Internal Mono(b)log

My favorite time to swim is “1st thing in the morning”. On weekdays this usually equates to 6am, on weekends, 8am. At either time, before I swim, I only eat something light and (hopefully) easily digestible to fuel my 4km swim.

I’ve frequently found that mid-way into my swim, I start getting food “repeats” bordering on slight (sorry) regurgitation. Now, if I were a cow, rechewing my breakfast may be pleasant and completely normal, but, well… I’m not and the digestive upset is annoying.

Typically, in the past, my route has been:

1. wake
2. make a cup of instant coffee or mate tea to drink while walking to the Y
3. eat vitamins (multi, b, c, d, e, zinc, magnesium, 369 omegas, etc)
4. eat Cacao Monkey Ginko Energy bar
5. eat banana
6. walk to Y
7. swim

I’ve tried:

• vitamins after swimming
• replace banana with dates

I’m going to try swapping out the energy bar next as, based on (sorry again) the tastes of the reflux from my last swim, I’m starting to think some of the herbal components in the bar is causing my stomach distress.

But it’s made me wonder:

What do other swimmers eat before they swim that’s light and easily digestible but gives them some energy for their morning workouts?

…I’ve put up a “donation can” to try to raise money to buy a triathlon/time-trial bike. Why? Well, simply because these bikes are engineering marvels, but also marvelously expensive.

I really like the Argon-18 E-114. It’s a beautiful bike, has great aerodynamic characteristics and, above all, fits me well.

I’m looking to sell my scuba gear (regs, tanks, suits, rebreather, etc…), some HAM gear (radio, amp, tuner, power meter) to raise money, but I’m not too proud to take donations too.

Donations can be made on the blog, here. All donor’s names will be painted onto the frame of the bike as thanks for their contribution and as a reminder to me of their part in my triathlon adventures and successes.

Thanks in advance for anything you can do!

Cheers,
Rick…

When my swim lap counts started to get into large double digits, I found too much mental effort was being spent trying to keep track of the current count, and not enough was left to focus on technique. I also found that if I got distracted I’d loose count and over/under count laps. Kinda dumb I know, but frustrating too.

My initial solution was to use my Timex Ironman watch – it has a 50 lap memory, but will count over 100 laps (never exhausted it to see where it stops counting). So at the end of each lap, I’d reach over and hit the lap button, spin around and keep swimming. Cumbersome, but it worked.

I recently had the opportunity to pickup a Blue SportCount Combination Lap Counter/Timer. This is a smart little device that sits on your index finger and has a super simple interface that allows you to click-up laps with your thumb and not lose your rhythm or flow.

The SportCount is great! It does exactly what you’d want, it’s so light and well positioned you can’t even really tell it’s there. The lap button provides a nice click response to let you know it’s pressed. I’m generally pretty happy with the blue model, but, in hindsight wish that I’d grabbed the red model. There’s a comparison chart here.

The red provides you with a “pause” function, which when you need to run for a bio break or some other extended stop, doesn’t artificially extend your times.

Definitely worth every penny.

This morning I arrived at the Y for a nice quiet distance and tempo swim. I wanted to do 4km and push my pace and figured that the Y on holiday hours at 8am on Christmas day would be a ghost-town.

I arrived and looked at the pool as I walked by: Heaven! Completely empty, save for the lonely-looking lifeguard. This was going to be amazing. 😉

A few minutes later I was walking out onto the deck of the pool. Swimp3, lap counter, water bottle, swim cap, all ready to go. “What the F#$@!” I think to myself. 3 of 4 lanes are suddenly occupied! Well at least I get a lane to myself to get my hustle going.

About 30 laps into my 110, another person shows up and hops into the “fast” lane (i.e. where myself and 1 other person had been happily splitting the lane), time to swim in circles. Oh my, this is going to be painful.

You see, I’m not a fast swimmer, by any stretch of the imagination. (Today I did 3780m in 85 minutes = .74m/s = not fast.) But I’m significantly faster than an old lady slowly doing breast-strokes or some guy who’s thrashing around in the water, trying to crawl, but his face never hits the water.

I figure “ok, I’ll just slowly (slowly) work on technique”. Long strokes, puppet elbow on recovery, good corkscrew, kicking in the right place, etc… “What the @#$!!” I nearly swam over the other 2 people in the lane (multiple times), but I can’t swim any slower… I’m trying to swim slowly, very slowly, very mindfully, and I just can’t go slower.

Fortunately the other guy gives up after 20 minutes or so and we go back to splitting the lane. Ahh! The lack of frustration is wonderful! 🙂

A few other people come and go during my 85 minutes, but they quickly move over to the slow lane when they realize that I’m going to be lapping them on every other lap.

Then just as I think it’s clear sailing to my 110th lap (around the 105 mark), 3 people show up. 3 _slow_ people show up, hop in the fast lane and bogart the rest of my workout. I just gave up. I had lots of steam left, lots left in my body for doing 5 more, but not the will to fight the frustration of splitting lanes with plodders.

So, I ask, how do you handle plodding people in the fast lane when it’s clear (at least to you and it’s unclear how it isn’t to them), that they really should move over?

