Soldier Field 10 Mile Race and Weekend Report

So it is 11:30 pm on Memorial Day and I am still awake after a long weekend of pretty heavy training, given this is only the end of the first week of IM training. On Saturday I was a guide for my friend K. at the Soldier Field 10 miler here in Chicago. K. has achromatopsia and has been visually-impaired since birth but you sure wouldn't know it if you met her. She has a better sense of direction than me, doesn't run into walls and parked cars, and is waaaay smarter (she's a lawyer). We've only run together on three or four occasions, but she's already run a marathon and several other long-distances road races, so she didn't have much of a problem! Anyway, she set her best time yet and ran a 1:45 race, despite all of the slow people we had to push out of our way. Talk about bottlenecks. There were 9000 people running on a freakin' bike path. But hey, it was fun.

On Sunday Th. and I rode out to Lake Bluff or one of those little towns up north. We were both pretty tired after Saturday's run but we still managed to put in about 45 miles. Yeehaw!

Today I took it a bit easier and ran about 4.5 miles. The gym closed early so I didn't get to swim but the run felt good. My feet feel better and it is not because of the crap orthotics the podiatrist gave me. It is because of my magical Newtons. They are slowly dying, however, so I bought a new pair this weekend, this time in lime green. Can't wait to wear 'em when they arrive in the mail.

Week 2 of Ironman training, here I come!

Panama City shark

OMG, check out this video. This is where I will be swimming on November 7th. Fortunately on race day there will be 2000 other swimmers thrashing around, so chances are good that the sharkies will leave us alone. The part that bothers me is the training swims where I am all by myself cloaked in a wetsuit that makes me look like a delicious seal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI6VIkf3ilI

On Pretend Tonsillitis and the Joys of Riding a Tandem

Dear readers,

I am finally recovered from some dreadful illness that made me hack up blood and check my temperature every 2 hours (yes, yes, I am a bit OCD) after it went up to 101 last Wednesday. Nonetheless I got stir crazy after taking 2 days off and hopped back in the pool Thursday and Friday for some easy swims. On Friday I was convinced I should visit the doctor as my left tonsil was the size of a small grape. My mother was worried I had the swine flu. Alas, it was neither according to the nonchalant Dr. Bhojwani who might as well have been a robot considering the lack of information he gave me. I returned home and kept doing the same things I'd been doing - taking ibuprofen, drinking fluids, and "resting," the only change being I had 20 bucks less in my pocket.

Anyway, I went out Saturday for a short run and an easy tandem ride with my friend, Kim, who I am guiding at the Chicago tri (she is visually impaired but you'd never know it from her attitude!). Only it wasn't easy because I was still sick, it was 35 degrees with the wind chill and I was wearing shorts. And riding a tandem is like driving a truck - especially if the person behind you is heavier! Before I rode with Kim, I practiced with another guide, Jane, who is about 6 feet tall and probably 175. Needless to say, we almost bit it on the first attempt to turn (we later discovered the second set of handlebars were loose, so that didn't help either). With Kim, who is a measly buck 10, the ride was a lot easier. Fortunately, Jane's husband came to pick us up 'cuz there weren't no way no how I was runnin' back to Jane's house. I couldn't feel my fingers.

I can't wait for the bike leg of the Chicago tri when everybody on the course comments on how "cute" Kim and I look. Apparently there are a lot of idiots out there who assume we're just riding the tandem to be sassy and sisterly.

Dear readers,

Please excuse the brief blog entry hiatus as I was experimenting with creating my own tri-webpage. Alas, my technological skills (and patience) were lacking with regard to this project. I checked out weebly.com and set up a great initial framework, but then couldn't figure out how to archive entries and do some other fun techy stuff I'd had in mind. The webpage ended up looking more like a fancy blog, so I figured I should just go back to my initial calling. I am sorry I was led astray.

In other news, I have been busy with training, fundraising and coaching/guiding. With regard to the latter - I am now a guide with C-Different (www.cdifferent.org) and am working out with my friend Kim every weekend. We are running in the Soldier Field 10 mile race on May 23rd and in the Chicago Tri (which Accenture has sadly abandoned) on 30 August (I think). Th. and I are gearing up on the base-training for IM FL and officially start training on May 18. Our buddy S.C. is starting to freak out since he has never completed more than an Olympic-distance tri, as it was easy to convince him to sign up last December when our athletic endeavors involved eating cookies and drinking egg nog. Th. and I are trying to motivate him as best we can. Fundraising for Fisher House is also going well - I hosted an event with some students at the business school (Kellogg) a few weeks ago and raised some solid cash. I have a few other ideas in the works and hope to get moving on those soon.

