Are you improving? Check the numbers.

This requires a heart rate monitor and a treadmill or other easily replicated output.

Create a series of intervals which you are capable of replicating. Such as:

Treadmill
3 minutes 4.5 mph
3 minutes 5mph
3 minutes 5.5 mph
3 minutes 6 mph
1 minute Stopped or active recovery.

Don't stop until test is over.
At the end of each stage. note your HR at that moment, or if your watch does laps, you might be able to get averages for each stage. Add all of these together and you have a total score which you compare to as you go along. It's suggested that you try to lead into this test similarly each time (after a rest day for example). Performed at the same of day... for the sake of "control".

Obviously, your score should decrease as your aerobic fitness improves.

Spreadsheet

Updated the Spreadsheet to include February. It is a new sheet. You have to click on the tab in the lower left hand to get back to the January sheet. Let me know if you need or want something on it.

Up top is me starting my run portion of my tri last summer. I figured I would share, of course I'm not sharing any swimming pictures, I don't like to see those.

Running Stuff

So yesterday I was surfin around at running technique web sites. I came across this one that said that anything under 6mph isn't running. It's jogging and that walking would be healthier for you if you didn't intend to push yourself to go faster.

Well, as negative as that statement was I did come away with something from it.
I feel that until I'm up over 5.5mph I really can't try to match the running technique I'm seeing online. It's just difficult to do at slower speeds for me. I'm certainly not saying when I'm running faster I've got the technique down, but it feels more like it for sure.
In fact over that last 4 months I've found there has always been certain speeds which just didn't work right. They moved as I progressed. I'm guessing this is normal.

The other thing I found which I though was interesting was the running barefoot training. They say if you are outdoors on a nice lawn and run barefoot you will naturally run with good technique. (Guess I'll have to wait a few months for that, Jason maybe by July you can try this).

Kinetic Energy

Hold the horses on the t-shirt "E=MV". I have made a mistake. The formula for kinetic Energy is as stated above.

The concept is similar, but the effect is not as great. I know I am shattering your world here, but you need to know the truth. Craig finishes a 5K race in 25 minutes flat (v=12km/hr) . I weigh for ease sake 100kg (m). I put out 7,200 kilojoules. The 110 lb (50kg) pound girl finishing with the same time as me, thus same velocity only puts out 3600 kilojoules. Based on my previous error, we would say she has to go 24km/hr to equal my joule output. Based on formula above, she actually only has to go 16.97 km/hr, which is only 29% faster than me (which equates to 17 minute 45 second 5K time). I have not been to a race so far that a girl/women has run this time, but I have seen guys do sub 16 minute.

Let's compare Shawn and Craig. The total distance of a Mooseman is approx. 56 km. Let's say Craig somehow does a time of 3 hours. This equates to a "v" of 18.66 km/hr. My weight, at race time, 200lbs (m=90.9kg). Kinetic Energy would be 15,825 kilojoules. So, for Craig and Shawn to "tie", Shawn, 250lbs (m=113.63kg), he would have to travel avg. speed 16.76 km/hr. Thus he would have to do a 3 hour 21 minute Mooseman. Which is only 11.66 % slower than Craig.

Huh, I have no idea if I did this right or got the labels right, but it appears Shawn and I are going to have to Crank It up a notch to hang with the little weaklings.

Running Technique:

To see an example of good running technique. Notice that he is NOT landing on his heels or his toes. His foot is flat at footstrike.

Click here to watch Video

You can use your arrow keys to frame by frame the playback.

Having no experience running I was curious what Proper technique was. Sadly I'm not sure I'm able to determine if I'm even close to this. Might be interesting to video tape running on the treadmill to compare.


More Techinique

Drills

More Drills

You Tube Even Has Stuff

More Pose Tech

That should keep you busy!

BMI

I have checked my BMI before and have been called grossly obese, so I thought I'd check today at Craig's suggested website. It just said I was obese. At least I got rid of the gross part. But these calculations are not acceptable. There is no measurement of your musculature or bone density or anything. It said I would have to weigh 210 just to get into the very top of the normal range. That just ain't gonna happen. I'd have to go on an extremely low calorie diet and wither myself away to get that light. I weighed more than that when I was a freshman in college. If Craig is overweight, I got troubles. Yesterday I thought I should get a shirt that says "Heaviest Finisher" or something like that. Maybe "E=MV."
Anyway, I think I'll stay away from the BMI sites. I'm shooting for more of a Dolph Lundgren in Rocky 4 look. I think he weighed a fair parcel more than 210, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't obese in that movie.

Family Fun Night

Went to Maddy's school last night for a family fun night. It was a fun night that required us to bring our sneakers. They had five 20 minute stations, each station was designed to teach you something about health.

