Ironman Canada returns to Penticton and it is like Triathlon got a new lease on life. Whistler was not getting a great following and for the most part the team disbanded for a few years. We were still training doing shorter races but a lot of the athletes packed it in. This year I see them coming back for a chance to do Ironman in Penticton.

I too am going back after being out of Ironman since 2015.  I have a lot of fitness to gain. I have weight to lose and I feel like a Newby all over again.  I have an ankle injury and back injury actively slowing my training down but there is progress.

I am excited to race beside all of the Ironwill athletes again this year and I can’t wait to see the momentum build towards the race. I am holding two training camps in Penticton this year. A lot of excited people joining me. So much fun to look forward to this year.

I will begin posting my own return to fitness and Ironman. My latest pact with some of the Athletes is to lose 10 pounds by the first January class of Bootcamp. I will begin on Monday and will post updates on the goals and methods I plan to use to get to my goals.

Looking forward to an epic year!!!!

Post event weight gain

Understanding why you eat more than you need is a habit. When we train long hours through the race season we will either get used to eating a lot or others diet during excessive training which can slow down your metabolism. Once race season is over some people go from training for 20 hours to 7 hours but we continue to eat the same. This needs to slowly be reversed. Try to taper activity a little at a time. Reduce how much you eat slowly too.  Try small changes each week.  Reduce training and intensity until you reach off season hours. Phase your eating to reduce some carbs increase some protein.

Over the next few weeks figure out what calories you are taking and what activity you are doing.  Now begin adding calories slowly. Try every other day you make the increase. Weigh in each week to see if the weight plateaus. The following week add the calories to the low days. Continue to do this until you see your weight creeping up. Take a week at that same calories and see what happens. If you have not gained weight again you can repeat the process.   In this way you will start to burn more calories doing less without gaining extreme weight.  I didn't do that myself I dunked myself in milk chocolate for a few months. In one year I gained 25 pounds from  my competition weight. This is 12 pounds higher than my pre-competition weight 12 weeks out. My goal this next 40 days is to get back to pre-contest weight.

This is coming one year after my last bodybuilding competition. I was not completely dieted to do well but I was fit and fab at 50. I decided do to some injuries to take a year off. Eat what I want make family and home a priority. My physical training became walking and physio. I allowed myself to just work on my shed guilt free and just try to get as much relief to my body as possible.  Emotionally to let go and know it is more important to heal that put in time to just lose weight. This successfully had me get most of the pain in control. It allowed me more time with family and getting some work done o. My shed and house. Some friends mentioned my weight gain proved I was human. I am human and I figured by being uber fit going to fat at a 25 pound weight gain puts me in a position to once again experience the return to fitness how everyone else feels. I have always struggled with my weight so I chose long cardio to help. I am now about to take what I know about triathlon and the bodybuilding and I am going to get back to being fit.

I joined a 40 day challenge with #bunsgunschallenge that starts October 9th. This is one yeR from the day I stopped dieting and training except physio. I am back coaching spin and strength. I am travelling to improve my Total Immersion skills in a couple weeks. My challenge is 40 days long. If you want to join me let me know. My before photos and measurements are going to be posted on Oct 9.

Post Physique competition complications

I usually give a nutrition talk and use a bottle as a representation of our health and vitality.  Basically our body in balance with nutrients, minerals and electrolytes.  A full bottle is the body full of these things essential to our well being.  Usually an athlete will withdraw from the bottle (body) with each workout and I ask people whether they remember to put things back into the bottle that are vital to their health.  Nutritious food, rest and recovery, supplements such as electrolytes which they sweat out with every workout.

Over a 3 year period the bottle (body) is becoming depleted.  This is the point when chronic muscle tension begins to appear.  The person is starting to exhibit signs of injury, over use injuries and possible fatigue.  This represent the bottle with only a working amount in it.  You are now forced to add nutrition and rest in order to perform or be able to perform with your body.  This is like an operating amount of nutrition, nutrition in = nutrition out.  When the body becomes depleted the injury becomes debilitating.

The final 10 days of the cut up diet effectively plan to completely empty the bottle.  You are drinking distilled water, removing all electrolytes from your system and taking a water flushing supplement.  This eliminates all water in the areas where you might need it to properly use your body.  I understood it but forgot to actually think of how long it might take to get my balance in nutrients back before I could start to train.

I had a great weekend of training last weekend.  By Monday I was starting to have issues with all of my muscles tightening and hip flexors started to scream.  By Tuesday I went to fool around with my son and felt my oblique get a pull or small tear.  I am currently deciding to take a couple weeks off of planned training and just walk and do range of motion activities in the gym.

I will keep you posted.  This is interesting to learn about the body.   Be better without the pain that goes with the learning.

Women's Physique Competition Winter Open 2016

Pictures above Summer of 1984 and February 2016

Thirty one years later I finally got on stage to pose.  My teenage passion was bodybuilding and I dreamed of going into a competition.  The one thing that stopped me was they were starting to do steroids and I wasn’t about to do that.  All these years later it is still the truth, they are doing steroids and I am not.  But what I didn’t care about was them, I just wanted to have that experience and get on stage.  I think I made my inner child proud even though she was cringing because the dream was with my 18 year old body not a 49 year old body.  I guess procrastination doesn’t pay.  If you have a dream then live it now.  It if is worth doing you will find a way, if it isn’t you will find an excuse.

How did it go?  Well the good news was I was still living as though I might do a competition one day.  I have always been in and out of the gym.  I coach triathlon and I make sure strength is in the center of the training and it takes over in the off season.  My cycle is from weights with minimal cardio in the off-season for a re-balancing of posture and muscle.  The cardio starts in base phase and I phase through a strength training that builds endurance and power.  Eventually as we near race season the weights taper to only essential moves and they give their time over to the endurance training.  This has always been a great way to do it as a person misses the weights as they enter race season and look forward to returning to them in the off season.  They miss the cardio in the off season and look forward to the return in the base building season.  It is a great balance and produces a body that is strong and resilient.  I prevent over training of cardio by keeping the strength in as a place holder until we are ready to go outside.  Usually an increase in time over 1 hour per month is really tough to recover from, so when we head outside the weights drop back a bit to allow for the extra increase in outdoor training.  It works.

I decided in April 2015 that I wanted to actually try to do a competition.  I was signed up for Ironman Canada in Whistler for July, so we were onto a big build before I went into my coach and signed up.  He started me on a diet that I realized was not going to jive with what I was doing.  I went back to him and asked for clarification I sent him my training schedule and he said no problem, just add fat if you need.  My diet was 900 calories of carbs, and 900 calories of protein. I waited until October to go hard.

My diet for the cut up began on Boxing day, 9 weeks out from the event.  I would have preferred 12 weeks of diet as I do not feel I made it to my goal fat percentage, but I still finished the event and was happy.

The diet consisted of 220 grams of protein, I had 2 meals of egg whites, 2 meals of tilapia, and 2 meals of chicken.  I was allowed oatmeal for breakfast and each of the 6 meals came with carrots or veggie of choice.  10 oz of carrots for breakfast and 6 ounces of carrots for each of the remaining meals.

I started and stuck to the diet.  I was starting to struggle with what I believe was hypoglycemia.  I have suffered from this before but didn’t expect this from the diet.  I would start to get shaky as soon as I ate and had a hard time being in my body in that state.  The time seemed like torture, I knew I wasn’t hungry but it felt like I needed to eat something.  I always felt it worse right after I ate lunch.  I took up painting to keep me from eating, it kept my hands busy when my brain kept sending feed me messages.

Eventually I had to make some changes or quit the diet.  I realize they are trying to execute a ketogenic diet.  A diet with no added fat and all these carrots seemed like a bad idea if you were doing a Ketogenic diet.  How would I know?  I just happened to have done the Ketogenic diet with my daughter for 5 years to cure her seizures and knew carrots were too high in sugar for her.

