Those of you following closely may have been quite nervous about this week. I had the problem about my ankle that compounded the problem that the number of actual running miles is relatively low, compared to what I'm actually going to do at the end of the day. But, rest assured, your worries will be dissuaded (partially)!
This week was basically recovery from the ankle injury and attempting to keep up the increasing distances. I was able to take some stress off that ankle and still keep my training going up, up and beyond! Beyond what, you may ask? Well, of course beyond the limits of what any normal person would ever voluntarily do to their body... wait... I'm already approaching that. No matter.
So here's what I actually did:
Monday: Taekwondo Practice (1:30)
Tuesday: 12 miles (7:19 pace), olympic lifting/core for 2 hours, practice on monkey bars
Wednesday: 30 minutes rowing (6k) and Core/Pull-ups. Core was 3 sets of 15 reps each with 25 lbs weight. Pull-ups were 3 sets of 5 pull-ups
Thursday: Lazy day (qualifying exams)
Friday: Running 12 miles (7:30 pace)
Saturday: Bike 40 min, Core Craziness Type 2: 4 sets of 10/50
Sunday: Bike (4:08)
Weight: Min 166.4, median 167.6
Note for Core Craizness, that means 10 pushups before each ab workout and 50 reps of each ab work out.
Why oh why!
As you can basically tell now, I'm increasing my running mileage by 1 mile each week. I'm also increasing my long bike by about 20-24 minutes each week. You might be asking, "Why the hardcore biking? Why increase the biking more than the running?" If you were, I'd give you a gold star for asking a good question. As I said on the first week of this blog, running takes a toll on your body. Especially when you're running for long periods of time and over long distances. The more miles of impact you take, the more likely you're going to develop stress fractures, joint problems and, in my opinion, associated injuries. So... I opted for doing some hardcore biking. Biking works similar muscles and also works the cardio aspect of what's going on. My bike isn't made for racing and/or even working out hard, so I can't go as hard as I do when I run. I can, however, just keep on truckin' for over 4 hours now. That long term-lower intensity work is basically what I'll be doing all race day long. Now, the intensity is actually higher than race day because, as you saw last week, my legs burn after just 4 hours, but having that extended period of increased heart rate is very helpful to train my cardio.
So... you may be asking, what's the mile equivalent of how much you're biking. Being a mathematician, let's consider two possible ways of calculating that. Let's assume that I'd run the same pace that I do on my long runs for the same period of time as I bike. Based on that, I'd be running 33 mile-equivalents. However, I just said that the intensity is lower. If you go based on how I feel after the runs, then the bikes are basically what the runs are, plus or minus a few miles. That also doesn't make sense because the runs take 1:30 and the bike takes 4:08. I totally bike faster than a 21-minute mile equivalent. That means that the bike is actually somewhere in-between. Now, you may note correctly that I just said that one of the key workouts for my training counts as anywhere from 12 to 33 miles. That's a big range... big enough that you basically would call bull-shit and say that I'm not telling you anything.
As a statistician (yes, I consider myself both a mathematician and a statistician), those are the limits that I can give you. More information than that... is just speculation. Of course, I've also been doing some wild speculation. Let's imagine that the bikes are a lot less intense than the running, but not by a huge amount. Let's add like 90 seconds to each mile time and see what happens. When I'm used to running sub-7:30, a 9 minute mile would feel quite slow and relaxed. That would mean today's bike is 27.8 miles. Wait... that's a marathon! That doesn't necessarily sanity check because I'm not sure that I'm actually running marathon-equivalents yet... but I might be.
As an experimentalist, I feel like I should, logically, run an experiment, literally. Around my birthday in October, I'll be heading off to New Orleans for Society for Neuroscience. I'll be there for 6 days and won't have my bike or a regular place to work out. I don't know how much stuff I'll be able to bring as well. Here's my plan: when I'm off in New Orleans, I should take a long run where I don't push my pace as much. I just go... and go... and go.... and go... (okay, you get the idea) and stop when I can't go anymore. I'll then use the semi-infinite power of Google to let me know how far I went. That way I can actually estimate how I'm doing in the context of my 64 mile goal.