1. Walk off the Pounds - We did a video where we walked in place for 20 minutes with hand weights during about 10 minute of it. We did leg kicks and knee lifts. Kid's had a great time.
2. Dancercize - Place Station (I think Play Station, first time I had ever done it), where you have to hit the arrows on the pad on the floor. We did it to YMCA. I was getting BOOED by the virtual audience more than once.
3. Basketball Drills - Eleanor just picked the ball up and ran with it. Dribbling is not her forte'
4. Why tobacco, soft drink, and sweets are bad for you via a Power Point Presentation. They had some props, most interesting was the egg (still in the shell) soaked in COKE for two days, next to an egg soaked in water for two days. Nasty! I wonder what my small intestine looks like.
5. Height, Weight, Blood Pressure and BMI (Body Mass Index) check station and discussion about such. My BMI was a 28. It said I was overweight. A 30 is obese. 24.5 would get me back into the healthy range. For my 6' 3" frame I would have to weigh 195 lbs. Whoa, check it out, I don't know if I can get there from here. Plus that would take me out of the Clydesdale division. By the way the rest of my family had a BMI between 16.1 and 17.5, all were underweight (18.5-25 normal range).

Check out stuff on BMI. It might make you set a more realistic goal for weight loss. I have to believe that frame size, & muscle mass would have to have an effect on it. The charts they were using were pretty generic.

Here is a generic website to calculate. You just enter your height weight and bam, you found out how overweight you are.

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/

Y M C A

I forgot to mention I went to the Y on Wednesday night around 8PM. I wanted to see how busy the pool was that time of night. (not busy at all).
So we signed up. Now I've got to work that into the schedule. I like swimming, I'm looking forward to it. Let's see if I still say that in a few months.

More Heart Rate Stuff

I'm sure to some of you, this will be mind blowing. As some people can't get their HR up this high ever. I'm still trying to figure all this stuff out so I'm going to talk out loud here on our blog.

OK. So the run I did tonight 6 minutes at 5MPH. HR was 160-170.
Then 15 minutes at 6MPH. HR gets to 181 and sits there the full 15 minutes.
Back to 5MPH. HR goes back to 170.

From the book I'm reading. He talks about "Rating of Perceived Exertion" (RPE). Which he uses to locate your training zones. It's a scale of 1-10 and he describes each step. So you can use this chart to help "weigh" your RPE. I'm going to list the last 3.

8- Very Hard, Labored, Cannot Talk
9- Very Very Hard, Very Labored Breathing
10 Extremely Hard, Gasping for Air.

I feel that at 6mph. I would rate my exertion at 8, as he describes 10 as being Exertion which can only be maintained for a very short time. I am able to run that pace for 15 minutes. So it seems to me I would have to push harder to reach RPE 9 and 10.

Anyhow, I'm probably going to email the author regarding this. I personally feel that it's quite possible that 181 is in fact my Max Heart Rate because of the fact the entire 15 minutes of that 6mph it didn't go higher. Of course the work was constant but I'm thinking of the fact that over time, I'd think it would drift higher.

Anyone have an opinion on whether I could have actually trained myself to be able to run at Max Heart rate for 15 minutes? (I don't intend on pushing harder to see if I can get higher Heart Rates).
I'm starting to reconsider my attempt at a 31 minute run at 6mph next week.
Seriously, I'd like some feedback. I have no problem with just continuing to work out without trying "the 5k race".

Shoulder Update

So I had my follow-up appt with the orthopod today. I was being Mr. Mom and had Riley with me because he had a post-sinus surgery appt immediately following mine just a few miles down the road (a lucky break for me). The results of the MRI/Arthrogram are in, and to the Doc's surprise, it was clean. This is both good and bad. Good in that I won't have to have surgery. Bad in that the exact cause of the discomfort (aside from my being a total woose) is still kind of a question mark. The doc is leaning towards an "impingement" because the x-ray showed I have a "hooked" clavicle. He thinks it was jammed when my mountain bike rode me down the hill.

So now I am going to do the old physical therapy thing for a few weeks. I also was fortunate enough to receive a cortizone shot. Not sure if anyone else has ever had the pleasure, but I have (in my elbow -- last August from same accident), and I LOVE them! As I mentioned above, I had my son with me, so I had to sac up and act like I didn't mind having a 3 inch needle jammed into my shoulder socket. He was pretty impressed with both the size of the needle and the fact that I didn't cry. Mostly he was just glad that the shot wasn't for him this time.

I am really hoping the shot and therapy do the trick. In the meantime, I am going to get back into my full run/bike routine again in the next few weeks. We have a really nice gym at work where I'll do the bike and the neighborhood is ideal for running. Can't wait to get into this thing full swing!

