The ‘whim triathlon’ training schedule

One of the problems with deciding to do a triathlon with just four weeks lead time is that I had to start in week 7 of the 10-week training schedule I was ostensibly going to use.

I’d been running about 15 miles a week at that point, and just started experimenting with light weight lifting. The biggest challenge was figuring out if I could swim and switching out of a “riding to Grandma’s house” approach to cycling. (I strapped on a helmet for the first time two days before the race and inadvertently put it on backward, much to my kids’ amusement.)

As it turned out, my sister and I just kind of eyeballed the training schedule a friend had downloaded off the Internet and came up with our own spin-off version, basically whatever best fit our schedule.

It was disconcerting to be doing so little running. I totaled just 31 miles in that four weeks because I knew I sucked at swimming and cycling and needed to emphasize that stuff. Running was often wedged into the week whenever it fit, and often those were the days I was most cramped for time.

The biggest benefit from the training we did, in terms of impact on the triathlon itself, were the “brick” sessions in which we ran immediately after biking, and on one occasion ran after both swimming and biking. It was invaluable to experience that weird thigh tightness and to discover that it was possible to push through it.

But the really amazing thing is how much stronger my core and arms feel now, in what’s really been a fairly short amount of time. That’s enough to make me want to keep swimming whether or not I sign up for a triathlon anytime soon. (I even find myself actually wanting to lift weights once in a while, which is a huge change for me.)

I’m still somewhat suspicious of cycling, but that could change if I find a halfway decent (yet inexpensive) bike — one that changed gears when I asked it to. Also, I have to admit it’s been interesting to feel how much stronger my thighs are getting. And Elllie (Interview with a Centurion) tells me that cycling will have a huge effect on running hills, which I can‘t wait to try.

So anyway, here’s what turned out to be my four-week training schedule for the Fox Island Triathlon. All swimming sessions were primarily sidestroke. This isn’t something I’m recommending, mind you; it’s just what I did.

Week 1:
Sun — 2.25 mile run
Mon — 22 pool lengths (sidestroke), with rest breaks
Tues — rest
Wed — 4.3 mile run, 450-meter swim
Thurs — “Brick” session of 10 miles on bike followed by 3-mile run
Fri — 1.25 mile run
Sat — rest

Week 2
Sun — 6 miles on bike
Mon — 500-meter swim
Tues — 4-mile run
Wed — rest
Thurs — 55 minutes swim aerobics
Fri — Brick session of 500-meter swim, 4 mile bike, 2-mile run
Sat — rest

Week 3
Sun — 12-mile bike
Mon — 500-meter swim
Tues — 2.25-mile run
Wed — 5-mile trail run; 500-meter evening swim
Thurs — 30-minute swim session (mixed)
Fri — 10-mile bike
Sat — rest

Week 4
Sun — 2.5-mile run
Mon — Brick session of 12-mile bike, 2-mile run
Tues — 1.3-mile run home from school after delivering van to Rowan; 500 meter evening swim
Wed — 1.25 mile run
Thurs — 500-meter swim
Fri — 13-mile bike
Sat — rest

Totals: 31 miles ran, 67 miles on bike, 500-meter swims or equivalent twice a week
Results: I did the 500-meter lake swim in 18:56, the 20-K bike session in 1:05:45 and the 5K run in 30:15 for a total time of 1:57:58. That was good enough for first in my age group (45-49), but it was also last in my age group, as I was the only woman in that category.

Communicating with your brain

Like a baseball coach using hand signals to communicate with a batter, I sometimes tweak a simple snack — a banana folded like a hot dog into a slice of Healthy Goodness bread — to signal my brain as to what kind of eating strategy I’m planning that day.

If I eat the snack straight up, then it’s business as usual: Lots of fruit and veggies, highly selective on carbs, but basically I can eat what I want and whenever I’m hungry as long as I don’t go over my pre-set number of Weight Watchers points.

But if I eat that same banana and bread slice broken up into two separate snacks — each consisting of half a banana on half a slice of bread — then my brain gets the message that this is a light eating day.

Crazy, right? It’s the exact same food, just “packaged” slightly differently. I record it differently in my food log as well. But this is one way I’ve trained my brain, and it works. Somehow this gets me into the right mindset that I need to carry out my strategy.

Another simple signal: Sprinkling cinnamon in my coffee. Sometimes it’s not even enough to affect the taste. But because I picked up that idea from Tim Ferriss’ book The Four Hour Body, doing that puts me in the mood for dietary data crunching as well as pumping up my confidence for unconventional maneuvers, like ordering something weird in a restaurant.

