"Don't Stop Believing" Journey to Ironman

Keep Shoveling Sand Against the Tide! The New York Times Says So!

My coach called out this article in the New York Times about training and aging. Seems there is hope for us middle-aged chronics after all!

Here are some highlights:

• Researchers say that you should be able to maintain your muscles as you age, including the muscle enzymes needed for good athletic performance, and you should be able to maintain your ability to exercise for long periods near your so-called lactic threshold, meaning you are near maximum effort. But you have to know how to train, doing the right sort of exercise, and you must keep it up.
  
  
• “Train hard and train often,” said Hirofumi Tanaka, a 41-year-old soccer player and exercise physiologist at the University of Texas. Dr. Tanaka said he means doing things like regular interval training, repeatedly going all out, easing up, then going all out again. These workouts train your body to increase its oxygen consumption by allowing you to maintain an intense effort.
  
  
• “One of the major determinants of endurance performance is oxygen consumption,” Dr. Tanaka said. “You have to make training as intense as you can.”

This advice fits right into the training philosophy of Endurance Nation. Of course, we build in easy days, and recovery, but the program is based on intensity rather than slogging through a lot of long, slow volume. Seems it's the right approach not only for getting faster, which I am, but also for keeping us aging athletes going and going well. Plus, it feels so motivating to work hard and strive to be better/fitter/faster/leaner.

Some of the bad news--or unfortunate, wish-this-didn't-have-to-happen news--is:

• The reason people become slower is that oxygen consumption declines with age.

• Maximum heart rate does steadily falls by about seven to eight beats per minute per decade. It happens with or without training, in sedentary and in active people, Dr. Tanaka said, and no one knows why. But as a result, the heart cannot pump as much blood at maximum effort.

• The lungs of older athletes cannot take in quite as much air. With a slower heart rate and less oxygen in the lungs, less oxygen-rich blood gets to the muscles. In one study, Dr. Joyner found that highly trained athletes age 55 to 68 had 10 to 20 percent less blood flow to their legs than athletes in their 20s.

Here's the link to the article.

All I know is that I'll keep shoveling sand against the tide, a little every day, for as long as I can. I read this kind of science and find great hope that I'll someday be winning that 70-75 age group!

What Is Your Heart's Desire?

Here's a riff I wrote to a friend who really has so, so much on her plate. Her kids have gluten intolerance and other medical issues, allergy problems, asthma, you name it. She is a vibrant, funny, great athlete who has so much to offer, not only her family, but the world. She wrote to a women's forum I'm part of asking for help with organizing her day to day life. She was looking for advice about Rubbermaid containers, and other practical suggestions about how to keep all the balls in the air.

While I've never met a Rubbmaid container I didn't like, I felt her sense of being totally overwhelmed would not be cured by a mega-shop at the Container Store. I know my life turned around when I asked one simple question--"What do I want?" It's the LOA put to work all day, every day in every aspect of life:

My reply to my friend. I hope it helped her.

I'm not even going to get into practical suggestions about organizing baking schedules, and lego pieces. I'm going to start with the macro.

Organizing is one thing, but there are bigger issues going on here. First of all, NOBODY can handle that all alone. (She has to bake all gluten-free breads and treats for her boys, plus deal with skin allergies and special baths, nebulizers, other health issues, and raising kids in NYC.) Well, you can do it all, if you want to be stressed out, overwhelmed, and giving out that kind of energy to everyone you encounter including your family. If you want to be overwhelmed, stressed out and not 100% yourself, then carry on.  If not, ask yourself on simple question.

What is my heart's desire?

Seriously. Ask it. I have no idea what it will be for you in particular, but if you say--"I want to be able to give them a nice bath without it putting me over the edge...I want to have those spare cupcakes for parties ready to go...I want to flow good, healing, upbeat, mom-is-happy energy. I want to be able read the damn google docs and do my training"--then there's only one way to get there.

You "buy out" of it.

You use what resources you can to take care of YOU first, which paradoxically (and ever so Buddhist-like), allows you to take care of everyone even more. Make your own list--I certainly don't know what the breakdown will be for you specifically--but hire an organizer, hire a housekeeper, hire someone to bake the gosh-darn bread, or do all the cooking. Get rid of as many soul-crushers as you can. (Trust me, there will still be some left in spite of it all. )

What is your heart's desire????? Answer that, and get some help to make it happen.

As you know, an article I wrote about this got me on Oprah to talk about just this topic. When I had four little ones and was overwhelmed by sheer numbers of kids, and work, and house, I sat down one day and asked myself the simple question, "What do I want?" Ever since then, that's how I've run my life. What feeds my soul, what makes me smile, what makes me feel alive and interesting and sexy and worthwhile? When you run your life 80% that way, everyone around you thrives. It's like you give everyone a gift. The gift of the true, fulfilled, happy you instead of the I-can't-deal-with anything-I-have-to-bake-again you.

I really feel the choices are ours. And it's a responsibility not only to be a caretaker, but a fulfilled person who leads by example of how to be filled to the brim with good energy for everyone around them. That's what your sons will take from you, and what your legacy will be to them and to yourself. "What is my heart's desire" is a question that has to be answered sooner or later. I'm a fan of sooner.

Bike Functional Threshold Test. Fun In the Pain Cave...

Today was the fourth, and last, bike functional threshold test I will do as part of my Endurance Nation off-season training. I felt great this morning! It was the same kind of feeling I had at the end of my 10K run time trial on Sunday. By the end I wanted to push harder and harder and keep going! It was a high.