FWIW, if the slow lane hadn’t had a lot of people in it, I would have just moved over there and split the lane with whoever was there, but it was even more slammed than my coveted fast lane…

As my swimming training sessions started getting longer and longer, I started to find the silence and wooshing of water, while generally calming, to be somewhat monotonous and, on a bad day, boring or tedious.

Knowing that some smart person out there had likely solved this problem, I started looking for waterproof mp3 players or waterproof headphones and cases for existing players I may have.

My research led me to the Finis Swimp3.1

The Swimp3 is a 1G mp3 player that delivers sound to your auditory nerve via bone conduction through bones in your skull. Compared to many other solutions in the space, the swimp3 is pretty small and streamlined. There is no arm-band or big clunky tube that you hide behind your head. Everything is contained in the 2 pods that attach to your mask-strap. In the air, with all the other sound pollution, they’re virtually inaudible. However, with earplugs in and your face in the water, the sound is surprisingly good. Bass response is, perhaps, a little less than would be desired (I tend to listen to dance music when swimming and some of the driving beat is missing), but still very listenable and enjoyable.

The only negative thing I’d say about the swimp3 is that the user-feedback for commands is a little weak. Different flashes of a single green led imply power-on/off, playing, standby, charging, charged. A multi-colour led or more distinctive flash patterns would help the user ensure that the unit was actually turned off (and not in standby-draining the battery). Some way to check the charge status, other than plugging it in to charge, would also be a great addition.

Generally, I’m pretty happy with my swimp3. I’d definitely buy it again having found nothing better on the market.

It’s unfortunate that triathlon rules prohibit use of mp3 players anytime during the race. I understand why, but since the swimp3 doesn’t plug your ears (and many swimmers swim with earplugs anyhow), it seems like a rule that needs review 😉

So I’ve pretty much set my mind to training for the Milton Triathlon in June 2011. gulp! deep breath.

How’d this happen?

Well I’m glad you asked. I think it all started a year ago, maybe a little before that… but last year I turned 42. You know “42”: the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. I expected it to be a “big year” but of course had no idea what that meant in reality.

In August, Kim and I had started the Dr. Bernstein diet. I had been my heaviest ever at 250lbs, my body was retaliating: my knees hurt, my feet hurt, I had little energy. Life just seemed hard, and so, being me, I decided to try to fix “it”. The Bernstein diet is strict, but I like strict and it seems I have no shortage of self-discipline when I need it. By Dec I’d lost 85lbs, was 20 lbs below where the clinic thought I should be based on my BMI (rant on how useless BMI is suppressed) and they basically told me that there was little more they would do for me in terms of my health and diet, I was on my own, but this was ok by me. I’d learned a lot from the diet about me, how I relate to food, and what foods I do and don’t tolerate well. All good.

In Aug/Sept we sold the car and got bikes – best choice I’ve ever made. You don’t need a car when you live in the Toronto downtown and work a 10 minute walk from home. You just don’t! We have an autoshare and zipcar membership and for the most part, bike or walk everywhere. Massive win!

In December I started rock-climbing again after about a 10 year hiatus. I remember climbing before: I wasn’t very good, but I was also hauling around a LOT of extra weight that I no longer was carrying. Fueled by my weightloss and abundant extra energy, I had a new/renewed hobby. Of course, one thing you don’t want with climbing is extra mass: long and lean wins that race. So, I was motivated to keep my weight lost and work on strength.

At some point in the last year, I started hitting the Y again, 1st to work muscles contrary to climbing (keeping muscular balance helps avoid injury), then adding cardio for improved stamina on climbs and general health, then adding weight training to get stronger for climbing. Then one day it occurs to me that I can’t weight train every day, and swimming is available at the Y and a great whole-body workout… why not?!

A couple of months ago I started swimming lengths at the Y. Day 1: 12 lengths and I was pooped. 12x18m and I was done. Wow! This needs work. A few days later I go, 20 lengths, cool! Nice improvement. Next visit: 40! Holy cow… Well, I’m now swimming 3.25km in about 80 minutes, 3x/week. I could swim more distance and time, but I typically swim 1st thing in the morning and need to get to work!

So here I am.. weights 4x week (1 heavy upper body, 1 heavy lower body, 1 light upper, 1 light lower), swimming 3x week and rock climbing on average 5x week (either bouldering or routes) my weight is hovering around 165 with about 9% body fat and I feel AMAZING!

One day one of the guys at work (Yes James I’m talking about you!) says to me “Hey Rick! You should do a tri!”… I laughed him off, but the seed had been planted on, it seems, very fertile soil.

So now, I’ve basically talked myself into it (and it didn’t take much effort). I’ve set my sights on the Milton tri, which is in June and the 1st Tri in the area for 2011. I’m going to do the longer length that they offer (750m swim, 30km ride and 7.5k run), but I’m going to train for it as though it were an Olympic length (1.5km swim, 40km ride and 10k run). I feel very confident in the swim and ride components and have lots of time to get running again to do the 10k.

Of course, there’s a lot of time and a lot of training between now and June, but I’m excited and looking forward to the challenge.