Make 2022 Awesome

The sun is starting to come out from behind the clouds. Just a month ago I shared my feeling that 2022 was not going to be much better than 2021. Since then the Covid-19 situation has improved dramatically. Sadly the death rate is higher, which can be attributed to the Delta variant, but new cases have been decreasing significantly and there is no reason to think this trend should not continue.

One thing I said earlier is still true. I really want to complete an Ironman, and I feel like I won’t get too many more chances. There is a fitness aspect, and a financial aspect. These are the kinds of challenges that every athlete faces. A big part of a coach's work is to help their athletes deal with such issues. Being self coached means I get to help myself. 

What I decided to do is to start planning 2022 with the goal of doing an Ironman. First I developed some basic criteria.

1. Moderate temperature.

2. Not too hilly.

3. Nice local.

4. Good accommodations.

5. Not in a red state.

When Ironman announcement IM Alaska I was intrigued by criteria #3, a great looking location. The more I thought about it the more I realized it fell short of the other four.

It did not take me very long to settle on Cozumel. It is in a foreign country, but it’s Mexico. Should not be a problem. On the plus side, the swim is in a river that flows from the start to the finish, which makes it just a bit easier than a lake or ocean swim, and the water is warm enough that a wet suit is not necessary. Living in Hawaii, a wetsuit presents significant additional expense and will take some getting used to. And I will confess that I asked some old friends who have done it.

There are many possible criteria that an athlete might use in choosing a race. They may prefer to drive to their venue (not an option in Hawaii!). They may prefer to camp for the week. They may prefer something closer to home, so that more friends and family can come and celebrate the experience. They may prefer something more exotic. Maybe they have already done Florida, or Texas, or Arizona, and are looking for something more challenging. It is not uncommon for an experienced athlete to pick an easy course looking to get a Kona slot. 

It helps to have someone to talk to. Choosing an “A” race, building a training plan to get you there in the best possible shape, monitoring progress, and making all of the small adjustments that reflect the individual’s adaptations and disruptions. Life will get in the way. Success means dealing with whatever happens as best you can. No book or canned training plan can do that.

Now that I have decided to aim for an Ironman in 2022, and have settled on Cozumel, the next step is commitment. I am still at "I want to." I'll be sure and let you know when I reach "I am."

Hungry? Ask yourself these two questions

Like so many other athletes, I gained a few pounds during the pandemic. More than a few. Way too many. Worse still, at least in my opinion, it all went on my belly. I think of someone with excess belly fat as someone who is not active. It certainly does not look athletic. 

I love science, and what is referred to as evidence based training. “Evidence” is not the same as doing something that worked for a friend. It means making decisions based on published, peer reviewed studies along with commentary from world class sports scientists who are using those same resources. 

Science tells us that our bodies are designed to store excess fuel as fat. It is a survival mechanism, in case our three hour boat tour ends up stranded on an island. From adolescence to roughly fifty, give or take ten years, that fat is distributed first throughout our muscles. It’s what you look for when choosing a streak, lots of marbling. When there is plenty of excess it gets stored throughout our body between our skin and muscles. Flabby arms, flabby thighs.

As we age that distribution plan changes. The mechanism that assigns fat storage reverses those priorities. Less fat is stored in our muscles, arms, and legs, while more goes on our belly. Yes, a beer belly is not about beer as much as aging.

Is this inevitable? Yes and no. To some extent we must accept the changes. Gray hair, hair loss, wrinkles. Those things happen as we age. One very important change takes place out of sight. A reduction in reproductive hormones. Apparently it is those hormones that signal fat distribution. 

What can we do about it? As it turns out there is one simple activity that can boost production of those hormones, and that is lifting heavy weights. Not the usual five pound barbell and twenty bicep curls. It takes really heavy lifting. Four reps and you are done. Running won’t help. Cycling won’t help. Standard gym workouts won’t help. Heavy stuff. One light set to practice the motion, then pile it on for three to four reps. By the last rep your muscles should be shaking.

What about the question I opened with? The one about what to ask when you are hungry? Even if we can’t hold onto our youthful body shape, we can make nutrition choices that minimize the damage. Nutrition is a complex topic and I will share some thoughts in future posts. For now, here are two questions you should ask yourself before you eat.

1. Do I need this?

2. What will this do for me?

Context matters. Ask these questions as an athlete preparing for a race. Watch out for traps, like saying yes to the first question when contemplating a chocolate and sea salt bar after a hard yoga session. As for the second question, try expanding on it. Will it help me run faster? Will it improve my endurance?

The sensation of hunger is another challenging subject. What has worked for me in the past is to remind myself that feeling hungry is a reward associated with losing weight, similar to how sore muscles are a reward for hard work. Being active adds an extra dimension. As athletes we must put enough fuel in our tanks to make it through our workout plan without compromising performance. There is a before, during, and after aspect. I, like many athletes, tend to under fuel before and during, then overeat as recovery. That’s because when we are active our hunger signals are suppressed, and after activity they spring up like dandelions. 

Now, whenever I feel hungry I ask myself those two questions and remind myself that losing some of this pandemic belly fat will help me perform better and live longer.

Time is always slipping away

I have a lot to be thankful for. A wonderful wife. Two wonderful boys. Two, well, let’s just say odd, cats. Excellent health, especially for someone my age. I do like our house. Convenient, a patio for grilling and eating, a million dollar view. It does lack two things, a place to use as a yoga wall, and a place where I could set up one of those fancy indoor trainers that let you ride online -- Swift, Rouvy, etc. Of course Mike would like a bigger kitchen and a huge refrigerator, but then I need to stop eating his wonderful desserts. (I wrote “so much of” but deleted it.)