I am excited to get started with Vision Quest again (I took a break since it is so dang expensive) and am especially looking forward to farmer's tans, massive calf muscles, and green hair. No, really, I am. I am back at it on May first and am really hoping that I can beat Th. but that will probably only happen if I don't get any injuries and he does virtually nothing over the summer. ;)

56-Year-Old Becomes First Woman to Swim Atlantic

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=275763

Astaxanthin & Astavita

So in my quest to set a PR at Ironman Florida this year, I've been evaluating lots of strategies. One of them is nutrition and supplementation. I have a tendency to get sick a lot while I'm training hard, even when I eat relatively well (or so I think) and get decent sleep (7 hours on average). One of the products that peaked my interest last year was Astavita, a relatively new antioxidant on the market. Chris Lieto, a 3x Ironman winner, is the triathlon world's spokesperson for the product. He's pretty hot, so that also helped to spark my interest in their marketing campaign. :) But anyway, apparently Astavita is a really great product, and it's derived from astaxanthin, a powerful antioxidant. This is what Lieto had to say about it:

"Astavita has been helping me fight off free radicals for years. By taking it on a daily basis it speeds up my recovery and reduces the free radicals in my system caused by physical and mental stress. What's even better is that it is all natural. It is from a safe source of algae that is grown in bio-Domes in Maui where it is monitored and protected from the outside environment. When it is at its optimal stage it is harvested. You know you are getting the best and safest Astaxanthin on the market. I don't go a day without it.”

Essentially, astaxanthin is a carotenoid (like beta carotene, lycopene and lutein). Carotenoids are derived from photosynthetic plants and organisms like algae. The significant research that has been conducted supporting astaxanthin's benefits suggests that it is up to 300x more powerful an antioxidant than many other common supplements, like Co-Enzyme q10. Research shows that it may be beneficial in cardiovascular, immune, inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. It also supports the assumption that it protects body tissues from oxidative damage, which is why it is a great supplement for endurance athletes. Astaxanthin also crosses the blood-brain barrier, which makes it available to the eye, brain and central nervous system to alleviate oxidative stress that contributes to ocular, and neurodegenerative diseases such as glaucoma, macular degeneration, and even Alzheimer's.

I'm hoping that it will help me to recover faster, and in turn, help me fight off illness. I'll keep you posted on how it goes since I just ordered three bottles.


Take it from Chris (*bonus - he makes a Speedo cameo*):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6963071327143631776&ei=3Z2MScu7G4P6-QGi4ITiCQ&q=chris+lieto+astavita&hl=en

So sue me, I didn't watch the Inaug, I caught up on Drudge.

Today was such an awesome day. This morning, I treated myself to a performance test with Robbie Ventura and Dr. Max Testa. Dave, the Head of Operations over at VQ's Chicago location, told me to act surprised when Dr. Testa walked in. So I did. Dr. Testa is a cute little Italian man who can basically talk your ear off about anything sports-medicine related. I'm really into this stuff, so I could listen to him talk for hours. And I pretty much did. Though I phased out some of the talking during the last few minutes of the LT test (the really hard part).



Anyway, we went through some of my background (race PR's, health history, perceived strengths and weaknesses) and talked a fair amount about the injuries I had going into IM CDA last June. I mentioned that my longest training ride was 70 miles and that my run training was virtually non-existent. Robbie winced at this. We looked at my bike fit and both Robbie and Dr. Testa concurred that it looked pretty good in terms of the fore/aft seat position; not too aggressive and not too boring, either. We tilted my seat down a little to allow me to roll my pelvis forward a bit more, and decided we would bring my handlebars down as my cycling skills improve. Apparently, I have a pretty inconsistent pedalstroke and need to work a lot more on the pull part where I engage my hamstrings and hip flexors. The upside to this is that I have beastly quads. I also need to work on my handling skills since: 1) I am not very good at grabbing waterbottles from volunteers at races; this has almost resulted in disaster on a few occasions. 2) I have trouble on tight turnarounds and usually end up unclipping one foot.



We started the LT test after the bike fit. Robbie pricked my finger with a magical pricking gun every 2 minutes or so (that's what she said), and then put the blood into a reader that measured the lactate volume. Lactate is a byproduct of cell degeneration, so it correlates strongly with fatigue. Lactate Threshold (LT) is measured on a scale with different points - the "breaking point" is the first upswing in the graph curve, and LT is the intensity level of exercise where there is an abrupt and significant increase in blood lactate levels. It's kind of confusing, but this graph I found helped me understand (thanks, Google!):


(FYI, the green dot with the arrow pointing down to '45' is the "breaking point.") I have yet to receive the formal results, but I think I did pretty well. I probably went to about 90% of my max and hit about a 172 HR (started at 54 at rest but nervous). They said something about a 13 lactate volume level, but I don't know what that means. Apparently, LT is a more consistent measure of aerobic capacity than VO2 max, so I'm definitely glad I did this, bruised pointer finger and all.


I won't bore you with the rest of the details on the test, but they did some other functional analysis stuff like flexibility, range of motion and muscular/core strength. Robbie and Dr. Testa also told me that they were going to be pushing me to put in a lot of cycling volume to improve my muscle memory, improve Z2-Z3 efficiency on the bike, and reduce risk of injury (vs. pumping out lots of run volume which is high-impact).


After all that, I felt compelled to go back to the gym, so I did a quick yoga class (I did work today, believe it or not - I just woke up early), grabbed some chow with a friend at an awesome restaurant called Duchamps, and then went to a clinic featuring guess who, Dr. Testa. Yeah. Best day ever.