Operation Jack

I just came across a web page and blog from someone I went to high school with - Sam Felsenfeld. His middle child, Jack, was diagnosed with severe autism, and in an effort to raise money for Train 4 Autism (a Team in Training-esque organization to raise awareness and money for Autism research and treatment) he launched Operation Jack.

Operation Jack is Sam's effort to run 61 marathons in 2010 to bring awareness to the Train 4 Autism mission and to help his son. Marathon number 61 is the Operation Jack marathon in Los Angeles, California on December 26th, and if I was going to be in town I might just sign up and at least walk the thing. Please check out his page, his story, and if you can help, contribute to his cause.

When I am feeling unmotivated, I'm going to read his blog, or his webpage, and get my butt back outside for a workout to support the cause I am racing (albeit much more slowly than Sam!) for. What an inspiration.

My Nemesis...

...the treadmill.

It's raining today, but in honor of my resumed workout schedule, I figured I'd better do something, so the treadmill it was. Plus my running is really quite awful, so most of my time needs to be spent building that back up. I put a movie on in the garage and cleared the junk of the thing, and away we went. The movie was "Frozen," a cheesy and somewhat predictable suspense flick about three college kids who get stuck on a ski lift for days - pretty cheesy but entertaining (there are gruesome broken limbs and wolves, and of course the chair starts to spontaneously come apart), but it got my mind of the horror of the treadmill. I was going to stay on there for 45 minutes, but I got so engrossed in the movie I ended up spending about an hour on there. It was mostly walking, but fast walking, with a little jogging every now and then.

Today I am throwing away the leftover Halloween candy. My workout clothes are awfully tight...

Day One: It Begins

This morning was the first official workout for the winter Lavaman season with Team in Training. Each participant is assigned to a mentor, who helps you throughout the season with issues and questions, and then there are captains, who are sort of above the mentors, and then there are the coaches. We have an amazing group of coaches this year, many of the captains are mentors from last year, and almost all of the mentors were participants last year. I am assigned to Erin, a Lavaman participant from last year that I didn't get to know that well but am excited to be spending more time with.

I also ran into a bunch of the old Lavaman crew from last year - Whitney, Arin (who heard something pop in her neck this morning while doing some of the exercises, I am concerned), Anthony, and a few more. The ~110 participants (huge group!) were broken up into smaller groups and traveled to four stations: cycling how-to and general knowledge, how to change a flat (my biggest fear - so far so good, knock on wood), core work, and a ~1.3 mile run.

Now, you may know I was doing CrossFit for a while over the summer, after the triathlon season was over, to try and stay in some sort of shape before starting this all over again. I decided to take a few weeks off to give myself a break so I didn't burn out physically or mentally, and that "few weeks" morphed into 6 weeks. It also morphed into me eating like crap, and now my pants are tight, I feel awful, and I'm petrified of anything active as I know how badly it's going to hurt. I'm especially petrified of running. I am the worst runner in the world on my best days, and a good pace for me is between 10 and 11 minutes per mile when I am in shape. Running 1.3 miles sounded hard.

Indeed, that 1.3 mile run was p-a-i-n-f-u-l! But, I "ran" most of it (what one person calls "running," another might call "shuffling," but whatever), stopping to walk two times (once stepping out of the way of everyone who was behind me and wanted to pass!). My competetive side tried to take over but I told her to shut it, this was not a race, it's my first day back, there are five months to get me into shape, blah blah blah.

Then my competetive voice pipes up with: "But last year you were in better shape when you started, and this year you have a time to beat! Step it up!"

That's hard to argue with. Last year I finished in just over 3 hours. It's always been in the back of my mind that I'd love to break 3 hours this year, but to do that I'm going to have to play catch-up on my fitness asap.

For now, I am happy with day 1. Tomorrow I'll get outside and do something active - a run or a hike or a quick bike ride, but something to get my heart rate up and get me back into the swing of things. Today, my reward was a chicken burrito from the newly opened Rubio's around the corner, and a nap.

Raise Money for LLS Through Amazon.com!

Get your holiday shopping done early AND raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! Use this Amazon.com link to get your holiday shopping done - a portion of every purchase goes to LLS - what better way to support the cause?! Or - click the link at the top of the page to shoot right over and start shopping right away!