What is bugging me right now is the sad feeling of knowing that 2021 will probably go by with no racing for me. I did manage to get in a virtual half marathon back in April. Three laps of Elepaio to the Aloha gas station and a loop around Diamond Head. But, all alone, no cheering crowds, no aid stations, no celebration at the finish line. That was how 2020 went, even up to a full Ironman in October. So, yeah, I did a full marathon back then. Do I really want to do another one now? Last year the idea of going virtual was novel. That shine is wearing thin.

It helps to think of what I do as a healthy lifestyle. It is, and I have no intention of becoming a couch potato. I continue to be a devotee of Joe Friel and Dr. Stacy Sims. I have been messing up my diet, but I am on the road to improvement there. Dr. Sims’ book Roar has some terrific meal planning suggestions, and I just bought a copy of Feed Zone Portables by Biju Thomas and Allen Lim. Good stuff to eat on the bike. Now all I need is for the hospitals to get back to normal so I can get back to riding on the road.

What is really getting me down is the idea -- call it a realization -- that I may not get the chance to do another Ironman race. I signed up for Honu 2022, but with Kona postponed and no end in sight to this pandemic, well, I have doubts. This year’s race, which I did not even consider doing, was severely curtailed. That is not the race I want to do. If it is on, I’ll go, but if it is on this year’s course I doubt I will feel satisfied.

Then there is the goal of doing a full Ironman. Besides all the training, which I did last year, it requires a lot of travel. To be honest, I still have concerns about my back. I know that is normal. The memory of one's frailty remains long after the body has healed. Will my body get me to that level again?

Last of all, there is that relentlessly ticking clock. I am already 71. I feel like 40, maybe 45, and my sexy side still thinks I’m young and attractive. There was a time when I would not hit on that pretty barista because I was married. Now, well, that too, but also because I would look pathetic. There is still a part of me that wags its tail, and I have to remind it to sit and behave. 

Which part of my brain is so infatuated with triathlon? Is it that young guy who wants to hit on the barista? Nobody wants to be that pathetic old guy way off the back. At what age will I be satisfied saying “I always wanted to do an Ironman?”

I’ll start by reminding myself that age is just a number. But, no hitting on baristas!

How to coach and how to run, lessons from Bobby McGee

On many afternoons when Pattie and I go for a swim we watch a swim instructor working with beginners. He has to be the world’s worst coach. Nothing but negative comments. I have never seen him demonstrate anything. He just stands there in the water and yells. 

“No no, what did I tell you?”

“Where is your head?”

“Why are your arms going all over the place?”

You have probably heard of the complement sandwich. Say something nice, then criticize, then finish by saying something nice. I prefer to express it as a percentage, as in eighty percent of what you say is supportive, and only twenty percent is negative. Ninety/ten would be even better. Just as important, if not more so, is tone. The goal should be to sound supportive even while pointing out mistakes and shortcomings.

There is no better example of how to talk to athletes than Bobby McGee, the famous running coach. Here are two short videos in which he coaches a pair of runners on how to do some running drills. Pay attention to how positive he is. Quick to make corrections, but never mean or angry.

https://youtu.be/5ZKA2-Sb0Tk

https://youtu.be/6f6zWwW4kJA

While I was gathering videos for this post I came across this instructional video, in which Bobby does an excellent job of explaining how triathletes should run. Most importantly, the role of the tendons in storing and releasing energy. This is of utmost importance to endurance athletes. This is not as clear of an example in how to work with athletes, but even here you get a sense of his positive style

https://youtu.be/Xnsii2H-HxM

A little something every day

If you have been around the sport of triathlon very long you have probably heard this phrase many times: "Listen to your body." It's good advice, especially since our sport attracts high achievers who would rather push through a fog of fatigue than cut a workout short. Training while seriously fatigued can lead to repetitive stress injury and burn out. 

I happen to like a companion expression, which is "A little something every day." The reason I like this phrase is that I know too many athletes, myself included, who overcompensate when they feel fatigued. It’s as if we listen to our bodies with a stethoscope. 

This is not to say we should go all in every day. Far from it. The way I design a training plan for senior athletes is to place three "must do" hard activities in a week. Two of those are high intensity, the other long and slow. Everything else is easy peasy. 

Easy does not mean optional. It means to keep the intensity and duration low. Of course those are relative terms. I mean low for you. At the end of the workout you should feel all warmed up and ready for more. If you feel more fatigued than you did at the start, you went too hard.

Senior runners may find it difficult to run slow enough. In that case, a brisk walk is all you need. In triathlon, especially, there is no such thing as a recovery run. 

The one exception to the easy peasey rule is strength training. Early in the season senior athletes should schedule two or three hard strength training workouts per week. As the season progresses that should be cut to two, with shorter duration, then one, and finally none during the taper for an “A” race. I am not going to go into detail here about what to do, only to say that reps should be fewer than normal gym sessions, with high loads. The goal is not so much increased muscle mass as improvements in hormone levels and bone density.

Back - to Normal

 What Fun!

 

If you have been following my blog you know that last April I put my back out of kilter. Not a fall. Not from over training. All it took was a return to sitting cross-legged on the floor after a year of sitting exclusively in chairs and sofas, while maintaining a normal training load. My hip flexors did not like it and pulled my sacrum out of position.

This type of injury takes a long time to heal. At first I tried training through it with very easy bike and swim activity, and while at first there was improvement, it all went south again. After that I went to see my acupuncture guy, Mike Zanoni, and just did the morning flex routine my physical therapist Sonya at FluidBody Training prescribed. That continued until the last week of May, when I began to water jog and do thirty minutes slow cruising on the bike. 

From mid-July on I have gradually gone back to normal training. The big thing I noticed was a lack of endurance. Even a thirty minute run felt hard. But I could feel my strength returning. Last Sunday I rode for 2:30 including the Makapu’u lookout, and it didn’t kill me. This past Sunday I ran for 1:30 and felt fine.

