Swimming…getting faster…cool

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Dad

Taking an almost painfully methodical approach to improving my swimming appears to be producing some results…nice

Over the past month, Coach Dinah Mistilis and I set out a plan to find my particular combination of stroke rate and stroke length that will get me through 2.4 miles of the Ironman swim as fast as possible while still being able to maintain efficient form

…unlike ‘just’ swimming in a swim meet, since the Ironman swim is just a warm-up to a long day, ‘fast as possible’ is not the idea…nor is slow, easy, perfect form…it’s that magical, tricky, most efficient combination of both…so my stated race goal for a few months now has been:

…my ‘exceeds’ Ironman goal at this point is a stroke rate of 1.2 (a stroke every 1.2 seconds) and 22 strokes or less per 25 yards = 26.4 seconds per 25 yards = 1:45/100 yards = 1:14:00 for 2.4 miles (4,224 yards)…add in a few minutes for current, open water conditions and ‘stuff’, and I’d be over the mat in 1:20:00′ish….just like a real swimmer :)

Two weeks ago, I did my first 1,000 yard test at a ‘perceived pace’ that felt I could swim 2.4 miles at…it was a bit ugly, with a stroke rate in the 1.31-1.46 range…slow…and a total time of 22:20…so average pace of 2:14/100 yards…the only good news was that I was generally able to maintain that 20-22 strokes/100 yards for most of it
https://irondaughterirondad.com/swimming-time-to-get-serious/

At the time:

…the first goal is 2 weeks away…that same 1,000 yards at a 1.28 stroke rate, at 22 strokes per 25 yards…this time following the beeps of the Tempo Trainer …Ironman time: 1:19:00…add in a few minutes for ‘stuff’ and 1:25:00′ish all in

So here we are 2 weeks later…today’s results from my Swimsense watch…Coach Dinah on vacation on my normal lesson day, so the data from the watch is not as precise as her counting and stopwatch…the Swimsense ‘senses’ when you make a turn, and therefore records the time and stroke count for each 25 yards…although may not be perfectly precise on when it ‘thinks’ you made that turn, depending on which arm touches first, and if you move the arm with the watch on it a bit, although still pretty slick

…here’s the Swimsense data link for the hardcore numbers junkies: http://bit.ly/pkOIzY

TEST 1: Interval 4:         1,000 yards with TempoTrainer set to 1.23
DISTANCE: 1000y AVG PACE: 2.05/100y AVG STROKE: 11 TOTAL TIME: 20.54

TEST 2: Interval 7:         500 yards with TempoTrainer set to 1.20:
DISTANCE: 500y AVG PACE: 2.02/100y AVG STROKE: 11 TOTAL TIME: 10.13

…threw in Coach Gale Bernhardt Faster 25’s x 2 at the end just to see what I had left …this sequence improves the speed at the neuromuscular level…it’s like this: 4×25, and repeat 2-3 times, with a bit of a rest between if needed…the fast-as-you-can-go part is the most important:

  • 25: 1/2 easy, 1/2 fast-as-you-can-go
  • 25: 1/2 easy, 1/2 fast-as-you-can-go
  • 25: easy
  • 25: fast-as-you-can-go

Fastest 25’s all-out @ Interval 11: 1:31/100Y and Interval 15: 1:35/100Y pace…nice

So what does this mean:

  • I was able to do my 1,000 yard test at a 1.23 stroke rate…that’s quite a bit faster than my 1.28 original goal for today…while still maintaining 22 strokes or less per 25 yards (11 the way Swimsense counts it)
  • I felt good enough after the 1,000 yard test to try a 500 yard test at an even faster 1.20 stroke rate…my goal race stroke rate for Ironman…and was able to complete it while maintaining my form…so cool

In terms of how this translates into my Ironman swim time, I do keep in mind that in a 25 yard pool, I’m taking extra slow turns to save that bum knee of mine from a constant series of hard push-offs, and when I count 22 strokes, you would need to add-on 2 strokes anyway to account for the push-off and glide, where I’m not taking any strokes…so all of that means that my actual recorded lap times are probably slower than the ‘theoretical’ speed without walls, and offsetting that, my stroke count probably a bit higher in open water without the push-off/glide

…and if I’ve lost you there, don’t worry about it…the long and the short of it is, that in the past 2 weeks I’ve actually found that I’m more comfortable and smoother and more efficient at the faster stroke rates, than I am at the slower one…so good news 🙂

The further good news is that when I’m actually swimming between the walls, I’m beginning to get comfortable with a 1.20’ish stroke rate, with reasonably efficient form…and I still have 11 weeks to go before Ironman…where my training and race goals remain:

Swim: 1:20:00 / 1:55/100 yards

Race plan: stroke rate (SR) of 1.2 (seconds) and a stroke length of 22/25 yards = 1.136 yards = 1:14:00 on a perfect, flat water day in a straight line

Training plan: I’m going to move this up from 3 to 4 swims a week…4′ish hours a week…_everything_ at 20-22 strokes per 25 yards…or less…roughly 8-9,000 yards a week ( 5-5.5miles)…and get to a comfortable 1.2 SR before race day

If you want to go back and see the progress in thought and results since July 15, click on the Swimming link in the Categories down the right side column

…500 yards at a 1.20 stroke rate is not 2.4 miles…but it’s not 50 yards either…so I’m starting to see, really for the first time, that I may actually have a shot at pulling it off…cool 🙂

 

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Swimming, Testing | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

squeezing off a few pounds: 205 to 190 in 6 weeks

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Dad

I have to tell you, it’s a little weird.

I don’t know if it’s because I came up with this plan for myself to drop a few pounds and it’s actually working or that I find myself in such uncharted waters.

My weigh-in this morning…190…I’ve been in the 192-191 range here for a couple of days, so enough to say that it’s ‘real’

Now my next ‘official’ weigh-in is 2 weeks from now on September 2, where my goal was to be at 191…since I’m there now, probably part of the weird part…if you missed some of my earlier posts over the last 6 weeks about how I got here, you can click on the Weight Loss link in the Categories section down the right side of this Home page.

…my trendline puts me at 191…my 7 day average is 192

…so with 2 weeks to go, I’m not going to adjust anything, and see what happens…we have some vacation coming up in the next 2 weeks, with its associated partying and dinners out every night, so I’ll be outside of my contained, tightly controlled environment, so will be the telling tale

…sort of like leaving the safety of ‘calorie rehab’ with my new, now familiar, eating patterns, and foods, and portions, to see if I can take what I’ve learned, out into the real world…can I hold or improve on the 190 with my new ‘behaviour modification’, or slip back when faced with foods with unknown calories, and meals without my food scale, and online Food Diary …well, the Food Diary is on an app on my phone, so I can still discreetly check in 🙂

My original goal was to be at 195 at the end of October…4 months…I hit that in 4 weeks…my adjusted goal was to be at 185 by the end of October…even though I’m not dropping pounds at the same rate as the first month, I’m still trending to 185 by the end of September at this point.

