 5 km
-run barefoot on a beach, grass, or a good, new track
-run in minimalist shoes, flats or some old tennis shoes with no support left in them
-do sprints, bounding, jumping, plyometrics and sideways running (theres a name for it, but its beyond me today)
2. calf strength
-do lots of calf raises
-do them on one leg to help your balance and strengthen the anterior and lateral muscles of your leg
-do them with a bent knee to target your solius (one of the calf muscles--it is extremely important to a forefoot landing). This will also help your medial (inner) quadriceps which play an important roll in keeping your knee cap in line
-do them barefoot to strengthen your feet
3. do single leg work
-balance on one leg
-squats and dead lifts on one leg -- make sure your knee stays above your toes rather than falling inwards
-use a balance pad or bosu ball on one leg
-do these barefoot too
*******MAY 25*********
So I thought I'd add this as an afterthought. Basically, be very, very, very careful with barefoot running.
I just read an article on triathlete.com about barefoot running injuries. THEY HAPPEN. More frequently lately. So make darn sure you're not even close to damaging your body from it. Here's the article:
http://triathlon.competitor.com/2011/05/training/the-barefoot-running-injury-epidemic_29710
Below the knee? Are there even that many muscles down there? Yes. Lots. And they are really important for running health and balance. If you find yourself with foot, calf, knee, or even hip problems, you may be able to solve them by strengthening the base which you land on with each stride.
A quick anatomy lesson:
There are three compartments to the lower leg, or as we kinesiology kids call it, the leg (the thigh doesn't count as the leg for some reason...). These compartments are the posterior (rear) compartment which is primarily made up of the two calf muscles (they point your toe), the lateral (outside) compartment which has the muscles that move your foot laterally (outwards) and the anterior compartment which has the muscles that pull your foot up and medially (inwards).
The foot also has a tonne of muscles and ligaments which are important to your leg stability. Since the foot flattens out every time you take a step, these muscles and ligaments are important shock absorbers as well. Some of the muscles originate within the foot and other start on the leg.
Long story short, this is a really complicated area and that means there are lots of ways it can get injured. It also means there are lots of ways to strengthen the area.
A case for minimalistic shoes
Back in the days of yore, running barefoot or in your Birkenstocks were the only two options. In those days, people had strong feet and calves. They didn't get injured because every where they went, they were training these areas.
These days we wear our Asics everywhere we go. The shoes are named after clouds. CLOUDS. Thats how much cushion they have. They have arches that are packed with support so that your foot doesn't flatten out like it should and atrophy ensues. Its not over yet, woah no. Look at your running shoes and you'll see why they aren't cool to wear outside of your training group. They flair out at the bottom in this big fat wide base. They're designed so that you don't have to balance from side to side because you get this huge base of support.
They take it one step farther though. You add all this heel cushioning in and suddenly you have no need for your body's own natural shock absorber--your calves. When people ran barefoot everywhere, they landed on their forefoot and used their calves (and the flattening of the foot itself) to absorb the impact. Don't believe me? Look at a Kenyan. They still run barefoot and guess where they land. We don't have to forefoot run anymore because we have these big fancy (heavy) shoes, so we land on our heels out of laziness. Its less efficient, but its easier, because its pretty much walking. I for one, won't be a part of it.
My point: we don't use any muscles from the knee down anymore and its the shoe company's fault. They've started to realize this now though, and now you see minimalist running shoes on the market. They should really just be called normal shoes and let the big clunky trainers be called maximalist running shoes.
The problem is that nobody is used to running in minimalist shoes, so they're all going to get injured if they don't watch out. This is where the strength part comes in. Not just strength of muscles though, strength of ligaments and bones is included here.
So in one sentence, here is my message: To stay injury free, be in the best shape of your life from the knee down. You'll prevent overuse injuries because your natural impact absorbers will take care of all that. You'll prevent knee injuries because your improved balance will prevent any rotational and sheer forces. Finally, you'll fatigue slower because your running technique will never break down.
Great, Tim, now make this useful for me. Okay, here are some exercises.
1. minimalist running - don't go too far: build from 1 km up to 5 km
-run barefoot on a beach, grass, or a good, new track
-run in minimalist shoes, flats or some old tennis shoes with no support left in them
-do sprints, bounding, jumping, plyometrics and sideways running (theres a name for it, but its beyond me today)
2. calf strength
-do lots of calf raises
-do them on one leg to help your balance and strengthen the anterior and lateral muscles of your leg
-do them with a bent knee to target your solius (one of the calf muscles--it is extremely important to a forefoot landing). This will also help your medial (inner) quadriceps which play an important roll in keeping your knee cap in line
-do them barefoot to strengthen your feet
3. do single leg work
-balance on one leg
-squats and dead lifts on one leg -- make sure your knee stays above your toes rather than falling inwards
-use a balance pad or bosu ball on one leg
-do these barefoot too
*******MAY 25*********
So I thought I'd add this as an afterthought. Basically, be very, very, very careful with barefoot running.
I just read an article on triathlete.com about barefoot running injuries. THEY HAPPEN. More frequently lately. So make darn sure you're not even close to damaging your body from it. Here's the article:
http://triathlon.competitor.com/2011/05/training/the-barefoot-running-injury-epidemic_29710
Sunday 1 May 2011
Race Report - Waterloo Half Marathon
Not much about today's race went according to plan. First of all, I got sick on Monday--so sick that at one point, I forgot where I was. Since then, I've been getting steadily better, but not doing any training. The ultimate taper you might say.