Feel free to e-mail with questions, but go poke around and get shopping!

Here we go again!

It's that time of year again - kickoff for the winter Team in Training season to get us ready for the 2011 Lavaman Olympic Distance triathlon is tomorrow, and official workouts start Saturday morning! That's a good thing, as my self-imposed "break" from working out resulted in too much time off and too much weight gain. Time to get back into it.

So, check out my fundraising page, contribute to a great cause, and make me feel guilty for not working out!

Back in the Saddle

Did the same sadist who invented high heels invent bike seats? Just curious.

I got up early today and went for a labor day ride. I took one of the routes I learned through Team in Training - a 19.4-ish mile loop with a lovely little hill right in the middle:

You can see from the elevation profile at the bottom of the screenshot that hill - it's only about a mile long but it's pretty tough, especially given that I haven't been riding since ~May. I was surprised at hoe great I felt on the bike though, saddle notwithstanding. I think there's really something to this CrossFit craze - my legs felt strong on the climb and I never once felt overly tired or in pain. I also felt like I could have kept going had I known a good way to extend the route...

Hopefully I'll keep it up - it's hard to do CrossFit in the morning and then feel like I have energy to do longer, slower workouts afterwards. We'll see. This was a nice re-intro to my bike though. I think it's been feeling neglected.

Contrary to Popular Belief...

...crosswalks are not safe.

Last month I got hit by a car while in a crosswalk. Today I went running (after a CrossFit workout that involved squats with 115 pounds on my back - suffice it to say it was more shuffling than running), and twice I was almost hit by cars while in a crosswalk.

You have got to be kidding me.

The first time, while running along a slightly major street I was crossing - in the crosswalk - a minor street, and a car made a hard and fast left turn from the major street (going my direction) and almost hit me. He had to slam on his brakes and I hopped out the way, fast. Then I shouted at him. He would have hit the same spot as the other guy.

The second time, heading the same direction but at a more major crossing, someone was turning right from my left in front of me. He had a very red light, I had a green light and the little green guy telling me to walk, and as I stepped into the intersection to cross this guy came up and pulled completely through the crosswalk before stopping. He wasn't even looking my direction, he was checking traffic coming from the other direction. I smacked the trunk of his car and shouted at him too. He looked shocked and raised his hand in apology but if I hadn't seen him coming and waited he would have smacked right into me. At least it would have been the other hip.

So, today we learned that crosswalks are not safe, and people are idiots.

My workouts were great though - CrossFit this morning was awesome and although it didn't feel too hard at the time I am feeling it now (and clearly I was weak as running was extremely difficult). The workout was as follows:

For Strength:
3 x 3 hanging snatch (I used 65 pounds) with 3 minutes rest between

Metabolic Conditioning:
3 rounds of As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) in 5 minutes with 5 minutes rest between sets:
3 back squats (squats with a weighted bar on your back, I used 115 pounds)
4 pull-ups (I did them "kipping," which is a modified version for those of us who can't do real pullups)
5 hand-stand push ups (I modified by resting my knees on a box)

First round I got through three plus the pull-ups
Second round I got through 4 plus the squats
Third round I got through 5! My arms feel like they might fall off now and my hands nearly ripped on the bar (I need to start taping them), but I'm excited about the pull-ups! And the squat weight, that was pretty good for me!

Heart Rate Monitor Fun

I've been playing with my new Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS/heart rate monitor/all around ridiculous new toy. So far I've only taken it on a couple of short ~2.6 mile runs, as I haven't been running and don't want to boost my mileage too quickly for fear that I'll get hurt.

Even on these short runs, I'm learning quite a bit about my heart rate. If you read any of the triathlon training texts, they recommend getting blood work done to determine all this stuff about your fitness and training and VO2 Max and anaerobic threshold and all this other stuff that I find a bit excessive for my level of involvement. However, they very strongly recommend training with a heart rate monitor. Hence my purchase.

Training with a HRM essentially breaks your training into intervals based on percentage of your maximum heart rate. There's a bunch of ways to determine your max HR (and I still need to go the track and actually test mine empirically), or you can use a little equation. There are like ten of those too, depending on who you talk to.