Did I say that it’s a little weird?…that original love-handle fat pocket still remains…a bit smaller, but not gone…I suppose it will be the last fat standing…I’m not really sure where the 15 pounds has come from…I guess I ‘carried’ it pretty well…that is to say pretty evenly spread out over my body, so maybe not as apparent as those that have a belly hanging over their belt…but there nonetheless

So I’m going to stay the course, stay on my daily calorie and exercise formulas, and let my body decide when it’s found a new level…apparently it was just waiting for the opportunity.

…I’m still pondering all this…so not declaring victory yet…although if weight loss was the goal, I’m at the ‘exceeds’ level, so maybe I should take my own advice and give myself a break and be happy 🙂

 

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Nutrition, Planning, Racing, Weight loss | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Can you change your flat bike tire in under 2 minutes?

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Dad

Apparently you should be able to…when I had a flat tire yesterday, it occurred to me that I should be practising changing that tire to be a lot faster than the 10 minutes or so that it took me…I use clincher tires…the ones with a tube

So, I looked it up…seems that the fastest guys in contests are around 1 minute…and that’s with rear wheel on the bike, take it off, replace tube, and ready to ride off again.

…10 minutes would kill your bike time in Ironman…2 flats and 20 minutes, and whatever your time goal was, is no longer.

…under 2 minutes however, is more like a rest stop than a race killing issue

Here’s one video on how it’s done, with a bit of a narrative…on the road I’d be a little more careful in checking the inside of the tire so that you don’t slice your finger open if you do find a nail through the tire:

…this one I thought was interesting as well: http://www.youtube.com/v/UDID_ho5x3A

since it shows the use of the tire levers a bit more…and I seem to have _really_ tight rims/tires…and a little trick to blow some air into the tube first with your mouth…I’d usually use a little bit of air from the CO2 cartridge, but this is faster

…although not specifically mentioned in our 2 videos today, shifting your chain to the smallest gear on the back wheel makes it a lot easier to get the wheel off and on

…of course you need a tool kit with tubes and CO2 cartridges…with the 700×23 tires that I ride, a 12g cartridge can get you to about 90psi, and a 16g to around 130psi…so I carry the 16g cartridges, since I ride at 110-115psi…and don’t use the whole thing

…if you’re not prepared, you can end up like Normann Stadler at Kona in 2005…2 flat tires…no 2nd replacement with him…by the time the support car got to him the second time, he was cooked and DNF’d…not in our video clip today was painful to watch in the live coverage…Normann trying to get his tire off with a stick laying on the ground, and ultimately throwing ‘things’

…or Chrissie Wellington in 2008 that did have 1 change kit, and 1 flat, but messed up the change…blew out the 1 CO2 cartridge she had before attaching it to the tire valve…and ended up standing on the side of the road waiting for someone to toss her another one

…I’ve had valves freeze up on me, and little stems break off, and missed something still poking into the tube so flatted again, and once a hole in the sidewall of the tire that I didn’t see, and so my flat tire was actually the tube expanding out through the hole once I got on the bike and blowing up again…took me twice to find it and a folded 20 dollar bill to cover it to get me home

…ever since I saw Normann in 2005 I carry 3 of everything…so even with my recent weight shedding, I doubt that the extra few tubes and CO2 cartridges…are going to make that much difference to my time

…and it’s like carrying an umbrella to make sure it doesn’t rain…if I’m well prepared, it’s less likely that Fortuna…the goddess of fate…will think that it’s fun to pick on me with a flat 🙂

Posted in Cycling, Dad's Blog Posts, Racing | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

How many calories do you burn on your swim?

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Dad

Very interesting…this new Swimsense watch is giving me swimming information that I’d never really considered before…like I’m not burning ‘swimming’ calories when stopped between Intervals…or those ‘bonus’ 2 minute stops between Interval sets

…whaaaaat?…I said first time that I saw it.

When you you think about it for a moment, of course, it makes sense…swimming calorie burn only applies to the swimming part…of course, without a Swimsense, there’s no real practical way to know exactly how much time you were swimming and how much time…even if it’s a few seconds between intervals…that you were hanging onto the wall.

…but the Swimsense does know…and only gives me ‘calorie burn’ credit for the time that I’m actually swimming…too funny.

Of course, if you’re just swimming continuously for an hour, the numbers would come out the same…if, however, that hour was Intervals of 50-200 yards, with a rest interval in-between, and a maybe a minute or 2 between interval ‘sets’, it all adds up.

Up until now, I’ve just entered my total time on the stopwatch…swimming and rest intervals included…into my online Food Diary …since I’m slow, I’ve used Swimming ~ Freestyle ~ Slow…which happens to calculate the same number of calories burned as Swimming ~ Leisurely…and a lot less than Swimming ~ Crawl ~ Slow (50 yards/min)’…yeah, thanks for that…okay I know I’m slow…I’m working on it

So here’s how the numbers shake out for 1:00:00 as calculated by the Food Diary :
510 Calories:     Swimming ~ Leisurely
510 Calories:     Swimming ~ Freestyle ~ Slow
714 Calories:     Swimming ~ Crawl ~ Slow (50 yards/min)
1020 Calories:  Swimming ~ Crawl ~ Fast (75 yards/min)

And my Swimsense for a 1:00:10 minute interval workout from 50-200 intervals with variable rest interval between:   2050y  avg pace: 2.13 /100y

403 Calories:    it ‘dinged’ me 14.47 minutes for Rest Time…claiming that I was only swimming for 45:23 of the 1:00:10

…whaaat I say…I wasn’t hanging on to the wall for 15 minutes?…

…of course, looking at the data, alas it was true…I was only truly swimming for 45 of the 60 minutes…dang…I _really_ need to tighten those rest intervals…that darn Swimsense is unrelenting…keeps on ticking…doesn’t care…I _could_ hit stop, but then it restarts the interval numbers so that you ‘know’ that you’ve stopped…very tricky

So here’s what I’ve learned…I need to tighten those rest intervals to the ‘plan’…and luckily I now use the Swimsense calorie count instead of my Food Diary.

…without it, if calories are important to you, I’d say whatever you enter into your online calculator, take off 20% of the total time if you’re doing intervals to account for the rest between them to get closer to what you actually burned

…of course, my inefficient stroke, and churning body position must count for something extra…no charts for that, so I’ll always take the lowest calculator number that I can find, and base my day on that

…oh yeah…and reduce that Rest Interval time by picking a lane next to the senior aerobics class, and not next to the tri-bunnies streaking up and down their lane with beautiful-great-to-watch-from-any-angle form…purely academic of course 🙂

 

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Planning, Swimming, Weight loss | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Rubber side down…

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Dad

I remembered this video on my long bike ride on Saturday when a driver in an SUV stopped at a stop sign, then suddenly pulled out right in front of me just as I was about to go by…luckily I had my hands on my brakes already…out of my aerobars to also create some motion and a bigger target to be seen…and was watching the drivers head and front wheel closely for any movement…force of habit when coming up to intersections…and when they shot out in front of me, braked hard enough to skid the back wheel, and got off just enough speed to not hit them…didn’t drop the bike, and missed the SUV around the back…close.

I was coming up the road at 20 MPH…I presume the driver never did see me…they did stop at the stop sign, looking left…where I was…looked up the road to the right…then that quick acceleration to beat oncoming traffic…still looking right…a second or 2 later, and the driver would have seen me…either coming through the driver side window, or plastered on the windshield like a bug.