I woke up this morning at the crack of 4 AM to the lullaby of of one of my roommates rearranging his room above me. After failing to fall back asleep, I decided to read the archives of triathlete magazine for a few hours until it would be appropriate to eat breakfast. The early wakeup certainly meant that I had a tonne of time, so I ended up getting to the race site just after 7 for an 8:30 start.
My warm up consisted of a quick jog, lots of dynamic stretching and ejecting a few litres of mucus at high velocities from my body that had built up over the past week and were finally loosened up. I downed a gel and headed to the start line.
Start lines at medium sized races like the Waterloo Half are interesting places. Knowing I did not want to set the pace and break the wind, I tried not to be at the very front, but it turns out all the other fast runners didn't want to do that either. Everybody seemed too shy to put their toes on the line, so I manned up and lead the race out of the gates.
My lead lasted about 500 meters. My watch told me I was running 3:30's and I knew that was too fast, despite how easy it felt with the right dosage of adrenaline. I ended up backing of so much that it was almost painful to a nice 3:50 min/km pace. Jeff Beech (I think) took the lead and disappeared for the win in 1:17 or so, leaving me and another guy my age to duke it out. After a few kilometers we were joined by Mike Archibald, middle aged guy in blue and guy in black who later disappears off the face of the planet (maybe he DNF'd?).
The five of us ran as group for six or seven kilometers, trading pulls at the front down a rolling, windy road. They started to push the pace gradually from 4:00 min/km down to 3:55 and finally 3:50's. A coughing fit forced me to make the decision to back off and run my own race, having planned on staying between 4:00 and 4:05 for the majority of the day.
As they pulled away from me, my initial reaction was "oh crap, I'm being dropped. I'm having a bad day. Might as well pack it in." Then I looked at my average pace and saw that I'd been averaging 3:55 over the first 10 km. That put things in perspective and I forced myself to be content with having run slightly faster than planned. I ran the next 5 or 6 kilometers alone, barely able to see the group ahead of me, churning out 4:05's and 4:10's and waiting for something to happen up the road in my favour.
In a valley between two hills around kilometer 15 or 16, I saw Mike Archibald laying on the side of the road, stretching and it was clear he'd ran into trouble. At this point I thought I was taking over 5th place, but due to unknown reasons, I was actually in 4th. At the same time, guy in blue also came into sight and my watch told me he was around 55 seconds ahead of me. My new goal was to widdle that away which took less time than expected, because he walked an aid station.
The course has a quick out and back to finish off kilometer 16. I like out and backs because you get to stare down your competition, see how close you are to them and gage how they look. Guy my age missed the turn around (it was pretty poorly marked), so he was now only around 15 or 20 seconds up on me. Guy in blue was maybe another 10 seconds ahead of guy my age. They both looked like they were in pretty rough shape--slouching forward and landing heavily on their feet.
It was around this point where I realized my feet were hurting a lot. It turns out I got blisters just behind my big and 2nd toes in the quarter to loony range.
I dropped my pace to around 4:00-4:05 min/km at kilometer 17 and closed the gap on both of them on a nice long uphill (probably climbing at more like 4:15 or so). Guy my age got dropped on the hill and guy in blue sat on my shoulder.
I tested him with a couple of surges and it became clear that he wasn't getting dropped and that I was in no position to run 3:50s for 4 km, so I decided to back off a bit and collect myself. He was huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf, so I figured between that and my youth, I'd be able to out sprint him to the line.
I ran in the middle of the sidewalk (we weren't racing on the road by this point, due to traffic) so that he wouldn't be able to pass me unless he really, really wanted to. We came to the last 500 meters together, where the policewoman at the intersection told us to stay on the sidewalk until we were at the entrance to Bechtel Park where the finish was.
I made sure I was in front and in the inside lane for all of the corners and just before the finish line came into sight, I gritted my teeth an went for it. Then I came around the corner and saw how far from the line I was.
My burst of speed faded momentarily and I immediately thought of a race earlier this season where I had gone too early and been out sprinted. Not wanting to repeat this, and not knowing where guy in blue was, I pushed through yet another wall of pain and made another go at the line.
I won the sprint and took 2nd place overall and first in my age group in approximately 1:26.
It turns out that it was a good thing I put two sprints in because there guy my age had hung on and another guy had came from behind to finish within 15 seconds or so of me. Congrats to guy in blue for a solid 3rd place and Jeff Beech for spanking us all. I'll link the results when the get posted on sportstats.
PS Thanks to my grand parents Robbie and Bev for the sweet GPS watch. It has been an incredibly useful training and racing tool.
http://chiptimeresults.com/resultsreader.php?y=2011&r=waterloomarathonH.htm
PS Thanks to my grand parents Robbie and Bev for the sweet GPS watch. It has been an incredibly useful training and racing tool.
http://chiptimeresults.com/resultsreader.php?y=2011&r=waterloomarathonH.htm
Wednesday 27 April 2011
Thursday 21 April 2011
Combining the Catch-Up Drill with Body Roll Emphasis
Today was a good day in the pool. Everything seemed to click. Here is what I was thinking about:
First of all, I was doing the catch up drill, because I think it may be the single best drill to do in the pool. That was going well, so I started using a higher arm recovery. The high recovery was great. I was rolling onto my side more and gliding easier through the water. So far so good. Next is where it all came together. At the instant where my catch started to take hold, I began getting good at two things: timing the entry of my hand and violently rotating my hips. When these actions line up, the result is a quick body roll that removes a huge amount of load from the arms.
By the end of the swim, I'd dropped from 17 to 16 strokes per length without even going anaerobic. Today was a good day in the pool.
