There are tonnes of these videos across the web, and these are enough to top up the odd workout with something new.

• Beginnertriathlete.com: A great set of pictures and videos highlighting some of the standard Bosu exercises.
• Train with me online: Roughly 19 exercises featured on this site each with a short description. If you are a member it looks like to get access to some decent videos.
• The Diagonal Wood Chop Bosu Exercise: Here's an interesting one that I've done on the floor but not with a Bosu.
• Bosu Ball Exercises at metacafe: Some interesting ones here that I haven't seen before together with a couple of classics.
• Medicine BOSU & Stability Ball Russian Twists: Not the greatest video but a tough looking stability workout on the Bosu.
• Bosu Lateral Lunges: A nice demonstration of the progression from simple lateral lunges to more complex lateral crossover lunges.
• Various Bosu exercises: A quick little video showing some global exercises with some variations on things seen in the previous videos.

All of this has lead me to think that using Centripedal as a tool to archive this path of research through writing and bookmarking would be a good idea. So here we go.

Technically there are things to clean up on the site. The cool flash slideshow on the homepage is broken and the codebase that runs the site is basically 2.5 years out of date. That latter point is often a crutch I use to not blog - "I'll start blogging once I've updated the codebase". But enough of that.

So here it goes, the first push of the publish button on this blog in about 2.5 years. Lets hope this round was as fun as the last and that it lasts!

Stage 15 should be the deciding slugfest for the tour, imo, and I can't wait for the stage to start!

If you want a quick overview of the stage, Rapha has one in their features section, and Cyclingnews supposedly has some videos up, but none have worked for me as yet.

Anyways, Alpe d'Huez. Epic. Riding.

If you want to read some more dramatic epic riding tales, be sure to check out some more of the stuff at Rapha, such as Glory Through Suffering.

The setup

Italy vs. Germany in the semifinals of the 2006 World cup in Germany. They are tied after the regular 90 minutes and in the final minute (or so) of the 30 minute overtime.

Italy wins a corner and after some nifty passing, Fabian Grosso slots the ball home to give Italy the win and move them on to the World Cup finals.

Look at the celebration as he runs shaking his head like that! That is the feeling of a winner. This should come in handy for that last K of a big run or the final meters of the last climb on an epic bike ride.

There are 4 facets of sleep that most people are interested in:

• Getting to sleep.
• Having a good night's sleep.
• Waking up fresh.
• How to nap/ how to have a good powernap.

In addition, I wanted to know a few more things:

• How can I use sleep and napping to get more from my training and recover faster?
• How can I optimize my sleep?

By understanding how sleep works, a person can effectively do several things to help them to find the answers to all of those issues. So lets look at those points one at a time.

Please keep in mind that this is my own research and present my thoughts and experience on the matter (i.e. I'm no sleep guru).

Getting to sleep

See Mechanisms Of Melatonin & Sleep In Athletes.

Melatonin is the hormone that initiates sleep, and suppression of melatonin release is caused by exposure to bright light. It is recommended that bright light exposure be reduced 2 hours prior to going to bed, and a gradual dimming of lights can also help.

Stress reduction thru meditation can also help to calm the brain in order to help fall asleep; I've found that using pzizz (more here) has helped me to relax and have a much less restless night.

Having a good night's sleep.

The body likes quiet and cool.

There are times in the early sleep stages when you are aware of your surroundings and can be easily awoken, so minimizing noise is good idea.

Your body reduces it's temperature in the early stages of sleep, and if you can't lose body heat because the ambient temperature around you is hot, it will be more difficult to have a restful night.

Comfort is also super important; if you are having a bad nights sleep due to poor comfort (small bed, bad sheets etc.), consider that as little as 20 hours of sleep deprivation can impair mental performance. Can you afford to make a bad decision because you cheaped out on a smaller bed or less comfortable sleeping setup?

Waking up Fresh

Ideally you want to wake up with gradual light exposure which reduces melatonin secretion. It also helps to find a set time to wake up and get your body used to waking up at that time. Keep in mind the following:

[...] changing your schedule for more than two days or sleeping more than an hour longer on weekends disrupts your body’s biological cloc.

A good stretch, bright light, and something like a shower or some exercise can help to get the blood flowing and to shake off any signs of sleep inertia.

How to nap/ how to have a good powernap

Nap for a 20-30 minute or roughly an hour long session. The former will help reduce mental fatigue, while the latter can get you some growth hormone (GH) releasing slow wave sleep (SWS) that will help with muscle recovery.

If you wake up from your naps feeling groggy and are having trouble getting going, you are suffering from sleep inertia. Do some exercise to get up and running, and next time sleep less (if it's a short nap) or more (if it's an SWS nap) to avoid waking up in the middle of SWS.

