Aquajogging, swimming, and getting lean and mean

This has been a challenging week of ups and downs and distracting and difficult life situations. Workouts are good for keeping structure, focus, and sanity when negotiating those emotional speed bumps (some of which feel more like brick walls).

Aquajog

On Wednesday I met with Ann McGranahan, an elite level runner, who supplements her running program with aquajogging/swim workouts. She took me through a one-hour workout, and I think this is what we did....if my memory serves

200 warmup
4 x 50 aquajog/butt kicks/kickouts
8 x 50
     25 sprint, switching off btw free, back, breast
     25 aquajog/buttkicks/high knees
5 x 1 min up/1 min down deep water aquajog finish with 20s hands in air
5 x 30s up/ 30s down deep water aquajog with 20s hands in air
2 x 50 build free + 25 aquajog
100 cooldown

I was pretty well beat after this, with a nice feeling of all over body fatigue. This type of workout would be a great addition to any runner's program and a nice option for those rehabbing.  The cross country team at VT does this sort of thing on a regular basis.

---

Swim Technique

Today I met with Jim to start tuning up my stroke.  We worked on body position and my kick, and here are some notes from that.

• Pressing upper body more into water, which felt like it required a bit of chin tuck too
• lower goggle stays in water, cigar mouth to breath (always)
• Smaller kick with straighter legs, more pointed toes, generate more from glutes
• Back arch, butt up
• More 2-beat kick, less flutter.  Less kick overall
• swim with elastic ankle band to limit width of kick
• use pull buoy to get feel of more horizontal body position
• one arm swimming, with other arm at side, focusing on rotation, high elbow
• kicking drills - front, back, sides with smaller, straighter kick
• get zoomers to increase speed at which drills can be done

Here were some good swim tips I came across: http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/2010/12/weird-words-that-will-make-you-swim-faster.html

---

Lean and Mean

I'm on day 12 of structured, pre-planned eating.  The goals for me are to maintain a more constant energy level throughout the day and to just feel better.

I'm eating 7 meals a day with a consistent balance of macronutrients.  I really really like eating this way.  It takes about 10 or 15 minutes of planning the night before, and meal prep in the morning, but then I'm on auto pilot.  It makes it easier to pass up all the goodies that are everywhere this time of year.

Jake of course works with the overall meal planning. I've gotten some other ideas from Juliet Gotthardt (see http://heyjoob.blogspot.com/) , a young female bodybuilder at the gym who is working with BB pro, Kurt Weidner (http://www.kurtweidner.net/).  She's very creative and has a way of adding kick and flavor to otherwise somewhat dull meals.  Those guys just eat for utility, we like things to taste good too!

What I love about our approach is that I just focus on the meals and how I feel.  I'm paying no attention to the scale and in fact haven't looked at a scale in nearly a year.  I am getting on the scale - backward - so I don't see the number.  Jake keeps tabs and provides general feedback and encouragement.  It's not about the number for me and it's easy to fall into the trap of obsessing about that stupid stupid number!  Why is that??  So this way I think about what I can control (nutrition, meals) and I don't worry about what I can't control (what the scale says).

Favorite multi-contributor blogs

I've got two favorite multi-contributor blogs (more than one person writes for it) that I absolutely love and thought I'd share.

The first is the No Meat Athlete. Even though it's geared toward vegetarian endurance athletes, all of the columns I have read have had personal relevance. It's witty, honest, and thought-provoking writing. A few favorite entries are 27 Things Your Training Partner Won't Tell You and My Big Screw-Up: Why (and How) I'm Training for a 50-Miler in Only 4 Weeks.

The second one on my must-read list is Endurance Corner.  The contributors include coaches, elite competitors, sport psychologists, and nutritionists.  I find much sage advice here!

Swim Video

Last week Coach Jim of One on One Endurance captured underwater video of three of us triathletes to evaluate our strokes. It's a pretty cool system but requires some real dexterity on his part to simultaneously manage hardware, software, cables, and us.

Reality can be quite a bit different than perception. 

