Vorsprung Durch Technik

Trying out "a week's training per blog post" because I'm guessing people are tired of me cross-posting every entry to Facebook...

"When women first began to work out with weights, it was considered dangerous to have them lift anything heavy and so they were given only two- or four-pound wooden dumbbells. The fact that women lifted much heavier objects in the home seems to have escaped most of the men who designed the exercise. here two cheerful ladies work out in their street clothes in a photograph c. 1910 by Willis T. White." From Venus With Biceps.

I love that picture and quote, it makes me laugh every time - these ladies must have felt like they were lifting feathers after toting babies and coal and doing mangling! It is a good thing to remember that lifting weights which aren't as heavy as your handbag is a touch on the silly side.

So, not a post about gadgets (though I have a lot now, I should review them sometime). But advance through technical workout, rather than technology. Monday I should have been out playing D&D but it didn't go ahead for reasons, so out came the weights. I had a play about with some new lifts and bodyweight exercises, earning me two Fito quests and adding dumbbell flyes and seated dips to my roster of "things that are probably good for me" . A hundred dips hurt quite a lot, by the way.

Swimming on Tuesday was a full technical and speed session, the first I've done like this and oh boy, this had better be good for me because, well, ow. No letting the flow come with this one; it was all about living and dying in the seconds. I'm using the "How to cut 5% off your mile time" training plan from H2Open Magazine, which requires:

• 10 min warm-up
• 10 min drills on any weaknesses (so, everything in my case)
• 20 mins of 100m sets at 80% effort, 1min rests
• 10 mins of 25m sprints at full effort, 1min rests
• 10 mins cool-down (which I abused by attempting to learn bilateral breathing - it's improving)

I'd calculated from my last mile time (about 43min) that I needed to be doing my 100m sets at 2m 35 or less. It turns out I was doing them at around 2m 05, but the chances of me keeping up that pace for a full mile right now is about nil. Still, the fact that I can do it is a good start. Overall I did 1.9km in 50mins but there was a lot of stopping (for slow people at first, and then rest breaks between the sprints).

 Wednesday was a wash. It's usually a rest day but I'm in two duels so I did try some static/bodyweight work. Terrible, shouldn't have bothered. Those dips on Monday were killer.

Thursday is usually a run but waahwaah, horrible rain, so I figured I'd grab another swim, though it would only be an hour. 2.25km (90laps) in 59mins was marginally faster than previous times - factoring in numpty-stops I'd probably have got another 4 laps in before the pool closed. TriCalc rounded it up to 2.3kph, anyway. I'm hoping to get to 2.5kph so I can do the 5km Swimathon in 2hrs (thus being significantly faster than my time when I was 18) and finish a two-miler under 1hr 30 - although I won't know if I can do that til I hit the open water again (yes, still pining). It's probably a couple of minutes faster over the mile time tonight but there's a lot of work to do, and it's impossible to get an accurate read when you're sharing a lane with six other people, five of whom are numpties hogging the ends or so slow you have to stop behind them (seriously, dude, if three or four people are continually swimming into your feet you need to switch to the slower lane) and one who's snapping at your heels. I hate that, it means I can't switch off - I had to give myself a good shake-down at half a mile and refuse to let anyone else set my pace for me. Tuesday nights are so much better for serious distance.

Friday is supposedly the sacrosanct rest day. We'll see. These duels are tough going and there's not much in it.

Oh - I've lost 5lbs over the last month! That's down to nothing but tracking to about 150cal under 2000. Still really having issues over getting enough protein but it's definitely helped me to make better choices. Not that I was terrible in the first place, but it's things like being aware of that second biscuit, and reducing the pasta later if I do have another one.

Two Wheels On My Wagon

Well, I don't recognise myself. It's Sunday. I got up at 8am - voluntarily - got out my bike, cycled to the pool, swam a mile, got back on the bike and was home before 11am. I don't think I've ever actually done that before. It says a lot for my current fitness that I'd even consider it!

I've never been much of a cyclist - did a few big runs when I was a teenager, but mostly poddled round to friends' houses. Sometimes I biked to uni when I could be bothered to drag my overly-heavy bike up from the cellar and tackle the traffic down Oxford Road, where the buses play "splat the student" all day (given how much of my second year I spent hung over, asleep, or hiding under the covers from the black dog, it's a miracle it ever came out at all). Other half and I upgraded our knackered old post-student racers for a pair of sturdy town/wannabe mountain bikes before we got hitched, and...never used them. We had all sorts of good intentions but since we only passed our driving tests in our late twenties it took a long time for the novelty of having a car to wear off. And then there were children and a new home in a hilly area, and the poor old bikes have languished in the shed for years.

