CactusTri's Group -- RECLOSED (Page 5)

I'm encouraged by your "more the merrier" to hope I'll squeeze in!

I'm 53, married with two young daughters (6 and 3) and work in IT here in Toronto. I've been active most of my life, but as with many folks, it has varied quite a bit. Two years ago I woke up to the realization that I was about 30 pounds too heavy and very sedentary. The time constraints of family, work and commuting in a big city make it very difficult to find time for training. The only way it would work would be to integrate fitness activity into my daily routine, so I sold our second car and started commuting the 41 miles (round trip) to work by public transit and bicycle. Now, after 20 months of this, I'm 35 pounds lighter (right where I wanted to be) and cycling about 4 days a week year-round. Despite many people's initial reaction, it's not really tough to ride all year. In Toronto we have a few days of -10 to -20F windchill each winter and some snowy days that make riding difficult, but more typically it's 15 to 25F and slushy. Summer is often more unpleasant due to poor air quality and high humidity.

So now I feel like I'm ready to add some challenge and try a few runs and triathlon events in 2008. Ten or 15 years ago I ran some 5 and 10 km and 10 mile races and one 1/2 marathon (1:44) but an old ankle injury makes me leery of too much running so I'll probably start with some sprints and work up to longer distances if all goes well. This group seems like pretty friendly place and I'd enjoy being part of it. Thanks.

Welcome Dave,

Congrats on your creative solution to including fitness into your life. Sounds like it is working out well for you and paying off in better fitness. Sounds like you have a fair amount of running experience, but since it is not recent, you'll want to make sure you don't add too much mileage too quickly or you will risk injury.

This is a great group of folks here. Add us to your friends list and check up on us and you will probably start seeing people posting inspires in your log.

Stephen/Cactus

I am going to be doing the Columbia triathlon which is an Olympic distance. I have a couple others scheduled but this is the first in the middle of may. I hope to do a 1/2 IM this year too if I can get my fitness up. I have been trying hard to avoid injury while adding distance but have had some trouble with tendonitis in my foot.

As far as my limitations they are limitless. However, I feel like I can swim reasonably well (probably a 27 minute 1500 before really training) but I am learning on the bike and have a long way to go on building fitness up for a fast run. I hope to do a 2:45 or better but it is the first time out and I have little idea what to really expect.

My biggest challenge is time. I work more than a full time job, business school and two kids. My wife and I also play indoor soccer once a week which has been more of a source of injury than fitness. I was training about 8-10 hours a week and then my foot had some problems so I backed way off and now need to get back to it.

I have just started total immersion swimming and am fascinated by it. Hopefully my swim times will drop significantly as I improve form and get fit.

The bike is hard to tackle since it is pretty cold in MD still. I have only been able to ride outside twice and the trainer is boring. I am actually sending this from the gym where I used new bikes from espresso fitness. You actually race other riders, shift gears over hills and run over other riders when they are weaving in your way. It also has satellite radio which is pretty cool.

Go to go spring the kids from the gym playschool.

Rob

Dave,

I'm impressed that you sold your second car. That's really committing to the plan. It sounds like it's worked out great. I try to commute in the summer, but once it gets dark and cold I usually hang it up until spring. One of these winters I'll have to tough it out.

Welcome to the group.

Scot

Rob,

Sounds like you have your plan laid out. I haven't done an Oly yet, I skipped from Sprint all the way to HIM. I will suggest a regular BRICK workout where you run after a tiring bike ride. For the Oly (10k run distance) you may want to run as much as 5-6 miles at pretty close to a race pace. You won't want to do this too close to your race, but you will want to try it to get used to the feeling of running when tired.

As far as avoiding your feet problems, I am not an expert nor a dr, but in my experience, many injuries can be avoided by keeping the increases in distance at a minimal level (less than 10% per week). When I was training for my first half marathon, our coach suggested avoiding certain cross-training exercises to reduce the risk of injury. He suggested that even tennis could be a risk because it involves side-to-side and running training does not prepare your body for that. You may want to think about the soccer if you are getting hurt doing it. Consider how it fits into the overall plan. If it is an activity that both you and your wife consider "quality time" then you may want to continue or see if you guys can come up with an alternate activity that you will both enjoy.

