Bumpy 6 weeks till race day

Training has gotten a lot harder since school started. It seems like thing after thing comes up to mess up my plan that had been going so well. I feel like my training is still progressing at a great rate, but it's harder to compare my current performance to my previous performance. Bumps and bruises aside, I feel nervous but I'm still pressing forward.

What happened this week?

Monday: 24 min row, 6 minute run, Roman chairs (back and each side: 3x20x25 lbs) then first TKD practice
Tuesday: 16 mile run (1:57:30 - 7:20min/mile) + 2 hours lifting
Wednesday: TKD Practice
Thursday: Core Craziness Type 2 x 6 sets (10/50)
Friday: 1:58 min run (16+ miles)
Saturday: UCSD Rumble (3 hours of fighting with 2x15 min breaks) + Core Craziness Type 2 without leg lifts (10/50) x 3 sets
Sunday: Biking (1:15) + Core Craziness Type 2 without leg lifts x (1:18) -- total time 2:33.


Weight: min 161.2, median 164.8

Why so much change?
The week started off just a little bit different and then changed a bunch more. On Monday, I did a small workout before practice because it was the first day of newcomers, so I had a lot of responsibilities that made it so I couldn't work out for as much time. I made up for that by working out beforehand. That turned out reasonably fine... or so I thought.

The next day, I was, if you remember from the last post, still trying to drop weight. I didn't eat all that much and I ran with 5mm neoprene socks during my 16 mile run before practice. In short, that run was rough. The net pace was quite good, but my body just felt like it was dead after around 11 miles. I had started at around 7:05 min/mile pace and by the end I was down to around 7:50. My legs basically were trying to give up, but I refused to give in. That mental battle was hard... then came lifting. My friends and coach made it easier to keep on going and pushing myself for the next 2 hours. As we got to the end of the workout, my body was entirely spent and felt like I was actually about to pass out, so I started with the ab workout that was on the ground and was able to make it through to the end.

That meant that the next day, I desperately needed to take it easy. Practice was normal, so I was able to handle it all. My legs hadn't quite recovered, so I decided to do some core and give my legs a little more rest. I had planned on doing my run on Thursday, but my legs wouldn't be having any of that. That plan worked out very well for my run on Friday. My legs felt a little tired in the beginning, but once I got going, I made a lot of mile markers in less than 7:10 min/mile pace.

Going into Saturday, I knew that I had 3 hours of potential fighting that could happen. I decided that I could fight as much as I could and then count it as a medium workout. I was thinking that I could then bike normally the following day... but after the rumble, I was quite banged up. I got kicked in the hip hard a few times, clashed with my right knee a few times and my toes weren't feeling good. I went out biking on Sunday feeling like each pedal was going to hurt a little, but my muscles would likely be fine. When I got out there, each of my leg muscles started complaining. I had fought hard on Saturday and my legs were feeling it. The bruises I had were masking the muscle fatigue. So, after around 45 minutes, I decided that after an hour or so, I would go inside and finish up the cardio with a long core workout. I proceeded to watch football and do core continually until I couldn't do core anymore.

At the end of the day, I feel like I still had a reasonable workout, even though I still haven't been able to break that 4 hour barrier to workouts. Obviously, to get to 24 hours, I'm going to need to figure out how to extend that time. I think that it might be related to how I don't consume any more than 50 Calories during these workouts. I need to start working my race-day nutrition into these workouts so that I know how to make it all work out. I think that my endurance is impressive, so I've still got time to make it all count.

Winning and Losing Part 2
You may also notice that, contrary to the mid week update's tone, I've still kept having trouble getting that weight down. It actually reflects mental challenges that I've been having to focus on training because of school and other responsibilities ramping up. It's more that it's difficult to maintain weight trends when so many transitions are going on. I just keep on getting hungry and/or keep on over-eating when I have the opportunity to. That's a very different mental challenge from being able to keep on going during a workout.

What I think might also be playing a part is those residual feelings that I'm not going to be the top competitor out there. As I discussed before, I'm not doing WTM to win it. I'm doing it for the experience of pushing myself harder than anyone thinks is sane. I'm doing it to say that I have the mental and physical toughness to just keep on going, despite everything. That's the type of person that I'd like to show myself that I am. However, I'm internally competitive so when I question if I'm capable of outperforming everyone, that's hard. Many a very smart coach has said before, "No matter how fast you are, there's always someone faster." I know that is very much true, but for some reason the prospect that it's going to be hard to win WTM is effecting my psyche for my workouts. I question my tactics and the decisions that I've made along the way and that makes me wonder if I need to drastically change things when we don't have much time at all till race day. The proper response to that type of doubt is to shake it off and keep on going with my plan. It's too late to switch anything at this point.

