Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A Bit Off Topic

In light of my recent goal, and my general belief that people should treat each other with respect, I was rather embarrassed if not terribly surprised in the alleged actions of our recently elected Mayor, Rob Ford. For those not in the know he's the guy who seems to despise anything that actually helps people, believes our City is a business to be run for profit and for the benefit of the already affluent few, and couldn't really care less about what anyone else thinks.

I like living in Toronto. I think it's a terrific City, one of the best in the World. But if this guy has his way it's bound to fall down the list. I know this is a running blog, so to tie things together I hope Rob Ford does not RUN for re-election. Its' still more than three years down the road so at least, should he choose to do so, he has a lot of time to implement a good TRAINING PLAN. Goodness knows, to this observer it would seem that he could use one. Especially in the manners department.

(Photo: TANNIS TOOHEY/TORONTO STAR)

I don't think I'd be too pleased if I saw this guy flipping me off after I called him out for talking on his cell while driving, which is illegal in Ontario.

Well done, Mr. Ford. Well done.

(A quote from Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack popped into my head when I first saw the above photo: "Whoa, look at that one. Last time I saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it.")

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Monday, July 25, 2011

I'm Surprised

As I started out on my self-imposed plan of dietary restrictions (ie. no crap) I didn't know what to expect as fat as my body fat percentage was concerned. On top of that I haven't been able to run and, therefore, have likely been burning a lot less calories than I would had my injuries not happened. Although my workouts at the gym have been good and my indoor rowing has been aerobic for sure they only amount to about 3.5hrs of training per week. Pathetic, I know.

However, that being said I've been rather pleasantly surprised by the results after just one week of avoiding white bread, pasta, white rice, and crap in all of its processed forms. I didn't even have that treat on Sunday that I worked so hard to "earn" because I really didn't want it. I did have a whiskey sour while barbecuing on the back deck, so maybe that counts.

Anyway, last Sunday I started off weighing 191.7lbs, of which 19.5lbs were made of fat, accounting for 10.2% of my total weight.

This Sunday I weighed 188.8lbs, of which 17.6lbs were fat, accounting for 9.4%.

That's a huge difference in just seven days! I'm a bit concerned about losing nearly 3lbs overall, but almost 2lbs of that was fat so that's not too bad. I'd like to stay close to this body weight and the challenge will be adding muscle to replace the fat that I'm seemingly losing.

And in more updated news, when I stepped on the scale this morning the results were even better: 188.5lbs, 17.4lbs of which were fat, which makes my body fat percentage 9.3%. I've also started to track my hydration level since this will make the results from my voodoo scale more precise. I don't know if my body fat percentage readings are accurate, but I figure all things being equal the scale will at least be relative to itself.

The other thing I should mention is that I feel good too. I'm lifting well at the gym and I think if I was losing weight too rapidly I would notice it when trying to lift the same weight in my exercises. Instead, I'm actually getting stronger.

So, in summary, eating crap keeps fat on your body. Avoiding crap forces your body to burn said fat.

Oh yeah, the running is still on hiatus. I had thoughts of going out for a jog this past weekend, but I am not completely pain free. I'm not even close actually, so it may be a while yet...

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Thursday, July 21, 2011

Heart Rates and Body Fats

As per my last post, I have started keeping a keener eye on my diet in an effort to see what will happen to my body fat percentage and general exerciseiness. We have one of those fancy scales that, upon entering some information as to your level of activity, height, and the like, the machine sends electrical signals up into your body through the feet and in some magical ceremony spits out your stats, including things like how much of your weight is in fat form, you body fat percentage, and your BMI.

I take all of this with a grain of salt (you know, so that I can be more conductive and such), but at least if the scale stays relatively consistent I'll be able to tell if my body fat percentage is moving up, down, or not at all. When I first stood upon the glass and metal contraption the reading said 10.2% body fat. In the past couple of days I have checked back in with my electronic fitness conscience and now stand at 9.8% body fat. I think this might be good?

The other thing I've been really gearing up for is training according to heart rate. In reading about the Lydiard method of training I realize that what I did throughout 2010, when my injury incidents were almost non-existent, was exactly what Lydiard preached. I ran according to my fitness level and abilities. I was successful in the "train don't strain" mantra that Lydiard espouses.

This year things went off the rails and the results speak for themselves. I did a lot more straining than training and now am paying the price with time off due to bad behaviour. My injuries are not yet fixed so I must placate myself with other activities.

To that end, I've upped the anty in my weight training sessions. No, I didn't suddenly increase the weight on all of my exercises, but I have been spending what would normally be rest time doing crunches. In this way I have been able to keep my heart rate up in the aerobic zone. My workouts have been great.