Develop patterns and nap when you are sleepy. Sleep in the same place, in the same position; try to use a low light location and to be comfortable.

How to optimise your sleep

Knowing the stuff above is a good start but the X factor here is you.

• Do you need 10, 20, or 30 minute naps to beat mental fatigue?
• Are you suffering from simple mental fatigue, or do you need more SWS to help your body recover from a long workout or some other stressful event?
• What time can you wake up in the morning, and feel rested enough to work until later in the day when you can have a nap to fend off fatigue? 5am, 6am 6:30am?

Optimising your sleep and developing your sleep strategy will depend on the answers to these questions. It will also depend on your lifestyle; if you find yourself doing less physical work but are busy mentally at work and need to get up at 5am, maybe two 20 minutes naps a day can make this scenario more successful for you.

Knowledge of your own specific needs, tied with knowledge of how sleep works will allow you develop your own personal strategy. Set up an optimal sleeping environment. Identify and obtain the amount of sleep you need (see section by the same title here). Then, fill in the gaps you may need during the day with naps. Short ones for mental fatigue, longer ones for physical and mental recovery. Try something like pzizz to help you get a better rest.

Some notes on Pzizz

My wife and I have been using pzizz for about a month now with great success. It has allowed us to develop solid napping patterns and made it much easier to fall asleep both at nap time and bedtime. I would recommend at least trying it out; there is a free download available. Check out our notes on getting the most from Pzizz.

Updated: I came across The power of the Sleep Cycle today, and it's worth a read as it presents similar ideas to what I write above, although a little more concise.

Get better sleep and become a better powernapper: Get the most from Pzizz

My wife and I have been using Pzizz for napping during the day and to help get to sleep at night (free trial here).

A tool to help

In my opinion, Pzizz isn't a miracle cure for sleeping issues but it can help you with your sleeping strategy.

It can assist in getting your brain in sync with the correct waves that correspond to sleep. I'm pretty sure that I can notice this now after using it for a month; there's a certain point during a nap where the music/sounds change and my head feels like it's drifting off into that drowsiness that is expected in stage one of sleep (more here about the stages of sleep). In addition, the voice and music help me to tune out any thoughts that may be harassing me.

The following are some tips that we've found after about a month of using pzizz to achieve this:

Determine the music and voice levels before napping

This applies to new users. Many people find that the voice, which pops in here and there with suggestions, can be distracting and it keeps them from sleeping or wakes them up.

The level of volume of the music and the voice can be adjusted separately, so be sure and take the time to sort this out before napping. Although you can adjust the settings while the nap is running, it sucks to have to open your eyes, get up, and adjust the settings on your computer.

For people using the trial, this is very important as you only get one hour worth of free trial time. So be sure to get this right by testing properly first via Naps > Configure Naps in the menu.

Nap where you won't be disturbed

If you feel that you may be disturbed during your nap period, you will find it difficult to relax; this compounds the issue if you aren't used to napping or feel guilty about napping. This uneasy feeling that you might be disturbed will only inhibit sleep.

Try and use pzizz from your computer

While I've found that exported naps (mp3's etc.) work fine, the sound directly from the actual pzizz software on your computer is superior. I use a bluetooth headset to listen to pzizz in the guest room from the computer in my office (a work-at-home benefit).

Export pzizz naps to your PDA or iPod

This allows you to be ready to use a nap wherever you may find yourself. Sometimes when you are tired and the opportunity arises, having a nap is irresistible.

Don't inhibit sleep with discomfort

Falling asleep for the night with Pzizz is quite good, but you have to deal with having headphones on as you are sleeping. Inevitably you take them off during the night; sometimes this is a hassle. These days if I'm really tired, I simply sleep without Pzizz; if my brain is racing, I use the pzizz.

Maximize the free trial

There's nothing to lose with trying the free trial, however you have to be careful to set yourself up properly as you only have one hour (per computer) of trial available.

This is super important; so find a quiet comfortable place where you won't be interrupted, put the headphones on and test out the volume levels in-situ: head on your pillow, exactly where you are going to nap. Can you hear the voice? The music? Is the whole thing too loud? Turn it down; can you still hear the voice over the music? Test, test, test.

For what it's worth, I have the music at 94% and the voice set to 38%.

That's it! Happy pzizzing!

So, if you are interested, go on and give it a try. If you are using pzizz or have any questions or your own tips, feel free to sound off below in the comments.

For the sake of transparency: the links to pzizz in this article are affiliate links.

