Three Sport Day

The doctor cleared me to run (just on the treadmill) yesterday! I made it a goal to run today. Pretty funny. Day started at the pool, because my son wanted to go swimming. After we came back and had lunch, I cleared out the garage, dug out the treadmill, and plugged it in.

I honestly didn't know how it was going to go. I "ran" one mile in 19:10. I thought my knee was pretty tired at that point, so I stopped. Long way to go.

Then I realized I could make it a three sport day, so I went upstairs and rode a bit.

It feels so good to be back in the swing of things. It's been so long.

Adjusted to the heat

My body has finally adjusted to the heat. It's still blasted hot to go running here in Houston, but at least the sun plays less of a role. This morning I did four miles with some hill work in the middle. Although my shirt and shorts were soaked through by the time I got home, at least it was a reasonable round trip.

I have a small swimming success to note. Yesterday at the pool, I did a push off and went nearly the length of the (25M) pool, underwater using a dolphin kick. I was on my side and noted that I was passing people. It's definitely faster than swimming on the surface. There is so much about swimming that is completely counterintuitive. I don't do every push off that well, but I figure if it happened once, it could happen again.

California = Triathlon Mecca

I recently traveled to California. The first night that I was in Carlsbad, I realized why this area has so many triathletes. I took a run down to the beach. The weather was about 70 degrees with moderate humidity, and it stayed that way at night for the next two weeks. Unbelievable! I was about a half mile from the beach, and every day there were people enjoying the sun and surf. By the middle of the stay, I enjoyed trying to learn to surf. (I did more falling than surfing, but I think I have the basics down). And then I did an open water swim with the San Diego Tri Club -- fun fun.

About Tuesday of the second week, I realized I had been going hard every day for over a week, so I took two days off. It was so nice there. Then I came back to Houston, where it was over 100 degrees every day. Let's just say that over the last week or so my body has told me in no uncertain terms it would rather be where the temperature doesn't top 85. The schedule is out the window. I still need to adjust to the heat, but I'm doing longer and longer stints outdoors. Maybe I can try to get back on schedule this week.

Swam downhill on National Running Day

Yesterday was National running day, but it made more sense to focus most of my workout efforts on swimming. The workout was bike to the Y, short run on the treadmill (just to say I did), go to masters swimming, and then bike home.

We were working on breast stroke technique yesterday. I like to use breaststroke in triathlons sometimes, because you can get a really good view in an open water swim if conditions are rough or sighting is difficult. I thought I was pretty good at that stroke, but during the drills, the coach came up to me and said, "Michael, you are very flat in the water, which is good, but I want you to try something. On your entry, really push your shoulders into the water, like 8-12 inches under. It's not permanent, but I want you to try."

I'd been getting across in 7 strokes or so, and as soon as a tried it, I dropped to 5. Huge.

There are two ways to get faster in swimming - technique and yards. Technique is more fun.

Now if I could just get a tight flip turn...

Should ear drops for swimmer's ear be gluten-free?

I haven't been posting for awhile, because after I started swimming again, my increased efforts resulted in a truly nasty bout of swimmer's ear. Very painful - very annoying - very tiring. So I was back out of the pool for a couple of weeks. Here's what I learned:

• I should have been using earplugs to keep out the water
• I should have used a half vinegar/half rubbing alcohol solution and dropped that in my ears before and after the workout. Evidently, the vinegar is the correct PH while the alcohol kills the infections before they get started.
  
• q-tips can irritate your ear canal, so don't go there
  
• Antibiotic ear drops were, bizarrely, very hard to acquire, resulting in an extra day of totally unnecessary pain
• I really didn't care if my ear drops were gluten free or not (but should I?)

That extra day of pain reminds me of the (thankfully infrequent) times when I am absolutely miserable and am asking a pharmacist if the medication is gluten-free or not. You'd think that this information would be readily available, but it isn't, and it's especially aggravating on the weekends when the manufacturer is closed.

It makes me wonder when the pharmaceutical industry is going to wake up on this topic -- probably not until people start reporting adverse reactions...

Anyway, I'm thrilled to be back in the water today.

GREAT workout

I knew taking off some time from work would help with my times, but I was shocked this morning. The schedule had a 45 min run with 10 min fast. Rather than run in the afternoon heat, which has been my habit to get used to the heat, I decided to run in the morning. On the way out, I did 8 minute pace and on the way back, 7 and even sub 7 pace! Since this was at the same HR I was doing 12 minute pace just a few weeks ago, I'll have to say I was beyond thrilled. So thank God for keeping me injury free and on schedule.

So contributory reasons were probably the shorter run, lower temperatures, the taper and running in the morning instead of later in the day. Wouldn't it be great if I just broke through a plateau with three weeks to go?