The test is structured so that you ride 2 x 20' with a 2' rest interval. In those 20' you try to see how high you can push your functional threshold. I do the test on my Computrainer, then download the results into Cycling Peaks. It does the calculations and gives me my functional threshold number. All of my bike workouts are structured around that number with eye toward lifting it higher and higher. It's the only way to get stronger and faster.

The "using-good-energy-vibes" exercise was put to good use again today, as it was in the 10K TT. I got my mental state in a good place, envisioned doing the test to my best effort, and opened the positive flow valve. By the end, I was having the time of my life! I felt so good, in control, and working to my best effort. I was able to squeeze out a few extra watts from the last test we did only three weeks ago. So in the end analysis, my FTP went up 13 watts in 16 weeks, for an almost 10% increase in speed and power at threshold. I'm thrilled.

Thanks to my coaches Rich Strauss and Patrick McCrann. I am so grateful to them for the results I'm experiencing and the fun I'm having!

Endurance Nation Coaching Manifesto

I wanted to put up a post on linking to the Endurance Nation Coaching Manifesto.  I get asked a lot about why I'm such a rabid fan of EN. I think this coaching manifesto says it all. It outlines the philosophy that Rich Strauss and Patrick McCrann are living through their creation called EN.

How has it worked for me? Well, I dropped 2 minutes in my 10K time in 16 weeks. I also raised my power at functional threshold on the bike by 11 watts. The coaches bring you up and down through all the cycles of the season in an intelligent, safe, and organized way. All the missing pieces of how to train, when to train, how hard to train, when to rest have been answered. My results speak for themselves. More importantly, though, I have not had so much fun, or been so motivated to train in 10 years. Seriously. It has made that much of a difference.

There are all kinds of goodies over there. How about a free podcast on "Planning Your Triathlon Season"? That's just the beginning. There are webinars, more podcasts, libraries of articles and videos.

Check it out and join the fun.

The Law of Attraction and the 10K Time Trial

The Endurance Nation off-season program I've been doing involves regular testing. We have been testing,  working on raising bike and run threshold levels, retesting, and then continuing to "raise the ceiling" to get stronger and faster. For me, I'll test on the bike all day long. I'll do it all day, every day. The run, not so much.

I tend to have a lot of negative emotional running baggage from long ago. I often don't have a lot of confidence in my running, and often don't believe I will really improve very much. I'm so open to letting the positive, rather than negative, energy flow in all aspects of my life, so why not in running too?

Today, before I jumped on the treadmill, I opened the positive energy valve. I pre-paved my run with feeling strong, and fleet, and fast, before I even took a step. I warmed up really gradually, for about a mile, then did 2 x 400 at pace to get the pump primed. I stopped to stretch. I had no intention of doing the 10K TT today, but I was sick when the group did it, and it's been on my mind. When I started running, I felt good, right on a great 10K TT pace for me. Then I felt better, and better, and better, and better! By the end, I couldn't go fast enough!

I ran 53:00 for 10K, down from 55:00 a few months ago. Only a few months! And after a tough bike workout yesterday AND sprightly brick run. Man this program works!!!! If I would have paced is better, I would have gone even faster I think. I felt that good.

This is a lesson in "Law of Attraction" running. I did the work all these weeks, and believed. Then today I saw it, I felt it, I opened myself up to the good energy flow, and it all came together. I can even go faster than that. I believe it, and I will.

Great Saturday!

Today the EN off-season (OS) plan calls for a long ride. The Computrainer (CT) is the place to be when it's 20-degrees outside, so hubby and I ride together on Saturday mornings. This is a challenging 2-hour workout. It went well today, and I hit all my interval markers right on the money. The best part was the 20' brick following, where I ran my normal loop at least 1:30 faster than I ever have. I have a little challenge I enjoy on faster runs, and it's from a crack in the sidewalk at the corner of my street, to a crack in front of my driveway. My best time ever was 1:38, and today I did it in 1:35! Whoo hoo, this off-season is kicking in.

My running has been so slow the past few years, and add a big quad injury on top of that, and this OS running has been a long, arduous climb for me. I'm not back where I was (not even close), but the work is paying off. It feels so good to work as hard as I have the past few months, and get the payback! I still have lots of trepidation and baggage about toeing the line at a half-marathon road race, so I think I'll give it till spring. Heck, there isn't one around here anyway at the moment!

College son #1 stopped in for a drive-by visit with his sweet girlfriend with the beautiful name, Delilah. It was great to see him. He just got back from a non-stop drive from CO in a 1984 Econoline van that runs on veggie fuel. Perfect college road trip. They had a blast in, ahem, Aspen. The parents of the veggie van owner live there. Not a bad place to land for a nice January break.

What An Off-Season!

I am just about to finish up an amazing off-season training program with Endurance Nation. 18 weeks of "raising the ceiling" as Coaches Rich Strauss and Patrick McCrann are fond of saying. That is to say, working on getting fast instead of fat in the off-season. At the beginning Patrick said we would be, "altogether different athletes in 18 weeks." And I am. My bike power at lactate threshold is up 9%, and my sorely poor running speed is also improving. Just last week I was able to hold 6 miles at half marathon pace, when 18 weeks ago, I could barely do one. Plus, I have had SO MUCH FUN doing this. I haven't been this motivated in 10 years, I swear.

The accountability and support among the athletes is unlike any experience I've ever had. All of EN has exceeded my expecations beyond anything I could have imagined.

Take a look at this Long Course Training Wiki that just came out yesterday. There's all kind of stuff like this all the time. Free podcasts, webinars, you name it. I'll be posting a lot of the links here.

I think my blog will be, in part, an EN sattelite. How can I not share stuff like this?????