You have not ran far enough if you have not lost a toenail doing it.

Have you ever thrown your car into reverse at a red light to mess with the person behind you? Yesterday I was driving along the main road and a car from a side road turned left into the turning lane directly to my left. This is by far my biggest annoyance from other drivers. First off that is dangerous, turning into the icy lane RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Do you expect me to get over for you? So this particular car drives a quarter block in the turning lane and I'm right next to them. On goes their blinker, they want over. Excuse me, normally I am very polite on the road. But not for you, one who nearly side swiped me. So they brake and slow into the lane behind me. We both come up to the next red light and stop with her behind me. I'm annoyed with her, so throw the Explorer into reverse. I can see her face and it was pretty funny. She totally was not expecting that and was quite shocked. Priceless look, I would probably freak out a bit too, not gonna lie.

Obviously by my lack of posts in the last few weeks they have been pretty slow. Here is a post simply so you do not forget about me :)

I have not done dedicated swim training since my HIM was complete summer of 2008. However with a full Ironman on the schedule for this summer I have to get back into the pool! I have been swimming a lot more lately then I ever have, and some of it has been under the eye of Jason Melby. He is acting as coach for a "Tri Swim" group on Sundays. This was the first time I have had someone actually look at my form and give suggestions.

What he said was that my form looked ok other then I should be rotating my upper body more and my arms are crossing my center line. More rotation allows for more reach. Also the rotation takes some pressure off my arms and shoulders and puts more on my core muscles. You have heard of chicken legs, I could say I have chicken arms. That really doesnt make any sense. Anyway...to use my arms less is very much appreciated.

Another huge tip was to cut back on stroke count. He had the class swim some laps and count strokes and I was pretty high at about 25. Jason instructed us to glide more. With that front hand outstretched use it to feel when you slow down. As soon as that happens, engage the pull for another stroke. Now I am doing 20 or 21 stokes per length, compared to 24 or 26. After a few times in the pool I am now at the same speed i was for the short sprint triathlons a few years ago. The kick is though, I am doing it at a much much lower exertion, something I could keep up for much longer the distance.

Unfortunately a couple swims last week both had to be cut short because of the most painful headaches I have ever had in my life. I have only gotten headaches like this a few times in my life. Barb suggested with more rotation I am perhaps turning my neck more. Who knows. This week I stopped doing the 10 lap warm up and the headaches have gone away.

There are a lot of jokes out there about toe nails and running. The title of this particular post is an example, as is "toe nails are just nature's way of telling you that you are not running far enough." or "you know you are a true marathoner if you have lost toe nails and told people it's not that bad." I have even read about an ultra marathoner who had all of his toe nails removed so he did not have to worry about losing them. My latest victim is my left pinky toe nail. This happens if they get too long, the nail rubs against the shoe. The little guy didn't even have a chance.

My IT band has been injured from too much counter clockwise running up on the track. It is the same side that started hurting from the Jack 15 training with too much running on the same side of the road. I have decided to stop running up there for the sake of..well being able to run.

I believe for the upcoming season I am going to being practicing Low heart Rate Training. This is based off of the training Mark Allen did later in is career. When he was very successful. The idea is to find your heart rate that is the high end of fat burning, and aerobic. Train under this number. Do this instead of the "no pain no gain" training where you go hard almost every time. Eventually when training at a lower heart rate your pace will get faster over time. Allen claims when he started he was doing over 8 minute miles and within four months he was doing just over 7 minute miles at the same heart rate. After a year of this training he was doing sub 6 at that same heart rate.

A closer look at the year goes like this. The first three months of the year are trained exclusively under this HR, called the Patience Phase. this period would end when the occasional speed/hr test indicated that adaption is no longer occurring from the aerobic training.

The second phase was the Speed-Work Phase. Volume went down slightly to include a bike speed workout and a run speed workout each week.

Next is the Push Phase. This is usually before the big event of the year and includes four hard weeks and a four week taper. This will include a bit more speed work and higher volume. During the taper volume is dramatically decreased however at the same time keeping the intensity up. Of course find what works for you with a taper. I have not done enough big tapers to see what I need to consistently do.

One thing I am looking forward to is how cool recording and keeping track of HR, speed, weight lost, etc will be. Hopefully I see that speed increasing!

This type of training reduces risk of injury and burnout since the training is much lighter on your body. Less totally hammering it every session. This week only 12 miles will be done in four short three mile segments at an average HR of about 161 beats per minute. I am slightly concerned with how this will effect my Brookings Marathon time since I was planning to qualify for Boston and now am reduced to doing 12 miles this week at an average pace of about 8:06 per minute.