This video can only be enjoyed if you are into the accompanying music; thankfully I am :-)

Set the stage

5 minutes of Lance's assault on the 2001 TdF, which included that look back at Ullrich et. al at the base of the Alpe d'Huez. Known simply as "The Look", he went on to crush his opponents. Note Andrei Kivilev in the background behind Ullrich for the Look. Andrei died in 2003 in the Paris-Nice after crashing and hitting his head; he was a spectacular rider.

Oh, and this is also the stage that featured "The Bluff". Armstrong pulled it all out on this stage. You can read a stage report courtesy of the USA Today: 'The Look' put sport on U.S. radar.

Bonus points for anyone who can tell me at what time Didi Senft appears in the video!

A little research

In order to get up to speed with some of the finer yet important details on sleep and napping, I did a little online research. The idea is that in order to get the most from life, training and recovery, a person needs to be well rested. My objective is to find a sleep strategy that allows me to get the most "bang for my buck" in terms of hours spent sleeping.

The following notes were taken while reading the articles linked at the bottom of the page. Keep in mind that these are from the internet and I did not do any background checks on the authors of the articles below. Some copying and pasting was employed.

Notes on Sleep

• Sleep is anabolic.
• Lack of sleep will stunt regenerative processes and the immune system, leading to a gradual lack of recovery, performance decrement and eventually over-training syndrome, loss in training gains, chronic fatigue and lots of other bad stuff for triathletes.

• Sleep can be divided into five distinct stages: stages 1-4 consist of non-rapid-eye-movement sleep and account from 66-80% of sleep time; during a normal night of sleep, these are usually followed by the rapid-eye-movement (REM) stage of sleeping (stage 5):

  1. "The gateway to sleep", this stage can last up to 10 minutes. It is short lived and has theta waves, which are thought to help reduce mental fatigue by restoring sodium/potassium balances in the brain.
  2. Lasting anywhere from 10-20 minutes, or 45-55% of total sleep depending on where you read, in stage two you lose awareness to external stimuli.
  3. The beginning of slow wave sleep (SWS), which includes stage 4; 3-8% of total sleep time. Here we start to see delta waves, with GH secretion and dreamless sleep.
  4. Slow wave sleep; 10-15% of total sleep time. Delta waves, GH secretion and dreamless sleep.
  5. REM sleep, predominant in the final third of a sleep period. Dreaming occurs here.
• Humans sleep in ~90 minute cycles of the non-rem and rem phases, although age and the amount and quality of sleep on previous nights can alter this pattern.
• [Dr. Claudio Stampi's] research also showed that afternoon siestas were chock-full of slow-wave sleep, the type that appears to be most important for recharging the body... The key to napping efficiently, Stampi says, is to get in phase and ride these waves of sleepiness and alertness, so no time is wasted merely trying to get to sleep.
• Non-REM sleep is an anabolic state marked by physiological processes of growth and rejuvenation of the organism's immune, nervous, muscular, and skeletal systems.
• the body seems to want its slow-wave fix first, and racks up most of the slow-wave quota in the first three hours. If you slash eight hours of sleep to four and your body has to triage, you retain 95 percent of the slow-wave sleep while ditching large chunks of REM and stage-two sleep.
• REM sleep appears to help with the consolidation of spatial (recording information about one's environment and its spatial orientation) and procedural memory (long-term memory of skills and procedures, e.g. riding a bike), while slow-wave sleep helps with the consolidation of declarative memories.
• A decline in sleep quality and quantity has been observed to cause in increase in adrenal hormone cortisol and a decrease in Growth Hormone.
• A decline in slow wave sleep from early adulthood to mid-life was parallelled by a major decline in GH secretion.
• As little as 20 hours of sleep deprivation can impair mental performance.
• A 20 percent overnight improvement in learning a motor skill is largely traceable to a late stage of sleep that some early risers might be missing.
• Accumulative sleep deprivation has been shown to reduce cardiovascular performance by 11%.
• Mental functioning decreases nearly twice as rapidly as physical performance.
• It would appear that sleep loss does not affect physical performance in the same manner as it does mental, (I assume that it affects physical recovery).
• Minimal levels of sleep loss result in an increased perception of effort.
• Sleep is a period for brain and nerve cell detoxification and immune system stimulation.
• Light has the greatest effects on setting the daily timing of melatonin release.
• If you want to wake up earlier, expose yourself to bright light earlier.
• Melatonin is the hormone in the brain that initiates sleep and it stimulates immune system cells, increasing their function in all areas of the body.
• Melatonin functions as an anti-oxidant in cells and in general is a defender against oxidation.
• Optimising melatonin release: low light (avoid bright light) two hours before bedtime - it is the intensity of light, not the duration of exposure, that has the suppressive effects on melatonin release.
• Optimum Sleep Environment
  • Dark (see notes on melatonin)
  • Quiet
  • Comfortable (you may feel comfortable in bed, but can you be more comfortable? A better pillow, softer sheets, more room to flip around etc.)
  • Proper Lighting (see notes on melatonin)
  • Cool temperatures:

    Your body temperature tracks your circadian rhythm, so as night begins, your body temp falls and it reaches a minimum right after you go to bed. If you are in an environment where you can't lose body heat, for instance if it's hot and humid, you won't sleep well.

