I can’t do this.
Author: Scott (Page 25 of 80)
These are happening right in the heart of the time in a program when I get a little bored and take my foot off the gas. Luckily, I’m not using a training plan this time around.
I was travelling last week and have a cold this week, but in between I was able to squeeze in a brick over the weekend–two hours on the bike followed by an hour run. Got in a recovery rid the next day too.
Motivation shouldn’t be a problem though. I have a bunch of friends doing Rocketman. Three of them are guys I’ve known for 20 years, all better athletes than me, and are coming into town just to do the 70.3 and hang out for the weekend. Pissing contest in 3,2,1…
Of course, they say they aren’t training, planning to “just finish”.
Right. That’s exactly the kind of guys they are.
Marc Andreessen On The Future Of Enterprise – Long, but bookmarked to finish reading later! Good stuff here!
The Surprisingly Comfortable Mio Alpha Heart Rate Watch Does Away With Those Pesky Chest Straps – HRM straps don't really bother me much. Until I lose them and have to replace them.
Not a Real Runner? – A bunch of crap! Why would you discourage anyone, especially someone using a valid and very successful method.
How Real Runners Train on Treadmills – Some really good stuff here, especially for people who live in areas with only one geographic feature.
The Demographics of Ingress – Very cool. Interesting stats here…especially the drive to Google +.
You’re supposed to do something every day that scares you, right?
Every day from now to May 5, I’m going to scare the crap out of myself by training for the inaugural Rocketman 70.3 with absolutely no training plan. When I feel like I need to train hard, I will. And when I feel like I need to rest, I will. I’m training purely on feel.
The genesis of this was that every plan I’ve looked at (the free ones anyway) have much lower volumes for swim and run than I’m looking to do in training. I want to show up on race day thinking those distances are short. I don’t want to use the plan as an excuse to be lazy, either. I think I have a tendency to do that, sometimes rationalizing it by thinking, “well, that’s what the training plan says to do.”
So I started off the first couple of weeks of training just throwing my own workouts together, and I kind of like it. In fact, I’ve stopped looking for a program.
I also like being able to stir the pot and mix things up. For instance, last night I just Googled “3000 yard swim workout” and used the first one that came up with a little bit of variation. I like not necessarily knowing what’s coming next.
We’ll see how it goes. I wanted to really shake things up from the past year, starting with a different marathon plan in the fall. Having no plan at all is definitely different. But my run and swim volumes are up from last year, and I’m not bored or exhausted yet.
Having some swim coaching has definitely helped the motivation there because the stroke is changing and I know I’ll need a lot more yards than I’ve every done previously to be able to put that on auto-pilot.
I’m still looking for some gold star non-training plan workouts to throw myself as surprises here and there. Suggestions are welcomed!
Chicks who play a Les Paul: +1
Actual Facebook Graph Searches – This is loaded with awsum. FB unlike avalanche in 3,2,1…
Small Expenses Add Up – When you start tracking where every penny goes, it can be a rude awakening. Adding up my Cool Beans budget changed my life. Sorry Howie.
A Recovery Program for Homeschool Split Personality Disorder – Sometimes it's less like Jeckyll and Hyde–more like Gollum and Smeagol. Must educate Precious.
Fear Not The Swim – Some good stuff here. I always dismiss fears of the swim with, "ah…that's the easy part". Probably should point them to stuff like this instead.
Duolingo – One more foreign language resource. I like this one the best of all the ones I've tried so far.
The Predecessor To Google Books, Facebook Graph Search, And Rewind.me–In The Early 1900s – Long read, but very cool
Facebook Graph Search: Noisier And Nosier Than Ever – Now that's what I'm sayin'. Facebook's Graph search is big. But I can't help but think it's a sword without a hilt (gratuitous GOT reference). In related news, I deleted my Instagram account this week. I miss it about this much ||.
Hack Design Teaches Design To Hackers – I really need this. Like 9 years ago.
My favorite thing about coming up with my own timed workouts is that I get to hold all the world records.
There’s a Crossfit workout I really like called “Murph”: For time–run a mile, 100 pullups/200 pushups/300 squats, run a mile.
I did a workout today that’s sort of a modified half-Murph. The exercises are halved, but the run distances are doubled. So it’s run 2 miles, 50 pullups/100 pushups/150 squats, run 2 miles.
The idea, obviously, is to put more focus on running endurance and less on strength. I still think it’s a really good strength workout though because it hits the lats and pecs for swimming, and it burns your thighs up pretty good too, which lets you get a taste of what it feels like to get off the bike and run. Forgot my HRM, but I think this is pretty good practice for controlling pace after T2 and getting the heart rate under control before trying to press a run. That’s something I need lositz work on.
Today’s results
Miles 1-2: 20:19
Pullups/Pushups/Squats: 17:03
Miles 3-4: 21:13
Do I care that he used PEDs and/or blood doped to win the TDF?
