Christopher McDougal TED talk

I love TED talks. Maybe that's because I'm a total nerd, but here is a fun 15-minute video to watch.

A while ago I posted a video about how elite runners can possibly break a 2-hour marathon. I like it because it says a lot about good running form and I think that has been the most helpful thing for me this year at getting better.

But after sharing that, my boyfriend and I have argued about how realistic it is that only form is holding these guys back from finishing in 1:59:59 and sure... these are all flaws with that video. However, this video is really just for funsies.



I hope that works!

Dancing Habits Bite Me in the Ankle...?

I haven't been swimming much. Whoops. For two reasons:
(1) Focused on half marathon
(2) I hate swimming, well I'm bad at it
But, I got in the pool today and did our 3000 yard workout. It took me an obscenely long amount of time because, well, did I mention I'm awful at swimming? But, no matter how much I protest, I can't just stop swimming. It is a part of this sport and I have this weird opinion that duathlons are just cop-outs for triathletes like me who hate swimming.

Towards the end of the workout, as is to be expected (at least for me) I attempted to push off the wall with some serious force and ended up cramping up a little in my left leg. It went away fast and I've experience far worse. Then my right started. AWESOME, calves, thanks. Then I came home and my ankle hurt, so I iced it and now I'm sleeping with my old friend ankle brace.

While lamenting to my triathlete boyfriend (who also hates swimming), we both couldn't remember enough about swimming form to remember if you are supposed to keep your feet pointed or not. So I asked my teammate and impressively good swimmer-friend, Kendyl, who said "NO NO NO, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KEEP YOUR FEET NEUTRAL."
Whoops. Little me, who is used to dancing and this pointed toe nonsense has been pointing her toe the whole time. It will be interesting what happens next time I get in the pool.

Thus, my serious lack of knowledge about swimming form has spurred on this post. Foremost, to keep me from doing stupid stuff like this again, but also... because maybe it will give me some incentive to get into the pool next time I don't want to (which is every time).

One of the first things that I was told when I started swimming this year was to relax my neck and drop my head. Basically, if you drop your head (don't look forward, look down) this will bring your hips and legs up and decrease your drag, which will allow you to go faster.

Something I'm working on right now is (core) body rotation. I tend to rotate my hips, but struggle with getting my whole body to rotate along with me. When you swim on only your stomach, you have a larger surface on the water = more drag = slow.

Another thing our coach talking about all the time is thinking about distance per stroke. For this, you want to think about being tall and focus on the longest you can be during a stroke. To help this, it is important to have one arm in front of you at all times and delaying the start of pulling said arm until your recovery arm has hit the water. This one is kind of new for me, or at least thinking of it this way is.

SO now you (or maybe just me) have some new bits of information to jump in the pool with. Go forth. Prosper.

The ultimate healer

In this post I'd like to shout out to Abby, Diana, and Alex - my non-triathlete friends who sometimes read this. I love that you read this! <3

It has been a while since I've updated about anything. I'm sort of in a tri-lull. Working hard, but focusing more on my upcoming half marathon than triahtlons, BUT that doesn't mean I didn't go on a 2.5 hour bike ride yesterday... or that I didn't fall off my bike and have a stupid bump on my leg. Yeah, it was a good day.

But, the topic of the day, folks is compression wear. This stuff boggles me. I see it everywhere, don't really know what it is, what the point of it is. I don't think it is triathlete specific, but I still see it sold by multisport sellers constantly. As I sit here, taking my rest day a day early (trying not to put weight on my weird bruises and bumps) I am thinking about compression wear because apparently it is used to expedite recovery. Which I apparently need since I'm so good at falling off bikes!

Compression clothing comes in all shapes and sizes. It's fun for your entire body! You can buy sleeves, or socks, or shorts, or pants, or shirts, or calf guards...(?) As I said before, it is used to aid in recovery, but it also prevents muscle fatigue, increases blood flow, and increases your athletic performance. I don't know how much I buy the last one, but it's used by pros, so unless it causes some serious placebo effect, it must be doing something right.