Flexibility

Antonym: See Matt as an example.

Yeah. I'm not very stretchy. I've found I do stretch much better once I'm warmed up. When I'm cold I don't feel like I'm accomplishing much.
Why do I bring this up? Because yesterday was a rest day for me. This AM I wake up and I have an odd pull or something going on behind my left knee. It's not painful. Really it just feels like it needs to be warmed up and stretched out. (I hope that's the case).
Anyhow, I think on my rest days I'm going to walk and stretch at the very least from now on. I've been reading that warming up the muscles helps rid them of the bad stuff faster than cold rest.

Caffeine Free

I am now free of the dastardly drug. I'm not saying it will last, but I am clean for the moment.

Today, I ran outside down a hill because I was a little late to pick up the kid. I would say I was running in the "fast" zone (for me). So this hill was maybe a quarter mile long, and all downhill, which was nice, but as it turned out, I was basically wasted by the time I got to the bottom. I couldn't run any more. I still had a mile more to go. Not only that, but my shins now hurt in a way that they haven't since I started this training (I guess downhills will do that).

It was kind of discouraging, but of course I have barely started training, so I wouldn't expect to be fast for long distances. I just don't want to get winded that quickly. Ah well...I still have 502 days 'til the Moose. Maybe when things pick up, I'll try some kind of wind sprints or something. I would like to boost my ability to process oxygen.

Max Heart Rate

I was talking to Eric the other day and I know he had questions regarding Heart Rate. This book I am reading seems to have a ton of good information in it. It will take some time for me to digest it and make it so that it applies to where I am.

I figured I'd start out with this simple equation for you though.

205.8 - (.685 x age) So 37 years 180bpm for 40 years 178bpm.
He figures this number can be off by as much as 14bpm and also he has found that heart rate "zones" are sport specific. Meaning your swimming zone will be different than your running zone.

Friel included this formula in the book. Though he prefers using his own training system to actually determine not your MAX heart rate but your Lactate Threshold. Which pros use all sorts of equipment which can precisely find this for them. In his book he goes through a process of increasing activity and taking notes along the way. Which after you finish you review and work it out under his guidelines. (I'll go into details about this if you are interested).

To get back to the Max Heart Rate and what most people use as a general guideline, the following link explains it a bit more. Heart Rate Training Zones

I have to say according to that chart and using that formula. Much of my training the last 4 months has been in my 80%-90% zone. Maybe this was wrong to do?! Or is it this chart can't possibly be used in my situation (Mr Couch Potato).
I can tell you that even though my heart rate was often quite high. I never felt that I pushed myself to "burning muscles" or gasping for air. I had no idea what my heart rate was. It wasn't until recently that I started wearing the monitor. Now I've got a million questions and I think this Friel book will have the answers for me.

Well this post has become somewhat of a ramble. My main objective was to give Eric a bit of a basic guideline. I hope to follow this up with some posts regarding "cardiac drift" and "recovery rate". These are two areas I really need to improve and I'm hoping the book will address these issues so I can see how to best improve them.

Hydration

This may be annoying, but as I come across stuff I don't know in these books I'm going to write them here. Maybe it will help everyone else as well.

So one thing I've been noticing about my heart rate is that on my longer runs, my heart rate recovery time is pretty awful. Well I sweat... a ton! I think one run, my pre-run weight to post run weight was 3-4 pounds different.
I'm certain I don't replace enough water while I'm running. The book explains why hydration is so important. Your blood can actually thicken enough to be tougher to pump. Which causes higher BPM and bad recovery times.
Needless to say, I'm now trying to work taking drinks of water at regular intervals.

Two Books and a Decaf Coffee

As you all know I spend a good part of every day on a train. Well there is no fitness car but I do have time to read. I had a gift card from X-mas so I picked up 2 books today.

Your First Triathlon by Joe Friel and
Total Heart Rate Training by Joe Friel

Surfing the Discussion boards online this guy seems well respected. I'll let you know what I think as I go along. Although I'm not sure any advice I pass along will match the Quality of Craig's "Shorts Message".

On another subject, Shawn mentioned to me that he was going to eliminate caffeine from his diet. I only have one coffee in the AM but I'm thinking I need to go decaf as well. I'm sure it will reduce the number of heart palpitations I have. It seems as if it might lower my resting heart rate over time as well.