Also, I have been wearing my Garmin to keep an eye on my heart rate while on the rowing machine and have been successful in maintaining a good aerobic level (almost always between 140bpm and 145bpm) during my 45 minute Tuesday and Thursday sessions.

Lastly, I've started checking my resting heart rate in the mornings. I've been surprised to learn that my results are a bit higher than they used to be. I am now registering 46bpm instead of the 42bpm that I seem to remember. Perhaps the heat of the Summer, and it's been very hot here with today carrying with it the possibility of being the hottest day on record for Toronto. The one positive since I've been forced to stop running is that I've been sleeping through the night on a consistent basis. I guess that was yet another one of those signals that I conveniently chose to ignore back when I was straining and not training.

It's time to break out of the typical No Pain No Gain mentality.

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Monday, July 18, 2011

An Interim Goal While I Wait

I'm still hurting from the Achilles, the groin, the lower abs, and the heel. Things are not good in running land and you can guess that I'm not the happiest camper right now when it comes to exercise. This weekend was the first full one since November 2009 that I did absolutely nothing fitness related (and I don't count going to the driving range with the kids as "fitness", but it was fun). A very sad state indeed...

Anyway, as I wait for my body south of the equator to get better I have been doing decent workouts for the north side at the gym. I've also started in on indoor rowing in an effort to keep some aerobic activity in my regiment, but I would really prefer to be running. As such, I need a new thing to focus on while I can't run.

It doesn't even have to be a sane goal apparently as I am now focused on lowering my body fat percentage for some reason. In the past couple of weeks I've made a conscious effort to pay better attention to my diet and have had some success and some spectacular failures. The temptations in the Summer abound and with two young boys it's nearly impossible to insulate yourself from exposure to sugary treats.

With that in mind I stepped on the fancy scale we bought a couple of years ago and checked in on my metrics. Body fat percentage currently sits at 10.2% (and I do recognize these scales are not exactly accurate, but I think that's a fair estimate anyway). My goal is to get down to 8%.

How will I achieve this? Especially while I can't run? And I can't really get back to working out my legs with weights while I'm still hurting so this will be extra tough.

The answer: by following a better diet with no processed sugary foods all week. Whole grains are the carb of choice from now on. No more pie (shudder!). No more white bread (shudder!). If I achieve this I will allow myself one treat on Sundays. If not, Sunday will be yet another dreary healthy mealtime day.

Cool?

It'd better be cause that's what the plan is. Just hope it sticks...

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Friday, July 15, 2011

My Ass Is SORE!

My self-imposed (ha!) running hiatus is a real pain in the ass. I just didn't realize that this would be a literal pain in the ass until I started in on this thing in an effort to stay in some sort of "shape":


Although I have been having great upper body workouts recently in the weight room I really needed to do something to work out the old heart muscle as well. Biking to and from work every day just doesn't cut it, and now that my Achilles is hurt I can't really push that very much anyway. This means the indoor bike is also ruled out. Elliptical? Tried that a long time ago and my feet went numb. Pool running? Tried that too, and it was good, but right now there's an access to a pool issue.

So, rowing machine it was. I had no idea what to expect as far and "getting a workout" goes, but at least I figured I could use this thing and not stress the Achilles injury very much (not to mention the lower abs and right groin thing that continues to linger like an uninvited mooch at a community BBQ). I realize you have to push with the legs and I knew it would likely be an adjustment as long as I didn't do too much from the toes. Rather, I went into it trying to push more from the heels.

Anyway, Tuesday was my first attempt at this torture contraption and it was tough! Immediately upon starting in on this thing I noticed that there are a lot of metrics on the display for the stats-obsessed. The main one in rowing seems to be pace per 500m. Low and behold as I started rowing I was pretty damned close to 2:00/500m pace! A nice round number for which to aim. You can guess what happened next...

My goal was to row for the 45 minutes I usually spend at the gym and get a decent aerobic workout, but nothing too stressful. It was also to test what this type of exercise would do to my heart rate. For this I wore my Garmin and checked on it now and again. As I plowed on keeping my pace under 2:00/500m I was pleasantly surprised to see that my heart rate was in the right aerobic zone (140bpm, give or take a few). However, as I tried to maintain this pace two things happened:

1. My heart rate slowly crept up into the 150s, then even into the 160s at the end!
2. My ass got really sore!!! (This point CANNOT be understated.)