Other than that, you can now notice that I've started thinking about the obstacles. I've spent time doing core before, because core is the core to good training. Yes, I'm a cheese-ball. I hadn't done as much hanging and upper body work. Specifically, I royally suck at doing pull-ups. I'm pretty reasonable at doing a small number of them, so the Berlin Walls weren't a problem. If I end up having to do even more pull-up like things, then I feel like I might be woefully underprepared. A lot of the WTM obstacles can basically be considered doing pull-ups in strange situations: like when you just have a wooden wall (Berlin Wall) or you climbed up a ladder then need to get over that last ledge, or you just need to pull yourself up a cargo net.
The other key piece to obstacles is grip. Those fore-arms are important. I've noticed that I've got the upper body for rings, monkeybars and lots of swinging things. I'm more limited by my grip though. I keep on slipping off because my forearms aren't in shape enough. Maybe it's because I've got a wonderful woman by my side... Either way, I've started trying to work in more grip exercises. They burn and rip up the skin on my palm. That's a sign that I'm making progress.
The weight is coming off well. I'm beginning to look ripped and my body feels a lot more efficient. This preparation is a great way to lose 20 pounds easy.
Injury Report
The good news: I'm basically better. The bad news, I could only make that declaration today. That meant that after my Tuesday run, I took off my shoe to check out my injury and found that I couldn't extend my toes. The muscles were just way too tight. I couldn't actually even walk on it normally (even though I was running fine). After about 5-10 minutes of massage, I was able to get back into it and modify lifting so that I didn't tax those stabilization muscles as much. On each of my off-days, I made sure to do something that wasn't heavy on stabilization muscles in my ankle. On Friday, I took the big leap and went running. It nagged a little, but at the end of the run, it was basically fine. It reminded me that it was there, but otherwise, no biggie.
That means that next week moves ahead as planned. I got a little scared there for a bit, but no worries. The incessant training towards the big goal continues. It was just a flesh wound!
Winning and Losing
As you might have been able to tell, I've been thinking a lot about the possibility that I could win this thing. It's totally a possibility. If those bikes are as good as what I think they are, I might be up to 45 mile-equivalents in 8 hours before I start tapering. That's 50% more than Pak-man did as his longest run (link to Pak-man's summary of what he did to prepare). It also means that I'd totally be able to do the 8 laps that's my goal. I might even be able to do 10 laps, depending on how hard the obstacles are and how good my mental fortitude is.
As shiney as $15k is, that's not the point. I didn't sign up for WTM saying that I want to have a chance at $15k. I looked at it and said: "This is something that I've wanted to do since I was a kid. It's totally up my alley and I still have a shot at doing it well. Either way, if I can complete something crazy like this, then I would have a great story to tell my kids." That's my motivation. I want to put my body through something that'll push it to it's limits and then further. The experience of getting serious about something that's clearly hard and doing it smart and well is invaluable. This is something that I could be proud of myself for the rest of my life about.
That means that my goal for WTM isn't based upon my position. It's not if I win or lose. Sure, winning would be awesome, but there are other good people out there. What I want to do is go out there, feel the cold penetrate my bones and then keep on going. Even if I don't get 8 laps, I want to be able to say that I pushed my body as far as it could go. I want to point at what I did and say with pride, (expletive deleted) "that was crazy but I did it." I took that short stick that I was given and did something with it.
That means that on race day, I'm going to be pushing hard, but I'll also be looking out for my fellow mudders. Even if I'm laps ahead of someone, I want to root them on, help them up that last bit of that obstacle, give them the mental support to keep on going. Part of doing something crazy like WTM is doing it with the right attitude. I want to be proud of both my athletic accomplishment (finishing X laps) and also how I did that. If I can look back and say, I completed X laps and helped my fellow mudders all along the way, that'd be the cat's pajamas. I don't like cats, but I certainly do like their pajamas.
