Lazy, but motivated!

Wow, so the past few months have been a bit crazy and its almost time for a mid-season break after Wildflower.  I have a list of half finished blog entries that are not long relevant.  Two races with no reports, and a laundry list of training and life stories that have occurred with nothing to show for it!

The short of it, life is GOOD, but HARD!  Work has been a bit much, and training has progressed very well, even with my Achilles issues.  The biggest impediment to to my training was my beloved Jeep breaking down, twice!  A few thousand dollars later, and three weeks of riding my bike to work, and all is good again and he is cooperating nicely.


Car issues did throw my California 70.3 race off a bit, as the additional mileage took a toll on my legs for the bike.  Amazingly my run legs were ready and brought me back into the top 10 in my Age Group for the race which was a big early season boost.  Would have loved a better day, but I'll take it considering.

Pre Diablo Double

On to April and lots of fun.  My girlfriend and I ran the Presido 10 together and she did amazing for her first 10k!  Running the 10 miler I captured 8th place overall with a 1:02 on tired legs after doing our M2 Double Diablo climb the day before with 7,000 feet of climbing over 50 miles.  Brutal!

M2 and Virgilio dueling

Finally on to this past weekend where our M2 Training Group decided the amazing weather warranted a little visit to the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse.  This ride is a long one, with deceptive difficulty brought on by constant rollers, and extremely rough roads at times.  Add to that, some competitive personas going for Strava KOM's, and it can turn ugly quick.  Temperatures ranged from 70 degrees at ride start, down to 50's out at the Lighthouse, then back up to 90's on the road back to McInnis Park.  An epic day with quite a few battles performed for KOM's and City Limit sprints.  Total ride was 85 miles of near race day effort that will come in handy come Wildflower, but I'm not sure it helped for Sunday's Metro Triathlon.

Sunday arrives and my legs recovered nicely.  Calves were still hurting a bit from the last weekend's Presidio 10, but I was more worried about holding sustainable efforts on the bike.  The swim was cancelled due to some poor water quality readings in Lake Almaden.  I had always heard bad things about this lake and avoided swimming in it, but as I don't have my "A" race for the year until August, I figured I'd give it a try.  Guess I will never have to deal with swimming in that lake now.

Trying to look fierce, lol.

With a cancelled swim, they had all the 30-39 Males run a 1 mile leadout then onto our bikes.  I don't think there was more than 20 seconds of separation between the first 30 athletes, so lets just say it was a crowded first 12 miles of the bike into a headwind.  Knowing my run legs would not fully be there, I was hitting the bike hard and a significant pack was forming with a steady headwind.  Pushing over 350 watts, I couldn't escape the pack, and as they went through my draft, they would overtake and create a continuous circle, or illegal riding.  I made my best efforts to stay clear of drafting, pushing 400 watt blocks to try to escape, but it was impossible.  Motor bike pulled up, I was definitely behind someone, and DING, 2 minutes.  Was hoping they tagged someone else, but I can't deny I wasn't guilty, pretty much the whole front of the field was.


Finally at the turnaround it was time to drop everyone as we go to enjoy a tailwind, and no more drafting assistance.  My buddy Dan and a few others jumped at this chance and the field spread out nicely.  We had our climb, which Stefan finally came back to us on, and then the final assault back home.  Averaging over 28 MPH for the last 8.5 miles was fun!  Felt great about the ride averaging 342 watts and breaking an hour.

Running was a different story.  As expected, my calves wouldn't allow me my top end I was hoping for, so instead of risking something worse, I was subjected to cruising the 10k run at 6:30 pace.  Finishing up out of the podium was acceptable at 4th place, but it would have been nice to have made it.  Big congrats to my training buddy Dan!  He came in 3rd Overall while crushing the run this weekend.  He's on an incredible build looking to best my Texas race from last year and I wish him well.

So, that's my latest.  Next up is Wildflower Long Course, and I will actually taper for this race and not do anything too stupid ahead of it.  I hope everyone's season has started off great as well, and good luck to everyone at Wildflower!  See you down there at the party!

December M2 Playlist

The holidays are upon us and that means its time to blow some money on iTunes from the gift cards I've received for presents!  This playlist was sponsored by my girlfriend's sister Allyson, thanks!

Approximately 90 minutes, House mix but pretty accessible for all listeners. Great for a grinding trainer session.