I reduced the carrots in half and added some peanut butter to the egg whites, approximately ½ tbsp. Then I added some Boursin cheese to my tilapia and switched the carrots to kale salad.  My overall calories remained the same.  My fiber was lower than he had, but my shakiness stopped and immediately I wasn’t hungry anymore.  I didn’t white knuckle my way through each day.  I have to say I do not know if this change made a difference on my muscle gain.  I ended up losing 13 pounds from my beginning of December weight and 18 pounds from my boxing day weight which was high in water retention from Christmas time.

My first week on the diet I dropped 4 of the 5 pounds of water weight, then over the next 3 weeks I was down 3 more pounds.  I then plateaued for 3 weeks.  This was when my body was stressing out asking for food all the time.  I couldn’t believe how awful it was and yet I lost nothing.  As soon as I made the change to fat my body relaxed and weight was coming off.  I realize weight is not the entire story, but from my photos I didn’t lose much muscle, so I do think the diet was successful.

My goal this year is to rework the diet.  Something that combines eating for triathlon with eating for competition.  I do believe if I had more energy I would have been able to execute more cardio.  I was reduced to a walk except while teaching my classes.  After a high cardio day I would take a couple days to recover from dizziness and fatigue.  I spent the last 3 weeks of the diet perpetually dizzy whenever I bent down and stood up, and I also realized that the super-sets I was doing I had only enough energy for 6 – 8 reps and after that would be dizzy for the remainder of the set trying not to lose my balance.  It would take my recovery rest to stop being dizzy.

I planned my day around my oatmeal.  Get the weights done as soon as I could.  Try to get some work done right after.  Go do my cardio in the afternoon and lay down if I had to before I had to work at night.  It was tough as I do not have time to sleep during the day, but it is highly recommended that you nap for recovery.  My job is morning and nights and book work in the afternoons.  I have to say the book work was done with less brain power than usual.

 The photos on the left taken in April 2015.  The photo on the right taken Feb 1st 2016.  My fat dunk from March 2015 indicates my base muscle and bone weight to be 126.9 pounds, the fat dunk from March 2016 indicates my base muscle and bone weight to be 129.5.  I gained 2.6 pounds of muscle over the year.  I was sick for most of the time, so I feel I gained the muscle from October until Feb.

I suffered from an elbow injury which prevented much weight use for shoulders and arms.  I am getting rehab for that now and hope to fix this for the next show.

 The photos on the left was taken 1 week before the photo on the right.  This shows what dehydration and a dark tan can do.

Things to get done early – get a posing routine.  I hired IFBB Pro Michelle Brent to come up with a routine.  I tweaked it to work with me and it was awesome.

The posing suit, it needs fitting it has to be specific to you, so start early so you have time.  I was so fortunate to have Kelly Marsh offer to make mine for me.  This took a lot of stress off of me.  While I got fittings she made me pose in it and that began the process of practicing poses in front of people.  She was a great stage Mom along with Susie as they kept making suggestions on improvements.  Then Kelly got Lindsey, Rebecca, and Juline to come over and give feedback.  Juline has done a few competitions in the bikini and Fitness divisions.  Again the more feedback the better.  The posing started to feel better as they pointed out where it needed help and reminded me to smile.

The last 10 days.

No salt, only unsalted almond butter, no canned fish, distilled water only, ½ the oatmeal.

Essentially this is where training gets dangerous.  I teach triathlon and coach people to take electrolytes to keep their muscles functioning.  Now I was teaching a class and I was dehydrated and void of electrolytes.  I was starting to have some muscles tighten and seize during my Saturday classes.  I would have to more or less go through the motions and teach and coach rather than participate.  It was good to have to back off once in a while, but I also knew how quickly I could get hurt doing this phase of the diet.  I tried to avoid anything I didn’t have to do. 

The last week.

Now I am on water tight which is a diuretic.  I am taking it twice a day.  I am also taking 2 green tea capsules twice a day with it.  I can’t take any supplements so my magnesium is only coming from the water tight which is minimal compared to what I usually take.  I am starting to feel my muscles want to spasm a bit, so I am happy I am down to my last few workouts.  The competition is on a Saturday.  The last workout is on the Wednesday an all over body workout.  This is the day I was losing my nut.  I still didn’t have the fat off my abdomen the way I wanted it too look.  I didn’t see my glutes separating, I really was disappointed that to go this far was still missing my goals.  That 3 more weeks I would be ready and yet my show was in two days.  After a short but intense pitty party where I wanted to not do the show until I realized everyone had tickets so I had no choice.  I started to let it go and just enjoy the fact my inner child was about to get up on stage and strut her stuff for the first time.

The day before the Event

Friday noon – no drinking water.  What is great about this diet is at first you miss food.  All food, it smells fantastic as your sense of smell is 10 times stronger when you are starving.  Then they remove flavor from what little food you have and you miss that little bit of peanut butter, that hot sauce, the diet coke.  But eventually all you end up craving is a drink of water, something so basic that in a day most people don’t even drink plain water anyway.  My mind wasn’t asking for chocolate anymore, it was just a drink and something with flavor.

 Friday I got my spray tan.  I have to say this was almost as unsettling as it could have been.  Small dome tents with 3 sides and all lined up in small areas, let’s just say privacy was something you imagined you had so that you could do this.  You strip naked and they come over and spray you.  The doors were open to the outside where it was 8 degrees out.  The spray tan was about 8 degrees and it took for ever to dry.  The best worst moment was in my humiliation of having this done the command of bend over came.  I laugh now, but it sucked then.  I have to say the lady doing my tan put me at ease and again I let it go.

Friday night was registration.  You had to have your suit on for inspection and get your height measured for your class.  This was fine.  Then I got to sign up for photos and video and think about the next day.  We went to a movie with the Mike and his friend, then I sat visiting in the hotel with some of the friends I had who were there to cheer.  I was happy to see everyone there, it helped me get over any worries.

Saturday Competition Day

Dehydration took its toll.  When I woke up, my body was so fatigued, my brain was so fatigued, I was a walking zombie.  Gary drove me and we waited at 6:00 a.m. to figure out how to get in to get my hair and makeup done.  I finally got in.  Got some spray on makeup and some false lashes.  I was starting to look like a Diva.  Over to get my hair done and now I was ready to finish the spray tan.

One more shot at the spray tan and I moved over to where the ladies were in my competition to get to know them.  We didn’t get to see any of the show.  We were the last to go on.  The funny part was the announcer told everyone the show was over before we even got on.

The pump up at the back of the stage was not easy as there were limited smaller weights and enough of the ladies took them already.  I used some stretch cords and did some push ups and looked around awkwardly for something else that wouldn’t mark up my tan.  I had some honey on a rice cake 15 minutes before the competition.  Good enough.

As luck would have it I was first on stage each time.  How lucky, I didn’t have to sit and worry I got to get out there and get it done.  The best part was the music was Thunderstruck by AC/DC.  I couldn’t get nervous or worry about anything while listening to this song, it made me want to move.  I started my routine and saw my friends and my husband Gary and my son MIchael smiling and waving.  Kelly had the Ironwill Jersey waving it over her head so I could see it.  The 18 year old in me came out and strutted her stuff and nailed the routine.  It is only 1 minute long.  I think I knew why.  When I got off stage the adrenaline hit and I was breathing hard, I started to wonder if I had even breathed on stage.  Then I couldn’t remember if I did all my poses on stage.  Off for comparisons.  Cramp time.  How long you hold a pose can cause you to cramp seriously at this point.  The calves were first. 

