All is Quiet

The past two weeks have been really quiet on my front. John Tanner came and went. Rev3 is about 10 days out. I guess I will start thinking about it at some point.

Training has been fair of late. I went through this nasty stint running that hopefully has subsided. For about 3 weeks after ING my legs were complete toast. All my runs were killing me. I would wake up the next morning feeling as if I just finished a race. My legs would be on fire.

I still don't know exactly what caused the problem. My best WebMD, armchair quarterback, self-diagnosis led me down two different paths. The first was masters swimming. I never developed a strong kick and certainly never used fins in the pool. Our heavy reliance on fins might leave my legs slightly more fatigued than normal.

I can certainly admit to feeling tired legs when swimming. My concern was that I didn't just start masters. I would assume than any adaptations had taken place. And if this was the leading cause then why did it go away?

Just as bizarre, is my second theory. I wonder if I have a peanut or nut allergy. I kept digging through my 3000/d diet looking for new foods. I didn't find much. Except nuts. To assist me in the challenge, I bought a pound of almonds, cashews and macadamia nuts. Each day I ate about 300 calories worth.

It does strike me odd that a nut allergy would suddenly appear after 30 years. Not to mention my love of peanut butter wasn't affected. However, if the allergy was to exist it probably lay dormant due to the infrequency in which I consumed the foods. A PBJ on the weekend wouldn't trigger it. However, eating 3 pounds of nuts over 2.5 weeks might do the job.

I also suspected the nuts were giving me some slight digestive issues. So 3 weeks into the challenge, I eradicated them from the diet. Oddly enough, a few days later, I had a good run. Since that time, I have began running well again. I body doesn't feel as run down. And I have 3 small packs of uneaten nuts sitting on my desk.

I certainly don't draw any conclusions from this experience. It could just as easily been the recovery session at the doctor's office. Or maybe my body was fighting a sickness. But for now, I am staying away from the nuts. And remaining thankful for my body responding.

As mentioned, Rev3 is about 10 days out. I really haven't given it too much thought. It's going to be a tough race so my expectations aren't too high. I just hope to have a solid race. Once it is complete, I can focus on some bigger things. And hopefully make a few exciting announcements.

John Tanner Results

First race of the season is under the belt and it did not disappoint. There were thrills, chills and some downright ugly weather. Despite the beautiful weather of the week, Mother Nature brought her scorn upon Georgia Friday night and Saturday morning. Many of us questioned still participating in the race.

John Tanner State Park is located an hour west of Atlanta in Carrolton. We departed around 5:30 to make the drive and thankfully we left in time. It poured and poured and poured on the way there. In fact we encountered three different wrecks...two involving flipped cars. I again questioned my sanity for the day.

I arrived in plenty of time and took the opportunity to spend a few extra minutes in the car relaxing. I headed to transition only to find myself one of the first people there. The rain had slowed to an annoying sprinkle, just enough to get the gear wet. I found my way to body marking, the bathroom and back to the car.

I didn't see much use in warming up that morning. It was cold, I was wet and I just hoped for the best. I slipped into my wetsuit and made my way to the water for a brief warmup. The race combined the M30-34 & 35-39 into one wave. I was feeling pretty confident in my swimming so I seeded myself in the second line of people.

Swim (600m):

Hands down this was the most physical swim I ever encountered. The first 200m were a melee of punches, pulls and kicks. I can only recall one other race where I seriously grew concerned about being trampled. I was concerned. The fight was intense as we made our way to the first turn buoy. It finally spread out a bit. I was exhausted. I felt spent after fighting through the mess. I focused in on long smooth strokes and finding feet. Unfortunately, the idiot in front of me couldn't swim a straight line to save his life. I tried to get around him a number of times and if I didn't know any better he was trying to block me at every turn. I finally went over the top of him as I felt it was my only opportunity.

I came out of the water in worse shape than I wanted. My watch read 9:40. I was thrilled with the time and it was a solid minute faster than normal. I did however feel like I drank half the lake. I carefully made my way up the hill toward transition.

Total time: 10:42

T1:

I wasn't feeling so hot making my way to my bike. I took my time getting out of the wetsuit and few extra breaths before grabbing the bike. I wasn't trying to make up any time right here.

Total Time: N/A Est: 1:45

Bike (11.4 miles):

I set out to hammer this course. My plan was to make up all my time in the straights but take every turn extremely slow. The roads were soaked and the rain was still slowly falling. Immediately, I got up to speed but was still feeling the effects of the physical swim. I tried to push but the body was pushing back a bit.

The course was rolling fast with only one sustainable climb and maybe two shorter ones. I knew I was being aggressive in my pace but my watts were much lower than where I anticipated. Plus I got passed by 4 people which I didn't expect.