Darth&Vader vs FTampa - LukeSkyTampa (Original Mix)

Tiesto - Ten Seconds Before Sunrise (First State Remix)

Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice

deadmau5 - Sofi Needs a Ladder (MosDam Remix)

Junior Senior - Move Your Feet

Paul Oakenfold - Faster Kill Pussycat (feat Brittany Murphy)

Hard Rock Sofa & St. Brothers - Blow Up (Hook N Sling Goodwill Remix)

Linnea Schossow - Someone Like You (Alex M.O.R.P.H.'s Darth Morph Radio Edit)

Nikjam & The Meena - Goodride Feat MC Freeflow

DJ Dan - Rock the the Rhythm (Starkillers Remix)

Paul Oakenfold - Sex 'n' Money (feat Parrell Williams)

Cicada - The Things You Say (Bpm Radio Edit)

Wolfgang Gartner - Space Junk (I hate it when the music I like gets picked up by the Shore)

Wolfgang Gartner - Front to Back (Album is 'Hot for Teacher' go figure)
Not available on Amazon, but iTunes has it

Paul Oakenfold - Sleep (Marcus Schossow Perfecto Mix) [feat. Tamra]

Duck Sauce - Barbara Streisand

October Playlist

Now that I'm back to some normalcy, its back to putting together some new music for class and keep it interesting through a grinding off-season for all.  Around 75 minutes.

Young the Giant - My Body

The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger

Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent

Blink-182 - The Party Song

SnoopDogg & Wiz Khalifa - Young Wild & Free

The Vines - Outtathaway

Dan Black - Pump My Pumps

The Fratellis - Creepin' Up the Backstairs

Downsyde - Master MC

Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

Daft Punk - Technologic

Fatboy Slim - Renegade Master

Fukkk Offf - Rock, Paper Scissors

The Vines - Ride

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Give it Away

LMFAO - Sexy and I Know It

No Doubt - Excuse Me Mr.

Justice - Genesis

Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows

Hot Hot Heat - No, Not Now

Motivation - Kona and beyond

Heading into any race it is important to know what you are racing for.  For Canada, I wasn't really racing for anything except to have fun, and it showed.  For Kona, its a bit of a different story and brings my life full circle to setting and achieving goals, while getting back to what makes me truly happy.

Lets go back over 15 years to my last year in Track and Field.  Having a very promising Junior year, my season was looking great and pushing for a trip to a regional or state qualifier.  In retrospect, I let some things distract me from that goal, be it drinking, or other things.  Typical for a High School kid, but a trend that started non the less. 

College basketball fell in line with this attitude.  Working hard, but not making the sacrifices to be great.  Lucky for me, I did well in school and didn't squander a great college experience in multiple ways.

Heading into the real world, athletics took a back seat.  There was always "tomorrow" to get back to my old self. Shedding the 5-10 pounds I thought was hanging off me.  All the sudden, the 5-10 pounds turned into 40!  What the hell did I do to myself?  Work and personal life can give you a great number of excuses to not take care of your body, but this was out of control.  My own intervention was in order.  Luckily I have the Dad I do to help right the ship.  Once I had even a slight interest of getting into shape he was on it and registering me for an Escape From Alcatraz clinic and race that coming year.  That was the major wake up call.  Even in my own head I thought I could shape up in a few months and breeze through the race, but real life doesn't let you do that.  After the longest three and a half hours of my life, hurting back and pride, it was time for change.

My journey back to fitness has been one of sacrifice over the past six years.  Quitting a few bad habits, some I'm still embarrassed to post publicly, and learning to live a healthy lifestyle were starts, but in the process of wanting to be great at something, extra effort was needed.   Some might see this as self aggrandizing, and I can't argue with them, but all too often people reeeeeeeeeeeeeally want to do something, but fall short and then turn around and blame someone or something else for a shortfall.  That was a pitfall of mine in a few instances.  Not now.  I hope to help people see what is necessary to accomplish what you set out for, be it work or personal gain.  Do I need to go to this "Happy Hour" on a Wednesday, is it necessary to close out a bar to have fun?  These are the questions I faced over recent years.  Many people didn't understand some of my choices, even some of my tri-friends, but how often do you get the chance to do something great in your life though.  For many, something as trivial as Ironman doesn't qualify as "Great".  That's fine, but there isn't anything about that opinion that should keep me from trying.