…but not this time…so good

So just another gentle reminder that drivers often just don’t see us…particularly if distracted, focused on something else, and not ‘expecting’ to see us

…rubber side down 🙂

Posted in Cycling, Dad's Blog Posts, Injuries | Tagged , | 4 Comments

12 hour Ironman: training to get there

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Dad

BTW, recognizing that my humour is sometimes lost on others, our picture today…now repeated a few times over the last few days…is my “Photoshop’ed” 11:58:50 finish that I’m tattooing into my brain…it actually hasn’t happened…yet…it’s derived from my first Ironman finish in 2007 at age 53…so yes that’s me, only the clock said 13:31:39….this blog is all about changing that in my 5th Ironman at age 57 🙂

As I stretch for my reach-for-the-stars goal of a 12 hour Ironman, 12 weeks from now, let’s take a look at what I’ll be doing to give myself a chance to get there.
https://irondaughterirondad.com/12-hour-ironman-maybe-just-maybe-on-a-brilliant-day/

As much High Intensity Training as I can fit in without getting injured or stale, is my mantra for the bike and run….staying efficient as I increase my stroke rate, my focus in the swim.

…there may/probably will be some adjustments depending on how things are going…and my race plan goals will be adjusted before the race, based on my training, and during the day based on conditions and how things are going

…the heat in particular means a slower than optimally predicted race pace…and although Florida is not Hawaii-hot, anything over 60F and planned paces needs to go down…like on the run even 70F turns a 10:23/mile pace into an 11:05’ish /mile pace plan according to the folks at Endurance Nation

Swim: 1:20:00 / 1:55/100 yards

Race plan: stroke rate (SR) of 1.2 (seconds) and a stroke length of 22/25 yards = 1.136 yards = 1:14:00 on a perfect, flat water day in a straight line

Training plan: I’m going to move this up from 3 to 4 swims a week…4’ish hours a week…_everything_ at 20-22 strokes per 25 yards…or less…roughly 8-9,000 yards a week ( 5-5.5miles)…and get to a comfortable 1.2 SR before race day

  1. Monday: 3,000 yard main set…intervals ranging from 50-200 yards on short rest: 1,000 @ 1.28 SR, working down to 1.20 SR over the weeks, 1,000 @ 1.15 working down to 1.1, and 1,000 @ 1.26 and working down to 1.18
  2. Wednesday: minimum 2,500 – 3,000 yards…1 hour+ moving up to 1:30 (4,000 yards +) long swim/long intervals in the 500 yard range, at 1.28-1.26 working down to 1.20-1.18 over the weeks
  3. Friday: 1,500-2,000 yards…lesson with Coach Dinah Mistilis …testing 1,000 yards every 2 weeks to verify my current training stroke rate, and stroke length at 20-22 per 25 yards or less…other/balance of session at Coach’s choice
  4. Saturday or Sunday…minimum 1,000 yards…open water to practise sighting and current or drills/form-form focused swimming

Bike: 19.5 MPH / 5:44:36

Race plan: 70% of 286 FTP = 200 Watts…that should assure me of 19.5 MPH in ‘normal’ conditions…and not far off even on a windy day

Training plan: Biking 4 days a week…which is what I do now…building from 110-170’ish miles per week…6:30 – 8:30 per week…typically every bike after a swim

  1. Monday: 1 hour: easy…recovery from the weekend
  2. Wednesday: 1 hour…follows the long run on Tuesday, so this would be my High Intensity Training day (HIT) (Z4-5) day if my legs are there…if not, recovery
  3. Friday: 1 hour…moderate ride, with intervals inserted
  4. Saturday: 3:30 building to 6 hours: long ride with as much intensity as I can stand built in…this is my default BIG ride, long with HIT in the Z3-4-5 range, so my weekly cycling cornerstone…may end up splitting the ride some weeks into a Saturday/Sunday to add on some time, and get a BIG HIT (Z4-5) ride on Saturday, and steady Z3 HIT on Sunday

Run: 10:35 min/mile / 4:37:17

Race plan: Easy pace (IM race pace potential) of a 39 vDOT = 10:23/mile at 60F…a 41 vDOT would give me 10:37/mile at 70F…a 39 vDOT at 70F only gives me 11:05/mile = 4:50:35 for the marathon

Training plan: Run 4 days a week, which is what I do now, so 3:30 – 5:00, 20-30 miles per week…if my body parts hold up…and as I’m building ‘long’ see if I can also move that vDOT up to 40, or 41 to give me more core running speed and account for the heat slowing my actual pace

  1. Tuesday: 1:30 building to 3:00’ish long run…with HIT (Z3-4-5) built in…my BIG run workout for the week
  2. Thursday: 1:00 speed day: BIG HIT (Z4-5) all the time after warmup
  3. Saturday: 30-60 minute ‘brick’ run after the long ride…easy with a negative split (faster in the second half)
  4. Sunday: 30-40 minutes easy

Strength / stretching

  1. Sunday: yoga once a week 30-60 minutes…other than that, I do no other stretching or strength

Racing Ironman: The mental training

For swimming, it’s deliberately, methodically working my stroke rate down from 1.3+ seconds to 1.2 seconds or lower while maintaining a stroke length of 20-22 or lower…my wetsuit and the salt water of the Gulf of Mexico will give me extra bouyancy…if my stroke ‘shape’ is dialed in over the next 12 weeks, and I can maintain a 1.2 second Stroke Rate…and I can stay in a straight line even with the current…I’m going to _nail_ that swim 🙂

…and if I do, given any reasonable chance on the bike with reasonable conditions, and nothing going ‘bad’, my bike is going to be laugh-out-loud-fast, with my main challenge controlling my unrelenting power to keep it down to only 200 Watts

…so that I can unleash my run…my _real_ dream…to be able to _run_ the marathon at the end, with legs with wings, with feet that fly, holding back for 20 miles…containing…still have ‘legs’ at 20 miles…6 miles to go…quads complaining…then wailing…then screaming…pressing through…it’s only an hour…pressing hard…feeling the pain…no walking….push it all…everything on the pavement…finish line…done

In the last 6 miles of the marathon of Ironman, I never look at my watch…the question has simply been, how much pain do I want to press through at that point…I’m always surprised when I see the finish line clock…I have no idea what it’s going to say

…last year, with my wetsuit zipper splitting down the back 2-300 meters into the swim, and pressing through a swim that took me over 2 hours, that led to me to being concerned about hydration, and therefore pressing the fluids, that led to overshooting on hydration on the bike, that led to peeing constantly for the last 3 hours of the bike, that led to a run that was fundamentally very relaxed, as the time pressure had long come off, as I strolled in at 14:29:30…and ready to dance the night away refreshed at the end.

This year I’d _love_ to be at 1:20 swim + :10 transition + 5:44 bike + :10 transition = 7:24…and know that I need to lay down a 4:36 marathon to get under 12 hours.

If I’m at 7:30 to 7:45 starting my run, my 12:30 goal will most likely come into play…and I’d still need a 4:45 marathon to get there.