I took each turn at a snails pace. I didn't see any need to wipe out at the first race of the season. I ended up pulling 3 guys for the final 10 minutes which didn't make me happy at all. I did see a fair amount of drafting in the race.

Overall, it was an ok bike for me. I felt really flat. I took 3 sips of my nutrition and spit it back out. It took a solid 20 minutes for my HR and stomach to stabilize. I knew I had made up some time but it wouldn't be enough.

Total Time: 30:30 ish

T2

Good dismount and it took an extra second to find my bike rack. I hopped in my shoes and came running out in no time.

Total Time: N/A est :45

Run: (3.1 miles)

As usual, I knew I was in trouble here. My run has not been there since ING. In fact, this past week was the first week in a month where I was actually able to hit my running targets for the week. I knew I was in a good position and didn't have the opportunity to slow.

The first mile was a painful 7:06 but I was pleased. The next mile of rollers knocked me back down to 7:30s and I was getting passed left and right. This continues to be a humbling feeling each and every race. I managed to hold on for the last mile at a rate of 7:15. I had the course just short which pleased me.

Total Time: 22:02

Overall Time: 1:05:35

In retrospect, I am pleased with the race. It wasn't good but it was far from bad. I came out of the water slightly ahead of schedule. I wished I had more oomph on the bike. My run, while still dismal, is able a minute faster than last year. So there is a line of good news somewhere in there.

Results:

	Swim	T1/Bike/T2	Run	Finish
Andrew	10:42	0:32:50	22:02	1:05:35
Top 10	9:06	0:31:20	18:48	0:59:15
Fastest	7:46	0:30:28	16:47	0:56:37
AG Rank (40)	11	5	15	6
OA Rank (492)	56	26	116	43

Race Season Begins

Less than 48 hours away from donning the lyrca and unleashing pure sexiness...erm....hell on the course. I am kinda excited. Not jumping up and down excited. But I am looking forward to putting things into practice.

This year I opted to race a sprint tri prior to my early season "A" race. I have actually never done this before. I typically used Powerman Alabama as an early season tuneup but my duathlon career might just be over.

One of the things I have learned the past few years is that without racing prior to my A race, I often feel lost. My body isn't tuned into pushing it that hard. I forget about the pre-race jitters. I haven't dialed in my focus.

John Tanner promises to be only about 65 minutes of pain. But if forces me to mentally focus starting the day before. I will begin to mentally dial in the race plan and execution. I will mentally walk through everything.

Hopefully this strategy bodes well for me this year. I think it will suit me better and take away some of the shock that comes with the first race. More importantly, I just hope to have a good race. I haven't had one of those in quiet some time. I would like to start this season off right.

21,000 Calorie Challenge

Today marks the end of the 21,000 calorie a week challenge. Four weeks. Trying to average 3000 calories a day. It was tough. I more or less made my target for 3 of the 4 weeks. My caloric intake went 21,200, 19,470, 20,850 and 21,810.

As mentioned in previous posts, it was much harder than I anticipated. Over the past three weeks, I only ate out once. So that meant a lot of cooking and planning ahead. I feel like there were three areas where I struggled the most.

• Eating calorie rich dinners. I enjoy chicken and seafood. The problem is that a 6 oz piece of tuna doesn't have many calories. It is a great source of protein and fats. Shrimp is the same way. I can eat 2 dozen shrimp but not stock up on calories.
  
• I need to eat larger portions for dinner. The problem is that I feel like I eat enough. I may have a piece of grilled chicken, potatoes, spinach and bread. I feel full. It met my immediate needs. But my dinner needs to be more than 800 calories for me to achieve 3000.
  
• Snacks. More to come on this later. I focused on cheese, nuts, milk and occasionally ice cream. The nuts didn't workout and left me with a 2-300 calorie void.
  

There were a number of positive benefits that came from the challenge as well.

• Protein intake went WAY up. I average approximately 145 grams per day which is where I should be for my body weight.
  
• Smoothies and whey protein helped in a big way.
  
• I know I ate much better than normal. Oddly, I cut out a bunch of crap from the diet. I snacked less around the office.
  
• No eating out. That was amazing. I hope I can continue this trend though it is extremely difficult on the weekend after training.
• Afternoon energy was up a bit more.
  

This was a very enjoyable challenge. I do feel like my diet still needs some more changes as it is not exactly where I want it to be. However, I hope to continue on with a number of these changes.

The most interesting aspect was watching my weight and body fat. The weight slowly came down (163), popped back up (167), bottomed out again (162) and then settled into about where it was before (165). Last week, I had three consecutive days around 162. I do anticipate that after a weekend of traveling, the weight will settle back down to 163. This seems to be the case when I go out of town for an extended period.