• Alcohol causes disrupted and fragmented sleep.
• Establish a consistent sleep pattern. Changing your schedule for more than two days or sleeping more than an hour longer on weekends disrupts your body’s biological clock.

Notes on Napping

• Chris Carmichael, says that "naps were critical in [Lance Armstrong's] overall training plan."
• a midday snooze reverses information overload.
• A good powernap to reduce mental fatigue during the day lasts about 20 minutes.
• Studies found that longer 1-hour naps contained more than four times as much deep, or slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep than the half-hour naps.
• For muscle recovery to occur during a nap, one needs to hit slow wave sleep; can be anywhere from 50 to 90 minutes (a whole cycle). Waking in the middle of this type of nap may result in Sleep Inertia.

Articles from around the net

Looking back, I wonder if that was done with good judgement, that being the end of the last difficult climb and 6+ hours into the race.

The Skillz

When we're talking about bike handling, we can be talking about several different things (this is my own list; I'm sure I'm missing things here):

• Descending
• Cornering
• Climbing
• Drafting (in a draft legal race)
• Manoevering in a crowd
• Eating/drinking on the bike

Knowing how to do each of these skills well will not only help your time on the bike, but also make you a safer rider and allow you to have a safer ride.

Descending

Of all of the skills, it's worth singling out descending, because from a time standpoint, there is potentially a lot to be gained from improved descending skills. Just ask Tom Danielson of the Discovery Cycling team:

What made the difference between Landis and Danielson [in the 2006 tour de Georgia ITT] was the way in which each dropped down into downtown Chattanooga off of Lookout Mountain. "I think I lost the race on the downhill because I could not go as fast as Landis could," Danielson said. "Seriously, in the morning I was training on the descent and I was going as hard as I could but Landis came flying by me like a rocket or like I was standing still! He is the best bike handler in the world -- I knew him back when we were mountain biking and he was great back then too."

Read up on bike handling

The following links are some of the articles that I have been able to track down around the web that cover bike handling. A full, always-updated list will be kept on the bike handling page.

Armstrong moves on now, relentlessly cutting through the Tour de France today - that's been shattered all over the Pyrenees. Letting them all run like a great fisherman and then reeling them in, one after another.

Brilliant dramatic commentary from Phil Ligett in the 2000 Tour de France.

Setting the stage

This is the most inspiring video for me - Ochoa had 10:35 on LA at the bottom of Hautacam, and Armstrong reduced it to 41 seconds by the top, cracking big name favorites including Heras, Ullrich, Pantani, Zulle and many more along the way.

Keep in mind this is the year after his first victory at the tour, and people were still saying that he wouldn't be able to hang with the big boys in the mountains. Little did we all know...

To add to the significance, sadly, Marco Pantani is no longer with us, and Javier Ochoa suffered a horrible hit and run the following year that took the life of his twin brother. Ochoa never returned to the pro peleton, however he does ride.

Recap

Last week I decided to do two things:

1. Optimize my sleep
2. Change the way I communicate with co-workers and friends to try and gain more time to focus on the work at hand that I face every day.

Things worked out fairly well for the second point, however the first part is going to take a little work.

Sleep

Optimizing one's sleep can be a difficult task to do; it takes time to implement, just like other habits and skills, but when things go wrong, you get tired and cranky.

Fortunately I didn't have any trouble with crankiness nor did I lose much sleep. What I did find, however, was that I didn't know enough about how to properly hack my sleep. So as a result, I will have a post later this week on the topic after having done some research.

I can say one thing: Getting up at 5am is a brilliant way to start the day (disclaimer: I'm a morning person, and don't mind getting up early). That extra window of 1-2 hours over a "normal" wake up time is pure gravy and when used properly a secret weapon when it comes to getting things done.

Move big rocks before sunrise

Note: This part of the article refers to the term big rocks as introduced by Stephen Covey. Read about it here.

This won't come as any surprise to early risers: the time between 5am and 7am or even 8am is a great window to move big rocks. For example:

1. Wake up, grab food and a coffee.
2. Spark up the computer, throw back chow and water.
3. Sit down, and work through 2-3 "Big Rocks" that you planned out from the night before.

