New February Training Schedule

Work school and illness have been taking away from consistent training. I was thinking about it more this weekend and came up with a solution. Have a highly structured week. This didn't occur to me in the past because I felt like my week was already jam packed, but I am struggling to get my workouts in and thought a solid plan would help the situation. So here it is...

The days in red are school, the days in green are special events, and each day has deliverables and training commitments. I am fully committed to this schedule for the next month. I'll checkin every so often and let you know how it's going. I'm excited about the potential of it all

Things that make me happy

So I've been swamped with work and school and a sinus infection, which is now also an ear infection, ick. I haven't been able to train so I've had to keep myself up beat by thinking about things that makes me happy.

1. The unconditional love of family

2. Having an honest conversation with a dear friend

3. Dogs on a walk, they always look so happy. It's especially cute when they get tired and sit down.

4. When greenlake turns pink at dusk

5. Having a coworker tell me I'm doing a good job

6. Feeling like I'm actually adding value and bringing calmness to my team at work

7. Asking a good question at school

8. Making delicious little hors d'oeuvres

9. Finding an extra apple in my backpack

10. Creating a plan to succeed and the motivation it brings, mainly in the context of fitness and training

11. Taking a drive and my favorite songs come on the radio one after another

12. Flipping to a page in the bible and having the verse be extremely relevant to your current situation

13. Sharing I love you's everyday

What really matters

This past week has been again pretty introspective. Here are some things that happened.

1. Have been banned from running for 2 weeks the same day I ran my fastest mile yet. I'm not sure I'm going to abide by this, but I have so far and it's been 4 days. My physical therapist is well-informed and reasonable, unlike my previous PT experiences. His name is Michael and he's at the Proclub Willows location. I highly recommend him if you're looking for someone.

2. Got a new bike. Cervelo P1, it's small, fast and nice to look at. I think it's cute when I put it right up against Austin's Felt B16. It looks like his bike is hitting on mine.

3. The new food regime is coming along well, I feel strong and full of energy. I have to begin any new food regime with care, and that's where the introspection starts. In college I went from 110 pounds to 78 pounds. I am now at a point in my life where the numbers on scale at times still bother me a little, but only when coupled with a really bad day. In general I feel like I have a good grasp on the difference between health, happiness, and the numbers on a $20 scale from Target. The marathon and triathlon training is interesting because it makes me think about weight again constantly. Nothing to do with fitting into low rise jeans with a teal hollister halter top (it's still cute 10 years later)... rather it's about having your body be the best it can be to get the job done. Crossing that finish line as fast as you can without carrying an extra 10 pound kettlebell. That's the image that pops into my head whenever I feel like I'm dragging. See this is progress. It's not an image of me carrying a box of krispy kreme donuts. Mmmmm original glazed. It's just weight that interferes with performance. The more athletes I spend time with, the more body image discussions seem to come up. I've had to remind myself of how far I have come, and the lessons I've learned. I can't let that all go to waste just because someone else is unhappy with their body. That will be their journey, not mine. That chapter is done and filled with moments of surprising perserverance. I liked the way it ended. The mistakes you make don't remain mistakes. They turn into lessons about what really matters in life.

Power To Weight Ratios

After test riding bikes this weekend I'm incredibly shocked at the difference three pounds of weight can make. It's the difference between lugging something uphill and feeling one with the road.

It's got me thinking a lot about power to weight ratios. I was chatting with our buddy at Speedy Reedy about it, and Chris Carmichael is a big proponent of finding your ideal ratio.

Here's an article about Contador's ratio: http://www.bicycling.com/news/2009-tour-de-france/chris-carmichael-contador-has-power-burn

As well as a fancy calculator to estimate your own:
http://sportech.online.fr/sptc_idx.php?pge=spen_esy.html

I'm going to focus on this for a bit and see if it makes a difference for me. I'll report back in a few weeks, after I've given myself enough time to lose a few and build muscle. Time for a little experiment...

keeping it up

I'm starting to become faster. I shaved 20 seconds off my swim lap time from a month ago and I can run 3 and half minutes faster per mile than I could this time last year. I'm pretty happy with that, sometimes its hard to have faith that all the training is going to come together and pay off.

On the bike front I test rode a Cervelo P1 yesterday. It's little and fast. The first 2 minutes on that bike were like going from a kia rio to a modena spyder. Fast, scary and fast. I was holding onto the drop handles so tightly to control the twitch that I decided I needed a countdown before moving onto the aeros. I've never had aero bars on my road bike but I always rest on my bars in an aero position. Throwing myself onto the real aeros felt awesome. I was also using different muscles to pedal, maybe because the bike wasn't fit to me, or maybe because that's what a tri bike is supposed to do? All in all I'm not sure exactly how much faster I am on that bike, it might not be much at all, but riding it made me feel great. I'm going to talk to Speedy Reedy on Tuesday to figure out the final price, we need to switch out a couple of things. I'm pretty sure this is my bike.

Nutrition wise things have been going better. I still eat sour patch kids and apple turn overs because life would be sad without such things, but this is my typical weekday:

Breakfast
- Cereal w/ Soy Milk
- Black coffee

Snack
- Fruit

Lunch
- Soup & Salad or Sushi or Meat & Veggies

Snack
- Another piece of fruit or baby carrots

Pre-workout (only if my blood sugar feels low)
- Protein shake or Gu.

Dinner
- Whatever I want with whatever calories I have left over. The freedom is liberating. Having a strict dinner just makes me unhappy, probably because it makes the day feel too planned out.

To help keep the nutrition motivation going I'm reading Chris Carmichael's "Food for Fitness". It's pretty interesting so far, I love the detail. It's a book for athletic people wanting to become more effective with their nutrition. If anyone wants to borrow it let me know. He fed Lance Armstrong for years, I figure he knows whats up.

Last but not least, when I told my dad I signed up for the half ironman he thought I was going to be moving around big atlas stones and pulling cars with my teeth.