Anyway. I bought The Bike Owner's Handbook at the back end of May, along with a cycle computer and fixed it all up - very useful book. I'd barely so much as pumped up my own tyres before, and this had me taking an entire wheel off to replace a cracked tyre! It was certainly challenging but I do feel more competant. And then I locked it all back in the shed, whereupon it rained all summer. It took a trade-off to get me out on it, but I'm glad - my running kit made a decent set of clothes to wear; I had a reason to go somewhere, and although I felt like an absolute dork it was worth it. I did have to walk part of the way back because this is effectively a new bike to me, and it has 13 more gears than I'm used to, so the return uphill was just too much for now. But I will crack it (preferably when the road isn't being resurfaced!). It also had the joyful knock-on of the kids wanting to go out on their bike/trikes, so we had some fun in the park this afternoon. Eldest is very close to being able to cycle by herself now.

Swim was ok. Very run-of-the-mill; I'd squeezed in a couple of chapters of Total Immersion last night and was trying to remember all that - it's very similar to what I learned from the coach at USwim so far. Didn't seem to increase my speed at all but I was more mindful of my body roll (I tend not to roll enough to the right) which I guess is the point. I need to do the maths - I usually swim a longer distance so working out my average speeds would be useful.

Embrace The Suck

Big props to jhrunning on Fitocracy for the pep talk earlier this week (loads of luck with your tri!), and mentioning the phrase "embrace the suck" - he was talking about running through bad weather, but I used it a lot to get through the burning shins and marshmallow knees phase of my run this evening - and to get up the last rise on my way home (I pictured that belly from the old Reebok ad as "the suck" and ran after it, chanting "I'm going to hug yooooou!!". In my head. Yes, I'm well aware that's weird).

Something I have definitely learned tonight: at the moment I can't do without a big warm-up - a mile walk uphill seems to be about the right amount. Less than that and I'm hurting and discouraged very quickly, so I'm going to drop that short warmup/2.5km route off my list and always do the long warm-up first. It's a pain because it adds 20mins or so to the time I'm out, but if that's what it takes I guess that's what I'm doing. I started out more slowly, using my last warm-up song (India Arie: Video) to start running to rather than my usual kick-off tune (Barenaked Ladies: One Week), and that seemed to give me a more confident pace. I also gave myself permission to walk up the horrible hump-backed bridge which is my nemesis, and that gave me more energy to go further at the other end, which I'm pleased with. So I'm feeling more positive despite noticing the frost appearing on the grass verges...! Overall it was nearly 2k in part one, a 2min/200m walk up the bridge and then about 1.5k for part two. That's much better, I feel more optimistic about adding back my favourite, totally dark moor section now and trying for the 5k again sooner rather than later.


I spent a lot of the evening chatting on Fito and Facebook to various other swimmers (Iron Fish FTW!), which was lovely - really feel like I'm starting to find a bit of a tribe, people who really get the whole open water thing. I'd been somewhat low and bitter to be going back to work today (which is saying something as I love my job) instead of doing the last session at Salford, but it was cancelled due to issues with the water quality - and USwim announced their "polar sessions" this week. So with a quick date shuffle of classes and a sincere (but I must admit, slightly gleeful) apology to my families, I am delighted, excited, and a little scared to be going to the November session. Man, it is going to be COLD, and I think I may invest in some neoprene socks. But it will be awesome, even if I'm only in there five minutes.

Hoping for good weather tomorrow. YaaL on Fito challenged me to get my bike out in return for her run, so I'm thinking of cycling to the pool first thing. Fingers crossed! I have done some lifting also and am leading one of my duels...somebody, mentioning no husbands, has been sneaking in the weights after hours so with that and a horrible chunk of roof mending logged as "yard work" (which, to be fair, deserved the points), I've dropped back a bit on that. Guess I'd better to remember to log all the absent-minded calf raises and get little D to do weighted bridges with me this week...:-P

You Can't Take The Sky From Me...

As long as I can stop off for coffee and cake every once in a while, I'm there.

 I can't actually imagine missing my Tuesday swim now, it must be nearly a year since I started and I'm starting to recognise the same people each week. There's a chap I share a lane with after 9pm - by common consent we split it lengthwise and don't get in each other's way; he's usually doing a couple of km so it's a pleasant way to get the space we both need. A member of staff has started to ask my distance when I get out and pulls "impressed face" which makes me laugh - I can't be the only one to do a reasonable distance, surely?

