Adult Onset Athlete....again

Well it's been over a year since my last blog post. You know how it goes. Boy gets on the wagon, boys gets knocked off the wagon and lays around eating Doritos complaining about being smote by the all mighty smoter. During this time is when Mrs Brian rolls her eyes.


This is not a New Years Resolution. I started my new journey in pursuit of a healthier lifestyle and its associated goals back in the fall. It was all unstructured training then. No must do workouts, just workouts, mostly running....lots of running. As always I find it most difficult to outrun my entirely shite diet of soda, chips, pizza and whatever tastes good from frozen. I try and and I try but the salt and sugar is so good. Having the dietary palate of a twelve year old doesn't help. To get healthy foods in my diet, I find I gravitate to egg and natural ingredients for breakfast, tuna or chicken and spinach for lunch, nuts and fruit for snacks...but supper is a problem. I don't want to make anything. The Mrs does what she can but often works late leaving me to figure out an easy meal for the kids and I. Nothing beats ordering a pizza. It's there without me barely lifting a finger with Internet ordering. I can get in a bike workout in the Pain Cave, and it's there 30min later. Following this I continue to fail all night with crap after crap. Even if we don't have any crap foods, I get creative mixing baking ingredients like chocolate chips and peanut butter to curb my needs for sweet and savoury.

I haven't been injured in some time, at least not from tri training. I did have a torn pec and cracked ribs from hockey which certainly hindered training for a couple weeks. I think the lack of injury could be because I am training by the maffetone method for my base period. This is the heart rate training through the 180 minus age method which I know is arbitrary and not really based in any concrete number. However, I find it helps. It keeps me in check, holding me back during the base period, keeping honest in fact. An aerobic workout is an aerobic workout. Same thing on the bike. I am training indoors on my Wahoo Kickr with Trainerroad. Both of these are great products by the way. I pick sweet spot base training workouts that keep me in my MAF zones. Swimming? Well swimming is easy. It's my go to sport. When I was a youngster I won events in swimming at the Royal Bank Junior Olympics in 1979 (I think), CANUSA Games, regional champs, loads of city champs in an era that spanned several years from about age 6 to around 13 or 14. What happened then? I discovered I like smoking (cigarettes and other stuff), sneaking drinks and girls a whole lot more than athletics. But I digress.

I signed up for the Wellend Rose City Triathlon in mid June this summer on opening day of registration. The event is run by Multisports Canada, who have a great reputation for a quality event. I think I'll do ok, but honestly I just want to complete vice compete. It's also more about changing what I do before I get to the line and not what happens at the line. It's a half iron race, my second I think, consisting of a 2km swim, 90km bike and a 21.1km run.

I am loving the fact that I'm getting into the more structured part of my workouts, putting about 7-10 hrs per week of workouts and trying to keep ahead of my bad diet. I refuse to diet though and buy into any of these plans, schemes and snake oil. All they do is remind you of what you can't have and not what you're tryin achieve...which is overall a healthy sustainable lifestyle (not the granola eater kind of sustainable). I'm hopeful that I can regularly blog about the training and my journey, but I make no promises. You can always go back and read the old entries in this blog or my old one at milesnmiscues.bolgspot.com or another at slowtriathlete.wordpress.com .

Another new aspect for me this time around is some more emphasis on functional strength training and movement and more holistic approach to training including how sitting in a chair all day affects training, how staring at my phone or computer hunched over affects it and how recovery, sleep and diet all have an input on performance.

Well until next time, hopefully not next year....

Some great reads...

The Phil Maffetone books
Ready to Run by Kelly Starret
Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
Movement by Gary Cook

Swim Training and Wine

No not together at the same time...

But I have been swim training and also ventured into my wife's fascination with wine.

I have always liked wine. Not necessarily to drink very often, but I instead love the collectibility of wine. The many distinct labels, varietals and growing locales make for a very interesting hobby. Well now I am trying to have a glass with dinner (the Mrs. tends to want to finish the bottle) as I attempt to exploit the wine for its health benefits, while enjoying the various flavours that each bottle has.

My swimming this week has also been of various 'flavours'.

Sunday's jaunt was quick open water swim. Just a quick 1200m with some folks from the Navy Master's club at Elk Lake. Even Elk Lake is different than my usual swimming hole at Thetis Lake. Its not better, nor worse - just different. It has different smells, wildlife, people, water and in general the atmosphere.

My next swim occurred Monday at Sooke's Seaparc Pool. This was like a $3 bottle of wine, it gets you where you want to go, but you don't enjoy it at all. Lane swimming  was available at 0900 and this is when I went. Little did I know lane swimming was only one lane and was run concurrently with the Aquafit class. Now God bless all the seniors and overweight folks that partake in Aquafit, but seriously do you have to wear perfume or maybe some sort of bath oils to the pool? All I know is that the suface was oily with strange hints of flowers and vanilla floating like a horror film's erie mist above the water. Now this was unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as, what I can only assume was an over chlorination of the pool. The only other option would be a significant ammonia dump by most of the Aquafit participants.