Shorts Story

Shawn has requested I share this, and hopefully it will help you. I will pass this story on, and not to offend anyone I will refer to it as the "area" (I believe you can figure it out). Most would say with any kind of distance training that some chaffing would occur. So I took some precautions in my training, but I also did not want to get too carried away in spending money on clothing. So, I did buy some nice running shorts, you know the kind, short and silky with the built in brief that treated the "area" petty fairly. Well as I got closer to the triathlon I realized that this style of shorts was not modest to swim in and problematic when biking. I didn't want to wear strictly biking shorts because they have too large a cameo in the crouch area (feels funny when it gets wet). I couldn't find "reasonably" priced tri-shorts. So I found a pair of running shorts that were a little longer, a little heavier on the outside material.

The shorts had a different liner than my other running shorts. I would say it was similar to a pair of swimming trunks. You know the white mesh style, but it had a real a tight mesh. I trained in them. I even did a bike/run session where I biked 10 miles and ran 2.5. No problem. They worked great.

I did my whole triathlon. I felt tired. My muscle hurt. We went home. I had a company picnic to go to in the afternoon, so I took a shower. I usually seem to back into the shower spray, getting my back wet, which I did this time. I then turned around in the shower, the warm water hit the "area", and I hit the ceiling. Man did that burn. When I stopped jumping around I was able to look down for some further inspection. Well sure enough my wonderful shorts had, for lack of a better term, "brush burned" the tip of the "area".

I tenderly worked around it in the shower. Then the true dilemma occurred at the picnic. We go to a Wave Pool. Of course that is what the kids wanted to do, the WHOLE TIME. It was okay as long as water was around my waist. If I had to to get out or the waves were moving up and down, it was burning! I slept with a pair of silk boxer's on for the next two nights (not for romantic reasons).

With every story there is a moral. Don't' be too cheap to buy the clothes you need or think way ahead of time and wait for them to go on sale.

Understand we are now training for a triathlon twice as long as the one I did. Does that mean twice the burn?

What I've learned so far.....

UnderArmor/compression shorts are a necessity. Didn't take many runs to find that out the hard way. Same goes for running shoes.

I think that wearing a headband made me be able to run longer. I'm serious, I think that psychologically, having sweat run into my eyes and dripping off my chin, made me feel like it was too much. Now I'm considering some sort of armbands as well.

During a run, when I start losing interest and want to quit. I change my thoughts to the Run along Newfound lake. It would be the final leg of the tri. Everyone else has already finished so they will be there at the finish line cheering me on. I just have to get there.

If only I could modify that cheering me on thing to apply to my eating habits... tough to visualize that.

Keep up the good work everyone!

Does yardwork count?

So I finally got on the exercize bike for the first time this year. I was riding outside until the first of December. That's really something for NH! I learned that I ABSOLUTELY need a new seat on the exercize bike.
I also hauled a few loads of brush to the dump. The ice storm made a mess of my back yard, fortunately, just branches. I strained my shoulder a bit... note, don't try to look like a stud and carry big logs on your shoulder.
My biggest push in all this will be to get my weight down to something manageable. I'm just shy of 270 now. I'd be really happy if I get to race day at 200. I've done it before. It's good to have a reason to do it.

Blog is getting busy

The blog is really taking off! Which is very fun. I think this is really going to keep us in better contact with each other over the next year or so.

So I was talking with Shawn and he was complaining that he couldn't see when there was a comment to an old post easily. So I've come up with two solutions.

The first is an email based solution which I don't personally like. I get too much email as it is. Please let me know if you think you would like this method and I'll set it up.
Everytime there is something new (post or comment). The site will email you and there will be a link in the email to the new "stuff".

Here is the 2nd method I came up with:

I downloaded the Firefox browser and installed a plugin called Sage. (I googled "Sage RSS" to find it.
Sage is able to track your blog and let you know when there is new
info posted. It puts a Sage leaf in your toolbar. Click on that.
Then you create another bookmark within the Sage Toolbar: "options" Manage Feed List.

http://mooseman08.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Here is the part that I liked about Sage more than using RSS toolbar menus. Comments Tracking!!

if you create a Sage Bookmark that looks like this

http://mooseman08.com/feeds/comments/default

it will notify you of any new comment to you blog regardless of which post it was commented to.

Because both of them look exactly the same on the sidebar. I created a comments folder and a Blog folder to put them into.

So once this is setup. You can click the Scan Feeds icon and it will notify you of new info with a Red Star in the icon. From the main window if you prefer to look at the actual blog instead of the reader. Just click on the title of the post/comment.

There you have it. Simple right?! Ha! Not as bad as it looks. Let me know if you want the email notification and I'll get that setup.

Mooseman Counter

The counter may not be accurate. I don't know the exact date of the 2008 Mooseman. I chose June 7th as a guess. Maybe it's the week before. Let me know what you think. I'll change it to match.
Also I hijacked the code, I haven't checked to see if it's adding up to the right number... work in progress.

OK. It seems to be accurate to the day according to this link.

Saturday June 7th 2008