SBR Utopia ---- Permanently OPEN!! (Page 71)

I think you and Arend hit the nail on the head.  I just ran much harder than I had trained for, and am paying for it now (I'm about 5-10% better today than yesterday).  I had to gut it out to maintain my pace over the last few km, but even with the pain now I wouldn't change anything I did on the day.  Going forward, I've got a solid result and pace and can build some training paces because of this race, and use them as I move forward with training this summer (whenever that shows up).

Matt - I'm going to take your lesson and learn from it, and thanks for posting this.  I did something similar las year when I came back from calf issues and jumped right back into hard intervals with the run group.  2 weeks later I developed an achilles issue and was sidelined from running for a month.

I will take it easy, I will take it easy, I will take it easy....

Well...technically...I did finish all that maintenance on the weekend I said I would.  

Thank you, Rusty!  You are absolutely right -- I had my accident in July, 2012, surgery in January, 2013 (followed almost immediately by the crazy Tour of Sufferlandria!),  "raced" Vineman 70.3 in July, 2013....and then finally started running again in September, 2013.  I knew what I wanted, but I had to be patient.  It was hard....I'm not a very patient person, but I had no choice. 

So when SG 70.3 finally rolled around and I'd built up a decent base, my big goal was to run the entire run leg -- and I did it!  I might not be the fastest out there, but I can keep going for a good long time.  I don't think I can even express how rewarding it was to cross that finish line.  So, so happy!!

[happy enough that I've already signed up for another 70.3!]

Neil, I raced Vineman 70.3 last year on no (zero, zilch) run training.  My plan was to crush the swim and bike, and then walk it in.  Of course, when I got to the run, I just couldn't walk....so I ran for as long as I could.  My run was slow -- I probably ran 60-70% of it and walked the rest.  But I was hurting for days after.  You know the "can't even sit down unassisted" kind of hurting...

Fast forward to this year: I just finished SG70.3 with some actual run training, and on a much harder course, in a significantly faster time, my legs bounced back surprisingly well.  Standing up, sitting down, climbing/descending stairs, biking, running -- not intimidating this time around

So I definitely agree with what Rusty, Arend, and Jason have said -- raced way too hard on untrained legs, and now you're paying for it.  Luckily, there's a fairly simple solution to it.  Regardless, that's a smoking fast time -- can't wait to see what you can do when you're in the full swing of training!

St. George 70.3 race report: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=515698&posts=1#M4992614 

Don't think I have mentioned it here, but back last fall someone mentioned a weight-loss challenge and I silently signed on. For the last several years I have been training at 160~162lbs, and racing Ironman at 156~158 (I am 5'-10"). I knew that was a "little" heavy, but didn't really think focused weight loss fit with IM training (for me). This year the focus has been getting some of my old speed back, and I knew weight loss would be an important component in successfully attaining that goal. So I have been slightly run focused while actively working to maintain my swim and FTP on the bike, all while actively focusing on weight loss through the simple act of calories in < calories out. Swim is a little off but FTP is the same; the big difference obviously is the power to weight ratio and I am running and climbing better than I have in a very long time. In November I was 172lbs (yikes!) Current weight today was 142lbs for an FTP of 3.9. Happy birthday to me!

Happy Birthday Rusty.  Instead of all that testing (basically a way for the tester to tell me I'm fat ), I would have just gotten a new bike.  But then I remember you're already rolling on a Felt IA...so I suppose the new bike can wait till your 49th birthday.    Congrats on the weight loss and good test results as well.  Hard work pays off.

Wow Rusty - that's quite the weight drop.  The lowest I've been down to is 147lbs (6'1), but I was getting all sorts of comments at that weight.  I want your watts/kg number!!!  But that means I need to work harder...

Oh, and Happy Birthday of course.

Yeah, I know - not the smartest approach...

The first 10~12 pounds were the "extra" that I always seem to put on when tri season ends for me and work fires up when the fall semester begins: consistent training takes a back seat and eating well also takes a little bit of a hit as I always seem to be traveling/entertaining for work so much during the fall. That came off really quickly like always when consistent training kicked back in, but continued to come off rather quickly as I was also running a calorie deficit. I used My Fitness Pal to track calories in and out; here is a screen shot from when I began so you can see how the progression went:

So what you can see is that I lost the bulk of the weight in four months (In December I only counted calories in every day just to get familiar, but did not restrict anything). In January was when I began the restriction in earnest. We eat fairly clean, so for the most part it just meant eating less (go figure, right?). The biggest change for me was I went about 120 days without drinking a single calorie, which of course meant no Alcohol (OH, THE HUMANITY!) but bigger for me was no cream or sugar in coffee or tea. A BIG change for me as I think I am primarily fueled on cream and sugar. I already don't drink sodas or juice, so that was not a problem. Only real other change in the diet was to pay attention a little more to make sure I was getting enough protein in, and while I didn't do it on purpose I have been eating a lot less bread-ish stuff, but that comes from just considering the caloric value vs. satiation of everything I eat. At the moment I seem to be at a maintainable point; my maintenance caloric intake seems to be right around 2100 calories, which was fairly well verified by my RMR test yesterday (which reported 1627 "resting" calories + 486 "lifestyle" calories). You put daily training calories on top of that and that is actually a lot of food when really think about it. Will be interesting to see what happens when September rolls around.

Last night for my birthday I had 2.5 glasses of wine and a small chocolate mousse. I came home and passed out.

Wow, impressive Rusty.  My Myfitnesspal graph looks nothing like that...