The first mile was the hardest tonight, not because of anything to do with my body but because firstly everyone seemed to be on go-slow - people poddling up and down trying not to get their hair wet. I don't care if you want to do that but in the lap lanes it's most frustrating to give someone a whole length's head start and still be catching them up. And secondly my brain was SO annoying: "This is crap, it's too hot, it's so boring, I hate that black line, it's so noisy, all these bloody people, I'm fed up of turning at the ends, I can't get a rhythm, I miss the sky, it feels horrible, blahblahblahblah". On and on and on. I felt like I was wrestling a monkey. Eventually a stern self-lecture on how lucky I am to a) have experienced open water and be able to go back next year and b) have this excellent new pool open when it's convenient for me FOR FREE got it to pipe down. 

But oh, god, I miss the cold and the air and the sun and the smiles and the lousy hot chocolate....sigh. It's not even been a week and I'm pining.

Anyway. Misery aside, I pulled off two miles in 1hr 30, which is ok. Not great, but probably delayed by 5mins or so by the aforementioned numpties and fiddling with my cap and headphones. It felt a lot faster than Saturday, like I was working so much harder - but it was a slower speed. I guess you can't really compare pool with open water times; all that stopping and turning. I can work on getting my pool time down, if nothing else. Right now I'm waiting anxiously for an email about Great North Swim next year - assuming the stars align, I'd like to do the two-mile wave at Windermere in 2013 for the challenge, as well as Great Manchester just because that's effectively my "home ground", I know the course and it was a ton of fun this year. The recommended two-mile cut-off at Windermere is 1hr 45 - that is, you should be confident of doing two miles in less than that time. So I'm already under it by a nice amount; I'd like to take another 15mins off over Winter. Lots of work to do and I have no idea if it's achievable, but as I've said a few times lately: I'm nothing if not overambitious.

Mrs Pitiful

Round and round we go, back to the beginning. Well, not quite; tonight's run wasn't as bad as say, the first week I did C25K, where I could barely manage a minute, but it was pretty pitiful for someone who ran (most of) a 5k just last week. Started out ok but it turned out to be one of those fidgety runs where your mind just isn't on board, fussing and flapping, and your knees turn into hot lumps of custard atop a pair of burning twigs. All told I managed about 1km sustained of an easy 2.5km route. So: rubbish. But: 1km is 1km and next it'll be 2km and I'll just have to grit my teeth and build it back up again.

I am tired, probably a bit left over from Iron Fish and since it's the beginning of the school term, we've all had a shiny new cold to deal with - I've mostly got over it quite quickly other than the headaches, but little D is really suffering, poor thing. My Fitness Pal tells me I didn't eat anywhere near enough today before I went out, which can't have helped. Guess I can scoff that left-over rhubarb crumble now, eh?

I picked up my Winter running kit yesterday - long-sleeved top (bright blue) and wind jacket (fluorescent yellow), both Ron Hill, both in the sale. And they're great, the jacket in particular - it poured down for the last 0.5km and I was bone dry underneath; it really cut the wind out too. It'll take a while to get used to long sleeves and the rustle of the fabric, I think. My kit is entirely mismatched now, but what the hell. I run in the dark for many reasons ;-)

My head's settled down a bit now (so it was worth it despite the pain and weather) but beforehand I was winding myself up something chronic about getting faster. I really want to improve over Winter - bring my running back up to scratch for distance and cut my mile times for both running and swimming, but so far I haven't managed to put anything coherent together. I know I probably need to be doing drills but I don't know where to start. What I want is an MOT - someone to take a look at where I am, and all the clunky bits of my body (like, why do I always feel more pain in my right shoulder/hip/knee?), and work out a programme I can stick to whilst still having a life.

I suppose that's called a personal trainer, isn't it.

Iron. Fish.

My last session at Salford Quays this morning, and I decided to go out with a bang, if I could. I am not a morning person, but I knew if I wanted to achieve anything significant I needed at least a couple of hours, so I was in the water at 9am today. My confidence was quite high - no messing about, no worrying about form or fretting about getting in peoples' way - just get in, and get it done. Find the flow.

One lap of the long course is 750m. My PB there was two laps, so 1.5km. I gave myself a range of options depending on the conditions and the fact my arms were still fairly sore from resuming lifting the other night - 2 laps was "maintenance", 3 laps an open water PB so "acceptable improvement", 4 laps "pretty good" as that was 3km equivalent to my pool PB, 5 laps "don't stop now!!". Anywhere between 4-5.5 laps was in my sights when I saw the weather was calm and the Quays still pretty warm (the water was 17oC but an intermittently stiff wind and cloud cover made the air temp around 11oC, and you really notice the difference). It all depended on how well my body, particularly my shoulders, held up at that point. I really wanted to track my time over two miles because Great North Swim at Windermere has a cut-off of 1hr 45 for that distance, but if I had the time and energy I wanted to get to 2.4miles or 3.86km - the swim distance for an Ironman Tri; known on Fitocracy as "Iron Fish". According to Total Immersion, a distance of 3.1 miles or 5k is equivalent to running a half marathon, so I guess Iron Fish is like a 10km run.