I have most of these bigger tasks printed out on a piece of paper that I prepare during the previous day. These are the tasks that I have to get done during the day, and there is nothing like crossing off 2-3 of these tasks before I crack open my e-mail at 7 or 8 in the morning.

That is an important part of the trick, where constraining communication and resisting the urge to check my e-mail right away has opened up big gaps of time for me, first thing in the day.

This is all possible because I work from home, but certainly there must be a way to fit this into a more conventional working setup. In any case, there is something very satisfying about having some bigger tasks knocked off before the morning workout.

This is exactly the type of habit that will be useful for training for Ironman distance events when a family is around. Discipline is key here; get up early, get to work and don't get distracted.

Communication

This is where huge time gains were made. Chatrooms were closed and only used when needed, and Basecamp, where I manage all of my projects and client communications, was only dealt with on regularly scheduled intervals (sometimes it was a big rock).

As a result, communication became a task during my day, something dealt with in a block of time, sort of like eating lunch, rather than a pesky person tapping me on the shoulder every so often.

This turned out to be a good example of using constraints to increase productivity.

The concept is an easy one:

Two cyclists enter a hill climb or time trial. Both have the same VO2 max, but Cyclist A is more economical. They both ride at the same high speed. However, to reach and maintain this speed, Cyclist B must ride at a pace equal to 95% of his max VO2. Cyclist A, on the other hand, can ride the same speed, yet only be at 90% of his max. Should he pick up effort to 95%, he would out ride Athlete B and win.

Interestingly though, a study done in Madrid on elite cyclists found that there was a very strong inverse relationship between VO2max and cycling efficiency in this group (see Pedalling Efficiency: You Vs. Olano).

The riders with the relatively low aerobic capacity were able to compensate for this handicap by being much more efficient, resulting in their requiring less energy to generate a particular power output.

So what does this have to do with the title of the article? Well, to quote again from the PezCyclingnews article:

First, don’t get too hung up on your “genetic" potential or comparing your test results to anybody else. Smart and dedicated training can help you to exceed your perceived limits. Second, the smoother and more efficient you can train your pedaling stroke, the less energy you require to maintain any power output or speed, and who wouldn’t benefit from that?

The right way

I can honestly say that I spent, up until the time I was rehabbing my injury, zero time working on drills for technique. I tried to pedal circles, sure… who was I kidding? Thing is, I was so new to cycling - about 3-4 years in - that I was still seeing remarkable gains by simply increasing my volume. As a result, I spent very little time on technique.

I wonder how many more of us fall into this trap? Anyways, my mind is made up. Drills on the trainer from now on, and some Power Cranks for next winter (fingers crossed).

I think I'm a little late to this party - been outta touch with the tri news and stuff for a while now.

Anyways, they're making a movie about Ironman Hawaii called What is Takes. The movie features Peter Reid, Lori Bowden, Luke Bell and Heather Fuhr. It tracks them for a whole year up until the 2005 Hawaii Ironman.

Here's a link to the opening scene; I find it inspiring enough to want to go out and run despite having trashed my legs in the gym earlier today.

File this one away for sometime later this week when I don't feel like running...

Here's a second trailer; in it, the classic body painted Lori Bowden poster sits behind John Duke's desk. Does it make me a tri geek that I know that?

Swimming videos

The following links include underwater swimming videos and swim stroke videos of the likes of Alexander Popov, Ian Thorpe, Inge De Bruin and there's more to be found if you follow the links. Some of these clips are worth downloading and reviewing once in a while, especially for swim rookies like me!

• Alexander Popov: This 13+ minute video of Popov includes some great underwater clips and close ups of his form. There's a bit of cheese in the video, but if you can handle that, this is worth a watch.
• The WA Swimming website videos: WA has a video section that requires registration to get in, but it's worth it as you can select videos from a whole range of styles, including some technique videos and races featuring the likes of Ian Thorpe and Alex Popov.
• Ian Thorpe: Cool video, in slow motion, Thorpe is in the full suit. Watch after the flip to see the pause before the catch; I stink at that.
• Ian Thorpe 2: A bit of a weird angle, this one, but you can see how his stroke progresses from the catch on backwards.
• Ian Thorpe 3: A short but useful video of Ian swimming towards the camera.
• Swim City Freestyle Videos: A bunch of videos incliding some excellent slow motion, underwater videos of Thorpe (1, 2, 3, 4), as well as more videos of Popov and Benett.
• Total Immersion Swim Videos: TI's website has some great videos for people who are learning how to swim. These are instructional videos, so there is voice over advice to help grasp what is being taught. There's also some promo speak and videos; these are free, after all!

Bonus Images: Over at Crucible Fitness, they have frame-by-frame images of Ian Thorpe's freestyle stroke.