The more interesting aspect was my body fat. It started plummeting. And quickly. After four weeks of this challenge, I am down nearly 1.5%. This morning, I weighed in at 7.2%. That was a weight increase but body fat decrease from last week. I suspect this will climb back into the mid to upper 7s by the end of the week.

What do I think of all this? Not really sure just yet. The reason I set out on this was because I thought my body was literally eating itself. I believed it had become inefficient. When I trained, I theorized that my body looked to muscle instead of fat/glycogen storages because of the calorie deficiency. I still maintain that theory. I would go one step further in that I think that is why my body fat is dropping....my body is learning to attack the fat instead of the muscle.

Recovery like a Professional Athlete

Training hasn't gone well for the past couple of weeks since ING. It seems that my body is slipping back into non-recovery mode. My runs are in the crapper. I skipped 2-3 runs one week because my legs felt completely trashed. I had to literally stop in my two long runs and walk home. I couldn't complete them. Then my power started to slip on the bike. I grew more concerned.

That led me to reconsider how I can recovery differently to jump start the process. I feel like my diet is good. Certainly eating more good calories should aid in the recovery. I do feel like I am sleeping good. The other weekend, I slept for something crazy like 19 hours over two nights. I was wearing my recovery tights nearly everyday and night. I took two ice baths. I went for a massage that only worked the upper parts of my legs. I feel like I was doing everything right. But nothing was working.

So I called my chiropractor and told him I want to do recovery right. After my typical adjustment, I slipped on a pair of NormaTec leg sleeves for 30 minutes. This the same equipment that the riders of the TdF slip on after each stage. Basically, it feels like the sleeves are taking my blood pressure...only in the leg. Each sleeve is divided into about 10 segments. Starting at my ankles, compression was added for 30 seconds then released. For 30 minutes my legs received a flushing up and down.

I found the process quite humorous. It didn't really hurt. Like I said, it was like getting your blood pressure taken. You knew you were being squeeze and it was slightly uncomfortable. Instead, I laughed because my legs looked like the Stay Puff Marshmellow Man. They were huge. And all I could do was lie there with them in the air. I certainly couldn't bend at the joints or walk. I kept waiting for them to burst. Alas, they didn't

The idea behind the sleeves is to provide compression to your muscles to flush out lactic acid and increase blood flow, thus, improving the recovery of those muscles. When I stepped out of the sleeves, I could literally feel the rush of blood down my legs.

The recovery didn't stop there. The second piece had me crawl into a coffin like structure called a hyberbaric chamber. I felt like I was being buried alive as he zipped me into this contraption that only had few windows letting light inside. I was told to take a nap to feel like a new man. Well, I didn't really want to feel like a new man. I just want to have fresh legs. So I didn't nap much. The drumming sound of the chamber's motor above my head didn't help.

The chamber works similar to the cabin of a plane. First it was pressurized. Then took me to 8,000 feet above sea level. My ears even popped. For an hour, I just hung out in this cave falling in an out of sleep and playing games on my phone.

I typically don't suffer from acute injuries like sprains or tears. But as an endurance athlete, my body is continually undergoing tissue and muscle repair. I break down the muscle fibers during exercise and rebuild them during recovery. But this isn't occurring properly. Either the body is fighting multiple battles...illness, allergies or other inflammation or something else is going on. As a result the cells and tissues surrounding the inflammation become starved for oxygen, which impedes healing.

When I crawl into the chamber, the body is receiving a rush of 100 percent oxygen at higher than normal atmospheric pressure. We typically only breath about 20-25% oxygen. The rest is nitrogen. My muscles then are rushed with fresh, untainted, oxygen to help rebuild and repair the damage. The change in pressure also helps promote additional growth in blood vessels. The lactic acid, swelling and inflammation is stripped from my body and replaced by oxygen circulating blood.

I will say that is was positive experience for me. I didn't run that afternoon as I wanted to reap 24 hours of its effects. But I did notice that I wasn't as sore. When I ran upstairs, my quads weren't screaming. I woke up the next morning feeling fresher than I had in nearly a month.

Now, I just need to find the resources in my wallet to support this type of therapy more often. That is unless anyone wants to donate about $20k so that I can purchase these bad boys on my own. Oh...to be so lucky.

21,000 Calorie FAIL

The past seven days were a colossal failure in my 21,000 calorie challenge. The week, however, does epitomize the struggle I have with my diet. I found myself on the go a bit more than usual. This included traveling to and from Nashville. The failure was further complicated by the fact that Jessica and I have a no eating out contest going on right now. Typically each of my trips would include a stop somewhere to eat. I am sure that would have put me closer to 21,000.

