I was pleased with this shot. It’s a wonderful representation of Mount Gothic just outside of Crested Butte, Colorado.
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Photo by Grant Pendleton
9 Lessons from Today’s Ride
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In the day to day life of a triathlete, each training session offers its own set of unique lessons and learning opportunities. Here’s a quick list of the ones I picked up on today.
- No matter how early that you get your first caffeine boost of the day, it wont actually kick in until you’ve already secured your jersey, flat kit, and other gear over your bib shorts.
- If it’s been awhile since your last ride, then you will spend the first fifteen minutes of this ride paying your back taxes.
- Small chain-ring is your friend.
- Big chain-ring will punish you for spending too much time with small chain-ring.
- Tail winds rock!
- Horses are not impressed by your hill climbing efforts.
- Head winds are free watts!
- If you’re riding a bike, then you obviously know every obscure road between Buena Vista and Crested Butte. (Thanks, random van guy)
- Some drivers give you 7 feet, some drivers give you seven inches.
Stay safe out there everybody. Happy training!
I took the Nikon along on a recent trip to Albuquerque. Here are some of my favorite shots!
Hooray, rocks!
I just realized that I really hadn’t spent much time in NM in the last 10 years. It was an odd moment of reflection to be sure. I may have grown up in this state, but I really don’t associate it with home and hearth. It’s funny how that works out sometimes.
Race Schedule: 2013
I haven’t made any resolutions for 2013 other than to keep on being awesome, but I have taken some steps to keep me on track and make this year and this race season a worthwhile one. My goals this year in the world of triathlon are as follows:
- Compete in at least four triathlon events over the summer. Three of these will be Olympic Distance Events.
- Focus on improving my running and getting my open 5k time back under 20 minutes and my open 10k time under 40 minutes.
- Maintain consistency and discipline with my nutrition and training.
- Train smart and remain injury free.
I’ve already registered for several events and I am excited to have these races as focal point for my training. I’ll mostly be sticking to Colorado races this season. The following races are the ones I’ve picked out for this year.
I’m starting the season with my first ever off-road event. Without Limits is a great company that always puts on excellent events! Lory is an Xterra race consisting of a half mile swim, a 12.2 mile mountain bike course, and a 8k trail run. I’m excited to play on my mountain bike in a competitive setting and test myself on an off road run! I am upping my time in the saddle and working on my agility in order to properly prepare for this particular challenge.
The Trek demands sacrifice!
Again, I’m super excited! This event will kick-start my season on June 1st. Hope to see some of you out there!
I’ll be following up Lory with a course that I’ve completed a few times before. Boulder Peak is an Olympic distance event that would be fairly standard were it not for the solid climb up Old Stage road near the start of the bike course. I’ve had some solid times on this particular course and I picked it as a mid season benchmark. It should be a pretty solid day!
The Good ol’ Days?
This event is run by yourcausesports.org and offers each competitor the opportunity to race for the benefit of a charity of their choice. Roughly half of the entry fees are donated to each athlete’s chosen cause. It’s a great event that gives us all a chance to give something back to the community and would recommend it to anyone out there looking for another race to add to their schedule. I’ll be running for The Nature Conservancy. There are dozens of foundations to choose from, so get yourself out to this event for a good time and to support one of many worthy causes.
Nature! Preserve it!
I’ll be revisiting my only race from last year as a fun end to the season. I will be striving for an improved run time and to have as much fun as I did last year. Should be a blast!
I need another pint glass!
I’m excited for this year. I feel that my training and nutrition plans are solid and that I should be able to reach my goals as long as I stay disciplined and consistent. Good luck to everyone racing this season!
A Daily Jump Start
As requested by a good friend of mine. I’m going to begin sharing some ways that I keep my nutrition both plant based and protein sufficient. I know that a lot of people that have had trouble balancing the nutritional needs of an athlete with vegetarianism and have experienced some sort of burn out associated with protein deficiencies or plant based proteins. I went through this myself the first time that I attempted to make the jump to vegetarianism. This time around, I’ve found that their are actually far more ways to get the protein that you need than just beans and peanut butter. Here’s a simple way to get a jump on your daily protein requirements that is really time and money efficient.