…unless of course, my run training and weight loss give me hope that I can still hammer a marathon to get me under 12 hours…a 41 vDOT predicts an Ironman potential pace of 9:59/mile = 4:21:45 marathon on a 60F day…so I could start the run at 7:38:00…instead of 7:24…and still get there under 12 hours…so 14 minutes of off-goal ‘stuff’…

Of course, this is 12 weeks out…the final plan decided on the week/day before the race…but the beginnings of ‘mental’ training…soooo critical…because no matter what the final goals are, if I don’t fundamentally believe in my core that they are real…they are never going to happen…there are too many things on race day that will shake that belief…it can’t be something placed there 2 days before…it needs to be given roots now…so that when the doubts creep in, and the legs are tired, and my butt hurts, and my food and hydration are out of balance, that I can return to that center that I know is there…I need to trust my training…I need to know that I can hit the numbers…if something goes awry, I can adjust and get back on the path

…Ironman is a loooong race…there’s plenty of time to recover from ‘stuff’…so I keep saying to myself…listen to your body…watch your power…watch your heart rate…hit the calories and hydration that you know works…adjust for the conditions…adjust…constantly monitor and adjust…but don’t let the whining in the back of your head get to you…it’s Ironman…it’s supposed to be tough :) and _press_ to the potential that you _know_ is there

…that starts now…12 weeks out…you have to trust your training…you have to fundamentally _know_ what you can do to squash the demons that will tell you different on race day…I have 3 months to hammer in that confidence…fun 🙂

 

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Ironman Florida, Planning, Racing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

12 hour Ironman…maybe, just maybe on a brilliant day

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Dad

As a followup of my recent post about the possibility of a 12 hour Ironman
https://irondaughterirondad.com/iron-dads-12-hour-ironman-goal-can-it-be-done/

here’s what I’m seeing based on my most recent training results:

Swim: 1:20:00 / 1:55/100 yards

This is going to be a stretch…swimming in a local 50M pool on Friday, my fastest lengths were 2:16/100M (2:04/100 yards)…and that was only 50M at a time…rest interval…then go again…so to think that 3 months from now that I can swim 2.4 miles at 1:55/100 yards seems a bit remote right now.

…so having said that, it was my 3rd ‘fast’ swim session of the week…and first full week of ‘fast’ swimming…my left shoulder was feeling a bit stiff, so probably more tired than fresh…

So from where I sit now, a 1:30:00 swim, 2:07/100 yards sounds pretty ambitious…although I do have 3 months to get there…or faster…quite a bit of work to put into this swimming thing.

Bike: 19.5 MPH / 5:44:36

Interestingly enough, although this seems _really_ fast to me, it may be possible.  Yesterday, I did some testing on my Shearer road route, which is quite a bit hillier than Ironman Florida…it very humid 63%H, and hot 83F, but not crazy hot like it’s been…here are the results for 3 laps, short rest between them…so just over 2 hours of riding…minor distance variations depending on exactly where I hit the start/stop:

  • 43:13 : 14.434 miles = 20.039 MPH > 214W > max 135HR (Zone 3)
  • 42:59 : 14.467 miles = 20.194 MPH > 215W > max 134HR (Zone 3)
  • 42:45 : 14.417 miles = 20.234 MPH > 212W > max 139HR (Zone 4)

My last test on the bike was May 3, with an FTP of 270 Watts
https://irondaughterirondad.com/bike-functional-threshold-power-ftp-test-result-270-watts/

…so for this ride, I was looking to average between 210-220W, which is 80% (216W) of my FTP, and actually my Half Iron race power…my Ironman power goal will be 70% of my FTP, or based on my 270 FTP, 189 Watts

…sooo, since Ironman Florida is a flatter course than the Shearer route, my speed for 210-220W would probably be closer to 20.5 – 21 MPH…wouldn’t that be nice…and even 190-195 Watts _could_ give me 19 – 19.5 MPH

So with 3 months to go, the optimal scenario would be get my FTP up to 285 Watts x 70% = 200 Watts on Ironman race day…which in ‘normal’ conditions would give me that 19.5 MPH with higher certainty…and maybe even a hair more

From where I sit now, therefore, 19.5 MPH seems doable…oh yeah…no stops allowed to get there, and all aero all the time…Ironman Florida is a trick ride, because it is flat, there’s no change of position, and many miles go by in the same cadence and gearing, so more fatiguing to the same muscles than something more rolling or hilly…one reason that Ironman bike course records are not set there…and then the wind…still getting some butt soreness on long rides, so still need to play with the right shorts and maybe have the fit tuned again

…oh and I can always buy a pointly aero helmet…saves 3-6 minutes in an Ironman ride…I’ve always had a concern about overheating, since I sweat like crazy, and not wanting to be commited to that head-aero position…although I’ve read tests that say that even pointing straight up they’re more aero…we’ll see…

Run: 10:35 min/mile / 4:37:17

This one is like ‘who knows’.  With a bum knee as perhaps a training/racing limiter, it’s more difficult for me to be really positive about this one.

…although, ‘theoretically’ it should be there…my Vancouver Half Iron run time of 2:05:16, with a few stops to chat to Iron Daughter and then a couple of her friends that were kind enough to come out to cheer us on…and considering it was a soft surface, and a few hills that don’t exist in Ironman Florida, it was probably a 2:00 hour ‘equivalent’ run time.

…so there are a few different formulas for predicting an Ironman run time based on a Half, commonly double the time and add 30-40 minutes…so based on that, it would give me a 4:30-4:40 Ironman run…

…or add 40-90 sec. per mile to your Half Iron pace…so 9:33/mile actual Half Iron pace, becomes 10:13-11:03/mile Ironman pace …9:09/mile without stops becomes 9:49 – 10:39 Iroman pace

Looking at the numbers from another direction, my last run test was May 5, and put my vDOT at 39…which translates into a ‘theoretical’ 10:23/mile pace for Ironman
https://irondaughterirondad.com/5k-run-test-new-39-vdot/
https://irondaughterirondad.com/whats-it-take-for-a-43500-ironman-marathon/

Since my knee at this point doesn’t appear to like too much speed work, I may not be able to really drive up that speed to where I’d like it, into the 40-41 vDOT range…and hopefully not give up much speed….and may not be able to sustain the training mileage each week that I should be getting in.

On the other hand, if I actually do drop that 20 pounds…sounds staggering to me, but appears to be within reason…that should give me more speed…like a lot more, as long as running muscles aren’t melting off with the fat…still to be determined
https://irondaughterirondad.com/lose-weight-race-faster/

So, other than not having the confidence in it at this point, and presuming that the body parts hold up to the training…and I have a nicely controlled 70% or less of FTP bike ride in front of it…a 10:35/mile pace _should_ theoretically be there.

Transitions:

Two 8:00 minute transitions, is pretty tight.  Up to now I’ve always had a complete clothing change into bike shorts, and then into running shorts, and bike jersey and running shirt…and the odd bathroom break, does add to time.

The transition times of the top pro’s are:

TI: Swim to bike:    3:30’ish
T2: Bike to run:      2:00’ish

So to get in the same range, I’d need to forgo the clothing change, and stay in the same shorts and top for the 13’ish hours…to that end I’m working on seeing if I can find bike/tri shorts that I can last 6 hours on the bike in…if not, I’ll lose time, if I’m so uncomfortable that I come out of the aero position to get some relief…we’ll see how this works out.

