Training for a Tri

Sony Walkman giveaway

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:18:00 +0000

Yeah, that's right. Sony Walkman, But not this one...

There's a new breed...

Want to win one? Visit Jamie at Swim Bike Run Live for a chance. Good luck!

Commuting is a Joy

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:30:00 +0000

It's really been a while, hasn't it. That's apparently going to be standard fare for the next 4.5 weeks.

Recently I've had the opportunity to get to know a neighbor. Tom lives a few houses down and commutes to work everyday by bike. Well, until he crashed in a race and recently had surgery on his leg. We had a nice chat on the bus the other day. At one point I asked him what he does in the rain. He basically said, there's nothing you can do. You will get wet. Just get out and ride.

So I have. Well, twice. Two weeks ago I rode into work, and got a flat two blocks from the office. That put me off until yesterday when I finally changed the tire and cleaned up the drivetrain a bit and rode this morning. What a treat! Beautiful view of house lights on the lake. 52 degrees and no rain. Very few cars on the road. It was great.

I did take a different route this morning which took me up a short but steep hill (not unlike most hills in the area), about 75 feet vertical in one tenth of a mile (~20% grade). Near the top of the hill was a fresh(ish) spattering of vomit. Rough hill, too much breakfast. I hope they're okay.

2010 goals

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:23:00 +0000

It's that time of year! I forget how much I like new years, and the clean slate they provide. 2009 was a great year. I'm in better shape than I've been in over a decade (that feels weird to say given that my 28th birthday is around the corner), and I've accomplished a lot of firsts and milestones in 2009. I completed my first triathlon. I've run and biked farther than ever before (run - 16.3 miles; bike 100 miles).

I've been thinking about some things I want to accomplish in 2010. I've always wanted to do a half IronMan triathlon, but that will need to wait. If 2009 taught me anything, it's that patience is key in endurance sports. So this year I want to spend getting faster at shorter distances and building up a better base. I also want to try out a few cycling races.

Without further adieu, here are my goals for 2010:

Complete 2 sprint triathlons
Complete a sprint in 1h10m (that will be a 10 minute PR)
Race in 2 crits
Workout in some way for 20 minutes each day Mon-Sat for the year. Sunday is my rest day, always, but I should be able to find a way to do something each day.
Go for at least a 50 mile bike ride once a month.
Climb the zoo hill road once a month from April to September

Happy 2010 to you all!

Understanding body composition

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:25:00 +0000

Let me start off by saying that I don't really understand body composition. It's a complex system we possess and making the most of it is a very individual process. The same advice for two people will likely yield different results.

According to answerfitness.com, body composition is the percentage of fat, muscle and bone in the body. Usually it is expressed as a ratio of lean mass to fatty mass. Lean mass being bones, muscle, skin, organs, and body water. Fatty mass being fat (subcutaneous and the fat surrounding internal organs).

OK, still what does it mean? Well that depends on who you are and your body type. I'm not going to be the one to tell anyone they need to have a certain body fat percentage. That's personal and we all have different bodies. What we can do is learn about our personal body composition, and design workouts to help fine tune that composition.

How does one measure body composition, or body fat percentage (as that is the common measure that most of us will see)? We recently purchased a scale that measures weight, body fat percentage, body water percentage, and muscle mass. Our first thought - what does one do with all of this information? For the most part we've just watched and tried to understand how the pieces fit together. It's interesting when one day you discover 2 extra pounds hanging around, but then you notice a jump in your body water percentage. Bloating, no big deal.

Since I still really don't understand how all these items fit together, I'm going to do an experiment this month. Each day, I'm going to record all the measurements and graph them out for your viewing pleasure. And what better time to do it then during the holidays, right?! You'll be able to see what happens when I eat too many cookies (notice I used 'when' and not 'if', it's going to happen).

If anyone has anything of more substance to add on the matter, let me know. I'm trying to grasp it all.

