Week Two: Gooooooooooaaaaaaaalllll(s)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the week of 3-28-11 to 4-3-11.

Soccer is not one of those sports that easily holds my attention, unless 1) my daughter is playing or b) it's being announced by an overzealous Spanish speaking dude. Nothing like listening to someone yammer on in a language I don't understand, and then suddenly "GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!" It's all very exciting...

Which, brings me to the topic of the week: goals. The key to any successful plan, whether it be a triathlon, a marathon, bicycle racing, or weight loss is to set goals. I, personally, like to set short term and long term goals when I set up my training plan. The long term goals give me something to focus on at the end of my plan and give me a reason for the plan initially. The short term goals give me markers throughout the plan to let me know if I'm on track, and give me something to keep me focused. I have ADD, so I get easily distracted. If I don't have something short term to focus on I end up way off the mark by the end of the season. There are a couple rules of thumb for setting your goals. They need to be realistic, try not to set yourself up for failure before you even get started. For instance, I would like to compete in and win the Mr. Universe this year. This is not a realistic goal for me, have ya seen me lately? Not sellin' many tickets to the gun show if ya know what I mean. You also don't want to make your goals TO easy to obtain. For instance, I am going to pick up all the dog poo in my yard from this winter by September. Granted, there's a lot of poo back there, but still, I should be able to do it in shorter amount of time..... hopefully. You want your goals to be attainable, but you also want to set your goals in a way that will encourage you to work hard to attain them. Challenge yourself, and you will improve your performance.

You also want to make your goals positive and stay away from negatives. For instance, I don't want to drown during the swim. While this is certainly something I would like to avoid, it's not a very effective tool for goal setting. Positive thoughts bring positive energy. Negative thoughts bring negative energy. I would like to finish the swim faster than at least one person. While this may seem like a negative, it's phrased in a positive tone. I could have said I don't want to be last, but again it has a negative in it which puts a negative spin on the whole goal. A positive attitude and confidence will go a long way in helping you to attain your goals.

I went down to Farmington this past weekend to see a friend I haven't seen in a long time. We worked together at UPS in Eagan. He's actually the reason I'm getting into Triathlons. You could say he's the poster child for setting goals and then beating them into a little pulpy mess of goal....ishness.... anyway, he's very inspiring. When I worked with him, he was a pretty hefty little dude. Strong as an ox, but wasn't very healthy weight wise. He decided he would like to be around to see his two cute-as-buttons daughters grow up and still be able to have fun with his grandkids someday. He set weight loss goals, nutritional goals, and he wanted to do a triathlon. He nailed all three. He literally came within 11 pounds of being half the man he used to be last summer, and he's completed a couple triathlons now. He was doing the triathlons on a mountain bike, but would like to be more competitive so he bought a road bike. I went down to help him finish setting it up, and get a little ride in with him at the same time. That's Andy to the right looking menacing with his new steed. Because, Andy is the reason I'm so keyed on doing a Triathlon this year, I've decided to start where he did and do the Lake Minnewaska Triathlon. Which actually works out better for me, because the bike and run are the same as the other tri I was considering, but the swim is about 300 meters shorter, so I'll have less time to drown, which is a good thing.

So, without further ado, or tado, or to do.... I'm not sure how the phrase actually goes, but anyway, here are my goals for this year.

Long Term -

1. Finish in the top half for my age group in the Lake Minnewaska Triathlon

• My goal for the swim portion is to finish, nothing major here. This is probably going to be my weakest event. I'm not going to have a ton of time to train, so if I can get out of the water without being too far behind I'll be happy.
  
• My goal for the bike portion is to average 23+ mph. Once upon a time I was able to average 25 over 25 miles and this is only 10 miles so I should be able to handle that.
  
• My goal for the run is to average a sub 7:30 mile. The run is 2.5 miles so this should be attainable as long as the calf heals.

1. This is technically supposed to be goal number 2, but for some reason after I put in the little bullet dealies I can't get back to my original list. So I'm wasting space to get back to number 2... newbies!!!
2. Okay, here we go, I will be competing, once again, in the Du State Du down in Iowa. It's a duathlon that I do with a friend from college. The goal here is to win the men's team division. We've done it once before and we're going to du it again! I do the bike portion of this race and I'm shooting for 25+ mph average. This will be tough because of the terrain. It's about 16 miles long and about 200 ft of it is flat. I've managed 22 mph with minimal training, so I'm hoping a more focused year will get me back on track

Short Term Goals

1. I am going to pick two 5k runs in June and July. The first run in June I'd like to go sub 8 min mile. For July I'd like to be sub 7:30.
   