So in my second week of trying, I only hit 19,470 calories. That is a solid 1500 short of where I need to be. Looking at my food log is is very easy to see what went wrong. First, I fell behind in the beginning of the week. Life was busy and I found myself incapable of preparing a solid meal for dinner. Second, traveling really killed me. I all but skipped dinner on Thursday night and ate very little of Friday. Third, when I did eat it wasn't calorie dense food. We cooked ceviche on Saturday night. While great on the protein end, raw fish just doesn't have the calories needed.

The worst part is that my diet was complete crap last week. Too much snacking. With Easter, I think a half of my calories came in the form of ice cream, jelly beans and other candy. That might explain why the weight was slightly up Tuesday morning.

I did much better on the protein front and averaged 138g per day. That is pretty close. And given the limitations of last week, I consider it a moderate success. Overall, I am not noticing any changes. I do find myself a bit hungrier than normal so I take that as a sign that my body is not starving itself for calories any more. I am growing fond of mixed nuts and cheese.

I am determined this week to hit the 21,000 calories. I forced myself to spend $150 at the grocery store the past two days. Last night, in honor of my challenge, I bought some red meat and went to town on some burgers. Protein and calories UP. I also bought some ice cream which should help top me off each night. I will be even more interested to see what happens to my weight over the next week!

Pre-Season Top 10

No not that list, though I am eagerly waiting for spring practice to end so that we can all engage in mindless banter about which college football team will be crowned the national champion. Instead, I am talking about the top 10 things triathlon to-do items before the season begins. With all the beautiful weather this weekend, I hope everyone found their way outside. I also hope you began thinking about what all you need to do to get ready for upcoming season.

Over the past few weeks I began spending a bit more wrench time on my bike. I began thinking about ordering some new shoes. And I have visited the bike shop on a few occasions for various purchases. All of this in the name of tuning up. Here are the top 10 things you should be doing to prepare yourself for the upcoming season

1. Bike Tune Up. Many of us spent more money than we would like to admit on our sleek bikes. With springs arrival, opt to give your bike a wash and wax job in the form of a tune-up. Take it to your local shop and ask them to clean and lube it. The reality is that most of us put the bike away after the last race so it is caked in gatorade, gel, etc. The rest of us who rode through the winter have bikes full of sand and grime. Brake calipers, rear deraileurs, shifts and bottom brackets collect junk faster than that the attic in your house.

2. Replace your Chain and Tires. Along with the first point, it is probably time to replace your worn chain. Bike guides say once a year or every 5000 miles. I personally find that I crush a chain every 4 months from intervals and heavy climbing. A new chain will improve shifting. Also examine your tires. Look for large cuts or gashes. Feel the tread and see how worn it is. I particularly like to put new tires on my bike to start the season. My old tires, in theory, become my trainer tires during the offseason.

3. Wetsuit. If you wait until race day to put on your wetsuit, you will wonder if you gained 10 pounds over the winter. Go ahead and get your suit out and soak it a few times in your tub. A wetsuit is like a sponge and when it sits all winter it shrinks. Allowing water to enter the 'pores' will allow it to expand a bit. You will be thankful when you put it on for the first time.

4. Replace the Batteries. This is a hard lesson to learn but one that always catches me. Go ahead and replace your Garmin or Powertap batteries to start the season. They WILL die on race day if you don't.

5. New Running Shoes. Check your running shoes and consider new ones. If you took the winter off, head down to your local running store and have them size you up. For those that did ING, it is likely that you put around 200-300 miles on your shoes. It might be time for new ones.

6. Throw out your old clothes. Sorry. I hate to be the one to tell you but you swim trunks are a little see through. Your tri shorts aren't baggy because you have lost weight. It is because they are stretched out. Please replace them before I have to ride behind you in a pace line. Thank you.

7. Nutrition. Time to remember how to fuel your body correctly. Those short winter rides were easy because you could just grab a bottle of gatorade. That won't cut it for a 3 hour ride. You don't need to bonk for a told you so moment. Go ahead and order some Infinit and buy a box of gels. Better to have them than need them.

8. Don't ramp up too quickly. Yes, the weather is beautiful. Yes, you will want to ride forever. Be smart about it. Stick with your training plan or make modest adjustments to your schedule. Don't take on a century when you aren't in shape yet. It is too early for an injury.

9. Plan your season and goals. You need to have an idea of what you want to accomplish this season. You need to lay it out on a 4-6 month calendar and see how it fits in with your other obligations. I don't think your spouse will take to the idea of racing a HIM when the in-laws are visiting. Consult your family, loved ones, friends and even co-workers. Make sure your goals aren't in direct conflict with your other commitments.

10. Check your ego. It is too early in the season to try to smoke everyone on the initial group rides. Keep in mind that beginners are everywhere and that at some point, you too were just starting out. No need to be that guy in April.