Honerable Mention: Swim.ee has a whole whack of videos but the site was extremely slow when I was trying to access them. Going by the titles they look very promising, including Hackett, Thorpe, Popov and De Bruin (the "Popov style stroke" video is quite good). The videos are mostly quite short in length.

Now, time to get busy and visualize proper front-crawl swimming technique!!

A good night's rest

Sleep is a hot topic, at least in the places where I hang out:

• From A to Zzzzz
• How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off
• Calculate your sleep debt

So after doing some reading and research, I'm going to try a few things that I'm hoping will help me to optimize my sleep:

1. Sleeping in a dark quiet room
2. Going to sleep at the same time every day - 11:00pm
3. Waking up at the same time every day - 5:00 am
4. Get up and have a good stretch first thing when the alarm goes off
5. Use napping as a tool to stay fresh and alert

How will this optimize anything?

Well, the theory goes that our bodies like a routine, so going to bed and waking up at the same time, whenever possible, should produce a good routine. In addition, having a dark quiet room (I mean pitch-black-can't-see-the-back-of-my-hands-dark) should help to signal my body to get to sleep; waking straight up in the morning with a good, body waking stretch should send a signal to wake up.

My hope with the experiment is to gain time, so what I would like to do here is set up my body with some base sleeping hours and then top up when needed with a good nap. I'm also hoping that by improving my ability to nap, I will be able to use naps more effectively as a recovery tool when I get into the hard training ahead of me.

Napping

Napping is something that most triathletes do simply because of the amount of physical exertion involved in training; napping also increases the rate of recovery after workouts. Add in the fact that I live in a country where napping is a national pasttime, and I think it's safe to say that I am used to napping.

But even though I'm used to it, I haven't been napping effectively. I would nap when training exhausted me, or the heat of the day and lunch would wipe me out. All this has changed, though, since I met Pzizz... (Thank you Lifehacker)

Using Pzizz to optimize my rest

pzizz combines Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), enchanting music, sound effects and a binaural beat to achieve a wonderfully relaxed state in the listener, similar to that experienced during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep.

Now, for those of you who are raising your eyebrows, let me put it another way: pzizz makes music that will help you relax as you listen to it. There's a bit more to it, but the clincher for me was this bit from another website:

Your brain cells reset their sodium & potassium ratios when the brain is in Theta state [...] After an extended period in the Beta state [awake] the ratio between potassium and sodium is out of balance. This the main cause of what is known as "mental fatigue". A brief period in Theta (about 5 - 15min) can restore the ratio to normal resulting in mental refreshment.

What that says to me is if you put your brain into theta state, which is what pzizz aims to do, you will be able to recover from feelings of mental fatigue. If you've ever felt tired at around 3:30pm and had a nap, only to wake up super refreshed - that's what we're talking about here.

So, why don't I just nap?

I have some more posts lined up about my experiences with pzizz, but the simple fact is this: the music and voice really do help me to nap, and nap for shorter times.

It took some work, but where I used to write off 40 minutes to an hour of my day to lay down, get to sleep, and get back up and running from a nap, now I can do it in 20 minutes, and wake up feeling fresh. This translates to 2-3 naps where there was once only one.

If you're hot on the idea of pzizz, head on over and try it out. They offer a one hour free trial, which is a bit tight to get a good feel for it, but it can be done. I'll be posting some tips to getting the most from the free trial in the next day or so, so if you can hang on until then, it may be worthwhile.

The experiment

1. Make time

What I am hoping to do is to try and find ways to make time by cutting the fat from some areas of my life and becoming more efficient or effective in others.

2. Employ periodization

This experiment is also part of what I mentioned in When Training Principles Become Life Principals, as I am going to tackle it using periodization and some of the same methods that I would use for multisport training.

A starting point

How to Have a 36 Hour Day provides a some interesting ideas as to how a person can get more hours from a 24 hour day. Here's a recap of the advice given there by author Jon (A lot of these are YMMV ideas: your mileage may vary, as some may work for you and some not):

1. Optimize Your Sleep
2. Optimize Your Diet
3. Multi Task
4. Get Organized
5. Improve Your Typing Speed
6. Improve Your Reading Speed
7. Learn Out Loud
8. Use Software To Your Advantage
9. Cut Your TV Time in Half
10. Get Help from Others

An Experiment in Making Time Using Periodization

Generally speaking, the early phases in a Periodization training cycle work on general facets of what is being trained. As you progress in your training cycles you get more specific with your training, working on finer details or a specific target.

General

From the list above, there are some obvious things that a person could do straight away to get big time benefits and increase productivity: cutting TV time in half, and Learning Out Loud (using audiotapes/cds/mp3s rather than books) will immediately gain time and get more done with little effort.