At the end of this I placed 3^rd overall in the Masters division and 2^nd in the Physique tall class.  There were 5 ladies competing and I fell right in the middle.  I wasn’t really there to do anything but compete and do my thing.  I was happy how it all turned out and am looking forward to doing it the way I wanted to, leaner and more prepared.  That is what the next one is about.

After the Competition

Sunday felt worse than Saturday.  I took heed and didn’t over-hydrate.  I avoided binge eating and eating a ton of salty food.  I just had normal food in normal quantities.  I did have some wine.  I woke up feeling more exhausted than the day of the event.  I think the dehydration was the problem.  I was really dizzy teaching swimming and really needed to sit down a lot.

3 weeks have passed since the competition and I have to say that the hydration of my body is not yet complete.  Maybe it is, but the effects have not worn off.  My muscles are all so tight they could tear.  The more I do the more I hurt.  I am using lighter weights as I am rehabilitating my elbow and trying to get some progress.  I took one kick boxing class and did 2 core classes afterwards and now the obliques and hip flexors are like razor blades.  I am going to take a few days off and let my body heal and focus on drinking and taking electrolytes to see if I can get the balance back. 

You need the balance for your muscles, your brain and your heart to all work well.  Keep this in mind before pushing yourself too soon. I am thinking good advice for next competition is planned rest for the month after, with easy walks and range of motion exercises without much resistance until the body is back to normal.  

Crash and Burn

Crash and Burn pretty much sums up the goals of last year.  My Body building goal had me hire a coach.   I showed him my program to Ironman and he really didn't analyze my output.  He suggested an eating plan and exercises to add to what I was doing.

Long story short, instant drop in immune system and I ended up with a chronic cough and fatigue that wouldn't go away.  I spent 3 days a week laying down so I could continue to lead the Saturday bike rides and complete my long runs.  I kept up what I could for cardio, but I couldn't swim.   I couldn't keep my body temperature up in the water and was pretty miserable.

My training camp was incredibly tough as I was having to lead the rides and swims.  I would get hypothermic in the water working with the new swimmers, then turn around and try to lead out the faster bikers.  It was at the end of day 3 after the 3 hour run where it all crashed down.  I was sick with a migraine, cough and fatigue.  I led the next 2 days from the shore and the vehicle.  I made one swim for myself on the Friday and managed to do the bike on the Saturday in Whistler.  It provided us with rain to bike through and I was desperate to get into a warm vehicle when I finished.

I had a lot of emotional lows on the training camp as I usually do not fail physically and it is very dependent on me being there in spirit and in person.  I have looked at some changes for this year to make it more successful.

My first race I ended up pulling out before it started.  I went down to get ready and it was so cold I got too cold to start, I couldn't imagine recovering the energy it would take in time for Ironman, so I cheered instead.  I didn't feel any more rested sitting it out.  I couldn't increase my training to Ironman I just did what I could and rested when I could.

Every part of me didn't want to go to Whistler, I had no energy to do it and I just felt like it was a waste of money already spent so I went hoping when I got there the day of the race I would have some sort of high to carry me through.

Whistler was brutally cold, it was 2 degrees at the top of Callaghan and raining, the descent was between 50 - 70 km/hr and the windchill was incredibly cold.  I finished the swim slow and the bike slow, but when I went to get up from Pemberton on the last climb I was having a complete energy powerout.  I took a gel, I took off my arm warmers to avoid overheating, ha ha, no worry about that.  Then I started having problems breathing.  I took my puffer hoping it was the high heart rate triggering my sports asthma, but it wasn't.  I was hyperventilating.  I think the puffer made it worse.

When I got close to town my legs were numb, my arms were numb and I was starting to tingle in my face and crotch as well.  It was bizarre.  When I came into T2 I went to get off my bike and couldn't negotiate walking very well, my legs were unsteady and I was really dizzy.  I didn't feel this while biking, but as soon as I went to stand things were not better, they just got worse.

I have hyperventilated at the end of 4 of my 7 Ironmans.  I attributed it to having a migraine and being in intense pain.  Here I had no migraine, no pain, I had no idea what was up.  But this pointed out to me that this was the end of the race day for me.  So I pulled out before the run.  Not a popular move with those there to support me, but I just didn't want to finish and end up in a hospital because I did something stupid.

I took time to rest when we went on holidays.  It took me until October to feel like I could start training again.  I began with weights and the new goal of doing a bodybuilding competition in February.  No cardio requirements except my classes.

I kept cycling through being sick until we went to Cozumel at the end of November.  I had a full week of rest and came back feeling better.  I haven't been sick since then and am feeling like myself again.  I am weight training and on a lean out diet.  I have 7 weeks left and have to figure out the posing thing.

My weight right now is 154.5 and  I will be checking in regularly until the final competition in February.  February 27th 2016.

April 20th 2015, It is a new day.  I am still coaching Triathlon and this year I have a record number doing Ironman Whistler.  I thought I would venture into my bucket list this year and attempt a physique competition in October.  This was something I wanted to do when I was 18.  I am now 48 so 30 years later it hasn't gone away.  I am acutely aware that my skins elasticity has, so I do not want to put this off any longer.  I approached a coach today and will be working with him to get me ready.  Coach is about to get coached.  I love this because I know how hard it is to have my athletes do exactly what I say, they morph it into something they think will work just as good.  I understand the importance of doing it all as it is laid out, so I am going to trust him and do what he says.  I will blog about this experience as I know I am probably the worst person to coach, ha ha, poor him.

New beginnings of unfinished business.  My first mission is to take a starting picture and measurements and send them to him.  Whatever I send him, I will post, so if you have questions let me know and I can ask him the questions as well.  I realize it is great to brainstorm.  I do also have to add alot of cardio so my issue will be gaining weight at a time when mentally I need to lose it for Ironman.  I am going to be going through some mental struggles, but in the end it should all end up great if I can just do it all.

On the coaching side, I have an amazing group of people going to Whistler.  I have a few repeat Ironman people and then I have quite a few Iron Newbies.  This is going to be exciting.  We have 2 months of build ahead of us and after that it is race season.  I have 10 weeks of building with weights before the diet begins.  This should be interesting.

Stay tuned for the meat sweat monologues.

In the Moment

Statistics are a fun thing for a lot of triathletes, they love the lap button on their Garmin, they can't wait to download and unveil the training session they have just completed.  Why?  So they can see how well they performed.  That approach is a little too late.  How will that information help your performance.  It is historical.  It is a good bench mark to see how you improve over time, but how does it help you improve now, at this moment, while you are training.

Treat each practice as an opportunity to do better, to challenge yourself to improve in the moment.  I love the garmin alarm for this, it is immediate feedback.  It tells you what you are doing in the moment, it allows you to change the course of your practice and allow you to meet the end goal of that practice.

In the swim, I use a tempo trainer and recently introduced the finis heart rate monitor to the other side of my swim cap.  I look quite goofy and I am seriously creating more drag with gizmo's.  What was I expecting to find out, I wanted to approach my training from  a learning mode of being in the moment.  The Finis heart rate monitor tells you at specific intervals what your heart rate is, no watch to look at, it speaks to you.  That little feature is perfect because the second it tells you your heart rate, if the results are going up, or down you should understand why.  If you don't you should be trying to understand why.

My goal this year is to be training at my Maximum Aerobic Function, a number calculated from Maffetone's equation for MAF.  This number is supposed to be used for the swim bike and run.  I thought that was an interesting change from the previous suggestions of scaling back by 10 percent from the run, to the bike, to the swim.  I looked at it and decided I wanted to give it a try.  After all I have had issues with aerobic threshold in the water and the run due to sports asthma.  Maybe a little training up there would give me a little bit better ability to push it during a race.  I was going where I didn't want to go before.

