Team McAlister

In my last post I briefly touched upon a slight problem with Fitnio. Specifically, it wouldn’t upload my ride. Well, after that happened on three or four more rides, Fitnio decided it wouldn’t even open at all. It would just crash, every single time I tried to use it. I reinstalled it, restored my phone, and cursed it up and down, but nothing would fix it. Not even the most creative curses I could muster. So you know what, Fitnio? You’re out. You suck and I never liked you much anyway.

I hereby declare Cyclemeter to be The New Hotness. I used it for the first time today, and it… it just… you guys, it is a dream. I won’t devote space here to listing its features, suffice to say that it does everything they say, and it does it well. If you check my Twitter you’ll see that it can tweet when you start and finish your ride. HOW COOL IS THAT?! It even uses less battery power than Fitnio. You hear that, Fitnio? You suck so hard.

The one flaw I saw was that it clocked my first couple of miles at around 79 mph, which isn’t entirely accurate. 7.9 mph would be closer. I’ll give it a pass though, because when I started out it warned me that the GPS signal was weak. Fortunately it allows the user to change any stats it records, so I scrubbed my amazing but untrue top speed from the record.

Oh and by the way, riding’s going well… Missed a couple of weeks because of jury duty, equipment failure, and weather (I will NOT ride in the rain, I don’t care if that makes me a wuss). But today was great, the weather is steadily improving, and I won’t have jury duty again for at least a year. Expect to see some more frequent rides tweeted, thanks Cyclemeter!

Tags: cyclemeter, equipment, fitnio, iphone

I rode to work. I RODE my BIKE to WORK . For some reason, after I used 70% of my iPhone battery to track the ride, Fitnio decided not to record it. But it was right around 45 miles, and took just over three hours. Pretty slow, but I’m happy with it since I haven’t done a real ride (or even been on a bike, really) since the summer. For anyone interested, here’s the link to the route. It says 42.5 miles, but instead of the Foster City route we took a bike path that added about two miles. Aside from being freezing cold until the sun came up, and completely worn out at the end, it was extremely pleasant.

I plan on doing this once a week for a month or two, and then moving up to at least twice weekly.

I am completely exhausted, so that’s all I’m writing.

Tags: bike, cycling, san francisco

Alright, I haven’t had a lot to write about training wise in what… six months? So I’m just going to take a few minutes to fill in our loyal readers on my boring routine and lack of progress.

Actually I have made a little progress, I suppose. I can run a solid five miles in about 45 minutes now, although I don’t that often because it sucks. Have I mentioned before that running sucks? I don’t remember. Anyway, running sucks, you guys. But I am getting better and it sucks less than it ever has before!

I’m making solid headway in the weight-loss department, too. I’m only seven pounds away from my long-term goal of 185. Turns out having a job where you’re on your feet all day, and there’s free coffee, can really slim a guy down.

Guys, Vibram Five Fingers. These are the Best Shoes (capitalization necessary). I run in them, I work in them, I wear them around the apartment and forget I even have shoes on… And my feet feel amazing. My legs are in the best shape of my life and I feel like my balance and agility have increased 100%. My feet never get tired, even after standing for 7+ hours. The only downsides are that I initially got some wicked blisters from running in them, and the smell. Taking them off is like getting punched in the face by a guy whose job it is to give bulls prostate exams, and I’m not someone who usually has a foot odor problem. But it’s worth it.

Yes, it’s been a long time since this thing was updated.  Motivation has been hard to come by.  Too much heat?  Too much work?  Too much humidity?  Too much weight?  Too much junk food?  Too many excuses?  Probably.  The dream is still alive though.  Seeing it may be a little difficult, but it makes appearances from time to time.  I find that getting external sources of inspiration and motivation are much more necessary sometimes than others.

Anyway, I’ve been working on that motivation thing.  Hitting some group rides to find company on the road.  Remembering that sometimes a nice social ride is just the ticket.  Racing around isn’t always necessary.  Getting some good music to help push you along is also good….just gotta be safe with the earbuds and the traffic!  Also, varying the training routine AND (big news) getting back to eating properly for energy during training, recovery from training, and to begin to shake some of this weight.

Just for the record, when I started cycling 3 years ago (and some 9000 miles), I tipped the scales at a svelte 282 lbs (128 k or 21 stone).  Got that down to 229 lbs. and was in pretty good shape – BMI etc – until The Wreck.  Long story short.  The Wreck took me out for long enough that 25 lbs jumped right back on.  Even though I got back into fair riding condition, the weight didn’t come off (poor eating, anyone?) and for good measure I went ahead and added 10 more pounds.  So, now my friendly scales insist on showing me around 264 or so.  Say it ain’t so!

Suffice to say that everything is out of whack at 260 lbs.  Low motivation.  Ill-fitting clothes.  Loss of confidence, hair, teeth, nails.  (Just kidding.)  Seriously, though with that much weight all sense of focus on training and the pain that goes with it are right out the door.  When someone talks about a downward spiral in their behavior, I know exactly what they mean.

It is with a renewed sense of mission that I am taking charge again.  Making a training plan.  Sticking to it.  Making an eating plan. Sticking to it. Taking one step at a time (is this anything like a 12 step program?) on the road to putting together a serious attempt at this triathlon goal.  I figure that for the tri to be achievable, that I must be much, much lighter.  Must have a different body composition.  I don’t think being below 200 lbs is truly practical.  Afterall, that is college track scholarship territory for me.  There was a time in my early 30’s when I did weigh about 205-207, depending on how much ice cream I ate in a week.  I’m thinking that 205-210 is a good place to be, even though it still places me in the clydesdale category.