Under the umbrella of the pleasant atmosphere, I attempted my workout. But alas, it was a broken and agitated one. Not unlike a wine with pleasant bouquet (not the actual smells of the pool) and yet hits the palate with a wash of acidity, this workout was spoiled by folks that have no idea about lane etiquette. Two ladies (again God bless them for working out) approximately two-thrids the size of the lane each, would not wait at the wall for me to pass, after I am on their toes the entire length. I wanted to scream, "Pull over!" Unfortunately neither understood that I was not passing them during the length because of etiquette and shear fear.

The last two day's swim has been very pleasant. I went back to Seaparc expecting to find that $3 bottle of wine, yet to my surprise, when I showed up at 0615, the pool was almost empty. I had a lane all to myself each day. These were great. Imagine that glass of wine you have that pleasantly surprises you. That $15 bottle that tastes like $50 bottle. The mood was perfect at the pool. The lights were dimmed, the surface barely moved in front of me. The only criticism I would have is the dim hum of country music piping through the sound system (not my preference).

Meals have been good this week too thus far. Beautiful steaks, pork chops, chorizo with apple, grilled brie, BBQ chicken - all with a glass of wine.

Wines I tried this week:

2011 Castillo de Aguaron Cabernet Sauvignon
2011 Kiwi Cuvee Malbec
2011 Quinta da Aveleda Vinho Verde

Not a huge fan of the Malbec, but I must say the Cab was great in combination with the steak and the Vinho Verde was one of the best whites I have had. A perfect summertime wine. Its not sparkling per se but it does have some 'tickles' throughout.

I'm Baaack

So I tried Wordpress because of their ease of buttons linking to my Tumblr and Twitter feeds but alas I did a lot less on there than I ever did in this space.

Well I guess an update is due.

My broken ankle never healed correctly and had to be reset in December and since then I have been a good boy. I have been with the Navy Masters Swimming Club working out 3 times a week and have also been working hard on biking using Trainerroad.com and virtual power (love this program).

Over the last week I have retested my biking and its not great...FTP is sitting at about 181, not where I would like to be, but I guess I am just weak. My swimming is continuing to be just fine. Had 2 masters workouts, 1 individual workout using Sheila Taormina's workout cards and one open water jaunt of about 1200m with a few folks from masters.

During the summer, I was still unable to run for more than couple of minutes so I concentrated on my swimming. This culminated in an age group win at the Thetis Lake Open Water Swim and a 6th male overall...not too shabby me thinks. I did a 27'02" for 1500m.

Anyways I deploy overseas in a few and I think I have to get the blog going again to communicate what I'm up to.

Hopefully I'm not lying this time.

One Forward and One Back

Felt good going for my 'runs' but alas apparently my ankle still is not healed correctly.

Military medical system has failed me again.

CT scan on Tuesday and hopefully we'll find out what is going on.

Don't care though I ams till running the Resolution Run...well maybe walking.

Still Going and Going

Ran Elk Lake loop here in Victoria for the forst time since moving back. 10k slow and easy to make certain that my ankle holds up.

I was very very fresh. Felt good the whole time. Wore a compression top and calf sleeves, maybe they helped, maybe not...but I think so. The loop was same as I recall back in 2006. Weather was mild, almost no wind, lots of friendly people-dogs-horses and magnificently easy trail with vistas to match. I love this stuff.

I am still a go for the resolution run in January; the Mrs and I are both fired up. Only thing we need to do is continue running and stop eating like crap. My diet has been horrible unless you count onion rings as fresh vegetables. I cannot seen to escape. Laziness and boredom seem to be the biggest promoters of the unhealthy diet. I will stop, oh yes I will.

Looking at the website for IM St George last night and feeling extremely tempted. I am in no way capable of doing an IM right but maybe I could by May. But St George? Arguably the hardest current IM? Nah. I think I have to follow a more gradual plan. Certainly an Oly distance thsi year for certain but probably also a half. Then next year or one more onto the IM.

'Drink milk love life' is not working for me. I LOVE milk btu apparently it is losing interest in my. My gut hurts and I let loose the gas...a lot. I think I have to give it up. No more choco milk for me.

Anyhow, on to work and something in training later on.

First Step to Getting Back

Yesterday the first step back to a healthy productive lifestyle was started.

I signed both my wife and I up for the 1 Jan 2012 10km Resolution Run. I will start with some more concentrated and focused running later today. Looking at a 45min 'long run' at an easy pace. The rest of my week will consist of five more runs of varying lengths and types.

Raining today and cold so it will be a treat...I guess it is a good idea to run in this now, so that I can prove to myself that  am committed once again.

Coming Soon!!!!!!!!!!

A new training life blog on my way to another half ironman distance triathlon. More than likely it will be the Sooke Triathlon in August next year.

The only way this will work is if - for the first time in a long time - I can go injury free. Back surgeries, broken limbs, nerve damage etc have all conspired to keep me away.

Stay tuned for updates.