Turns out my calculated max HR, based on age and gender, is around 185 beats per minute. My resting heart rate is about 60 (taken lying down in the morning), which is kind of high. There are five "training zones" used that are broken down (based on my max HR) as follows:

HR Zone 1: 93 - 111 bpm
HR Zone 2: 111 - 130 bpm
HR Zone 3: 130 - 148 bpm
HR Zone 4: 148 - 167 bpm
HR Zone 5: 167 - 185 bpm

When I ran my little 2.6-mile route over the weekend, I found that my heart rate hovered between 155 and 165, maxing out at 175. Apparently that's a bit high for an extended workout, but it didn't feel like I was exerting myself that much. Maybe my HR is off a bit.

This GPS thingy also has pre-loaded workouts for running and cycling based on either pace or heart rate, so this morning I did one of the running workouts. It was broken up as follows:

2:00 minutes, HR Zone 1
2:00 minutes, HR Zone 2
2:00 minutes, HR Zone 3
(note: all of these heart rate zones are walking. Zone 3 was walking quickly, but I couldn't believe how fast my heart rate came up. What that means I have no idea but I was annoyed that Zone 3 was walking. Seemed ridiculous.)
Repeat the steps below 4 times:
     Go 0.5 miles in HR Zone 4
     4:00 minutes in HR Zone 2
2:00 minutes, HR Zone 2
2:00 minutes, HR Zone 1

I also found it nearly impossible to get my HR down quickly enough to keep the thing from beeping at me. It turned into a little game - it would beep angrily at me when my HR was either too high or too low, then give a satisfied little chirp when I got it into the target.

Zone 4 was a very, very slow jog for me. It felt too slow, in fact, and I felt like I didn't really get much of a workout. I don't know if that means my HR is off or if I've been going too hard (I can't really believe I've been going too hard! That's ridiculous!). But I went 3.3 miles (with a LOT of walking - every 4:00 minute rest to get my HR back into zone 2 I had to essentially walk as slowly as I possible could, which was totally frustrating) and I feel like I could use another workout.

Anyway, I'll play around with this thing some more to try and figure out my max HR and go from there. It's a very fun new toy and was a great way to spend my REI dividend!


My next project is to figure out how much training (running/biking/swimming - each of which will have a different max heart rate that I have to figure out empirically) I am supposed to do in each zone to get faster and stronger, and then figure out a schedule to fit it all in.

Of course, this does not count the CrossFit stuff I've already been doing - I would guess CrossFit has us in Zone 5 for 10-25 minutes, it's that intense. But I'm getting stronger already!

This toy is so cool though - it uploads my workouts to my computer, where I can view graphs of my heart rate, distance, pace, and I can see my route on a little map (that is surprisingly accurate).

Motivation

I've been doing CrossFit, a sort of masochistic workout that includes high intensity, short duration exercises. It incorporates Olympic style weightlifting moves (yes, clean and jerk, snatch, split jerk, it's very entertaining) and other fun things like "burpees" (jump in the air and clap hands overhead, drop to your stomach on the ground, push up into a frog position, jump into the air and clap your hands overhead. That's one.), squats (stand with feet shoulder-width apart, squat as far down as you can go, stand back up. Can be done without weight, with dumbells resting on your shoulders, with a loaded barbell resting on your chest or back, or - the most fun version - holding a loaded barbell overhead), kettlebell swings (literally swinging a round handled weight from between your legs to over your head), wall ball (face the wall, throw a weighted ball - sort of a medicine ball - as high as you can and catch it on your chest. Repeat until your arms fall off.), box jumps (there is a box. Jump on it. Repeat until your legs fall off.), running (no explanation needed), pull-ups (and if you can't do a pull-up, you can do jumping pull-ups where you stand on a box so you can reach the bar and literally jump into a pull-up. These are worse, trust me. I wish I could do a pull-up.), toes-to-bar (hang from the bar. Raise your toes until they touch the bar.), and other fun forms of torture.