First of all, I was doing the catch up drill, because I think it may be the single best drill to do in the pool. That was going well, so I started using a higher arm recovery. The high recovery was great. I was rolling onto my side more and gliding easier through the water. So far so good. Next is where it all came together. At the instant where my catch started to take hold, I began getting good at two things: timing the entry of my hand and violently rotating my hips. When these actions line up, the result is a quick body roll that removes a huge amount of load from the arms.
By the end of the swim, I'd dropped from 17 to 16 strokes per length without even going anaerobic. Today was a good day in the pool.
Tuesday 19 April 2011
Core Part 1/2 - Strength
What does a student, a full time employee and a hard core gamer all have in common? A bad back. Its probably the most common chronic pain around. Add an athletic career to that and there is no possible way you won't complain every now and then. Probably, you'll just complain every now--that is to say, all the time.
How do you fix this? Better posture. How do you get that? Core strength and flexibility. But how you attain those things is the real question.
Gym teachers of the world: LISTEN UP. Here is how to strengthen your core. In my opinion, it is the only acceptable way to do it safely and realistically.
First of all let me be very clear: CORE DOES NOT MEAN SIX PACK. It doesn't even mean abs.
Starting from the bottom up, the word core should really include: glutes, especially the medial and minor ones, all four (thats right, FOUR) levels of abdominals, all of the spine extendor muscles, your neck muscles and the stabilizers of your scapula (shoulder blade).
Why do I feel this way you ask? Well anything your limbs do is stabilized by the things at either end. If the body end is weaker than the business end, you're going to cripple yourself.
In a practical sense what this means for you is that to exercise your core effectively, you should be doing so across as many joints as possible. I'll end with a few good exercises.
I have another point to make here and it is pretty simple. There are only a few real world applications of the crunch or sit up. The one that comes to mind is cross country skiing and even that is half squat these days**.
So to summarize what I've said so far:
1. Core exercises should involve as many joints as possible because the term core refers to a large number of muscle groups working together.
2. There is no requirement to move your spine during core exercises. In fact, anybody who studies the effects of spine movements during core exercise will tell you that they are the devil.
So what should you do? Well there are tonnes of possibilities, but the general rule is that you want your core to be active, but your spine to be static. Here are a few examples
Any kind of plank. Try using an exercise ball or lifting an arm or a leg.
Any kind of squat, dead lift, clean lift or kettle bell lift.
Any kind of push-up or chin-up. My personal favourite is a chin-up with my legs parallel to the ground. You can also go at 45 degrees and work your way up.
Any kind of row, ideally, standing, pulling a cable.
Lots of dumbbell exercises done standing or one sided are good as well (i.e. overhead press using only one arm at a time).
There are many, many, many, many more, but this is a great place to get started from.
Next time, I'll discuss the importance of flexibility on keeping good posture and a pain free back. It'll probably be a fairly short post.
**This is kind of like my beef with bicep curls. They're not that useful if unless you shoot pool or row. Also, curls for the girls.
How do you fix this? Better posture. How do you get that? Core strength and flexibility. But how you attain those things is the real question.
Gym teachers of the world: LISTEN UP. Here is how to strengthen your core. In my opinion, it is the only acceptable way to do it safely and realistically.
First of all let me be very clear: CORE DOES NOT MEAN SIX PACK. It doesn't even mean abs.
Starting from the bottom up, the word core should really include: glutes, especially the medial and minor ones, all four (thats right, FOUR) levels of abdominals, all of the spine extendor muscles, your neck muscles and the stabilizers of your scapula (shoulder blade).
Why do I feel this way you ask? Well anything your limbs do is stabilized by the things at either end. If the body end is weaker than the business end, you're going to cripple yourself.
In a practical sense what this means for you is that to exercise your core effectively, you should be doing so across as many joints as possible. I'll end with a few good exercises.
I have another point to make here and it is pretty simple. There are only a few real world applications of the crunch or sit up. The one that comes to mind is cross country skiing and even that is half squat these days**.
So to summarize what I've said so far:
1. Core exercises should involve as many joints as possible because the term core refers to a large number of muscle groups working together.
2. There is no requirement to move your spine during core exercises. In fact, anybody who studies the effects of spine movements during core exercise will tell you that they are the devil.
So what should you do? Well there are tonnes of possibilities, but the general rule is that you want your core to be active, but your spine to be static. Here are a few examples
Any kind of plank. Try using an exercise ball or lifting an arm or a leg.
Any kind of squat, dead lift, clean lift or kettle bell lift.
Any kind of push-up or chin-up. My personal favourite is a chin-up with my legs parallel to the ground. You can also go at 45 degrees and work your way up.
Any kind of row, ideally, standing, pulling a cable.
Lots of dumbbell exercises done standing or one sided are good as well (i.e. overhead press using only one arm at a time).
There are many, many, many, many more, but this is a great place to get started from.
Next time, I'll discuss the importance of flexibility on keeping good posture and a pain free back. It'll probably be a fairly short post.
**This is kind of like my beef with bicep curls. They're not that useful if unless you shoot pool or row. Also, curls for the girls.
Running Form Part 2 - Foot Strike
I talked about this last time, but I thought it would be a good idea to paint a more detailed picture. Here are some more points about the foot strike.
It is desirable to have your foot strike as far back as possible because you don't propel yourself forward much until just before your foot leaves the ground. The rest of the time your foot spends on the ground is basically just to get to that point.
It is desirable to have your toes come down first because of the way your foot naturally lands. To optimize shock absorption, the pinky toe should touch down first. From there, the outside edge of the foot touches down and at the same time the foot rolls medially so that the big toe touches down. This allows the big toe to apply pressure at toe off.
