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Friday Confessional – New Speedfil

Friday, August 27th, 2010

My friend and upstairs neighbor was hanging out in my living room yesterday and I yelled out “Hey, want to check out my sweet new water bottle!”

Yeah. I’m a huge nerd.

Who the heck gets geeked out about a new hydration system?! I’ll tell you who.

The same guy who is sitting at work dreaming about how aero it looks, fitting neatly against the down tube and seat tube and how he can’t wait to drink out of it on my ride tomorrow.

A big freaking triathlon nerd.

Enter the Speedfil. 42 oz of hydration goodness straight into my face without leaving the aero position. I’ve seen a ton of people battle with aero bar-mounted bottles and was really hesitant to go that route. The Speedfil seemed like a perfect solution, especially after I did the math and realized that with my nutrition plan, 3 standard bottles just wasn’t going to cut it. ESPECIALLY if it is hot on the day of Rev3 Cedar Point. I got the new hook up from All3Sports.com and some new hydration goodness showed up at my door a few days later.

My stomach is going to be nice and happy all the way into T2.

Tags: hydration system, ironman nutrition plan, Triathlon, water bottle | Posted in Cycling, Ironman, Nutrition, Triathlon | 2 Comments »

Your Body: A Product Of Its Environment

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Just as much as the saying “you are what you eat” is true, so it “you are what you do.”

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think that people examine their entire environment deeply enough when trying to change their body to loose weight or gain fitness. Ultimately, your body is the way that it is at this moment because of the decisions that you make on a daily basis.

You are fit because you have made frequent choices to stay physically active.

-or-

You are soft around the middle because you have made frequent choices to eat unhealthy food.

Over my adult life, I’ve had distinct different body types that directly correlated to the choices that I made every day and the environment that I created for my body. This ‘ol bag of bones has shown a crazy ability to adapt to whatever it is that I throw at it. I’m constantly amazed and I love seeing how my body reacts to new stimuli on a daily basis. My body is like my own science experiment that I carry around with me every day.

High School: By the end if HS I was about 130 pounds, running 6-7 days per week and was as fit as f*ck. Sure, I wasn’t the first person you’d call if you needed some help moving some furniture, but I was lean and fast. I ate like crap, but I exercised often enough and hard enough to more than burn it all off.

You could count all of my ribs. On my back.

College: I rocketed to 195 pounds and drank Keystone Light and ate pizza at 2am like it was going out of style. And my body looked like it. I spent zero time running and any athletic activity was spent in the gym pushing weights back and forth. It was the first time in my life where I actually had distinguishable pectoral muscles instead of just the etheopian-like skeleton look I was rocking in high school.

Post-College: I got hooked on triathlon, which led ultimately to where I am today. I am a soon-to-be iron distance triathlete. I’m not all that fast, but won’t bat an eye at a 7 or 8 hour training session any day. I’ve plateaued at 165 pounds, look at food more as fuel and nutrition than I do a solution to my hunger and I’m probably just as lean as I was in HS with the muscle to avoid looking like some sad cancer patient when I get out of the shower.

What I’m really getting at here is that I don’t think people think holistically about the type of environment that they create for their own bodies when setting up their fitness and weight loss goals. My body adapted to three completely different lives over the past 10 years as a direct result of the physical and nutritional environment that I created for myself. But it isn’t just what I eat and how often I excersize. It is how often I’m sitting in front of this computer every day, walking around outside, riding my bike to the grocery store and cooking my own meals vs. eating out. Whatever it was, my body adapted to it.

I ran as fast as I could and tried to carry as little weight as I could along the way for 3.1 miles. My body adapted.

I abused my body with booze and cheese. My body adapted.

I abused my new weapon – ironman training. My body adapted.

While mental focus and dedication is a huge part of overall wellbeing, you can’t simply wish yourself into the body that you want. Create an environment where no other version of your body can survive except for the one that you want and you’ll find your body adapting closer and closer to your ultimate fitness goal.

Tags: adaptation, body type, fitness | Posted in Ironman, Life, Nutrition, Running, Triathlon | 4 Comments »

Countdown to FullRev

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

I just crossed off the last workout of the last training block of the last peak phase before the FullRev at Cedar Point.

This weekend was another long lonely set or workouts. Saturday was a solid 110 mile bike and 2 mile BRick run. Today was a hilly 4.5 hour hilly hike.

I’m feeling strong and ready for race day. Actually, I’m feeling sorta invincible. It has become a common occurance for me to come home from a workout and start flexing and grunting for Sam in the middle of the living room. She just rolls her eyes, but I think it is hilarious. I think I’m looking all fit and glistening in sweat, but in reality I’m just stinking up the whole living room.