The Finis heart rate monitor woke me up in a hurry.  You can't change what you do not acknowledge.  I pushed off for my warm up.  I was swimming between 100 to 110 bpm.  That seemed hard to believe.  I could be walking and doing the same.  I got into a pace that I thought would be working, and the results were in the mid 120's.  Okay so now I had to kick it into overdrive, turn that tempo trainer up, I was really starting to wonder if I could get my heart rate up, it got there, but I also knew that was not my racing stroke rate.

I removed the tempo trainer and tested my pace without a tempo and just through my natural rhythm.  I was getting into the 130's but it was low.  I then decided to test the components of my practice to see what my heart rate would do.  I am a very lazy swimmer.  My heart rate didn't come into the 120's for kick, I just don't like going fast I guess.  On my back during back stroke it reached the high 120's while I was relaxed, apparently I am not as relaxed on my back, too many air holes pointing up I guess.

My next set proved the theory of how it all relates.  Although I kick during my swim apparently it is a gentle movement.  When my next set of practicing one flick kick per stroke, I achieved my heart rate goal.  My kick is what was missing to get my heart rate up.  That makes sense, as I was reducing it to keep my heart rate low.  What was very good to learn was that it only takes 1 kick per stroke to get there and that is what I am striving for.  Does that one kick per stroke affect my speed compared to my gentle kick per stroke?  I wouldn't want to apply something to jack up my heart rate if the return was seriously just heart rate with no speed result.  The one kick per stroke effectively reduced my stroke count by one.  How do I know that?  Because I am not using a gizmo that counts my strokes for me, I count my strokes every length.  I do not rely on historical data to answer my questions, I am training in the moment.  I am learning with every stroke.  With every pushoff I am trying to solve some question on how can I do this better.  I am not generally just hoping that with enough repeats of the same thing that I will intuitively learn something that profoundly affects my swim, I am actually planning ways to test ideas on what would help and changing my workout as I go through my practice based on the results from the previous set.  How do I know this made me faster?  I am using a tempo trainer, how much faster? 1.28 seconds faster on 25 meters.  I swam 100 meters, so I improved my speed by over 5 seconds on 100 meters.  In a race I would take that in a heart beat! actually about 8 heart beats.

On the bike.  I use cadence as my measure, I have a certain cadence that I feel is better suited for my limited lung capacity and my rather stronger legs.  I stay within 82 to 96 rpms.   I find it difficult to stay near 96 but I keep training there.  My race results are usually in the 82 rpm where it is easier to breath.  I also watch terrain and try to predict a change in resistance.  If there is a cross wind coming from the front, I am watching for tree breaks and gearing at the time I predict the resistance changes rather that wait to respond to an increase in cadence.  This saves me many seconds on a bike leg.  I use the same strategy for hills and head winds.  My whole race strategy is built around the wind and its direction, starting with a tail wind spells disaster to someone who likes to take advantage of a tail wind, they push too hard to get their highest overall speed with a tailwind forgetting the upcoming headwind to the finish line.  Then I hear them complaining about leg cramps on the run.

On the run, you have heart rate and cadence as well.  If you keep to a 90 cadence you will save your legs and probably avoid some of the leg issues that come from over striding.  Keeping a tighter gait will keep the foot turn over high, which limits the time in support and avoids getting high impact from long reaching strides.  This is all done in the moment.  It changes the outcome. 

Your strategy for your race should be as detailed as possible.  If you train in the moment you will have a better time during your race as you will have practiced a very special skill that you need when you race.  Be in the Moment, be in what you are doing, what you are experiencing and what your body is asking for.  This is the way you will race your best and train your best.  Use historical data for that, history, use what is happening now to shape the very next thing you do, do not leave it to chance. 

Happy training and practicing.

Heart Rate Training

The purpose of training by heart rate is to establish the intensity of a specific workout.  Most people may go by speeds, or perceived exertion, so why get so specific.  The heart rate is a measurement of what is going on in your body during the test.  It is specific to the individual.  You can have a high maximum heart rate, or a lower maximum heart rate, this is not an indication of your ability, it is a specific measurement of your heart rate, the number of beats your heart takes in a minute.

 My goal in writing this article is to make clear why you would use heart rate training and how do you establish your training zones and implement them.

Your heart rate is a measure of  how many times your heart  beats per minute.  Stroke volume is the amount of blood pumped with each heartbeat.  With increased conditioning a person’s heart will start to pump more blood volume per beat.  This increase provides more oxygen rich blood to the body per beat, this eventually is evident by a lowering of the resting heart rate, and increased ability at the same heart rate.  Why does this matter?  If you have been training by speed alone a decrease in heart rate at the same speed means you are working at a lower level, you may eventually be under training for the purpose of a specific workout.  If you want to make sure your training is quality training and not junk miles, strap on a heart rate monitor and begin to train with purpose and a clear goal for each workout.

 If you understand the need for different types of workouts, then understanding heart rate zones is easy.

 Heart Rate Training Zones:

 
First you should establish your resting heart rate.  To accomplish this, first thing in the morning before you get up, you should put on your heart monitor and record your heart rate.  It will usually stay close to the same.  If it is up 3 or more beats per minute over the norm it could mean you are fighting a bug or are overtraining.
 
Resting Heart Rate: ___________
 
Zone 1:          Active Recovery 65 – 75 % of Lactate Threshold.  Training            in this zone: is used for Active Recovery Workouts for the day     following high intensity workouts; uses stored fat for energy.

Zone 2:          Aerobic 75 – 85 % of Lactate Threshold.  Training in this Zone: burns a mix of fat and glycogen for energy; will improve your  ability to transport oxygen.  Endurance intensity.

 

Zone 3:          Threshold 85 – 95 % of Lactate Threshold.  Training in this           Zone: burns mainly glycogen for energy; is the best zone to climb hills in as it takes less recovery than higher zones;  will improve your ability to burn carbohydrates.

 

Zone 4:          Lactate 95 – 105% of Lactate Threshold.  Training in this Zone: burns glycogen for energy but without enough oxygen,        therefore it is anaerobic; builds speed and a tolerance for lactate acid;    raises your lactate threshold; is hard on the body and takes a couple          days to recover.

 

Zone 5:          VO2 Max  > 105% of Lactate Threshold  Training in this zone: is done without oxygen it is completely anaerobic; Short efforts          in this zone will increase your VO2 max, the ability of your body to transport oxygen to the working muscles.

 

Max Heart Rate: ______________

In a Triathlon training season you will be focusing on many different styles of workout, but the most important one would be your aerobic workouts, you want to increase the ability to burn fat for energy.  You want to create a training program that doesn’t leave you overtrained and depleted.

 How do you establish your training zones?  Go to a lab for testing.  Use the calculated zones for your specific training.

How to implement heart rate training in your plan.  Heart rate monitors are effective in measuring the body’s response to an increase in workload, but where an increase in speed on a treadmill is immediate, the heart rate response has a lag.  It may take a full minute to reach the level it needs to do that work level.  For this reason it is valuable to use your heart rate as a target for your long distance runs, keep your heart rate for top of zone 2 your ceiling, you do not want to cross this.  For shorter harder intervals, the lag in response makes the heart rate a poor choice for setting your speed.  For this reason I use a run test which maps heart rate to speed.  This allows me to see what speed gets an athlete into their zone 4 effort.  This is helpful as it allows me to retest often to make sure this is still a zone 4 effort and that they are still working hard enough.  For zone 4 workouts I give speed targets, not heart rate targets, I can assume the heart rate from the test.

 

What happens when the results are not showing what we had hoped, an increase in heart rate can be an indication that the body is under stress.  Stress can be from training, work, home life, nutrition, or illness coming on.  Keeping a diary of resting heart rate can show you when there is an increase in resting heart rate, and what happened in the days leading up to this as far as workouts and life stress.  Respect your heart rate on those days and maybe substitute that planned interval run for a recovery run or complete rest.  If your heart rate is telling you what is going on inside it is important to learn from this.