The key thing for me to remember is that I shouldn't even be concerned about comparing myself to others. I should just be looking at my performance and seeing if I can handle the cold and the huge athletic/mental effort that'll be required. If I think about that, I'm quite sure that I can take the athletic and mental challenge that I'll be facing on race day. Over time, I'm getting more and more worried about how my body is going to respond to the cold. Living in California, I won't be able to train all that much with it. I really need to take my parent's advice and run on the beach with periodic intimate encounters with the Pacific Ocean.

That brings me to another pledge that I'd like to make to myself that I've said before on this blog. It is not sufficient to keep on going for 24 hours without helping others. Part of being one of the toughest mudders is to embrace the mudder spirit. We are all in this together and we'll all make it through this together. Even as I'm pushing myself, I pledge to myself to look out for my fellow mudders that are hurting physically and/or mentally. If helping a mudder means that I'm no longer the leader, then so be it. It's more valuable to prove that I can push myself this hard and still show that I care about my fellow humans than to win the cash.

The magical 7

Now that school has started, the pace of my life is picking up and it's getting harder and harder to make the time for training. The body is still feeling good, but we'll see how my mind goes. I've been thinking about the mental game more because of my tactic of all training and no racing. I shall let you into my pondering in this post.

Okay, so what happened to me this week:

8 weeks left
Monday: 15 minute TKD demo + TKD Practice (1:45 total)
Tuesday: 15 mile run (7:08 pace - 1:46) + 1:30 lifting + ring pull-ups
Wednesday: TKD Practice (1:30)
Thursday: 1:56:08 at 7:20ish pace
Friday: lazy day (really: conference day)
7 weeks left
Saturday: Biking (4:07)
Sunday: Core Crazines Type 2 x12 (10/50)

Weight: Min 164.2, median 165

What Happened? That's a little bit different.
If you looked at my schedule and had that response, then you're paying attention. Congratulations. You have earned a gold star! For the less astute of you, this is what changed and... of course... drum roll please... why!

First of all, I increasd the mileage by 2 miles from a half marathon to 15 miles and a 1:38 long run to a 1:56 long run. As advertised last week, it's not really useful for WTM to be able to run at a pace less than 7 min/mile. I'm not reaching that pace in a wetsuit and if I try to run that pace, I'm just burning energy and being less efficient. That means that now that I can run a half marathon at less than 7 min/mile pace, I increased the distance by 2 miles and slowed the pace back down. That also gives me the opportunity to increase the distance more. If you could read through the lines before, I have been questioning my tactic of high intensity and less time/distance. At this point, I'm too deep to climb out so what's happening is happening.

You may have also noticed that it's been a while since I took a full day off. The day off was mostly (entirely) because I was at an all-day conference and was too tired when I got home to work out. I was going to do some core, but I just wanted to go to bed. The powers of alcohol also zapped my motivation.

You also see that I didn't do the full biking that I had been planning. After 4 hours, my legs were burning. I felt like I might be able to push out another 21-22 minute lap, but I wasn't sure how much benefit that would give my body. It was already taxed quite hard and my muscles were screaming. I pushed through it mentally, then gave in and said that pushing that much harder had more potential to cause injury and not let me recover for my next workout, so I allowed myself to give in.

I've also fallen behind on my weight loss. That's due to a few factors. Firstly, I've actually been doing really well... then I got a lot of free food this week from school starting, having that all day conference, then going to a concert with free (read: part of the ticket price) dessert buffet and then Korean thanksgiving (For the record, I'm an inverse twinkie: white on the outside and yellow on the inside). I don't consider that joke racist because my asian friends are the ones that tell me that. My significant other actually says that I'm more Korean than her sometimes, mostly because I eat food that she hates but is traditional Korean. But... I digress. All of those factors lead to some pretty huge weight spikes. But fear not! I come from the future (aka Tuesday) and can tell you that I'm almost back on track.

Those of you wondering what my plans for weight after WTM are. They were mostly determined today: I'm gaining some of the weight back. For TKD, I'm planning on staying a welter weight, which means that I need to fall in the 164-176 lbs (<80 kg) weight range. My plan for making that happen: Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house.

Training vs Racing
One of the major differences between Pak-man's training strategy, some of the other people training for WTM and my regimen is the lack of races that I'm doing. Let's ignore Taekwondo competitions because those are akin to sprinting instead of the long endurance that's needed for WTM. I've discussed why I am not racing at all a little before, but it's time for more depth.