The driving force is now wanting to inspire others and give back to those who supported me.  I have family members, friends and co-workers I would love to see get out and get fit.  They all can see how I push myself for my training, and if that inspires them to get out for a run, then that makes me happy.  When people show interest in improving and ask for advice, that makes me happy and I'll try my best to help.  Watching others attempt the same transformation makes me lifts my heart too.  Its easy to say that triathlon makes me happy.

My life has come together to support this as well.  An incredible girlfriend who isn't a triathlete, but shares the value of fitness (she rescued me when my I broke a spoke this weekend in the middle of nowhere, now that's love).  My loving family and friends who understand me and have obsessions the same way I do.  A great job and employer that allows the flexibility to accomplish my work, and train as needed.  Coaches that take the time to understand me and know my motivations (M2 and runcoach).  It takes time and effort to find the people and place in the world that allows you to be your real self.  Finding a way to repay these relationships is a priority, but difficult for a time crunched young professional.

Kona for me is about finishing what I started 6 years ago.  It wasn't my goal then, but it became it as I realized the potential left from a reformed ability.  I was given a second chance at my athletic youth (some call it being a man-child) and it will not go wasted this time.  Paying back my work relationship is easy, I get to be Iron Kitty!  Giving some free advertising along the way.  My friends, family and girlfriend are a bit tricky.  Lost time can never come back, but making the sacrifices when you can, goes a long way to letting them know you care.  I'm in arrears on that front, but hopefully that is what the holidays are all about.

Stepping into the water at Dig-Me beach, I know what I'm racing for and what got me there.  Thankful isn't enough to say for the love and support given to me over the past few years, so lets just say I'm honored to be able to race on the greatest venue for everyone who has been there to help me out along the way.

Wish me luck and I'll be thinking of everyone over these last two weeks.  Can't wait for round 2 of the Miller family reunion in Kona!

 

Costs of Ironman

OK, with doing an Ironman comes a few things to keep in mind.  #1 Its a big task.  #2 Your life will change. #3 It comes with a price.


All three have different aspects and interpretations.  I'll try to break it down into how it effects me both psychologically and economically as many people would love to jump into doing a race of the Ironman distance, but have no clue of what comes with it.  I don't mean to scare anyone off this track, but having a bit of perspective on what to expect will make it easier to manage.

#1 Training for these races is a daunting thing from the outside.  Swim, bike, run for 140.6 miles is more than some people can get their heads around, or find a point to.  Lucky for me I had been building through the Triathlon progression for a few years from Olympics to Half's, and the Full IM distance did not seem so un-attainable.  As long as you have a manageable approach to fitting in 12-15 hours of training a week, you can do it.  People have done it with more and less, but to stay healthy and sane, that's my mix.

#2 Unless you are starting cold from the couch, it takes 6-9 months to get ready to complete the race.  In these months you will realize quite a few things about yourself, and others.  Priorities will change, time becomes precious, and those who really matter in your life become clear both in your choice of who gets your time, and with who seeks you out and supports your goal.  Late nights become a thing of the past, and the clock on the wall is your friend and enemy as it tells you what to do nearly all day, but doesn't wait when you are late.

#3  The emotional price of the Ironman is less time for friends and family.  You still want to keep these relationships, so making time for them is important, but being everywhere, all the time is impossible.  Saying "No" to some plans is going to happen, just accept it.  The financial aspect is also very daunting.  Sure the race is $600 and up to $900 for New York this year, but that is a mere fraction to the whole equation.  If you are lucky enough to live within and hour of a race, good for you, but most races are a flight and hotel stay away.  Lets tally up what's involved just for someone traveling solo.

Entry - $600
Flight - $400
Bike shipping - $250 (Southwest only charges $50 each way)
Hotel - $750 ($150 x 5)
Car Rental - $300
Food - $250
Total - $2,550

That's just keeping it on the cheap too.  Hopefully you can split some of the costs, but this is the bare bones version.  If you are walking into the race fresh lets add.....

Bike - $1,200
Wetsuit - $150 (Most IM's are in cold water regions)
Running Shoes - $80
Cycling Shotes - $80
Race clothing - $100
Helmet - $80
Goggles - $30
Sunglasses - $50
Total - $1,770

Grand Total - $4,320

This is just what I can come up with off the top of my head too.  I can't imagine the additional costs with nutrition, be it Powerbars, Gatorade, or just increase in appetite on grocery bills.