As the foot lands, the bones flatten out (to model this, take your hand, cupped, and put it on the desk, pinky first; when your hand (foot) lands, flatten your hand). This deformation is a major part of your body's natural shock absorber. It is also one that has been ruined by cushioned heels and stiff soles of modern shoes. It is possible to strengthen these muscles lots of different ways, but spending time in minimalistic footwear is a good way.
Fortunately, the above two points go together hand in hand, so you can work on them at the same time. Here are some more points:
Land with your foot under or behind you knee. This can limit overstriding and keeps you from braking upon foot strike.
Pick up your feet. Your foot should never land while it is still travelling forward in relation to your center of mass. Ideally, it will already be moving backwards upon foot strike.
Have the proper hip alignment. This is a complicated one, so I'll take my best shot at it. First of all, there should be no horizontal rotation of the hips--that is to say, from an aerial view, the hips should stay directly under the shoulders (which also should not move). There is however, some rotation that can be seen from a side view. The bottom of the hips rotates forward as the foot lands and extends as the leg extends backwards. You may feel tension in your abs upon foot strike if you do this right.
My final point is that your ankle remains loose upon recovery. The wrong thing to do is to reach forward with your foot with a flexed calf in order to get your forefoot to come down first.
The way to learn these things is to take it slow. On each run pick one or two things to periodically focus on during over the course of the workout. Try to relax as much as possible both while focusing and while just running.
Tuesday 12 April 2011
Swimming: a couple of points about pull
I had an interesting conversation about a few parts of swim technique today and I thought I`d share them with the world.
1. Shoulder flexibility and hand depth
When your hand enters the water, it pauses for a moment and you glide. Your hand and arm makes a hole in the water that your body then passes through. This is common sense to most swimmers, but here is the catch (yea thats a swimming pun). If you hand is "too high" in the water, your hips will sink.
So how high is "too high"? Well it all depends on shoulder flexibility.
Try this test: put your hands in the air like somebody is pointing a really scary gun at you (elbows straight, hands shoulder width apart). Now allow yourself to relax, bringing your arms far enough forward that there is no significant tension in any muscles. This is the angle your shoulders should sit in the water because the whole point of gliding is to relax and conserve energy.
Now that we have established the angle that your shoulder can comfortably rest, it is important to get our priorities straight. Keeping your hips on the surface takes priority over the aquadynamics of your arm. To keep your hips on the surface, simply figure out the distance from the longitudinal axis of your body that your hand sits while you are relaxed (the position discussed in the previous paragraph).
Sacrifice a bit of drag caused by your arm and reduce a tonne of drag caused by your hips.
2. Maximizing power in your pull - a quick breakdown of the underwater portion of the swim stroke
Step one: use the biggest paddle possible. Starting from your gliding position, your first priority is to make your hand and more importantly, your forearm vertical in the water. I would compare this to Eminem in 8-mile when he's rapping to all his homies in the 313, but you can picture it however you like.
Step two: use your lats to set up for step three. The next part of the stroke is to bring your elbow to the side of your body. You will be pulling the water back and slightly towards the midline of your body. Your recovering hand enters the water at this point and the body rotation involved in this action helps you out. You are propelled forward, but more importantly, this sets you up for step three which is where the main propulsion occurs. When your elbow gets to the side of your body, your hand will be directly below your hip and at this point, step three begins.
Step three: use your body roll and your triceps to push past your hips. For the duration of step three, your elbow remains locked to your body. Rolling your body provides most of the power and your triceps provide the rest. You should be pushing water backwards and slightly away from the midline of your body.
Here is a youtube video of Mr. Phelphs. He is a sprinter though, which means he will have less hip rotation and a deeper stroke than a long distance swimmer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax77_hHq9Dc
3. Back pain
Finally, I've had two triathletes complain about back pain to me in the last week, so here are three things to check.
Is your hand too high in the water? If you are trying to keep your hips up at the same time as you try to keep your hand high in the water (during the glide), your back is probably working pretty hard. Let your hand drop and stretch your shoulder (pecs and rotator cuff).
Is your bike position too stretched out? Here is an easy example of the stress this causes: bend over so that your back is at approximately the same angle as it would be while you ride. Now take your hands and put them in an aero tuck. Slowly reach forward and feel the stress build in your low back. Does this look like your position on the bike?
Are you running hunched over? My number one tip to becoming a better runner is to fix your standing posture. If you stand hunched, you probably run hunched. Or maybe you run hunched anyways. Either way, stand up straight.
1. Shoulder flexibility and hand depth
When your hand enters the water, it pauses for a moment and you glide. Your hand and arm makes a hole in the water that your body then passes through. This is common sense to most swimmers, but here is the catch (yea thats a swimming pun). If you hand is "too high" in the water, your hips will sink.
So how high is "too high"? Well it all depends on shoulder flexibility.
Try this test: put your hands in the air like somebody is pointing a really scary gun at you (elbows straight, hands shoulder width apart). Now allow yourself to relax, bringing your arms far enough forward that there is no significant tension in any muscles. This is the angle your shoulders should sit in the water because the whole point of gliding is to relax and conserve energy.
Now that we have established the angle that your shoulder can comfortably rest, it is important to get our priorities straight. Keeping your hips on the surface takes priority over the aquadynamics of your arm. To keep your hips on the surface, simply figure out the distance from the longitudinal axis of your body that your hand sits while you are relaxed (the position discussed in the previous paragraph).
Sacrifice a bit of drag caused by your arm and reduce a tonne of drag caused by your hips.
2. Maximizing power in your pull - a quick breakdown of the underwater portion of the swim stroke
Step one: use the biggest paddle possible. Starting from your gliding position, your first priority is to make your hand and more importantly, your forearm vertical in the water. I would compare this to Eminem in 8-mile when he's rapping to all his homies in the 313, but you can picture it however you like.