With the clothing change, it’ll be tough to get it down under 10 minutes each…my fastest transitions were in 2008: 10:59 & 9:27 respectively.

 So how about that 12 hour Ironman

When it’s all said and done, this still remains as my ‘exceeds’ goal…more realistically, here’s how it feels to me now:

Swim: 1:20:00 / 1:55/100 yards > hard to think I can get this…let’s say under 1:30:00…although dang, I’d really like to be at 1:20:00’ish, so I’ll put in the work, and see what it gives me in the next 3 months

Bike: 19.5 MPH / 5:44:36 > I have to say that although it ‘feels’ lofty to me, and would be a heck of a ride, I can see how I could do it…so yes, 19.5 MPH

Run: 10:35 min/mile / 4:37:17 > that would be a terrific run…if my body parts hold up during training, I can see that by the numbers, it should be there…and I’d need to be willing to trash the quads in the last 6 miles to get it there…and be stiff for a week…so yes, 10:35/mile pace

Transitions: let’s call it 10 minutes per transition to be rational

…so from where I sit, 12 weeks away, this means that an extra 10 minutes in the swim, and 4 minutes in transitions, may put me closer to 12:14:00’ish…add in a few extra minutes for ‘stuff’, and maybe a starting gun to finish line time, closer to, but maybe not over 12:30:00’ish

…so as it turns out, not much has changed since I first set this 12 hour goal, 9 months ago…it’s still lofty…and on a brilliant day, with some good training results in the next 12 weeks, still attainable…and even coming up a bit short would still get me across the line with a new PR (Personal Record)…under 12:57:44

…and the training that I’m doing in the quest, gives me a lifestyle that I really enjoy…what’s not to like 🙂

 

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Ironman Florida, Planning, Racing, Testing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Did you eat your chocolate today?

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Dad

Never one to chase the latest trend, nonetheless, this New York Times article did catch my attention…sort of one of those…it can’t hurt sort of things…and why not 🙂

The long and the short of it is:

…scientists at the University of California, San Diego, and other institutions gave middle-aged, sedentary male mice a purified form of cacao’s primary nutritional ingredient, known as epicatechin, and had the mice work out. Epicatechin is a flavonol, a class of molecules that are thought to have widespread effects on the body.

By and large, the animals that had been drinking water were the first to give out during the treadmill test. They became exhausted more quickly than the animals that had received epicatechin. Even the control mice that had lightly exercised grew tired more quickly than the nonexercising mice that had been given epicatechin. The fittest rodents, however, were those that had combined epicatechin and exercise. They covered about 50 percent more distance than the control animals.

…so at least if you’re a mouse, a bit of chocolate each day may be a good thing to enhance your training 🙂

Extrapolated to humans:

And even for those who adore dark chocolate, there is a catch. “A very small amount is probably enough,” Dr. Villarreal said. Extrapolating from his group’s mouse data, he said, five grams of dark chocolate daily, or just a sixth of an ounce — about half of one square of a typical chocolate bar — is probably a reasonable human dose if your aim is to intensify the effects of a workout.

Sadly, “more is not better,” he continued. “More could lessen or even undo” any benefits, he said, by overloading the muscles’ receptors or otherwise skewing the body’s response.

Science experiment of one…don’t see how a little bit of chocolate a day can’t hurt…there is that ‘portion control’ trick to it though…maybe just one dark chocolate covered strawberry each day…sounds like fun to me 🙂

The complete article here:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/how-chocolate-can-help-your-workout/

 

Posted in Dad's Blog Posts, Nutrition | Tagged | Leave a comment

Iron Dad’s 12 Hour Ironman goal…can it be done?

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Dad

On November 27, 2010, now almost 9 months ago, I wrote a post that established my goal for Ironman this year as 12 hours…well at least a ‘training goal’, to establish my goal race pace in each discipline, and therefore my training target metrics
https://irondaughterirondad.com/how-fast-to-go-to-hawaii/

…in part:

In my end of season wrap-up with Coach Gale a few days ago, we were discussing the goals for the season ahead.  Her view was, without going into all the details of why, was that my current ‘top potential’ with lean body weight, my body holding up, training dialed right in, and a great race day, and great day at the race, was most likely an 11:45 Ironman…I was leaning more to the ’under 12:30 range’, so think that I’m going to settle on a 12:00 ‘training goal’ for 2011…I could have said, 12:15, but 12:00 is a nice round number.

It feels _very_ ambitious to me, and therefore a good starting point…considering that my fastest Ironman to date was a 12:57 in 2008 (first Ironman in 2007: 13:31), followed by a 13:22 in 2009, and 14:29 (wetsuit zipper split lead to a taxing 02:03:16 swim) in 2010.

sooo, with Ironman Florida now 12 weeks away this weekend, it’s now time to start to firm up my actual ‘race’ goal

A 12 hour goal still feels _very_ ambitious to me…but actually not as pie-in-the-sky as when I first wrote those words…so I’ll take a closer look at _exactly_ what I’m going to need to do to have a shot at getting there

There are a number of ways of accomplishing a 12 hour Ironman…although for me quite frankly, I have a pretty narrow path…I would just have to _nail_ each sport and fly through transitions, and have nothing go wrong, and get lucky with the weather and conditions.

…but I can see how I could do it…it’s like this:

PaceTimeCumulative Time
Swim1:55/100 yards1:20:57
Transition 18:00
Bike19.5 MPH5:44:36
Transition 28:00
Run10:35 min/mile4:37:1711:58:50

You can play with the numbers yourself for your race here:
https://irondaughterirondad.com/tools/triathlon-pace-calculator/

In a post over the weekend, I’ll look at each of the elements in details, summarize my training to date, and goals for the next 12 weeks…and may end up making some adjustments 🙂

Suffice to say a few things now though, with earlier post references as applicable:

Swim: I’m really going to need that great 1:15-1:20:00’ish swim…without killing myself…to have a chance…a 1:40:00 swim like I have been doing just isn’t going to cut it…no place to make up that 20 minutes if I leave them in the water again
https://irondaughterirondad.com/swimming-goal-11500-for-2-4-mile-swim/
https://irondaughterirondad.com/swimming-time-to-get-serious/

Bike: I _could_ _maybe_ squeeze out a 19.5MPH average out of 190’ish Watts in perfect conditions…210’ish Watts would be safer…not sure yet whether my bike fitness will be high enough to allow me a relaxed 70% of FTP (Functional Threshold Power) to get there
https://irondaughterirondad.com/whats-it-take-to-bike-20mph-for-112-miles/

Run:  theoretically at the bottom edge of doable…would need that great, relaxed, bike ride in front of it, to have any hope though, and a bit more running speed in the next 3 months…and hopefully losing that few pounds will help
https://irondaughterirondad.com/whats-it-take-for-a-43500-ironman-marathon

So the good news is, that it still feels doable…like in ‘exceeds’ doable…like in, not entirely impossible

My initial primary race goal was to set a PR (Personal Record) this year, so under 12:57:00…this led to wanting to have a bit of a time mattress, so to get my training results to a point that I could ‘reasonably’ see a 12:30:00 finish, which led to having a bit of a time mattress, and an ‘exceeds’ goal of 12:00:00…

Of course, to actual accomplish it, I’m going to need to have a lot more confidence to bite off those race paces on race day

…so I have 12 weeks to get whatever my final race goals end up being, embedded in an unshakable place in my brain, that will remain untouched by the ‘stuff’ that happens on race day

…oh…yeah…our picture today hasn’t happened yet…just my mental image of my ‘exceeds’ goal finish this year 🙂

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Ironman Florida, Planning, Racing | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

New brain fry…figuring out the Swimsense data

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Dad

Well, I may have met my match in over-the-top detail with my new Swimsense…and I thought that the PowerTap on the bike had endless data.

