There's Sand in my (Running) Shoes!

Ahhhhh!   That felt good......

In Nags Head, NC for the new year "Glugfest" celebrations.  The Puppeteer scheduled an easy 30 min run at slow pace as a rehab for my back.   Beautiful sunny morning.  Went 1.5+ miles south on the beach road and then back on the beach.  Pretty much just me and the pelicans!   A couple of guys fishing and a couple walking their dogs, otherwise I had the whole beach to myself.  Very peaceful.

A brisk northerly wind and the soft sand made it work on the return leg, but I didn't feel my back at all, which we'll declare a victory!

Patience Grasshopper....

Why do back problems apparently take so damn long to heal?   It has now been two weeks since I "twinged" my back and, while it's no longer "killer" and making me hobble around like an old man, it's frustrating that I can still feel it as I sit here typing.

Have done a "test run" on it without too much trouble (but the 8" of snow we received on Christmas night in Raleigh has stopped me running since) and have also been swimming and done numerous workouts on the bike trainer.  Due to do my first "Puppeteer scheduled" comeback run today.  So I'm still working out and stretching etc., (it would kill me if I were really laid up!) but I'm starting to get annoyed that I can still feel it pretty much all of the time!

Oh well, I guess I just have to be patient.......

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Wishing everyone a safe, happy and healthy Christmas!

Petite women OWN me! (especially blondes......)

What the heck happened to me this past month or so?   It used to be that I was manipulated and pushed around (and happily so) by just one blonde (well, maybe three if you count my lovely daughters!) but otherwise was "my own man".  Yes, of course She Who Must Be Obeyed still holds huge sway and influence over me, but suddenly the ranks of petite ladies who are having influence in my life are swelling!

As you know, I signed up for coaching so The Puppeteer was added to the list of controlling influences some weeks back.  This one's my own silly fault - I actually pay for the privilege of being told what to do; scolded if I don't do as ordered and ridiculed where necessary!   :-)

Then, as detailed in a previous post, I officially became The Snitch's beee-eatch when she rode longer on the trainer than I did.  I'm still throwing a red flag on this one but never-the-less, until I prove otherwise, I am also officially "owned" by The Snitch.

Now, much to my horror, there is another petite and attractive blonde administrator of pain and suffering..... Holly!   Perhaps 5' 2" and a generous 100 lbs of pure evil! 

Seriously though, Holly is actually a saviour!

Because of the back issue that I have been experiencing for the past week I decided to try some "therapy".  On Tuesday I visited a chiropracter for some Active Release Techniques (ART).   A form of muscle massage designed to release pressure etc.   To be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed.

On The Snitch's recommendation SWMBO very kindly also booked me a one hour deep tissue massage today with Holly.  The Snitch has been getting regular treatments and highly recommended her.  Holly practices at a pretty swanky "spa" in Raleigh (relaxing music and all sorts of scents - not necessarily my thing) and when I met her I doubted that she had the phyiscal strength to do much damage - boy was I wrong!!

After asking about my back Holly pretty quickly got to work and based on quickly finding muscles that were "as tight as guitar strings" recommended that we spent the whole hour working on my back.  Holly is a runner herself and quickly demonstrated a tremendous knowledge of muscle inter-connectivity, physiology etc.  Then she really got to work - it was PAINFUL!   In the words of John Mellencamp...  "hurts so good"....

It turns out that while my neck and shoulders aren't so bad, my back is very tight and I also have some build-up of connective tissue that may be a contributing factor.  When Holly was done with me I felt well beaten-up, but I could also feel some loosening in my back. 

I felt a little uncomfortable sitting in the car on the way home, but after lunch did some stretching and ventured out cautiously on a gentle 20  minute test run.  Wow!  I actually managed it without any discomfort - something that I wouldn't have thought possible yesterday.   Now it's alternating ice and heat this evening and working the connective tissue with a tennis ball!

Hopefully I'm on the road to recovery.  I will certainly be going back for a series of deep tissue massasges in the new year!

Back on the road!

Back, Back, Back.........

No, it's not Chris Burman calling yet another Tom Brady touchdown, it's the cause of some discomfort and not a little frustration for me this past week....

Went for a six mile hilly run last Wednesday and finished feeling good.  By that afternoon, however, while attending my youngest daughter's class Christmas party I could hardly move!  Yep...  nasty, incidious....  lower back pain!

I haven't done much except stretch and enjoy (???) some sessions with the foam roller since then.   Thankfully things seem to be feeling a lot better and I will likely be back on the bike tomorrow and will swim on Wednesday (no running yet).  Rest and heat have helped, but I'm also going to try something called Active Release Technique (ART) tomorrow.  I'm somewhat sceptical about chiropractice, but this is a new technique that has become very popular and is a technique that uses movement based massage of soft tissues.  I'm visiting a local therapist who is a friend of The Puzzler - I'll report back on how it goes!

She Who Must Be Obeyed has also booked me a deep tissue massage for Thursday.  Hopefully this will all add up to me feeling much better in time to take advantage of some time off over the holiday period to get back to doing some real workouts!

Baby's got better back than me......

It's a Bit "Brassy".....