Besides feeling weak, the other thing I noticed was that my training zones are off. Way off. On the bike and run I am going easy just like always, and feel like I should be in low zone 2, but my Garmin says I am in zone 4, which would be going flat out. This means my heart is beating faster than it used to for the same effort. Could be lack of fitness. Could be SVC.

So, in light of that I have scheduled my standard run and bike zone setting workouts for this week. The first test will be if I have enough stamina to get through them. If I do, well, I will have to wait and see what the data says.

 

The rush to race

 In just the last couple of months I have seen a surge of races and the desire to race, no doubt an expression of a year’s worth of frustration. As vaccination rates move past 50% racing becomes viable, aided by the fact that we do it all outdoors and without bleachers packed with drunk, cheering fans.

This is having a direct impact on Hawaii. Specifically, Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, a.k.a. Honu. Registration for the 2022 race opened even before this year’s race. For some reason the Ironman organization thought people needed encouragement so they threw in a free hat. I don’t think the hat was necessary, as Tier I closed soon after this year’s race ended and Tier II is almost full. 

In the past I would wait until late in the year to make plans for the following year. The last time I did Honu in 2019 (see pic above) I must have waited until maybe March to decide. When I saw a note a few days ago that Tier II was almost full I decided I had better act now, so I fought my way through the complex sign-up process and got a spot. But no hat.

If you have any thought of doing Honu next year, act now or you may not get the chance. If you think you could do better with a coach, drop me a line at windsofhawi@gmail.com. I specialize in senior athletes and am happy to provide whatever level of support you need.

Polishing up my first IM training plan

Or is it my second?

Ok, to be fair, this is my second Ironman distance training plan. I got through -- as in doing -- most of the base portion of my first attempt when my back went out. I was not very pleased with it anyway -- too much activity for a senior athlete -- so I chucked it and started over. This one covers twenty-four weeks. Twelve base, nine build, two peak, and race.

I find much in common with writing training plans and composing music for ensembles. There are myriad details to keep track of. I have to use my imagination a lot, holding a bunch of stuff in my head as I imagine how it will progress, aided by scribbled notes and cross-checks. I feel like this one is almost done. Will it ever be done? I think not. Like a score, it is the starting point for a new round of exploration.

This plan follows advice from Joe Friel in his book Fast After 50. For example, a typical week is built around this framework:

Monday - Strength Training

Tuesday - Aerobic Capacity Intervals

Thursday - Lactate Threshold Intervals

Sunday - Aerobic Threshold (long, slow, distance)

Throughout the plan the relative strength of these workout types varies. For example, at the start of the plan strength training is maximal while aerobic capacity work is minimal. By around nine weeks in these are reversed. The framework stays the same, but the relative intensity changes.

Everything else is low intensity, and when in doubt, rest. As we age our bodies require more recovery time. There will be times when you can recover on the bike or in the water, but if you feel bushed, take a break. Listen to your body, and when you do, park your ego.

I made it a point to include regular, short flexibility workouts. For these I use a YouTube video channel called Yoga by Adriene, who happens to be the most popular yogi on YouTube. A weekly yoga class is great, but not enough to offset twelve hours of triathlon work. Better to spread a little bit out over multiple sessions per week.

Another important piece missing from most training plans is core flexibility work. Strength training can cover some of this, and so can yoga. What works best is a simple daily routine that takes no more than thirty minutes, done first thing in the morning, every morning. I see no point in adding it to this plan as it will just clutter up the calendar. Every day is every day. If is isn't short and simple it won't get done.

Friel's book feels like it was written for cyclists. He does mention triathlon, but leaves it to the reader to work out how to distribute the three activities -- swim, bike, and run -- across that framework. My solution is to alternate focus between run and bike in the first two weeks of each three week mesocycle, and to alternate the testing the same way. Swimming gets treated mostly as recovery time, with one lactate threshold swim per week. Let's be real, for age group athletes the goal is to swim efficiently, and what is needed most is time in the water with a focus on technique.

In my first plan I tried inserting race-like activities on some of the weekends during the build phase. I think I'll do a version of this new plan that uses that format. Should be fun.

Striving for balance

There is a training concept so fundamentally true it deserves to be a law, which is this: There is a limit to how much stress a human body can absorb. When that limit is exceeded, breakdown increases to the point of damage. There are also these corollaries: 1) The breakdown limit varies significantly between individuals. 2) The limit is not a sharply defined point.

Note that I said stress, and not training stress. I am focused here on training, but stress is stress. When we train we aim to create manageable amounts of tissue damage, which gets repaired when we rest. Our body overbuilds the repair, which makes us stronger. It is our immune system that responds to the damage by creating chemical markers that signal cell building factories to repair the damage. The same immune system that fights off viruses and other nasty stuff. Emotional stress also places demands on our immune system. Stress is stress, and when our immune system become overloaded, bad things happen.

That first corollary includes a twist. We often compare ourselves with other athletes and admire those who can train more without breaking down, but we also compete with our younger selves.

The second corollary should appear self-evident, as it applies to everything about our bodies. If we exercise lightly we do not create enough stress to trigger tissue improvement. As we increase the training load, by increasing intensity or duration, we gradually enter a dark zone in which the repairs are never complete – we are not fully recovered. Eventually we reach a point at which the inflammation is noticeably painful. This is not acute injury, like a bike crash or stepping in a rabbit hole on a run. The unchecked buildup of damage typically occurs over weeks, yet the pain comes on suddenly. We want to avoid getting anywhere near that point. The way to avoid it is to get enough recovery.

Getting the stress/recovery cycle correct is a good example of how tricky the balance thing is. Too much recovery and we lose the improvements we are working for. Too much stress and we end up with an overuse injury, and very likely lose much of what we gained. We can choose to do a little something every day, or one massive workout on the weekend that requires a week of recovery. Somewhere in there is a sweet spot. To complicate matters further, the older we are, the more recovery we require.