Step two: use your lats to set up for step three. The next part of the stroke is to bring your elbow to the side of your body. You will be pulling the water back and slightly towards the midline of your body. Your recovering hand enters the water at this point and the body rotation involved in this action helps you out. You are propelled forward, but more importantly, this sets you up for step three which is where the main propulsion occurs. When your elbow gets to the side of your body, your hand will be directly below your hip and at this point, step three begins.
Step three: use your body roll and your triceps to push past your hips. For the duration of step three, your elbow remains locked to your body. Rolling your body provides most of the power and your triceps provide the rest. You should be pushing water backwards and slightly away from the midline of your body.
Here is a youtube video of Mr. Phelphs. He is a sprinter though, which means he will have less hip rotation and a deeper stroke than a long distance swimmer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax77_hHq9Dc
3. Back pain
Finally, I've had two triathletes complain about back pain to me in the last week, so here are three things to check.
Is your hand too high in the water? If you are trying to keep your hips up at the same time as you try to keep your hand high in the water (during the glide), your back is probably working pretty hard. Let your hand drop and stretch your shoulder (pecs and rotator cuff).
Is your bike position too stretched out? Here is an easy example of the stress this causes: bend over so that your back is at approximately the same angle as it would be while you ride. Now take your hands and put them in an aero tuck. Slowly reach forward and feel the stress build in your low back. Does this look like your position on the bike?
Are you running hunched over? My number one tip to becoming a better runner is to fix your standing posture. If you stand hunched, you probably run hunched. Or maybe you run hunched anyways. Either way, stand up straight.
Monday 11 April 2011
Race Report - University Sprint Triathlon Championships
On Saturday I traveled to Kingston as the final stage of a six day road trip with my moral support, Mike Yetisir. We arrived at the race site around noon to check out the course which consisted on an indoor swim, and two lap bike course and one lap run course. The bike was windy with a few medium sized hills and run the run consisted almost exclusively of false flats. I rode one lap of the bike course with Mike following me in the car. I felt so safe because he forced cars to give me the whole lane when the passed me. It also helped that there was a speed trap half way along the course!
I woke up on race morning at 7:30 having had a wonderful sleep in the Queens student ghetto. We arrived on site around 8:30 and checked the place out. Having had really bad nerves last week at the UW Tri Club Aquathon, I was sure to keep my arousal levels low. Music helped tremendously and my heart rate didn't spike until just before the race start.
Due to my less than ideal swim last week, I got put in the second heat, so the fastest competitors headed onto the course 30 minutes before me. I do most of my training all my my lonesome though, so I wasn't stressing too hard about that.
I took the swim a little easier than I normally would. I swam as efficiently as possible and was fairly fresh onto the bike. My 750m swim split was between 12 and 12 1/2 minutes (by what my watch says). I was second out of the water, but ended up being first out of transition. Not realizing I'd made that pass, I spend the first couple of kilometers looking for the guy I thought I was chasing.
In a word, the bike was just fun. On the way out, I was riding around 45 km/h with the wind at my back on my bike that I picked up last weekend. The way back was more like 33 or so though. Pacing was tough because I was all alone on the course, so I rode pretty hard, but in afterthought, it might have been a good idea to go a bit faster. About half way through, my heart rate monitor stopped working and displayed a HR in the 220's. I hopped off the bike with a split that was around a minute slower than the leaders (33 min or so).
Speaking of biking, I just got a brand spankin' new bike (specialized transition with token 8 cm deep wheels).
Thats right. Shiny. Red and white paint. Carbon fibre. A true racing machine. Photos to come I'm sure.
Thanks to Damien and Gearheads for the always fantastic service. My set-up was rock solid and everything was working perfectly.
The run went way better than I expected. I averaged 3:49 min/km. The first kilometer or so I had a pretty bad stitch in my side, but after that I ran fairly strongly and my biomechanics held up. I ended up running around 50 m too far because the cone for the first turn around was on the sidewalk and I was on the road running the best line.
I finished in 4th with a final time of around 1:07 which is a new PB, but it was an indoor swim, so I'm not sure if it really counts. After the race there were plenty more heats to watch and plenty of banana chocolate chip pancakes to be had.
Thanks to Matt and all the volunteers for making the race happen. Also to Chris Morton for inviting me to come out and registering me. Hopefully I'll see more of the UW Tri Club in the future.
I woke up on race morning at 7:30 having had a wonderful sleep in the Queens student ghetto. We arrived on site around 8:30 and checked the place out. Having had really bad nerves last week at the UW Tri Club Aquathon, I was sure to keep my arousal levels low. Music helped tremendously and my heart rate didn't spike until just before the race start.
Due to my less than ideal swim last week, I got put in the second heat, so the fastest competitors headed onto the course 30 minutes before me. I do most of my training all my my lonesome though, so I wasn't stressing too hard about that.
I took the swim a little easier than I normally would. I swam as efficiently as possible and was fairly fresh onto the bike. My 750m swim split was between 12 and 12 1/2 minutes (by what my watch says). I was second out of the water, but ended up being first out of transition. Not realizing I'd made that pass, I spend the first couple of kilometers looking for the guy I thought I was chasing.
In a word, the bike was just fun. On the way out, I was riding around 45 km/h with the wind at my back on my bike that I picked up last weekend. The way back was more like 33 or so though. Pacing was tough because I was all alone on the course, so I rode pretty hard, but in afterthought, it might have been a good idea to go a bit faster. About half way through, my heart rate monitor stopped working and displayed a HR in the 220's. I hopped off the bike with a split that was around a minute slower than the leaders (33 min or so).