Now what confuses me is that there are many types of compression clothes. There's graduated compression, direct compression, zone specific compression and compression from things like kinesiology tape. So basically what all these variations mean is that they put pressure on different areas. So while one may put varying levels of pressure over your muscle, another may focus pressure on a specific place in the muscle. It seems like which is "best" is highly contested.

Here's an article that makes sense but is very long if you're super curious.

Now, kinesiology tape. From what I understand the actual effects of this stuff is sort of contested and many people claim it is only a placebo effect that makes people feel better. It apparently is mainly used to treat sprains, strains, and injuries... and to aid circulation (or you know, aid recovery, kind of like compression wear).

I don't know if I buy that "tape" can do that, but Olympic athletes use it. It seems a little "miracle tape"-ish to me. Well, can't knock it 'til I try it, right?

For my next endeavor?

spin spin spin

Something our team (including me) struggled with a lot was keeping our cadence up during the ride. We've spent tons of time building our base with low cadence strength work that we tended to mash on our bikes during the race. So now what I'm thinking about is this cadence thing and why it is important to keep your RPMs above 90.

After a little research I've found out some stuuuurrrff about leg muscles.
Low cadences (corresponding to higher resistance or harder gears) require more force contraction in one's legs than would a faster cadence in an easier gear. This uses something called fast-twitch fibers which burn glycogen (stored in the muscles at a relatively short supply). Triathletes especially tend to make the mistake of mashing their muscles with these low cadences and extra force. This causes them to fatigue more quickly, or essentially do much more work than they need to. Another negative? It takes even longer for your muscles to recover when you use fast-twitch fibers.

So then what are the bonuses of higher cadences? SLOW-TWITCH FIBERS, BABY! (yeeeeahhh buddy). These are our friend. When using slow-twitch fibers we burn fat and I don't know about you, but personally I am very into the idea of burning fat and looking buff. Fat supplies an almost limitless amount of fuel which means your body can recover quickly with some rest. Plus, for triathletes (like you, me, and idk your bff Jill) a cadence of 90 RPM can mimic the stride rate of running (which, you guessed it, is ideally 90 strides per minute - snazzy how that works, ain't it?). This makes it easier to keep up your ideal stride rate running off the bike.

Now for you cyclists out there, I don't really have the answers. I can say that wikipedia (that ever reliable source) has lots of info on cycling cadence. Don't worry, I did more reading that wikipedia, but not a lot. ;]

For now - keep your cadence up! (and stare at that sick scary cycling picture of me)

you gotta know when to walk away, know when to run

USAT Collegiate Nationals was this weekend.
Wow.

I have explained my experience during this race to just about.... everyone I know. My apologies if this is redundant. In short, it was pretty rough, but I learned a lot. Let me break it down.

I had many goals going into this race. Two main ones being that I wanted to average faster than 17 mph on the bike and I wanted to finish in under 3 hours. Let's just say these did not happen. I averaged 16.3 (.1 mph faster than my latest sprint) and the entire race took me 3 hrs and 42 minutes.

My swim was surprisingly satisfying. Granted, my two goals were to come out of the water and not cry... seriously. Both of which I did. I was actually incredibly proud of myself because although I am a super slow swimmer and swimming is easily my weakest leg of the race, after the first few 100m I was able to continue at least 75% of the swim in freestyle with reasonable sighting. Granted, I zig-zagged all over the place (partially because I was all by myself - so much for drafting) but I was still really satisfied with how that leg went. Until I came into transition and saw that most people had already left. Whoops.

The bike was great, but it's my strongest leg. I find it interesting because I came into this sport as a "runner" (or you know, with a running background) but biking is definitely where I make up for lost time. I passed a ton of people and had tons of success with maxing out on downhills. I even was able to successfully eat and drink on the bike. However this is where problems arose. The gatorade in my Camelback made me feel nauseous and while I thought the pain in my abs and back was from biking for so long, it was actually dehydration. All I really wanted was water.