If you are a triathlete you are undoubtedly pressed for time. You may want your day to be all about training, but there is work time, family time, house cleaning time, marketing time. You get the idea. It is all about balance.

Even if you hit the training/recovery sweet spot and do a great job balancing your schedule, there is more that can go out of balance. As a triathlete you prefer to spend the limited training time available working in one of the sport’s three disciplines, swimming, biking, and running. Oh, and getting those balanced is another thing – I’ll skip that for now. The danger inherent in this approach is that we train primarily in the sagittal plane, which is to say our principle muscle movements are fore and aft. This results in some muscles getting strong, and others, not so much. Why is that a problem? Because when we are called upon to move in ways other than how we train, our powerful, agile muscles will overpower our weak, untrained muscles and pull joints out of alignment, straining the connecting tendons and ligaments. The places most at risk are the lower back, the knees, and the shoulders. Some would include the upper back in this list.

Like all overuse injuries, the onset will build slowly, over days or weeks. The resulting pain can start as a nagging ache, or come on all at once. In any case, the solution will take time and should include working with experts.

The best approach is to ensure these muscle imbalances never happen. How? By exercising the muscles that are not getting enough attention.

Remember what I said about the time crunched triathlete? We want to fill every available workout opportunity with a swim, bike, or run. How do we find the time to do core and flexibility work? You say you do yoga? Like, one night a week? Ok, that’s ninety minutes a week of core and flexibility, going up against maybe twelve to fifteen hours a week of sagittal plane work. Does that sound balanced to you?

The good news is we do not need to spend as much time on flexibility work as we do developing our major movers. What we should aim for is a little bit every day.

My turn to struggle with injury

As part of my coaching education I have been reading books on a variety of subjects that I believe are important for a coach to know something about. One of my favorites is The Brave Athlete, by Simon Marshall, PhD and Lesley Paterson, a must read for every athlete. Another is Roar, by Dr. Stacy Sims, PhD, a book every female athlete should read and highly recommended to anyone coaching women. And of course there is my bible, Joe Friel’s Fast After 50.

There is one book I struggled with, Rebound, by Carrie Jackson Cheadle and Cindy Kuzma. It is full of useful and informed information, but it is all about recovering from injury. It begins, “We’re sorry you’re here, but we’re glad you’re with us.” I was not injured and I found this second person voice (you can do this, you should watch out for that) hard to relate to.

Not anymore. 

I have been training as if my year consisted of Ironman 70.3 Hawaii (“Honu”) in June, and The full Ironman in October, planning to do both virtually like I did last year. For me the primary goal is staying active and healthy. Racing is fun, but the logistics and expense are challenges I don’t need right now. 

A big part of what I have been doing is refining how to put together a training plan for senior athletes, which I consider my specialty. For Honu I decided to give reverse polarization a try. I followed the example from Friel’s Triathlete’s Training Bible with an eye to the advice he gives in Fast After 50. The hardest part is getting in enough work in three disciplines while allowing adequate recovery time.

I was doing fine until the transition into the build period. Normally that would be where the focus shifts from long and slow to short and high intensity. With reverse polarization it is the other way around. I was starting to go long on the run and bike when along came the virtual Hapalua Half Marathon. No problem, I ran it the same way I did this kind of thing last year, a one hour out and back from my car as a refill station. A long training day. I gave myself the rest of that week off and aimed to settle back into my training plan with a two hour run on Sunday.

Here comes the monkey wrench. Pattie and I have enjoyed playing in the University of Hawaii Gamelan for over forty years. The group meets for several hours every Saturday afternoon, which pushed my long runs and bikes to Sunday. To play gamelan we sit cross-legged on the floor.

About a year ago rehearsals came to a sudden stop as Covid-19 restrictions took hold. We returned to greatly modified rehearsals on February 27. After every session Pattie and I hobbled around like old folks. I even felt the effects through Sundays. 

On April 11 I ran the half marathon. The following week was a regular R&R week, very short, easy efforts. On Saturday when I sat down to play my right hip flexor was stuck. I could not get my knee down to the floor, and it hurt. I waited, I coaxed, I said nice things about my muscles, and eventually it got down, but it was never happy. The next day I returned to normal training with a two hour run. As I sat down to eat my pre-workout snack I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. A spasm. Hmm. When I got to the start of my run I told myself to warm up extra and if it hurt to run, stop. I was fine. That afternoon I was less than fine. On Monday morning I crawled out of bed and could not stand up straight. My back was, as they say in aspirin commercials, killing me. That was April 19.

I have used Mike Zanoni before. He is a master at acupuncture and many of his clients are athletes. I called him right away and got an appointment on the 22nd. The next day, a Friday, I felt so good I wrote in my log “return to training.” Actually what I meant was I would abandon my training plan and follow a simple rehab routine, a short, easy bike ride every morning and a swim every afternoon. The only problems were getting there. Once I was on the bike or in the water I was fine.

One nice consequence of this plan was that Pattie decided to accompany me on the afternoon swims. It was great to finish up the day’s work, drive down to Ala Moana, swim for thirty minutes, and make it back for dinner before the sun went down. Mike even pitched in, doing some of the meal prep, and he joined us on Fridays for a gourmet picnic.

I thought I was doing great and was looking forward to returning to my full schedule, up until Sunday, May 2nd when things came undone. I did my planned hour and a half ride, but only managed it after taking a couple of Advil. After that, it was a repeat of April 19. I already had a Monday morning follow up appointment with Mike, but when I walked in all bent he looked at me like ‘Oh man, what did you do?’ 

Mike did some deeper work and ordered two days rest and only light exercise after that for the remainder of the week. He also agreed with my decision to bring in Sonya Weiser-Souza, my old masseuse now living in Reno. We did a Zoom session Tuesday morning where she gave me a set of exercises aimed at relieving the immediate stress and developing new movement patterns to allow the range of motion I need to do all the things I want to do, without injury.