Races are big things. They tax your body and require recovery, planning, money and also changing your training regimen so that you're ready for race day. What you get for that is a shiney new time for a distance and also the experience of pushing your body farther than it could go before, both mentally and physically. There's nothing like the mental push of a race that'll make you go just a little bit faster or run just a little bit longer. However, that all comes at a price.

Training is all about routine and slow building. Your body is great at dealing with small changes over time. It's great at adapting to the challenges that you give it, as long as you give it time to adapt. That means that you're most efficient in training your body if you make sure to give yourself enough rest, but also make sure that you're not killing yourself in every hard workout. There's got to be a progression and you should, mostly, stay within or close to your upper limit. You shouldn't really push yourself farther than you thought you could go more than once a week because... well... that's hard. Your body needs to respond and grow from that experience and the usual easy day that comes after it might not be sufficient.

So, that comes to my logic that I'm not running races to train for WTM. I'm just training. It allows me to build up my schedule according to what my body tells me and also doesn't expend energy in planning for accessory events or feeling the pressure to perform at them (then needing to recover for longer afterwards). Besides helping my pocketbook, I feel like by consistently building through training alone, my body will be as ready as it can be for the actual event. I'm doing a lot of stepping up that's all culminating in the actual event, so I almost feel like I won't be ready for the full blown 24 hours part until... well... race day.

There are many fallicies in this logic, some of which I recognize. One of them is that WTM is a physical challenge, sure, but the primary difficulty isn't the physical; it's all mental. With all of this training, I should be able to push myself for the entire 24 hours, if I can make the mental committment to do so. If I'm not racing, I'm not practicing that mental toughness as much as I could be. More recently, I've been taking advantage of stop lights and little breaks more than I feel like I should... is that bad or is that listening to my body? The only thing that'll truly be able to say if my technique works is if I actually perform well at WTM.

Until then, I'll just keep on truckin' and let WTM be my one shot and done. Depending on how it feels and lots of other surrounding factors, I may try something entirely different for WTM2013, if I do it at all.  I know that one of the first things I would do differently for WTM2013 would be to start hardcore training at least 6 months in advance... but hind-sight is always 20-20.

8 weeks left: Sneaking up on me

This seems like it's getting so close that I can almost touch it. I'm starting to look at my training and say that what I've done now is close to the shape that I'm doing to be in on race day. To some extent, that's true, but really 8 weeks is a good amount of time to get myself used to the impressively long training days.

The major news of this week is that I was on "vacation" so I had some extra time. With that extra time, I ran a huge PR (personal record) for my half marathon time. I am excited. It means that I'm in the best endurance shape that I've ever been in. I'm just so excited that despite the comments from my friends and observers that say that I'm crazy and I can't be doing good things to my body, my body is standing up with flying colours and saying: "Oh, you think I can't do this? Well, let me show that I can do it better than you ever imagined just to spite you!"

So what happened this week, specifically:

Monday: Taekwondo Practice (1:20)
Tuesday AM: Core Craziness Type 2 without leg lifts (10 pushups/50 ab reps) x 6 sets
Tuesday PM: 1:29:46 half marathon (6:50min/mile pace) + 1:30 olympic lifting/core
Wednesday Midday: Core Craziness Type 2 without leg lifts (10/50)x6
Wednesday PM: Taekwondo (1:20)
Thursday Midday: 43 min trail run at a slowish pace (circa 8:00min/mile)
Thursday PM: Core Craziness Type 2 without leg lifts (10/50)x6
Friday: 1:38 minute run (7:10-20 min/mile) in 90 F degree weather
Saturday: Progression TKD (light for 2 hours) + Core Craziness Type 2 with leg lifts (10/50)x12
Sunday: Progression TKD (warm up + 4 full matches) + Biking (2:08)

Weight: Median 167, low 165.0

Wow... that's a lot so far: why are you doing this to yourself?
The main thing that you may notice is that I did A LOT of core this week. That was a combination of having the time to do extra working out but also not wanting to tax my legs even more. Looking at the obstacles, I've begun worrying if I'm getting too concerned about the running part and need to be thinking about working on my upper body so that I don't die on them. Consequentially, I'm now doing core routines that take a huge amount of time. When I do 6 sets of those core circuits, as above, that's at least 30 minutes of constant crunches/pushups. Observers tend to look at me and think or say, "Okay, he's doing some core." Then they come back 20 minutes later and say, "Wait, weren't you doing that 20 minutes ago?" To which I respond, "Yea, I'm not done yet." The most common response I get is: "Wow."