Speaking of biking, I just got a brand spankin' new bike (specialized transition with token 8 cm deep wheels).
Thats right. Shiny. Red and white paint. Carbon fibre. A true racing machine. Photos to come I'm sure.
Thanks to Damien and Gearheads for the always fantastic service. My set-up was rock solid and everything was working perfectly.
The run went way better than I expected. I averaged 3:49 min/km. The first kilometer or so I had a pretty bad stitch in my side, but after that I ran fairly strongly and my biomechanics held up. I ended up running around 50 m too far because the cone for the first turn around was on the sidewalk and I was on the road running the best line.
I finished in 4th with a final time of around 1:07 which is a new PB, but it was an indoor swim, so I'm not sure if it really counts. After the race there were plenty more heats to watch and plenty of banana chocolate chip pancakes to be had.
Thanks to Matt and all the volunteers for making the race happen. Also to Chris Morton for inviting me to come out and registering me. Hopefully I'll see more of the UW Tri Club in the future.
Running Form Part 1 - Minimizing Impact
For my second post on my brand new blog, I'm going to start tackling a pretty tough subject. Running form confuses so many people because we learn to run implicitly and as a result, we never have to describe it. The problem is that lots of people learn wrong. I blame video games and shoes with too much cushion. We need to run more as children and we need to be able to feel the ground when we do this. With pillow shoes, it doesn't make a difference how you land because you can't feel the impact anyways.
Minimizing Impact
More impact means more injuries. There is no point to running if all you do is hurt yourself. Nobody gets better on the sidelines.
To reduce impact in the vertical plane as much as possible, land on your mid-foot or forefoot and land underneath the body. Forefoot landing is pretty much only for sprinters because it takes a lot more energy, so I will focus on a mid-foot landing. Landing on the mid-foot is basically a flat footed landing with the balls of the feet leading just a tiny little bit ahead of the heel. This allows the load of landing to be shared between the muscles of the calf and the skeleton (the majority of people land on their heels which results in nearly all of the impact being translated into the skeleton). Landing on the heel is associated with several of the most common running injuries including shin splints and patellofemoral syndrome.
Landing underneath the body is also imperative to reducing impact in the horizontal plane. Landing in front of your centre of mass means that upon impact, you have to absorb some of your forward momentum which results in stress on the body (and going slower which will be discussed next time).
Landing directly under the centre of mass (hips) means that you can start pushing yourself forward in space as soon as you land. I find that trying to push myself forward as soon as I land is a good way to concentrate of landing in the right spot.
At this point it is extremely important to warn you of two potential problems should you begin running with a mid-foot landing. First of all, your body, primarily your calves, will not be used to this style of running, just like when you change anything else in training, start small and build slowly. The second thing is to make sure that you also land under your body. If you don't, the load on your calf will be enormous because you'll be adding the horizontal forces to the vertical ones.
The other thing you want to reduce is rotational moments. Moments are usually applied by twisting in the upper body. Basically if for example you twist your arms around your torso with each stride, you balance that out with your ankle, knee, and various muscles including your quads and core. This is all impact that isn't necessary for forward movement and can easily be avoided.
You can limit your arm movement by keeping your elbows tucked in close and allowing your hands to travel from beside your hip to about six inches in front of your armpit. Another great way to reduce moments is by keeping your hips square to your direction of travel. To check this while running, I put my hands on my hips and it becomes pretty obvious if there is a problem.
Some things to try:
A's, B's and C's. Any running coach should be able to show you these. There are probably some good youtube videos as well. They focus on certain parts of the running stride.
Strides. To do strides properly, you just take 10 or 15 of the best running strides you can at 70-95% of your max speed. They are short because your attention span is probably equally short. You can do these barefoot if you like and it is usually best to do them on a soft surface. You can do them as a warm up as often as you like.
Barefoot and minimalistic running (toe shoes or flats): these are ways to get a better feel for the ground. They are important to do on a weekly or biweekly basis, but they are also a good way to get injured. You should treat them as a drill rather than a fitness session.
Focus. On your runs, periodically spend a few minutes running as beautifully as you possibly can. You'll find that over time the technique you use most often becomes second nature.
Athletic Dinner Table
Introduction
Eating properly is pretty much the single most important recovery tool a person can use. Putting the correct things in the correct amounts into your body will optimize your ability to repair damaged tissues, increase alertness and pretty much just makes you happier with life. I will focus on “what?”, “how much?” and “when?”.
Before I get into the meat of it (haha, pun), here are a few basic guidelines that are fairly universally accepted. First, if your great grand daddy didn’t eat it, neither should you—while there are exceptions, this rule is true for just about everything. The reasoning behind this is that evolution can’t keep up to all of our new food inventions, so our bodies know how to digest foods that have been around for a very long time. This means two things: ancient foods won’t be toxic to your body, but equally importantly, ancient foods will allow for a more complete absorption.
The second rule is one that I think is both delicious and effective: the majority of your meals (breakfast, lunch and dinna) should be made up of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and lean meats. I will go into more detail later on why. This is sort of another way of saying the first rule if you think about it.
Macronutrients
Macronutrients are the simplest thing to keep track of in your diet. These are your proteins, fats and carbohydrates—I would also rank their importance in that order.
Proteins, as you know, are used to repair our muscles. Protein is the Lego block of our bodies and you should have it with every meal. We don’t really store protein like we store fats and carbs, so the primary reason to eat it so frequently is so that our bodies are able to constantly build and repair tissues. Protein also increases absorption of carbohydrates which is pretty awesome. I guess the final reason protein is useful (which is also the basis for the Atkins diet) is that protein isn’t easily converted to fat, so it makes it easier to keep a nice tight behind.