After 30 minutes I had to stop partly to get my heart rate down, but mostly to stand up and give my butt some much needed relief. I then got back on and finished with 15 minutes of easier rowing, although towards the end of this section I was back down in the 2:00/500m pace range. My average heart rate for the entire workout was 142bpm, which is great and proves that one can definitely get an aerobic workout on a rowing machine. The first 30 minutes the average heart rate was 143bpm with a max of 161bpm and I managed 1:59.0/500m pace (total distance was 7600m). The last 15 minutes my average heart rate was 140bpm with a max of 142bpm and I managed 2:08/500m pace (3500m total distance).

Yesterday I went back to the rowing machine despite what my ass was saying, which was, "Don't you dare sit me down on that demented sliding piece of concrete again!" I got an extra towel to placate the glutes and went to work.

This time things went better. I did start to feel the pain in the butt towards the end, but the towel definitely helped and I will use this cushioning again. I rowed for the whole 45 minutes non-stop and tried to shake things up a bit with this routine:

  • 10 minutes warm up (maintained a bit under 2:10/500m pace, heart rate snuck up into the low 130s)
  • 30 minutes alternating 1 min under 2:00/500m, 1 minute under 2:10/500m (heart rate got into the 150s during the hard portions, back into the 140s during the easier portions)
  • 5 minutes cool down (just easy where I managed 2:15/500m and got the heart rate down to 140bpm)
So, the average pace for the entire 45 minutes ended up being 2:04.3/500m, average heart rate was 137bpm, and the total distance was 10875m. Good times!

The other metric that one can keep their eye on while rowing is strokes/minute. Mine seem to hover between 29s/m and 30s/m.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, with all of this I feel like Jerry Seinfeld when he was training his rooster "Little Jerry" for a cock fight and told a disinterested George how, "Little Jerry just ran to the end of the hallway and back in under 30 seconds!!!" To this George asked the obvious question, "Is that good?" and Jerry, with a perplexed look on his face, responded, "I don't know."

Well, about all of the rowing stats above you could ask me, "Is that good?" My only answer would have to be, "I don't know."

But my ass sure is sore!

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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Tough Decision

As I wrote in my blurb over on the right there when it comes to running "each step holds the potential for complete disaster". I'm not sure that I need to quote myself, and I'm not absolutely certain that this counts as "complete disaster", but the truth of this statement has hit me squarely between the eyes.

More to the point, my wonky right ankle is forcing me to make a difficult decision that may impact my marathon race in October to the point that I may even have to DNS. It's quite distressing, but as I ran that pathetic 7km on Sunday I kept asking myself with every step the all important question, "Why the hell am I doing this in the first place?" Each step hurt, I was not having fun, and I was not getting a workout. The pain I can deal with if it is both fun and gives me a good workout (we all know that as "good pain"). What I was experiencing was the less desirable version (we all know that as "bad pain"). My body has, once more, betrayed me.

I am now facing the prospect of taking at least the rest of July completely off from running. Right in the frickin' middle of marathon training!!! Not having missed a week of running since November 2009!!!

But I suppose the writing was all over the proverbial wall. I was just too blind to see it. After running smartly based on effort with heart rate being the main metric all of 2010, thereby missing only three runs due to aches and pains. This year I've missed too many to count, both due to aches and pain as well as illness. In retrospect I was too bullheaded about my training, allowing the statistics to dictate my training more than how my body was responding. I've paid a price for being stubborn and the cost may be running my second marathon in the Fall.

Getting back to the question of why the hell I'm running in the first place I'm not certain there is a single and clear answer. But I can honestly say it is NOT to be injured. In fact, it may very well be the exact opposite. I started and continue to run because I was told I couldn't, because it is challenging and because I wanted to be "in shape". It's just that I've never adequately defined what "in shape" means for me and, therefore, continue to chase that seemingly unattainable goal no matter the level of fitness I achieve. Why can't I just be happy with where I'm at?

Because it's not in me to settle I suppose. But this comes at the risk of missing time due to injury. And that's the biggest pain of all...

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Sunday, July 10, 2011

A Trial Run

It certainly wasn't pretty. And I think it leaves more questions unanswered, but at least I did finally manage to get out for a run.

After suffering for the past week through not running, placating myself all the while with good upper body weight training sessions, I still decided to skip Saturday and take the entire day off. It was worth it as we spent the whole day in Prince Edward County, first checking out some cottages for potential purchase (yeah right!) and then the afternoon at the beach. It was a great day! We got home quite late with both boys passed out in the back of the car.

This morning it was a slow process getting up and moving. I wasn't out the door and running until nearly 10am and it was quite hot and humid out. I strapped on the heart rate monitor and went out with a "let's see what happens" attitude.

The first half of the run went fairly smoothly, all things considered, but I am not very happy with how my body in general feels from the lower abs down. I can't quite tell exactly what the source of the problem is, but things are tight and hurt and don't really loosen up ever.