Gym workouts continue

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:35:00 +0000

Yesterday and today I got in two good gym workouts. I'm finally getting a feel for how much my muscles can take without going too far and the progress has been good. Yesterday was legs and a 25 minute spin. Today, arms and a 25 minute run on the treadmill. Tomorrow, chest and back, then another spin. Should be fun.

Lolo left a great comment on Sunday's post about cyclist/car interaction. It will be excellent subject matter for an upcoming post. Any other comments, suggestions, or questions you have are welcome.

What a ride it's been

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:46:00 +0000

Well NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month) is coming to a close. It's been a month full of posts, that's for sure. Has it been bad or good? I'd say a little bit of both.

The stats have been good:

Site visitors: 59 in November compared to 19 in October

Number of subscribers: 21 on November 29th, compared to 13 on October 31st

Ad revenue: $0.10 in November! I'll try not to spend it all in one place :)

But I would say overall the content was a bit bland and maybe a little forced. It's been a good experience though. And I will definitely continue, but a bit differently. I have two other blogs that were neglected this month and I'd really like to get back to writing on those blogs as well. So here is the goal for December:

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will be writing about Microsoft Excel and other tech subjects at http://excelninja.blogspot.com

Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday you can find content here at http://jwblog-trainfortri.blogspot.com

Sundays will be my miscellaneous ramblings on miscellaneous topics at http://jwi-blog.blogspot.com/

Thanks for having visited over the past month. Training is slow and boring this time of year, so let me know in the comments (here or on the other blogs) what you would like to hear about.

Anatomy of my STP '09 Wreck (and a bit of soapboxing)

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:54:00 +0000

I've already mentioned that I crashed and you can see the full ride report here.

At the time of the crash, I was going 27 mph. There was a car on my left. I was in a paceline that was passing another group of cyclists. The white line was also a rumble strip, which made lane changing interesting. As you can see in the diagram below, a cyclist in the line I was passing, decided to jump into my line. He didn't look (or stop afterward, for that matter), just moved abruptly over into me due to the rumble strip.

As there was a car on my left the only option I had was to attempt to brake just enough to open a gap without getting rear ended by the guy behind me. I hit the brakes too hard, and our bikes locked. Justin, the guy following me, hit the road. We were the only two involved in the crash, luckily enough, but both bikes were trashed.

I will fully admit that I am partly at fault here. I was pushing way too hard and didn't have my wits about me. I didn't leave myself a way out in case something like this happened. I hit the brakes too hard. I assumed the leader of the paceline was alerting the folks on our right that we were passing. And the list goes on.

After being picked up, I saw the remains of at least four other accidents on that stretch of road. One of them was being attended to by a fire truck and an ambulance as the rider appeared to have broken a collarbone.

The Seattle to Portland ride, has had 30 years of history. The Cascade Bicycle Club hosts a great event that both serves a local charity, and gets riders on the road and helps drivers know that cyclists belong on the road as much as cars. But I have to wonder if 10,000 cyclists is too many. I posed this question, along with what happened to me on the ride, on the Cascade Bicycle Club forums. (leave a comment below if you would like a link to the discussion). I received a lot of feedback on what I could have done differently and people's opinions of the event.

I concluded that the STP might not be the best ride for me. I've been thinking about whether it would be more fun to do the ride by myself or with a small group of people. I have family in Portland, and could meet my wife along the way for support. I've also thought about making sure I'm riding with a group of people that I know and have ridden with before so we have certain protocols established going into the ride (i.e. hand signals, pull time, general feel for what people are going to do).

I still don't know if I'll ever do the ride again. I had a blast up to that point. But there is still a bit of bitterness from the crash. I've since searched for and learned a lot about bicycle safety, and group riding as a way to help myself become a better rider. I hope to share some of those items with you all in the coming months. Please leave a comment on any safety related questions, or you thoughts on what I've written here and I'll try to get to them in future posts.

