JCC 2024 Fitness Goals

I dismounted my bike about 50 yards from my garage and tried to run it in, like a real transition. I wasn't trying to pedal the ground, but my knees were super wobbly.

 

Interesting article about the origin of the ubiquitous 10,000-step goal and the science behind its pros and cons:

https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a60492650/how-many-miles-is-10000-steps/

 

Triple-posting but I need to share a couple of things, one positive and one negative.

Positive: I saw the personal trainer again today and we made two big steps toward my goal of my first pull-up, which gave me a hit of dopamine that I sorely needed (see the negative below). I went from doing bar hangs and banana boats on the floor, to being told "well, what I'm working you toward is doing this banana boat motion, but hanging from the bar", to immediately banging out a perfect set of 10 hanging banana boats. So now we have a new exercise to work with. And I also stepped down to and was able to handle a lighter band for assisted pull-ups (i.e. less assistance force). Both are good progress, and I may go to Planet Fitness this weekend and do a one-rep max on the assisted pull-up machine (which I last did slightly over a month ago) to quantify my progress.

Negative: After a wasted weekend with literally nothing accomplished (not just training, but literally doing nothing except eat, sleep, and waste time on the internet), I came to the conclusion that not only am I burnt out at work, I'm so extremely burnt out and have been for months (because of the direction my current project has been going in) that it's spilling into my personal life and destroying my motivation to do basically anything where someone else isn't expecting me. I should be going to Esporta right now as I type this to do a swim workout and I don't have the motivation to get off the computer because work is so dull right now. I'm supposed to be ramping up to my first triathlon in three weeks and I'm nowhere near ready and don't have the motivation to get ready.

And ironically, it's not the swim that's holding me back as I thought it would, but the bike because the logistics of doing a bike workout are so complex and time-consuming that combined with my lack of motivation, I just can't get on my bike at all, and as a result I am still lacking in basic bike skills and cannot yet safely ride on public streets like I'll have to do on race day, and you can forget trying to ride in the rain until I can get as good at cornering as the average 8-year-old. (The logistics are that I can't start and end at home as I critically need to to save time because the single exit to my apartment complex dumps me out at a high-traffic intersection with several multi-lane roads with high-speed vehicles and no reasonable bike facilities that I am nowhere remotely close to having the expert skills to handle, and transporting my bike elsewhere immediately adds an hour of overhead for installing my bike rack, loading everything up, driving, unloading, then loading back up, driving home, unloading, and removing my bike rack.)

I honestly don't know what to do and I'm on the verge of giving up on this dream of doing a triathlon at all because I simply do not have a workable method of getting on my bike because I live in an incredibly bike-hostile place.

 

I’ve been steadily progressing on my marathon walk training program until last week when I got sick and didn’t walk more than a mile until Saturday. This week, I’m feeling very frustrated by still feeling lightheaded and wobbly after 9 days of coughing up lungs. I did 45 minutes on a stationary bike and sweated buckets where it’s normally not that hard work for me.

 

^ When I feel like that, I tell myself I'm sweating the germs out of my body.

 

Be careful not to push too hard too soon after recovering. If what you had was COVID, I learned today in one of my running groups on Facebook that there has been some evidence that those who push too hard too soon after COVID are at significantly higher risk of developing long COVID symptoms. Take your time and ease back into it slowly while listening to your body.

 

I had COVID in January. This wasn’t that. I just have respiratory problems that come along in general, thanks to a history of bronchitis and pneumonia.

 

Fair enough. Then let my previous post be a general PSA to anyone else in this thread who might get COVID soon.

 

It’s good advice. It’s hard to be sick this year. I used to be around people who were aware of what I had issues with while sick. Now, I’m in a new city and the concerns are just if I infect anyone or use my own Kleenex. I miss mattering to people in my community.

 

Went for my first swim of the year today. It lasted maybe 2 minutes. The lake is still quite invigorating. At least my toes didn't turn blue.

 

Hit a lifetime goal today on squat.

500 lbs.

 

Everyone was out at the local lake today. I got a few swims in late April early Spring. Thinking of going back tomorrow to try to do a full lap. Which I think is like 1k which I have only done like 3 times in my life. Luckily the lake doesn’t allow motorized boats.