My UK (and Commonwealth?) friends will instantly know what I mean...    "It's a bit brassy" basically means that it's cold!

I went for a six mile hilly circuit run this morning and I'm guessing that it was somewhere around 20 F (-7C). Beautifully sunny but very windy the wind chills were probably single digits Farenheit..  I layered-up and wore my beany hat and gloves and was soon toasty warm once I started working.

For my non-Brit friends, "It's a bit brassy" is actually short for "It's cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey!".   Before my colonial friends start envisioning small metal primates down on all fours looking for their cold little spehrical gonads, I should explain the supposed origin of the phrase....

Back in the 18th and early 19th centuries, when Britannia still ruled the waves and we Brits were fond of lobbing cannonballs at Napoleon's fleet, we needed somewhere to store the aforementioned projectiles that would prevent them from rolling all over the deck of HMS Victory and other ships of the realm.   The solution to the problem was a pyramidal structure, with a base typically made out of brass that was known (for some unknown reason) as a "monkey".  Supposedly it looked something like this:

The story goes that when the weather got really cold the brass contracted, causing the cannonballs to fall off, hence "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey".

[As a footnote I now need to potentially spoil the whole story because I took a look at Wikipedia and there are now a lot of historians that doubt this origin of the phrase and now think that it originated elsewhere:

• The first recorded use of freezing a "brass monkey" dates from 1857, appearing in C.A. Abbey, Before the Mast, p. 108: "It would freeze the tail off a brass monkey".

• Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) wrote in one of his notebooks:

Ernest said, "It would freeze the balls off a brass monkey — that's how cold it gets."

Some killjoy even did the math on the coefficient of expanison of brass and ran physics experiments to demonstrate that the popular derivation of the phrase couldn't be true..   Ah well.....]

I'm a beee-atch!

The Puppeteer told me that I'm "Lisa's Bitch", so it must be true.....    :-)

Yes, it's official, I have apparently become The Snitch's bitch.  How did this happen I hear you ask.  How did you get smacked down so hard that you're totally and utterly "owned" by a petite blonde lady who looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth?

Well....   I don't actually think I did, but the female triathlon mafia are gannging-up on me.  They must feel threatened.....   (OK, OK, I can dream!).

On Sunday The Puppeteer set The snitch and me identical workouts on the bike trainer.  We were originally going to try to meet to do it together, but this didn't work out because it's so ridiculously busy over the holiday season.  The workout as originally described called for a 15 min warm up at high cadence (~95 rpm) followed by three 12 min threshold sets with six mins easy in between each.  The last minute of each set was to be at "sprint" pace.  Once these intervals were complete we were to continue to ride easy to a total of 1 hr 45 mins (mind numbingly tedious unless you have good music to listen to or something to watch - I went for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban!)

Subsequent to the original workout being posted on Training Peaks, The Puppeteer sent me a message that said (to my way of reading it at least) to stop after 90 mins instead of 105 mins, so that's what I did.  The workout basically went well, although I repeated it today and managed a more elevated heart rate - I guess I didn't push as hard as I could have on Sunday.  Both days it was a "sweatfest"

Somewhere down in Morrisville, NC The Snitch was doing the same workout (no doubt in her matching pink shorts and top) while eating bon bons; filing her nails; planning her week; writing to Santa and negotiating world peace, but she didn't get the memo about stopping at 90 mins and dutifully finished the full 1 hr 45 mins.  I'm pretty sure that it was because she's scared of me...   OK, maybe not.....   there I go playing in the self amusement park again!

Anyway, to cut what is becomming a very long story short, after we both dutifully reported our stats to The Puppeteer I received a torrent of abuse (OK, OK, some sacrastic emails) from the aforementioned Triathlon Divas, stating among other things that I had obviously become "Lisa's Bitch" for only doing 90 minutes!    While I guess that I can think of worse things to be, I definitely didn't apply for that position!

All in good fun of course (and I have absolutely no doubt that The Snitch can kick my tail in every discipline except drinking in the bar afterwards - and perhaps that too?) but I will use this as motivation and payback will indeed, be a......  (delete as you see fit)

Malham Moor, Yorkshire Dales, UK

I have spent this week at a management retreat in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales in the UK.  The Puppeteer knew I was going and that there would be no gym, no pool and about 10" of snow on the ground, so my workouts this week were modified accordingly.  I was hoping to get a couple of runs in, but the roads were very icy, even when cleared of snow, so I enjoyed two hikes of about five miles each around Malham Tarn (a shallow glacial lake) and some stretching exercizes from Mark Verstegen's Core Performance book (http://www.coreperformance.com/).

The scenery was magnificent!

Too icy for a run!



The frozen tarn

At this point I did start to wonder if I was going in the right direction!......

                                                     ....but I ran into some local ladies who showed me the way:



A few ancient farmhouses dot the landscape

Including the one I stayed at: High Trenhouse. 
Definitely somewhere to get away from everyday work!

These guys outnumber humans by a considerable number!

Also saw some amazing wildlife including a short eared owl;
fallow deer; pheasants; a merlin (I think!); some ravens
and an enormous number of rabbits.