2. I have a time trial course for the bike all laid out here in Duluth. It's about 18 miles long and has some pretty decent hills, one of which is at the finish. I'll be doing this once a month at the end of the month and would like to improve on the previous month by at least 10%. Did that make any sense? Well, I guess as long as I know what I'm supposed to be doing... right?
3. Get this weekly blog published by Wednesday of the following week.... Obviously this one is a work in progress. One of the purposes of this blog is to get me to focus on what I can do better. I get to take a hard look at the past week and look to improve on what mistakes I may have made. Normally, I get to the end of the season, miss a goal and look back and say.... "Oh yeah... oops". Hopefully, this will help, and it gives me a chance to ramble on about bike and fitness stuff without anyone really having to listen.... my wife is very thankful for that....
   

Now for the technical stuff, the week in review. Its been a rough start to the training plan. A strained calf muscle, an impending cold and a winter that won't die, have all added to a weak second week of training. I should talk injuries and how to properly deal with them since, you can easily learn from this mistake. The thing that really burns me is that I know better and I still didn't treat it right. Maybe I'll make that the topic for next week. Yup, that's right, I was the kid that kept putting my hand on the burner and repeated licking the freezing steel pipes just to see if the first 8 times was a fluke. Long story short I strained a calf muscle and instead of taking care of it, I ignored it, and then made it worse.... and then worse again.... Now I won't be running for a bit in order to help it along. Anyway, here's the week....

Monday - Ran with Tina for 3.24 miles. Calf muscle started to cramp up in the middle of the run. Gutted through it the best I could, but that may have been my undoing. It was pretty tight by the time we got home. A regular stretching routine would help avoid this, but it's one of my weaknesses... preventative maintenance that is.

Tuesday - 35 minutes riding on the trainer. The calf was a little better today, it's really a non-issue on the bike. It was a little tight at work, but the nice thing about my job is that it is very active so little injuries like this tend to loosen up during the day. I tried to stretch intermittently during the day to help. I have not iced at all at this point and in hindsight this is another one of those "DOH!" instances.

Wednesday - Scheduled as a day off and I almost went against the plan and did a workout anyway. It was really nice out and I was done with work earlier than I had planned, but I don't want to overdo it considering the calf is still a little tight.

Thursday - Started out with the intent of getting 3-5 miles running in. I ended up running for about 1 mile when the calf muscle I've been having problems with decided to revolt. It cramped up pretty bad, I had to stop and stretch for a bit. I tried to get going again and it decided that it had had enough and locked up. I ended up walking the mile and a half home... or should I say "limped". Ice and icy hot are in the plans. I'll avoid running for a bit to try and speed the recovery. More time on the bike is never a bad thing....

Friday - This is supposed to be form work on the bike. However, I took a little trip to the cities. So this is a day off. Which really is okay, since the calf was pretty tight today.

Saturday - First ride outdoors! What a beautiful thing. Andy and I rode 20 miles in Farmington, Mn. It was awesome. The roads were smooth, the dogs were chained, and the hills weren't overly large. There was a pretty good wind, but that's a good thing at this point in the year. Builds up the strength. Good for the legs. Good ride!

Sunday - Woke up to about 3 inches of snow on the ground... again, second time in 3 days that's happened. The calf is still a problem and on top of that, it seems I'm picking up my daughters cold that she has so graciously decided to loan me. Soooooo, it seems as though it would be a good day to rest. I actually went to bed at about 9 pm to try and combat the numerous ailments. Better luck next week.

Thanks again to all my adoring fan (yes, singular) for reading this week. Remember most of all, keep the rubber side down!

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Week One: My Biscuits are Burnin'!!!

I'm a huge Bugs Bunny fan. I used to make sure to get up early enough on Saturday mornings to watch the full hour. It saddens me to think my kids don't have the same opportunity that I had. Every kid should learn how to properly drop an anvil on yourself whilst aiming at a speeding bird, or learn how to run off a cliff fast enough to hang in midair long enough to wave sheepishly to your audience. I get the pleasure of delivering to Acme Tools here in Duluth (I'm a UPS driver) from time to time and I always half expect to see Bugs and the boys in the store stocking up for the next show. There is a point to this, by the way.

You see every year the same thing happens. I tell myself, "I'm going to start training early this year, maybe I'll hit it in November!" Well, November rolls around and I think "I just need one more month off. Then December comes and its "After Christmas when work slows down..." Then January and February roll through and next thing I know I'm watching the snow melt and I've been on the bike only a handful of times. Luckily, I have a job that keeps me from ballooning up in the winter, so I stay in decent shape. However, the whole point to starting your training plan early is to keep your body in performance shape. Then, by this time, when you start getting into the meat of your training you won't have to deal with the soreness that comes with getting back to that point. Cycling is a beautiful sport for more reasons than one, but my favorite is the lack of pounding your body gets while running. Don't get me wrong, it has it's painful moments, especially at the beginning if you haven't ridden for a couple months. You see, most of your weight, while on a bike, is concentrated right in a very tender area. It takes some time to get that area readjusted to riding. The first ride is good, it's that second one that invokes images of Yosemite Sam running around with his tookus on fire yellin' "Ma biscuits are burnin', ma buscuits are burnin'!!"