Sprinkling raw oatmeal flakes on fruit, yogurt or ice cream is so commonplace in my diet now it may have lost any “signal” punch it once had. I just really like the taste and texture. But because this is something I never ate before I started my dietary makeover, it may send an unconscious message to “stay the course.”

I wouldn’t expect that my brain-signal snacks would work for anybody else, but I’d be curious to hear what other people use to get their brain’s attention.

How People Eat: author Ann Staadt

Deciding which of Ann Staadt‘s novels to read first was an easy choice for me: A New Moon for Emily, featuring a character who drives a purple Volkswagen Beetle like I did back in the day, got first dibs.

Ann Staadt

Between her road trips in antique cars and years spent running her own apartment business, Ann — a longtime member of my writers group — has a wealth of material to draw on for creating interesting characters in intriguing locations. In this book, an Indiana librarian reinvents her life after inheriting her grandmother’s house on an island off Nova Scotia.

She also eats a lot of wonderful food without seeming to go overboard. I was curious which of the island’s eligible bachelors Emily would end up with, but what I really wanted to know was how she managed to keep all those yummy baked goods around without being constantly tempted to raid the kitchen.

Q. Food seems to play a huge role in this story. Biddy’s always cooking all this delicious food, plus Emily’s always going out on dinner dates and old-fashioned picnics. Yet Emily seems to have a sense of restraint — of knowing when she’s too full for pie, or to have the waitress box up some of her pasta so she has room for dessert. Do you think she gained weight during her time on the island, or did she stay active and sensible enough to avoid “tight jeans syndrome?”

A. After reading your comments and questions I realized that most of my books are full of eating and food.  In my mind Emily stayed slender but marriage and children can change that.

Q. I assume this story is based on your own travels. Did you and your husband drive one of your interesting old vehicles up to Nova Scotia?

A. We did tour Nova Scotia in our 1914 Fiat.  One of my best memories is eating lobster.  That’s one reason I made so much of Jared’s lobster fishing.  One day we drove along a canal and I looked across and saw this three story, deep rose colored house.  It stayed in my mind and I had to write a story about it.

Q. In my interviews with so-called ‘Normal People’ who don’t struggle much with their weight, I’ve noticed that they often say they really dislike getting overly full.  That seems to apply to Emily; at one point in the story she mentions feeling uncomfortably full, and at other times she strives to avoid that sensation. Does that pertain to you as well? Does it bug you to get too full?

A. After I’ve eaten too much I do feel too full and regret overeating, but that doesn’t keep me from doing it again.  It’s so easy to eat mindlessly and then realize what you’ve done.  My weakness is potatoes, baked, boiled and mashed.

Yesterday (Saturday) was the last day of a three-day old car tour in Bardstown, Ky.  I’ve been thinking of you and your accomplishment.  I ate a sensible breakfast of fat-free cottage cheese with blue berries in the motor home.  We had a coffee stop in a marvelous bakery.  While most of the others ate huge cinnamon rolls, I passed and felt good about myself.  However we had a closing dinner at Colonel Saunders restaurant.  I lost any advantage I’d gained.  We started home later and stopped at a Cracker Barrel for a “light supper”.  I ordered a baked potato and a salad.  The salad came with fried chicken on top, which I didn’t want.  But the employees assured me it was a much cheaper deal.  You can’t win.

Q. You told me a while back that you lost 15 pounds when you had surgery a few years ago, and that you’ve managed to keep if off since then. How did you keep the pounds from creeping back on?

A. In 2003 I had quadruple by-pass surgery and totally lost my appetite for 4 or 5 weeks.  Simply couldn’t eat.  Hence the loss of 15 pounds.  Once my appetite came back weeks later, I tried to eat less and kept off the pounds.  In 2010 I had a knee replacement and dropped another 5 pounds.  The pain meds made me nauseated and again I couldn’t eat.  However, we spent 5 weeks in Florida this winter and I ate too many Greek salads, you know the ones with a big scoop of potato salad underneath.

Q. I’m curious who the Biddy character is based on.

A. I tried hard to think where Biddy came from and it’s a puzzle.  No one in our families is like her.  Finally I connected her with Lindy, a man who worked for me when I was in the apartment business.  He was a live-in custodian and very interested in food and cooking.  I also used him as a character in Billy Dawn Rides the Range.

