Sparrows Experiment

Congratulations are in order for gutting out the 26.2. That is a long way to go. Also, congrats on starting the MS nutrition program. My longterm goal is to get a doctorate in exercise physiology, but I probably won't be able to start that until all my kids are well into college in about 5 years.

Sounds like your plate is full.

Good luck with your goals.
 
thanks Stingo and G8r. I've missed the conversation.

I'll post here and there.

Its been a little hard with the turn of weather to NOT think about training for something. I've been doing it consistantly for 4 years and its been so fun. I look forward to a few local 5-10Ks and the random sprint tri.

I have posted in the past about joint issues and I decided I should probably take this down time to figure out why its happening. It started with fingers and then the shoulder, ankle...the only joints that have remained neutral have been hip and knee. My dr ran a blood panel and xrays. the diagnosis is good ol' arthritis. I was embarrassed. ha! I guess i never knew anyone at any age could develop it. Anyway, I am on a 30 day "anti inflamatory" diet in order to see what things trigger more pain. I've been doing the Paleo Diet way of eating and I love it. It was hard at the beginning to let go of snacking on some things and to avoid all grains. but its getting better. This is day 9. I have found a lot more energy, my sleep is regulated (thats a big deal) and my joints feel like they have pillows around them! After a month I can add back some of the potential "offenders" one by one like: soy, coffee, artificial sweeteners (I use stevia so it may be fine), and gluten. I'm a little grossed out at the amount of fruits , veggies and "healthy" fats I now eat, but its becoming the new "normal"
 
Congrats on the marathon. It sounds like you trained correctly, mother nature won the battle, that's all - I hate when that happens!

I, too, am likely to have arthritis in a few years after 4 knee surgeries resulting in no cartilege in my right knee, elbow surgery and shoulder surgery. So my saving grace is glucosamine chondroitin. Especially in cold or wet weather when my knee acts up. Maybe that would help with some of the pain in your joints... osteo biflex contains those two ingredients.

Keep up the training as is and it'll play out good for you.
 
thanks tc...wow 4 surgeries is a lot! I do osteo biflex now and I notice improvement with it, as opposed to without it. good stuff. I don't expect my body to fully cooperate with me as I age. I have put it through quite a bit! I'll do my best to prolong its use though!

Last night I went to a track workout with my old running group. I had the time, I missed them and it worked out. I haven't done any sprint workouts since mid year last year so I was a bit nervous at the inevitable pain! It was SO FUN (even though there was inevitable pain!). I did 2 mi warm up 3x1200, 3x400, 3x200, 1 mile cool down. the 1200s are hard for me because I tend to not pace well on the track. I just go full tilt boogie. its what gets me in trouble at races too. Coach wanted me to hold 1:45's (way conservative) and I held 1:33's pretty consistently:4:37, 4:39, 4:40, then 400s: 1:30, 1:29, 1:29, 200's: 44, 42, 42. I felt like I was going to hurl some of the time :)
 
Yeah, 4 surgeries... it sucks. I'm 37 now and I have been told by my doctor that if I continue with my competitions and running hard that I may end up with bone degeneration. I told her I will do one more in 2011 in New York. That's going to be the biggest comp. they will probably have as it will be in New York for the 10yr anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. So I'm training for it now. I'm really feeling my age once in a while after hard speed work that I do now.

For not doing speed work in a long time the rest you took has paid off and those are very good times. I am able to keep my pace on a track by setting my timer on my watch for 1/4 mile times... such as I'll have it go off every 1:25, or faster, etc., and I can judge my pace during each lap. Your intervals were dead nuts on, so that's good. I hope to keep my pace in the mid 5's by this summer.

Keep going. The pain and hurling you experience just makes you younger in the long run. It's what keeps me going, anyways! Pain is your friend... kinda.

Keep posting. I'll keep in touch with ya over time when I get back to my swim training.
 
Its been fun to get sort of caught up on some of the "oldies" and more of the "newbies" on this forum! I'm impressed at the progress!

Things are great here. Lots going on in my life and training has taken the back seat I knew it would, but I'm still proving strong. It does seem that my "less is more" approach is working just fine. I think I'm only getting away with that because of the base I have from so many years of it all.

I haven't done much this year as far as races go! everytime I want to something gets in the way. In march I took over someone's bib for a half mary on the river. I hadn't been doing long runs and at that time I was about 2 months into my new diet (doing the primal eating). I went into it with very little glycogen stores due to how I eat now. My breakfast was even eggs, and coffee with cream. I nailed it at 1:34:37. I felt amazing the whole time. Who needs carbs :)

Since then I have been to see my dr to do some follow up blood work on whatever is going on. I still get the achy joints when I go back into grains. The way I've been eating is a higher fat, grain elimination diet and while its working for me physically on a day to day, my blood work showed VERY high cholesterol at 272. I have high cholesterol by genetics anyway, but this diet has increased it. My HDL was at 121 so that was off the charts but LDL wasn't too favorable. I asked for a VAP test and I'm still waiting for the results. It freaked me out though so I sort of went off the diet and fell back into my old low fat way-joint problems or not. I feel pretty miserable eating this way so I need to figure something out.