 Be aware that in the warm up phase of training your body is slow to respond to the bodies call for oxygen. You may experience heart rate spikes during warm up, another reason to start slow and gently warm up, I suggest walking before you begin your runs, this is enough for your body to already start to increase the heart rate and supply the body with the oxygen it needs.

In conclusion you can benefit from heart rate training as it gives you a window into what is going on inside.  You will know if you are working easy enough, or hard enough depending on the  goal of the workout.  You will also be able to run tests to show a change in conditioning which can signal a need to change your program up.  This is key, training with a purpose will get you to your goals.

New Year and New Goals

I am currently working on a heart rate training article to put up later this week, and realize that with the New Year, I got to see quite a few people I haven't seen since Ironman taking their first dip in the pool.  I am happy they were able to break from the routine for a good break so that they were ready to come back in the New Year.  Some people never do take that break, it is essential to have a beginning and end to the training plan.  You need a break from the constant focus on goals.  Now that that break is over for most, I am here to remind people to go back slowly.

Exercise patience and know that with patience you can build it back up without injury.  You can get that personal best without trashing your body.  You can focus on one thing at a time with absolute clarity and make that change happen.  Focus on the few things this year that haunted you last year.  Was it your technique, now is a good time to make that a priority, with focused practice.  Was it shoulder and breathing problems, go to yoga and work on breathing and mobility.  Look for the most benefit you can get from the low heart rate training that will have the most lasting effect on your sport.  Your best bet is anything that is knowledge and habit based, it takes a long time to create change.  Begin today with a goal and work towards that goal.

You can't change what you don't acknowledge, so give yourself time to analyze what one thing could you change that would have a lasting effect, make that your goal.

Happy New Years, I anticipate great things this year, as I sit in a Canadian winter that seems to be the eternal fall or spring, this gives me hope our summer will be warm and of course produce some fast, fast races.

Inner Strength the Key to Success in Life and Racing

Inner Strength can be the defining moment between you deciding greatness or giving up and settling.  I have to say I have been put in positions in my life where people say you were so strong, I said where was my choice.  I guess that is it, you have those moments in  life where you feel you are just going to have to keep going regardless as there isn't another option.  "If your walking through hell....keep walking."  Winston Churchill.  However, there are those moments where the couch may look more inviting than that cold pool on a late winter night.  The difference it makes is your ability to have the integrity to follow through and know that each decision leads you to your goals.   You need the inner strength to keep your focus. 

Where does this inner strength come from, it comes from making a decision that you will live up to the definition you hold of yourself.  If you expect more, you will do more to get it.  If you are prepared to be status quo, you can't make a change.  You will keep repeating yourself and your results won't change.  You must put your goals on paper and you must live up to your goals if you are going to make a change. 

Physically you can go through the motions and become fitter and that will carry you through.  At some point that will plateau, unless you make a change in how you prepare there is no way for you to make that change to get better.  Identify your limiter, this is hard because most people do not want to acknowledge their own weaknesses, they hate swim because they aren't any good, they aren't gifted runners as they are always injured.  These are excuses.  When you can identify that you are always getting injured running, stop doing the same thing over and over, look for alternative things that may cause an issue with your running, look for solutions instead of excuses.

Inner strength comes from acknowledging a weakness and putting your focus on removing it from your definition of who you are.  Some people it is simply a fear of commitment, a fear of never completing anything that is written so clearly on their identity that they fail to commit to make the change.  They want to settle for where they are, because to acknowledge they could improve means they would have to expect more from themselves. 

We all know Inner Strength as Will Power.  You need will power to make change, you need focus to make change, you need determination to make change.  When you start to look at these qualities we need, we all have them.  Courage to make a change and accept that you could accomplish anything you put your mind to.  This is something that is life changing, we expect more from ourselves and we stand up and do more. 

Where does this spark to make change come from....inspiration, motivation, these are things that may be exterior to ourselves.  We may see someone we admire and want to do something they have done.  We may get inspired by a group of people that we wish to be like and to fit in we begin to take on some of their qualities, even if it goes against our natural tendencies.  Whatever your motivation or inspiration, look for ways to keep the inspiration and motivation feeding your will power.  Keep looking for ways to stay strong in your focus to achieve that goal you have set.

For some it is enrolling in a run class because they don't like to run on our own.  Others it may be the gym by work, it is easier to go there at lunch for a quick workout than to try to do something at home on our own. Take the time to evaluate what would contribute to your success and make it a priority to make those things happen. 

There is no feeling better than to create a dream or goal, to put your energy and focus on that goal and to achieve that goal.  That goal for some is to swim a length without stopping, for some it is a Try a Tri, because to be able to achieve that means that I have learned to swim, I have asked myself to do something outside my comfort zone, I have conquered a fear.  Whatever you do to rewrite your own personal definition to make it a list of achievement instead of a list of limitations, the power of positive thinking will be contagious. 

Every morning begin your day for being thankful you have goals, you have your health, you have this day, there may never be another one.  If you could choose to do anything on this one day let it be a day of adverture finding out what else you can do, what other accomplishments are out there you can claim as your own.  Treat every day as an opportunity, life will change, you will be eager to try new things to ask more of yourself, dare to live each day to its fullest, make your life one of adventure and achievment.  Take this attitue into your job, your relationship and your sport and you will live a fuller life.  Inner Strength is the foundation we build our physical strength on.  With a strong foundation, we will be prepared for anything.

Now go out and conquer your day!

The Ketogenic Diet cured my daughter's seizures

My first child was born healthy and very happy, we had everything we had hoped for, after her second set of immunizations Amanda developed infantile spasms, a type of seizure that is linked to  West Syndrome.  She was misdiagnosed with West Syndrome which is where one hemisphere of the brain develops slower than the other.  Most likely her problem was a vaccine reaction.  Amanda was born in 1996 and developed seizures when she was 5 months old.  She would have a set of 12 to 15 every 4 hours to begin with.  They looked like a full body crunch with an eye roll, brief, but the repetition made them very difficult for Amanda.

She was initially treated with massive doses of prednisone, which removed the happy go lucky girl we knew and loved.  She gained a lot of weight and at first we saw a decline in seizures, then it turned around, she started having sets of 200 spasms which took over 1 hour to happen, life was becoming unbearable.

Once the prednisone failed the next drug suggested was Depekane.  I was not interested.  I was caught in a tough spot, her life had gotten more difficult by introducing the last drug.  I looked into possible side effects and saw liver failure.  Amanda was more of a Murphy's law kid, if it could go wrong it usually would go wrong.  I tried one dose of the drug she threw up immediately and I threw it out.

I had been checking on-line at the time for drugs and solutions to what Amanda had and how to possibly fix it.  My dad mentioned the movie "First do no Harm".  Someone told him about it.  I just kept searching and didn't give much weight to my Dad's suggestion.  I still found my way back to that suggestions, my own way, the longer way.  I found a website that discussed West Syndrome and everyone was really depressed.  I found a website that discussed drug therapy and from the parent's perspective what the good, bad of each treatment was.  That website was eye opening, many drugs per kid over many years and no solutions.

I then found the website on the Ketogenic Diet, people were optomistic and chatty, happy, struggling but with purpose.  I found the group I wanted to belong to, the happy ones.  I ordered the video and the book and did my reading.  I was thinking we would have to travel to the United States to John's Hopkins to get the diet done, I was prepared to do anything.  I was discussing my choice with an early intervention worker.  She mentioned an upcoming Epilepsy seminar that had a local Doctor in Edmonton and a Ketogenic Diet Coaches that were local.  They were going to be there and it was the upcoming weekend.  I couldn't believe how luck could be so close to us.  I went to the seminar and met with the Doctor and Team.  I needed a referral, and it was suggested I get a referral to the Glenrose as well for her assessment.

