The Endurance Pig: Another Cup of Coffee, Please!

I love coffee, I always have. Even before I worked 3rd shift, my day wouldn't start until I had a cup (or 5) of coffee. Now that I work 3rd shift regularly, my coffee consumption has increased. This past cycle left me craving two things... Sleep and coffee. It was a balancing act, so to say. The more sleep I got, the less coffee and visa versa. I opted to pick up a 4 hour block of overtime over the past weekend, because, really, who couldn't use the extra cash. Plus, it fit perfectly into my training schedule. It was sandwiched between my double workout day on Friday and my double workout day on Sunday. So with three straight days of getting up early to either workout or go to work, I was lacking in the sleep department and left seeking coffee from the moment I stepped out of bed.

It sounds odd and I catch a lot of grief about it from my wife, but, I have been treating my training plan like holy scripture lately. I created it knowing days that would have to be flexed or tweaked to make other days work. Granted, life does happen and I have been making changes as we go. But when it has come to planning unnecessary things, such as going to a Brewer's game, or picking up optional overtime at work, I'd be lying if I said I didn't check my training plan first to see if; A) It fits into the plan with little or no changes or B) I can make it work with some minor tweaks here and there.

I also had my 2nd appointment with Mike LeMere of Prevea Sport's Medicine in Green Bay this past week. Mike is the head athletic trainer of the Green Bay Marathon. As I mentioned in my last post I was selected for a Running Gait Analysis which involved a video taping of me walking barefoot from the rear, side, and front and then running in my kicks, from the back, side, and front. After we finished with the video taping Mike did a pseudo physical evaluation of me, looking for any tightness, weaknesses, imbalances, or current/potential injuries. The initial evaluation took just shy of 1 hour. I went back in on my first day off for the 2nd appointment, which consisted of reviewing the video and going over personalized strength and stretching exercises to help correct flaws in my running gait. Some things that Mike found in my gait was that I run very erect. He pointed out that I should have a more aggressive forward lean. He also found that along with running upright, I tend to bounce, rather than glide. Ideally, you should have minimal vertical displacement when you run, and I was basically jumping repeatedly. Mike also picked out a very minor weakness in my left hip, specifically my gluteus medias. This was evident by how my knee and foot would point out during my recovery leg swing forward. The videos were very telling. It was useful to actually see yourself running for a change as opposed to looking at a still frame picture and attempt to evaluate my running form, as I have done in the past using the race day photos from the sponsored photographer. The program Prevea uses is called Dartfish. The program allowed Mike to draw lines and arrows and such right on the tv screen, much like you see during football games. I received a copy of the video footage on a CD, but am unable to embed the videos onto my blog due to the formatting. The videos are in Dartfish's unique format and will only open in Dartfish programs. I was, however, able to take a screen shot of a couple of the videos showing the unique capabilities of the program. After reviewing the footage Mike showed me a variety of exercises to help improve my running mechanics. In the end, the weaknesses in my mechanics are very minor and Mike even said that he had to pick something in my gait to attempt to correct. All in all, my running form is pretty good, but obviously there is room for improvement. I honestly feel as though the fact that I ran a hard 18 mile run the day before had something to do with the fact that my running form was a bit off. But, none-the-less, I would still definitely recommend this service if anyone was on the fence about it. I would definitely recommend it to an injury prone running, who has been battling injuries such as IT band syndrome, planter fasciitis, or tendinitis in the ankle or knee.

Photos from the video depicting a slight hip drop in my left hip, as well as a rear view of my vertical displacement.

Photos from my video depicting my erect posture and excessive bounce in my stride.

I also mentioned last week that I had been having "issues" with my left foot, specifically the toes of my left foot. Well. I am happy to report that the pain has more or less subsided. I addressed this topic with Mike at Prevea during my Gait Analysis. He believed it to be caused by a large callous on the bottom of my left foot which is putting extra pressure on the tarsals and metatarsals in my foot. Every now and again, I will notice that specific sensation in my toes, but I am ruling it to be "just one of those things" that arise with repeated strenuous activity, such as running.

My diet has been so so. It has not been great, by any stretch of the imagination, but I have kept my weaknesses in check. I have ditched the food log. I opted to do this for a couple reasons. The first being the fact that I have developed a routine that I feel confident in and feel that I have developed a strong sense of an appropriate amount of food to intake on a daily basis without logging every morsel I put in my mouth. Secondly, it was consuming a lot of time that I would rather spend doing something else. Don't get me wrong, the food log helped me develop a routine I feel confident in. It also assisted with general knowledge of portion sizes of the foods I commonly eat. But it was just getting very repetitive in nature and it got a point were I felt I was not benefiting from taking the time to log the food I was eating.

I have also since allowed myself to include more wheat products into my diet. I have gotten to a point with the increased volume in my diet that I was constantly hunger and just seeking out food. I still opt for healthier options of wheat, such as high quality breads or even sour dough breads, quality dinner rolls, and high quality pastas. So it's not like I am abandoning ship and eating cookies, graham crackers, and other highly processed wheat products here. I am just allowing a little more leniency to increase my daily caloric intake as my expenditures increase.

Brief Recap

This past cycle was the first cycle of the build phase. The total volume was high in comparison to previous cycles, but the total volume was pretty evenly spread out over all the workouts. There was no one or two workouts that shared the majority of the volume. This was partially due to having a 8 hour training day scheduled on one of my scheduled off days from my work rotation. I also had 2 two-a-day workouts scheduled this cycle which kept my total training volume high, without one long training day. The one long day of training was on my 2nd off day where I had my weekly long run scheduled. I scheduled a 16 mile run with no race pace work. I wanted to try something different for this run by running it with no water, no fuel during the run, and no pre-workout meal. Granted, I ate a large meal the night before with a sugary dessert, but stopped eating around 7:30pm. I woke up around 6:30am and had a couple cups of coffee with no food and headed out the door by 8am. I did not take in any food and kept my pace slow to attempt to stay in a aerobic state (aka a fat burning zone). My pace was slow and easy. I never once craved any food or felt that I needed water. I was actually surprised. I finished the run in 2:07 and felt fantastic. The purpose of doing an unsupported run like this was two fold. I wanted to first and foremost force myself to do it, for the mental training aspect of it, to reassure myself that I can run without calories. I also wanted to use it as a judge to find an appropriate amount of calories I personally need during my training. I also did it for the physical benefits of running strictly on my stored glycogen and fat stores. There comes a point in training were you eventually deplete all your glycogen (sugar) stores and force your body to rely on fat stores for energy. When this happens there are countless physiological benefits experienced by our bodies. Some of these include, generally becoming more efficient, an increase in mitochondria production, and better utilization of fatty acids for energy.

Favorite Workout

For my birthday this year, my daughters got me a Finis Tempo Trainer, which is also known as a "wetronome." The purpose of it is to key in on pacing in the pool. You can set it to assist with your stroke rate, or the number of strokes you take per minute, to teach an even, smooth stroke. Or, you can set it to help pace your intervals to teach you proper pacing techniques. This past cycle I have made it a point to begin to swim longer intervals to be better prepared for swimming the 2.4 mile Ironman swim, sounds kinda obvious - right? Yea, well, The longest interval set I have swam to date during this training season was maybe a 500m set - which is just under a third of a mile. Granted my total distance covered during a swim workout has generally been between 1.25 and 1.75 miles, my individual interval sets have been relatively short. So this cycle I had a 2700 meter swim set scheduled. I wanted to take advantage of my new wetronome and decided to swim a pyramid set of 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700. I set my wetronome to 28 seconds per 25 meters. So hypothetically I would swim a single distance of the pool on every beep. I took 2 beeps (56 secs) of rest between each set. It was a good workout, tough, but good. I enjoyed training with the tempo trainer as it forced me to keep a steady pace throughout the interval. After I was done int he pool, I headed into the weight room for a quick strength circuit.

Moving Forward

This upcoming cycle has a few adjustments made due to scheduled 8 hour training days. As I mentioned before, I had a training day on my final off day so I made a small adjustment and swapped out days. So on my first day back to work, I have a long brick workout with a bike emphasis and then right back into my regularly scheduled training week leading up to my weekend. My build phase consists of alternates cycles, there is an A cycle and a B cycle. This upcoming cycle is a B cycle. So I only have 1 two-a-day scheduled this cycle, which will be nice. I was able to adjust my scheduled training days on my off days due to having a training day scheduled on Day 2 of the next training cycle. Having this training on a previously scheduled workday, gives me the night off before to counter the time spent at training (I hope that makes sense). So, my regularly scheduled weekly long run was bumped to day 1 of the next training cycle, which is why you don't see a long run scheduled during this cycle. I do have another long bike ride on my final off day this cycle. I plan on really pushing myself on that ride as it is a "stand alone" bike workout - no run following as there was on day 1. With the weather starting to make the turn for the better and starting to warm up, I will be doing everything in my power to get outside on my bike every chance I get. The time on the bike will be most beneficial for me come race day in September!

This upcoming cycle will also present several days of sheer gluttony. On March 30th, my sister-in-law is hosting the annual Easter celebration at her house and I have very little intentions of eating well that night. Then, my wife and I have already made plans for a Friday lunch date with the girls to a local pizza buffet at The Glass Nickel Pizza in Appleton. They quite possibly have the best pizza in the Fox Valley. And it doesn't end there....Saturday night, we will be meeting up with Pat and Melissa for our monthly date night and will be going out for Mexican food at a local restaurant just down the street from our house. And to top off the week of unhealthy eating, Sunday is my nephew's 1st birthday party down in Milton, WI. The only benefit I will have to eating like crap all week, is knowing that the next long workout isn't far away!

Below are the usual photos from the previous week.... and as always thanks for reading!
Be fast, be strong, and carry on!