Specific

Conversely, learning to type might be considered more specific: improving a specific facet of something you do to reap what for most would be a minimal but rewarding benefit.

First steps

I have taken two steps this week to try and work on some general facets of making more time in my life:

1. Optimizing sleep
2. Changing the way I communicate with co-workers and friends to try and gain more time to focus on the work at hand that I face every day.

Constraining communication to gain freedom

Expect more on #1 in a later post, but #2 was simple. Last week I found that I would go hours just communicating with people. So I decided to set some basic rules about when and how I would be available to my co-workers and friends. For example:

1. Setting specific times that I check my e-mail during the day. As my co-workers know when I'm checking, they'll know when to expect a reply, and I've instructed them with a way to get in touch if it's urgent.
2. I've began to use a free chat account at Campfire to virtually meet with colleagues if we need to do some quick back and forth to get thru some snags.
3. I have enabled Skype Voicemail which allows people to leave me a voice message if they need to talk.

I'm hoping that by setting some constraints on when and how I'll communicate, I'll gain some time and freedom to work!

(updated) Further Reading

After publishing this post I came across Study: Brits blow 2hrs/day on inefficient tech communication over at 43 folders, where Merlin Mann links up an article that states:

Two hours, 10 minutes was the amount that people wasted each day at work on average, of which one hour 38 minutes was due to communication technologies not being used to good effect.

That is a lot of time, and it is precisely the kind of time I am looking to free up by changing the way that I communicate as outlined above.

Periodization

Most triathletes are familiar with the Triathletes Training Bible (TTB) and the concept of periodization that it offers for building your yearly training plan.

For those who aren't familiar with it, the concept of periodization involves breaking a period of time into smaller planned periods where you work on facets of your sport with a certain level of intensity and volume. Earlier periods in a cycle are used for general basic fitness building while later periods get more and more specific until a peak, usually for an event.

Read more about periodization on Wikipedia, Trifuel and elsewhere.

Great, so how does this transcend into personal improvement?

Over the years I've read some of the productivity and new agey spiritual awareness type books that have become ever-so-popular in todays busy world. Some things have stuck with me, other things passed off to the side.

I learn, I forget

Usually, if a book I am reading offers me an a-ha! moment, I will find myself applying the new idea to my life for some period of time that usually lasts 2-5 weeks. For whatever reason - new book, new interests etc. - after this period the new idea/behaviour tends to dissipate.

On the flip side, sometimes the odd little thing sticks with me. And, if I happen to revisit a book at a later date, oftentimes something new and worthwhile pops out at me. Sound familiar?

But how can I make these stick?

Revisit and reapply with periodization

So what if I were to approach the applications of these ideas from the point of view of periodization? What if instead of having these ideas be some fleeting event in my life, I made a purposeful effort to make them habits thru the same methods that are supposed to make me a faster marathoner?

I think it can happen. I spend a lot of time reading up on a wide array of topics (= training for many events), why not consciously work on specifics and focus on improving one event every once in a while?

Take a week a month, for example, and really dive into a topic like awareness and try and make some serious improvements? Start general, but work consciously towards more specific goals. I need to think about this some more, but I see no reason why this wouldn't help to make stick some of the fleeting habits that would probably be worthwhile keeping in my life.

A trial run

I think the best way to make this happen would be to do a little trial run, and see how this might work. So this week I am going to focus on having a longer day by finding time, applying some basic principles and a few ideas that I have found around the web. More on this later, time to get busy!!

After writing this post, I came across Periodization for the Mind by Josh Horowitz at PezCyclingnews: Just as with physical training, psychology can be strengthened through a periodized and structured program. His focus is on the multisport end of things, helping us race and train better.

Note: This post was a little difficult. I enjoy sharing experiences, but this is more history, then anything, and I ask myself who might care about this? Indeed not many people may give two shakes about what is written below, however I feel that it will be useful for the context of this blog in the future.

Some context

I thought that it would be a good idea to start this blog by looking back at how I got to the point that I am at the moment, in an effort to give myself and this website a reference point, and to give you, the reader, some context of the person that you are reading about (at least something more then the about page offers).

So where did it all start?

Nothing but soccer

I played soccer from quite a young age. I can't remember when I started, but I can remember the day that I made the local 'rep' team. The team was a collection of talented athletes coached by a man who, I would later realize, trained us with what were some cutting edge methods for training.

I must admit, I wasn't one of the talented players - I was the goalkeeper, and more than anything I had good reflexes. But I could run distance with the best on the team.

Anyways, through the years I stuck with soccer, some more than others, and I was always running on the side. In high-school, I hit the gym in order to beef up a bit so as to be a little more intimidating on the pitch.