A little Anatomy lesson for ya here. A lot of people wonder why my bike seat is so small, I can tell you it has nothing to do with any sort of weird fetish. It has everything to do with the way your pelvis is built. Cruiser bikes have those nice big poofy seats that look more like a computer chair than a bicycle seat. This is because the bike is built in a way that keeps your body upright, like sitting in a chair. It rotates your pelvis (pictured to the right, yeah that butterfly looking thing) into a more natural sitting position. Most of your weight, when riding a cruiser, is carried on your Ischium bones. They're number 3 in the picture. Those are the heinous little weapons you feel gouge into your legs when your kids (or someone else's) bounce around on your lap like their on a pogo stick. "Man, you got a bony butt", yup that's good ol' number 3. Now, riding a road bike, or a time trial bike is a little different. It's all about going fast. Riding upright is great if you just wanna cruise. But to go fast you need to avoid the wind, so your in a more aggressive position on the bike. Cyclists call it getting "aero". The Pro's spend hours in wind tunnels to try and find extra little ways of avoiding wind. Anyway, when you ride a road bike your pelvis tilts forward a bit so the weight is no longer carried by our friend, number 3. The job now falls to its neighbor number 4, or the Pubis or Pubic bone. Number 4 is not quite as well equipped to handle this job so it kind of revolts a bit until it gets used to it. The seat has to be smaller because there's less room for it in that area, well, I suppose you could use a bigger seat but the result would be A LOT more friction to your inner thighs. Let me tell you from marathon experience, the inner thigh is NOT a fun place to have friction burn. Also, there are a lot of nerves and vessels that run through that area so extra padding will put pressure on those and you can lose feeling in places like your toes or.... ahem... other areas that are close to that region of the pelvis. Some people call it "the junk". Too much pressure on those nerves over many years can also impair the functionality of the area, and we'd all like to avoid that, right? Let's try a little experiment to help you all visualize what I'm talking about. Ir your not already, go ahead and sit down in a chair with good posture. If you put your hands under your hind parts at the side you'll be able to feel your Ischium, where most of your weight is concentrated. Now bend over like your going to tie your shoes. Did your feel number 3 lift off your chair a bit? Now, if your not at work or in a public place, you can slide your hand just inside your thigh and feel the bone that your weight is now centered on. That's your pubic bone, or number 4. Now take your hand out, before someone thinks you're doing something gross. Now, depending on what you have on, you may want to go wash your hands....

Now for the technical stuff... My first week of training didn't go quite as I would have liked it to. Again, it's technically base, so time on the bike and on the road running are crucial. It's time to get your body accustomed to exercise and start building that aerobic engine. My schedule calls for 6 workouts during the week with a rest on Wednesday. This section will get a little more detailed as the training goes on and I get more into the HR based workouts.

Monday - 3.5 mile run, easy. Just getting the legs used to the idea of running again. I went with my wife, Tina. She's a stud when it comes to running so I always end up running a little faster than I'd generally like because I need to keep up. Luckily, I made it through without puling something, which is a little victory in itself.

Tuesday - 30 minutes cycling on the trainer. I really have no way of knowing how far I go when I'm on the trainer. I just guesstimate that it's about 16 mph avg. Again it's just to get the legs moving. No adverse effects from the previous days run. I fully expected to be limping around whining all day, but I felt better than expected.

Wednesday - rest day. Still no soreness after my Monday run. Good thing!

Thursday - should have been a 2-3 mile run, but I worked until about 7pm and I really wasn't feeling like running afterward. Rough day in the Big Brown.

Friday - Should have been 30 minutes riding on the trainer with form work included, but another rough day compliments of Mother Brown, so I opted to sleep instead.

Saturday - 40 minutes riding on the trainer. I figured 8 miles, since I really was not feeling it that day. The legs were a bit on the dead side, so I just rode nice and easy. The worst thing you can do is overdo it early and end up taking more time off because your so freakin' sore.

Sunday - 35 minutes riding on the trainer. In the coming weeks I'll be adding a run in on this day as well. I felt a little better this day. Unlike Saturday, I was actually able to work up a bit of a sweat. Not a bad little end to the week. I'm looking forward to next week and bumping up the load a stitch.


Well that's it for this week. Thanks for the perusal. By the way, the frame pictured below is the weapon of choice for the triathlon. I won't be riding it like that, since that would be really slow and a bit painful. I'll post pictures every week so you can see the progress. Hopefully, in a couple weeks she'll be ready for the road. It's going to be super fast!!! Oh and the picture of the pelvis is from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skeletpelvis-pubis.jpg Just in case you were wondering... Thanks again and keep the rubber side down!

