The tree

It snowed on our plans to go tree hunting out in western Mass today. Now it feels like the holidays! So pretty. This farm was great...they had the funkiest trees. We went somewhat Charlie Brown this year. He's so pathetic, yet perfect. A pretty hilarious contrast to the beast our friends got. :)

Taper Ponder

The Taper.

There is a point to the long (whoah), convoluted, stream of consciousness rambling below. It's that the taper is not one size fits all. If it's not working for you or you find yourself consistently feeling like you're not fresh in a certain, or all, disciplines, try something new. You can use your less important races to test new approaches.

I've been thinking about it lately since my fabulous return to the pool, and I often do as I don't seem to fit in the mold of standard tapering. There's a few things I've learned over the years about myself that started as gut instinct, then was let go to try new ways, only to return to what my instincts told me and proved to be the right way for me. The taper is one of those things.

Tapering is very unique to the individual. Most plans and coaches follow the most widely practiced method of tapering overall load in volume and intensity over the course of days or weeks (length depending on the event you're tapering for), and starting the taper at the same time for each discipline.

Some taper each discipline starting at different points of time beginning with the most strenuous on the body, running, with the least strenuous, swimming, being the last discipline to start the taper.

Others reduce either volume or intensity to a greater relative degree than the other and some do so by cutting out workouts.

Some go through a recovery week before heading into a reduced work week prior to race day.

Every approach or combination of approaches works for someone. What's right for you?

Personally, I've found that I need to maintain the frequency of my workouts, while generally reducing volume only minimally, but I need to cut back a lot on intensity. Some may get "stale" if they cut back too much on intensity, but what informs my needs are both biomechanical (injury prevention - my pelvis actually falls out of alignment if I stop running - go figure) issues, and the fact that anything but just very short sharpeners doesn't allow my cycling and swimming muscles enough time to recover for race day.

Something that instinct has told me is that I need to taper in reverse of the "stressful discipline". I've always felt I've needed more time to recover and freshen up on the bike, with less time to do so on the run. Swimming I felt I needed more time as well, but was always afraid to because of the fear of "losing my feel for the water."

When I think about it, this reverse approach falls parallel to both the intensity at which I was training in each discipline as well as to my history and training age in each discipline. I am newest to swimming, have been cycling for several years (but only training hard for 3), and I have been running to some degree or another for my whole life. My training load according to the plan I was following the last 2 years had very little high intensity work on the run, with a lot on the bike and swim.

When I took 8 days off swimming at the end of the season, I got back in the pool on the first workout back and banged out my fastest paces to date at very little effort in comparison and I felt strong and my form was better than ever. 8 days of zero swimming. I did not lose feel for the water.

Now had this been prior to my elevated training after starting to swim with Craig this spring, I feel that I may not have had the same result. I wasn't conditioned enough and didn't have the proper form/coordination then. And the elevated load in training, meant a new level of development and needed adaptation for my muscles. Prior to this year I was still a "beginner" swimmer and that amount of time off would have caused me to lose fitness and feel.

So in all, there's many factors to consider when trying to determine the right approach to your taper. You can start with what most people use such as (for a 1/2 IM distance race) a 10-14 day reduced training load in volume and intensity with intensity being shorter periods of race pace work and very short intervals of high intensity work to sharpen the system up, wake up the nervous system and prep your body to deal more efficiently with lactic acid. Then adjust from there and look at each discipline separately. You don't need to taper each the same way or for the same amount of time. Consider how long you've been doing each, how hard you've been training each in relation to the other disciplines, how well you recover from high intensity sessions of each, does you body prefer to stay on schedule and maintain frequency or cut out workouts to reduce volume. Maybe you'd do better with a week or 4-5 day recovery block followed by a 7-10 day taper week with elevated intensity and reduced volume. Many options.

As far as training age/experience goes, a beginner would be mostly focused on developing skills and their aerobic system. They would not need too much of a taper. Slightly shortened workouts with a day or two of rest thrown into the mix.

