Internal Mono(b)log

This is kinda cool: The next release of TrainingPeaks will suggest increasing your threshold (HR or Power) based off trends your uploaded training data.

For uncoached athletes this could really help them to not plateau, for coached athletes (like myself) or people who have access to lab-grade testing equipment, the threshold change suggestion could indicate a time for retesting.

Either way, it’s cool that TrainingPeaks is providing athletes with useful guidance based off their uploaded performance details.

Coming Soon: Threshold Improvement Notifications and More – Posts – TrainingPeaks Blog.

Way to go TrainingPeaks!

I can’t believe it’s been a week since the 50k, it seems like so long ago and just yesterday all at the same time (amazing how the mind distorts time perception).

When I signed up for the 50k, I contemplated the 50mile option, but since it was a trail run with a large amount of climbing and descending, I pulled back and just signed up for the 50k.  When race morning came, I was VERY happy that I did.

The week leading up to the race, the SF bay area was wet. I mean, crazy wet!  Like flash flood wet.  It was so wet, in fact, that on the Friday night before the Saturday 50k race, the course was altered due to anticipated severe weather conditions!  

Another reason I was happy to have opted for the 50k route: the 50 mile route started at 5am!!! We, the 50k runners started at a much more civilized 7am.  

Arriving at the site, it was dark, windy, and raining. There was little shelter to be had and many of us hid in the gear drop trucks waiting for the minutes to tick by.  People, myself included, were a little dubious about why exactly we were doing this, but we were all joking around and I don’t think anyone who was there was going to be the 1st to scrub the run before it started.  Even with reports of 50 mile runners being evac’d because of injuries sustained while running the flooded trail in the dark, we were a resolute bunch (if perhaps a little insane 🙂 )

At 7 we were off.  Initially the trail wasn’t too bad, we were on a big climb, and while it was a little mushy in places and there were a few trail-edge to trail-edge puddles, it wasn’t bad.  It was raining, cool, and hazy to foggy.  At times the visibility was so poor that I couldn’t see other runners 100 feet ahead of me on the trail.  Of course, wearing glasses wasn’t a blessing in this weather and it got me thinking about laser surgery again.  

As the run progressed, the rain fell and many feet churned up the trail.  In places, the trail was in really really poor shape.  I was joking around with people saying it was like trying to run in partly set chocolate pudding, or like trying to run up and down 20% grades in Super Slider Snow Skates.  Remember these?

There were people bombing down these hills without seemingly any regard for personal safety.  If it hadn’t been for the frequency of the rocks jutting out of the mud, I may have joined them, but visions of face planting into a boulder had me slowing and picking my steps more carefully.   Down on these slippery slopes was challenging,  up was… well ridiculous!  More than once I nearly lost shoes in the mud.  A few times, while trying to clamber up one of these Tough Mudder hills I lost traction and slid backwards no less than 20 feet.  Fortunately I was laughing or I think I’d have been crying. 

At around my 40k mark the rain broke and the sun tried to come out.  It was very welcome and psychologically well timed. 

Soon I was running into the finish line, I’d done it, my gps read 48k but given the last minute course reroute I figured it was probably just the best they could do.  

But.

When I got to the finish line there was an aide station and people saying if this was your 1st time here to go back out for another lap.  48k? Another lap?  “Lap of WHAT?” I thought.  But perhaps they’d figured some way to add 2k to get to the 50k.  Crushing to be within 10′ of the finish line and sent back out, but so be it.  My watch was at about 6:15 and I went back out.  

I ran… and ran… and eventually made my way to the previous aide station.  My gps now at nearly 50k I ask the aide station where I’m supposed to turn around… They explain that there was an error and I should have finished.  I laughed.  They were very apologetic but I didn’t care.  I was having fun and after 50k what was another 2!  So I ran back in.  