My first swim with the Swimsense worked out very well…very easy to use:

  • click swim to start swimming
  • click pause between intervals…and it keeps rolling, counting the time as a rest interval between laps
  • until you click swim again
  • and even knows when you make a turn without me doing anything else, so tracks separate data for every 25 yard length within a set, so you can see what happens every 25 yards separately within a 200 yard interval by way of example

Remarkably accurate for both stroke count and time…a few laps had weird data, but just about all, were right on…a person sitting beside the lane, counting and recording each stroke and lap time would be more accurate…and maybe count those laps that were 21 strokes instead of 20 or 22…and may get that touch to each wall more exactly…but other than hiring somebody to sit there and do that for every workout, this is as good as it gets

…our pictures for today from my actual workout…cool!

I’m going to have to decide on a standardized way to handle drills, and warmup and cooldown periods…a bit of a speed wobble with the data in the beginning as I was playing with the watch

…while swimming, I still have to figure out some of the various display options, and can’t see really the numbers on the watch when swimming…also noted in multiple reviews…would need my reading glasses for that…I’ve read that you can get goggles with a reading lense…maybe next up

…and I did find myself still counting strokes on most laps…out of habit…although a number of times I was able to ‘release’ my mind to focus on some stroke elements that were coming apart…and it was _really_ nice to know that I didn’t have to worry about remembering any of it

sooo, here’s the link to my workout as uploaded into the online analysis program…this is the ‘public’ summary…the data in the actual log has a number of other display, report and export options…if you’re brave enough, you can click on any of the bars in the box at the top of the analysis…you can scroll (drag the box) along to the right to see all the data…and it will tell you everything that you need to know about each 25 yard length in my 2,050 yard workout today, as well as the info for each interval

…I’m going to have to look at it closer to figure out the easiest way to pull meaningful data from the flood of information

This is going to take some getting used to…two thing that are different from how I’ve been approaching my stroke count:

it counts the left hand entry, so my target stroke count of 22, is actually 11 since it only counts the one arm…you can see the majority of laps at 11 or less…today averaged 10 it says, so very nice 🙂

…and therefore, my time per stroke on the TempoTrainer is doubled, so 1.3 seconds per stroke, becomes 2.6 seconds per stroke

The best thing about it, is simply that it records all the data that one would want to know, without having to remember or write it down either during or after the workout…a tough thing about swimming

…and there’s no hiding from the relentless time ticking along…sometimes those rest intervals can stretch a bit if you don’t watch it…and with every stroke being counted, it’s another set of eyes on my swim workout, and another level of self-induced accountability…and on some days, downloading and seeing the results of a good workout, is as good as the workout itself…now this ‘joy’ is extended to swimming

…of course all of this in only important if you’d like to know what your stroke rate, and stroke count really is, and want to easily record your lap times, and have it all automatically upload into your training log, without having to figure anything out, or type out anything, and track your exact progress over time…some folk just go out and swim

…and interestingly enough, when I went to the Total Immersion (TI) website, and searched for the term ‘Swimsense’…this is a natural for the TI focus on stroke count and stroke rate…it gave me “0 results found”, so all this technology ‘stuff’ isn’t for everyone apparently…since I _can’t_ be the only one that knows about it 🙂

…I do think though, that Masters in particular, have a narrower window for performance increases than our younger athletic friends, and can’t absorb as much Intensity and Volume of training each week in that quest, so anything that tightens up the training, to get as much as possible out of each minute of each workout, allows us to squeeze out as much improvement as possible without blowing up

…even after one swim, I can see how the Swimsense can help me get there by not only recording the data, but ‘knowing’ that it’s doing that helps keep focus on every stroke on every lap

…ok…it’s also a _really_ cool toy 🙂

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Swimming, Training | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Stroke thought focus/count strokes/laps/remember…brain fry!

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Dad

So I got some help…Swimsense by Finis 🙂

With my increased focus on stroke rate and stroke length and the minutia of all the numbers, one is faced with the practical matter of how to keep track of everything…when the _real_ focus should be on swimming.

So I went to technology…not surprising since when I’m running, every step and heartbeat is tracked, recorded and uploaded with my Polar 625x, and when biking every pedal stroke, and heartbeat, and the power that I’m generating is recorded every second by my PowerTap and uploaded into my training log.

…so I went with a Finis Swimsense…the latest technology for swimming…I did consider its nearest competitor Swimovate Pool-Mate Pro, but liked the Swimsense analytics and integration with my Training Peaks training log…a good comparative review:
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2011/03/swim-watch-battle-finis-swimsense-vs.html

You wear it on your wrist, and it primarily records:

  • every stroke that you take
  • the time for every lap
  • the time of every pause between laps
  • and uploads the data into my online training log, as well as into it’s own analysis program

…so there’s no hiding in a workout…and although I’ll still count strokes, if my stroke fundamentals are demanding attention, I can shift my focus there, and not be concerned that my stroke count will go unnoticed…or when swimming lengths in a 25 yard pool…with a wall and turn every 30 seconds or less…my Swimsense will keep track of how many I’ve done within each interval

…at least that’s what the brochure says 🙂

…no Heart Rate monitor, so that’s a weakness, no way to set for open water, but apparently coming at some point…but for now it’ll ease the multi-tasking requirements of my overtaxed Masters brain, and allow me to stay focused on the stroke thoughts/adjustments that’ll get me to the finish line as efficiently and quickly as possible.

…Coach Dinah Mistilis said that she would like a report on my stroke count and times during practise sessions…so for her, and for those interested in such things, stay tuned for _heavy_ swim data 🙂

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/12/hands-on-look-at-finis-swimsense.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvhxKfr_l1g

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Swimming, Training | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Dianah Nyad still ticking while the world comes apart…comes up a bit short

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Dad

Depressing news day that’s for sure on Monday…dominating the headlines all day were the US and world stock markets totally tanking, and poised to do it again today…

Deep down the news links if you could find it, Dianah Nyad, was still swimming…54 strokes per minute, for a planned 60 hours on her swim between Cuba and the United States.
https://irondaughterirondad.com/diana-nyad-61-years-old-103-miles-60-hours-of-swimming/

This interview played Monday morning on the Today Show, squeezed between the doom and the gloom…worth a short look

…maybe a little bright spot for your day today 🙂

This morning I woke up to the news that she had to abandon her swim after 29 hours in the water…the news was easy to find finally, because it shared the headline with ‘Stocks brace for a shaky open’

Nyad was vomiting when she was brought aboard a boat at 12:45 a.m. Tuesday — 29 hours after she jumped into the water Sunday.

“I am not sad. It was absolutely the right call,” she said.