Q. The characters in this story seem to have rather old-fashioned diets.  Homestyle food predominates, and the central characters tend to keep desserts or cookies on hand for company. If I were Emily, I’d have a hard time staying out of Biddy’s brownie stash. Any tips on how Emily manages to live peacefully under the same roof with uneaten dessert?

A. It’s noticeable that many young women are slender but child bearing and life style take over.  As life gets more stressful eating provides comfort.  It’s so easy to go into middle age enjoying richer food.  Often an increase in one’s financial situation changes things.  You can afford to eat out more.

For me it was going to work at my newly acquired apartment business.  I was used to having a lunch of one piece of toast with a slice of tomato and cheese melted on top.  I worked six days a week at the apartments and would trot down the street to McDonald’s and Arby’s for lunch.  Richard also started a business and we often met for supper at a restaurant.  During this time my thyroid went haywire and then burnt out leaving me with very low thyroid.  I hoped that taking medication would make me lose weight but it didn’t.  I felt better, though.

Emily saved her desert times for when Jared stopped by in the evening. I think Emily is simply young and not so hungry.  I worked a summer in an ice cream parlor when I was 15.  I got sick of ice cream and it was years before I wanted to eat it again.  (Now I like it).  As a child I didn’t have much interest in desserts.  Mother served meat, potatoes, salad and vegetables.  We had fruit for dessert.  Maybe she’d bake a pie for Sunday, but not always.  Occasionally there were cookies on hand, but I didn’t crave them.

Q. In all your travels, is there a particular meal at a particular restaurant that really stands out?

A. I love Mexican food and there’s a place in Tucson called Micaya’s.  They have great cheese enchiladas.

Q. While I’m at it, let’s ask the Death Row meal question: What would you order if you knew if was your last meal in this lifetime?

A. For a last meal I’d order rare prime rib, mashed potatoes and a slab of “Fruits of the forest Pie” from Gordon’s foods.

Q. Do you exercise?

A. As an adult I’ve exercised a good bit of the time.  As a stay-at-home mom I worked out with Jack LaLaine on TV.  I’ve always liked to walk and used to hike to a nearby woods.  I’m not into sports but after back surgery in 1973 I started my rehab program by lying on my back and clenching my fists.  I began walking and worked up to going a mile 4 times a day.  I lost about 10 pounds at that time.  After heart surgery I did 9 weeks of rehab and later did the treadmill and stationary bike.  After knee replacement I did 4 weeks of rehab and spent several months swimming in son Dave’s pool.  In recent months I’ve ridden the bike again.

Q. When it comes to monitoring your weight, do you keep an eye on the scale or pay more attention to how your clothes fit?

A. I weigh several times a week so I do know where I am.  Also would notice if clothes were too tight but I do wear looser clothes at this age.

Q. So what book are you working on right now?

A. I just finished a book called Raglafart, about a young woman who owns a book store.  Jennie can’t cook but she has plenty of good meals from her boyfriend’s mother and her mother’s house keeper.  It will go on Kindle as soon as Melissa (a fellow member of our writers group) helps me with a cover.  I think I mentioned Billy Dawn Rides the Range.  It’s just up on Kindle.  It’s full of food and Billie worries about her helper Lindy’s heart problems and makes her meals more heart healthy.

Q. Anything else you’d like to add?

A. You’ve made me realize how much my books are full of food.  In the first one, Lily Brightfeather, the main characters camp out in the woods some. There Lily and Jay enjoy their campfire meals.  You’ve made me much more aware of food and I’m hoping to take more control and make better food choices.  The big problem is to cut back while we travel.

A final thought: it might be fun to write a book with a plump main character and make her weight loss part of the story.  I’ll think about that as soon as I finish writing a memoir.

The try-athlon adventure

I don’t know who this guy is, but he came in way ahead of me. Isn’t this a cool photo Bob took?

I didn’t know what to expect at my first triathlon, but I managed to meet my two primary goals:

1. I didn’t drown.
2. I didn’t come in last.

Coming out of the lake and heading off to find my bike.

Not quite, anyway. My sidestroke proved steady enough to take me 500 meters around Fox Island’s Bowman Lake without faltering, but it was just as slow as I feared. Only three people emerged from the lake after I did, and all three of them eventually blew by me during the 12-mile bike segment.

The last three miles or so I had a sheriff’s deputy motorcycle escort as I furiously pedaled in some unknown yet inefficient gear, the last stragglers disappearing into the distance. By the time I got back to Fox Island, they were completely out of view.