You should focus your sources of protein on fresh, lean meats. Basically, if it isn’t cooked when you buy it, you should be okay, but the less fat on the cut, the better. Chicken is pretty much the best meat to eat on a regular basis, so make that a staple. After that, turkey and pork are kind of fatty, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say they’re bad, just not as good. Fish has mercury in it, so once a week should be your maximum. The advantage of fish is in the good fat that they have, which is the next topic. You can use protein powder which I don’t have any beef with (another pun hahahaha). Protein powder is a supplement though, so you just need to make sure you keep it that way, rather than using it as a staple. Finally, some people diss eggs, but I think they’re pretty fantastic for daily eating.
Fats do so many friggin’ things its ridiculous. They act as fuel, hormones, structural units and quite a few other things. First, let’s go over what you should avoid. Anything that has been processed is bad for you. Period. Trans fats are the famous one. Basically, throw out your margarine and only buy quality butter. Better yet, just use olive oil which is the god of all oils. There are other good oils, but you have to be careful because cheap oils are usually hydrogenated and hard to metabolize. So the golden rule for your frying pan is only use olive oil because it works for anything from eggs to grilled cheese, and it’s stupid healthy. Olive oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids which just means that there is a double bond between the 3rd and 4th carbons from the end of the carbon chain. Omega-3s reduce inflammation and can be more effective that aspirin or ibuprofen. They also are good for your immune system. I take omega-3 pills because I don’t like fish. You don’t have to have them every day, but they’re useful if you’re in heavier training.
Fats are also a wicked energy source, but the key is to make sure you eat fats that are easily accessible. There are really two sides to metabolizing your fats: conditioning your body to use them and choosing fats that are easily metabolized. One good reason for all of the low intensity training we do is that it teaches our body to use fats instead of going straight to glycogen stores which is a huge part of endurance. The other half of metabolizing your fats is choosing good ones like olive oil, avocados, seeds and nuts. A major reason for this is that these are good sources of unsaturated fats which are liquid in your body rather than solid, so they can be manipulated easily.
So in one sentence, have fats as much as possible (at least once daily), and generously make olive oil your best friend in the kitchen.
Finally, we must look at carbohydrates. Just like the other macronutrients, some carbs are more equal than others. Glycemic index refers to the speed at which our body can break down different types of carbs. It’s to simple/complex carbohydrates as the BMI scale is to measuring body fat percentages (more recent, specific and useful). You want things with a low glycemic index except right before, during and after exercise. Rice, quinoa, oats and other similar foods have the lowest index, pasta, cereal and bread is usually somewhere in the middle and potatoes and energy bars are the highest. Fruits and vegetables can be at both ends of the scale.
You don’t really need to eat that many carbs to be healthy. They’re basically just energy so directly after sports and meals during heavy training periods are where you would eat most of your carbs. I’m not saying cut them out entirely, but they shouldn’t usually be your dietary focus most of the time.
Micronutrients
Micronutrients are your vitamins and minerals. Your body needs these mostly for all of the reactions that take place.
Since you are focusing on eating a huge amount of fruits and vegetables, you shouldn’t have to worry about most vitamins. Just make sure you get a variety of different colours and all that.
Speaking of colours, anything with pretty colours usually contains antioxidants which are one of those ridiculously healthy things. Basically when your muscles break down (and also from a variety of other things, such as injuries), free radicals are released. These little buggers basically go around and react with random things in your body which causes more damage. Antioxidants eliminate free radicals and speed up things like recovery but also help with cognitive function. Berries, wine, and squash are all examples of good sources of antioxidants.
Iron is important for athletes, especially ladies. It is a key ingredient to blood, and as athletes, we need as much of that as possible. Nuts and seeds are great sources of iron, so supplementation isn’t necessary for normal people.
Caloric Requirements
Unless you’re carb loading, there isn’t much point in eating more than you can burn. As a very general guide line, if you go for around an hour at moderate intensity, you probably have burned 800-1000 calories. So for 170-ish lb guy, that would mean you’re looking at 3500-ish calories in a day which isn’t that hard to get.
Sleep, Stress, Sugar, Fibre, and Water
Get tonnes of sleep. It helps you recover and increases cognitive function. Nuf said.
Stress is toxic; eliminate it. Stress results in the release of cortisol which is a hormone that makes your body try to conserve energy. It makes you put on weight, slows your sex drive, increases your blood pressure and makes you depressed. Fortunately, exercise is a terrific way to reduce your cortisol levels.
High blood sugar is toxic. It binds to blood proteins, rendering them useless. Try to avoid blood sugar spikes.
Fibre keeps you regular and clean, so eat as much as possible. A few hundred years ago we ate as much as 300 times the fibre we eat now, so the sky is pretty much the limit here.
Drink a tonne of water. I’ve heard you should drink your weight in pounds in ounces. So for a 170 lb person, that's 170 ounces or around five or six litres. Also, add around one litre of exercise. The key here is to carry a water bottle or two around and make a point of refilling it. You’ll absorb water better if you drink little bits frequently.
The Simplest Cook Book Ever
Here are a few recipes that I have found a lot of success with. I’ll arrange them by meal.
Breakfast – the most important meal of the day.
Breakfast for an athlete is a complicated meal, because it really depends on when you plan on doing your training. If you do morning training, your breakfast may turn into brunch and then lunch becomes a mid-afternoon meal designed to hold you over until dinner or prepare you for afternoon training.
Oatmeal
This is probably my favourite meal of all time. It is just so versatile. You start with a base of oats (around half to two-thirds of the meal by volume). Load on a variety of nuts, seeds, berries, fresh and dried fruit, honey, peanut butter, protein powder (mixed into the oats), yogurt, or whatever else tickles your pickle. I have a big bin of all of these ingredients, which makes assembly very quick and simple.