Crosstraining

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:29:00 +0000

Today found me in the garage for most of the day. It was in desperate need of cleaning and organizing. I wish I could say it looked a lot better, but at least all the sawdust and spider webs are out. Big steps were made towards organization, but there are a number of craigslist postings that need to occur before true organization can happen.

The surprise benefit to cleaning the garage...I ache all over. Standing, sweeping, moving heavy objects, bending, etc. I'm going to call it a workout. Works for me.

Thanksgiving...The Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:56:00 +0000

First of all, that death cake from yesterday...it came home with us. My mouth is pleased, my gut will surely grow.

We planned a nice relaxing day at home. E and I put up the Christmas lights. Nothing complicated, but a good day-after-Thanksgiving tradition. Then the wife was looking online and noticed that AT&T had and iPhone 3GS refurb for $50. My response: "What?!?" Sure enough, it was real. I was up for a new phone, and have been having issues with my current phone (what do you mean I have 8 voicemails and no missed calls?), and have been wanting an iPhone. Perfect storm, and it's now in the mail.

There are some excellent workout apps available for the iPhone and I plan on getting a review of them done in the not too distant future.

Other than that, I got a 2.8 mile run in. Nothing extraordinary. But it felt good to get out and work some of that turkey off!

Happy Thanksgiving!

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:29:00 +0000

This morning's spin session went well. A bit of ab work afterwards. All to get ready to eat!

Thanksgiving was great. Time spent with family and a good meal. Afterwards we went to the wife's parent's house to open birthday presents and eat cake. Not just any cake, but Costco's death cake.

4 layers of moist chocolate cake with the fudgiest icing you will ever find. Chocolate coma here I come.

Conundrum

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:09:00 +0000

In the last 2 months I've managed to gain 10 pounds. I'm sitting at about 182 right now. The conundrum lies in that tomorrow is Thanksgiving and there will be copious amounts of food. Tasty food. And pie. And another kind of pie. Topped off with whipped cream. And on top of that it is the Wife's birthday. Yep. Early turkey dinner/stuff-your-face-fest, then birthday dinner and cake.

Don't get me wrong, my mouth is going to be very happy. And to counteract, I plan on going to a spin class in the morning. But tomorrow expect a "In the last 2 months I've managed to gain 20 pounds" post.

But hey, this time of year Ya Gotta Fight for your Right. To Pie.

Bicycle beats all

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:46:00 +0000

First off... Gym time today. A bit of everything with a 20 min run on the treadmill afterward. I'll report back tomorrow on how I'm feeling.

About 2 months ago I heard about a contest that was held in Sao Paulo Brazil. Premise was simple: bring whatever transportation you choose and try to get from the start to a finish line the fastest way possible. People showed up with motorcycles, cars, helicopters, bikes, running shoes, etc. What won? The bicycle.

[PSFK via bike hugger]

How early to start kids in triathlons

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:17:00 +0000

As early as possible?! The bike below is awesome, but really small. I'm all for letting kids try new things, but this is a bit ridiculous.

[via Sergio Marques]

Gold medal taken even after claimed by lick

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:34:00 +0000

Remember back to your childhood. You have just been presented a buffet of desserts at a party: cookies, cakes, chocolates, fudge, etc. How can you possibly lay claim on all of them? Eating all of them now is out of the question - too many people to fend off, and it would take too long. You might hide them all in your bedroom, but that would take too many trips. Then you remember the universal rule of the lick. If you lick it, it is yours.

Now, instead of cookies, picture gold medals.

((AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File))

Middle-distance runner Rashid Ramzi was stripped of his gold medal in the 1,500 meter because of doping.

Turns out licking the medal won't keep the Olympic folks away.

[via Mercury News]

Messing with tradition

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:42:00 +0000

A few weeks ago we made rice crispy treats. My daughter, E, had a blast being the marshmallow tosser, tossing them into the pan. A few nights ago, we were at the grocery store and E says we should buy marshmallows to make rice crispy treats again. I'm not about to turn down dessert, so we wandered on over to the cereal isle. They did not have the generic Rice Crispies, and being the cheapskates that we are, we went for generic chocolate rice crispies instead of paying full price for the regular kind. Then we had a choice: regular marshmallows or strawberry flavored. E voted for strawberry, and being 4 she won the vote.

