PenteKing’s BodyBlog

Normally, I’m one of those folks who is up and out of bed at the crack of dawn. I prowl around the apartment in quiet solitude, taking my vitamins, drinking a glass of juice, and stretching out the kinks. Then, I’m downstairs, either using the stair stepper or running the treadmill or jumping rope. All that before returning for a shower and then breakfast. That was then; this is now.

Lately, I’ve been sleeping until 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. I no longer do morning aerobics (except for rare occasions). Instead, I immediately sit down, fire up the laptop and check my inbox for messages. I’m looking for work, and the stress of being out there, selling myself, is beginning to get to me. Looking for work is harder than actually working. Trust me on this. When you’re out there, you have to constantly be at your best. You can’t have an "off" day. You can’t be in a bad mood. You can’t do lackluster work, knowing that you’ll make up for it tomorrow. The exam light (as it were) is ALWAYS on. You’re being judged, and (rightly or wrongly) first impressions count for everything. The strain is weighing on me.

If anyone has an idea of the best way to combat this depressive onset, let me know. And thanks.

Took to the pool today in an effort to improve my swimming technique. I enlisted the ai of a friend who is a part-time instructor, and she took me through the drills they teach children who are just learning to swim. At first, I was skeptical of asking for assistance, but then realized that if I am serious about this triathlon, I had better swallow my pride and get help. The swim is my weakness. I have a fear of the water, haven’t yet learned how to regulate my breathing, and am tense and nervous. If I don’t conquer my fears now, it will be too late to do so on the day of competition.

I’m happy to report that I did fairly well today. I started off the way I normally do (tense enough to add ten pounds of fear onto my frame), but by the end of the lesson, I was sluicing through the water with little fear of drowning to death. Andrea is a great teacher - calm, patient and repetitive. She went through the drills again and again until I mastered what she was trying to teach me.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m a long way from being a serious swimmer, but I feel 100 times better now than I did yesterday, and for that, I am grateful.

San Diego (where I currently reside) bills itself as "America’s Finest City". With the pension debacle and the gridlock in the City Council, one would argue that the label is tenuous at best. The blog is going to seem to some as a knock on the city. It is not. What it is is an observation. To wit…

I am, first and foremost, a bicyclist. This is the sport that I love the best. I would rather ride my bike than do nearly anything else. As a cyclist, I’m out on the road a lot. From my vantage point, I see things that motorists (trapped in their steel cocoons) don’t notice. What I see around the streets of San Diego is an unbelievable amount of litter. Discarded soft drink cans; empty water bottles; abandoned plastic bags; rags of every conceivable size and shape; and fast-food wrappers.  The shoulders of the roads are in pitiful shape. They are pitted and full of holes. Weeds poke through the cracks in the pavement and madacam. In some places, the paint marking the bicycle lane is virtually invisible. In other places, there is no bicycle lane at all.

I’ve written letter after letter to the various city agencies, begging them to clean up the roadways. To date, my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. I could understand it if they responded that there aren’t funds to perform clean-up duties. But that would presuppose that someone is actually reading the letters I’m writing. Telephoning the agencies is a study in frustration. One is either placed on hold, or shunted from one bureaucrat to another until you hang up in despair.

Why do people feel that it is okay to dispose of their trash on the side of the road? When did this type of behavior become acceptable? Would they, I wonder, do this in their homes? Would they simply toss trash on the floor and expect someone else to clean up after them? The roads belong to us all. We all have a shared responsibility to keep them litter-free. I want city officials to enforce the anti-litter laws that are already on the books. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. If San Diego truly wants to be "America’s Finest City" then its citizens should begin by cleaning up their city’s streets. A tourist’s first impression shouldn’t be one of dirty city streets.

As I’ve immersed myself deeper and deeper into the bodybuilding lifestyle, my attitude about what it means to be fit has gradually evolved over time. At first, I wanted a physique like Steve Reeves’ - wide, powerful shoulders; deep, thick back; impossibly narrow waist; and tree trunk thighs. When I realized my genetic structure would not support a physique like that, I set my sights on another (though no less ambitious) goal - I wanted to a twelve-inch drop between my chest and waist. To me, this is the Holy Grail of body types. It automatically gives one that V-taper that is so admired by men and women alike. Then, I came across this.

Men’s Health has listed ten things every man should be able to do in order to call himself "fit". (Women, I assume, have different criteria, and if I have the time and if I remember to do so, I will research what Women’s Health has to say on the topic.) Here is the list as published on the Men’s Health web site.

1. Bench 1.5 times your body weight
2. Run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes
3. Touch the rim
4. Leg-Press 2.5 times your body weight
5. Swim 700 yards in 12 minutes
6. Do 40 pushups
7. Measure up (explained in more detail below)
8. Run 300 yards in under 1 minute
9. Touch your toes
10. Toss a basketball 75 feet while kneeling

Before commenting on the list, let me explain number 7. First, take a good look at yourself. If your belly is growing faster than your butt, you have bigger problems than figuring out how to get a tan without taking off your shirt. The more fat your body stores in your midsection, the higher your risk of heart disease. And this much we know: Fit men don’t get heart disease.

The Test: The easiest method of determining your risk level is a comparison of your waist and hip circumferences. Grab a measuring tape and measure the circumference of your waist at the narrowest point. Then measure the distance around the widest part of your hips and butt. Divide your waist circumference by your hip circumference for your score.