An intermediate athlete who is building on that base is conditioning at a higher level and their muscles have more to adapt to. They are under a greater amount of "new" stress as they are building their muscular endurance and force. They may more likely need a more aggressive taper to fully recover for race day. Using myself as example, this is the case with swimming. I have 3 years of swimming under my belt, but only started building on the endurance and (skills) with "real" intensive training this year. It was a lot to adapt to. Perfectly doable, but it required more rest than previously. And as it turns out, much more than I was giving it before races.

An advanced athlete who has been training hard at a given discipline for a long time is really just fine tuning and rehearsing. They have less room for growth and therefore are growing less. The stress may be great, but their bodies have less adapting to do. They would probably lean towards the moderate/typical taper and could handle keeping intensity elevated higher than the intermediate and beginner athlete.

From what I've seen, any athlete at a point in their training life that is training with high intensity, the discipline that is the athlete's weakness or newest needs the greater taper.

My next trial approach for myself next year will be to taper starting with the swim, then the bike, and then the run, cutting volume in each respectively, but maintaining frequency and significantly reducing intensity for all by 7-10 days out from the event. If I'm cooked by the end of the cycle, I'll take a multi day recovery block and then my taper week, elevating the intensity a little more than I would have without the recovery block.

Consider varying your taper according to your needs by discipline.

Holiday Gift Book List - Running!

I'm a book nerd. And I think the Kindle should be banned. I know, it's not very "green" of me to encourage to cut the trees and pollute the earth with bound stacks of ink and paper. But I don't consider books pollution. The smell and feel of the tangible object is all part of the experience of reading. The holidays are here. If you're looking for a book to give someone (or wish someone would give you), here's some books about running (cuz I'm focused on running right now) that I've read over the years, and have enjoyed, that I think are worth reading whether you're looking for inspiration or insight to training methods. I think they're all available on amazon.com.

If anyone has suggestions for me - fire away!

Lore of Running - by Tom Noakes

Running with the Buffaloes - by Lear

The Perfect Mile - by Neal Bascomb

Ultramarathon Man - by Dean Karnazes

Running Through the Wall - by Neal Jamison

Running with the Legends - by Michael Sandrock

Marathon Woman - by Kathryn Switzer

Paula: My Life So Far - by Paula Radcliffe

Running with Lydiard - Lydiard/Gilmour

More Fire: How to Run the Kenyan Way - by Toby Tanser (I haven't read it yet but it's next on my list and I'm sure it's interesting, inspiring and informative)

Born to Run - by Christopher McDougall

T-day wknd

Thanksgiving started with a 3:30 wake up, followed by a 4 a.m. bike ride on my trainer, a husband who somehow managed to fall back to sleep over the squeaking noise of the trainer so I let him sleep, which put us on the road to my parents' in CT a little later than planned and we got down there around 10 - in time to still catch some of the Macy's Parade on the tube and plow into the fresh made pecan rolls. When we walked in the door (with apple pie, sweet potato casserole and apple/cabbage salad in hand) my uncle and his dog were there from Ohio, and so was my brother. Double take....MY BROTHER!? Crazy kid snuck out here from Denver to surprise everyone. Was so good to see him. :) I didn't even think anything of it when I first saw him sitting there. The only time I see him is at my parents' and I'm rarely there, so it just seemed normal. Was pretty funny.

Well, those who know Matt knows the guy can talk. And talk, and talk... Throw my uncle into the mix and things get a little out of hand. Throw my bro into the mix and it's dizzying verbal chaos. Grandpa was the same way. My sister's a talker too, but thank goodness she's rarely interested in their conversations. So yes...you guessed it. The air got way too thick for me so I laced up the shoes and took off for my T-day run!

I wanted to run the Manchester Road Race which is the town right next to mine, but I didn't run any road races before the seeding cut-off and I wasn't interested in starting way back in the masses. So I ran solo, later. It was Amy Rudolph's last competitive race. She came in 2nd, 1 second back. She's won the thing 5 times.

My parents live at what seems to be the town peak elevation as my return miles are uphill torture. Miller Rd. is no fun...especially when you forget how hilly it is and you go out for a hard run and plan to just throw in 2 easy miles back to the house. Ain't nothing easy about Miller. Ouch. It's always raining on Thanksgiving which makes for such a peaceful run. No one's out, it's just me and the road and the drizzle. I ran by farms and around the town golf course that I've never seen (it used to be tobacco fields!). I haven't run those roads since cross-country in high school. I usually go a different route to other farms, but I was avoiding the attack schnauzers. They probably chase me in return for the times that a friend of mine in 6th grade and I made another of their kind pull us on the skateboard. Sorry doggies. He liked to do it...I swear.