I think when you talk about training for WTM, the correct response is just, "Wow." What I'm doing to my body is just so outside the norm that there's just no established response.

But, I digress. WTM is entirely different from an ultramarathon, as I've said before. Besides the cold, there are lots of obstacles. Obstacles are very different from running. There's a reason why Pak-man only ran 56-ish miles. That's a pittance if you're just running an ultra. The difference between a pittance and WTM2011 are those obstacles. In order to be fully ready, you need to have the core and the strength to push through them as well. That means I will have a lot more core and pull-ups in my future. Be prepared to see 90 minute core circuits... which will definitely be done with television assistance.

Also remember that one of the reasons why I do so much Taekwondo, other than it being my primary sport these days, is because it trains me for the obstacles. I get good anaerobic bursts for prolonged periods of time. This basically matches the obstacle-style work that I'll be doing for WTM and the fact that everything is done on my feet also gives me a little relief from doing raw leg-miles.

Speaking of raw leg-miles, I also did a reasonable amount more actual running than you may have predicted from last week. Specifically, you would have expected maybe 13 miles on Tuesday and Friday with maybe 4 miles on another day. Instead, you see a half marathon (13.1) with a 1:38 run (almost 14 miles), plus a 43 min trail run. That's a small, but significant step up. That's all because I'm worrying that I'm not doing enough pure running and my body is telling me, from the pace that I'm taking, that it's ready. It's pushing my pace because the distance is totally manageable now. That means that it's time to step up the miles. Even though my basic concept is high intensity so that I don't need to do as much time/mileage, running anything under a 7 minute mile is just entirely different from what I'll be doing for WTM, so I need to boost up that distance ticker faster. In that vein, who knows how high I'm going to get before I need to start tapering...

All I can say now is: "15 miles before a 2 hour workout? That sounds reasonable."

Oh... and don't forget... that half marathon time is a full 7 minutes faster than my best ever. That's about 30 seconds per mile faster. That's a lot. I'm proud of myself... especially because I blew away my PR then went on to complete even more workout after that.

You may also notice that the bike wasn't up to full time. That was because I fought hard during TKD, so I went until my legs were burning the entire way back during the biking loop. I could have squeezed out an hour or two more, but I'm looking forward to the schedule I've got next week and decided to take it a little easier. When I checked weight, I found that I totally was right. I did enough work... I had lost 2.4 lbs that day.

Speaking of weight, you may notice that I had trouble keeping my 2 lbs per week pace. I've been getting hungry, so I've been eating more. I'm not snacking on nothingness. I'm eating protein and making sure to replenish my body and my mind. I think this week my muscles were crying out for resources. Even though it messed up my schedule, I think they deserved it. If I don't listen to my muscles, then I'm just over-training and that's never going to help.

The Aches and Pains of a Mudder
This week was full of rough times. I am very much getting the mental exercise that I'll need to keep Rollin' Rollin' Rollin' on race day. Besides getting hurt a little during TKD, my destroyed ankle is starting to bother me, as expected. I don't think I can do anything about it at this point... so just stand tall and carry on.

To start with, it was excessively hot during my trail run. I was wearing my neoprene socks, so half the time it felt like my feet were burning up from heat. My legs ached a little on the hills up, but I kept reminding myself: "easy day, easy day... take it easy."

Then... came Friday.

I had an unexpected meeting in the morning, so I got out to running later than expected. By the time I got my stuff on, it was 12:30pm. Remember... I live in Southern California. Even though I'm close to the beach, I'm still basically in the desert. It was around 90 F outside and I didn't bring water or gels, because I never do. The first 10 miles were totally fine. I was cruising at 7:00-7:10 min/mile pace. Then I hit the beach and my shirt and shorts looked like I took a swim in the water. Those last four miles were brutal. My body just felt spent. I kept on pushing those legs to keep up the pace and they kept on yelling at me back: "No, just stop at this light, no just take it a little slower. Take a little breather." I shook my head and told them, "Just 4 more miles... just 3 more miles... see that landmark... you know it's not much left." They didn't care, they just kept on screaming. The 12th and 13th mile slowed down a bit (8:10 pace) and I felt like I wasn't going to be able to keep going, then I hit my stride. That last mile sailed through. My legs felt the pavement and the downslope that leads towards home. They fell into rhythm and pumped out a sub-7 minute mile for the last mile, including an ending kick.