Turns out chocolate/strawberry rice crispy treats are delicious. It only makes me wonder what other combinations could be had!

Exercise as medicine?

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Bicycling.com: Riding is My Ritalin by Bruce Barcott

I was planning on writing some deep insightful big words on what I thought about the article linked above. But it turns out I don't know any big words. :)

I think the article puts it very well. Are we, America as a whole, not getting the exercise we need? And if so, have we ourselves created a lot of the health problems we see today? Maybe. The article is long, but well worth the read.

Dancepants? You bet!

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:17:00 +0000

I used to train a lot with music. It's a great way distract your mind while pounding the pavement. For those starting running for the first time, Dancepants is a great idea. While you are moving, the music plays. When stopped, quiet.

So picture it. You're out on a long run, grooving to the music. You stop for a breather, and crash. Start back up again and feeling fine. Have to stop at a red light, no music, so you do some jumping jacks. Anything to keep that music going.

All right. That might be a bit over the top. But seriously, motion powered music. Cool.

DesignBoom [via Gizmodo]

Running...Outside...During the day...In the sun!

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:35:00 +0000

Winter in the Northwest means rain, and darkness. Sun up at 7:30. Sun down at 4:30. Which means I've been either running in the dark and in the rain, or inside at the gym for the last few weeks. Well, yesterday that all changed.

Me and a buddy took off for a 4.3 mile lunch run yesterday under blue skies and a brisk 45 degrees. It was the longest either of us had run for a few months, but it was good to get out and enjoy the weather.

So, wherever you are, if you get a nice day, use it. It could be the last one for a while.

Malaise

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Today I got a flu shot. Not the H1N1, but a normal, run of the mill, flu shot. While reading over the paperwork I came across the word 'Malaise.' As in, 3-5 days after the shot you may experience malaise or flu like symptoms.

I've always known vaguely what the word meant, but I decided to look it up. This is what I found:

ma⋅laise

[ma-leyz, -muh-; Fr. ma-lez] Show IPA

–noun

1.	a condition of general bodily weakness or discomfort, often marking the onset of a disease.

2.	a vague or unfocused feeling of mental uneasiness, lethargy, or discomfort.

The second definition describes exactly how I feel for most of tax season. Yikes!

Cross fit

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:57:00 +0000

Cross Fit training is the new rage in the fitness world. It's been around for a while, but is really getting popular.

Basically, you do a few repetitions of really hard stuff as your training. On their website they have a workout of the day. Today's was:

For time:

100 Pull-ups

100 Push-ups

100 Sit-ups

100 Squats

Do all of that stuff, and time yourself. Piece of cake, right?

It's meant to be scalable to your level. So one could do 10 of each and time yourself. But whatever you do, it should be challenging. I read not too long ago of a woman who used Cross Fit as her main training for a marathon. She would do the daily Cross Fit workouts and then 3 times a week she would run 6-9 miles. She didn't run anything longer than 9 miles in training and ran a personal best marathon time of 3:30 and qualified for Boston. Her previous best? 4:45. A lot of people swear by it.

I can't say that I did any Cross Fit specific training. But I've got an idea for them. We were offered a free organ from one of my wife's piano students. We were glad to take it off their hands, and they were happy to see it go. So myself and one other person lifted and carried a 400+ pound organ 15 yards to deposit it into a truck. Then another 15 or so yards and up a flight of stairs to get it into our house.

I fully intended to go to the gym this morning, but I was incredibly sore (and the move was on Saturday). So I called it good and slept for another hour.

