Tuesday Is In The Book

Not much to report here. Had a solid day of training. No classes today so this was all about me. I will say yoga was intense. There aren't many times these days in a yoga class that I "cry uncle" because the intensity is unbearable. But today I was singing it and I just flat out quit more than a few times. It was very humbling. But that is part of learning to listen to your body and know your limits.

The entire class focused on Garudasana or Eagle Pose. As much as I'd like to say there are benefits to this pose for triathletes, I'd have to say any such benefit found in the pose is subtle at best. Eagle pose has you wind your legs like a twisting vine by taking the front thigh over the back leg and hooking your foot around your calf. Then you squat on the standing leg and balance as the arms are entwined in a similar fashion. A couple of poses with this as a focus and my shoulders start to scream. A whole class like this and I'm in some serious pain/distress. And as much as I love yoga, I am a triathlete through and through so, I have no problem watching a class pass me by in order to protect my body by keeping my larger objective in mind.

After yoga I had lunch with some friends, took a nap and then went to ride my bike. Tuesdays are usually a steady state ride focusing on maintaining consistent power. Today's ride lasted for two hours. I am seeing some gains in fitness from this ride since I changed the route to include a gradual climb that lasts from 7 to 9 minutes depending on gearing and the wind. Over the course of the ride I averaged an even 20mph with a max HR of 150 and an average HR of 135.

Monday, Monday, Monday

So the best thing I can say about Monday is that it finally came and I made it through the weekend without incident. In the last couple of weeks, I took on an additional yoga class and have been consistent in my own training except for running due to the foot issues.

But that changed today. First up was the boot camp I lead. Because I was still recovering a bit and there was a fitness assessment on the schedule for the workout, I only did about 50% of the work. But 50% was plenty.

After the assessment was done, we got down to work. Here's what we did.

Swing Kicks x2 1min each
Pogo Stick x2 30sec each
Running Stairs (2 flights) 5min total
4 x 50m sprints with drill recovery
15 min core work

The fitness assessment included wall squats, bicep curls, pushups, shoulder press, and core work.

After this I ran for 45 min. I still have a bit of pain in my foot but a visit to my Naturopath led to some clarity as to why I still feel the pain even though the bone in my foot is properly positioned now. She and my acupuncturist will be working on this to address the underlying cause of the dislocation. I'll probably write more on that later. Anyway it just feels good to get a clearer understanding of what is going on and have a plan to get it addressed. Not running as much as I'd like is starting to piss me off. But I have to admit my strength gains are probably due to the extra time I've been given because of it. ;)

I ended the day teaching yoga.

3 Seconds And 12 Watts Later

This week was a test week. I was to get a baseline on all three sports, swimming, cycling and running. But because of my foot and the previously dislocated bone in it (there is still a bit of inflamation, but other than that no real pain to speak of) I skipped the run test and opted to add a 30 second pushup test in its place. Just for kicks. 62 perfect pushups in 30 seconds. Not bad. But there was definitely some pain involved in the exercise. But now that I've done it I think I'll do this test as well when I test again next month. I may see if I can work up to a 60 second pushup test. Who knows? I think the pushup results are encouraging though I must admit at the time I wasn't sure what they would mean for my other test this week.

The swim and bike results were encouraging as well. About 12 watts on the bike up from last year's test in November and 3 seconds per 100m faster in the swim. I think I'm seeing this because of the change in focus in my training. I've decided to devote more of my time working on strength. One reason for this is I didn't have that much to begin with. The other is because I'm not getting any younger.

By focusing on strength and muscular endurance type work to transform my body into one that can handle more work loads in my training, and keeping the triathlon specific work focused on technique, I'm allowing my body the time it needs to become more powerful and proficient at the same time without the accumulated stress of weeks of endurance based training. So first I will adapt myself to the loads, then I will adapt to carrying sports specific loads. One of the things I observed was as I became fitter in my prior racing, I also seemed to become weaker physically. Some of this was probably my scattershot approach to nutrition back then. But some of that was probably also due to the nature of the stresses that come along with racing.