When I got into my apartment, I basically flopped onto the ground and told my legs and lungs, "Okay, that was hard, but I know you've got more in you. No complaining next time." We'll see how well they listen tomorrow for the 15-miler.

During the TKD sparring, my left arm got wailed on pretty hard. I fight with left arm forward, so I block with that arm more than my right. I have pads on my forearm, but not on my tricep. The guy I was fighting kept kicking a little higher than my forearm, so it kept impacting the same place on my tricep. He's around middle-weight right now (i.e. 20 lbs more than me), so they were impressive kicks. After around 3 of them, I was in real pain. After the fourth, I had to call the match. I didn't want to risk a real injury from a practice fight. I hate calling the match for that sort of thing, but right now I have to grunt through every pushup I do. It's just a muscle bruise, but it's swollen, black/blue and painful. It'll take a few days, but it'll get better. As I say frequently: "Just a flesh wound."

The ankle is another issue. It hasn't been hurting me during runs or work-outs, but between workouts when I'm walking around, the destroyed ankle has been pinching and aching like it used to. I think the cartilidge has become inflamed a little and it's starting to feel all the miles that I've been piling on. At this point, I need to pile on even more miles, so the ankle is likely going to hurt even more. There isn't a lot I can do about it other than keep calm and carry on. The pain isn't bad and it's the type of thing that I know doesn't portend that I'm doing permanent damage that I haven't already done. Let's just hope it stays that way... I am planning a double marathon week in just 2 weeks.

Equipment
I've started getting the equipment in the mail. It's very exciting. The wetsuit feels a lot better than I thought it would. I tried on a cheap one and then a more expensive one. It's TOTALLY worth it to get the more expensive one. Running feels so much more natural. If you pay the money, there isn't really resistance. That said, I was wearing 3mm suits. We'll see how the 6mm feels.

Something that I've found is that it's again very important to practice in your equipment, even if you don't need to. I've been getting blisters in different places when I'm wearing the neoprene socks. I need to run in them even when it's hot out so that I build up those callouses. I also am wearing the lycra underlayer more to make sure that it doesn't cause rashing and so my body doesn't get itchy. I haven't had a problem with it yet, but I can totally feel how if I just sprung this all on game day, competing would be a lot harder.

The last thing is to do the fanny pack/swim cap/jacket and get serious about the eating part of this... much planning and thinking needs to go on. 

9 weeks... getting close

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:

1. 3/2mm hyperstretch wetsuit, no hood
2. 6+mm hyperstretch wetsuit, with hood
3. Full lycra body suit (rash guard and base layer)
4. 2mm and 5mm neoprene socks
5. 2 forehead mounted dive lights (rated to 100m)
6. neoprene gloves (thickness undermined)
7. grip-gloves
8. Jacket
9. Spandex leggings
10. Sweater
11. Swim cap
12. Profuse amounts of t-shirts
13. waterproof fanny pack
14. 2+ person tent
15. FOOD
16. ibuprofen
17. 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.

Just 10 weeks!

First and foremost: my legs burn. They burn bad. I'm writing this right after my Sunday bike and before my dinner has finished cooking. Other than that, this week was quite eventful in terms of updating my body. I've got my first legitimate injury that's affecting practice but I'm also feeling really good about where my training is. I'm going to be in a good position come race time, so I'll be able to put up a good showing and be proud of myself. That's really all that matters. Let's just hope I can keep it up again.

So here's what happened this week

Monday: 4 mile run (<7:00 min/mile pace), 5 sets Core Craziness Type 2 (7/50)
Tuesday: 11 mile run (7:09 min/mile pace) + 2 hours olympic lifting/core
Wednesday: Taekwondo Practice (1:30)
Thursday: 6 sets Core Craziness Type 2 (7/50)
Friday: 1:24 run (7:20 pace, likely 11.5 miles)
Saturday: 12 sets Core Craziness Type 2 (7/50)
Sunday: Biking (3:45)


Weight: minimum 168.8 and median 170

For the definition of Core Craziness Type 2, please see previous posts.

Why does it burn so bad?
That bike was rough. I felt myself pushing the entire time, especially on the uphill portions. The bike consisted of 10 laps of my loop. I felt the strain on the second lap already. The middle laps went okay, but by the time the sun fell and I had two more laps left, I was talking to myself on the long uphill portion at the end of the lap, saying "Come on, come on. Push it. Come on." I don't know why that helps, but it let's myself know that the pain isn't going to stop. I need to put my mental effort into just making it continue. Just keeping up the pace, no matter what happens. And... it works. The pace of each of the 10 laps was basically the same. There was one lap that was 30 seconds slower than the rest, but otherwise consistency, thy name is Wesley.

