Triathlons: Barefoot Running

On the search for my mojo, I had been looking to a lot of sources. And one in particular was an unlikely source: Christopher McDougall’s “Born to Run”.

And it got me thinking more about barefoot running.

So I tried it.

At the gym, I normally get on the treadmill for half an hour before my routine. So I kicked off my shoes and hit the “Quick Start” button.

Five minutes in, I had to put my shoes back on. Two points on the soles of my feet started burning. If I had continued, I wouldn’t have been able to walk for the rest of the week.

But I felt the difference.

I’m what they call an “overpronator”. If you look at the soles of your shoes and the heels are worn out in a slant from the outside in, you overpronate. I have wide feet which makes it a natural symptom.

Or is it?

When I got on the treadmill barefoot, however, my feet started reacting differently. The heels made sure never to touch the band surface, leaving me to run on the front part of my foot.

My heels never touched the band. So how can I be an overpronator if naturally and without shoes, the back part of my foot never hits the floor?

I finished the rest of my routine with the soles of my feet burning but it made me think of how much I have to take modern-day marketing with a grain of salt.

Triathlons: Open Water Swim Tips

Recently, I was a little struck by the fact that an athlete who was a Hong Kong police office had died during the swim of the first edition of the New York City Triathlon. What surprised me even more was that it was an Olympic distance. The swim was 1.5 km (or 0.9 miles). According to reports, he was “distressed” towards the end of the swim.

Investigating a little deeper into the phenomena, I discovered that in recent years there have been several deaths. A Seattle man in the Ironman Coeur d’Alene in June 2012. A New York man in the Louisville Ironman in August of 2011. A man from Montana in the Florida Ironman in 2006. They all died of heart related causes.

Now, there is no use crying over spilled milk so I’ve got a couple of tips for all you newbie triathletes.

1. Get yourself to a cardiologist. I am 37, going on 38, and I only found out at 35, after my first 70.3, that I had a congenital heart defect that is not common but not impossible to live with, with proper care. Most of those athletes in the above were in their 40s (the man from Montana was 35).

2. Get in ocean swim practices. Absolutely vital. You need to get used to the taste of the water, which can throw a person off if they are not used to it. If you are swimming long enough or if your skin is sensitive enough, your nasal passages will probably burn. You will have to get used to the waves and probably have to alternate which side you breathe on, depending on the way the waves are coming.

3. SWIM DRILL: Get your swim group together and in the pool get at LEAST 10 people in ONE lane. Start at the deep end of the pool and grab on to the edge with one hand on the wall. On the whistle, make a fast break to the other side of the pool. This will simulate the swim start. You need to practice getting swum over, kicked, elbowed and bruised.

DON’T BE STUPID! AN OPEN WATER SWIM IS NOT AN EASY RUN IN THE PARK! JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN 3000 METERS IN A POOL DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN SWIM EASILY IN THE OCEAN!

Sports: Olympic-Sized Inspiration

I had just sat down to lunch when they switched to the men’s 1500 meter freestyle.

I did a double-take.

The digital World Record line that they use to mark the swim was in the middle of the tv screen.

There was a swimmer at the far left edge of the screen and he was first.

Waitwaitwait...he can’t be first. Is that for real? He has to be a straggler.

But he wasn’t. Sun Yang from China was breaking the world record.

The silver medalist came in 9 seconds afterwards.

I had to study his stroke. Definitely not as many revolutions as his 100 m counterparts. Definitely calmer looking. Definitely three body lengths ahead of the next fastest competitor.

And definitely kicking some Olympic ass.

As he cried upon seeing the dream that every Olympian dreams of seeing “New World Record”, I wondered how many times he had to train through birthdays, holidays, vacations. I wondered how many off-days he had, when he didn’t even want to get out of bed because he fucking didn’t want to.

I wondered how many times he came close to throwing in the towel.

He has probably thought it. But judging by the fact that he had a gold medal and had shaved an already impossible number of seconds off the world record, I don’t think he followed through with it.

Twenty years old. I want to be like him when I grow up.

Triathlons: Hitting the Gym

I had mentioned how I had lost my mojo. In the subsequent days since, I realized that I need exercise and physical activity like I need to breathe. I start bouncing off the walls and can’t sit still. But I don’t feel like training. I know I can do the distance: I just don’t feel like I’m excited enough to do so.

But I need to do something so in order to keep active, I’ve decided to get back into the gym. In this day and age, it has become a lot more important to me than before. I still believe in meeting people in the flesh. With social media, you can make tons of online friends in different parts of the world but I value the action of going up to someone and actually talking to them. Seeing their body language, listening to their goofy laugh, reacting to eye contact. And for me, the gym is a place where you can still do that.

The gym crowd can be broken up into a couple of defined categories.

The Gym Rat: usually men, who spend an abnormal amount of time in the gym (and don’t hold a job there) and work on the upper half of their bodies, complete disregard given to their legs.
The Alpha-Female: women who do a variety of things that seem to or does attract the attention of men in the gym. Whether it’s taking off their shirts to reveal a very toned midriff, wearing very low-cut tops to show cleavage or wearing clothing that have ridiculously non-functional bias-cuts in areas that don’t need them: on the side of the legs, over the cleavage area, etc. or doing suggestive poses or movements that are supposed to be toning exercises but are reminiscent of pole dancing done poorly.

I like watching this all go down because it makes me feel like I’m watching an episode of Wild World of Animals.