 

Some updates (and a request at the end):

Swimming: I eventually decided to stop lessons with my coach because we were getting nowhere, just going in circles trying the same things over and over to improve stroke efficiency. The real problem was running out of air too fast and being unable to swim more than 25 yards at a time and needing 30+ seconds rest after each length. I posted in a swimming group on Facebook called "Did you swim today?" and someone said they had the same problem for two years (only able to swim 25 at a time and needing long rests due to lack of air) and finally figured out that their problem was blowing out too much air underwater and emptying their lungs too much, and once they stopped doing that and changed to a more normal exhale, their problem was immediately fixed and they were able to swim 1,000 yards straight almost immediately. I tried this on my own on Memorial Day; I didn't have a lot of time, so it was a quick session in an odd-sized pool (19 yards), but I did notice a huge difference and was able to bang out six 19-yard lengths on 15-20 seconds rest, then did two continuous lengths (38 yards) without needing to fight for air at the end like I would after that distance before. So that's promising. If I can confirm over some longer pool sessions that it really is the fix and I can finally do 50s and 100s, I may contact my coach and see about resuming lessons, because...

Triathlons: I missed the May triathlon due to my swimming problems. The other one scheduled for June 23 was not going to happen either as I hadn't been able to keep up with training and I'm still sorting out the swim, so I contacted the organizers and they were happy to transfer me to another triathlon in September that's part of the same series. So that's my new goal in that arena. I do need open water swim lessons though, and if I can get back with my swim coach, she offers those as well. I spent $350 on a proper triathlon wetsuit that arrived yesterday, so I now have a financial incentive to see it through to completion.

Running: I've run a few times here and there, but without any real plan recently. Tomorrow, I want to start a new training plan to build toward a 5K I signed up for at the Columbus Zoo in early July -- the race course runs around the zoo's pollinator gardens, past some of the animal exhibits, through the rides area and into the waterpark, where it ends with a splashdown finish in the wave pool (which was the selling point for me ). I'm trying to learn how to develop my own training plan, so I've built my own and will see how well I do.

Personal training: I'm continuing to work toward a pull-up, and making progress there. We've introduced a few new exercises, including sled pulls yesterday. Yesterday my PT also talked me into joining her team for a Savage Race at the end of June; we're doing the Blitz. We plan to walk the entire course and just have fun and laugh when we fail obstacles and not worry about our times. I picked up a pair of proper trail running shoes that were on clearance at REI this evening. I need to get the rest of my outfit sorted in the next couple of weeks.

Tomorrow: I'm planning two things for tomorrow: first, a 5:30 AM alarm for a morning run (because it's getting too hot to run in the evenings), and second, a trip to the pool in the evening to test out my swimming discovery. Can someone please hold me accountable for this by asking me here tomorrow evening how they both went?

 

Bumpity bump bump...

I did the Savage Race today! Proof:


It was a lot of fun and I surprised myself with how many obstacles I was able to complete. Unfortunately my personal trainer injured herself last weekend and was unable to come as a result, but I linked up with the owner of the gym (who was there as a spectator with her five-week-old newborn baby) and she showed me around. We had to wait out a three-hour lightning delay that hit just before I was about to start. I don't know or care about my time, just that I finished. And I took the plunge on purchasing a discounted entry for a future Savage Race because I liked it so much.

As for swimming, I still haven't broken through, but I've put together a workout to try to fix my kick, which I think is the problem that's making me out of breath after listening to this podcast. I just need to find an open pool since my usual pool is closed long-term for maintenance. (Also, I unexpectedly had to swim at the Savage Race today -- one of the obstacles was a giant slide into a pool and I was caught off-guard when I couldn't touch bottom. I ended up backstroking to the end of the pool since the water was muddy and I didn't have nose plugs.)

 

Swimming in the sea every morning around 6:30-7am. Only a few elderly locals around. Before the tourists invade. Bliss. I think I cracked the code of a busy seaside town in summer. Get up early and swim. Who knew? All these old people, that’s who.

 

Plea for help from anyone familiar with heart rate zones for running.

I am trying to figure out my CORRECT heart rate zones to program into my Garmin watch, because the defaults (% of max HR, based on 220 - age) are garbage. I cannot afford a lab test (and a lab test would most likely force me to run on a treadmill, which I am scared to death of and would void the result as my HR would go sky-high due to fear and panic). I have attempted -- and failed -- twice to test an estimated "reference" heart rate for myself.