The Friday run was the same way. It was smooth for the first 9 miles but those last 2 miles were rough. My left (not destroyed) ankle was hurting a little. My legs were very tired and I just sat down for quite a while after that. I ate a lot but I still lost weight after that day.

That, however, brings me to my injury. After that run, that left ankle was hurting when I woke up. It's not like I turned my ankle where the pain is on the lateral (outside). Instead, the pain is on the medial side. It started off wrapping around the malleolus (bump of the ankle), as if it was a muscle that wraps around there. After that first day, the pain moved up a little and is now localized around the muscle body just posterior to my tibia. It actually felt better after the bike today, so I'm hoping that it won't keep my back too much. I did, as you may notice, take a leg-break on Saturday because of my ankle.

The other item of business is the weight. As you can see, it's coming off reliably. I'm feeling good and not feeling like I'm short on energy ever. My body is getting more lean and you can start to see my core muscles through the fat. It'll be interesting to see myself when I'm back down to a high school weight for me. It's been quite a long time since I was down there.

I'm still working through the equipment planning. I've been doing research and thinking about strategy. Hopefully by next week I'll have an equipment list to brag about.

11 weeks until the insanity

This training is quite relentless. The distances keep adding up and for some reason, my body wants to run even faster despite the increase in distance. I'm starting to feel a little bit more of my destroyed ankle. I'm also looking into the required equipment and finding that there's a lot of stuff and a lot to think about. I've also got more thoughts on the nickname question.

12 weeks to go
Monday: Taekwondo Practice (1:30), 2 sets Core Craziness Type 2 (7/30)
Tuesday: 10 miles (7:13 min/mile pace), Ring pull-ups, Monkey bars, olympic lifting for 2 hours
Wednesday: Taekwondo Practice (1:30)
Thursday: Lazy day
Friday: 76 minute run (7:08 pace for 5 miles, then ran back)

11 weeks to go
Saturday: 6 sets Core Craziness Type 2 (7/50)
Sunday: Biking (3:21)

Weight: Low 169.0, median 171.6.

Core Craizness Type 2 (# pushups=P, # abdominal exercises=A)
P pushups
A crunches
P pushups
A side crunches
P pushups
A side crunches
P pushups
A leg lifts
P pushups
A supermans
This week I did 6 sets all at once, which corresponds to 300 of each ab exercise and 310 pushups. That took around 30 minutes of constant activity.


The Eternal Why
I've explained most of my training strategy in terms of mileage, but there are a lot of other details that I've been leaving out. So I'd thought that I'd share. You also notice that I started doing some of the obstacles (Monkey Bars and Rings). You also may notice that I've ramped up my core workouts when I don't want to be working on my feet. I'm currently thinking about alternative ways to work my heart as hard as running or biking but without running or biking. Experimentation is always necessary.

The first thing is that I'm worrying that I'm not doing enough leg miles. In an ideal world, I'd be out there on my feet most every day and getting those legs used to the intense mileage. However, as I've talked about before, that also means taxing those critical limbs more and, in my opinion, aggravating old wounds. This week has confirmed that suspicion. For both long runs that I did, I was feeling that old injury hurting me slightly for the first couple miles.

At the same time, you may notice that the pace for both runs increased and increased appreciably. You may think that the decrease to 7:15 or 7:10 from 7:30 might be a small difference, but when you multiply over 10 times, that's quite a big difference. This increase in speed wasn't a conscious decision that I made. I simply went out and ran my rough pace and what popped out was an increase in speed. That tells me that even though my ankle is giving me a wee bit of trouble, my training is working. My body is telling me that it's ready for more difficulty and more pace. I'm holding back from giving it a lot more distance all at once. That may be a mistake, but I'm also making sure that my body will hold up until the end.

So, what am I doing to strike that balance? Two words: soft ground. Soft ground is the key to keeping bodies healthy. Especially here in the US, city planners naively think that if they want to make some place more welcoming to runners, they should pave some running trails. That's absolutely the wrong thing. Concrete has no give at all. All of that impact goes into the joints of the people running. That increases the slow damage being dealt to ankles, knees and hips. Even though I can't run on soft ground alone, I try to maximize the amount of distance on green grass or at least brown dirt. I also do a reasonable amount of distance on a running track. While this isn't the softest ground, it gives me a good idea about the actual pace I'm running and also breaks down what is happening with my body by mile.