To summarize, for anyone acclimated to chairs to suddenly start sitting cross-legged on the floor for two or three hours at a time, there are going to be problems. Painful problems. The older we get, the harder it is for our bodies to accommodate such changes. In my case, add to that a set of leg muscles developed to work in a single fore and aft motion (the sagittal plane for those taking notes). Asking them to move into a very different position, and stay there, is bound to cause trouble. I appear to have some tears in my right gluteus minimus and the locked up muscles along the right side of my lumbar spine have displaced my sacrum. The good news is that this should be repaired rather quickly, as long as I do not go back to long sessions of sitting on the floor. That remains something to train for, and Sonya’s daily routine is designed to do just that.

A major theme of Cheadle and Kuzma is expressed in the title, Rebound. Look upon injury as a way to improve, to bounce back and end up better than you were. With a little help from Mike and Sonya I have set my goal to enjoy freedom of motion in all directions so that I can do everything that comes along without limits.

My run warmup routine

The other day a Facebook group I follow exploded with a discussion about what to do before a run workout. I was not surprised at the variety of what people shared, or that much of what was described does little to help and could even be harmful. I have witnessed the same kind of thing where runners gather. The two most egregious mistakes I see amateur runners make are to just start running cold, or a warmup consisting of a series of quad stretches, grabbing their shoe and yanking it up to their buttocks. No wonder their knees hurt!

There is an opposite extreme, warmup routines that take as much time as the run itself. Maybe you have all the time in the world, but I don’t. I need time to warm up, but it needs to be quick. One more dislike: I do not like laying on the ground, especially before a run.

The goal of a run warmup is to activate the nerve and energy systems that will be used during the exercise. There are a number of chemical processes that take place to fuel the muscles. Some work in parallel, some in series. There are nerve synapses that need to fire with precisely controlled timing, thousands if not millions of signals set off by your thought “Let’s go!” It takes time to get all this working smoothly. Running places extremely high loads on our bodies, notably the knees, ankles, and metatarsal bones. When we take off running without waking up the associated energy systems and nerve pathways we run the risk of injury. Pun intended.

Here is how I warm up for a run. Exercise descriptions follow. I begin before I push the start button on my watch, but the much of the routine happens during the workout's warmup period. That way I feel like I am saving time.

Before start

1. Leg Swings
2. Ankle Lifts and Heel Drops

After start, during first five minutes on the clock

1. March Drill
2. March Drill with Ankle Lifts
3. Sky Reach
4. Side Bend
5. Brisk 1Z walk for balance of 5 minutes

For long runs I use a 9/1 run/walk (creates ten minute blocks). I complete the above exercises during the first five minutes, then run for the balance of first nine minute minute interval (roughly walk 5 run 4). No strides here, the goal is to focus on fat burning for long duration fuel efficiency. We want to avoid activating the high energy systems.

For quality workouts (LTHR intervals, hill repeats, etc.) five minutes as above followed by ten minutes 2Z with two or three strides near the end to kick start high energy systems.

Exercise descriptions

Begin by finding a spot on the sidewalk with a pole you can hold. Avoid mud, broken glass, etc.

Leg Swings

1. Stand facing and to the right of the pole.
2. Grasp pole lightly with left hand.
3. Lift left (inside) knee so that foot 6-12 inches off ground.
4. Gently lift the knee a little, then push the leg back behind you.
5. Continue for 6-12 reps gradually increasing force and speed. Use more energy to throw your leg back, just enough to recover forward.
6. Repeat on the opposite side.

Do not lock your knees. Do not think about swinging your foot. Muscle activation is above the knee, primarily hamstrings and glutes. Do not go for maximum range of motion.

Ankle Lifts and Heel Drops

1. Walk around to the curb side of the pole.
2. Place balls of both feet on the curb so that both heels are hanging over the edge. Grasp the pole lightly to steady yourself.
3. Slowly lift with feet (calves) as high as you can go, hold, then down slowly and hold.
4. Repeat 6-12 reps.

Watch out that shoes do not suddenly slip off the curb, stop and adjust as required.

March Drill

1. Set left foot on ground.
2. Lift the right knee so that the thigh is parallel to ground.
3. Pause for one second (balance!).
4. Step out with your right foot and repeat on the opposite side.

It helps to hold the opposite arm straight out in front.

March Drill with Ankle Lifts

Same as plain March Drill except lift heel of planted foot as lifting knees rises. Pause one second (freeze) standing on the ball of the foot. Balance is tricky. Exaggerated arm swings help.

Sky Reach

While walking, reach one arm up and stretch as if to touch the sky. Alternate arms. No special coordination with feet.

Side Bend

While walking, reach both arms up then slowly rock from side to side. Focus on lengthening rather than compressing.

Conclusion

I learned these drills from Bobby McGee. It can take a little time to get comfortable with these. No problem, just start with leg swings and add the next exercise when you are ready. Follow the order presented here. Eventually this will be such a habit that you won’t have to think about it.

The biggest obstacle to doing these is when you run with a group. See if you can lead the rest of the group into doing them together. 

Say goodbye to 2020

Here we are, the last day of a year to forget. This time last year Pattie and I were celebrating the new year just as we have been for nearly forty years, at our friend Dr. Ric Trimillos’s condo in Waikiki watching the fireworks light up the sky. This year we will be doing the exact same thing, except we will be the only guests. The usual crowd will tune in on Zoom. That pretty much defines 2020.

This year began with what felt like an endless decent into chaos. I hope you join me in wanting to make 2021 the climb out of the abyss. Notice I said "to make" and not "will be." We each have a role to play in creating happiness.

I consider myself very fortunate in how little the pandemic has affected me. I’m still alive (yea!). I never got sick. I still have a job, although I sometimes work from home. Many people have not been so fortunate.