I was happy to be leaving my other Doctor, he was prescribing Prednisone, going on holidays and doing absolutely no testing of her blood to make sure she wasn't suffering from the treatment.  I met a family who had nearly lost their daughter to Prednisone at the Epilepsy Seminar.  I was starting to feel like every opportunity of treatment that involved drugs had a shady side the doctor's weren't willing to discuss or acknowledge, they kept placing the blame and the focus on what they were treating instead of possible side effects of the treatment.

I made it, Amanda began the diet close to the University Hospital, it couldn't be done in the hospital as they didn't approve of the treatment, but we needed to be close in case she had issues during the fasting process.  Amanda had no problems fasting, she quit eating period.  I had been breast feeding and she had never wanted to take a bottle, now she wouldn't eat or drink.  She was allergic to cow's milk a big portion of the diet is usually milk.  I was hunting for alternatives, it was becoming difficult.  Finally I found a formula just for this, it had protein and fat, it was soy based and I could order it in locally. 

After dropping 10 pounds in a very short time, Amanda was put on a Nose tube.  She then quit swallowing.  You see the Murphy's law yes, if it could go wrong it did.  After being on the nose tube and no longer swallowing she was headed for a g-tube.  Once the g-tube was in I thought my problems were over, not.  She now had reflux, what when in, came right back out and with a child that doesn't swallow, the other option is to choke constantly.  We started her on zantac and prepulsid (this drug is no longer on the market due to heart problems it caused).  Once the food stayed in, the seizures slowly went away.

We were nervous to do a count, we recorded seizures every day in a book, we were recording less and less, then it was no longer daily, then we crossed our fingers and hoped we wouldn't have to open the book again.  The only time Amanda had seizures was if she got sick and threw up her meal.  For the next 3 years Amanda was on the diet.  I researched more and more and discovered her other issues were Autistic in nature, they could also be linked to prednisone as a possible cause.  She didn't talk anymore, she had irrational fears and couldn't walk independently.  She had issues with balance, she could only walk with her fisher price walker, she screamed in any other room than the room we were in for most of the day, to lay her in the bath was torture. It was all proprioceptive.  We began substituting some of her oil for yeast free oil and added Nystatin to her regime.  I was pregnant with my second child and Amanda still needed to be carried everywhere at 4 years old.  I couldn't possibly carry two kids.

Within days Amanda let go of her fisher price walker and stood in the middle of the living room, something she had never done before.  Although this is what I had researched should be the outcome, my Murphy's law little girl hid behind this glowing girl free standing in my living room.  Within weeks she started taking a few steps, then walking along the wall.  She lost her fear of the other rooms, the upstairs and soon I began to understand some of her fears.  She would duck down when she came into my bedroom where there was a ceiling fan going.  She had no idea how far away it was, it scared her.   Two weeks before the birth of my son and 4 months after beginning the Nystatin, Amanda walked down the middle of the hallway without holding onto the walls.  My life was starting to get some sunshine back in it, the happy girl was returning, life was something we were beginning to live again.

One of the things that prevent people from taking drastic steps towards holistic treatment is usually it is not the advice of their treating Doctor.  I do not think people should just choose to do this treatment unless they have researched it and understand that your life becomes the diet, the diet is first and foremost the only thing that matters.  We had a 13 hour schedule, she was on a g-tube from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. with short breaks.  I purchased a Pet pump to allow us the freedom to go into town and buy groceries or go for a meal.  This was after being on the g-tube for 2 years already before hand.  I was anal and had complete control of everything in her life, this is a very stressful position to be in.  If there was a mistake, a seizure it was my fault, I took very few risks without researching them.  Any change to her diet could bring on  a seizure, so adding Nystatin was a risk that had to be worth while.

I believed in the diet and the exactness of it.  I experimented with why there were problems, you couldn't put the oil into the meal or it stuck to her bag and tube leaving behind important grams of oil that would drastically change the ratio of the diet.  I used a syringe for the oil, I also understood that she could throw up during a meal, which again would change the ratio, so I would divide the oil, first 1/2 before her first 1/2 of the meal the other 1/2 before the second half of her meal.  I used Ross Carbohydrate formula for her main ingredient, I added baby food that had protein and veggies in it, usually a chicken and broccoli from heinz, or a carrots and beef from heinz, either way the GI index of the vegetable plays a big roll, not all carbs should be used as the higher the GI the more likely of seizure activity.  I added the oil at the end to the tenth of a gram I used safflower oil once we went on Nystatin.

My daughter is 15, she hasn't had a seizure since she was 2 or 3 years old.  She speaks, she walks, runs a bit.  She still suffers developmental delays and although she looks normal she has typical autistic behaviours except, she is sociable, loves to be hugged, kissed, she likes eye contact, but has a very short attention span and still has a lot of sensitivities to sound.  She loves music, she is a growing teenager with a sweet tooth.  I let her eat whatever she wants.  I control the sugar as it gives her most of her behaviours.  Do I believe that keeping her on a controlled diet would help, yes, it may help her cope a lot better.  Right now we are trying to live with less control and enjoy the time we have.  We are living every day to its fullest and in time I may find ways to improve her situation further, but for now I am so very thankful for her health, her ability to be who she is and to always be positive and happy.

Balance in the water

Every once in a while things click, you may have worked on them for months or years and finally it is just clear.  I had a moment in Minneapolis where the whole issue of head position just clicked.  I have been studying posture and been focusing a lot on its impact of other things we do especially as it applies to Triathlon.  During a backstroke session with Terry he kept telling me to pull my chin in.  This kept my body in a straight plane and not the bent stick I was becoming on my back. 

The Why's
Why on my front when I relax my head and let the water take it does it not translate into backstroke?
Why am I physically activating my neck extensors to fix my body line on my back?
If it isn't working for me in the back stroke can I assume it isn't working in Freestyle?

My posture assessment shows a forward head position, to be in a horizonal line in the water I would have to pull my head back to line it up, this is not the same as weightless head.  It falls into laser lead and lengthen your vessel, neither of which give you a relaxed head position, so is relaxing the head for me a mistake as my shortened neck extensors and lengthened neck flexors leave me with a forward head position.  This is something that was revealed in my physical assessment.

I took my questions to the pool and did up a workout, to my amazement, my head position is now pulled back, it allows me easy air on both sides without actually tricking myself to go for air early on the opposite side I naturally breath on.  I need to engage the muscles in my neck to get my head in line.

How should it feel, if you stand against a wall and pretend you are being measured you lengthen your neck by pushing up and back through the top of your had, the back is where your chin is going, if you were to stand at attention, same thing, the chin would come in.

How it works.  Get on your back in skate position with one arm at the side hugging your inner thigh and the other out in skate position in  a 45 degree angle float, just off your back and allow your lead hand to reach, but fingers come to just below the surface of the water.  Keep kicking on your back adjusting your chin position.  Do not allow the chin to tuck so that your head tilts, you want a straight line from top of the head to your toes. 

Once you establish your balance on your back, go back to skate on your front and try and get the same head position.  Yes it is different, when you do an interrupted breath, you should return to balance on your back, if you are again out of balance you head has changed postion, keep practicing skate 45 degrees on your front, going to an interrupted breath at 45 degrees on your back until you feel you are holding your head in the same position for both.  You should be able to roll without moving up and down in the water, make sure it comes from the hips.