But now all the major workouts are in the books. There is nothing left to do but slowly taper for race day. No cramming, just slowly dialing back the length and bumping up the intensity of my workouts, but keeping the frequency. I even got some sweet new race day kicks from Saucony. Check ‘em out. Super comfortable and they are going to keep my feet nice and comfortable to rock the marathon.

Here are the 5 things that I’m going to focus on over the next month:

Sleep – I’ve been doing a lot of early morning workouts so that I can actually see Sam between when work gets out and when I go to sleep. I can’t remember the last time that I didn’t have the alarm set to 5:xx am.
Eat Right – I’ve been pretty good about keeping my diet in check, but that is going to be extra important over the next month. I’ve gotten pretty lean over the last month or two. I’m hoping to keep that going so that I don’t have any muffin top peeking out under my tri shorts in my race pictures.
Race Visualization – This will be a biggie. I have to hone my top secret attack plan for race day and go over it until I can recite it forwards and backwards at 145 bpm.
Get my man cave in order – I’m the most organized when all my gear is in order. Plus, it will help me make sure everything is right where it needs to be come race day. Not to mention that the downtube on my bike apparently has dried worms or some crap stuck to it. That needs to get taken care of ASAP. Plus, a good chain degresing and lubing wouldn’t hurt either.
Stretch, Yoga and Massage – I’ve beaten up my body lately, especially over the last three weeks. With that comes a lot of knots, kinks and tweaks. Especially in my left hamstring, so you better believe that sucker is going to get some extra TLC. My new favorite massage therapist, Sam Peck, should be expecting a call. Any Boston friends in need of some poking and prodding, definitely hit up www.soarbody.com, but not until I make my appointment!

Anything I’m missing here?

Tags: ironman taper, rev3 cedar point | Posted in Cycling, Ironman, Nutrition, Running, Training Log, Triathlon | 2 Comments »

Charging The Canadian Border

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Let’s just start off this post by saying that Lake Champlain is a bad-ass place to visit. Awesome lake flanked by the Green Mountains on one side and the Adirondacks on the other. I’m in love.

The biking routes are pretty sweet too. Just about all the country roads are framed with TONS of these blue and yellow wildflowers. I’ve gotta snap some good pics of some of the wildflower fields up here later this week to post here. I’ve been having too much fun riding to stop and take too many pictures, but there will be plenty of time for lollygagging later on.

See those mountains WAAAAAAAY off in the distance there? They are calling my name. I want to go ride over there later this week and conquer a few.

But enough rambling, lets get to the story behind the title to this blog post.

Yesterday a bunch of my friends I’m vacationing with went off to play 18 holes of golf, so I figured it was a perfect time to knock off one of my epic adventures for the week: head North to the Canadian border. I didn’t have my passport so I couldn’t go too far into Canada, but even if I could just roll across the border and turn around to head back home, I’d be a happy camper.

I loaded up my water bottles, pointed North and started pedaling. It was hot, but most of the route followed the lake shore so the breeze coming off the water was a huge gift.

Half way to the border. Stopped for 2L of water and inhaled a chocolate chip muffin at the Hero, VT general store.

As I started to get closer to the border, my phone started buzzing. I got a message from AT&T warning me about extra charges for international data rates, I knew I was close! I rolled past the “Vermont Welcome Center” building and there she was, the ultimate destination of the ride. Welcome to Canada: the land of maple syrup, hockey, God knows whatever else those crazy Canucks do up there.

The border patrol was about a quarter mile past the border sign. I didn’t bother trying to go through since I didn’t have my passport and the map didn’t seem to show anything worthwhile across the border for at least another 10 or 15 miles. Not wanting to deal with over zealous border patrol or adding another 20-30 miles to an already 80- or 90 mile ride, I did an about face and headed home.

On my way back, I was riding along and kept hearing this crow squacking right over my head. I didn’t think anything of it until I realized he was following me. Actually, it was more like he was chasing after me and dive bombing me, as if he was trying to shoo me out of his territory. This went on for a solid mile or two, no joke. Once I realized that he wasn’t going to stop, I just yelled “SHUT UP BIRD!” and he disappeared off into the distance. Pretty bizarre. Has anyone else ever had this happen to them?

And did I mention that it was hella hot?! This thermometer was in the SHADE at the VT welcome center. 90 degrees and barely any shade for the entire 88 miles. It was a really good test of my Rev3 Cedar Point hydration plan though. Nutritionally, everything went really well. I couldn’t have been happier.

Next up: exploring Burlington, running and whatever other adventures I can manage to think up while floating out in the lake and staring at the clouds…

Tags: burlington vermont, canada, Cycling, lake champlain | Posted in Cycling, Ironman, Nutrition, Training Log, Triathlon, Videos | 5 Comments »