It was...not easy, but surprisingly far less painful than I'd thought it would be. No doubt I'll feel it tomorrow! As people have said to me about running, the first mile was the most difficult physically, but I felt settled in after two laps with plenty in the tank and little pain. Laps three and four were significantly easier, I got a great little earworm to keep me going and I was generally doing ok. Checked my watch for "time elapsed" at the end of lap four and was startled to see it was 1hr 26, same as my pool 3km time - and better still, I had a good 40mins of the session left. Knowing my average laptime was about 21mins today, I set off again to complete one more lap and a lap of the short course to make absolutely sure of hitting the Iron Fish distance. It felt a lot slower but actually didn't vary a great deal from previous times, and the last short course lap had to be pushed out pretty quick - I wasn't the last out, but the safety boat had parked itself across the course to stop anyone trying for a long course lap! At no point did I get my stupid "you can't do it" voice in my head and I am really pleased about that because now I have serious fuel to shut it up with next time I go for a run. I found lots of flow - not for long periods, but enough that I'd suddenly think "ooh, my arms are just flying along without me doing anything there" and noticing that my legs would take over for a while when my shoulders needed a rest.

And done. I was definitely weary and a bit wobbly when I got out, and I'd had an odd sensation of tingling lips over the last 0.5km or so - I thought some of my hair had escaped my swimming cap at first, but I read later this can be a sign of low blood sugar. That would make sense as I just grabbed a cereal bar in the car this morning rather than face a bowl of porridge. I'll know to stoke up better next time - I don't handle breakfast well and worry about being sick, but I can manage some porridge usually. I snagged a brioche and a hot chocolate after getting changed and it went straight away, so I'm not worried.

I'm guessing a handful of you reading this will tease me about swimming the Channel - let me say here and now: NEVER HAPPEN. 90% of people who try it fail because of the currents and it doesn't make sense for me, as a mum of two little girls, to even think about it. I'll just admire from a distance (and maybe wonder idly about taking part in a relay...). But there are long distances out there that I want to try - next up is 5km, of course, which I'll knock out in the pool for Swimathon next year, if not before, and Great East has a 5km open water wave if I can get down there some time. I may attempt all five Great Swims in the same year. The next Fitocracy quest for swimming is "Marine Marathon", that's 10km, and there are several lake swims available (one being Bala in Wales, which I've always loved). And there's cross-Windermere, of course, at 10.3 miles. I may never manage any of those past 5km, but they're within my range if I work hard. Before any of that, though, I need to get my speed up to be within the cut-off times, and that's going to take quite some work.

One thing's for sure. I may never be competitive. I may never be fast. But I can endure.

Oh, you want to know what my earworm was? Have a laugh...:)

Do You Even Lift?

Why yes, yes I do, apparently.

I have no idea where that shirt comes from - I love the composition of the picture and the set of his shoulders. He just seems so competant.

So yes, no run tonight as it's cold and drizzly and I don't have anything beyond a t-shirt to go out in right now - having got soaked on the school run multiple times this week we're all off for new wet weather gear at the weekend. It really is time to pick up the weights again since my shoulder seems mostly better, so it was back to basics with dumbbell bench press, deadlift, pullover (I just really like that one), planks and static wall sits (I happen to be fairly good at those). Pleased to see things haven't degenerated too much since mid-June - I just started out at 10kg in each hand and went up to 12.5kg for the bench press, always my most comfortable lift, and my PR at 15kg is not all that far off. A way to go to get back to deadlift and pullover form, though, PRs for those are both 20kg.

Best plank clocked in at about 90s, halfway to PR - I'd really like to get to five minutes on that; just went for a couple of 60s wall sits (PR 240s) so as not to stress that clicky knee out too much (it's still going on after ten days, no idea what's happened). Total fail on push-ups again...annoying because I feel strong enough to do it now but my back keeps collapsing and I'm not sure how to fix it.

It'll do, happy enough with that - I need to do some research over the next week to try and work out the best programme to support endurance sports. Getting stronger made such a difference to my swimming very quickly earlier this year and it's really important to me to do everything I can to support that development. Also I seem to be losing weight slowly but steadily; it makes sense to help that along.


Besides, lifting gets you loads of Fitocracy points and one of the first things I did with my new Hero status was to challenge my OH and a good friend to free-for-all duels. :D