My soccer career pretty much culminated in university. I made the top team, second string, and had blast with daily training and some of the other perks on offer. I was even invited out to train with some national team players, where a few good sessions wowed one coach who came over to talk with me, only to leave when he found out I was "already 24".

At this point it was either go down to the U.S. and have a go at the M.L.S. in it's sophomore year, or take a pretty good job offer I had on the table.

I took the job.

Fast forward

Skip forward 6 years from this point. I'd been working in northern Canada and Alaska as an exploration geologist. The work was incredibly fun. I had winters off to ski and run and cycle, and having become accustomed to training from my soccer days, I began to funnel my training efforts into short distance triathlons.

Things tired on the work front, though, and after the many summers away from friends and my beautiful home in Vancouver, I decided it was time for a break. So as my last contract was coming to an end, a good friend bought me an entry ticket for Ironman Canada (IMC), 2001 (well, I bought the entry, he lined up for me :), and I started to make my plans.

That winter, I took a job with an internet based company (I had always been 'the computer guy' as a geologist), and began my training.

Oh right, that nagging injury

One thing I haven't mentioned until now, was that through the years I'd somehow managed to do something to my left Achilles tendon. Now, years later, I've learned that it wasn't a tendinitis issue. Nonetheless, 'tendinitis' is the injury that I battled with while training for IMC.

I remember walking limping out onto the pool deck for the first swim session of 2001; somehow I managed to get myself sorted out for IMC (well, to be honest it was with a mix of physio and acupuncture - thanks Sam!).

IMC - The training and the glory

I've already written too much here, so the short story on IMC was that training was a blast, and the race was euphoric. I finished in 12:50 hrs, blowing well past my planned (hoped?) 11 hours, mostly due to the fact that I hadn't trained well enough for the run, and, umm, I also had met the woman who is now my wife that summer (lets just say that meeting her shifted my priorities for the summer :).

Today

2006 finds me having moved to a new country, Spain, with a great marriage, a successful career and new house to boot. Alas, I am seriously not fit, but I have been rehabbing the 'Achilles' injury.

So that is where I am. Essentially ground zero with respect to fitness, but the ball is rolling :)

I must say a big thank you if you've actually made it to the end of this post. Thanks for reading, please feel free to say hello in the comments.

Hi there, my name is Mike Papageorge, and this is my website about Life and Multisports. More specifically, it's about finding the balance in life to do the things you want to do and to try and do it all well (grand ambitions, I know, but it's the effort that counts, no?).

I give a shorter version of this post on the about page, but in order to get off to a good start, I figured that I would expand just a bit more about the site and why I feel like doing this.

Why Centripedal, the website?

Where to start?

First off, I used to be fit. I did an Ironman Triathlon back in 2001, but since then my wife Sonia and I have been busy: getting settled in a new country, building a business and getting married. It's been a long fun and exciting process to get where we are, and now I want to get fit again.

So, I have another website where I write, it's about web development, which is what I do to earn a bit of money in life. Through writing that website, I have met some great people and learned a whole lotta stuff.

When I was fit and training, I remember reading online the thoughts and early adventures of an - at the time - unknown triathlete named Gordo Byrn. It seems that he, too has learned a lot through sharing his experiences with the world.

So based on my experiences at Fiftyfoureleven and what I saw happen with Gordo, I figured that I would try and live out my experiences in the wild, so to speak.

Centripedal.com is that place.

So Mike, what can we expect on this site?

Well, for starters, I plan on discussing issues from training to nutrition to psychology, and also productivity and personal growth.

The idea, of course, is to try and be productive, to eliminate wasted time, and to have a more rewarding life together with Sonia, who is also right into this stuff (not the training part so much :).

I would like to point those very ideas at multisport racing and training. Back in 2001 at Ironman Canada, I recall a friend named Bob (hi Bob!) who came into the race with little training, but a lot of base. He kicked my ass, and did it smiling. I smiled to, but I was smiling thru the pain :-) Lots of it. I'm sure he was tired, but I don't think he was hurting the way I was hurting.

So I plan on putting myself into a similar space that my friend Bob was back in 2001 - building myself the best base I can to deal with what life throws at me. In tri-terms, this means a lot of base miles and core strength, a lot of rest and proper nutrition. In life terms, well, I have some ideas and a lot to learn.

And that, I think, is what Centripedal will be all about.

Ohh right, the name

The name Centripedal is a play on the term centripetal, which can be defined as tending to move toward a center. I thought that was fitting, as the balance that I am looking to find could be considered a 'center', and this website it about me trying to find that center.

That, and of course Centripedal has the words tri and pedal in it!