Ironman is a great accomplishment though, and I'd say it was worth every penny for me.  It is something I do with my family and friends, so there is something special added to every experience.  Training has also brought me back to the previous version of "Me" that I thought was lost due to the poor lifestyle I lead in my 20's.  Make sure to find what is special in your Ironman Journey to make it worth more to you too.

M2 April Play List #2

After posting my last play list I was inspired to rip together another one to good review at class last night.  Happy too, since I'm teaching class and didn't want a bust of a music collection distracting me.  This last one may have tapped me out for a bit though.  Music is getting expensive, and this music came thanks to a great gift my sister gave me, $50.00 iTumes card, that was lost on my desk for the past few months, but just found!  Thanks Ash!

My brother deserves credit for my love of NIN and Rob Zombie type music. There is always a problem trying to find the good recordings from that time though. Putting old files like that into a play list makes it either too quite, or the next song nearly blasts the speakers out. Luckily guys like Trent Reznor and Rob Zombie were a bit ahead of the game with the recording quality and, embarrassingly, it is becoming "Classic" music and a lot of old tracks are being re-dubbed to improve play on modern devices.

Anyways, here's the new list. I hope you like it. It spans a few decades and a few genre's, so there is something for most everyone. Can't always please everyone.

Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work


Dirty Heads - Easy


Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama (trying to get something for everyone in this one)


Two Door Cinema Club - Come Back Home


Ludacris - One More Drink


The Airborne Toxic Event - Changing


Korn - Word Up!


Jet - Cold Hard Bitch


Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor


Jane's Addiction - Been Caught Stealing


Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds


The Raconteurs - Salute Your Solution


Franz Ferdinand - Evil and a Heathen


Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus


Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows


Deadmau5 - Sofi Needs a Ladder


Tiesto & Diplo - C'mon (w Busta Rhymes)-One of the favorites.  Comes in around 45 minutes into class when we hit the most intense parts of the workout.


Steve Aoki & Sidney Samson - Wake Up Call


The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be


Eminem - Lose Yourself


Onyx - Slam

Performance Tracking for 2011

You can see my goals for 2011 from my past posts, but I have been wrestling with a good way to track my progress in training to make sure what I'm doing is helping.  One of the hardest things is to keep a manageable record of what an athlete is doing, that can translate into tangible evidence of improvement.  One of the greatest things an athlete can have going into a race is a sense of confidence that what they did in training has helped them prepare for race day.  My buddy Dan came up with idea in general and I've workout on my own tracking to fit my training.

In finding my data points to monitor, I also didn't want to interfere with my normal training, so in setting my record points, I picked the ones that were most logical, and wouldn't require a major change in training schedules.

#1 - 1 hours cycling wattage:  This can be done in any of the 2-3 classes I take at M2 Revolution.  The total average of the class is taken into account, including warm-up, and rest periods in between intervals.  A 10 minute treadmill run is completed before jumping on the bike.  Noting the 5-Sec Max wattage as well to see if the squats I am doing are helping overall strength.  The goal is to see my watt/kg ratio improve, not necessarily total watts improve.

#2 - 20 Minute Treadmill run distance:  As a normal warmup to many cycling classes I run for 20 minutes.  5 minute warm-up and 15 minute increasing pace to 20 minutes.  Will track total distance.

#3 - 1 Mile Open Water Swim:  I have 2-3 swims a week and I try to swim in Aquatic Park as often as I can.  In cramming this workout in before spin on most occasions, there is limited time after work, so I push myself to get three buoy laps in (approx. 1 mile).

#4 - Weight: As with anything, speed should go up with reduced weight, but there is a floor to this improvement.  Last year I got sick when I hit 180 pounds, so I want to track this very closely to see if performance drops off as I get closer to it, and if that is my ideal race weight.  I've probably been having too much fun with my new toy doing this.


You can see a worksheet I made here to track all these metrics.

Training for events is a hectic thing to do.  Monitoring progress is a great way to keep yourself on track with training.  Hopefully creating my benchmarks in my normal training schedule will keep interruptions to a minimum, while allowing me the insight to change workouts accordingly along the way.

Injury timeout OVER!

The past two weeks have been the longest I've had to suffer in a while. Luckily there was some RnR in Vegas and work trips involved, but I think that probably extended my recover time a bit.

Two weeks ago I was still in racing mode and upping the ante a little for a 35k trail race in Woodside, CA. My body had a different opinion. It was still banged up from falling in transition at Santa Barbara, and my left leg probably wasn't firing on all cylinders. I knew my body wasn't all there, but wanted to attempt the distance as I have the North Face 50k in December as the next big event.