There is one thing I miss a lot. Playing in the U.H. Gamelan Ensemble. The music, and the social life. But it will still be there next year, or the one after that, just as if I had spent a couple of years studying abroad.

As for my athletic pursuits, after a precipitous nose dive during winter I managed to pull out and achieve some worthwhile goals. In July I started to participate in Ironman VR races, culminating in completing an Ironman 70.3 in August. I had been training as if I were doing Kona, and was delighted when the Ironman organization decided to honor what is known as Kona week -- the week leading up to the World Championship -- with a full Ironman virtual race. The fact that I did it just goes to show what can happen when we don’t act our age.

While all that was going on I decided to become a coach. I set up my website, I got my state excise tax licence, and I completed USA Triathlon Level 1 certification. I am putting off ordering a custom kit until I have a few paying customers. All in good time.

This was a year to deal with a couple of health issues. I got my heart fixed up so it does not freak out on long runs, and I got special glasses that fixed my double vision problem. My active side is so much happier. If only I could do something about my skin.

So far my 2021 plan looks exactly like how 2020 ended up. Training for Ironman 70.3 Hawaii in June, and Kona in October. I predict both will be virtual, if anything. I keep getting this romantic notion (call it a crazy idea) to reproduce the original Ironman course. (The first three Ironman races were held on Oahu before moving to Hawaii Island.) There are a lot of reasons not to do that, but it is fun not to act our age.

I have been and will continue to use my training as an experiment in how to train as a senior athlete. I rely heavily on the work of Joe Friel, in particular his groundbreaking book Fast After 50, but recently have uncovered a small but energetic women’s movement devoted to the same topic. Dr. Stacy Sims in particular is doing really useful work in this area. The way I look at it, I plan to coach senior men and women, so the more I know about women the better. As Stacy puts it, women are not small men.

What else happened in 2020? Oh yeah, I grew a beard. If we call it a COVID beard I will have to shave it off someday, so let’s just call it what it is, hair that still grows.

2021 - Normal, or Not?

 The winter surge in COVID-19 cases predicted by experts is here. The statistics are mind numbing. On the bright side we have one vaccine shipping and more on the way. But having a vaccine is not the same as ending the pandemic. For things to return to anything approaching normal will require 75-80% of the population to be vaccinated.

What exactly does "population" mean? For most Americans it means the people in their community. The places they visit as they go about their daily routine. If a community reaches 80% immunity the virus has little chance of survival. If, say, a stranger came to town who was infected (apologies to Tolstoy), the odds of coming into contact with someone who was not immune are reasonably low. Sad to say, if that did happen it would be someone who chose not to get the vaccine, and justice will be served, one way or another. The point is, with 80% immunity the infection is unlikely to spread. Compare this to building a fire in a backyard barbecue. Done right, the fire is unlikely to spread. What we have now, as I write this, is an out of control wildfire, and it is going to remain a raging inferno for quite some time.

If having a vaccine makes you optimistic, I have some bad news. Every year thousands of Americans die from the common flu. Most of them could have avoided death by getting a flu shot. Many more would never even get sick. Why does this happen? Because only about 40% of Americans get a flu shot.

When the polio vaccine was created people went all out to get themselves and their children vaccinated. Due to this remarkable effort we have virtually eliminated polio, not just in America but around the world. The same is true of smallpox. 

That's great, but what about measles? We were just at the point where it was gone when some ill-informed people began spreading erroneous information about the side effects of the measles vaccine. Frightened mothers decided not to vaccinate their children, and what happened? The virus took off again. It is still running around.

With COVID we have a new challenge. Politics. Even setting aside the crazy hyperbole surrounding the pandemic and subsequent vaccine -- created by radical left-wing technologists to insert microchips to control the world, etc. -- it is clear that to many people, getting the vaccine conflicts with their conservative position. A Texas doctor interviewed on NPR recently reported doing an informal interview at his hospital and found that only half of the nurses planned on getting vaccinated. 

My point in all this is that I do not anticipate a return to racing in 2021. I see where some IM races have already been held, even as the fall surge was underway. I consider that reckless. Now that the virus is totally out of control I cannot imagine any municipality allowing a race to go on. Maybe, with a lot of luck, things will improve enough by summer to allow groups going out to dinner and family vacations. Even small, local races might -- and I stress might -- go off much like they used to. But a big race, like an Ironman or a major marathon, where thousands of people descend upon a small community. I just do not see how that would be safe.

So where does that leave us? I see two paths. Remain on a marking time routine, or train for races that will not happen. And, for the second option, doing the race yourself. 2020 was the year of virtual racing, and we should expect no less in 2021.

TrainingPeaks has many articles on coping with the pandemic (here is a list). Philip Hatzis and others make the point that this is not the time to train hard, because there is evidence that hard training weakens the immune system and increases the risk of upper respiratory tract infection. Another way of looking at it is to take advantage of the lack of racing to focus more on aerobic threshold development, the long, low intensity stuff.

When I take into account what Joe Friel recommends in Fast After 50 I see good balance between high and low intensity. He argues that masters athletes too often fall into a routine of only doing LSD (Long, Slow, Distance) work, with the result of a steadily declining capacity. Why is that? I cannot repeat everything he writes about here, but to summarize, as we age our hormone levels drop -- testosterone for men and estrogen for women. That leads to a loss of muscle mass and a tendency to convert more of what we eat into fat. The skinny legs fat belly syndrome. Including some high intensity interval work will slow the decline in the efficiency of our energy systems, and lifting weights -- we are talking low rep high load efforts here -- will maintain bone health and trigger hormone production. We may not be able to perform as well as we did when we were twenty, but we do not need to sit and watch the world pass by, either.

To me it sounds like we have two choices. Throttle back and hold in place to protect our immune system, or keep going with a balanced approach to slow the aging process. Being an old guy specializing in coaching old guys and gals, I like the second option.