Off topic

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:04:00 +0000

For those who don't know me, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or commonly known as the Mormons. Generally, members of the church attend a congregation based on where they live. My family and I have have been asked by the local leaders to attend a Spanish speaking congregation. My wife plays the organ. I work with the youth. Neither one of us speak Spanish, though. I speak Portuguese, which allows me to understand well enough, and my wife took a year of Spanish in high school and is doing a good job understanding what is going on, but neither of us have much of a vocabulary.

As members, we all take turns speaking in front of the congregation on various topics assigned to us. We have no paid clergy. We all have a chance to teach and be taught by one another. It turns out, after 3 months in the Spanish congregation, the leaders thought it should be our turn. Where did we turn? LDS.org, the church website has a lot of resources that are already translated. So if you can find something on topic in English all you have to do is find the same thing in Spanish. After cobbling together various passages of scripture and other quotes, it was time to write the filler. That's where Google Translate comes in. We'd write out what we wanted to say in English then translate it into Spanish. It works surprisingly well. After a bit of editing (hurrah for Portuguese grammer being very similar to Spanish) we were good to go. All we had to do was show up and read.

Our 4-year-old has spent the last few months getting a lot of coloring time during the services, as she doesn't understand any Spanish at all. And since she never hears my wife and I speak Spanish (usually done after she's in bed), our daughter has no idea that we can.

So during the services, my wife was at the pulpit speaking, and our daughter looks up, realizes it's her mom. Then she realizes that she can't understand her mom. Then points and says, in a not so quiet voice, "SPANISH." Nothing else. No other comments before return calmly to her coloring, while her 1-year-old sister pays no attention and continues her double fisted eating of the raisins.

Seattle to Portland 2009 Ride Report

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:30:00 +0000

When I signed up for this ride, I knew it was going to be a challenge. 204 miles of road between the two cities, and only my legs to get me there. I'd trained, but didn't go on enough long rides to truly be prepared for it. My main hope was that if I could keep from bonking, I could make my legs move enough to get there before the 9pm cutoff. Oh yeah, did I mention I was doing it in a day?!

At 3:45 the morning of, my friend Steve showed up, and my very kind wife and I loaded up the car with the bikes, two very sleepy children and clothes for a weekend in Portland, and we headed to the start line. We got there with 15 minutes to spare, and I stretched while Steve picked up his packet. It was kind of cool to be at the start with a couple thousand cyclists ready to take on this journey. Steve had a coworker that was going to join us so we met up with him and a friend of his, and caught the second wave out of the starting line at 5 am.

I didn't really have any expectations going into this event. It's not a race, and our goal was to finish around 7 pm (14 hours total time, 12-13 bike time). That meant keeping a 17.5 mph pace while on the bike, and keeping the stops to a minimum. All I knew was that I was going to hurt at the end.

The first 15 miles wind along Lake Washington and provided excellent views and a great sunrise. Little did I know I wouldn't be able to really enjoy the views as I had to worry about not crashing amidst hundreds of cyclists. I'd ridden a few group rides with 30 or so riders in preparation for this, but in reality there was not preparing for the magnitude of riders on the road. Picture riding in the middle of the 180 person peloton at the Tour de France, except that you are riding with a bunch of people facing their own mid-life crisis and are trying to make a nice ride into a race. Pretty scary. I managed to keep the group in sight as we moved along at a faster than needed clip trying to distance ourselves from a bulk of the pack and find quieter roads ahead. It was during this stretch that I lost the map, but I figured the turns would be well marked so I didn't bother to go back. The dropped item that did make me stop and go back was the Camelbak water bottle that bounce out of the cage at mile 15. Unfortunately, the hard plastic top hit the ground first. At least it didn't suffer.

I'd hoped at that point there was nothing else that would go wrong. Except that 20 miles into the ride the pace was still above 20 mph. I was beginning to think I should just back off, let Steve know I would meet him in Portland and ride my own pace, knowing that there was still a long ways to go. But, ego got the best of me, and I held on with the logic being that I was drafting for most of the time and that would conserve energy, right?