Your swimming sounds more than a bit above average. That is about a 1:50 per 100m. That is great! Biking is always a challenge. It is hard to find safe places to go for a 30-40 mile bike ride. Indoor riding is boring (if you even have a trainer - I don't). It also takes more time to schedule medium and medium-long bike rides than it does for a medium or medium-long run. I find it easier to schedule a 45 min run than a 60 min bike ride. When you start looking at the HIM and IM training plans, a medium-length ride can be 30 miles which for me is a bit under 2 hours. That is a long time to try and fit a mid-week workout in.

Scheduling is, IMHO, the 4th discipline of triathlon. It requires planning, cooperation (with family especially), flexibility (long run scheduled for Saturday morning, but little Susie's soccer games are Saturday mornings for the next 10 weeks - move the run to the afternoon or Sunday morning) and creativity to work in your scheduled training.

I've heard great things about Total Immersion. Keep us posted on how it goes.

Hi Dave & Welcome. Agree with Scot and Stephen that is impressive on the riding bike to work in Toronto year round. No more excuses for Seattle weather as it's usually not that cold here!

Hey everyone
I went to our tri training groups meeting last Thursday and part of the presentation touched on nutrition. I'm really struggling with this. The guy alluded to insomnia / being tired to a possible imbalance in nutrition, not enough carbs. Felt like I was eating really decent last week and gained weight - i'm trying to lose 10-12 more to my ideal range. I ate some pasta on Friday and slept about 7.5 hours!!! it was so great and amazing. i usually sleep about 4 - 6.

SO anyone have any input on nutrition? I think my diets off but the tri diets are prob not for me since i'm only doing sprints and my training sched is still a bit sporadic (although trying to remedy that one) so I'm not burning as many calories as I would like to think I am I guess I'm really wondering about the carb/prot/fat combo. Trying to eat smaller portions more times per day and not eat after 7pm (that doesn't always work but try to) I also noticed after I swim in the morning at 6a i get really cold in the late AM. I'm not a breakfast eater, so i prob should start there. anyway - would love to hear what you guys have done, what has worked or what has not. This last 10 is usually a big pain and hard to get rid of for me!!!

On a YEAH note - I'm feeling encouraged on running - cut a little time off this weekend and feel like it's doable - so that will keep me going.

Excited to get my new bike this week!

thanks.
Karen

Hi Karen,

I've read that you need to eat something after you exercise, particularly in the morning when your energy reserves are low. If you don't your body will start to break down some muscle to restock it's energy stores. Also, if you eat within an hour of working out you will recover faster. You will want to get both protein and carbs. Since your not a breakfast person, you might want to try a protein drink or smoothie. Eating some kind of breakfast gives your metabolism a kick start in the morning.

Here's a recipe that I make almost every day. I stick it in with my lunch and I drink it on the way to work after I've worked out. It tastes kind of like a milkshake. We have a generic version of the magic bullet blender that they have on TV.

Put the following ingredients in the blender:
1-2 cups of milk or orange juice. (The orange juice tastes better)
1 cup of frozen strawberries
1 scoop of protein powder

Blend it up. It probably has 200 to 250 calories and it tastes pretty good. Also you get some good antioxidants from the berries.

I've also put in yogurt, bluberries or bannana.

Scot

I am interested in becoming a cactus MENTEE!

Karen,
I think you have some solid, practical ideas about getting a handle on fueling your body to make it work for you. I was NEVER a breakfast eater until I started exercising. Then it became quickly apparent that my metabolism was speeding up. Now, if I forget to eat breakfast due to being rushed out the door, I pop a handful of dried fruit I keep in my desk drawer at the office.