One test a couple of months ago was a failed attempt to estimate my true max HR. I went to a local high school track, warmed up, jogged a mile to slowly bring my HR up, then my intention was to run 4-6 all-out 400-meter repeats with 200-meter walk breaks in between, as someone on Facebook had suggested to me. What actually happened was that I completely bonked 200 meters into the first 400-meter interval, was forced to reduce to a very slow walk, and never recovered enough to resume running that day. The highest heart rate I hit that day was significantly lower than heart rates I've hit at other times, so the test was a failure.

Tonight, I attempted the lactate threshold guided test on my Garmin watch. It failed as well because I physically could not sustain the level of high-intensity running for as long as it was demanding. Somewhere around the third or fourth segment, when it demanded four minutes at 161-170 bpm, I bonked again and had to reduce to a walk and could only watch as it kept asking for higher and higher heart rates for obscenely long lengths of time (i.e. 3-4 minutes) continuously before finally saying "threshold not detected". At those levels of intensity, I can only sustain for 1-2 minutes or less before I need walk breaks to reduce my heart rate as I lack the endurance to sustain those intensities for any longer.

As it stands right now, my watch has periodically increased my estimated max HR from the original garbage default of 183 (220 - age) to (as of the increase from tonight's run) 190. I suspect that is still too low as I have previously hit 185, only for a minute or less near the end of an interval workout, but not all-out maximum effort intervals. The lactate threshold heart rate is not set and undetermined/unknown.

I only run 5Ks, nothing longer, with a PR of 34:55, and currently can't complete a 5K without at least one walk break. It seems to me that both of these HR tests demand a minimum endurance level that I simply don't possess.

What can I do to calculate proper HR zones that is compatible with my limited endurance? Do not tell me to ignore zones and go by subjective assessments of effort level; I am objectively horrible at making subjective assessments like that. I need a numbers-based objective measure.

(As an aside, I'm running a 5K race at the Columbus Zoo on Sunday morning, so anything suggested will have to wait a week or so.)

 

*creeps back into one of my old favorite threads" My avatar here is so appropriate. Been a very hot summer so far in the greater DC area and the treadmill at the gym in the air conditioning has been good to me.
I tore a muscle at the beginning of February. Instead of dropping $50 copays to see a physical therapist I just refreshed myself of exercises watching PT YouTube videos and was feeling pain free by the first of May. I did intervals a bit and can now run 5 miles again. Should be back to 10-13 by the end of August. I even went back to my running group yesterday.
So far I have kept up with strength exercises 4-5 days a week. I find them so boring. And I was even doing such things when I tore the muscle. I heard it tear. I was stretching after a spin class when it happened. It's the second time I have torn a muscle stretching. And I totally still stretch after workouts.

That's a great photo of you @jcgoble3 you look great. Congrats. Good luck on the triathlon training if that's still what you want to do.

 

And here's another picture of me from today, this time with flying feet:

Spoiler

I ended up finishing in 40:32. I had to slow to a walk 1.50 miles in and walk the next half mile, then switched back and forth after that. Not what I wanted, but I showed up and did it. I don't have a good HR reading from it though as a result.

Back to swimming: I met with a new coach yesterday. He introduced me to a bunch of new drills to try to improve my overall form. Unfortunately, I have no progress yet on fixing my kick. I have strong muscle memory for the wrong mechanics, especially wildly fast overkicking that is probably a bigger problem than everything else combined. And I don't know how to overcome that muscle memory.

Given my swimming problems, it's not likely to happen this year. My entry was transferred to a race in September, but I don't think I'll be ready for the sprint distance. I will consider transferring to the beginner race; it's shorter than what I want to do, but the swim is only a 200-meter swim along the beach where I can touch bottom along the whole course. I have no worries about time limits or course closures, since there are four distances all happening at once. Otherwise, if I don't feel comfortable for that, I will probably transfer to the duathlon (run-bike-run) to at least not waste my entry fee completely.

 

I totally get the muscle memory bit. Once you learn something it's so hard to get your brain to tell your extremities to do it another way.
I used to really want to do a triathlon. But living in the urban area that I do would have meant buying a shed for my little townhouse yard, a bike and an entry fee. That was so out of my league back when I would have been more interested. To be honest even though I still like to run, I've lost my taste for swimming over the years and spin class settles my taste for biking. I'm such a 21st century girl. Give me air conditioning.