Approaching the finish line for the 2nd time, I high-5’d all the same people I had maybe 10 minutes prior.  We were all laughing. It was just silly.  I think my “official” finish time is something like 6:30, but I like my 6:15 1st finish better 🙂

The Fnish-Line festival was pretty damped by the weather.  It was very small, and very soggy. That said, the post-race meal was better than almost any other race I’ve ever attended!  There was (omg) salad(!!!), chicken(!!!) and (not that I had any) pasta with sauce, and, if I recall, soup.   There was also finisher beer to be had (again not for me, but it was there!) 

One thing that surprised me was how psychologically challenging the weather made the day:  I knew going into it that it’d be physically challenging and I was prepared for that, but the weather, cold, wet, mud and ground conditions really challenged my mental resolve.  Physically, the day was probably a little easier because of all the forced walking, but mentally I had to dig deep and fight out of a dark place that, to date, I’d never encountered before.

It was definitely a fun day and a good challenge for my first Ultra.  Yea… it won’t be my last 🙂  Too much fun 🙂

Hrm.. Not sure I buy this 100%, but interesting.  Perhaps they’re just not testing the right indicators? Or maybe all the people who believed they benefited through the use of EPO were just operating under placebo effect?!

No evidence of EPO boosting performances, says peer-reviewed journal.

Wouldn’t it suck to be Lance if it were all just placebo!

I’m not a fan of poppin pills and generally avoid them as much as possible.  I figure that if I limit my use to when I’m really wrecked, they’ll have more impact.  If you, however, are a habitual user of Ibuprofen, then take a read of this.

For Athletes, Risks From Ibuprofen Use – NYTimes.com.

You may remember the review that I did of the BK-1 a few months ago.  They’re a bluetooth-based multi-rider communication system that’s pretty sweet.  If you haven’t read my review you should check it out over here.

Anyhow. Cardo is stepping into the “Big Leagues” with a recent announcement.  Check this out:

Read more… »

Yup, yours truly. I made the cut to be a 2013 TrainingPeaks Ambassador.. what does it mean? Well, nothing different really, since I already tell everyone how amazing I think trainingpeaks is, I just keep on with the status quo 🙂 But I do get a little more insight into the scene behind the curtain and I get better informed of upcoming events, webinars, sales, etc. and I’ll do my best to make sure I pass that info on to you.

To start here are a few 🙂

1. All of the TrainingPeaks/Peaksware GPS apps (Walk Tracker Pro, Run Tracker Pro, and Cycle Tracker Pro) are FREE (normally $2.99) in the iTunes store through Monday.  This is almost old news if you’re on twitter because there’s already been a lot of hype there about them.
2. Anyone can upgrade to TrainingPeaks premium for 14 days for FREE using the code: BLKFRI14DAY through Monday.
3. TrainingPeaks has some upcoming webinars. The webinars are usually pretty good and interactive.  Worth trying to get to if you can to have your specific questions answered. They will be posted on the TrainingPeaks YouTube channel afterwards if you can’t make the live webinar.

Enjoy!

This announcement landed in my inbox this morning.  What a great idea.

Create Your Ultimate Health and Fitness Monitoring System with the New ANT+ Product Directory

Heart rate monitors, power meters, speed & cadence sensors, GPS watches and more – Search by brand, activity and compatibility to find the health & fitness devices that work for you

Cochrane, Alberta – (November 15, 2012) – ANT+, the world-leader in health and fitness monitoring technology, unveils the new ANT+ Product Directory. This expansive database matches fitness devices by activity, sensors, brand name and compatibility. Users can now mix & match innovative products and create the ultimate monitoring system to fit their lifestyle. An essential tool for sports, wellness management and home health monitoring, ANT+ connects users to the most accurate, consistent and detailed health and fitness data available. All ANT+ certified and manufacturer verified products can be found in the ANT+ Product Directory, including devices from top global brands such as adidas, Garmin, Timex, CycleOps and more.

ANT+ Product Directory: http://www.thisisant.com/directory/

Which heart rate monitor works with my running watch? Which power meter can I use with my bike computer? These are questions fitness enthusiasts, newbie triathletes and seasoned marathoners are asking every day. Regardless of fitness goals, the new ANT+ Product Directory allows you to create the ultimate monitoring system to fit your needs. You can search by activity, sensor type, brand name and compatibility to generate a list of relevant devices. This allows you to build the best monitoring system for your needs, and knowing that they are part of the certified ANT+ family means they work seamlessly, confidently and accurately, every-time.