I also eat 4-5 times a day, but only 200-300 calories at a time. I have blood sugar issues (never officially diagnosed, but there is diabetes/hypoglycemia in my family) so the constant supply of GOOD carbs is mandatory. I've learned the hard way to always keep a Powerbar or some form of carb (fruit) at the ready in case of glucose crash. You'll be surprised that if you keep the tank topped off throughout the day, you won't feel as hungry at night. You can't exercise without putting the gas into the engine. It's just gotta be GOOD QUALITY FUEL.

Pasta is great, but I find it very filling. For a lighter feeling, try getting carbs from varying sources like whole grain bread, wild rice (from Minnesota!), and beans and legumes.

Go for a balance of carbs/protein at every meal and throw in a little fat sometimes, too.

Good job on the running this weekend!! I knew you could do it.

Thanks Scot and Jenni! Good ideas for busy lives - the whole "fix a sit down meal" just doesn't work for my mornings with kids/work/workouts - i know you get that! I think I'm not getting the balance / quality you both talked about - need to make a run to Whole Foods - I make a mean lentil soup and fresh hummus so I could whip up a batch of soup this weekend and freeze. My son is a good cook as well, so I'll assign him to kitchen duty or else he's trying to eat healthy too. He might do the tri with me!! that would be great - so hoping he decides to go for it.

T minus 2 DAYS TO GO till i get my bike (i'm not excited or anything!) - spinning tonight

Take care everyone

Welcome! Introduce yourself so we can get to know you and add us to your friends list.

Stephen/Cactus

Ditto on the "good advice" comment. I am a bad example in a lot of ways. I have started eating better (I usually eat at least 2-3 fruits/veggies a day now) but I have a long ways to go. I went through a "track every bite". www.sparkpeople.com is GREAT for that. When I kind of knew how I was doing, I started backing off of the daily tracking. I do it for a day or two every now and then just to make sure I don't go too far off base.

I read Food for Fitness. The author was Lance Armstrong's coach/nutritionist for some time, so he does know something about food and athletes. His recommendations for someone of my weight and training volume per week blew me away. I couldn't imaging eating the number of calories he recommends. I did however increase my consumption to what he called "transition" level (i.e. not peak training) and was rewarded with the loss of several pounds that had been stubbornly refusing to leave. I was clearly a victim of putting my body into "starvation mode" by not eating enough. I should track again for at least a few days and see if I can see if that is the cause of my excessive sleepiness lately.

Bleech. Found out yesterday that my old car died. The engine overheated and seized up. ~150,000 miles in ~7 years. Body is in good shape, so I am hoping I can sell it for a few $$$. Not worth putting $4500 + into another engine and still need to deal with the aging vehicle. Got the motorcycle out of mothballs and put a new battery in it. Gonna be a challenge getting my swim gear in the saddlebags tomorrow, but I did that last year when I was first swimming again, so I know I can do it, it'll just be a pain.

BTW, I am reclosing the group. I think we have reached a good level of "active" folks and I am getting tired of checking all the empty logs for the folks that wanted to do this but vanished.

As far as the rest of you that are here and participating, I think this is a great group of folks and I am enjoying seeing the communication between yourselves on your log pages. Keep it up!

Stephen - I can relate to unexpected expenses, only in our case it was the sewer drains. We're in an older house and had previously replaced all but one 20 foot section. Last weekend we had a small (fortunately, very small) backup. So, on Tuesday, and $4000 later, we now have no more worries in that department.
My experience in the food area has been that I much prefer to eat small quantities multiple times a day. I've never been much of a breakfast eater, and find it quite hard to get going after a sit down type breakfast. I typically will get up at 5:30, leave by 6:30 or 7:00 by bike and be at work around 8:30 or 9:00. That's when I'll eat, and continue to graze for most of the day. I always take all my food for the day with me, which consists of a bagel, which I normally toast and eat with a little peanut butter or cheese; several muffins that I make a home in big batches (super high fiber, with added egg white for protein and raisins / dried cranberries); apples that are pre-cut and cored into quarters for easy eating at my desk a banana and one or two small yogurts. That pretty much does me for the entire day. When I get home, supper is normally veggies with a bit of meat or fish or pasta. Over the last two years I've dropped 40 lbs eating this way and keeping active with the cycling. I don't have any need to lose more weight (currently 6' 1" and 170 lbs) so I will likely adjust my diet over the next few months as I start to train a bit more intensively to avoid dropping any more weight. I drink mostly skim milk and water plus one coffee in the morning and a cup of tea now and then. I haven't gotten into using gels or power bars etc. Maybe I'll find them useful in race situations. For now, I'm sticking with the kind of food my grandma would recognize.