I came into transition after the bike and immediately my abdominal area was destroyed. I thought my abs were just not strong enough, but I pushed through the first mile of the run in 90-degree heat. Despite the fact that I tried to run, the pain was unbearable. I came to the first water station just after the 1-mile mark and downed three glasses of water. Then my vision started blurring and blacking, so I sat down and they gave me potato chips to up my sodium levels. I stood up again and felt much better, ran another mile or so, then started walking again. I stopped at nearly every water station and proceeded to finish the longest 6 miles of my life.

The experience was honestly horrifying and disappointing, but I learned a lot about olympic distance triathlons and am excited to do another one knowing what I know now. Honestly, this race was unlike anything I've ever done and as much as it was "horrifying and disappointing," I have never been so happy to cross a finish line. Plus, the event itself was tons of fun. I have really grown to love my team and feel like we bonded and supported each other like never before. I have grown to love the sport more because I have realized how much of it is about athletes supporting each other to FINISH and not necessarily to out-rank or "beat" each other.

For my next trick, I will attempt a 10k next weekend. WOOOO! (Then comes the half marathon!)

Just before Anna and I ran over to the river to start our warm up!

On that note, I just signed up for the Evergreen Lake Olympic triathlon on July 16th. Here we go again, folks. Take 2.

In the end, it's your race

As Collegiate National Championships draw nearer, our team is talking about "carbo-loading" -  a phrase often misunderstood and taken to mean eating a TON of carbohydrates the evening before a race. Here's the thing - if you do that you're just going to poop your pants (or vomit). Sorry. It's true.

What I'm learning is that "carbo-loading" is a pre-race process that involves increasing the percentage of carbohydrates in your daily diet the week before the race. Note that I am also beginning to understand my CONSTANT craving for bowls upon bowls of cereal. It's a careful science, but as we all gear up to mess with out diets, our president sent out this video as a reminder of the horrifying things that happen when we don't take care of ourselves.

Alistar Brownlee falls apart

It's absolutely heart breaking. I know how hard triathletes work. I know what it's like to just be miserable at the end of the race and this poor kid is falling apart. Ugh. This may be pathetic, but I'm holding back tears for this guy. Watching him cross the finish line and be dragged off by doctors is just painful. Sure, athletes go through this all the time, but something about this skinny kid weaving to the end kills me. He's not some big, juiced-up guy who was tackled by 10 men - his body is shutting down.


Moral of the story: Kids, eat your vegetables!


(All that being said, the sighting technique in this video is unreal. I mean, as is all the technique. Also, notice they're not all riding tri-bikes... I wonder why. I mean, they all have aero bars but not tri-bikes.)

Just keep swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim, swim.

Yesterday was "wear your wetsuit to practice" day for the triathlon team. For many of us, this was our first time swimming in our wetsuits (for me it was time number 2, as you may remember from two posts ago about open water swimming).

Well, something I didn't really talk about is that ... not everyone responds too well to wetsuits. In fact, most people really don't like it. Me? I kind of feel like I could take it or leave it. This might be because I'm not a great swimmer so there is no "established habit" with me. However, my friend Kendyl, who has been swimming competitively forever (and is an excellent swimmer), completely freaked out in her wetsuit. The compression made her feel claustrophobic and the neckline made her feel like she was choking. SO get in those wetsuits pre-race and get in the water (EVEN if it's a pool).

My friend posted this open water swimming article on facebook. I recommend you read it if you're really interested, but to sort of echo/summarize the things I really find important:

• You cannot see anything. Anything. It's horrifying.
• Bring a buddy. Just do it.
• If the water is over 80 degrees, ditch the wetsuit
• Practice sighting. It's weird as all get out. Here's a link to my entry on sighting :]
• Spot the kicking bubbles of racers in front of you! Best piece of advice yet. I like that one.
• Breathe on BOTH sides! I sucked at this when I started, but I learned and then got in open water and waves, well, they like to crash in your mouth. However, if you breathe to the other side you can out smart them.
• Calm down. Relax. Another tri-girl (Kelli) was talking to Kendyl and me yesterday about how she gets through the swim - which is very similar to how I cope during a swim: mantras. "Breathe. You're fine." 

Thus concludes my "tips" (that I stole from a website).
When all else fails, just pretend you're Dory from Finding Nemo swimming into the black abyss. (Except there is no scary skeletal, light-up fish at the end.. I promise. Maybe there is a muskie, but...)

Hey Mr. Grumpy Gills

You know what you gotta do when life gets you down?

Just keep swimming

Just keep swimming

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming

What do we do? We swim, swim, swim

Oh ho ho how I love to swim

When you waaaannnnt to swim you want to swim...

Muscle Cramps and Hydration: an on going saga of pain

On Monday, during my swim training, I kicked off the wall in the middle of a distance swim to be greeted by a huge, awful, painful, no good, very bad leg cramp. Of course, I sound like a drama queen, but it was honestly the most painful cramp I have experienced in my life. The charlie horses you get in your sleep don't even measure up. It was so painful, in fact, that I am still dealing with the repercussions three days later. I've heated it, took pain killers, massaged it, walked on it, run on it, biked on it, tried to painfully roll it out with one of those snazzy muscle sticks (when I may or may have not started crying from pain :] )... but these are par for the course. It seems to be a little less awful today, but every time I sit down/sleep/remain dormant for a while and then commence walking again, the pain is back and I limp it off until it is just a dull ache.

I told my coach, and his response (which he sent to the entire team) were two articles: Muscle Cramps during Exercise -- Is it Fatigue or Electrolyte Deficit? by Michael F. Bergeron and Hydration 101 and Strategies for Athletes by Linda Samuels.

Here is what I have distilled (hahaha pun, get it, like distilling water):
1. There are two reasons one may get muscle cramps (or this is what is generally believed): fatigue and overuse OR dehydration and electrolyte deficiency

2. A sip of water from a bottle is generally equal to about 1 oz. During exercise, you should have 4-6 sips every 15-20 min. Once your exercise time increases to over 60 min, you should consider replenishing with electrolyte sports drinks (like Gatorade).

3. Heat cramps (in your muscles) can happen when your body does not have enough sodium (which is the main electrolyte lost is in sweat). This could've caused my cramp because in the pool you don't realize you're sweating... because you're in water. Ways to prevent this, yeah, electrolyte sports drink OR salty snacks before exercise (idk about you, but that's the route I'm going, yum).

4. Hyponatremia is scary. Look it up and make sure to replenish your sodium in big crazy races. If you lose too much sodium and then continue to drink water, it can dilute your blood and kill you. AWESOME. G2 officially added to my grocery list so I don't DIE at nationals next weekend. Unfortunately a symptom of hyponatremia is restlessness and so now I'm going to constantly be paranoid that I'm dying.

5. Here is how to know your sweat rate (so you know how much to replenish!):
Weight prior to exercise - weight after exercise = X
Convert X to ounces (i.e. 1 lb = 16 oz)
X + # of ounces you drank during workout = Y
Y/# of hours you worked out = oz/hour = YOUR SWEAT RATE

6. Stretching is more important than you may realize. That being said, I've been told that stretching after you exercise is far more effective. Stretching before or "cold stretching" doesn't really do anything and in fact can just make you weaker. (All though whenever I hear this I think, well that must speak to how strong dancers are...)

7. Ways to make muscle cramps better: icing immediately after they happen, massaging the area (yes, I know it hurts - massaging my calf made me grumble/cry/wince), and if it is specifically due to low-sodium you can ingest a "high-salt solution" like a sports drink to make it better, but... that confuses me.

8. Continuation of whatever activity caused the cramp is likely not possible if the cramp is due to fatigue or muscle overload. These cramps are usually the sudden ones that are in concentrated areas. Sodium-deficiency/dehydration cramps usually come slowly and can spread over more areas of the body. After consuming a replenishing substance, one could probably continue back on their activity without muscle cramping (unlike cramps due to fatigue).

It would seem that my cramp was due to muscle fatigue/overload (which is sort of weird to me as I was not doing anything more strenuous than my usual work). Phil seems to think it's because I was doing so much kick board work that we usually do not do quite so much of.

Now - an entry on open water swimming. This one just took me so long to compile!