We stopped at the mile 57 food stop at 8:30 and hit the Honey Buckets and the food line. A cookie and banana eaten, and PopTarts in my back pocket I was ready to go. As we rolled out there was talk of easing the pace a bit, but that didn't last long as we found ourselves hovering at about 27mph on a sketchy bit of road not 3 miles from the food stop.

And then it happened.

We were passing a large group of people when one of them decided (without so much as a glance) that right in front of me was where he would like to be. Except that it wasn't right in front of me that he ended up. It was right on top of me. With a car on my left, all I could do was slow a bit and hope for the best. As I was being followed by another in our group (as happens when riding in a paceline) he didn't have enough time to react and his front wheel locked into my back wheel. He hit the ground but only bounced and wasn't hurt that bad. I stayed on my bike (likely because I was using his bike as a kickstand). We managed to get off the road and out of the way of other cyclists. After a quick check of the bikes (yes, I checked them first) there was no way we could continue. Neither bike was shifting, and his front wheel and my rear wheel were sufficiently bent to not be able to spin freely anymore. Mile 60, may the ride RIP.

Justin, the other cyclist had a brother that lived not too far from where we wrecked. We had thought we would be able to get a ride with ride support to the next food stop closer to his brothers house, but it never came. So his brother came to where we were. By this time, my wife had just pulled into my Aunt's driveway in Portland at the same time that I called saying I needed a ride. My aunt took the two girls and my wife, who had already driven 4 hours that morning, turned around and made the 2 hour drive to Justin's brother's house. We made it to his house about 15 minutes before my wife made it (traffic is slightly insane on back roads when there are 10,000 cyclists on the road) and she and I drove back to Portland to enjoy the rest of the weekend.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I'd been training for months only to end up not finishing because of something that could have been prevented. That's hard to swallow. But overall, I was glad that I didn't get hurt.

[*I'm going to spend more time in a future post hashing out more of the details of the accident and what I could have done differently during the ride, and the merits (or problems) of having 10,000 cyclists on the road at once*]

[**This ride was back on July 11th. Yeah, I'm 4 months late.**]

Issaquah Tri Race Report Preview

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:53:00 +0000

My first tri ever, and it was great. But as a teaser, I ran the race with this guy...

Don't recognize him yet? How about now?...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Edge was there. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

How much time do you spend eating?

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:33:00 +0000

I saw this article a while back, but I think it's still quite relevant. It seems like eating has become a side note in our day to day lives. We only eat things that can be prepared in 5 minutes or less (and preferably prepared by someone else). Drive thru burgers, donuts, coffee, ice cream... You get the picture.

The amount of time we spend eating appears to be at least correlated with how fat we are.

So, what is it about longer mealtimes that would make people not overeat? Is it that we think about the food more? Is it that more time is spent conversing then eating?

My wife talks about food a lot. Where it comes from. How healthy certain items are (or aren't). How to prepare it. How to store it. How to get it cheaper. All of this time and effort, instead of leading to our family overeating has lead to us all eating very healthy and very well.

I can't help but think that snap decisions made on food are more likely to result in a meal that is not good for you.

What can we do today to spend more time eating?

Bike design gone wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Jayson) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:55:00 +0000

I'm all for taking design to the next level. Invent a new car that doesn't use gas and looks a bit futuristic: Awesome. Electronic shifting for bikes: Even better. But sometimes messing with the design doesn't achieve the desired results.

This picture doesn't look all that bad. In fact, the design is intriguing. Generally a bike has 2 triangles in the frame design to provide strength and stability, and the rigidness needed while pedaling. For a city bike I could see how this wouldn't be necessary. The design is simple, clean, futuristic.

Now picture trying to ride it.

How could everything about the ridability be so wrong? No extension in the legs, short cranks. The pedals are behind the body which means little to no power transfer.

Why can't it be more like this... It's just awesome...

If you could design a bike, what features would you want?

[via TheDesignBlog and Tuvie]