Chocolate Banana Shake
This is down and dirty and exists in many permutations. Grab five medium sized bananas, two cups of your favorite brand of chocolate almond milk, a serving of wheat grass powder, (I use Amazing Grass) and a serving of your favorite plant based protein powder. (Plant Fusion and Sun Warrior work well for me)
Does your counter look like this? Good. Now toss it all into a blender and hit the button!
After a minute or so of blending, you should have a nice tasty smoothie that looks a bit like this.
Righto!
You’ve just created a concoction which should take a big bit out of your protein needs for the day because it breaks down as follows:
- 5 medium bananas. Each banana should contain 2g of protein for a total of 10g.
- Two cups of almond milk contains 2g of protein.
- One serving of wheat grass is another 2g of protein.
- One serving of Plant Fusion contains 21g of protein.
- All of this adds up to a whopping 35g of plant based protein!
Weighing about 69 kilos, I put down one gram of protein for every two kilos of body weight with just this shake alone! With my other meals, I’ll take in more than enough protein to maintain my weight and even have some left over to build up more lean mass. Five minutes of my time takes care of a vital part of my daily nutritional requirements.
I’ll try to add some more meals next time, but this is a great way to get started. Feel free to throw in berries, nut butters, or whatever else floats your boat!
Enjoy!
Plant Based Fitness: 90 Days and Counting
I’ve always sought out new challenges. I transitioned from being a pure mid-distance runner to a triathlete at university and kept pushing myself throughout my time there. A marathon here, a couple of Half-Ironmans there. I was training six days a week and figured that I was in the best shape that I could be. I figured my plateau in fitness was my limit and my constant sense of fatigued was the inevitable result of my rigorous training schedule.
I had never looked at my diet in a critical way and figured that loading up on carbohydrates and recovering with animal based protein was sufficient to meet the demands I was placing on my body. My weight was dependably at a slim 152 lbs, so the thought that it played a major role in my performance never entered my mind.
Graduate School ended up being the start of an extended hiatus from triathlon and endurance sports in general. I picked up boxing and weight training and continued with my animal protein dominated diet. By the time I was back in the States, I was packing between 165-170 lbs. I wasn’t feeling bad. I just wasn’t feeling great.
Back in August, something changed. After a couple months of contemplation, I decided to take on a new sort of challenge. Tired of fluctuating energy patterns, I committed to a plant based diet.
The first week was fairly simple. I ordered my massaman with tofu rather than chicken and went from there. The results were unbelievable. By cutting out meat and upping my grain and vegetable intake, I soon found myself filled with bountiful, consistent energy. My body leaned out and I dropped a bit of weight. I gave up on eggs sometime in the second week and had switched over to almond milk by the end of the month.
I’m three months into this lifestyle change and back into my triathlon training. I raced my first triathlon in two years back in September and hit a time that I would have been happy with back in the peak of my training and I intend to keep moving forward in that department. I’m back down to a lean 150 lbs., and I’m finally in a position to build myself up in a cleaner, healthier way.
The most surprising thing about this change for me is how easy it actually was. I haven’t felt “tempted” to jump back into animal products. The hardest part has been avoiding the trace amounts of dairy that seemed to be in everything, but I was already used to that aspect of ingredient awareness due to my corn allergy. (Again, something that seems to be in everything these days.)
Planted based nutrition works for me. While I have other reasons for deciding to challenge myself to give up animal products, the primary, definitive reason is that it works! I will continue with this approach to nutrition as I train for my next event and hopefully for many years to come.
Another race, another awesome pint glass!
Oktoberfest Sprint Triathlon, 23 September 2012
Eyelids fluttering open, I quickly realized that something was amiss.
What time is it?
Blinking furiously as I glance at the stunning illumination of my phone, I wondered if I was simply experiencing yet another premature exodus from my solace of slumber. However, as the numbers on the screen melded into more recognizable shapes, I realized that the opposite was true.
“Babe, we gotta get going.”
Colleen roused herself from her slumber and we set to the tasks at hand.