Then it was dinner time. My sister (and her baby in belly!) and her husband showed up and a few of my parents' friends always come over for dinner and they are all big talkers too. 12 people...chaos. They're all really funny though. Then I took a nap. :)

Friday I went for another peaceful run, past the farm with the vicious schnauzers that were not on guard. It was so peaceful that I put on my headphones when I left and didn't realize the entire time that I never turned the music on!! HA! My uncle and I were going to ride, but the winds were seriously crazy...scary, so we didn't get to ride together. Major bummer. Then we all went to the movies to see the the new Christmas Carol in 3D. I'm a sucker for Christmas things. Got A LOT of reading and lounging in. It was nice. I started and have already almost finished "Paula: My Life so Far" - Paula Radcliffe's book. Absolutely love it. I identify with her as a person quite a bit and it's just great to hear her humble, honest perspective. She tells matter-of-factly, yet opens herself up to reveal her strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It's refreshing, comforting and inspiring. Next up is "More Fire: How to Run the Kenyan Way".

Saturday we all spent the day visiting Artist's Open Studios, followed by a lot of reading, farting dog, puking uncle and sniffling brother. It was time to go...

I spent the week building back into my running after the super easy week to refresh. This week starts my next and final block. 11 weeks.

Oh yeah. If you remember the news not too long ago about the psycho that locked his wife in the basement and burned his house down...that was in my parents' neighborhood right up the street. Wacko.

It's Thanksgiving!

It's 4 a.m. Thanksgiving. I love this holiday. It's not all about gifts. It's about time with family and old traditions and new traditions, and taking time out to breath and realize all the things you have to be thankful for in your life that you may otherwise often take for granted.

I am..

Thankful for my husband. I don't know how I got so lucky, but he is the best and after 12.5 years together we only grow closer, stronger and more in love. That's a pretty special thing to have.

Thankful for my family and the values that were instilled in me in my childhood.

Thankful for the genuine people in my life.

Thankful that I have so many interests and talents that my problem has always been trying to focus on just one.

Thankful for all the bad things I’ve been through in my life – they’ve made me who I am today and confident about who I want to be.

Thankful for my legs and my health. Running and cycling is how I experience and relate to life.

Thankful for the 10 years I got to find and devote my passion for architecture to studying and practicing it.

Thankful that my other passion (endurance sports) affords me the opportunity to help others become healthier, more confident and reach meaningful athletic goals they’ve set for themselves, as my job.

Thankful for about a million other things, including the luxury of getting up and riding my bike at 4 a.m. It is a luxury. And I am thankful.

And I hope to be thankful for some restraint with the eating today!

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving means December and this is where I'm at

I got in the water this morning and same thing! Power, form, and speed. It was all there and I felt super! So I decided that while I'm fresh it would be a good time to do a 1k TT. Not for max speed, but for max speed that I can hold form.

150 yds to settle then holding the pace of that 3rd 50 throughout: 13:27. I felt strong throughout and was not struggling to maintain the pace at the end. I wasn't breaking down. I'm happy. I've hit times near that before, but it was at absolute max effort and finishing anaerobic to hit it. This felt so comfortable and smooth and strong.

I don't do a lot of kicking. Well, no kicking except when Craig would have us do 100 or so yards in practice. I started throwing kicking into my solo workouts a couple months ago. I could hardly handle 25 yds without my hips breaking and feeling like I'll never move my legs again when I first started. Worked up to getting in 200 yds, broken up by 25, 50 or 100. I could feel my lower legs and ankles and hips getting stronger and stronger. Since my break from the pool, it's even easier and I'm even stronger. Did 300 yds of kicking today and it didn't wear me as much as up to 200 yds was.

It's benefitted my swimming, in that my kicking seems to just happen more naturally now and my legs are more controlled. It's also benefitted my running by really strengthening my lower legs and ankles. I think it's a big reason why I'm not rolling my ankles anymore. My feet and lower legs don't get tired when running anymore. It's awesome!