Nyad, who is 61, struggled through ocean swells, shoulder pain and asthma Monday before she was forced to give up the 103-mile swim. Strong winds and less than ideal currents played into her decision, her team said.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/09/nyad.103.mile.swim/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Bruce Lee once said:

“Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”

Great job Dianah! …29 hours hours of continuous open water swimming … _only_ half the distance between Cuba and Key West… dang… 🙂

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Swimming | Tagged | 2 Comments

Diana Nyad…61 years old…103 miles / 60 hours of swimming

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Dad

And speaking about swimming, when we’re snug in our beds tonight (Sunday night), Diana Nyad will begin her swim from Cuba to Florida at 7:00pm Eastern…a distance of 103 miles…in what will be a 60 hour swim….+/-
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/06/diana-nyad-says-big-swim-is-sunday/

The short notes are this:

  • She’s 61 years old (born August 22, 1949)…turns 62 in 2 weeks
  • the last time that she tried this Cuba-Florida swim was over 30 years ago in 1978 (28 years old)…swimming with a shark cage…she lasted just over 40 hours and didn’t complete it
  • a year later, 1979, she swam for 102.5 miles from Bimini in the Bahamas to Florida…longest ocean swim in history without a shark cage…27.5 hours with favorable winds

Nyad  didn’t swim a single lap for three decades, from 1979-2009. “Major  burnout,” explains the International Swimming Hall of Fame inductee,  who kept busy as a journalist, speaker and radio commentator. “Couldn’t  pay me to get in the water.”

Quite a bit has been made of the fact that she’s swimming without a shark cage…both because those that swim inside a shark cage have an ‘unfair advantage’ because you can ‘draft’ behind the boat and cage setup…but also because of the obvious issue that sharks sometimes take a nibble out of people…she has some high-tech precautionary measures…hope she didn’t read this Wikipedia post…

Diving expert Peter Clarkson, the spokesman for Shark Shield, was killed by great white sharks off South Australia in February 2011.

and as a backup has some guys beside her in boasts that are enlisted with saying ‘shoo’ in a loud voice if they see fins in the water 🙂

At age 61, Nyad has been described by her coach as a “swimming machine”, able to swim hour after hour while maintaining a metronomic stroke rate of 54 strokes per minute, which results in a speed of 1.5 miles per hour. This is down, slightly, from her pace of about 60 strokes per minute when she in her 20s.   At her current SOA (speed of advance), the 103 miles from Cuba to Florida will take a minimum of 60 hours. And any significant “push” to the east by the Gulf Stream current could add miles, and hours, to the swim.

Epic stuff…what is it with these Masters athlete’s that just won’t retire to the water aerobics classes and bingo parlors and call it a day 🙂

Here’s her website:
http://diananyad.com

Her Twitter account for updates:  http://twitter.com/#!/diananyad

Diana Nyad diananyad Diana Nyad

RT @mattcnn: Arrived in Havana for @Diananyad‘s #Xtremedream swim…She shoves off tonight at 7p ET for 60 hours! Stay tuned to CNN!

Diana Nyad  diananyad Diana Nyad

The Bellisimo and the team are on their way to Cuba. Now, more than ever, is the time to be #fearless: http://ow.ly/5Xaqp
Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Swimming | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Swimming: time to get serious

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Dad

A funny moment at the pool on Friday when Coach Dinah Mistilis told me that the folks at Total Immersion (TI) had noticed a recent mention in one of my posts:
https://irondaughterirondad.com/swimming-efficiency-finding-my-stroke-rate/

…and had pointed it out to the TI instructor staff …like everywhere…so Coach Dinah, who was enjoying a quiet life, working with local athlete’s in a Huntersville pool, now has a peer group of some of the best swim instructors in the world, watching to see if she can convert a 57-year-old triathlete, that turns in slooow 1:40:00 Ironman swim performances, into something better

…I can feel her pain as she watches me churning up and down the lane lines…her reputation resting on this long shot horse, that came to her swimming like a brick, looking for elegance and speed…trying to remain positive, and not shake her head…the voices in her head wanting to shout out to me with adjustments while watching arms flying in the wrong direction…fighting that sinking feeling that I may just never ‘get it’…and then what to say at the TI Christmas Party when _everybody_ will be there…maybe better to just not go this year…

Actually Coach Dinah is not like that at all 🙂

…she has a deep and fundamental belief in the TI principles, and that if ‘simply’ applied will lead to efficient speed…and she patiently applies them…typically in the water for the entire hour, watching, adjusting, perfecting…with a less than perfect student that when faced with a new stroke thought promptly forgets the last one

Given enough time, I’m sure that I could ‘get it’ all…but it would take time, and in 13 weeks, I have to take whatever stroke I have to the dance at Ironman Florida…and there are no points for pretty in Ironman…just how long you take from the time the starting gun goes off, until you cross the mat at the end of the swim…that’s the evaluation…simply the numbers on the clock

so it’s now time to apply ‘form’ to ‘fast’ to ‘long’

Now of course there are variables in race conditions, and things that happen, like last year when my wetsuit zipper split up the back…I don’t want to do that again anytime soon

But the main elements are controllable…it’s going to come down to this:

  • stroke rate: how fast I take each stroke
  • stroke length: how far each stroke takes me
  • staying on course tightly: no extra distance
  • my race day execution: my willingness to trust the plan, and follow the plan when it matters most…and not wimp out

So on Friday, beyond our usual work on stroke mechanics, to finish up she had me swim 1,000 yards…just swim…with a focus on maintaining my stroke count for the 25 yards at 22 or under…not worried about speed or stroke rate…at an effort level that I thought that I could maintain for 2.4 miles if that’s what I was doing on the day…and just stay efficient for 1,000 yards…40 lengths of the pool.

Here’s how it turned out…our starting point:

1st 25 2nd 25 3rd 25 4th 25 Cum time Time Approx tempo
100 19 21 21 22 2:13 2:13 1.38
200 21 22 21 23 4:34 2:21 1.46
300 21 22 22 22 6:53 2:19 1.44
400 20 21 21 23 9:10 2:17 1.42
500 21 22 22 22 11:23 2:13 1.38
600 22 22 21 22 13:37 2:14 1.39
700 21 23 22 22 15:53 2:16 1.41
800 22 22 21 22 18:04 2:11 1.36
900 22 22 21 22 20:14 2:10 1.35
1000 22 22 20 22 22:20 2:06 1.31

So the good news when you look at the chart is that I did indeed stay at 22 strokes or less for just about all 40 lengths…slow yes…stroke rate slow yes…but didn’t blow up, or ‘lose it’, and start thrashing in at 24, 26, 28 or higher…so that was good!

…and in a 25 yard pool, the stats are a little inexact, since I lose time with slow open turns at every wall, and gentler-than-normal knee friendly push-offs…costs a couple of seconds…and not taking a stroke or 2 during the pushoff…but at least consistent, so comparable from one session to another

Of course, the challenge is that it was slow…with a stroke rate (tempo) that was a lot slower than it really needs to be…although I picked it up a bit at the end…that _very_ conservative I’m-not-sure-how-much-effort-I-can-swim-at-without-blowing-up-so-I-go-slow thing…the average was only 2:14/100 yards…which if I swam a perfectly straight line for 2.4 miles at that pace, I would be finished in 1:35:00…wait a second…that would be a Personal Record (PR) for me in an Ironman swim, beating my current best time of 1:37:33…cool!

