Pheidippides’s BodyBlog

I’ve decided to do an Olympic-length triathlon in 2008.  There is one scheduled nearby on June 10, two days after I turn 44, so I will target that as my race date.  I need to come up with a training plan, but tentatively I’m thinking as follows:

First, continue concentrating on building some muscle and strength and trying to improve bodyfat percentage a little, while also building aerobic base through gym machines, swimming, and cycling.  I may start taking spinning classes and will try to swim laps at the pool at least once a week or more.  I’ll follow this phase through January.

Second phase, start my training program in earnest, although holding back on running as necessary to continue resting Achilles tendon.  My training will consist of swimming (mostly laps but late in spring maybe adding some open water at local lake — with wetsuit, I am sure), and cycling (road cycling plus some spinning and stationary bikes), and light running.  Training will consist of base, build, and peak phases leading up to June 10 race.  During my entire training I will continue weight training, but by March I will need to de-emphasize mass building and emphasize strength and endurance.
I decided to try to set a time goal, although that may be foolish for a first triathlon.  I think I can run a 45 minute 10K or better, even at the end of a triathlon, and from that number, going through race results of other Olympic triathlons for my age group (M 40-44), and allowing for the fact that I will run better than I will swim or bike, I extrapolate the targets of 25 m swim, 75 m bike, 45 m run + 5 minutes extra for transition, etc. = 2 hours 30 minutes.  That would put me in the top one quarter of competitors at last year’s race.  That’s not too ambitious based solely upon my aerobic capacity, but it will be very challenging because of my relative lack of skills cycling and swimming.  But what’s life without challenge?

By achieving this goal I can also meet my goals of improving strength, adding muscle and muscle definition, losing body fat, getting a leaner and better looking physique, as well as dramatically improving my performance in two endurance activities while not taxing my Achilles tendon too badly. Time to come up with a plan!

Having decided to give my Achilles tendon a rest and give up running completely through at least December, I’m feeling antsy and unfocused.  The weight lifting is going well, and I am well on my way to achieve my lifting goals for March 2008.  But the lifting alone doesn’t give me the sense of focus in my exercise that I want.  And it doesn’t fulfill my desire to push myself in endurance activities.

So, with running on hold, I’m thinking about taking up cycling and swimming with an eye toward training for a triathlon in April, or maybe a little later.  If I train hard swimming and cycling and boost my aerobic condition I figure I can wing it on the running leg without the kind of training that could aggravate my Achilles tendon.  By April I should be able to run a 10K as part of a triathlon.   Even with very light training running would be my strongest leg in the triathlon, by far.

Before I get ahead of myself I probably should just try some swimming and cycling and assess what sort of shape I’m in, then plan accordingly.

Worked out yesterday — 46 minutes on the recumbent stationary bike, modest pace, average 130+ HR.  Today all weights, focused on squat, bench press, barbell row, biceps curls, leg curls.  No PRS — I focused more on form and reps than on trying to maximize weight, and I held back just a bit on the squat.  I’ll go for PR in squat next time, maybe this weekend.

As usual my lifting and body measurement results reflect the lack of focus and discipline in my workout.  According to the scale this morning I weighed 174.6, 2.6 pounds more than when I started nearly a month ago, and that my body fat % was up .7%.  On the other hand my waist was incrementally narrower, and I’d put on just a bit of bulk in my arms, chest, and thighs.  My initial goal had been to lose weight and gain definition, but what I’m doing instead is putting on muscle, and, as a result, more weight.

It partly reflects the fact that I’m not running as much as I had hoped to and have not adopted other forms of cardio activity sufficiently as a substitute.

I’m not too worried about it.  It feels good to gain some strength, and I know I can lose some of the fat without too much trouble.  But I’m going to watch what I eat a little more carefully over the next few weeks so I don’t bloat over the holidays and instead keep my weight around 172 or a little below.

Darn.  Achilles tendon is definitely sore today.  I don’t know if it was the 4.5 mile run overall, or if it was the half mile interval at the end, but whatever it was I definitely set my Achilles tendon recovery back at least a couple of days.  My body obviously is telling me to give it a complete rest for a while, and that’s what I need to do.  I have to get my endurance exercise through machines at the gym, cycling, and swimming.  I will lay off the running for at least the rest of December.

The good news is that the gym workouts are going great.  I reached new highs on the squat, barbell bench press, and biceps curl today, and followed the weight lifting with 36 minutes of elliptical, burning 572 calories (according to the machine, which I take with a very large grain of salt).  My heart rate was rather low, only 120 to 125 for most of the workout.  I also had about 5 minutes on the recumbent stationary bike before the workout, probably burning about 50 calories.

