Sometimes, you have a breakthrough workout. You go with a plan; when you hit the end of the workout, you feel like continuing. Before you know it, you've doubled your target, maybe more.
My runs lately have been capped by knee pain, almost like clockwork, at about 18 minutes. I'd run for 20 laps, or 2.5 km, walk a lap, then continue. At 26 laps, the knee pain would start; by 28 laps, 3.5 km, I'd have to shut down.
So I went in today with that general plan; run 15 minutes, walk a lap, run until I had to shut down. But I got to Lap 20, and I still felt good. Breathing wasn't too laboured, legs felt fine. And that put me at the halfway point of a 5k. So I figured I'd just run it out.
I thought I felt the twinges begin at Lap 24, but I relaxed a bit and they stopped. I was expecting them at Lap 28. Nothing. By the time I'd got to 30, I figured I had no choice but to finish.
At Lap 32, I started getting twinges. They didn't go away. But I only had a kilometre to go. (BTW, if I'd said, "Only a kilometre," six months ago, I'd have been being sarcastic.) The pain got worse, but slowly, and only a little. Steadily, but not a lot worse. I turned it up a notch for the last two laps. I sprinted the last half lap, though "sprint" would be a loose description; it might have been a 25-seconds-per-100m pace.
So, radical improvement. I'm sure the foam roller helped; my IT bands are much looser now. The new orthotics, too. But everything else falling into place helped, too -- the spinning, the swimming, they helped build the cardio aspect of it as well.
I'm in Vancouver a couple days next week, so I'll get a chance to check in with my buddy Dale. I'd hoped by the time I saw him, I'd be able to kick his punk ass in a 10k. For now, I'll settle for keeping up with him for five.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Note to self
After swimming with a pull float, remind yourself to start kicking when you try to swim without one.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Making other plans
I'm up to my hips in triathlon training plans. Aside from the iPod app, which I can't be bothered to even look up the name of let alone link to right now, I've got at least three magazines (plus two with bicycling training plans), two books with about a half dozen to a dozen each. Other people's plans are useful. They've actually got experience. But I found trying to follow someone else's training plan, especially as I'm essentially a fitness beginner, unsatisfactory. Sure, it gave me a certain structure and demanded a certain amount of discipline, but bristled at that after about six weeks. It didn't adapt well to my circumstances.
But it's a good body of research to draw from, in terms of specific techniques -- interval training, for example -- to develop my own plan. And that's what I plan to do now. Every Sunday, I'll develop a plan for the following week. It'll take into account how I feel, what I want to (and realistically think I can) accomplish, other demands on my time (damn work), etc.
What I want to do at this point, since there's no pressing deadline, is develop general strength and fitness, using sport-specific training where possible.
As I see it, there are five disciplines I need to work on: swimming, cycling and running, of course, but also upper and lower body strength. I should probably work some flexibility training in, too; at the moment, it's a matter of stretching after workouts and with the foam roller at home.
Another mistake I made, I now realize, was thinking I could squeeze most of my training into lunch hours. It just doesn't work. At best, you get 45 minutes, five times a week (though it probably turns out to be four), plus whatever you do at the weekend. So I'm building my weekly training plans around two sessions a day -- 45 minutes at lunch, and an open-ended one after work -- figuring it'll realistically turn out to be seven sessions a week.
Each discipline gets one session in the lunch slot, and one in the afternoon slot. (The exception is cycling, since spin classes start at 6:30 at my Y, and that just gets me home too late.) For example, this week's schedule:
Monday: Swim at lunch; upper body/core strength in the evening.
Tuesday: Spinning; run
Wednesday: Lower body/core; swim
Thursday: Run; upper body/core
Friday: Spin; Lower body/core
If I miss something during the week, I juggle and try to make it up. For example, I missed my run this afternoon, so Thursday, I'll swap it from the morning to the evening so I can have a longer session. Or I can try to fit it in one day on the weekend, but it's no big deal if I can't, as long as I don't habitually miss one discipline. Logging is very important, not just to track progress and what I've missed, but also to make sure I ease off every fourth week. And that's another area where weekly planning comes in handy. If, like at the end of this month, I'm away a couple days on business and can't get to a gym/pool/run, I can make that a recovery week.