That brings me to an important point about how things have been going: those last two miles are brutal. I said before that I was used to 8 miles. Even though I've been going faster, those first 8 miles have been passing so easily. Once I get to those last two miles, however, I feel a lot more tired. My shirt is invariably entirely dosed with sweat and my legs start complaining. They can do the increased distance, but my muscles are also getting pushed to their limit. Strangely, I'm actually not feeling like I need to constantly push my limits and practice the mental challenge of keeping on going even when my body hurts. I anticipate that as I get higher in distance and my leg miles increase, I'll have plenty of opportunities to do that soon.

Oh, and to point out something that may be missed. Yes, that's 3 hours and 20 minutes of biking. Three hours is a long time. Yes, that's going up by about 20 minutes each week. It's going to keep doing that. Each hour isn't as hard as a mile of biking simply because my bike isn't good enough to really push that hard and I just don't know how to push myself hard on a bike. That's why I can actually work on my total endurance exercise time by biking. In that way, that really long bike is central to my strategy for getting up to the 24 hour race.

Equipment
The key question is the wetsuit. In order to survive past the first hour of competition, you need a 6mm+ wetsuit with a hood. The thing is that wetsuits are notoriously inflexible and not good to run in. That means that I need to get a maximally flexible wetsuit. Of course, those wetsuits are a lot more expensive. By expensive, I mean $250-500. That's a lot of money. I'm currently looking through a lot of websites and doing some research about the surf stores that I need to visit.

The other thing is gloves. If I go with wetsuit gloves, they get really slippery when they get muddy. That means that I won't be able to hold those rings or monkey bars that I need to go over. I'm starting to think about if I should try to go with mountain climber gloves or something akin to that. The question with those gloves is how to get the proper grip. So many questions and so much data to sift through... good thing I'm getting a degree in data analysis.

Nicknames
Personally, I believe that choosing your own nickname is a no-no. So, I present possible and historical options that all work and allow others to choose one of the below and/or make up something of their own. This is basically a walk down memory-lane for me.

Historical nicknames

• Fuzzihead

Fuzzihead was one from elementary and middle school because I always kept my hair short, therefore my head was fuzzy. The older kids always enjoyed rubbing my head like a little Budda.

• Whisker

Whisker is similar to my name, if you say it really really fast and don't enunciate too well. You can think of it like mishearing something. Like when you say Earth really fast and someone thinks you said birth if they're thinking about pregnancy, babies or anything like that.

• Bearded one

Bearded one is from high school because I was, logically, bearded. I had facial hair in freshman year. By senior year, I was sporting a full beard for part of the year: mostly when I got too lazy or busy to feel like shaving for long periods of time.

• Panda

Panda is because I very much enjoy Pandas and other black and/or white animals. I think that the contrast of colours is very visually appealing and the behavior of the animals is also quite intriguing. 

• Ensign Hotpants

This is actually the most prevasive of all the nicknames. It was officially chosen for me as part of the frisbee team. Hotpants because I used to be a runner and still wore my running shorts to practice. Ensign because the only person in Star Wars (or Trek) with my name is an Ensign. I was also a freshman in college at the time, so it was appropriate.

Potential nicknames

• Crazy Panda

Combining one of the themes of this blog (craziness) and a previous nickname.

• Blogger

This one makes sense because of.. well... this.

Anyone have other suggestions?

12 weeks and going strong

Amazingly, things are still stepping up well. My body is feeling the push a lot more and is asking for more rest, but the weak hints of potential injuries gave way to healthiness. There is no stopping the everlasting determination. I have figured something out: I need a nickname. There are too many possibilities.

This is what happened throughout the week

13 weeks to go
Monday: Taekwondo practice (1:20)
Tuesday: 9 miles at 7:35 min/mile pace then 2 hours of olympic lifting/core work
Wednesday: TKD practice (1:20)
Thursday: Core Craziness Type 2, 4 sets (last without pushups)
Friday: Lazy day (rest)
Saturday: 68 minute run (roughly 7:30 min/mile pace)
Sunday: Biking (3:01)

Weight: Low 173.2 and median 174.6

Core Craziness Type 2
7 pushups
30 crunches with a 1 second hold on top (lift full spine off the ground)
7 pushups
30 side crunches with the 1s hold
7 pushups
30 other side
7 pushups
30 leg lifts
7 pushups
30 supermans

Why oh why do this to myself?