I think the most encouraging thing I am taking away from this week's tests is on the bike I am now able to ride in the big chainring. Last year, I had to acknowledge that I didn't posses the strength or fitness to race effectively using larger gears. Now even though I am lighter, I had no issue with holding a big gear in either my time trial test or the test I conducted on the trainer a few days later. In fact I was riding the majority of the time trial in either a 53x12 or 53x13. No way I could have pulled that off last year.

I think there are a couple of reason that account for the early season progress I'm both seeing and feeling. The largest component has to be rest. I am making a concerted effort to place rest front and center in my training schedule. Basically what this amounts to is in addition to the "no working out sleepy" rule there is now a 9:30pm curfew. I brought this rule back with me from Colorado after I spent some time on my friend's back porch watching the sun and moon rise and set for a few days. It occurred to me that nature operated quite well within the parameters of these movements and I should probably follow her very obvious example in my own life. More than any other single workout, gadget, or supplement I've ever tried this single change by far has had the most immediate and verifiable impact.

I also have to acknowledge the huge benefit I am now enjoying by employing both functional bodyweight training, yoga, and accessible core work into my weekly routine. I owe so much of the power and endurance I have to this I can't begin to express. The thing is I haven't really begun my endurance training yet but because of the workouts I've put together I know I am now starting from a position of strength versus ground zero. I can train harder and recover faster. And I still have a full time job.

Monday AM Boot Camp/PM Yoga

The day started with Boot Camp and ended with me teaching my Monday Yoga for Athletes class at Professional Cycle Works. I almost didn't make it to the class because of the 50 or so mile drive out to Liberty Hill to see my Chiropractor to have the dislocated bone in my foot worked on in the middle of my day. But the drive was totally worth it. The pain was down to about a 5 -- which is manageable. But I was still leery of running on the foot so I thought it was best to visit him one more time before giving it a try. Good thing I did. Turns out the bone was still a little out of its socket and needed to be put in a touch more. Now I don't really feel pain at all in the foot when using it. Just to be safe, I'm going to wait about a week on the running. And even though I cut it pretty close, I still made it back for yoga.

This morning's boot camp was intense. I focused the class on upper body strength and endurance work. Everything integrated the core. Here is what we did:

1. Standard pushups 30 seconds
2. Standard pullups (with bands or on bar) bands for 1min on bar for 30 seconds
3. Wide pushups 30 seconds
4. Wide grip pullups 1min or 30 seconds
5. Military pushups 30 seconds
6. Chin ups 1min or 30 seconds
7. V pushup 30 seconds
8. Overhand chin ups 30 seconds or 1 min depending on bar or band usage.

Then we did intervals in the parking garage combined with stairs and repeated the above strength workout for good measure. Not too bad for 60 minutes of work.

Yoga was focused on lower leg stability, so there were quite a few lunges and balance poses which we held for a bit. Things are looking up. Can't wait to try and run next week.

Not Much To Say Except...

So there isn't really much to say. I have a dislocated bone in my foot. I know why I have it. Not because of shoes, or overtraining. I have it because I've been working on detoxing my body and had some structural deep tissue work done at around the same time. Basically, toxins and cause tendons to weaken and in this instance because of gravity and some integration work done on my feet at about the same time, I didn't let everything shake out before going back to my normal routine. So until the bone gets taken care of I won't be running. I had it worked on last week and got it partially back in place, but I still have pain. On a scale of 1 to 10 it is a 9. 10 being I'd want to shoot myself to put myself out of my misery.

But this is giving me time to finally sit down and write out a schedule for my workouts. Minus running of course. The running is on the schedule, I just won't be doing it. Funny how I can find time to put this on paper now. I think what has happened is I have a better handle on my external commitments. Probably because I've moved some things around and let others go completely. Now I'll work on the actual build in volume and intensity. I should have the whole year planned out by Wednesday. Honestly I feel much better knowing what I will be doing each day versus just "winging" it like I have since my work schedule changed in November.