To say that I had taken a hiatus from triathlon would be a vast understatement. My last race had been at Loveland’s Peak to Peak race back in June of 2010. I had gone from three seasons of 15-20 hour training weeks to weeks of hardly any consistent training. It was partly burn out, but the biggest factor probably involved the fact that I had moved across the world to pursue a Master’s Degree. Now here I was, two years later, out of practice and barely fighting off self-doubt.
Moving quickly, I slipped into my racing kit. The blue and red of D3 Multisport was novel, but the rest of me routine followed one of the cardinal rules of triathlon. “Nothing new on race day.” My transition bag had been packed the night before, and contained within everything I needed to swim, cycle, and run. Pre-race nutrition consisted of two bananas and two cups of chocolate almond milk. More than enough for a sprint distance race.
Gathering up our gear, we loaded up the vehicle and began our drive to Union Reservoir.
What am I doing?
I had raced in a score of triathlons since I got into the sport back in 2005, but I hadn’t felt this nervous in years.
Pulling into the parking lot, I mentioned my doubts to Colleen. Not one to mince words, she quickly told me I was, in fact, being ridiculous. Fortified, I picked up my race packet and headed into the transition area.
For the uninitiated, the transition area is the place in which we “transition” from swimming to cycling and from cycling to running. At best, it’s a place for organized chaos, at worst, it’s simply good old fashioned anarchy.
I found a spot on the racks and meticulously set up my kit as I always do. Towel on the ground, running flats on the towel, visor on the running flats, helmet on the visor, sunglasses in the helmet. My cycling shoes were already clipped in the pedals and prepped for a flying mount. Setting up came back to me like I had never left. Satisfied with my prep work, I snatched up my wetsuit and headed out of transition to warm up.
Adrenaline.
Warmed up and squeezed into a wetsuit, I tried to slow my breathing and center myself.
“Racers! Please make your way to the beach. 10 minutes!”
The race directors voice cut through the autumn morning air and through the subdued murmuring of the racers. Colleen gave me a quick hug and sent me on my way.
“Kick some butt!”
A quick swim and some announcements later, I found my self standing waist deep in Union Reservoir alongside the rest of the first wave. There were some handshakes and well wishes, then silence. Tension building as we tightened ourselves up taunt as bowstrings.
Here we go.
Air horn blasts faded out as we slipped beneath the waves. Hands and feet flash in a flurry of strokes. Pea green hues blur together with the baby blue flashes of the September sky.
Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Spot.
The swim proved to be the maelstrom of bodies and waves that it always is. Tenaciously chasing orange buoys, I eventually find myself running back up the beach towards transition. Spewing lake water and shaking the dizzies out of my brain, I peel off my second skin and fasten my aero-helmet into place. Running out of transition, I slide onto my bike and slip my bare feet into my shoes as I pedal onto the first stretch of the course.
Shoes strapped. Power meter on. Find your cadence. Gear up. Go Go Go.
A lapped course full of turns. Technical skills tested. Other than the smell of leaves and the calls of “on your right”, I am completely unaware of anything not related to the road or the race. I pass and am passed. A few swallows of water to keep me going. Humming drive trains lull me into the perfect rhythm. I make my final lap and turn back towards transition. The last miles a blur in my mind. Slipping out of my bike shoes, I dismount and run barefoot into transition. Pebbles and pavement bit at my soles, but garner no notice from me. The bike is racked and my helmet is traded for a visor. Running flats fly onto my feet and then I am running again.
Breathe.
Cheering fades behind us as we run down a dirt road. Yellowed fields fade by on my right as I fall into my pace. All I hear is the soft crunching of dirt and gravel beneath my feet. Kilometers fade away as the burning in my legs radiates throughout my muscles.
Push it.
The finish line pops up in the distance. I focus and leave it all out on the field. My energy is depleted the moment I cross the gate.
I had estimated my time would be somewhere around 1:20 before the race. As I crossed the line, the clock read 1:20:58. Overall, not a bad result. I felt great, and I’m excited to get back into the wonderful world of triathlon. Thanks to Without Limits for putting on yet another great event, and thanks to Dave S. at D3 Multisport for working with me to get me back into shape.
Ramblings 