The major thing that you may notice about this week is that I took two days off my legs in a row. That was in response to my body calling out, "Please stop. Please stop!" Each long run was getting harder and even though I was stepping up distance, I was forced to take small steps back in speed and intensity. My body just needed a couple days off my feet. Two days entirely off would be just a mistake and I've been neglecting the core work that is so necessary for the obstacles, so I worked my cardio and built up those critical muscles with the Core Craziness. I didn't do pushups on the last set because my pushup muscles were already exhausted. If you've worked a muscle to failure, it's a good time to stop. You're not getting much out of it if you try to push it harder. Remember, that muscle needs to recover before it'll be able to work for you.

The other major change was motivated by the previous one: I did two long workouts in a row. If you've noticed, I've been almost religiously keeping to hard-"easy" day routine. That's because of the well established literature that your body takes 24 hours to be at the trough of performance after a hard workout then the second 24 hours is building back up. Once you get to 48 hours out, your body is ready to go again, and stronger. So why the two workouts in a row? Did I forget good science and unabashedly ignore that strong reasoning? Of course not! As a scientist, that would be unheard of. Instead, I'm looking ahead to my toughest workout in my future: 15+ miles of running on Friday evening, 4 hours of biking on Saturday morning and 15+ miles of running on Saturday evening. That'll make me prepped to run roughly 45 mile-equivalents on race day. But, in order to complete that crazy training, I need to get my mind used to going back two days in a row and working hard.

Progression towards the sky. As advertized last week, I am increasing the distance on my runs more slowly now. I was at 8 miles last week and now I've graduated (yay) to 9 miles. The first run at 9 miles felt quite bad to start with. I was running 7:45's and my legs hurt bad. They just were complaining until around mile 4 to 5 when they started relaxing. The pace quickened and I got into a groove. The last mile was around 7:10 pace (with a 200m kick, as always). That was part of why I knew that my body needed rest. Coming back after that rest, the 9 miles (68 min) on soft ground was a breeze. I came back afterwards feeling like I could do more and faster. It was just so relaxing and smooth. Rest is good. The plan for this week: 10 miles. You may say "Ooh, double digits" but in the grand scheme of things, I'm ready. Bring it on.

Goals for the future

I've already talked about the goal for the lazy insane set of training workouts (30+ miles running, 4 hours biking in 24 hours). That's motivated by my distance goal. The winner (Pak-man) last year completed 7 laps. He also slept for around 6 hours, did his first 8 mile lap in 1:37, and had some people claiming that he skipped obstacles. No such weakness is in my plan.

One of my key plans is to just keep on Rollin'. There will be no sleeping. Resting is characterized by walking continually and just making the effort when I reach an obstacle. Sleeping is for Sunday, after I cross that finish line the last time. That said, I understand why Pak-man stopped. His race plan was to stay in front the whole time and keep it that way. Admirable, but when you're going for distance, you've got to let those young whippersnappers beat you on the first couple laps. That means if your goal is 12 laps, you better get that first lap done somewhere around 1:30 to 2 hours. Pak-man did 7, so he was going too fast on the first lap.

About the claim of skipping obstacles, I really hope that they are false reports. It's not in the mudder spirit to cheap out. The obstacles are what we're there for. Everyone who trains can run 56 miles in 24 hours. The 24-hour races generally cover around 100 miles. My goal is to exemplify a true mudder. I was presented a short stick (obstacle in the way). No one else would take that stick. I did. I took that stick and... that's worth somethin'.

That bring us to the last topic of this week: training for obstacles. You may notice that I'm not doing focused training for obstacles yet. For one, we can only guess what the obstacles are going to be until we show up on race day and go over them. You can say that I can prepare for the known obstacles (mud mile, Berlin wall, rings, monkey bars, etc..). I would say that "Congratulations! You're right." The lifting, Taekwondo and core work are great preparation for obstacles. For one, Berlin Wall is just an uber-pull-up. We're doing lots of pull-ups. That said, I fully plan on going to Venice beach and spending some good time on the rings and also on UCLA's Drake Track for the monkey bars. The thing is that I don't really need to do that yet. I've got the technique for each of those key obstacles down, so once we get like 4-8 weeks out, I'll start working on my grip and technique for those specific obstacles. I'll have the huge base of fitness to work from and the obstacles themselves are not they key difficulty in the run. Well... that's my opinion. We'll see if it'll hold up on race day.

So... that bring me to the goal for race day: 8+ laps. That's 64+ miles. That's 1 lap more than Pak-man (winner last year). If I am prepped to run 45 miles in roughly 8 hours then I should be able to walk 19 more miles and do obstacles in the remaining 16. If that wins me the race, so be it. If I end out doing more on race day, power to me. That's the high bar I set for myself and we'll see if I soar over it with many many steps of pain or if I come short.