Not a bit.
Do I care that he bullied other riders and threatened their careers if they didn’t go along with his program?
Absolutely.
Fan boys, you can say all you want about all the great things the guy has done for cancer research, but it just doesn’t factor in here. Yes, he has used his brand to do a lot of good. I’ll admit that.
But that’s not what he set out to do. That’s not why he doped and bullied. He doped and bullied to be the best cyclist in the world, win the TDF, and get rich doing it.
Green. Get the money. Dolla dolla bill, yo.
Show me a video of him opening up a postmarked letter he mailed to himself back in the early 90s that outlines his plans to start using PEDs and blood doping to build up notoriety so that he could one day stamp out cancer. Show me proof that his true goal from the beginning was to do all of these great things. Show me he started a doping program and threatened other people’s livelihoods with regret, realizing from the beginning that he was doing horrible things, but that the ends would justify the means.
This isn’t just sour grapes over getting my ass whooped by him either.
“Win if you can, lose is you must, but ALWAYS cheat!” ~Ric Flair
I committed to a tri swim clinic every Tuesday night in January. I’m already seeing the benefits, and I may even end up getting some private lessons once this session is over. All kinds of stuff I’m working on, and it almost all lines up with what I wanted to change about my stroke.
I’ve noticed a couple of things I didn’t like about my stroke over the past few years. First of all, I feel like I’ve been relying on my glide way too much and should try to increase my turnover rate. Calling it a “glide” makes it sound like a really smooth stroke. But when you call it a “pause”, which I plan on calling it from now on, it sounds not so good.
The pause is directly related to the other problem I’ve been wanting to correct–the feeling (especially on race day) that my lower body is way too low in the water. I feel like I’m just dragging dead weight around. Well, that’s what happens when you glide…err….pause, unless you are willing to up your kick effort to get your lower body higher. And I don’t want to do that.
When I’ve tried to increase my stroke rate on my own, the heart rate has suffered. Again, that comes back to the pause and what it had me doing mentally. I’ve been consciously focused on really thrusting forward on my entry, but never really focused much on my pull. The result–swimming with my shoulders instead of my pecs and lats. It just doesn’t make sense to use those little muscles to propel myself forward when I could instead use the bigger muscles to pull the water behind me.
So lots of one armed drilling in the near future. Lots of sculling and tricep presses under the water while kicking. Lots of pull ups.
Doesn’t that sound fun?
I plan on having an easier entry, focused question-mark pull, and higher rate by May.
Hopefully ~7 minutes off my 1.2 miles swim too.
How Much Time Does it Take to Finish a Half Ironman 70.3? – Nothing like feeling very average, then reading an article like this and finding out you are very average. #SomethingMustChangeIn2013
10 Questions About Investing In Index Funds – I like the set-it-and-forget-it aspect of index investing. If it's good enough for a rib roast or a whole chicken, it's good enough for me.
We Need A Unified Search AI – People removing 'likes' and other info about themselves on Facebook in 3,2,1…
They won't be rushing over to G+ to tell them about it either.
The Eight Basic Run Types – A nice reference with short descriptions of each type. Easy to digest!
Have you had enough of race t-shirts? Rather have something else (or nothing) instead?
[poll id=”13″]
I guess the benefit of the t-shirt is that it’s more advertising for the race in the future.
Still, I’d like to see some choices available. Things like socks and gu would be way more valuable to me…those are things that really get used up, and they don’t even have to be branded with the race info.
Who am I kidding? I’d take the reduced entry fees every time.
A Runner’s Rules – "You can't plan for great runs. They just happen." Hells to the yeah.
A Parent’s Take on Snapchat – It's actually pretty genius–make people think what they are doing is being wiped away forever. Sell them that story. That's the story they want to hear. Doesn't really matter if it's true or not, right?
Google+ is not a Social Network, but a Social Layer – Will go ahead and say it again, but I think it's a conclusion people are going to have to come to on their own…unfortunately for them.
Google+ Photos Get Pan And Zoom Functionality, Letting You Really Explore High-Res Photos – They're adding stuff at a break neck pace. I know you don't use Google+. I also know you are using it all the time and just don't realize you are.
A great way to get your money’s worth at WDW – the Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich.
Two huge cookies, and two huge scoops of ice cream. Current price (as of 1.10.2013) is $5.29 pre-tax. There’s enough treat there to make three or four people happy–just ask for an extra bowl or two and split up the ice cream. It’s waaay to much for one person, even in our family. Compare that with the $13 or so for us to make everyone happy at Redberry or Marble Slab outside the parks, and this is a pretty good deal. We use it as an end-of-the-day reward for good behavior.
If you’re on the Dining Plan, it only counts as a single snack credit!
The Disney Food Blog has more info on this gem!