I have to stay focused on the positive but really lay off the running for a while.

Well, I just couldn’t help myself.  It was 7:30 a.m., perfectly sunny, 40 degrees.  Just had to go running.  Not so cold I couldn’t run in shorts, but I did take the long sleeve top, cap, and gloves with me.  I took it easy most of the way, running about 4 miles at around a 9 minute/mile pace.  Then I tried one 1/2 mile interval in 3:22.  I am definitely not in the shape I was in before, but that’s to be expected.  It was sobering to think that was just a bit faster than the pace I would have to set to run a marathon in 3 hours.  Right now it’s hard to imagine doing that.  I’ve got to focus on getting in 5K shape first.

The tendon didn’t feel bad.  I’m icing it with a cold compress right now as a precaution.  So far so good, seemingly.  I think I’ll do that bike ride tomorrow.

Today is Christmas tree day for the family.  I think we’re going to drive to a Christmas tree farm in the foothills, come back, set it up and decorate it, and sit around and drink eggnog.  It should be a leisurely day.

So-so workout this morning.  Got to the gym around 5:50.  My back hurt a little so I held off doing squats and barbell rows.  Did two sets on the bench press, but I wasn’t feeling as strong as two days ago and didn’t do quite as well.  Went through a few sets of overhead presses, one-legged leg presses, crunches, and a couple of others.  This was more of a maintenance workout than a progress workout.  I find my body doesn’t really respond if I try to push too hard every workout.  I try to make sure I have one really hard, good workout with weights every week and two others at a more moderate level.  That way I give my muscles a chance to rest and grow.  I always have my best workouts and reach PRs after taking a few days to rest.

After the weights I spent about 9 minutes on the treadmill testing the Achilles, doing one interval of about 4 minutes at 7:30 min/mile.  Felt O.K. but not as good as I would like it to.  Then I spent 26 minutes on the elliptical, getting up to 173 HR during one interval and burning about 460 calories.  My aerobic shape is O.K. but not great.  I’m going to try a long bike ride or swim this weekend, or maybe both.

Shifting attention for a moment from body fat percentage and lifting stats to something even more important, I became an uncle for the second time last night around 7:00 p.m. when my sister in law had her second daughter.  My family was on hand at the hospital to congratulate my brother and to visit his wife and the new baby in her room.  The baby is healthy and beautiful and seemed surprisingly boisterous for an infant just getting her first taste of life outside the womb.  The delivery seemed to have gone well.  I couldn’t help but think back to the miracle of seeing my own children being born — still the most amazing thing I’ve ever witnessed.

On to the more mundane –

I declined to weigh myself this morning because I had a Haagen Dazs ice cream bar, following a fatty-looking curry chicken rice bowl, at the hospital last night waiting for my niece to be born.  I just didn’t want to face the results.  I fear with my eating since Friday night I’ve undone the satisfying results I saw in my weight and body fat percentage on Friday morning.  I’ll give it another day of light eating and test myself again tomorrow.

The good part is that the extra eating seems to have contributed to some muscle growth, because I reached new highs on my barbell bench press and biceps curl at the gym this morning.  I followed it with 30 minutes of moderate cardio (130 + HR) on the recumbent stationary bike.

I volunteered to help pass out GU and water at the California International Marathon yesterday — certainly the closest I will get to a marathon for the next year, and perhaps more.  It was a little discouraging not to run in it, as I had planned as of last August, but for the most part it was inspiring just to see the number and range of people who took on the challenge.  A small group of runners went flying by our station (at about the 15.5 mile mark) about 1:20 into the race or thereabouts.  Unfortunately, we were still in the process of setting up, and nobody had the presence of mind to hand any of our refreshments to that first group of runners.  One runner in particular had his hand outstretched and seemed to be looking at us with incredulity as he passed us empty-handed.  I felt bad for the poor guy.  I think he may have been the winner, though, so I don’t feel too bad!

Just as inspiring was to see the runners bringing up the rear, barely ahead of the highway patrol cars that were reopening the road, determined to finish the race however long it took.  With over ten miles to go, they still face a few hours of trudging toward the finish line.
When I left, about two and a half hours after the first runners swept by, I silently admonished myself that I had to do whatever it took to heal my leg so I could try this another time.  I want to run a marathon while I am young enough to run it reasonably well.

In the meantime I am making slow progress, and workouts at the gym have been going well, although my back is a bit sore from bent over barbell rows yesterday.  I have to be very careful not to overtax my back when lifting.

I am getting stronger.  Now that the weekend is over it’s time to eat better and get back on track with the "leaner" part.