…my ‘exceeds’ Ironman goal at this point is a stroke rate of 1.2 (a stroke every 1.2 seconds) and 22 strokes or less per 25 yards = 26.4 seconds per 25 yards = 1:14:00 for 2.4 miles (4,224 yards)…add in a few minutes for current, open water conditions and ‘stuff’, and I’d be over the mat in 1:20:00’ish….just like a real swimmer 🙂

…the first goal is 2 weeks away…that same 1,000 yards at a 1.28 stroke rate, at 22 strokes per 25 yards…this time following the beeps of the Tempo Trainer …Ironman time: 1:19:00…add in a few minutes for ‘stuff’ and 1:25:00’ish all in.

…and although there is current, and waves, and 2,500 other thrashing swimmers, and this is 1,000 yards and not 2.4 miles, in Ironman there is a wetsuit and saltwater buoyancy, and no walls

…and we do have 13 weeks…

Coach Dinah…there may be hope after all 🙂

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Planning, Racing, Swimming, Testing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Iron Dad Diet Plan: How to lose 10 pounds in 4 weeks

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Dad

Entitled to at least a little smile from my post yesterday 🙂
https://irondaughterirondad.com/squeezing-off-a-few-pounds-1-month-weigh-in-205-to-194/

You know…I have to say…I’m a bit surprised that 10 pounds came off that quickly…even though I felt that I had a good plan, I find myself in the 195 pound range, and feeling a bit weird…sort of like my brain hasn’t caught up with the new numbers on the scale..and have this gnawing sense that if I let-up the ‘pressure’ my body will balloon back to where it’s been…sort of what keeps me exercising…I do not want to have to start over again

In terms of the basics, my Base Metabolic Rate (BMR: calories I burn just to live every day) is calculated as 2,000 calories by the Food Diary that I use…this is based on my basic ‘sedentary’ lifestyle, since I generally sit in front of a computer all day…add to that the additional calories burned during exercise each day, and I have my calorie ‘budget’ for the day…subtract from that the calories in the food that I eat, and my goal was to still have 1,500 calories left before I ate a 750 - 1,000 calorie dinner, and therefore run a calorie deficit of 500’ish calories per day…leaving a little room for calorie-count variations.

..this past 4 weeks I’ve been between my Vancouver Half Iron race, and the ramp up to Ironman Florida which starts next week…so I’ve had a relatively relaxed training schedule…since July 9 there were 3 complete Monday - Sunday weeks, of 11:02, 11:28 and 11:28…so not slacking, but not the 15-18 hours of the Ironman training level…calories burned per week were around 8-10,000 or about 1,000 per day during the week and around 2,000’ish+ on Saturday

…of course, to some that may sound like a lot of exercise, since 1 pound = 3,500 calories…but since I’ve been at that exercise level for years, and haven’t been at 194-195 pounds since I can remember, something different happened in this past 4 weeks

…so to recap, typical mid-week day: 2,000 BMR + 1,000 exercise calories = 3,000 total calorie budget…consume 1,500 during the day before dinner…leaving a 1,500 ‘budget’ for dinner

…soooo, let’s look at the 5 key elements that I think got me there…and also a reinforcement for myself in my next quest for 185 pounds…along with relevant links for more details

1.  A decision to lose weight with specific number and date goals

Sort of obvious, but even though I’ve been ‘watching’ what I eat and all that, it wasn’t until I decided to lose the weight, decided on specific number and date goals, and wrote about it on this blog, that I finally took it seriously enough to do something about it, and treat it like any other training element
https://irondaughterirondad.com/squeezing-off-a-few-pounds/

2.  Learning to listen to my appetite during the day…constantly

This was the most challenging behaviour modification that I made…to only eat when ‘ready to eat’, or ‘quite hungry’ and only eat to the point of being ‘satisfied’…not ‘full’…I’m still learning this one

…I did pretty well during the day, although sometimes overshot the mark, to the hungry, stomach growling point a few times…although typically surprised at how long between meals it often took…’before’ I would have had a ‘snack’ just to even out the ‘energy’ during the day…turns out it was just a bad habit…obviously added up to a lot of calories during the day

…and I still tend to overshoot at dinner though, often rolling past the point of satisfied to full…although getting better
https://irondaughterirondad.com/nutrition/emotional-eating/
https://irondaughterirondad.com/squeezing-off-a-few-pounds-2-good-behavioral-changes/

3.  A 1,500 calorie ‘budget’ for dinner

I did pretty well at this one…in my Food Diary I recorded all calories I ate during the day, and those burned through exercise, with a target to have at least 1,500 calories left over before I sat down for dinner in the evening…I knew that once I got into the 750 – 1,000 calorie range I would start to feel full, and I knew that I’d be under calories for the day if I didn’t get to the over-full point…I rarely recorded what I actually ate at dinner…that love of great food, fine wine and craft beers that I didn’t want to give up in the quest to squeeze off a few pounds…and didn’t…so that was great

…and this was the HUGE advantage of that 8-10,000 calorie burn per week…a great dinner still 🙂
https://irondaughterirondad.com/why-i-do-ironman/

4.  Nothing but water on workouts up to 2 hours

In the past I’d be on Gatorade or gels past 1 hour…and sometimes just take Gatorade out on a run under an hour without thinking about it…that also added up to a lot of calories…and not very nutritional ones…this past 4 weeks, if the workout was going to go longer than 2 hours, I’d be on the Gatorade and gels as I normally would in a race

…not a lot of intensity in the past 4 weeks, so I may need to watch that since the most popular advice is water only up to 60…some say 90…minutes…so I’ve been stretching this…but I like this idea at this point

5. Miscellaneous food adjustments

I’m not a junk food guy at all…no chips, no donuts, none of the classic junk food that others may be tripped up on…so that’s not been an issue…I did make some food adjustments though to make my calorie goals easier each day:

  • no french fries…a bad habit that leaked in somewhere
    …sooo good, but sooo bad
  • nothing fried anywhere
  • no dessert at home dinners…limited desserts on dinners out
  • ‘watching’ alcohol at home and out

So that’s my best guess on how I dropped 10 pounds in 4 weeks, and now sitting at 195…the interesting next stage actually is coming up as I re-set my goal to 185…now this is definitely uncharted territory

…in the early years in high school, I remember wrestling in the 178 weight class, but adding muscle, I couldn’t sustain that weight class, and by university was in the 196 weight class, and played fullback at what was ultimately a solid 208…in high school I was the quarterback/captain of the division championship football team for years, and was _really_ muscular and lean…like girls at parties would poke me in the stomach to feel how hard my abs were…girls are too funny sometimes 🙂

…also too funny the memories that are stored in the recesses of the mind…I hadn’t thought about that high school party routine for decades, until I just wrote it

…maybe I’m in a calorie deprivation mode…or maybe my brain is trying to find some rationale for this new quest for the 185’ish level

…in either event, that’s where I’m headed…’another 10 pounds’ before Ironman Florida…join me if you’re so inclined 🙂

Posted in Achieving Goals, Dad's Blog Posts, Nutrition, Weight loss | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments