Travel Day

I was in Tuscaloosa at a conference on Monday and Tuesday. I'm glad I chose to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn because it had a much better gym than what I'm used to at Marriott. They had a treadmill, stationary bike, and a cross trainer. They also had some weights. I decided to just bike. I wanted to just do somewhat of a recovery ride. I set it on random and off I went. There wasn't much too taxing even on the hilly part. I kept checking my heart rate on the bike and the highest I ever saw it was 132 bpm. That is good. I only rode for 25 minutes. It was a perfect recovery ride. Like I said in an earlier post I have been reading "Chi Running" by Danny Dreyer. I am getting further into and trying to catch on. His technique is to use more gravity than muscles. It really makes sense. The main difference is your posture. It says that you need to be bent over from the ankles and for your stride to never be in front of your head. I decided to give it a try on the treadmill. I was just going to run a mile trying my new technique out. I started out really slow to see if I could even do it. I mean really slow (12:00 min/mile) It seemed to really work. In the book he says that you can run your normal loop using his technique and expend only 30% of your energy of what you do using your own technique. It really seemed easier but then again I was running 12 minute miles. I bumped up the speed to 9 minute miles. Again, very easy. It said in the middle of your run to revert back to your old style and notice the difference. I did and I really slowed down like it said I would. Maybe this will work for me because like I have said before I really struggle with my run. The last half mile I ran 7:30 a mile. When I was done I wasn't out of breath or anything. I wasn't tired at all. This is sweet. I hope it is always this easy. I'm going to try it outside and see how it goes then. I hope all goes well.

Even though I was on the road I did pretty good eating. Monday for breakfast I had a bagel and some oatmeal with blueberries. Midmorning snack I had a powerbar and for lunch a powerbar, some peanuts and an apple. I even did okay for supper. I had some chicken and steak fajitas with some beans and rice. Not great but not too bad.

Father's Day

I ended up bagging my swim workout on Friday. I just didn't have the time. We had my parents coming over for Father's Day Friday night. Plus, I wanted to be well rested for Saturday's brick.

I set the alarm Friday night for 5:30. I wanted to make sure I would have time to ride and run before it got too hot. Yeah right. The high for Saturday was supposed to be 98 and I wanted no part of that. I must have been really excited about riding and running because I woke up before my alarm even went off. Good for the others in the house. I left the house about 5:45. As I passed by the bank on the highway it was already 80 degrees. I get to the Trace and the top parking lot is already full. I am not the only one who wanted to beat the heat. I loaded up and set out towards Sumrall. I didn't think I would have any kind of speed or stamina mainly because I haven't been on my bike in almost 3 weeks plus the heat and humidity. I was pleasantly surprised. The screaming eagle (my bike) must have missed me. We were making good time. I really couldn't believe the amount of people out on the trace. I didn't pass or get passed by any bikers on the way out, but I passed a ton of people running. Once I made it to Sumrall my legs felt really good. Almost like I could have kept going but I headed back towards Jackson Station. On my way back as I was pulling into Epley station I got passed by Mike from my swim class. Who knows how long he had been behind me? Probably not very long. He is really fast, but he did pass me while I had slowed down to get a drink of water. We spoke and he went on by me. I wanted to keep my own pace but I decided to try to pace off of him. I just kept him in my sight and kept trucking along back into Jackson Station. I completed 21 miles in 1:05 and that is with slowing down tremendously for water breaks. That is just under 20 mph. Good for me. When I was done I did a small run of 1.5 miles at 9 min/mile. I have been reading the book Chi Running. I haven't finished yet but I tried some of the techniques from what I have read and there seems to be some truth to it. More on that at a later date. I was definitely tired but not nearly as tired as I thought I would be. As I was heading home the bank said it was 88 degrees. At 8 o'clock in the morning that just isn't right.