That pace is my 3 mile pace on the Woodway treadmill at the Wellness Center running at a 159 average HR. Outside or up on the track my pace would normally be faster at that HR or my HR would be faster at that pace. For some reason I believe the Woodway is more difficult then the track or the other treadmills. However even if it is harder then the track, it still works for comparison over the long run. Plus it is the best treadmill for HR training, so I'll use it.

My run on Monday and Tue were pretty identical. The IT band pain was a dull ache that slowly built up during the three miles. Never to more then a dull nag, like someone pushing their finger on my knee. Thursday I swam a half mile and tried to do some stationary biking. I think because I was doing intervals and sometimes the resistance would go way down my legs would be spinning at a high cadence, my IT band started acting up. Sharp pains started flaring up. Sort of what I would imagine a knife being driven into the side of my leg would feel like. After two or three of these I decided to call it quits for the evening. I probably was on the bike for 10, no more then 15 minutes. I did not expect today's run to go well, or even happen because of yesterday. However I woke up and spent the day relatively pain free. Surprisingly Friday's run was more pain free then the other two. Actually almost 100% pain free, only a few times did I get the IT pain, and it was not a almost constant ache like the other times. It would start and then go away. I finished the run feeling pretty good.

Basically I am starting over with my running, starting at zero. Or, 12 I guess. That is my mileage for this week. Next week I will add 10%, or 1.2 miles. Being injured right now I need to be super careful and will stick with the 10% rule.

This year I would also like to implement some low glycogen training into my schedule. Through distance work your body will adapt to using fat for fuel instead of glycogen. This is a good thing to become efficient at because your body unfortunately only has enough glycogen stores for two or three hours of running. The less glycogen you use, the longer you will last. Now some literature seems to support the "train low race high" theory. Doing your first workout like normal except avoiding any post workout recovery. A couple hours later again do a workout. This will not be your best PR session, since you will be low on glycogen from the first session. This second workout is simply to train your body's fuel system. Simply doing a lower effort bike or run will do, just get that body working on low fuel. It may not be the most enjoyable workout, but it will hopefully be worth it in the long run.

I have been doing very well at avoiding processed sugar lately. Really the only carbohydrates I consume are from fruit and the occasional bread or pasta I eat. This is to the point where a Dumb Dumb sucker gave me an upset stomach last week. I had breakfast earlier that morning, probably three hours before the sucker. I went to Hyvee to get a few things and they have teh suckers there where you go through the checkouts. I grabbed a blue berry one and within ten minutes my stomach hurt.

However once a week I have a single bad meal. I eat super clean throughout the week. But when Friday night rolls around it's another story. Two Fridays ago I rented a movie and ate about 1500 calories of cookie dough. Last Friday I bought some Turtle Brownies, you know the ones with caramel and walnuts. When most people binge it's a "I'm fat and depressed" binge. With me it is more like a "omg I'm so skinny I can't help it binge." Defiance and bought some Oreos. There was a coupon for free Oreo Cakesters so I picked up a box of those too :) No wonder my butt won't go away :p

I started a bike savings fund last week as well. There is a great site called SmartyPig.com that is made for savings. You create a goal and it allows you to put money into an account at the bank they are based at. I put my goal at 3 years to save $3,000 dollars for a bike. If I save 20 dollars each week for three years that is almost three grand. Who knows if that is what the money will go to, but I will keep telling myself that. The end of the goal would also be about the time I would get out of graduate school. Anyway I would like to build up a bike myself that will last me five to seven years with minimal change with the components. I do not want to purchase something that will need replacing each two years.

Some bike porn for everyone...

My current ride, a late 90's Trek Y-Foil

And for the frame I would like to build up in the future and ride for a long period of time, the BP Stealth the the most likely candidate. They are currently being produced so I would not have to buy an older frame. Directly from the company they go for 1200 I believe, which is very reasonable for a carbon frame. I could probably find one for less on Ebay.

And here is the Lotus frame. If I could get one of these on Ebay that would be so cool. However they are so rare and sought after that getting a hold of one would be unlikely.

Here are three other options. The Hotta in red is pretty rare but they are around. I have seen a few of those Giants on ebay so getting one is possible. And the last bike is a beam bike from Zipp. They are probably the most common of the alternative frame bikes. Not currently being produced but there's many out there.

Also for the component gruppo I would like to go with Sampson. Rather then the mass produced Shimano, SRAM, or Campagnolo components I would like to go with a more local manufacturer. He seems like a really down to earth guy and would be great to buy from I think. However that route could end up being more expensive because I will not be able to Ebay last year's used model for 25% off. Like how when the new Shimano and the big companies release a new line up or modify an existing one the old ones are usually reduced in price and often you can find people selling them on ebay to get funds for the new version.

;ljkn

Whoooo. I need a rest after all those pictures. Getting kinda hot in here....