“The new ANT+ Product Directory is the Google of health and fitness monitoring devices,” says Rod Morris, Vice President of ANT Wireless. “Products such as heart rate monitors, foot pods, GPS watches, weight scales and speed & cadence sensors from the world’s most trusted brands all connect and communicate using ANT+ technology. With over 60 million ANT+ devices in use today, the ANT+ Directory provides consumers with an extremely simple way to find the device or combination of devices needed to monitor progress and reach personal goals.”

Athletes, fitness enthusiasts and health professionals of all levels can benefit from data monitoring with ANT+. Check out the new ANT+ Product Directory and see which devices will help you meet your health and fitness goals.

About ANT / ANT+ (www.thisisant.com):
ANT+ is the technology that lets your wireless monitoring devices talk to each other.  Leading brands design ANT+ into top products to ensure that consumers get the data they want, when, and where they want it.  And because ANT+ devices are compatible, products can always be upgraded or added to a person’s monitoring system.

ANT is a proven protocol and silicon solution for ultra-low power (ULP) practical wireless networking applications. ANT+ facilitates interoperability between ANT+ Alliance member devices and the collection, automatic transfer and tracking of sensor data. Applicable in sport, fitness, wellness management and home health monitoring, ANT+ (built on the base ANT protocol) defines device profiles that specify data formats, channel parameters and network keys. The ANT+Alliance is an open special interest group of companies who have adopted the ANT+ promise of interoperability. The Alliance ensures standardized communications through optimized brand value and partnerships with other top tier products.

The company behind ANT Wireless is Dynastream Innovations Inc. Dynastream was established in 1998 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Garmin Ltd. in December 2006. Dynastream is based in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada, and is a world innovator in the research and development of inertial and wireless technology. www.dynastream.com

While I was out on my run today a track came on my mp3 player that had lyrics about making wishes.  It got me thinking: “If I were granted any 3 wishes and I knew they’d come true what would they be?”  It’s a common enough question and one that’s had people pondering for years.

The few cliche answers came to mind: super powers, good health, money, etc. and these were all dismissed as cliche pretty quickly.  Then I landed on “win kona”.  Yea I laughed too, don’t worry, it’s ok. 😉  But then I thought about it and backed off that to just “race in Kona”, thinking about that I backed off again to “knowing that I would qualify for Kona”.. again I backed off.    The most I could be happy with was “train strong, not get injured and race as hard I was able”.

My mental process for the step-backs was: knowing that I could do “X” because of the wish, “X” became a given, not a challenge and without the challenge the achievement was hollow.   Qualifying for Kona or just racing to the best of your potential at a given time with a given training base  is a goal to be achieved.  When achieved you can feel pride in that accomplishment.   Having it handed to you, without the challenge,  just makes it meaningless.

I guess that’s why I would never consider doping.  I wonder if those who dope are so blinded by the tinsel of the win that they forget the meaning of it.

I love the things that run through my mind when I’m training 🙂   Train hard my friends.

I reviewed the Wahoo fitness bike kit a few weeks ago.  While I gave it a good review, I really hadn’t yet given it any extensive testing and, to be fair, I was a little overwhelmed by the exhaustive list of software that is available for the Wahoo devices.

Well, since then, I’ve just been using the Wahoo Fitness app: it’s pretty cool!  It shows you more info than you could want: HR info, zones, power info and zones, speed, navigation, cadence.  It’s very configurable so you can see what you want to see, pretty much how you want to see it.  But!  More important to me than ALL this stuff is that is pretty much totally solves one of my BIGGEST peeves with online fitness services: there’s no 1 service that I can update that will subsequently update trainingpeaks, dailymile, strava, etc.  Well.. the Wahoo Fitness app to the rescue!  Record your workout with it and then you can upload that data to multiple services (I have strava, dailymile and trainingpeaks configured, others are available).   It’s not single button upload, but a few clicks per service and still WAY better than manually uploading to multiple services.  AWESOME.

I’m definitely still, in my own personal training and experimentation, only scratching the surface of the depth of functionality available for the Wahoo fitness devices, but I still remain very impressed.

In this blog post we’re looking at the Wahoo Fitness ANT+ Bike Pack with Bike Case and Speed / Cadence Sensor for iPod touch and iPhone.

The kit comes, as you’d expect, with an ANT+ dual speed/cadence sensor to attach to your bike and the Wahoo Fitness iPhone case and handlebar mount.

The ANT+ sensors attach to the bike quickly and easily with supplied zip ties.  Note that there are small zipties in the packaging for the sensor and large zipties for the handlebar mount for the case.  If like me you’re a bit clutsy, you may want to have a few extra zipties around of both sizes, so you can tweak the setup after you’ve done it wrong.  Don’t get me wrong, its super easy to do right – but I was in a hurry, attaching it in a light rain and of course spent more time tinkering with it because I was rushing.  Typical. 🙂

The case is rugged. Seriously!  I’m not sure if it’s water proof but it is certainly very water resistant.  I don’t have the ability (read: budget) to test water proof-ness, but I bet it’d survive a drop in a puddle or a good rain.

With the extra space at the bottom where the Wahoo fitness electronics are located, the whole package is reminiscent of the old Apple Newton (remember those) in size and weight.  Yea, this case is not really meant for dropping the phone in your pocket day-to-day.  The case attaches to the handlebars with a very solid bayonette mount and though the mount is bombproof, installing and removing the case from the mount is very easy and quick.  Definitely a well thought-out design.

I think the biggest “problem” with this product (and really it isn’t a problem at all) is that there is SO much software out there that leverages the hardware combination of the iPhone and Wahoo fitness ANT+ dongle.  There are run apps, cycling apps, mapping apps, social apps.  Literally pages and pages of applications.  You could probably do a year of workouts and only use each app once or twice.  It’s kind of nutty, but it speaks to the power and desirability of this solution. The apps wouldn’t exist if there weren’t users 😉  One of the apps: the actual Wahoo Fitness app (and I’m sure others) will upload your workouts to multiple social/training sites simultaneously for you (dailymile, strava, runkeeper, trainingpeaks, etc. all updated directly from the app with little or no interaction required.  Now that’s cool!)

One app idea that occurred to me, that  surprisingly, doesn’t seem to exist is something like SRMlive: live updates of athlete performance and gps location sent to a web service in real-time so that friends, family and coaches could see how the athlete is performing, where they are, etc.  2 extensions of this idea are: real-time coaching feedback (“I told you to hold back – what are you doing pushing 800w on that segment!”), and a “call for help/panic button” feature where the athlete could pre-configure who to contact and how and the phone could detect sudden and extended stops or, using the accelerometer maybe even crashes, and call for help.  These apps don’t seem to exist, but someone should fix that 😉

Using the Wahoo fitness system is pretty much as simple as it can be.  You pair the ANT+ devices with the software and away you go.  It’s flawless in its’ simplicity.  I did have one small glitch with the solution, but figuring it out it was simple to avoid: if you have multiple apps running that are competing for access to the Wahoo fitness interface, none of them works well.  The, obvious, easy solution, is to make sure that only 1 app is running at a time.  Even better, find your favorite app and delete the others from your phone for bulletproof operation.

I now understand why so many people like or love the Wahoo fitness solutions (either the full case or just the ANT+ adapter).  If you have an iPhone 3 or 4 and you train with ANT+ devices you really should checkout this solution.  If you already have the phone, then you can skip the costs of a specialized watch and just pickup the appropriate sensors for what you’re doing and use the Wahoo hardware and your phone for data capture/reporting.  A pretty elegant solution, esp if you already carry your phone with you for music/emergencies.

One caveat, at the time of this writing, Wahoo Fitness does not have a solution to work with the iPhone 5. If you’re planning the upgrade you may find yourself out in the cold for a bit while Wahoo gets an iPhone5 solution out.