By the way, if you prefer plan A, hold in place, Joe Friel put out a terrific training plan for just this purpose. Available on TrainingPeaks and very reasonably priced ($10), it is a four week plan designed to be repeated indefinitely. It won't get you to the podium at your next Ironman, but it will keep you going until things return to normal. If you are under 50 (40 for women) I recommend this plan.

Since I am just getting started as a coach I am using this opportunity to hone my training plan writing skills. I mostly have the basics down. What messes me up are the little details. I tend to prescribe too much work and not enough recovery time. 

I have given myself two A race goals, corresponding to Ironman 70.3 Hawaii (Honu), usually held on the first Saturday in June, and Ironman Kona in October. Pretty much the same thing I did last year. We were so shut down last spring that I did not do a Honu race simulation. Later on I started to do some of the Ironman VR series. I did do the full Ironman VR Kona in October, but, as allowed by the rules, I did the events on separate dates with one or two rest days in between. My goal for 2021 is to do both races as single day solo efforts. Let's save the debate on which is harder, all in one day or spread out over multiple days. What I can say for sure is that route planning and support will be a big challenge.

More about that in future posts. My Honu training plan starts in three weeks.

Thoughts on workout goals

 

The COVID-19 pandemic threw a monkey wrench into everyone's plans. A lot of things were simply postponed, including Ironman races around the world. Some were moved on-line. The annual TrainingPeaks Coaching Summit is a good example. In the past it was a week-long live event held in a different location each year. For 2020 it is on-line and free. If you coach long course triathlon, or are self coached, or thinking about it, check it out.

One adaptation that has become increasingly popular are virtual races. When the Ironman VR series was announced I dabbled with it, then decided my training style did not revolve around doing a race every weekend so I gave it up. Next thing I knew, a couple of friends were doing them, and I got hooked on the idea of doing a virtual half Ironman. Along came a hurricane that was supposed to flatten Oahu the weekend of that first HIM, so I had to wait a month. 

Way back before COVID was a thing I decided not to do Honu because of the cost, but I decided to keep following my training plan. Then, as previously noted, I started looking to the vision and heart issues I have been struggling with for years, only to discover that, yes, I had some very real problems, but they are correctable. 

Honu falls in early June. My vision issue had cut severely into my long run progression so I decided to push my target race further to the right. I decided to train as if I were doing Ironman Kona. Why not? Everything was upside down. I needed a goal, and this was crazy enough to hold my interest. I have had a blast doing this, and have learned a lot along the way.

Somewhere along there I decided to become a coach. There was a lot to do. Website, social media, certification. On that last item and speaking of moving on-line, USA Triathlon used to require a live week-long training course and regardless of where they held it the transportation cost to me made it impossible. Due to the pandemic they have moved everything on-line, and have done a remarkable job given how fast they had to get it done. I just finished the on-line course yesterday. All that is left are a few formalities and I will have my certification. 

Having decided I wanted to be a coach I realized it was time to get my act together regarding what I would do as a coach. I see myself working with senior athletes who need a little help translating all the wild and crazy stuff they are bombarded with on-line into actionable plans that take into account the special needs of the senior athlete. 

Remember that Ironman VR series? I was still high-fiving myself for having finished the half Ironman when they announced -- out of the clear blue -- that they will host a full virtual Kona race. Like all of their previous races the event is spread over multiple days, except instead of three days we get an entire week, the same dates as the week leading up to the original Kona race in October. At first this sounds a lot easier, but let me tell you from experience that doing your own private race on open roads without support is tough. No police directing traffic, no aid stations, no cones, no signs, no cheering fans, no medical tent. Maybe it is not as tough as a one day race, but believe me, it is no picnic.

I plan on going into more detail about that race in a later post. For now I want to fall back to the underlying philosophy that guides my planning. Most of it is culled from Joe Friel's fantastic book, Fast After 50, which I have mentioned many times in this blog. Friel does a wonderful job making a case for why we need to do these things, along with commentary from other experts. I am going to leave that with him. Please, if you have any interest in that, buy his book. It is priceless.

Friel makes a good case that as we age we gravitate towards long duration, low intensity training. It feels good, and it is a better fit with social activity. While this is happening the aging process slowly erodes our ability to perform. There are aspects of aging that are visible: the loss of muscle mass in our arms and legs, an increase in belly fat, dry, wrinkled skin, graying or loss of hair, just to name a few. But there are changes to our metabolic systems that are more insidious in that we do not see them happening until we try to run a local 10K and wonder when we lost our ability to run.

Friel goes on to lay out in clear, easy to understand terms the generic building blocks from which a training plan can be constructed. It's like a box of Lego -- all the pieces are there, what is absent is a finished design. Follow his instructions and you will end up with your very own training plan. Well, it helps to know something about how athletes in any given sport train, and about periodization.

Here are the essential activities.

Aerobic Capacity

Best done as short intervals at or near maximum effort, separated by recoveries of equally short duration. These target the cardio vascular system, especially its ability to process oxygen. The benefits from work done on the bike carry over for the run, as since doing such high intensity efforts is much safer on the bike on a turbo trainer, that is how these should be done. Apparently this overlap does not work for swimming, but in my experience only the very best age group triathletes are limited by aerobic capacity.

Lactate Threshold

These workouts improve the body's ability to process fuel efficiently, using work intervals of moderate length separated by recoveries that are much shorter than the work interval. The benefits are specific to the activity, so these should be done on the bike and the run, and in the water for advanced swimmers.

Aerobic Threshold

These are similar to the workouts a typical senior athlete gravitates to, with one important difference. Most athletes do these too hard. This is especially true of group runs and rides. Unlike the high intensity stuff, these are not done as intervals; simple, long and slow is what is needed.

Strength Training

Recall what I said about aging and muscle mass? The best defense to loss of muscle is strength training. Moving heavy weights. The be useful this must be done with case. Too little and the desired response will not happen. Too much and an over-use injury will set back your progress. The goal is not body building in the traditional sense. The goal, rather, is to be lean and strong, with enhanced range of motion.