A friend broke his collar bone from a fall on his bike 2 weeks ago so i will take over his sprint tri next weekend. My speed has been awesome so I'm confident it will be okay even though I really have hardly biked or swam lately.

Anyway, thats bout it. I've missed this place and glad to see everyone doing well!
 
Hi Sparrow - very long time no see!

Glad to see you're still hammering it - 1:34 for a half marathon is exceptional by my and most mortals' standards.

Good luck in your triathlon next weekend. It will be the same weekend as my sprint (Tri-Shark).

Sorry to hear about the cholesterol numbers, but take solace that they are not the whole story. There are lots of people out there with high numbers and no plaque issues (which is the only issue) and, conversely, lots of people with low numbers who, unknowingly, do have plaque buildup.
 
Got those VAP test results back and I'm a little worried about it all:

Total chol: 297 (OMG)
HDL 125
LDL 158
Trigl 43
..and then there are a bunch of subclasses to each of the HDL and LDL. Only encouraging thing I got out of it all is that my LDL particles are "fluffy" (type A...like me haha) as opposed to "dense" and thats apparently a "good" thing. I'm kinda freaked out of my mind right now. I don't want to go on any medication for this. I've heard such horrible things about statins. I got some books on herbal medicine from the library and I'll discuss other options in 2 weeks with my dr.

Today I decided to attend tri class and I didn't feel challenged but I did go for a 45 mi ride yesterday so I was okay with the lower key workout

Core: planks, sit ups, v-sits, obliques and bender ball stuff

Swim: 300 warm up, 4x50 sighting drills, 12x50@:45 hold 35-40, 4x50 recovery drills, 12x50@:40 hold 30-35, cool down

Bike: 40 min interval training

weights: this and that for about 20 min

Morning workouts started for the swim team so my kids swim very early now and I am one of their coaches. I'm in charge of each age group's dry land training. It was a blast and I got some workout from that before the other stuff. A lot of abs, lunges and a bit of running.
 
I will try!

Today I had to really suck it up to do my workout. After being at the pool coaching the little kids in the morning I don't feel like doing anything but going back to bed! Its hard to not just pass up the gym and head home! Did just a fast 3 miles on the tread. After a 5 min warm up I alternated sprinting at 5:45 pace and jogging at 9 min pace. Did that combo for th 3 miles. My knee was buggin me a bit today. I had twisted it funny doing plyos on the grass during dryland for the kids so I didn't push the mileage. I then did abotu 15 min on the eliptical and a few weights before calling it good.

I have a raging headache I can't get rid of today. I even took a nap and it didn't go away! Think I'll turn in early-its probably just a little sleep deprivation and some dehydration.
 
took the morning off working out. These early work mornings are kicking my butt. I went out to coffee with my man instead. I've learned most recently french press increases LDL but auto drip doesn't. Who knew. lol. These are things I thought i'd never have to care about! I'm sure there will be more interesting cholesterol lowering facts to come :)

I am going swimming as my workout this afternoon. here is the plan:

300 warm
12x50 by 50's breathe every 2,3,4,5,6,7,7,6,5,4,3,2 @1:00
pyramid:
50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 300, 250, 200,150, 100, 50@ :10 rest each swim
4x50 k/s choice cool

Just a boring endurance set. I haven't been in the water much at all for about a year. today's swim is just me validating I still can and won't drown at the tri on sat.
 
Great swim yesterday, felt awesome.

Did nothing today and I'm good with that. Tomorrow's sprint tri should be very fun. I always love the first one because there are so many newbies and there's a lot of excitement in the air!

Maybe I should write some goals for the heck of it. Last year I did this race in 1:27 and some change. I really don't think I can get much faster than that. I tried to break it down and it would be a miracle. here are some goals as I break up the race

Swim: last year: 13 min. This is around a 1:25 average. I could go faster than that in open water, but I'm not confident of how much I'll have for the other stuff since i haven't been swimming very much. I'm good with this time being 13-14 minutes. Lets say 14.

T1: Has a hill to charge up and a large transition area. I'm using a wetsuit cause the lake is in the 60's so strip from that and hop into shorts and shoes...I'm thinking 2 minutes.