Finally got back out on the bike today. The last week has been super-crazy at work and there were a few family commitments as well. The ride today was great - no effect from the week's layoff. But we're expecting a bit of snow again tomorrow (only 2 or 3" so I'll ride) but Saturday we are expecting up to a foot or more of snow! Time to break out the snowshoes (or go to the pool for a swim!).
I also signed up for a 10K run on May 4th. It's a huge local race and about 20 folks from work all run it. The fitness centre staff has put together a training plan which I'll follow and slowly build up my running distance. As Stephen suggested, I'm wary of too much running too soon after many years of not running that might lead to injury, but the plan looks quite reasonable.

A little discussion about "on and off weeks" or "build and recovery weeks".

Definition:
Many programs have step-back or recovery weeks built in. Other programs build slower and may include more rest days.

Rationale:
Your body needs rest to allow it to recover from the damage that is done by workouts.

My plan has had 3 build weeks and 1 recovery. For example, total training hours per week might be 14, 16 and 18 with the recovery week of 9. The "easy" week is good for not only physical healing and recovery, but also to ease the mental burden that builds up. I find it also is a good time to plan extra activities with my wife and kids to make up for the lack of time they get sometimes get during busier weeks.

I have just changed to a 2 week build and 1 week recovery for the last few cycles before IM to get a bit extra rest.

Please feel free to comment, question or discuss.

Stephen,

Sorry to hear about your car. My transmission went out on my car in December. It only had 125k on it, but it was 10 years old. I actually coasted into the mechanics parking lot. It was $2600 to fix and the blue book value was about the same. I was able to donate it to a non profit organization that teaches people how to fix cars and then gives the cars to people who need a little help. The tax deduction was worth more than I would have got trying to sell the car for scrap. They also came and towed the car from the mechanics parking lot to their garage across the city.

On the subject of rest, I've read the rest day is also pretty important. Physically and mentally everyone needs an occasional break. It allows your body to heal from some of the stress that you've been putting on it during the week and reduces your chances of getting stress fractures and other overuse injuries. I think every plan that I've looked at has at least 1 rest day a week, even the ironman plans where you're exercising 18 hours during the peak weeks.

Scot

Hi Dave - this is great. Do you mind sharing your muffin recipes??

I bought some sprouted whole grain bread for work (thx Jenni) and some PB for the frig - also some yogurts and apples. Our company is pretty good and we always have string cheese, apples and oranges available to snack on - along with the BAD snack foods. We just stopped buying candy for ee's thank goodness - altho i've been OK about that lately, but sometimes not.

It comes down to will power and how bad I want it... keeping focused on the goal. I was aggravated at myself in the swim the other day b/c i did the 2 x 100 back. My lungs were totally on fire - it's a matter of increasing the capacity and I want to do better - SO it will take the hard work of practice.practice.practice.

Congrats on your weightloss and sticking with that!

Hey Kim

I'm a slow runner too and don't like it much - trying to change my mental state to help with the "get out and do it" factor.

No expert and never had them (thank goodness) but just wondering about the shin splints and continued training on them??? the injuries forum has one string on it and Jenni might be able to add some wisdom (or others) to the shin splint issue. Seems like PT or a doc might be in order?