Once you have your head in control go to swim.  Try to keep the focus on your head position, you are now going to bilateral breath.  Before each breath recheck your head position and correct if you have lost it, roll for air, it is right there, no matter which side you go to the air is always there, your head is in the position it needs to be to reach air.  There is no change in the body line in the water, the rotation is around your axis with no distortions. 

In summary, if you are suffering posture problems and practicing swim, you must use posture correction even in the water to avoid your posture becoming responsible for your next injury.  If your posture is in balance, you are in balance in the water, any deviation of your posture will be magnified in the water.  If you have kyphosis, or a large upper back curve, this is something you will have to work on all the time trying to get your head back, that large curve sets your head down at one and and your legs down at the other end,  some people reach too far forward with their arms which puts a huge stress on the lower back, make sure you are reaching in front to a slightly lower target, this will allow you to get your legs up higher.  It will relieve a lot of the lower back issues you may be getting from swimming. 

Work on the posture and see all of your sports improve.  The body is a beautiful thing, work wonders with yours and see what it can achieve.

Total Immersion Summit Minneapolis

Day 1 - Let the learning begin, I signed up for the other stroke clinic where we cover the butterfly, the breast and the back, the three b's.  I love Triathlon, so doing things in 3's is the right amount of variety to keep me moving and learning.  I was very happy with the clinic, it was for the coaches only.  I was able to get into the pool with 12 - 14 other coaches.  The butterfly had a gentle introduction and I have to say that the ease of which we moved into it made me realize that struggling was not going to happen today.  The quiet progress was as successful as I predicted.  I am not a multi stroked swimmer and have only attempted butterfly during masters swims a few times usually with fins and a lot of energy.  I was enjoying the relaxed feel and the ease of executing to be sure. 

Breast stroke was a function of streamline and timing to get the finesse, the back stroke to be continued tomorrow of course offered the sinus full of water I was expecting and some gravity shifting I would expect for a bi-lateral stroke.  Doing the butterfly and breast offered the challenge of changing the focus to something completely different, where the backstroke brought you back to the shift of weight.  I enjoyed being in the pool learning again rather than just teaching.

Maria showed up and was showing me her group on the ipad doing their first open water swim after 5 lessons.  She is busy as we all are, and as excited about the progress of her athletes as she was in March, very nice to see her again.  I got to put some faces to some names on the ticoach list and noticed we had a number of people ranging in experience from months to years, a great mix for a summit.

When we got into the summit it was all business, a little bit of an uphill grind trying to take it all in, but thankfully Shinji is very organized and has made this something we can look up and reflect on later.  I was pleased to see that my career path to master coach was laid out, I no longer had to wonder how to get there, Shinji created a map.  There is an enormous amount of new information to cover regarding the business side, I hope it is spaced out over the entire weekend.

Sitting in the summit with the coaches around the table made for an interesting introduction time.  It makes you curious about everyones experiences, everyones philosophies and how they integrate Total Immersion into their jobs and futures.

This is an optomistic time for Total Immersion in a year where things are so difficult for so many, where success is not guaranteed to those who are willing to work hard at their jobs, learning that going with the flow may actually be the answer to many peoples problems with swimming, one only hopes they find that easy efficient transition into employment and financial security, it begins with balancing the budget, streamlining spending and moving forward.  Let's hope this is something we can all learn.

Postural Assessment and the Triathlete

Postural Assessment is to see how imperfections in your posture reveal muscle length imbalances.  These imbalances can play a roll in injury during training.  Most of these imbalances come from having bad postural habits, while sitting and standing while at work, driving and doing our every day activities.  Many hours of bad posture can not be reversed by small exercises, they take a conscious effort to correct, you must focus on correct posture while sitting, driving, and doing our every day activities.

Your head should be centered over the shoulders, you have a cervical curve in your spine, a thoracic curve, and a lumbar curve.  If any part of those curves is exaggerated or reduced there is a risk of injury.  Sitting at our desk with shoulders rolled forward and head reaching forward is enhancing or exaggerating our thoracic (upper back) curve, it lengthens the muscles in the back, shortens the muscles in the back of the neck, lengthens the muscles in the front of the neck and shortens the  chest muscles, just by having a forward reaching posture during your work day, you can create a pattern of movement which can lead to shoulder problems.

Keep your head over your shoulders, your shoulders back and down, a small lumbar curve with slight forward tilt of the pelvis and you are sitting correctly, at attention.  This will take time to become less work as you have to actively pull your shoulders back if the back muscles have lengthened, now you need to strengthen them.  If the pectoral muscles have shortened they need to be stretched, working the back will stretch the chest.

How does this affect the triathlete.  Look at your posture during swimming.  Freestyle swim is an internal rotation of the shoulder, this shortens the pecs or chest, as it is actively using those muscles.  Basically swimming will accentuate bad posture by strengthening the short muscles and lengthening the long muscles.  How do you correct this, add external shoulder rotation to your dryland training, add shoulder retraction, work through the middle and lower traps.  If you add some back stroke to your workout you will also work at lengthening the muscles that you are shortening, it is a balancing act, it is something you need to focus on all the time, work the muscles in balance, the minute you work one and ignore the other you will see changes in joint mobility and movement patterns.

Rounded lower backs, as we slouch at our desk or hang over the steering wheel we are allowing our lumbar curve to round,  constant sitting shortens our hip flexors and lengthens our glutes.  The hip is the one area of the body that once it is no longer in balance can cause lower back, hip, knee and foot problems.  By shortening one side of the supporting muscles of the hip socket you are creating a new movement pattern for the hip in the socket.  When the hip is weak the body will compensate, it will try to use the lower back to do the work.   Ever notice on a long ride that if you have one leg that feels powerless that the spinal errectors on that side are tight and get tighter as the ride gets longer.  This is a sign you need to work those hips, you need them to do their job.

I have included a PDF of my abbreviated static assessment, it is just for information purposes, to help you see what some of the problems look like in a photo.  It is another way to look at things and you may decide it is time to do something about it.  Race Season is months away, what better time to make the change than now.

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/gflint/GailFlintStaticassessment3.pdf

Day 1 Training for Ironman 2012 - Break the process into steps.

Inspiration is one thing you can say happens when you think of Ironman as an accomplishment. I had an email from a truly great mentor and the words rang so true, I have to use them a few times here. Let go of doubts, let go of perception, let go of personal definitions, just be all you can be, be an Ironman.

This Years Goals - injury proof, fastest swim, bike and run next year through focus and fine tuning. Goal on swim 1:47/100 m T1 5 min, Bike 31 km/hr av, T2 4 min, Run 4 hours 15 minutes, race weight 138, nutrition plan is to avoid sugar until end of the bike. Plan for more neutral food, rice and egg wraps, hammer bars, maybe try heed, have been using coconut milk, but finding this hasn't been easy, or cheap.

Step 1 - physical assessment, discover muscular imbalance and work the corrections into my regular workouts. Follow up every 3 months on progress.

Step 2 - Muscular Imbalance Correction - follow a more tailored approach to strength training to gain better function, and injury prevention.

Step 3- Swim/bike/run assessment - using video analysis to reveal any form problems early to have time to focus on correction.

Step 4 - Plan workouts around the corrections, be specific and test regularly to reveal if the plan is working.

Step 5 - Begin race weight plan and nutrition plan to provide the nutrition needed to train at a higher level and recover fully.

Step 6 - Implement plan - each phase of training has its own focus. These focuses are what you will be testing at the end of each phase. If you were to improve technique, has it worked. If so you are moving on to Base training focusing on maintaining your focus while building endurance. The same is true through each phase to maintain your focus under intensity in build and again during racing.

Step 7 - Test, test and test again. Re-assess your physical state, has the corrective work helped, are you moving on to more strength training or are you still working on balancing the muscles. Test your technique, have you been able to make the changes to your technique. Test your speed, are you getting the speed changes you were planning for. Test your nutrition,look over your nutritional diary and see if you are following a proper diet with appropriate recovery meals to allow adequate recovery.