Equipment
As promised, I think I have a good idea on what my final equipment list is going to be. It's a lot, but it all makes sense. Here's it all:
This week was basically recovery from the ankle injury and attempting to keep up the increasing distances. I was able to take some stress off that ankle and still keep my training going up, up and beyond! Beyond what, you may ask? Well, of course beyond the limits of what any normal person would ever voluntarily do to their body... wait... I'm already approaching that. No matter.
So here's what I actually did:
Monday: Taekwondo Practice (1:30)
Tuesday: 12 miles (7:19 pace), olympic lifting/core for 2 hours, practice on monkey bars
Wednesday: 30 minutes rowing (6k) and Core/Pull-ups. Core was 3 sets of 15 reps each with 25 lbs weight. Pull-ups were 3 sets of 5 pull-ups
Thursday: Lazy day (qualifying exams)
Friday: Running 12 miles (7:30 pace)
Saturday: Bike 40 min, Core Craziness Type 2: 4 sets of 10/50
Sunday: Bike (4:08)
Weight: Min 166.4, median 167.6
Note for Core Craizness, that means 10 pushups before each ab workout and 50 reps of each ab work out.
Why oh why!
As you can basically tell now, I'm increasing my running mileage by 1 mile each week. I'm also increasing my long bike by about 20-24 minutes each week. You might be asking, "Why the hardcore biking? Why increase the biking more than the running?" If you were, I'd give you a gold star for asking a good question. As I said on the first week of this blog, running takes a toll on your body. Especially when you're running for long periods of time and over long distances. The more miles of impact you take, the more likely you're going to develop stress fractures, joint problems and, in my opinion, associated injuries. So... I opted for doing some hardcore biking. Biking works similar muscles and also works the cardio aspect of what's going on. My bike isn't made for racing and/or even working out hard, so I can't go as hard as I do when I run. I can, however, just keep on truckin' for over 4 hours now. That long term-lower intensity work is basically what I'll be doing all race day long. Now, the intensity is actually higher than race day because, as you saw last week, my legs burn after just 4 hours, but having that extended period of increased heart rate is very helpful to train my cardio.
So... you may be asking, what's the mile equivalent of how much you're biking. Being a mathematician, let's consider two possible ways of calculating that. Let's assume that I'd run the same pace that I do on my long runs for the same period of time as I bike. Based on that, I'd be running 33 mile-equivalents. However, I just said that the intensity is lower. If you go based on how I feel after the runs, then the bikes are basically what the runs are, plus or minus a few miles. That also doesn't make sense because the runs take 1:30 and the bike takes 4:08. I totally bike faster than a 21-minute mile equivalent. That means that the bike is actually somewhere in-between. Now, you may note correctly that I just said that one of the key workouts for my training counts as anywhere from 12 to 33 miles. That's a big range... big enough that you basically would call bull-shit and say that I'm not telling you anything.
As a statistician (yes, I consider myself both a mathematician and a statistician), those are the limits that I can give you. More information than that... is just speculation. Of course, I've also been doing some wild speculation. Let's imagine that the bikes are a lot less intense than the running, but not by a huge amount. Let's add like 90 seconds to each mile time and see what happens. When I'm used to running sub-7:30, a 9 minute mile would feel quite slow and relaxed. That would mean today's bike is 27.8 miles. Wait... that's a marathon! That doesn't necessarily sanity check because I'm not sure that I'm actually running marathon-equivalents yet... but I might be.
As an experimentalist, I feel like I should, logically, run an experiment, literally. Around my birthday in October, I'll be heading off to New Orleans for Society for Neuroscience. I'll be there for 6 days and won't have my bike or a regular place to work out. I don't know how much stuff I'll be able to bring as well. Here's my plan: when I'm off in New Orleans, I should take a long run where I don't push my pace as much. I just go... and go... and go.... and go... (okay, you get the idea) and stop when I can't go anymore. I'll then use the semi-infinite power of Google to let me know how far I went. That way I can actually estimate how I'm doing in the context of my 64 mile goal.