Must say, there was something relaxing and motivating about sitting down Sunday evening with the puzzle of how to fit disciplines and sessions together. It made me look forward to the week. Eventually, I'll have to work on cycles where I focus on specific disciplines, but that depends on my progress. Swimming will probably be first. And possibly second. Definitely last before I launch into a training schedule based on event dates.
But it's a good body of research to draw from, in terms of specific techniques -- interval training, for example -- to develop my own plan. And that's what I plan to do now. Every Sunday, I'll develop a plan for the following week. It'll take into account how I feel, what I want to (and realistically think I can) accomplish, other demands on my time (damn work), etc.
What I want to do at this point, since there's no pressing deadline, is develop general strength and fitness, using sport-specific training where possible.
As I see it, there are five disciplines I need to work on: swimming, cycling and running, of course, but also upper and lower body strength. I should probably work some flexibility training in, too; at the moment, it's a matter of stretching after workouts and with the foam roller at home.
Another mistake I made, I now realize, was thinking I could squeeze most of my training into lunch hours. It just doesn't work. At best, you get 45 minutes, five times a week (though it probably turns out to be four), plus whatever you do at the weekend. So I'm building my weekly training plans around two sessions a day -- 45 minutes at lunch, and an open-ended one after work -- figuring it'll realistically turn out to be seven sessions a week.
Each discipline gets one session in the lunch slot, and one in the afternoon slot. (The exception is cycling, since spin classes start at 6:30 at my Y, and that just gets me home too late.) For example, this week's schedule:
Monday: Swim at lunch; upper body/core strength in the evening.
Tuesday: Spinning; run
Wednesday: Lower body/core; swim
Thursday: Run; upper body/core
Friday: Spin; Lower body/core
If I miss something during the week, I juggle and try to make it up. For example, I missed my run this afternoon, so Thursday, I'll swap it from the morning to the evening so I can have a longer session. Or I can try to fit it in one day on the weekend, but it's no big deal if I can't, as long as I don't habitually miss one discipline. Logging is very important, not just to track progress and what I've missed, but also to make sure I ease off every fourth week. And that's another area where weekly planning comes in handy. If, like at the end of this month, I'm away a couple days on business and can't get to a gym/pool/run, I can make that a recovery week.
Must say, there was something relaxing and motivating about sitting down Sunday evening with the puzzle of how to fit disciplines and sessions together. It made me look forward to the week. Eventually, I'll have to work on cycles where I focus on specific disciplines, but that depends on my progress. Swimming will probably be first. And possibly second. Definitely last before I launch into a training schedule based on event dates.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The war on the other front
I'm fighting the whole VO2Max battle on the one side -- breathing has never been my forte, but I'm working on it -- and on the other side, there's the fact that, well, I'm just not as flexible as I used to be, and it's causing problems
The largest problem,specifically, is my illiotibial band. Which I may not have spelled properly. Anyway, it's a tendon that runs from your hip to your knee. When everything'.s cool, you probably don't even know it's there. When everything's not cool, your knee lets you know about it. The classic presentation is that your effortless running stops at a specific time -- say, 15 minutes into your run -- at which point your knee puts a gun to your head and says, "We're not going to keep doing this, if you don't mind."
I walk a lot. Okay, I walk like a nomad. This tends to tighten up those IT bands. And they're very difficult to stretch. I'm religious about stretching after a run, but I didn't have anything that worked for my IT bands.
The I saw a YouTube clip of some guy using a foam roller to stretch his IT bands. You put the roller, which is about six inches in diameter, on the floor, lie along the top, and let it roll up from your knee to your hip. The guy demonstrating it was a little teary-eyed, and there was a catch in his voice, but he swore it worked wonders.
I picked one up this morning at The Running Room. The cashier, a lovely and inevitably fit young creature, gazed at me a little awestruck, like I was a soldier off to a foreign land to do some very unseemly task, like clean portas in Afghanistan. "Have you ever used one of these?" she asked.
I confessed I hadn't.
"The first couple of times, it's going to really hurt," she said. "But it's going to hurt sooooo good." Apparently, I'd notice the difference almost immediately. I got the impression that as soon as I walked out of the store, she'd begin praying for me.
I made sure everything was good and warm before I tried it. I went for a 45-minute ride, a hard ride, one of those rides where you have to yell at children and picnickers. Then I rolled out my yoga mat and laid out The Roller.