I'm thinking that maybe a "straight swim" of over 1.2 miles would be useful. And a massage. Who would have thought I would spend more on massages than race entry fees?

Can't sleep - but the work's getting done

I just put an hour brick in and popped in a skateboarding movie while I was cooling off. It seems that regardless of the time I work out, it takes me about two hours to wind down and get ready for sleep, and today a movie was about right.

I've been slowly building up my swim distance - for two reasons. One is that swimming has been my worst leg of triathloning since, oh, 1983 or so when I did my first one. The other is that I've been trying to ease off my rib injury from the marathon. Last night I did 88 "wall touches" - meaning one down, two back, three down, and so on. I find it's the only way I can keep the distance straight, as I am forever losing count of which lap I'm on. For those of you quick with math - that's 2200 meters - which turns out to be a personal distance PR. I've been adding 200 meters each workout to my twice a week workouts, so I'll get on the 2500 meter workout plan from my book soon.

Fun stuff today from the NFCA. Celiac Awareness came to The View. I love it when people on a show try to cram a "condition" into five minutes. I hope my Tivo caught it.

Christmas is finally put away

Today was the day we finally decided it was time to put away the Christmas tree. I know, you're thinking, "Your Christmas tree is still up in February?" No. It's in the box - we've just been trying to decide where to store it. I wasn't keen on the floor of the garage, and my wife was thinking attic, and well, it just sat there in the playroom for about two months. After a while, you just sort of forget that it's there.

Tonight I was out grilling and looked at the garage and said to myself, "It's time." Perhaps I was inspired by my children, who were picking up (!) in the playroom. So I climbed up in the attic, cleared a space, found a bungee cord, wrapped the box and started moving it out. My always helpful wife was hot on my heels, asking if I needed help.

So I lifted that box without any trouble right up there. She guided it into place, and that was that. The whole operation took perhaps 20 minutes total, and now we can enjoy a tree-free walkway until Thanksgiving or so.

So what on earth made us wait to put it away this long? It makes me think that a lot of training things are like that tree -- if you just do them, you get them over with quickly and get to reap the rewards. If you don't do them, well, they just sit there waiting for you.

Workouts have been pretty good. Swimming is up to 1200 meters (in 30 minutes). My legs are achy tonight, but that's probably to be expected.

Finally! a good workout

You can probably gather from the lack of recent postings that I've been a little under the weather. I either took a bug with me to New York, or I picked it up at there. In any case, it just made me tired and unable to concentrate, so I've been sleeping a lot. In fact, I skipped Friday's workout and slept most of the weekend and most of yesterday too. Although I wouldn't wish it on anyone, one silver lining is that I did lose 7 pounds this week, mostly because I just didn't feel like eating. I aim to keep that off and lose some more.

Another indication that I have been sick is that it's been really easy for me to hit my target heart rate range for my workouts. It was the same story today. I made sure I got in a full day's work and did my running workout. It didn't help my energy level, but it didn't hurt either. At nine o'clock, I almost didn't go to my swim workout, but now I'm glad I did. My swim is the weakest leg of my triathlon, and tonight I did 800 yards with good form in good time. Plus, I came out of the water with more energy than I started with. It just goes to show you that it makes sense to give the workout a try and see how it goes.

There was some interesting Celiac news. The people who brought you the Pillcam for upper GI endoscopies announced that a major insurer (United Healthcare) will be covering the Pillcam under one of their insurance policies. My hope is that more and more insurers (payors) will realize the importance of Celiac as a chronic condition and insure it and treat it as such, especially right after a diagnosis.

On course, FDA, DNA Testing

I am settling into my new workout schedule fairly well. Yesterday, I had a good brick work out consisting of 30 minutes on the bike followed by a 15 minute run. It was harder than I usually go for those types of workouts, so I guess my body's going to learn something. Today was an easy spin at 100 plus revolutions per minute and a swim. It's getting easier to spin quicker and more fluidly, so that's a bonus. For the swimming part, I took my kids up to the YMCA. I vowed I was going to swim 500 m today, which is a little bit farther than Tuesday, but not so far that I would overly stress my rib area. It worked out pretty well and the kids enjoyed playing in the warm end.

On the celiac front, I received the nicest e-mail newsletter from the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, and I thought there were two interesting things in there. First, there was the best explanation I had ever seen on DNA testing for Celiac. The second thing I saw was the instructions for submitting public comment on the FDA's proposal.

Yesterday, Iwent out and bought some more of that Redbridge beer. I talked to the manager at the liquor store and he said they're going to order more because it sells pretty quickly. Maybe their example will encourage more food companies to come out with truly gluten-free products.