The Scorecard:
0.92 or higher: Your wife and kids are going to miss you
0.82 to 0.91: Ordinary
0.81 or less: Flat and happy
Of the items on this list, I cannot do numbers 1, 3, & 5. Some would say that seven out of ten isn’t bad, but that’s not good enough for me. I’m actively working on the swimming exercise (although 700 yards in 12 minutes seems like a daunting task at the moment). I’m halfway to the goal on number 1. As far as number 3 goes, I haven’t tried to do this since my days playing college ball. Now that I know this is a criterion for optimal fitness, I’m going to have to go out, find a basketball rim and practice jumping until I can touch the rim.

How well do you stack up? Thoughts and comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Wow! This is going to be tougher than I at first anticipated. The biking and running aren’t presenting a problem for me, but this swimming is kicking my a**. I have a new-found respect for competitive swimmers. Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps are animals. Swimming looks so easy - deceptively so. You see lean, lithe bodies slicing effortlessly through the water, and you think, "How hard can it be?" Well, I’m here to tell you that it can be very hard indeed. I know a lot of it has to do with never having been in the water for any length of time and the fact that I’m starting this at an age when most people are abandoning the sport. Still…

The hardest part is keeping my head in the water while controlling my breathing. It’s a whole ‘nother skill, my friends. Blow out when your face is in the water; breathe in by turning your head to one side, all the while trying to remember to keep kicking my legs; keeping my stroke constant; and NOT swallowing a gallon of water in the process. Whew! Is it too late to change my mind about this triathlon thing? Would it label me as a wuss forever? Enquiring minds want to know….

The title is obviously a blatant rip-off of the Lord of the Rings, but it is appropo. Currently, I track my diet and workout routines in no less than three(!) different places: here on Bodybuilding.com; on my personal computer via a personalized copy of FitDay; and on Bicycling.com, where I track my biking and swimming routines. Obviously, keep three separate and disparate training logs is beginning to take its toll. I recently discovered that I hadn’t updated FitDay for three days, and so have lost a substantial portion of my macronutrient intake for the past week. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but because I’m in training for a triathlon, I want to track what foods help or hinder my performance.

So, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and enter my training routine and food entries into one comprehensive, all-encompassing log. I did a little research on the web and discovered an on-line site called "Training Peaks" that, I believe, will serve all my needs nicely. It allows me to track not only my weight lifting routines, but also my biking and swimming schedules. It has a component that will track my food intake (by time of day, no less) and a calendar that will allow me to set reminders for upcoming events or planned milestones. The basic model is free, so I’m going to try it for a month or two, and if it lives up to its promise, I will pay the modest monthly fee to upgrade to the Premium edition. This means that I will not be visiting Bodybuilding.com nearly as often as I have in the past, but something had to go. Life is short, and while I want to be a dedicated member of this site, I also want to simplify my life. I will continue to check in every now and again, but my days of logging in every day are over.

I may write the admin and suggest that they improve their training logs, but I’m not sanguine they will take my proposal seriously. This is, after all, a bodybuilding site, and not a general fitness site. They probably don’t want to lose their focus, and I can’t say that I can blame them. The powers that be have a very nice niche, and they don’t want to do anything to blur the distinction they’ve worked so hard to achieve. Still, it would be nice if they considered the suggestion.

Thoughts, comments and observations are welcomed and encouraged.

Yesterday, I officially began my training routine for the triathlon I’m planning to enter. Not wanting to overdo it (or injure myself) I laid out a workout routine that is designed to build my endurance and stamina while progressively increasing my strength. I am fortunate enough to live in a condo complex that has a well-maintained pool. As I am a poor swimmer, this is a boon because it means that I concentrate on crushing my weakness. The pool is 140 feet in length. I traversed ten laps yesterday, for a total of 1,400 feet. I had to rest between laps, but I finished the ten that I had planned, so I cannot be too disappointed in my performance. After completing the swim, I took to the bike and rode for five miles at a steady pace (90 rpm). Then, I ran for 20 minutes at a steady 6 mph.

At the end of it all, I was tired, but not overly so. Later in the day, I felt a little soreness in my rear delts as aresult of the swim, but aside from that, I felt good. Of course, this first training day is nothing compared to what is to come, but I have to be pretty pleased that I didn’t totally collapse. More to come.

I have mentioned my biking partner, Julie, on many occasions. To refresh your memory, I met Julie through a mutual acquaintance. I was preparing for the 150-mile MS marathon and she wanted to participate. We began riding together and discovered that (despite the differences in our ages) that we had many things in common. The one trait that we both share is an unquenchable desire to be the absolute best at what we do. In our training sessions, we push one another hard. I’m faster and stronger on the straightaways, while Julie makes me eat dust on climbs. But the partnership has worked. I’ve become a stronger hill climber, and Julie has increased her speed and power output as a result of riding with me.

Yesterday, I told Julie that I was going to have to slack off on our biking forays because I needed the additional time to train for a triathlon. I thought the news would either piss her off or make her feel rejected. Imagine my surprise when she said that she wanted to go along for the ride. She wants to do a triathlon as well. So I now have a training partner - one who I know is every bit as dedicated (and crazy) as I am. I couldn’t be happier.