I already drink my coffee black, might have a drink once in a blue moon (it's been at least 3-4 months) and don't drink any juice or soda.  I just plain old eat too much.  I love my carbs.

Nicole, impressive, indeed!  

Rusty - happy birthday!  That's amazing to me.  

I'm a couple inches shorter and peak season race weight is ~155-158 (I'm at 158 now, even with the limited activity - for which I'm thankful).  Last season there was briefly a rumor around our neighborhood that I was sick and might have cancer (no joke), as at or below 160 my face gets pretty thin (even if my handles don't go away) - until I "admitted" that I was running tri's (too many people in this town are very "tri-forward," so I tend to be lower key about the whole thing - as no one else actually cares, of course!).  Then everyone was all, "Oh, in that case you look great.  Really."  Ummmmm, OK.   

I can't imagine the discipline that it takes to drop that percentage of weight - especially considering you were hardly obese to start!  It seems much harder than diligently putting in crazy training hours (to me).  Did you find it so?  

Matt

Rusty:  I am impressed you were able to maintain power levels on the bike with that big drop. 

Nice way to improve the w/kg!!

No kidding!  That's very impressive! 

About a month ago, I crashed like two pounds and very suddenly all of my workouts were sucking.  I added in some calories (tried to keep it to good fats like avocado) and things turned around pretty quickly. 

Happy (belated) birthday, Rusty!  Congrats on the weight loss and huge power-to-weight gain

Happy birthday Fred!

Yes, that's quite a bit! I can't see getting to where Fred is at. Rusty is below my lean body mass (theoretical 0% BF). Been floating at 175-177 lately (I'm 4" taller) and it's pretty thin. I have to be really careful to maintain energy. I have dropped some from the start of the year, but can only do about 1% a month at most. Been going at less. Otherwise I'll be ravenously hungry all the time and have low energy level.

Yeah - both climbing and running this much lighter is a little nuts. Probably the main thing that kept me focused on the task at hand. Swimming has fallen off a bit as my balance in the water is all screwy. I have been on a maintenance-only plan f(8k~9k yards per week) for the past 5 months, so expected to lose just a tad, but my coach guess that I have probably lost an additional 1~2 seconds per 100 just with the loss of buoyancy. Been swimming with a band and it seems to be making a difference in getting my balance back. After next week I should be able to bump weekly swimming back to 13~14k yards, so that should help a bunch.

Matt, I was actually really surprised at how easy it was. The immediate performance gains were a big motivating factor of course, but although I specialize in teaching outcome-focused processes, left to my own devices I can be fairly task-oriented. My coach and a sports nutritionist worked together to put together the plan (my coach instigated it really back in November when he said "you know, if you REALLY want to get faster....) So while I recorded data everyday I didn't really obsess about the daily ups and downs and just stuck with the plan. I somehow managed to hit every workout and calorie target perfectly for 4 months straight. The other thing that kept me on target was to read Fitgerald's "Racing Weight" the month before we started, and then I kept reading up or listening to podcasts for a little bit of time each day on the topic just to keep my head in the game. It is a little trick I play on my students, and I figured "what is good for the goose" and all.

Yes, that was my fear as well. But I found this route to be MUCH EASIER than actually doing the hard work to increase FTP - ha ha!

like Nicole and others mentioned I too have suffered significant performance hits in the past when I have crashed my weight on my own. This time around I had a more structured, intentional plan put together by my coach who I have worked with for the past 4 years, and he has come to know me very well. I am actually fairly certain that I have lost some muscle mass and functional strength over the past 4 months. But what has been impressed upon me is that we can get really sideways when we confuse "strength" for "power." "Power" as we use it is just the result of a mathematical formula that combines angular force and cadence. As everyone quickly learns when they begin to use a power meter, generally speaking increasing angular force taxes your muscular strength/endurance while increasing cadence taxes your cardiovascular strength/endurance. Since we knew I would most likely be losing some functional strength, we worked a little to maintain it but really hit the cardiovascular system hard. That worked well with the weight loss, as being significantly lighter made hard efforts that much more easier to recover from and repeat with less chance of injury. We are starting a bit of a strength building block now to see if I can get some of that back.

Ben, my only regret is that I was not smart enough to get the DEXA scan done before I started this block. I thought I had a pretty good idea of where I was from a body composition standpoint, but based on the numbers the scan returned my guess would have been WAY wrong. Here are my actual numbers:

Total Mass: 146.7lbs
Tissue: 140.2lbs
Fat: 13.5lbs
Lean: 126.7lbs
BMC (Bone Mineral Content): 6.5lbs

It is also kinda cool in that it tells you WHERE you are carrying the various tissues:

Arms: Fat: .9lbs, Lean: 15.5lbs, BMC: .9lbs
Legs: Fat: 5.3lbs, Lean: 43lbs, BMC: 2.7lbs
Trunk: Fat: 6.1lbs, Lean: 59.6lbs, BMC: 1.8lbs
Android: Fat: 1.1lbs, Lean: 8.2lbs, BMC: .1lbs
Gynoid: Fat: 3.3lbs, Lean: 1.9lbs, BMC: .7lbs

It then drills down even further into left/right asymmetries, but this is already too long and boring enough!!!!

And yeah, getting to know the difference between when my brain is hungry and my body is hungry has probably been the biggest challenge. Turns out that while I do eat very well for the most part, I also eat out of habit rather than actual hunger.

Whew! This was all typed on an iPad - sorry if the formatting or syntax is jacked up.

Happy Birthday, guys!!!