Other than that, you can now notice that I've started thinking about the obstacles. I've spent time doing core before, because core is the core to good training. Yes, I'm a cheese-ball. I hadn't done as much hanging and upper body work. Specifically, I royally suck at doing pull-ups. I'm pretty reasonable at doing a small number of them, so the Berlin Walls weren't a problem. If I end up having to do even more pull-up like things, then I feel like I might be woefully underprepared. A lot of the WTM obstacles can basically be considered doing pull-ups in strange situations: like when you just have a wooden wall (Berlin Wall) or you climbed up a ladder then need to get over that last ledge, or you just need to pull yourself up a cargo net.
The other key piece to obstacles is grip. Those fore-arms are important. I've noticed that I've got the upper body for rings, monkeybars and lots of swinging things. I'm more limited by my grip though. I keep on slipping off because my forearms aren't in shape enough. Maybe it's because I've got a wonderful woman by my side... Either way, I've started trying to work in more grip exercises. They burn and rip up the skin on my palm. That's a sign that I'm making progress.
The weight is coming off well. I'm beginning to look ripped and my body feels a lot more efficient. This preparation is a great way to lose 20 pounds easy.
Injury Report
The good news: I'm basically better. The bad news, I could only make that declaration today. That meant that after my Tuesday run, I took off my shoe to check out my injury and found that I couldn't extend my toes. The muscles were just way too tight. I couldn't actually even walk on it normally (even though I was running fine). After about 5-10 minutes of massage, I was able to get back into it and modify lifting so that I didn't tax those stabilization muscles as much. On each of my off-days, I made sure to do something that wasn't heavy on stabilization muscles in my ankle. On Friday, I took the big leap and went running. It nagged a little, but at the end of the run, it was basically fine. It reminded me that it was there, but otherwise, no biggie.
That means that next week moves ahead as planned. I got a little scared there for a bit, but no worries. The incessant training towards the big goal continues. It was just a flesh wound!
Winning and Losing
As you might have been able to tell, I've been thinking a lot about the possibility that I could win this thing. It's totally a possibility. If those bikes are as good as what I think they are, I might be up to 45 mile-equivalents in 8 hours before I start tapering. That's 50% more than Pak-man did as his longest run (link to Pak-man's summary of what he did to prepare). It also means that I'd totally be able to do the 8 laps that's my goal. I might even be able to do 10 laps, depending on how hard the obstacles are and how good my mental fortitude is.
As shiney as $15k is, that's not the point. I didn't sign up for WTM saying that I want to have a chance at $15k. I looked at it and said: "This is something that I've wanted to do since I was a kid. It's totally up my alley and I still have a shot at doing it well. Either way, if I can complete something crazy like this, then I would have a great story to tell my kids." That's my motivation. I want to put my body through something that'll push it to it's limits and then further. The experience of getting serious about something that's clearly hard and doing it smart and well is invaluable. This is something that I could be proud of myself for the rest of my life about.
That means that my goal for WTM isn't based upon my position. It's not if I win or lose. Sure, winning would be awesome, but there are other good people out there. What I want to do is go out there, feel the cold penetrate my bones and then keep on going. Even if I don't get 8 laps, I want to be able to say that I pushed my body as far as it could go. I want to point at what I did and say with pride, (expletive deleted) "that was crazy but I did it." I took that short stick that I was given and did something with it.
That means that on race day, I'm going to be pushing hard, but I'll also be looking out for my fellow mudders. Even if I'm laps ahead of someone, I want to root them on, help them up that last bit of that obstacle, give them the mental support to keep on going. Part of doing something crazy like WTM is doing it with the right attitude. I want to be proud of both my athletic accomplishment (finishing X laps) and also how I did that. If I can look back and say, I completed X laps and helped my fellow mudders all along the way, that'd be the cat's pajamas. I don't like cats, but I certainly do like their pajamas.