Step 8 - Increase the intensity of everything as you get close to your target. Focused technique with speed sets and endurance sets, bricks of two together. Longer workouts to practice pacing and nutrition.

Step 9 - Write the race strategy you have been building, it includes your focus on technique, your nutrition plan, your pacing plan, your minute by minute focus for the entire race, so you are racing your plan every minute. Plan for adversity, put in what you will do if that happens, leave nothing to chance, if you are mentally rehearsed it will not be a mental blindside on your race, it will be a trained response to adversity. "Fail to plan, plan to fail".

Step 10 - Race your plan.

Ironman in one Year

Ironman is the biggest draw, the biggest dream and the biggest undertaking in Triathlon. I am surprised how quickly people jump onto the Ironman wagon once they have a try of their first Triathlon. I get to meet them, I know people who try an Ironman without ever having done a Triathlon, I guess when you don't know what you are in for, that could be the charm.

This year I have had many athletes training for 1/2 Ironmans as their goal for their first year of Triathlon and a few who chose both the 1/2 and Ironman for their first year. How do you even begin.

First - how fit are you?
In order to do the repetitious training of swim, bike and run without getting an injury, I am usually pushing these athletes to build their core, hips and shoulders. This is essentially the off season training we begin with, getting in some bootcamp style biking with weights and core all focusing on the sports they will be training in. We spend a few months here. The aerobic is not the focus, but it is present throughout the training, you never want to lose your run fitness, so we keep the distances shorter.

For the swim, I focus on Technique. This year the focus will be more specific on technique until Base Training. If I am completely intent on getting the stroke perfected then as we move closer to race day, the stress of the swim increases and the shift of focus becomes endurance and speed. These both work against hanging onto new technique changes. Why, just because the focus on the individual is no longer on what they are doing in the water, but how far and how fast, these are never good focuses when technique is the need.

Run training, over the last year the run intensity was brought up during base, I do hills and we did a few intervals. I may put this one off a little longer to avoid the injuries that come with it, and an early peak (pre-race). Athletes are insistent on training harder all the time, as a coach you are there to keep them on track. Peaking too soon is a problem of increasing intensity too soon. This year I see hill climbing as part of the program again. Other years I have done this, it is a great learning experience for form and using gravity to your advantage, it builds strength and foot and ankle strength. This workout also keeps training interesting when we get outside, it isn't road running, it isn't treadmill running.

Bike Training, this last year the workouts were not easy, we kept to the classroom and the midweek workouts were done on trainers. It is really hard to assess a bike fit and form when you are on a spin bike. I may need to run a few individual classes where we bring in the bikes and trainers and do a workout that way. Heart rate testing on the bike sounds like the ticket, we may be able to pull this one off.

Base Training - this is where we begin to build in the volume, there is a long bike, long run and a long swim. We progress slowly, so the longer away from you event you begin your base the slower you can afford to build, this allows for the best peak on race day. You need a really great base in order to sustain the build and peak. I keep the core, shoulder stability and hip mobility involved all the way through the base phase.

The midweek training is starting to look like triathlon training with strength. We are doing longer bootcamps to try to build the endurance in and keep the intensity high. The nutrition side of training is important, so this particular long highly intense day makes people learn what will work on race day and what won't. Lately I think we need to keep this day in all the way to race day. We are losing our hardness heading into the races that happen further away from Bootcamp. I have tried to write it in, but I think the intensity of a class based training is higher than individual training. This year I will be changing this. I will keep the Friday Class running through the summer when I can.

I may need to shorten some rides to encourage higher intensity practice on the bike, but this only works for people in their second or third year of Ironman training. That first year is spent mostly in volume and endurance building so that on race day it is no question they can finish and they have a set pace they can dial into.

Swim Training becomes more about holding good technique over longer sets. We are starting to do some base line timings to see where we are at in relationship to our goals. Technique is the focus, but we are having to hold it longer each time.

Build - this is where we are starting to reach maximum volumes, we are increasing the intensity of our midweek workouts and getting our continuous open water swims in. We practice tactics in the water and nutrition strategies on the bike, to see what will work for race day. The shorter runs are becoming threshold intervals held longer and longer,the long run is reaching peak volume, 2 times before race day. Build is usually done once we are outside for our training. So their is a shift that happens here where the whole biking changes, the will to do intervals is gone as people don't like to fight headwinds and hills. It becomes less inviting to do your hard bike in the rain, I think indoor training may help this coming year, or less rain.

Peak - when we are peaking we have achieved all of our maximum distances, all of our hardest workouts and we are beginning the recovery and sharpening phase. You will reduce your volume and start to hit your race pace as everything shortens up. You are making sure any injuries are fully tended to before race day. THis is your time to gather your energy for the race. Focus, Focus, Focus, write a race strategy, do not leave the race to chance, have checklists be prepared, you trained all year for this make sure you plan the day and have ways of dealing with adversity on the fly during your race.

Race Day - Ironman is for the first timer a trial to see if you have what it takes, it is realizing your potential, you will ask yourself many times during this event, "What was I thinking?" "I can't do this". That is negative thoughts, they can rule your day, so practice the rebuttal and understand that you have what it takes, any thought in your brain should be focused on executing your race.
During the swim, your focus is on technique, pace, sighting, stay focused and you will have your best swim, do not think about what others are doing, you can only control what you are doing, it is your race.

Transition, be brief and prepared, know what you are getting, get it and go. You can easily take 3 minutes off transition by being clear about why you are there, rehearsing how you will get dressed so that you get your jersey on before your helmet.

Biking, focus on pace and nutrition. The aid stations are a set time apart, this allows you to use each aid station as a reminder to take electrolytes, drink a bottle of water in between every 2 aid stations if they are an hour apart, remember to eat so many calories every 2 aid stations. Focus on cadence and perceived effort, remember you have to do a Marathon when you get off the bike.

The Marathon, you will meet so many people who want to talk to you on the run, this makes it enjoyable, you should focus on one mile at a time and walk while you drink at the aid station. If speed is your goal and you are new to this, this strategy works, your legs get a break and a stretch and you will actually catch up to anyone who didn't take the small walk break. Your legs will last longer and prevent cramping when you take those short walk breaks, plus you get to drink your fluid without tossing it into you lungs instead.

When you get to the finish chute, it was only 1 year ago you signed up, you asked yourself all year, can I do this? If you can do the training you can do the race. Raise your arms up with whatever little energy you have left and smile as big as you can, look for the camera keep the arms up keep smiling until you see the flash, at that point you have also heard those words "You are an Ironman!" Enjoy this moment and let it all sink in, let them take off your timing chip, if you bend down now, you might black out. Take time to walk it down until you feel okay and have a bite to eat. If you aren't feeling well, haven't peed in forever, get to the medic tent let them check you out. If they do IV here it is less trouble than heading into a hospital waiting room the following day.

If you are a repeating Ironman, never take those words for granted "You are an Ironman". You earn this every year, it is something you will understand that circumstances change and one day this may not be something you can accomplish, you will look back on every one you did as a great memory. We all get focused on always getting better, but honestly that we do it, is what is important. That you can do it, is what you need to cherish. Life is about the journey, this journey to Ironman is the road less travelled for sure. What you will know when you are done, is that when you put your mind to something and follow it through with hard work and planning, you can do it. If you can do Ironman, what else can you do, it becomes an instant feeling of freedom, we have gotten rid of our limits, we can achieve anything we put our minds to.

Post Race - now is the time to finally mow the lawn, visit the friends you haven't seen in the last year, eat the food you denied yourself and look at the finishers photos. It feels like so long ago already. Time to sign up again.