There are six stretches prescribed for The Roller. I began with the IT band stretch, figuring I'd get the worst over with first. And it hurt. Not as bad as I'd expected, but yeah, it hurt. I made some noises loud enough that my neighbours might misinterpret and consider me a ladies' man. (I am, just not enough to worry the neighbours.)
I went through the other five exercises, each one eliciting a louder (and easily interpreted as more carnal) howl. But it wasn't until the last stretch, the upper and lower back stretch, that I wept. No tears, understand. But there was no question that I was crying.
And ... I noticed the difference immediately. I had no idea where my IT bands were before; now, I can feel that they're looser. My quads, my hammies, everything. Tomorrow morning, I might feel like hell. But I don't think so. It's like having a massage from a masseuse in a really bad mood. It hurts like a sonofabitch, but it doesn't leave bruises, and later, well, it's a thrill to have survived and you feel refreshed.
The largest problem,specifically, is my illiotibial band. Which I may not have spelled properly. Anyway, it's a tendon that runs from your hip to your knee. When everything'.s cool, you probably don't even know it's there. When everything's not cool, your knee lets you know about it. The classic presentation is that your effortless running stops at a specific time -- say, 15 minutes into your run -- at which point your knee puts a gun to your head and says, "We're not going to keep doing this, if you don't mind."
I walk a lot. Okay, I walk like a nomad. This tends to tighten up those IT bands. And they're very difficult to stretch. I'm religious about stretching after a run, but I didn't have anything that worked for my IT bands.
The I saw a YouTube clip of some guy using a foam roller to stretch his IT bands. You put the roller, which is about six inches in diameter, on the floor, lie along the top, and let it roll up from your knee to your hip. The guy demonstrating it was a little teary-eyed, and there was a catch in his voice, but he swore it worked wonders.
I picked one up this morning at The Running Room. The cashier, a lovely and inevitably fit young creature, gazed at me a little awestruck, like I was a soldier off to a foreign land to do some very unseemly task, like clean portas in Afghanistan. "Have you ever used one of these?" she asked.
I confessed I hadn't.
"The first couple of times, it's going to really hurt," she said. "But it's going to hurt sooooo good." Apparently, I'd notice the difference almost immediately. I got the impression that as soon as I walked out of the store, she'd begin praying for me.
I made sure everything was good and warm before I tried it. I went for a 45-minute ride, a hard ride, one of those rides where you have to yell at children and picnickers. Then I rolled out my yoga mat and laid out The Roller.
There are six stretches prescribed for The Roller. I began with the IT band stretch, figuring I'd get the worst over with first. And it hurt. Not as bad as I'd expected, but yeah, it hurt. I made some noises loud enough that my neighbours might misinterpret and consider me a ladies' man. (I am, just not enough to worry the neighbours.)
I went through the other five exercises, each one eliciting a louder (and easily interpreted as more carnal) howl. But it wasn't until the last stretch, the upper and lower back stretch, that I wept. No tears, understand. But there was no question that I was crying.
And ... I noticed the difference immediately. I had no idea where my IT bands were before; now, I can feel that they're looser. My quads, my hammies, everything. Tomorrow morning, I might feel like hell. But I don't think so. It's like having a massage from a masseuse in a really bad mood. It hurts like a sonofabitch, but it doesn't leave bruises, and later, well, it's a thrill to have survived and you feel refreshed.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Little known fact
Spanish cyclist Miguel Indurain, who won five consecutive Tours de France in the early 1990s and is actually about seven months younger than me, had a resting heart rate of 28. That's not even one beat every two seconds.
I keep forgetting to take my pulse first thing in the morning, but I think I'm down around 60. And I'm thinking that's pretty good for me.
I keep forgetting to take my pulse first thing in the morning, but I think I'm down around 60. And I'm thinking that's pretty good for me.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Back in the swim
Okay, first of all, colour me self-absorbed. I haven't mentioned that my friend Brian Jackson, whom I dragged into the triathlon with me then abandoned when I discovered I couldn't swim, managed remarkably well in the race, finishing in a little under 58 minutes. Congrats, Brian. I'm still planning to kick your ass next year.
I've been lazy about training since missing the race. Vacation the first week, then just reacquainting myself with the gym. I started with a couple trips to the weight room. Did a run, which confirmed my 15-minute limit (it was actually closer to 18, but still, I've obviously got an IT band problem that needs dealing with). And I did a spin class.