I'd been feeling pretty good about my stroke, and certainly some things are coming along - general rhythm, power, confidence, and overall feel. I also know I'm still struggling to keep that lower goggle in the water (yes, there IS more oxygen that one inch higher up!). But my perception that I was pretty balanced and horizontal in the water was very false. The body is OK, but the legs are dragging behind. What to me feels like a teeny tiny kick, is still fairly moderate. So I have some work to do to bring those legs up.

I also need to bring those elbows up into a better power position.  Waaayyy up. I thought I had been doing that, not so much!!

I know what is next. To fix things takes a big adjustment where everything feels strange and exaggerated and yucky for a while. I'm game.  Now's the time!

Off-season nutrition goals

Well, here I am in that limbo state called "off-season". Rather than just float out here in never-never land with no goals and nothing to obsess (!) about, I thought this would be a good time to learn more about nutrition and meal planning. I have always felt better when I followed Jake's race week meal plans. My energy levels are good, hunger pangs are minimal, and it takes the decision making out of it.  I actually prefer that.  I've never been a big foodie.  I hate to be hungry, but I also don't need every meal to be a gourmet experience. Cooking is NOT my thing....just ask my kids! I'm very basic and utilitarian!

Two years ago, with Jake's encouragement, I used SparkPeople (www.sparkpeople.com) to log my food and manage macronutrients, and I lost about 20 pounds.  There is a lot of research to support the use of food logs for weight management and we have found SparkPeople, although not perfect, is about the best online tool there is.

For a long time after that initial weight loss, I was good about keeping an eye on the scale, but not since last winter when I decided I would just go by how I felt. For some time now I have been subtly aware that I am no longer quite where I want to be and my eating has gotten too haphazard.

It's easy to think when you are working out a lot that you can get away with eating whatever and however much.  It's not true, I think especially as we age and our metabolism slows. "Whatever" for me has all too often meant easy-to-grab carbs that don't fill me up and cause fluctuations in my energy.

So I'm back on the scale, back on SparkPeople, back to conversations with Jake, back to more veggies, back to eating at regular intervals. I'm realizing that like my kids, who take basically the same lunch to school every day and are happy, I am fine with having some basic meals to work from for the majority of the day and then going a little wilder at dinner.

I have found what works for me is to prepare quantities of the basic foods (brown rice, chicken, ground turkey, steak) and dice them up, package double servings in ziplock bags, and freeze them. I can pull out what I need as I need it. Each morning I prepare everything I need from mid-morning to mid-afternoon and pack it in my cooler.  Most of my meals are four or fewer ingredients. It's all ready to go, and ready to be eaten anywhere, virtually eliminating temptations to grab other things. It's a real cost- and time-saver too.

This approach is a radical departure from the misconception and belief that we need elaborate meals and vast choices to be satisfied. Simple is better.  Simple foods and simple plans.

Turkey Trot

On Thanksgiving, my newphew Evan and I took part in the Pittsburgh Turkey Trot 5K.  It was his first Pittsburgh "trot" and my third. The forecast was accurate for once - 100% chance of rain and 36 degrees.  It was man vs nature, and we were not going to back down. The forecast also meant 100% chance that Grant and Spencer would not participate and I can't say I blame them.

Unfortunately due to the rain, I couldn't wear my turkey getup as the feathers are felt and would have quickly become a heavy sodden mess.

The race course was changed this year and we started from PNC field - the home field for the Pittsburgh Pirates. I was excited about that until I realized that the only part of PNC field we had access to was some dark loading dock/dumpster storage area!

Lovely conditions!

The race started slowly, as they all do.  I started my watch late and didn't capture that slow first bit. I hit a 6:56 first mile, then 7:05 for the next two, and finished the last bit at 6:50.  The turnaround was close to the 2 mile mark so I kept wondering if they had measured the course wrong.  I didn't want to turn it up too soon and discover the race was 4 miles and not 3.1 miles. When I confirmed the finish line was in sight, I sprinted and was glad to discover I had sprint left in me. And finally, I had thawed out!!

It was a fun run, not super speedy for either, but a good effort that made way for lots of turkey to follow.  I ran a decent but not fabulous 22:46, 7:20 average pace, 79th out of 1341, top of the 40-49ers.  The whole pack seemed pretty slow because I sure seemed to pass alot of people.  Maybe they were all hung over or saving themselves for Black Friday!  Results here.