Usually the workouts begin with some strength, like doing only a few reps at a very high weight until you fail, with lots of rest. Then we get into the fun part, where I usually feel like my heart is going to explode and sometimes I have to lie on the floor to recover when I'm done. It'll be some combination of the above exercises, broken up so we get in a lot of reps but not all at the same time, and keep our heart rate up. Today's workout, for example, began with a single-arm kettlebell swing:

So you do one single-arm kettlebell swing, then eight squats with your arm in the air like that holding the weight. Repeat with the other arm. Then you move to a set of parallel bars and do dips until you fail (I could do two without cheating and was the only woman who could do any full dips at all), then you rest for three minutes. Three total sets of that. Then we got into the fun part: five timed rounds of a 400 meter run followed by 15 kettlebell swings (using both hands). I was the last one to finish, and it took me ~16 minutes, and I was huffing and puffing the entire time. There's a bit of competitive edge to it as well - we write our times or max reps on a white board when we're finished. I am usually last, and there are a few people who have taken it upon themselves to "cheer me on" as I finish my sets. This is both awesome and humiliating at the same time, but what I lack in speed I make up for in strength (at least compared to the women), so I don't feel all that badly about always being last.

I've been hitting the 6AM workouts because it's so much cooler, and I love getting the workout done first thing in the morning. The group of people at the 6AM class is really fun, too, but there aren't a lot of women that go. I guess weights are intimidating.

Anyway, after this triathlon this weekend I realized I needed to also be doing longer, lower intensity workouts. I've been wanting to get more involved in the mechanisms of training, and all the reading I've done mentions heart rate monitors as an essential piece of equipment.

So today I blew my REI dividend a bought this:

It's a Garmin Forerunner 305, and it has a heart rate monitor (not super excited about the heart rate band, but it can't be worse than a sports bra), timer, stopwatch (and all associated timing things), pace and lap clock, target heart rates, it stores workouts, it has a GPS, will store routes for you, will let you "race" against your old workouts (VERY excited about that!), it connects to your computer and will store your workouts on your computer where you can mess with the data, and you can even purchase workout plans (including an Olympic Distance Tri workout for $100 - tempting! Now I just need to find another race!) that you can download to the device and it'll "train" you.

Oh my gosh I'm so excited I want to go running right now! Gadgets are so motivating! I will keep you posted...

Trek Women's Triathlon in Pleasanton, California

Trek hosts a series of all-women's triathlons across the country. This past weekend there was one in Pleasanton, CA, that some of my old college friends were doing. They talked me into signing up for it, so Sunday morning bright an early I was out the door...

Most of these ladies I haven't seen since college, and it was great to catch up! I met husbands and kids, and we met up in the transition area the morning of the race.

I was up at 4:15 on Sunday morning and was out the door at 4:55. I've reached the point where I can almost mindlessly pack for a tri, which is nice - it's become less stressful and I can easily visualize everything I need to bring with me.

The race itself was at the Shadow Cliffs Recreation Area on the border of Pleasanton and Livermore, actually very close to the Livermore airport where Rob keeps his plane. The course included a 1/2 mile swim in fresh, clam water, an 11-mile bike and a 3-mile trail run. I've been working out, but not training in a tri-specific manner by any means. No swimming since that last tri in May, and hardly any running and absolutely no biking. I was a bit nervous - I feel pretty in shape but it's less cardio than I was doing when training for these other triathlons.

My wetsuit still fit, though, so that was encouraging. The water was in the mid-60's, and I probably could have done the swim without a wetsuit and been fine. In fact, I am considering picking up a sleeveless wetsuit so I can keep my shoulder mobility but still get the leg buoyancy advantage. Maybe when I have a job.

My wave of orange caps was 4th. The swim course was set up to be three sides of a square - swim out, make a left turn, swim parallel to the shore, make a left turn, swim into shore. However, the buoys they used were small, cylindrical buoys, not the big triangular ones, and the first part of the swim was directly into the sun. This meant that every time I picked my head up to see where I was going I essentially was staring at the sun and it's reflection off the water. No buoy in sight, blindly following the swimmer in front of me.

Although, after my wave started I was immediately in the top three swimmers. Literally, we were in the water as a group and then it was my friend Carly and I right next to each other, and one other woman in front of us but not by much. They left me behind at the first buoy, but after that I didn't see another orange cap until I got out of the water at the end of the swim. I was surprised at how not-awful I felt in the water, and was encouraged to get my butt back into some kind of a swim workout schedule.