Bike: Conservative ride would be around 20mph because its hilly which would put me at about 47-48 but I'm shooting for 45

T2: simple change from bike to trail shoes. Say 1:30

Run: If all goes well this is where things will come together. I've done more running than anything this year which is a change from years past. I think I can hold sub 8 but I'm going to give this up to 25 minutes because its on a rocky loose dirt trail.

Crap thats still 1:27:30. ha! ah well, it'll be fun whatever it is.
 
SUCH a great race! I totally forgot my watch at home! So I didn't get splits which I'm kicking myself for now cause it was such an amazing race for me.

Nutshell:

Swim was harder than it should have been. I felt suffocated in my wetsuit. My stroke got smooth about half way and then I started picking off people. I came in 2nd in my age group.

T1: super fast. Everything went very smooth. I had a good spot in transition

Bike was AMAZING. For not being on my bike this was the strongest I have EVER been. I was going 22-24 the entire way. I dipped to 20's on hills. My average was 22.1

T2: another super fast. I had the transitions down today

Run was good once i got going, which took about a mile. I had to chill and calm myself down so I didn't go out too fast. I was huffing it up pretty good for a mile and then I finally felt recovered and went hard. I took water TWICE on the run and I completely stopped to down each one. It was a hot morning.
Finish: I sprinted in he last 1/4 mile and dry heaved in the nearest garbage over the line! thats the mark of a good race! My time was 1:24:20!! I got second in my age group and 3rd woman overall
 
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sparrow said:
SUCH a great race! I totally forgot my watch at home! So I didn't get splits which I'm kicking myself for now cause it was such an amazing race for me.

Nutshell:

Swim was harder than it should have been. I felt suffocated in my wetsuit. My stroke got smooth about half way and then I started picking off people. I came in 2nd in my age group.

T1: super fast. Everything went very smooth. I had a good spot in transition

Bike was AMAZING. For not being on my bike this was the strongest I have EVER been. I was going 22-24 the entire way. I dipped to 20's on hills. My average was 22.1

T2: another super fast. I had the transitions down today

Run was good once i got going, which took about a mile. I had to chill and calm myself down so I didn't go out too fast. I was huffing it up pretty good for a mile and then I finally felt recovered and went hard. I took water TWICE on the run and I completely stopped to down each one. It was a hot morning.
Finish: I sprinted in he last 1/4 mile and dry heaved in the nearest garbage over the line! thats the mark of a good race! My time was 1:24:20!! I got second in my age group and 3rd woman overall
Click to expand...

Sweet! Way to give it your all!
 
Doing great. Feeling wonderful. Changed up diet again due to the high cholesterol (I did post about that right? I'm too lazy to look) so its kinda ridiculous how much I"ve made friends with oatbran and other "heart hearlthy" food. I'm dealing. I'm also taking niacin which (thank god) doesn't give me any side effects. I'm trying this my way until my next blood work.

Anyway, workouts are great. I'm still doing quite a bit of speed in running, very little biking and maintaining the swim. Biking always seems to be fine as long as I'm running enough fast stuff.

I'm going to try out a 5K for a 4th of July run tomorrow. My son is going to run the kids race too. it'll be fun. I'm really hoping for a PR.

Hitting the time of year when I need to consider or ditch the idea of marathon training. I'm dying to TRAIN for something, but not sure I'll have the time...I guess I can still ponder this a little more....
 
I read your post today and I'm sorry things are so stressy. You have been a real inspiration on this site and have helped so many. I hope whatever you are up against right now will work itself out and you will find ways to destress in the midst of trial. I have really been there.
 
Its been really fun to get caught up on some oldies and newbies journals. You all rock and I'm proud to see everyone plugging along reaching their goals!

Things are well. Lots has gone on since I posted last. My summer in a nutshell:

2 sprint triathlons-placed 2nd in one, placed first overall female the other! Pr'd by 4 minutes from last year without "formally" training for it!

ran one 5K placed first in my age group-but not a PR

Hiked Half Dome on my bday! Had the most amazing time with an amazing friend. It was the best birthday of my life. We did it in 7 hours round trip with nearly 2 hours at the top. definitely going to be an annual trip.

Riding a century this weekend-even tho I haven't been on my bike since July! lol

Had an AMAZING summer of running until the planar fasciitis got the best of me and I yeilded to the cortisne shot! I have 2 weeks left of no running.....I think I can.....it agony not running

Retested the cholesterol after 4 months and it dropped 70 points! LDL dropped 45 of those! ALL ON NIACIN! Cause I ditched the oat bran pretty quickly after it started getting HOT! I'm now "in range" for all numbers! Should get even better after I add back the oat bran.

Life is as setted as its gonna be for a while. I've learned to live in the chaos! The century will be my last big thing for the year-next year I'm hitting the training hard and going to do the half iron again, and a marathon or two. I can't wait.
 
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