Equipment
As promised, I think I have a good idea on what my final equipment list is going to be. It's a lot, but it all makes sense. Here's it all:
- 3/2mm hyperstretch wetsuit, no hood
- 6+mm hyperstretch wetsuit, with hood
- Full lycra body suit (rash guard and base layer)
- 2mm and 5mm neoprene socks
- 2 forehead mounted dive lights (rated to 100m)
- neoprene gloves (thickness undermined)
- grip-gloves
- Jacket
- Spandex leggings
- Sweater
- Swim cap
- Profuse amounts of t-shirts
- waterproof fanny pack
- 2+ person tent
- FOOD
- ibuprofen
- FLUIDS
That's a lot. Yea... it's another part of the craziness. Many thanks to Mum and Dad, who make all of this possible. Here's a breakdown of why I need all this stuff.
Weather in New Jersey is unpredictable. It can either be really bone cold (expected) or even reasonably warm as 60 F. Yes, 60F is frigid for california, but in the grand scheme of things, it's really warm. That means that I need to plan for each possibility. So, I've got mildly cold gear (leggings/sweater/t-shirts), cold gear (3mm) and freeze your maniless off cold gear (6mm). The theme that I learned from all the websites and blogs about last year is: wetsuit required. When I'm not going to have enough cold training no matter what, I really take that message to heart. That means that I'm going to expect to be going full-out on dealing with the cold. The 6mm wetsuit with a hood is going to keep me through anything. The 3mm will keep me if I start getting warm in the 6mm and/or during the day before it gets really bone cold. The reason why the 3mm doesn't need a hood is because if it's cold enough to be a hoodlum, I'm going to want that 6mm. Otherwise, the swim cap will keep my hair pretty for all the pictures and onlookers. The lycra body suit is, as listed, a rash guard and will be a base layer from which I can modify. It keeps me a little more decent when switching between wetsuits and the like. It also helps getting in/out and makes it so I don't get any small rashes that start burning like I'm a moo-cow getting branded when the rash gets wet. The swim cap will also help getting that last hood on.
Cotton socks do not dry. Neoprene socks are warm. End-of-story. I'm already going to be using normal running shoes throughout because I am used to them. I don't want to learn the different way you need to run in aqua shoes. I might get some trail runners that will dry faster, but otherwise, I haven't had a huge problem with normal running shoes when I've been in Warrior Dash and Tough Mudder CA.
Gloves: Muddy neoprene gloves are horrible at gripping anything at all. If I can get another pair of gloves on top of my neoprenes, then I should be able to grip things. I should also have a little more warmth, which is always a plus.
Forehead light. This part is required. I chose to get a dive light rated to 100m to make sure that it doesn't break during the submersions. It's more expensive and totally overkill, but this way I don't need to worry about my light. I started using it on my bikes. It works out pretty well. It's going to be interesting to get fitted properly (swim cap will help) and it's a little heavy, so I won't use it until I need to, but I think it was a good purchase. I got two. I'm going to use a lot of batteries.
Tent: I don't expect to be sleeping at all. I've said that before. The tent is more to organize my stuff and have it so that I can go to my tent, grab what I need, and keep going. It's also for my dad to sleep when he needs to. I'm totally not driving home after WTM, so he's going to have to have the fortitude to do that. I'm going to drink my well deserved beer immediately after finishing.... the things that I do for beer.
Food & Fluids: This is actually an interesting question that I'm still researching. I've never used gels or anything during a race or training. Yes, during my 4 hour bike rides and my Tuesday work outs, I subsist on water alone. Personally, I think that if I don't need the supplements, then I'm doing better and my body will be trained to take it. However, on race day, I'll need to eat. Starving all day is just a bad idea. I like Pak-man's plan of using canned fruids and putting them in bags. I'll likely do that for snacks during the race (hence fanny pack). I'll also probably have alternate foods that I can eat quickly to serve as larger meals after key laps (2,4,6). I am also expecting to bring LOTS of water, gatorade and possible even *cringe* something like Bucari Sweat or gel packs. No matter what, I'm going to need my fluids and electrolytes. They also serve as easy calories that I don't need to chew. My plan is to focus on eating between the laps because I don't want to carry things. I'll probably have the canned fruits and what WTM gives us for during laps then take a 5-10 minute break after each lap to gather my stuff and eat as I'm starting the next lap.
No comments:
Post a Comment