These activities are more or less relevant at various times over the course of a complete training program. The help with that Friel uses a concept of dose. For example, early in a training plan we may want to emphasize aerobic capacity development, so we assign those workouts at a high dose. To compensate we might assign aerobic threshold workouts at low dose.

Another critical component to manage is recovery. This will always be true regardless of the athlete's age, but as we run past fifty we find it takes longer to recover. To be clear, we can do the work. We just need a little more time before we can do it again.

This is where training plan design gets interesting. The goal should be to identify and focus on the athlete's weaknesses -- Friel calls them limiters -- early in the season, then gradually move into a workout balance that best supports the target A race, all the while managing training stress much more tightly than for younger athletes.

So, what do we do when there is no A race? That is the question that has plagued many of my fellow athletes.

One solution is to go into a sustaining mode. Several coaches have training plans designed with that in mind. Even Friel did one specifically for athletes under pandemic restrictions, and it only costs $10.00. That's a great deal. I chose instead to train as though I had an Ironman race. The pools were closed, but for most of this spring and summer the oceans were open, so I moved all my swim workouts to open water. The point here is, I never dreamed I would actually do an Ironman this year, but I trained for it anyway and had a great time.

When I began this project I was not thinking about becoming a coach. I would say that it was going though the process of developing my own training plan that allowed me to see what was possible. 

Perhaps there is something that you have always been interested in. Jump in, explore, learn all that you can. You too may find a new calling. At the very least, have fun.

What exactly does "relaxed" mean?

A few weeks ago I posted this question in a Facebook group devoted to triathlon coaching:

I was on my TT bike doing a turbo session and found myself studying what muscles I was using to hold aero position. Hold with the back? Hold with the chest? Relax as much as possible? Stay stiff like in plank position? Then I realized I have never seen any discussion about this, just get out and ride. That and get a bike fit. Is there a "Everything you wanted to know about riding aero but were afraid to ask?" I cannot say it comes naturally.

My post generated some interest, but little advice. Someone said to not use back muscles, rather use core. I find "core" to mean different things to different people. To many it means the abdominal muscles, i.e., the belly. 

The group was started by someone I think of as a good friend even though we have never met -- Suzanne Atkinson. She replied, "The posterior muscle group is just as important as the other muscle groups in all things tri including aero position. So the back is important, as is the core."

(Posterior means towards the back. In this case, the muscles on the backside of the body. In particular the calves, hamstrings, gluteus maximi, latissimus dorsi and the erector spinae.)

Having nothing better to do I happened to be looking back through Going Long, by Joe Friel and Gordon Byrn, and came across some relevant material in the chapter called Training for the Bike. The first passage is from the section on developing pedaling economy: 

There are two keys to improved economy. One is to refine the movements that take place at the top and bottom of the stroke, when the leg must shift from "up and back" to "forward and down," with the reverse situation at the bottom of the stroke. At the top of the stroke, the foot should feel as if it is pushing forward in the shoe. At the bottom, you should get the sense that mud is being scraped from the show.

The other key is to focus on the relaxation part of the pedal stroke. Tensing more muscles than are needed to apply force to the pedals is wasteful and uneconomical. Start with the muscles you have the most control over -- the face and fingers. Once you can relax them, try relaxing your calves and toes while spinning. The idea is to activate only the muscles needed when they're needed. No more, no less.

The next is from the section on developing cycling skills, specifically a fast cadence spin-up drill.

The key to this drill is relaxation. Relax your toes, your grip on the bars, and your face. Make it seem almost effortless.

These are just a few of the many times I have seen relaxation described as essential to success, nowhere more than swimming. I chose these passages because they relate specifically to my question about cycling.

Not long ago I purchased a book on triathlon (TT) bike fitting by a regular in another forum. In fact, I believe he created it. The Misfits Guide to Basement Bike Fitting, by David Luscan. A major theme of the book is that our body is capable of working efficiently all by itself. The key is to get our over-active mind out of the way. 

Here is something Dave wrote about posture, specifically when settling into the aero position:

[The rotation of our body] is centered around the hips, and the technical term is anterior pelvic rotation ... We don't slide to move forward, we roll. Then we relax. Like a drunk slumped over a bar, we want to forget everything we think we know about proper posture, and literally slouch down into the bars.

Colorful, and evocative. Later on in a section on the cockpit he writes:

This fundamental fit coordinate is the straight line distance from the tip of the saddle to the middle of the back of the elbow pads, and it is the primary driver of comfort on the bike. Too long or too short and we end up using too much muscle for support. Just right and we can execute postural directive #2 -- Relax.

I never did find any more postural directives from Dave, but that's OK. The key here is how these two passages connect through relaxation.

A yoga instructor once said that I could go further into a stretch only my muscles don't allow it. That if I were unconscious I could, for example, touch my toes. That image and the drunk slumped over the bar called up the movie Weekend at Bernie's. I am quite certain that if we put Bernie on a TT bike in aero position he would fall off. Even if we tied his wrists to the aero bars and his feet to the pedals.

Yesterday I rode the bike portion of an Ironman VR 70.3. By far the longest I have ridden this season, especially without a cafe stop along the way. I have made many improvements. I can see. A new and better saddle. Raised and shortened aero bar position. I would not go so far as to say I was comfy out there, but it was my best ride in a long time. 

As the hours ticked slowly by I found my thoughts returning to this question, again and again. Relax, but not so much I lose control of the bike. Where I ended up is best described by Friel, "The idea is to activate only the muscles needed when they're needed. No more, no less." He was writing about pedaling, but his words apply to, well, everything. 

That is what I call relaxed. Yes, we do use muscles to hold our position. A great many. But the key is to use the least amount possible, to feel as if you are not using any.