I think I've mentioned spin class. This is where people who think they're fit get taught a lesson. It's interval training, really -- blasts of full-bore pedalling alternating with brief recoveries. I left a puddle of sweat under the bike, and I only did half a class. I'm glad I didn't shit myself, to be honest. It was definitely a leave-with-my-tail-between-my-legs experience.
Thing is, the others in the class don't look much fitter than me. In fact, some of them looked less fit. But I couldn't keep up with them. Spin is a different world. I'm trying to make ot once a week until it kills me outright.
And this week, I got back in the pool. I've resented the pool. Swimming was the failure that made me miss the race. But I have to learn to swim properly, and I had to start somewhere. So I went to the training pool with a pull buoy.
A pull buoy is a float you hold between your thighs. It keeps your lower body up in the water so you can focus on your upper body technique and breathing. I tried one early in my training, and my simple lack of mastery scared me; I couldn't get anywhere, and I'd panic and twist out of the water. Now that I have a little facility with a front crawl stroke and I'm forcing myself to breathe underwater, I'm finding it very useful.
I can feel the hip rotation that you don't realize is going on with a front crawl, so much so that I've rotated right over onto my back a couple of times. I've been trying to get the hang not only of breathing, but breathing every third stroke, so I'm alternating breathing on the left and right. And I'm getting somewhere, too, though I'm still not rolling my face out to breathe as a seamless part of the stroke. I still kinda lift my head out of the water.
I've been trying to make the recovery part of the stroke -- where your arm comes out of the water near your hip and reaches back ahead -- faster than the stroke in the water. That's coming along a little awkwardly, too. I've never been taught proper front-quadrant swimming.
I really am back to Square 1 here. I'm setting a goal of 100m continuously for the end of the month. Very modest, I know, but I'm looking at this like I'm learning to swim from scratch. Don't pick up bad habits, refine the technique a little, and develop a more efficient stroke.
There's also the question of plain aerobic capacity. Mine is not great. But I have a couple things lined up to help develop that. Spinning class is one them. If the other folks in my class can manage, I can too.
I've been lazy about training since missing the race. Vacation the first week, then just reacquainting myself with the gym. I started with a couple trips to the weight room. Did a run, which confirmed my 15-minute limit (it was actually closer to 18, but still, I've obviously got an IT band problem that needs dealing with). And I did a spin class.
I think I've mentioned spin class. This is where people who think they're fit get taught a lesson. It's interval training, really -- blasts of full-bore pedalling alternating with brief recoveries. I left a puddle of sweat under the bike, and I only did half a class. I'm glad I didn't shit myself, to be honest. It was definitely a leave-with-my-tail-between-my-legs experience.
Thing is, the others in the class don't look much fitter than me. In fact, some of them looked less fit. But I couldn't keep up with them. Spin is a different world. I'm trying to make ot once a week until it kills me outright.
And this week, I got back in the pool. I've resented the pool. Swimming was the failure that made me miss the race. But I have to learn to swim properly, and I had to start somewhere. So I went to the training pool with a pull buoy.
A pull buoy is a float you hold between your thighs. It keeps your lower body up in the water so you can focus on your upper body technique and breathing. I tried one early in my training, and my simple lack of mastery scared me; I couldn't get anywhere, and I'd panic and twist out of the water. Now that I have a little facility with a front crawl stroke and I'm forcing myself to breathe underwater, I'm finding it very useful.
I can feel the hip rotation that you don't realize is going on with a front crawl, so much so that I've rotated right over onto my back a couple of times. I've been trying to get the hang not only of breathing, but breathing every third stroke, so I'm alternating breathing on the left and right. And I'm getting somewhere, too, though I'm still not rolling my face out to breathe as a seamless part of the stroke. I still kinda lift my head out of the water.
I've been trying to make the recovery part of the stroke -- where your arm comes out of the water near your hip and reaches back ahead -- faster than the stroke in the water. That's coming along a little awkwardly, too. I've never been taught proper front-quadrant swimming.
I really am back to Square 1 here. I'm setting a goal of 100m continuously for the end of the month. Very modest, I know, but I'm looking at this like I'm learning to swim from scratch. Don't pick up bad habits, refine the technique a little, and develop a more efficient stroke.
There's also the question of plain aerobic capacity. Mine is not great. But I have a couple things lined up to help develop that. Spinning class is one them. If the other folks in my class can manage, I can too.
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