So far so good

So on Thursday I had another good day both with the diet and the exercise. After work I ran on the treadmill. It felt like it was over 100 degrees in my garage. My plan was to do strictly LSD (long slow distance) That is what I started out doing. After 2o minutes of that I was already tired of it so I scratched it. See how I don't follow a plan. I wanted to do something more upbeat so I did some speed intervals. I started out with a speed that I would love to run at in a triathlon (8 min miles) I did a 1/4 mile interval with active recovery after. I then moved the speed up somewhat and did another 1/4 interval. (7:15/mile) My goal here was to move up the speed enoght to trick my body into thinking that the original speed was slow. This usually works and it did again today. Once again I did another interval at an even faster speed. (6:30/mile). I then did the last interval at the original speed and I actually had to slow myself down. Goal accomplished. Also, 50 pushups.

Like I said before I also had a good day with the eating. Breakfast I had a bagel and some oatmeal with blueberries. Mid-morning snack-apple. Lunch-powerbar and apple. Afternoon snack-almonds. Dinner-turkey tacos, black beans and brown rice. No dessert after dinner but almost. I thought about having to post it in this blog and passed. Maybe this is working. Down 4 pounds for the week.

I will be back in the pool on Friday and a brick on Saturday. I need to be good on the exercise as I have 3 Father's Day related get togethers all planned around one thing eating.

The Beginning

Here goes nothing. This blog is created to create some accountability in myself. I have done one triathlon and actually beat my goal time but still have failed miserably along the way. The way I have failed has been in my exercising and my diet. I figure that if I am not able to do this on my own that I could write this blog and at least you people that may or may not read it can hold me accountable. My main goal for this blog would be to record my exercise and publish my diet (or lack there of) and maybe have some fun along the way. To explain the title of my blog, you may or may not know that a triathlon consists of swim, bike and a run in that order. Most people say that a triathlon is won or lost in the run. Out of these 3 disciplines I struggle with the run the most. Coincidentally, I have been running the longest. I am okay in the swim, decent in the bike but am really frustrated with my run. The one minute promise is the promise to myself while I am running to run for just one more minute then I can walk. Hopefully after that one minute is up I will make another promise to myself in hopes of continuing running until the end. I read a book about a guy that made these promises the whole way through a marathon in an Ironman event. Hence, for me "one minute promises."

As of right now for this week I am just going to catch up on the week so far.

Monday-back in the pool. Main set of 5oo yds, 300 yds pull bouy, 4x50 on the .50/ 4x100, and a 300 yd cool down. As far as the eating goes, no breakfast, powerbar for mid-morning snack, apple and powerbar for lunch some spaghetti for dinner. Also, 50 pushups before bed. Overall this is a good day I just wish I had more like this one.

Tuesday- 25 min run in the neighborhood. Our neighborhood is very hilly unlike where I usually run which is the Longleaf Trace. I enjoy the hills for the most part but not last night. Man it is really hot. I ran with only my watch and Ipod, no heart rate monitor. Even though I ran without my heart rate monitor I could tell it was really elevated. Your heart rate can really spike in the heat because it takes that much more exertion just to cool yourself off. I probably ran 2.5 miles in that 25 minutes and did 50 pushups after the run. For breakfast I had a bagel, powerbar for mid morning snack, salad with shrimp and crabmeat for lunch, apple for mid afternoon snack and pork with field peas and rice and bread for dinner. I also had a few cookies. (not good)

Today- off day for the workout. Breakfast-powerbar, lunch- shrimp and grits, mid afternoon snack 2 nutrigrain bars and dinner we had philly cheese steak sandwiches. I really did bad before dinner and snacked. Not that snacking is bad if you eat the right things. I don't think Fritos is the right thing. But, down 2 pounds for the week. We will see how tomorrow is.

I fail mostly in my diet because of snacking. I can do really well sometimes like eating fruit when I am hungry but right before supper I am bad about having chips or sweets or anything bad. Maybe that I am having to write it down I will do this less. That is my goal anyway.