I’m friends with a guy who happens to be a police commissioner and feels the need to be packing a gun. He leaves it with the gym receptionist while he works out. I’ve asked him if he could take me to the shooting range with him so that he can teach me to shoot. He still laughs it off but I know he’ll take me to the range one day.

T-Bone is 6’5 and is the only gym rat I know who works out everything evenly. He’s got the biggest guns I’ve seen on anyone and leg presses all four racks stacked and loaded with 45 lbs disks. I like the fact that I look his age even though I’m 11 years his senior.
I think the only ones he sees eye to eye with are birds.

Triathlons: Five Things They Don’t Ever Tell You

With Lance Armstrong and his road to Calvary, the sport of triathlon is in the media spotlight. Triathlons are getting to be more popular because we see buff men and women (and sometimes, celebrities), crowds cheering you on and a happy finish. But there are a lot of things that aren’t spoken of. Lots of stuff that you only find out about when you actually do one. The following are a set of tips for those doing triathlons in hot and humid climates, in particular long distance one:

1. If you do a long triathlon (70.3 or longer), you might need to pee on the way. I’ve only done them in Cancun and there are no port-o-lets on the run nor bike. And if you are ingesting a lot of water, that’s going to have to come out someday. Since you’re bobbing up and down on the run, that may be the moment to watch out.
2. Sweating in dark tri suits will show up in white, jagged sweat lines around the parts that had been sweating, making for potentially embarrassing moments.
3. Once peed-on shoes stink. Forever.
4. Water is your best friend, especially if you are peeing like in #1 or sweating like in #2. Pretend you need to cool off and spray yourself. You’ll avoid the deathly stench of sweat and urine once you dry off and find yourself in the elevator on the way back to your room.
5. Test out your bike for those long rides so that you can avoid chaffing. Or lather yourself with the sport lubricant (personal lubrication would do you no good, especially if it’s water-based) of your choice beforehand. I ran with a woman and she had at one point stopped, sat down in a puddle and started throwing water on herself. When I asked what in tarnation was she doing, she said that her bike seat had chaffed her and when she had peed, it was stinging. She needed the water to wash it off.

Lance Armstrong. The photo itself could be its own post.

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Word to the wise, kids: for a pleasant Ironman experience (as it were), keep these words close to the heart. 

Swimming: The Speedo Hip Rotator Belt

For all my tri and swim buddies, this one is for you.

Just recently, I sat myself down and looked my problems straight in the eye: I can't swim fast. At all.

So I did a video of myself in the pool because  seeing as that I’ve been swimming for four years, I should be going as fast as my companions.

And I’m not.

So I broke down and contacted Kevin Koskella and asked him to look at my video.

Verdict? Aside from my head position, everything else was pretty crap.

Speedo Hip Rotator: Buzz Lightyear, watch out!

One of my problems was that hips were too flat in the water so I decided to correct that and dusted off the Speedo Hip Rotator.

I’m a Gadget Queen. I like tech and tools but to be completely honest, I never knew what I needed the rotator for until that golden moment when I got that assessment of my swim. This belt was probably collecting dust for a good three years.

It’s basically a thick belt with Velcro which you first have to belt on you. Then you pull out the little orange shark fins and stick them on. It’s pretty thick Velcro so I’ve never had them slide or fall off.

Before, when I didn’t know what the rotator was for, I would take it to the pool, look like a very warped version of Buzz Lightyear and try not to hit the orange fins.

Now that I know, I make a very conscious effort to turn my hips while I concentrate on my stroke. It is almost to the point of exaggerating the turn of the hips.

I like pretending I'm a washing machine when I do that, kind of like a swimming version of Glenn Close in that scene from "The Stepford Wives", when she gives "exercise" class and they all daintily move like a washing machine.

Why turning your hips while you swim through with your stroke (think washing machine) is important is because it helps propel you. You cut through the water easier and you’re not fighting. My arms and legs were working a little too hard and weren’t helping me get anywhere fast.

Now to work on the rest of it.

God, I train too much to go this slow, dammit. I DESERVE TO GO FAST!

I'll keep you updated.

Thick-Skinned: Wet Suit Tips

I swim in an outdoor pool which is great in the summers but really crap during the winters. It is Cancun but the water still gets cold enough to be thoroughly uncomfortable. And the wind chill factor is pretty harrowing as well.

So I wear a wet suit in the pool.

There are a couple of tips about wearing a wet suit.

First of all, it's called a "wet suit" for a reason: you're wet inside the suit. There are also "dry suits" (mostly for cave diving and diving in frigid waters) which keep you dry. The difference with wearing one and not is that it keeps you warm. The way a wet suit does that is that the water that gets into your suit and is held close enough to your skin so that it heats quickly. The water inside the suit acts as a buffer and keeps you even more warm inside the suit.

Tip #1: make sure the wet suit fits and is especially flush against your crotch. This is to avoid choking yourself from the pull of the suit around your neck.

Tip 2: if you are planning to do paddle or fin work, bring them to poolside before you hop in. If you get out after swimming for a bit, because of gravity, the water creating a shield of warmth between your body and your suit will rush out and smooth the suit downwards causing it to sit lower on your body. Once that happens, it will be very hard to get back into place and will be very uncomfortable to swim in.

Tip #3: Because it's chlorine, you'll need to soak and rinse the suit thoroughly once you get home. Dry the suit inside out so that the lining dries first.