Getting out of the water, there was a short run up to the transition area. The ground was covered in pebbles, and I jammed my heel right onto one as I jogged to get my bike. It still hurts to put weight on it without padding! Anyway, because I was so early to the course that morning I scored a great spot for my bike right on the edge of the racks. My transition was a bit slow, but I had to wrestle the wetsuit off, not a quick process. I threw it on the ground, tugged my hair into a low ponytail, put on my sunglasses, helmet, bib number (on a belt), socks, and bike shoes, shoved an extra tube in the pocket on the back of my tri jersey, took a big swig of water, and yanked my bike off the rack. As I ran to the mount area I shoved a Shot Block into my mouth and frantically chewed it as I hopped on the bike, clipped into the pedals, and rode away.

The exit out to the course involved a hill climb, and I am the worst hill climber in the world. Of course, I was immediately getting passed by speedy cyclists, and I was trying not to be too demoralized by it, because I know it would be even worse on the run part of things! The ride was nice, but because we were near a quarry the rode was covered in gravel and pebbles, a nightmare of a road bicyclist. I was hoping that I wouldn't get a flat because it takes me forever to change one. In fact, sitting the garage with a complete tool set and a floor pump it took me 45 minutes to change a tube once, so I figured on the road with the little tool kit I would be screwed. I rode more slowly than I think I could have, but still ended up passing a few people (while still getting passed by a lot more riders!). Importantly, I felt strong! Shocking, given that my bike has been gathering cobwebs for the past two months.

I rode back into the transition area and dismounted, jogging the bike to my space. I reracked it, took off the helmet and sunglasses, put on my hate, tore off the bike shoes, shoved my feet into my running shoes, took a huge drink of water, and was off. As I jogged out of the transition area I spun my bib number around so it was in front.

The run was a lovey and winding trail run, but I think it was the longest 3 mile run I have ever done. I hadn't looked at the course map before, because I don't like to psyche myself out and I like to be surprised, but this time maybe I should have. I actually felt pretty strong at the front end of the run - I like a little uphill in there because it makes the flats feel so much better. Of course, I was getting passed like crazy, but that's partially why I wear a hat - I put my eyes to the ground and just don't look at my surroundings. My hat is like blinders. The run wound us around the finish area a few times - you could hear the announcer getting louder, and I would get excited and think oh! I must be getting close to the finish! My pace would increase, and then I'd come around a corner and see switchbacks going uphill and away from the finish line. Depressing. But, there were supporters all along the course cheering you on - in fact, even the other runners were cheering people on! At the finish, they announce your name (they can see your number so look you up) over the loudspeaker ("Here comes Megan Hall!"), and everyone was cheering, including my friends who'd already finished the race just a few minutes before me. There were women in tutus and wigs cheering you on and high-fiving you, and as you cross the finish line you are handed a medal, a bottle of water, and someone cuts the timing chip off of your ankle.

The post-race support was amazing - water and juice, fruit and cookies, tables of goodies for sale (I got a running hat and a tank top). We hung out for a bit, long enough to her that my friends - the three who ran the race as a relay - placed in the top three in their bracket! Awesome!

We went to breakfast at a place called Dean's in Pleasanton, where I pigged out on eggs, sausage, and pancakes, then I headed home, hosed off, had a couple of beers, and took a nice long nap.

The results are already up (this race was so well-organized it was ridiculous, I can't wait to do another one run by the same group), so here are my stats (not my best, but given I have not been running, biking, or swimming at all I'm pretty pleased with it):

Swim Time: 14:31
Total Rank After Swim: 14 (slowest of my college friends, the bastards!) of 268 finishers

Age Group Rank After Swim: 3/35 (behind my friend Carly and one other women who won our age group)

Transition 1: 2:34

Bike Time: 35:00
Total Rank for the Bike Leg: 134/268
Age Group Rank for the Bike Leg: 23/35 (ugh)
Pace: 20.5 mph

Transition 2: 1:39

Run Time: 35:12
Total Rank for the Run Leg: 179/268
Age Group Rank for the Run Leg: 30/35 (dear god that's embarrasing)
Pace: 11:21 minute-miles (time to start running again!)

Total Time: 1:28:59
Total Rank: 103/268
Age Group Rank 18/35

Not my best showing, but given my lack of tri-focused training I'll take it. Plus it was fun as hell to do it with that group of friends!