I also did a lot of pull over the last couple months. My legs were taking a beating from the intensive running I was doing (and I wanted to save them for my running efforts) so I took advantage and did mostly pulling and worked on my upper body in the water...force and strengthening those lats and stroke technique. I threw the kicking I did into my warm up and for the most part that was all the kicking I was doing except for 400-800 yards warming up with the exception of about 1-1.5k of some sprint and pace sets just once a week. Other high end work was done pulling.

Time to add in the paddles and get back to resistance training for a bit.

Just can't believe how strong and smooth I feel in the water now.

Cycling: I pick up my bike today, shiny with new parts. I think my body likes a break on the bike in Dec. and Jan. Most of my riding for a bit will be easy to mod. aerobic efforts jsut to keep things awake and I'll get back to some single leg pedaling and throw in some 55 rpm/big gear work for a little bit. I had the big debate in my head again about weight room training over the winter, but with the decision to do the run training, that pretty much nixes that regardless. So I'll grind away instead and increase my core strength training a bit.

Running: I hit up those 12 weeks with some lower volume, high intensity stuff on my run trying to get a good boost in my threshold and sub-threshold paces and got it, like I said. 30s/mile. Took about 6 weeks to see the first sign of results and then they came fast and furious after each recovery. I was operating on 9-10 day weeks with some block training. I was risking overtraining but that was the fun of it. I'm a curious creature and I wanted to test my limits and see just where they are and find the optimal method of doing so for me. I know my body pretty darn well. I did good. Got results, progressed it right, balanced the load and rest great and called it at just the right time. 10 weeks was optimal. The other two weeks - I rested a bit before Florida. Now - everything seems to have adapted just fine. Time to start adding some miles and time at race pace then sharpen things up a bit.

Today I'm baking and tomorrow I'm eating! Here's one of the pies I made this year. This one's headed to the boys at the bike shop - the first people I knew in this sport. Thanks Fitwerx. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

All Together Now - On a New Level!!!

Swimming.

You know how they say "it will all come together" and you're thinking "yeah?...when!?"

You keep plugging away doing slow and boring drill after drill in the pool followed by working yourself so hard that all that form and technique goes out the window and you're exerting every last bit of energy to get yourself from end to end way slower than you did at the start of practice and you think your head is going to pop from breathing so hard and your arms are going to fall off and you just always feel like you're flopping around like a fish out of water wondering why the hell you spend all that time on technique if it's not gonna show itself when you need it to? "All come together my ass", you say.

You also know how everyone says that if you stay out of the water for more than a couple days you'll lose your feel for it? Well, that's usually true.

Well today, it "all came together", and I was out of the water for 8 days!!!

I jumped into the pool and started swimming and felt all that technique take over and my body just naturally did it, from the first stroke. Everything was working in unison and it took no brain power!! My stroke tempo was steady and even which it rarely is and I felt like a swimmer for the first time ever. My arms were doing what they are supposed to and I didn't have to even think about it! It was absolutely amazing. Amazing. I couldn't stop. I swam 1000 yds straight because I didn't want the feeling to go away. And I was swimming 1:23's/1:24's and not even pushing myself with lazy slow open turns. I haven't even been able to hit 1:24 at even max effort in months!

That was absolutely amazing. I hope it sticks.

So it's true...it WILL all come together. Might take 8 days of rest to get there and a year of discombobulation, but it'll happen. And as far as losing your feel for the water....I don't know what happened there. I didn't this time. Perhaps just a sign of how psyched I am to get back to training with a fresh start.

Keep drilling. :)

NH Food - who knew!?!?

Matt and I are food snobs and every time we go anywhere that isn't a city, there's NOTHING to eat! It's all Cape Cod quality crap food. We expected the same when we went to NH, but we were completely blown away instead so I have to share where to get good grub that is wholesome and clean and absolutely delicious in taste and presentation!!