Ah well, back to reality...  another swim workout scheduled for tomorrow!

This is going to be fun!

OK, so I'm starting to get a bit more comfortable with this whole coaching thing.  A few observations on the experience to date....

• Firstly, The Puppeteer is great!  (I have to give that disclaimer so that she doesn't beat me or take some sort of evil revenge by devising some torture workout routines when I get back from my business trip this week!)
• It's a great motivator.   I'm really excited about being driven harder and doing this "properly".  I did my second swim session yesterday at Pullen Aquatics and found myself determined to put in a much better showing than I did for my first.  The Puppeteer listend to what I had to say about the first session (another tremendous asset) and modified accordingly - I'll be working on stamina and increasing my swim frequency until I can more comfortably do some of the longer sets.  Even though I didn't finish every part of the prescribed workout flawlessly, I found myself really concentrating and putting in a hard effort to finish the session.   I was driven not by fear of The Puppeteer (although no doubt that will come in time!) but rather than not wanting to let her or myself down.
• Staring with the basics/essentials...   The Puppeteer has already put in a lot of time into learning more about how I train/workout; my mechanics; past injuries; lifestyle; nutrition and so on.  I'm quite obviously going to be working a lot on core fitness/strength, flexibility and so on.  I really like the holistic approach and as an "older" athlete this stuff becomes even more critical to improving performance and avoiding injury.
• The tailored approach to training is clearly a major step-up from "self-coaching" using generic training plans from a book or the internet.  Not only is The Puppeteer (have you noticed that I kind of enjoy typing that?  (-:  ) tailoring my workouts based on my starting point and actual performance in previous workouts, but she's also able to take into account my work travel and other events as they come-up and schedule workouts (both time and type) according to what I have available.  By way of an example:  I leave for the UK tonight and will be at a management retreat which is at a farmstead in the middle of nowhere in the Yorkshire Dales (http://www.high-trenhouse.co.uk/).  Not only that, but there's 16"+ of snow on the ground there at the moment.   Swimming and biking are non-starters, so this weeks workouts will feature runs (or hikes if the snow makes running impossible) and a lot of core work that can be done without specialised equipment.
• It's fun!!!   Can't over-emphasize this part.  If you're having fun along the way the workouts will seem a whole lot easier.  Errr....   they will?  right?     Stacey (I'll give you that one coach!) has a great sense of humor and makes it fun.  It's also great that Lisa is in the same "stable" (did I just call you a horse Lisa?) of athletes, so we'll sometimes get to do joint workouts.  I'm looking forward to meeting some of the other victims too.

So....  absolutely no regrets so far - this is going to be fun! 

It's important to note, however, that even if you don't have a coach there are other motivators for improving your breast stroke....

The Puppeteer.......

As I pointed out a couple of posts ago....  Holy Crap!   I'm being controlled!

OK, OK, so I volunteered for this....   I want to be coached.....   I want to improve.....   I even pay for it....    but it is, never-the-less a new feeling to have someone else dictating your workouts instead of planning your own.

Via TrainingPeaks Stacey inputs workouts for me to execute on a day-to-day basis.  I'm imagining that in time there will be a little more advanced warning, but at the moment Stacey is still learning more about where I am starting, what needs most work etc. (and she's probably sitting at home, swigging whiskey and plugging herself into the nearest light socket now that she's starting to realise what a huge project she has taken on!) so it's like opening an Advent Calendar - every day a new surprise!

In all seriousness, I am very excited about having a coach and entering a new phase in my training.  It's also fun!

Stacey is wonderful, but if I can get away with calling my wonderful wife "She Who Must Be Obeyed", I can sure as heck come up with a blog moniker for her!     I have thought long and hard about this and numerous possibilities have been discarded along the way.  "The Freak"?..   too easy.  "The Pansey Punisher"?...   not bad, but no......    I need something that conveys the power that Stacey has over her victims athletes....  something that conveys evil and pain.....    ah, yes.....   that's it......

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you.....   THE PUPPETEER!

Blech! What happened to my swimming?

Things became very "real" the other day when my first designated workouts from Stacey magically appeared on TrainingPeaks.com.  One was some core work, consisting of planks, push ups, abdominal work etc. - not too bad.   The other was, gulp, a pool workout.

I didn't work particularly hard on my swimming this summer and I haven't done a structured pool work out for more than, wait for it....   30 years - I knew that this wasn't going to be pretty!

I printed out the work out and put it into a Ziploc bag for "wet consultation", grabbed my stuff (Stacey kindly suggested that I should "take my flowered cap" - and she was basically right) and headed to the Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary. 

The work out was basically broken down into:

400 yard warm-up
10 x 50 yard sets
50 yards "your choice" drills
1 x 200 yard set for time
3 x 300 yard drills for breathing; using hand paddles etc.
Cool down   (COOL DOWN?   How about call an ambulance?)

To cut a long story short - I was gassed by the time I finished the 10 x 50!   Yes, I really need to work on my freestyle endurance.  I can breaststroke forever, but freestyle is a different animal.  I'm fully anticipating spending much of the winter wrinkled-up like a prune after spending a lot of time in the pool.  It will come, but there's a lot of work required!