I'm going to take a Chi Running class - we'll see - hoping it helps with form issues and a kind of mind over matter perspective, but we'll see...

Have a good weekend!

Hi Karen,
Glad to share the muffin recipe. It's really just a modified version of the one that's on the Quaker bran box and usually varies each time I make it. Bear in mind that there is a LOT of bran in these muffins. It may take a bit for your system to adjust and make sure to drink water or something with them.
For 24 muffins:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup margarine (non-hydrogenated)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 whole egg
6 egg whites
2 1/2 cups skim milk or buttermilk
2 cups wholewheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp salt
1 to 1 1/2 BOXES of Quaker bran (in Canada they are 300 gram boxes = 10 1/2 ounces by weight. I've never measured by cups, but it would be abouat 5 to 7 1/2 cups)
1 cup raisins (or more if you like)
1 cup dried cranberries (or more if you like)
substitute other dried fruit as you wish
Options:
add 1 cup of wheat germ and a bit more milk
reduce the brown sugar and molasses if you prefer a less sweet muffin
use your imagination: add orange zest, spices you like, etc.
Directions:
pre-heat oven to 400F
cream margarine and sugar
add molasses and eggs
beat well
add bran and mix in
in a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients
add dry ingredients to wet and mix in
add raisins and dried cranberries
put in muffin tray (I always use the paper muffin cups)
bake 20 minutes

Yum MapleDave! I'm going to try that one!

On the shin splint issue, here's my two cents worth (and that IS what it's worth) If you are experiencing pain, STOP. See your doc, get the xrays. My biggest fear is the almighty stress fracture. My doc scared me straight my saying to me "You get one of those and continue to run on it, your leg could crack in half. Then you WILL stop running, for a LONG time!" He's a little dramatic at times. But the point is, rule that out first.

If you are dealing with shin splints, the treatment depends on your level of damage. If it hurts to run, you should x-train until you are sufficiently healed. My problem was/is causing severe damage by repeatedly running on sore legs to the point of creating SO MUCH scar tissue build-up, I'm not sure the tissue will ever be "normal" again. When you see your doc, get the PT referral. Talk out a treatment plan with them. They should understand you are an athlete and the stop exercising suggestion is not an option. Some things they might throw out there:

1) Pool running
2) A stretching routine
3) Ice massage on the affected area
3) deep tissue massage (one of my favs)
4) ultrasound (another of my favs)
5) running style analysis and corrective drills.

I just posted on this on my website. I talk about the things that work for me and a GREAT wrapping technique. http://cuplap787.blogspot.com/

I am very intriqued by the pose running method and am currently trying it out on my runs. For me, running in this way feels better on my bad leg, specifically the foot strike. It feels stronger, more controlled. So far, my shin splint pain has been minimal utilizing this technique. I haven't had time to really research the subject but I just Googled it and found a bunch of sites describing it. There is an article on this site comparing Chi and pose running. http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=...
I'm thinking my problem is with running mechanics. I'm hoping that changing the way I run is the key to eliminating the shin splint problem.

This is just another example of a site that summarizes the technique: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_9_19/ai_106652958

Hope that helps!

Hey Dave - thanks! i'm going to try it, i might reduce the bran at first

Jenni - Going to check out the articles. Running was pure torture again today. I'm going to keep with it but it's hard. My son ran "with" me today meaning he started with me, did another loop of my run for about an extra 1/2 mile or so and we ended close to together - yes he was ahead of me. BTW - we did all three today plus some core work.

AND - TAAA DAAAA Here are a couple of pics to memorialize the maiden voyage!!! BTW my son did his ride with a broken walmart mountain bike which only has 3 gears working. I got a Specialized Dolce Comp - Shimano 105, carbon seat post + forks - love love love it! it was comfy.

Here's the pics.









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Swee Dolce.jpg (84KB - 27 downloads)
cedar river.jpg (72KB - 20 downloads)
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Sweet ride, Karen!! How exciting to get a new toy!! Have a blast.