The way home was going well until the last kilometre where my right Achilles started acting up a little bit. I slowed down even more and finished the pathetic 7km total and managed to keep my heart rate mostly in check despite the hot conditions. The average ended up being 142bpm and my pace (for what it's worth) was 5:40/km. Gone, it would seem, are the days were I could glide around at 5:00/km pace without a care in the World.

Very sad...

But, hey! Things can only get better from here, right?

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Thursday, July 7, 2011

Holding Patterning

Well, it's two more runs that have fallen by the wayside since I last posted on Tuesday. Indeed, as suspected, my right Achilles tendon is the culprit behind all of this missingness. Yes, it's not a word and I know that, but it should be because that's exactly what I'm experiencing. Although I'm still hitting the gym every day, and things are actually going well there, I'm frustrated to no end that I can't run. My consternation is doubled by the fact that this injury has fallen right in the middle of what was supposed to be a terrific marathon training cycle!

Anyway, I have made a pact that I will not run again until my Achilles is 100%. This is not an area of the body to be messed with when attempting to run any significant distance and despite all of this ultramarathoning that's been going around I still believe the marathon ranks squarely in the "significant distance" category. Perhaps more to the point, the training required to get to the marathon attempt in the first place is "significant". As I'm sure you know the training will undoubtedly bring any aches and pains, weaknesses, imbalances, etc. to the forefront and this is what's happened to me.

So, with all of that new found wisdom I've been doing more reading. (What else can you expect from a frustrated runner with a Masters in Library and Information Science?!)

I took out this book from my local Library and have been perusing it in what for me counts as as thorough fashion. In short, I jump around like a boxer with a skipping rope on a sugar high and graze like an Impala after monsoon season, provided neither is not hobbled by an Achilles tendon injury. What I'm getting from it is this:

1. I've been running at too high an intensity too often
2. I've been running with too much pain (see point 1) and not enough fun
3. I've been ignoring my heart rate like I ignore the lint building up in my clothes dryer

Whenever it is that I can get back to running I must, therefore, start training smarter with my personal limits in mind and get back on the heart rate monitor band wagon since that approach is what allowed me to run all of last year with minimal time missed due to aches and pains.The ego says GO GO GO. The brain now must put the ego into some sort of stranglehold and shut it the hell up.

Training by PACE (for yours truly) can only lead to missing the race.

Training by HEART RATE (for yours truly) will undoubtedly lead to a race that's great.

There you go. A new motto is born...

Coming up, I have to rework the training plan. Exactly 100 days to go until the marathon. Yikes!

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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

I HATE Being Right Sometimes

My last post about marathon training being a struggle and how that will be my fate, blah blah blah? Yeah, I kind of hoped that it was just me being all sour grapes and that my body would (miraculously) prove me wrong and recover overnight or something like that.

Well, perhaps I should go into the fortune teller business because I am hurting people! The ole brain's been churning trying to figure out how to approach the next 15 weeks leading up to the Waterfront Marathon and I thought I'd just go slow and aerobic while staying true to the mileage requirements of Mr. Pfitzinger's plan.

This morning I did the required 13km General Aerobic run WITHOUT the 10X100m Strides. It was going well until my right Achilles started to act up something fierce with about 4km left to go. I tried my best to maintain whatever "form" I've been running with given all the wonkiness, but throughout the day the thing just kept getting worse. I hobbled to the gym for a nice upper body workout, which thankfully does not use the Achilles, and hobbled back to work. Biking hurts it as well.

Tomorrow morning my 8km recovery run is most definitely in jeopardy. In this state there would be nothing "recovery" about any distance.

Still hoping for that miraculous turnaround.

Stocking up on Ibuprofen.

Shit!!!

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Saturday, July 2, 2011

Always Bound to be a Struggle

Well, I suppose training for a marathon SHOULD be a struggle and that's exactly what this is becoming as I navigate the third week of the 18-week plan with what looks very much like a groin and abdominal strain.

I finished off June with a whimper and managed 226.2km when the goal was 261km, but that's the least of my worries.

July is off to a roaring start. We're up in Ottawa for the Canada Day weekend and I went out yesterday morning and jogged with Monica for 4km before finishing off another 5km by myself for a total of 9km. My groin and stomach definitely felt tight, but it was better than I anticipated it would be.

Today I set off alone for what ended up being a rather horrible 12km. I maintained pretty even pace throughout, right in the 'recovery' zone at 5:36/km, but everything just didn't feel right. Now, hours after my run, I am a bit depressed given that things feel like they did when I first started running and my legs, tendons, and ligaments were this sore after any run of 10km or more. In short, this is crappy.

It sure looks like July will be a month of struggle as I try and work through my aches and pains.

Not. Fun.

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