Yeah, I’ve still got to do my run and that guy’s already heading home.

Still, I felt great as I ditched my bike and ran out of the transition area. I’d endured swimming. I’d endured cycling.  For the time being, I was enduring the weird post-cycling thigh tightness that makes your legs feel like concrete posts. But I knew from (a very little bit of) experience that this feeling would pass. And it would pass just as quickly, maybe even more so, if I kept up a steady pace.

I got a little energy boost when I passed Ben finishing his 5K as I was heading out. He gave me a high five and a huge grin and said something I couldn‘t hear but assumed was encouraging.

Ben was a little weirded out by swimming in a lake instead of a pool, but he got over it.

And I was encouraged. I had a feeling not everybody in this race likes to run as much as I do, and I found two such somebodies shortly after I left the park and headed out on Yohne Road. I felt bad about passing them, because people are so supportive of each other in an event like this. Still, this was the only segment in which I don’t feel completely inept, so I wanted to enjoy it, and I did, knowing that we’d only be heading out a mile and a half or so before the turnaround.

It was already getting hot on the pavement, but there was shade on the north side of the road. I turned back into the park, and up ahead saw a genial guy I’d already encountered several times during this event. He was struggling, but not so much that he wasn’t going to finish.

“C’mon,” I said. “You don’t want me to beat you.”

“There’s not a lot I can do about it at this point,” he puffed good-naturedly. We looped around the transition area side by side, then he fell back as we hit the trail heading to the beach.

“Go ahead,” he said. “As long as I make 2 hours, I’ll be happy.”

“You think we might?” I asked. I had no idea of the time. Earlier, as I’d struggled to get more speed out of my bike — my feet were already flying off the pedals, and with no more gears at my disposal, I fantasized about beating the fender with a horse whip — I‘d started to wonder if this race might wind up taking me closer to three hours.

But as the finish-line clock came into view, I saw he was right: It had just ticked past 1:58. I’d finish a bit ahead, but we’d both made our goal.

Here’s the funny thing. You think a triathlon is like the toughest endurance sport on earth, and surely an Ironman is exactly that. But two hours of swimming, biking and running isn’t as hard on your body as two hours of running — especially if you employ a less arduous stroke than the crawl.

And I never would have known that if I hadn’t tried it.

The thing is, I wouldn’t have tried it if it hadn’t been for two people who wound up not being able to participate themselves: My friend Tinea and my sister Traci.

Tinea was the one who whipped up a groundswell of enthusiasm for this event that sucked me in, and who showed up to offer support even after she threw her back out earlier this week.

And Traci dove headfirst into triathlon training with me even though she knew it was unlikely her schedule would permit her to participate.

This race wound up being a great fit for Ben, as a cross country and swim team guy who loves going on long bike rides. I expect he’ll like it even better as he gets older and figures out how to afford an expensive road bike.

It’s more of a stretch for me, especially given my preference for secondhand clothing and gear. (All of my race clothes except my sports bra came from Goodwill, while my bike was a garage sale hand-me-down from my 13-year-old niece.)

But I can already see how this sport can be addictive. Even before we loaded our gear, Ben and I were already comparing notes on how we could improve our performance next time.

Hopefully Tinea and Traci will be able to join in on that one — along with a few other people who might not have realized just how doable a “sprint triathlon” really is.

Colleen gets a shot of me crossing the finish line in just under 2 hours.

Ben’s carb-loading pizza log

The plan was for Ben to make a pizza log for tonight’s “carb-loading” meal before tomorrow’s 7 a.m. triathlon.

But there’s nothing as impatient as a 14-year-old boy, and so he no sooner got home from school Friday than he ordered everyone out of the kitchen so he could get started. He didn’t even want to take time for me to run out for pizza sauce and mozzarella, deciding to make do with leftover spaghetti sauce and the fat free shredded cheddar Collen’s been putting in her omelets.

This was a project in his 8th grade cooking class this week, so the recipe was fresh in his mind:

1 packet of yeast

1 cup warm water

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups of flour, “plus 1/2 cup to put on table to roll it out and stuff”

1 cup cheese

1/2 cup sauce

I left the room for a few minutes, and was surprised to discover when I came back that his pizza roll was already rolled up, ready to “rest” for 90 minutes or so.

Even more surprising: It actually occurs to him that the kitchen now needs cleaned up.

“Colleen!” he barks. “Let’s get this flour mess cleaned up!  I’ll clean the island — you load the dishwasher.”