Specifically, I use flax seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, walnuts, raisins, craisins, goji berries (supposed to be high in antioxidants), bananas, and whatever else is handy.
This meal also works well as cereal. I’m actually fond of uncooked oats mixed in with cereal and milk poured over top.
Eggs
I like to fry up some peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, chicken or anything else in the fridge with olive oil and then break 3-5 eggs overtop of them to make a delicious omelette (cheese too if I remember). Including eating, this usually is a 20 minute project for me. If you have a big day ahead of you, throwing in some toast, oatmeal, cereal or left over pasta from the night before is good idea.
Choose oatmeal if you have a big day ahead of you and choose eggs if you’re recovering from a big day.
Oatmeal is a good way to keep your gas tank full all day, whereas eggs have the protein for building muscle and the omega-3 for reducing your residual inflammation. Eggs are also useful if you’re going to do two training sessions in one day because of their recovery benefits.
Lunch
For me, lunch is often more of a snack, because I like afternoon training and training on a full stomach is bad news bears. Depending on your stomach, you’ll enjoy between 1.5 and 3 hours between big meals and training sessions.
Sandwich
The sandwich is a fantastic lunch food, but make sure you do it right. Make sure you’re putting fresh veggies and lean meats in it if you’re not training soon after eating. PB and J doesn’t have much nutritional value, so choose that one if you’re going to train 30-60 minutes after eating. I’m also a big fan of the pasta sandwich—it’s exactly what it sounds like. Finally, bear in mind that freshly baked whole grains are the best breads to pick. Bread is a recent invention though, so you won’t absorb it as well as ancient foods like rice.
Dinner
My staple dinner goes like this:
Chop up meat and throw it in a pan with olive oil, garlic and onions. Once the meat is partly cooked, throw in as many different chopped veggies as are in your fridge. I’m a fan of peppers, broccoli, mushrooms and beans, but there are obviously tonnes more options. Sometimes it helps to steam the veggies separately. To do this I just turn the frying pan up to 7 or 8 and then throw in a few table spoons of water with a lid.
Now that that is all cooked, heat up some red sauce and throw everything on some pasta (100 grams should be fine). Cheese optional.
I also like to add a salad or something. Salad is a good way to get a variety of leafy greens which have lots of different vitamins, fibre and sometimes cool things like iron and antioxidants. Choose a variety of leafy greens, not just lettuce, because the weird ones are usually the healthiest. Salad is also a great way to hit up the carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, nuts, seeds, fruit and anything else that doesn’t quite go in pasta.
There are obviously tonnes of other things you can make for dinner, but this is an option that covers just about all of the angles. If your ingredient list looks like the one above, it’s probably also a good choice.
Snacks
I like to get most of my fruit intake between meals. Fruits generally have lots of sugar in them, so I eat fruit before and after exercise. I also am a big fan of what I like to call a power platter. You basically take a big plate and heap it with fruits, vegetables, berries, hard boiled eggs, nuts, seeds and the like. You can get a huge portion of your daily requirements this way and the variety of tastes is always pleasing.
Before and after workouts, your snacks should be more energy focussed, so you’ll be looking for granola bars, sports drinks and bananas.
So there you have it. Follow it as much as you can, and enjoy the benefits.
Sample Days
This section will show how to time your food intake with examples of different training days.
In general, eat more carbs and fats if you are doing LSD and more protein if you are doing strength or intensity.
The LSD AM workout (8:30-11:30):
The night before. Consider adding some extra table salt to your meal to top up your sodium stores. A banana would be good as well for the potassium.
7:00. Wake up. It is important to wake up this early because you need time to digest before this long workout. The first priority at this point is to get food in you as quickly as possible so that by the time the workout begins, your stomach isn’t full anymore. I would choose the Oatmeal breakfast outlined above because it is quick to make and packed with energy to fuel a three hour effort.
It would also be a good idea to throw in some protein with this breakfast for two reasons: (1) protein with every meal helps absorption and (2) your body will be starved for protein after 3 hours on the road, so you might as well start the refuelling process now.
7:00-8:00. Drink. When you wake up in the morning, you are dehydrated. Shoot for around a litre of water in this time frame.
8:00-8:30. Bring an extra water bottle or two to training so that you can top off your tank right before you leave. If you are so inclined, an electrolyte drink would be a good idea here. A snack is also a good idea.
8:30-11:30. Your aim should be to drink 2-3 litres of water, depending on your body size and sweat rate. Sports drinks are a good idea as well (for anything over an hour). While you do not need this much liquid to make it through the session, your recovery time will be significantly reduced this way. I rarely carry this much liquid with me, instead, just knock on some random door and ask for some H2O. It is also a good idea to eat during the workout. Different people are capable of different amounts, and it is possible to train your body to eat more during workouts, but for the novice, one or two granola bars per hour is a good place to start.
11:30-12:00. EAT AND DRINK. This time is the single most important part of your recovery. Your first priority is to hydrate and take in some simple sugars. In general, 1-3 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight is a good place to start. A bagel has around 50 grams and granola bars have 30-40 grams. Your body has the greatest potential for absorption during this period, so take advantage of it.
11:45-12:15. Protein. Your body has been taking a pounding and your muscles are ripped and torn. Eat a portion of protein. You could prepare a drink with 1 or 2 scoops of protein powder or you could bring your favourite meats from home. The advantage to powder is that it is easy to prepare, drink and digest.
12:00 onwards. This is really when the workout is over. Your nutritional focus switches from energy to nutrients. Hit up the fruits and vegetables.
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