BLACKCAP GRILLE in North Conway in the shopping area/Outlets. Expensive ($20 a plate for dinner) but more worth it than anything I've eaten in a long time! The atmosphere is super and cozy too. Chicken skewers with peanut sauce and an Apple & Cabbage sauerkraut in cinnamon and sugar, Chopped Salad with a vinegar dressing..amazing, Pan Seared Scallops - perfect. With brown wild rice with pecans and roasted parsnips and sweet potato to perfection with a little thyme and smidge of brown sugar. Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting for desert. And beer. Absolutely amazing food, service and presentation.

STAIRWAY CAFE for lunch. Little hole in the wall, mom's kitchen kinda place but the food was incredible. Spinach salad with potatos, bacon, sunny side up egg, and roasted sweet potato soup. Cheap. Fun little place in North Conway Village.

The RIVERSIDE INN where we stayed in Intervale. The hosts were super nice, the place was beautiful and right on the river. I could hear the river while I was lying in bed. Fireplace, king bed and spotless room/bath. Very cozy and homy feeling. Only $109 for the night and they served us the most amazing breakfast in the morning! Coffee, smoothie and baked apple, waffles and fresh fruit and choice of bacon or sausage. Incredible. Clean and healthy and home cooked.

I'm simply stunned by the quality of the food we found up there. Wholesome, delicious and prepared with love....it had to have been! If you go...check out those places.

7 day offseason

ants

in

my

pants

Off season. Which for me means only a week to do whatever I want while I let my body recover from the "race" and the hard run training I did leading up to it. Then it's right back at it to keep prepping for my first marathon. Not your typical "off season" and prep period in Dec-Feb. But it's what I want and what's making me hot and horny! Ha! :) A new challenge.

My week included 4 days of running, nothing special. Just running. On different routes and sucking in the fall air. I got the most incredible massage Friday (it's been a long time since I've had to sweat through a massage..ouch) but it did me good. Real good. I stayed away from the pool (for my head) and didn't unpack my bike until Thursday to get on for an hour. Then the weekend. My first non-training weekend in nearly a year.

Our original plans for the weekend got bumped a few weeks so we decided to take off in a different direction and head north to the mountains in NH. It's about time Matt gets some time with me without triathlon being involved. But I have this disease. Some sort of outdoor, active adventure of sorts has to be involved if I'm not training. I need to be moving, strenuously. I need there to be some sort of challenge that gets my adrenaline rushing even just slightly, that puts even just a little fear into me, that makes me think at some point "no way can I do that" and take one step at a time and get through it. You inevitably encounter this at some point along every hike up a mountain. So Matt says "quiet getaway to the mountains" and I'm instantly planning to hike Mt. Washington, hoping for tough weather conditions. It turned out conditions were gentle on the giant and my unbearable itch succumbed to my guilt. The poor guy's been through enough...let him relax. So we had a quiet getaway to the mountains.

It couldn't have been better or more perfect! Time with Matt is always precious...and funny. And the weekend was so refreshing it's left me so anxious to get back into training I can hardly stand it. Fire ants in these pants. I've never been so excited to get into the pool on a Monday morning. My bike gets a bath on Tuesday for a fresh start! I took him to Clearwater dirty and stinky and challenged Matt to find another drive train as dirty as mine. There wasn't even another dirty one, forget dirtier!! Poor thing. He'll be my shining black stallion again soon enough.

Here's some shots from NH to make you go ahhhhhh. :) There's something even more peaceful and beautiful about it late fall when the leaves have all fallen and the snow hasn't yet blanketed everything. It's nature, naked. Raw. Which brought me to thinking about the images people and companies project of themselves. Real or facades. Naked and raw, or masked with a stunning blanket of blinding white snow. Dirty laundry and ghosts that actually make your services better and stronger, or facades of impeccable happy horse shit to falsify the realities. I may perhaps get into it later, as it relates to my own coaching and whether or not to share the personal athletic experiences that aren't all roses that inform and strengthen it, when I'm less relaxed and a little more feisty, but right now it's time for a beer! And football with Matt.

skate skiing!!

They make snow, they're 10 minutes away and it's something new to do that I've been wanting to try for several years. Woohoo! My bro-in-law and I are gonna hit it (and Matty if I can get him away from ProTools and into the cold.) Word is it's a killer full body workout too.

Weston Ski Track