Race morning started normal, but fell apart from there. Driving to Woodside, a heavy fog descended on the road, and I ended up blowing by a cop. He was definitely going to come after me, but a nice exit was right up ahead! Dodging the ticket I figured was a good sign, but not my normal race morning. Next up, forgot my hydration belt at home. Had my bottles though, so I was running with them in my hands for three hours. Not too big of a deal. Race starts and stayed mellow, not pushing out the gate as I really didn't warm up much.

Not even a mile in, I'm trailing close behind someone because they slowed down and POP! Rolled an ankle on a rock. When it happened it didn't feel too bad, and after a few hundred yards I could put my stride back to normal so cool, I guess I dodged a bullet. Two miles later, bad feelings going to my feet and anything not flat felt bad. I git the three mile mark and stopped to talk to my boss who came to cheer me on (thank you:) and looked down at my ankle.


HOLY CRAP! She asked how I was doing and its the first time in a long time I've said "bad" during a race. First unplanned DNF. I was walking alright, but as I got home, and dragging myself to the store for ice, an eight of a mile, seemed like forever.


Two weeks of Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation are now over and I'm ready to get back to training, but taking that time off is good and bad. First off, your body isn't used to the forced break. Yes there are "off-seasons", but doing near nothing is excruciating! Didn't sleep very well for the first few days, and a lot of "pity" eating. In the log run, it was more than likely my body telling me to stop for a bit and recover after Ironman, and I think it was right. I am more than excited to get back to it now.


Lessons to remember
#1 Make sure you are alright before proceeding after a crash
#2 During trail runs, give enough room ahead of you to see the trail
#3 Don't half-ass things, if you are going to race, race. I should have asked the runner ahead to pass
#4 Take a realistic view of recovery
#5 Keep long term goals in mind when looking at short term

When the voices come back

Those dang voices are back! No not the crazy ones, but the ones telling you "its alright to slow down", "you had a hard weekend, you don't have to push it today". BLAH! Listening to that little devil on your shoulder is completely different than listening to your body. My body wants to tear into some training right now, so I'll let it. That little devil on my shoulder has different ideas.

Cycling class was full of those voices trying to get me to lay off the effort. Ironman has come and gone with great success, and now its time to reach for the new goals and I'm not going to achieve them if I let the voices take control. Two weeks was enough taking it easy, and I think it was more mentally draining than my actual training was!

Santa Barbara is the next race, and training has been going well over the past two weeks. Big push this week as I want some good results and to finally crack the podium in a bigger race this year. Too many 4th places this year. Its been a huge step up from last year and I'm happy with my progress, but still frustrating.

New Shoes!

I loved my Pearl Izumi tri cycling shoes so much, I'm switching my running shoes from Asics as well. I'll let you know how I like them in a week or so after some long runs.



First Run-10 Miles: Felt great with really no break in either. The seam-less upper is much better than my last Asics Gel Nimbus. Asics had alway done my feet well, but my my last pair has some annoying seams over the big knuckle of my big toe, not with my new Cruise's. I run neutral and mid-foot strike, but I think heal strikers would like these as well as they have a little rise in the heel and the transition to launching into the next stride was effortless. 15 Miler coming up this weekend so we'll see how the cushioning holds up as well as a blister report.

Listen to your body or push through?

In any endurance athletes training there are always times when the workout just isn't going to feel good. Hopefully you have been paying enough attention to your body to know if you should take a day off, or push through. Its a tedious balance that everyone has to face and the payoff is reaching your goals. On one hand you face potential injury or losing an important workout. Both are important to consider.

Today was a day to push through. Hitting up M2's 90 minute spin massacre really wasn't the best way to push through, but it was on the schedule for the day. Starting off with a 5 minute warmup run felt good, and then a quick lift and Vasa trainer went well, but then jumping on the cyclops trainer I knew it wasn't going to be good. The only option was to figure out what effort I could hold for the 90 minutes and stick to it for better or worse. I'm used to pushing over 340-400 watts for intervals, today hoping for 280-320 was in order. My heart rate was pushing over 160 at times, but I could hold it for the interval sets, and I kept my form. Success!

Setting your goal, even if less than what you want, is a large part of the training process. Even if it doesn't seem like progress at the time, hopefully it pays dividends in giving the mental strength to keep the pace come race day.