The Purpose

I'm going to do a triathlon for the first time in my life. In August. That's only 5 months from now. That's really not much time. I have a training plan of sorts, and if I'm going to complete it up to my somewhat lofty standards I need to stick to the plan. That's not as easy as it sounds. You may know this if you've ever tried to accomplish anything that takes an extended period of time. In high school I used to put off research papers until the night before and then pull an all nighter to try and get it done. This works for research papers, not very effectively mind you, but 3 times out of 10 you can usually pull off a passing grade. Not so with endurance training. You wait until the night before the race and you can pretty much kiss the next 6 to 10 days good bye because you can barely move, much less do anything productive. Then you spend the next 3 months in physical therapy trying to undo all the bad things you did to your muscles in the short time it took you to do the race. And you spend the next 3 years trying to convince yourself that if you just train a little it won't hurt quite so bad the next time.

So, I've decided I'm going to start my very own blog. I have a couple of reason for doing so, but mainly it's for self motivation. You see, this way, I can pretend I have thousands of adoring fans that I need to keep training for. If I don't train and then post on this blog I will feel the wrath of my cultish followers. Not to mention, I may be able to help someone in their own journey to completing their very own race. Mainly by learning from my mistakes, but I'm not picky. Or someone reading this may be thinking, "What the hell is this guy doing? I better say something before he kills himself." They will then go on to dispense their knowledge upon me saving me from impending doom. Don't think I won't listen. I'm not so full of myself that I'm not above learning something new. Just don't be offended if I don't follow through on your advice, I'm a little thick headed when it comes to that. Considering that I may be the only one reading this, it may just be a case of the first reason.... assuming that I am going to read it, which I probably won't. I really don't have that kind of time.

A little about me and my sporting past. I was a runner in high school. Distance mainly. I did everything from the 400 to the 2 mile and cross country. A friend introduced me to my first road bike in 1990ish. I have been in love ever since. I transitioned from running to doing duathlons. Which is basically a triathlon without the swimming. It basically consists of a run in the 5k range, then a 15-20 mile bike followed by a 5kish type of run again. They're a lot of fun, but they're fairly difficult to find. I did that for a few years and then I decided to try bicycle racing. What a rush! I immediately fell in love with criteriums. If you've never had the pleasure of watching a crit I would highly recommend it. It's about as physical as bike racing gets. Nothing like screaming around 90 degree corners at 25+ mph while riding elbow to elbow with about 30 to 100 other guys. It can be dangerous at times. I have some scars to attest to that fact. It takes a lot of time to train for something like that, and you need to race a lot in order to keep your edge. Crit racing really isn't something you can go out and do once a year just for kicks. Well, unless you like getting your butt handed to you on a silver platter. I'm not saying that triathlons don't take a lot of training, but it doesn't seem to be quite as mentally involved as crits are. So, since I don't really have the time to spend training and racing for crits, I thought I would give tri's a.... try.... sorry.... Now, I don't swim much, which I figure is good and bad. Bad, because that's generally how tri's start and it'll put me in the hole early. Good, because I haven't developed any bad habits that I'll need to undo. So, that's the abbreviated version. I'm trying to keep it brief because I have an awful tendency to ramble. I also have ADD so I have a tendency to jump around a lot. So if your confused, keep reading, I'll probably get back on track at some point..... or not.

I make my own training plans. I spent a lot of time in college studying for a Phy Ed degree and getting very good at ping pong (which, btw, is not a skill that you can just pick up 10 years later and wow the crowd. You'll wow them alright, just not how you vision it in your minds eye...), so I've learned a few things about the body and how it works. I've also read a ton of books on training and building plans, I guess you could call it a hobby. I'm just good enough at it to be dangerous, so it's probably not wise to ask me to build you one without getting a lawyer first. Anyway, it's cycling heavy, since I don't have much pool access and I really don't like running all that much (it's really painful). I figure, if I can get out of the lake without drowning, I stand a pretty good shot of gaining enough time on the bike that I can cruise through the run and still end up in the top half of my age group.... hopefully, there will be more than two us.... If it goes that well, I'll work on the swimming a little more over the winter and really give 'er hell next year. It's a trial thing. I may end up selling the bike and take up cross stitch, but we'll see how it goes.

After my ride tonight, I'll post again... Or maybe I'll recap early next week. I'm kinda lazy like that. Anyway, I'd like to take this moment to thank all my adoring fans for their support (you know who you are, mom), and thanks for reading. I'm not entirely sure how this blog thing really works, so.... I guess that's it!

May you all find smooth roads and little dogs, and remember to keep the rubber side down!