Boy, this cooking class has worked wonders for this guy. Next thing you know, he’ll start cleaning his room or something.

The only problem: Ben can’t bear to wait the recommended amount of time to let the dough rise. Finally, after about an hour, he pops his pizza log in the oven. Fifteen minutes later (at 425 degrees), he’s ready to saw his log.

The pizza log was just as tasty as you’d expect — and promptly devoured within 15 minutes. So now we’ll have to come up with something else, or have him make another one, for tonight’s carb-loading meal.

Delicious!

Is it possible to gain back 50 pounds in 1 day?

Ben and Colleen eye the selection at Heyerly’s Bakery in Ossian.

“I don’t like eating donuts for breakfast,” Ben announced. “I’d rather have oatmeal.”

This was later in the day, mind you. After our 6 a.m. weigh-in Thursday, he was all in favor of a trip to Heyerly’s Bakery. In fact, as I recall, it was his idea to get a box of donuts rather than just picking out one per person.

But after adjusting to higher caliber fuel these past four months on Wells Weighs In, our momentary return to the typical American diet ultimately proved less than satisfying for just about everybody.

The donuts I’ve learned to make room for have tasted a whole lot better than the two or three I wolfed down yesterday, so fast I barely tasted them. The late lunch at El Camino Real — I met Rowan and the kids there after my last pre-triathlon swim* — was tasty but immense. It was embarrassing to order what sounded like a reasonable choice, chicken fajitas, only to wind up with two huge platters of food for one person. All five of us walked out with at least half our meal in Styrofoam boxes.

Colleen displays her winning team T-shirt design

At the ballpark last night, Colleen wasn’t even tempted by the concession stand offerings.

“I’ve pigged out enough today,” she explained. “I don’t want to end my day with nachos or candy. I’ll just get some bubble gum and wait to eat when we get home.”

According to my unofficial tally, the Fitness Protection Program lost 52.6 pounds, which breaks out to 7.4 for Rowan, 12.0 for Colleen, 15.6 for me and 17.6 for Ben. We’ll see what that works out to percentage-wise and where we land in the final rankings next week.

With the contest over, I suspect we’ll all loosen up a bit. But based on Thursday’s experience, I don’t think any of us want to go back to eating crap on a regular basis.

*At first I was just thrilled to be able to swim 500 meters. Now I feel like I’m getting slower and less confident. But maybe that has something to do with the fact that it was a chilly 44 degrees when we went to weigh in Thursday morning, and I couldn’t help thinking if I was freezing my butt off in shorts and a T-shirt, how horrific it would have been to have plunged into a lake at that temperature. Luckily, the weather forecast says it will only get down to 62 degrees Saturday night, so it should be all of … 64 or so by 7 a.m. Sunday, right? Still, that would be 20 degrees warmer than it was yesterday morning.

‘Spirit week’ devolves as anticipation builds

The mileage reading on Ben’s inaugural bike jaunt with his new speedometer

Twas the day before Wells Weighs In, and all through the house, Fitness Protection Program members were stirring to see if they could rev up their metabolisms as high as a mouse.

Ouch! Sorry about that. Actually Ben and Colleen went to summer swim team practice, I squeezed in a short run, and later in the evening Ben, equipped with a new helmet for Sunday’s triathlon and a speedometer he was willing to do yard work to earn, took off on a 16-mile cycling expedition.

Oh yeah, and Rowan went off to work at Lowe’s after school, as usual.

For someone who’s been so busy we hardly see her around, it was Rowan who won our only real spirit week contest. On pedometer day, she didn’t even strap hers on until just before she went to work at 2 p.m. When she took it off again a little after 7 p.m., she’d surpassed 15,000 steps tooling around the Lowe’s Garden Center and proved to be the easy winner. Her prize: a 6-pack of low fat Yoplait Boston Cream Pie yogurt.

We were also going to have a contest to design a Fitness Protection Program T-shirt, but Colleen was the only entrant, so she won by default. (Also, she had to change her design several times as we attempted to fit it to a computer printout for an iron-on transfer — and then she had to change it yet again, to black & white, to accommodate our dwindling supply of printer ink.)

Her prize was a box of Fiber One 90-calorie brownies. As for her T-shirt design, that will be revealed in tomorrow’s post, after today’s official weigh-in at the Wells County YMCA.

Rowan’s pedometer reading after her 5 hour shift at Lowe’s Garden Center