As of today, I am on Day 2 of a better eating regimen.  More fruits, veggies, lean protein etc.  No choco chips, Oreos, powdered doughnuts, Famous Amos, etc.  More water.  Less coffee.  Fewer bagels.  More oatmeal.  Fewer chips.  More red peppers.  Fewer Cokes.  Ouch!  And the amazing thing?  I swam a half yesterday, cycled for 1.5 hours (with 4 big climbs), and ran for 30 minutes and today I feel great!  I ate correctly yesterday (especially post-workout); importantly, I have eaten correctly today.  Now, I am ready to do some spinning just to loosen up and shake out my legs a little bit.

I’m back!

Tags: cycling, running, swimming, triathlon, weight

is paved with good intentions, I’m sure.  I really meant to make the open water swim yesterday.  But, I was tired and over-worked, the weather was threatening, and the water nasty. So, I skipped it.  And, the weather was bad this morning, so I missed the Tri Training group ride.  BUT, this afternoon I did get in a nice little 20-mile ride in the first stages of a thunderstorm.  Didn’t get struck by lightning (obviously) and barely got sprinkled by the rain…but I was still leg weary from Thursday’s ride.  It was good to get that in though!

Tags: cycling, Weather

Okay, the weather has stunk!  And, the riding has been confined to elliptical rollers.  But, today the rain broke so I jumped out there for one of the usual 40-milers.  Great roll out…about 20 miles in the first hour.  I hadn’t counted on 100% humidity though, so I was totally under prepared.  No food… dumb.  Plain water… double dumb.  Hit the wall on the return and dark caught up with me… had to be sagged in.  Did I mention that I had to fight with my computer?  My usually reliable Garmin appears to be losing its mind and is practically useless recently.

Tomorrow has a 1000 yard open water lake swim available to the CARVE members that I’m thinking about.  I hear the lake is pretty nasty though.  yuck.

Tags: cycling, Weather

It’s finals time, so not a lot of time to train… Just as well, since it’s about as humid as Swamp Thing’s butt-crease right now. I did manage a 3-mile trot today, but not having run for the past week and a half combined with the humidity made it pretty unpleasant. Weather’s supposed to clear up today and be nice into the foreseeable future so hopefully I’ll make time to get out and enjoy it before leaving for Little Rock.

Tags: running, Weather

Last Summer I took part in CARVE’s Summer Crit Series, and I came out of it with a thoroughly cleaned clock. It took me three races just to not get lapped by everyone else. This Summer I’m determined to do at least a little bit better, so today I went out for a little crit-specific practice. I went down to Crissy Field, found an empty parking lot, and spent the better part of an hour working on track starts, figure eights and slaloming. I’ve hardly been on my bike at all this semester, since I can’t ride to class and my exercise time has gone toward running, but I’m definitely in better physical condition than I was this time last year. With some more time in the saddle I should be in pretty good shape, maybe even good enough to keep up with the old, fat, Cat 5 guys.

It’s a fantastically clear day, so after my parking lot drills I rode to the base of the bridge. There’s a new bike path most of the way there, so now instead of worrying about potholes and gravel you can focus on dodging tourists on rental bikes. Something about renting a bike absolutely makes people lose their minds. I honestly feel safer riding downtown during rush hour. Anyway, here are some pics, courtesy of my apparently colorblind iPhone.

Tags: biking, Golden Gate, san francisco

My absence from this site is not indicative of an absence of training.  True, there was a brief interlude due to a combination of bad weather, a bout of nausea, and 5 days in San Francisco (which consisted mostly of overeating and trying to walk it off).  Since returning from SF though, I’ve spent some great time in the saddle.  The principle highlights include a new personal highest speed (58.2 mph …yes it was downhill.), a solid solo ride of 54 miles on a Sunday afternoon, and today’s 64 miler in a group.  There’s not much to add except that when it gets warm enough here to ride comfortably, the wind blows ceaselessly and the pollen is so bad that the cause of death will probably be yellow lung.  I intend to begin the “running” training next week and see if I can manage it without sustaining an injury.

Running is getting easier! Or at least, its suckitude is on the wane. I’m quickly closing in on a sub-7 minute mile. Friday I did four miles in 38:30, with a best mile of 7:03 and an average of 9:50. The new shoes seemed to have been helping, although I never felt like I hit my stride. My feet were doing all sorts of crazy things trying to reconcile my natural gait and the structure of the shoe. I’m new to running, but this just seemed incredibly wrong to me. Then I saw this article: The Painful Truth About Trainers.

I’ve suspected this ever since I began selling running shoes. They’re just not made to complement the foot’s natural shape or motion. How, exactly, did we run away from bears and lions without $100 Nikes? Pretty well, apparently, judging by our survival as a species. Today I left the Sauconies at home and ran in my Mexico 66’s. These have been my go-to sneakers for some time. They’re thin-soled, lightweight, flexible, durable, and stylin’. And they ARE running shoes—They were first made in 1966, and worn in the ‘68 Olympics in Mexico. Hence the name.

Since I was running on basically no cushion at all, I opted for an easy mile on the treadmill just to see how it went. 6.8 mph, no incline, easy-peasy. After a mile I was feeling pretty great, so I thought I’d just round it out to 10 minutes. The 10-minute mark came and went. Here’s a brief rundown of the next several decisions I made: “What the heck, let’s do a mile and a half. Still good… maybe 15 minutes. Ok, let’s just do two miles. Still good… I guess I can walk until I hit 20 minutes. Ok, 20 minutes down, let’s just make this a three-miler.” I didn’t get tired until around 2.8 miles, and managed to keep up my pace until I’d done three miles. 27:40… wait a minute, that’s faster than my average from Friday. Granted, it was a mile shorter, but I think I found my new running shoes.

Even using tendons and muscles that have supposedly been weakened through neglect, I felt almost no pain or discomfort during or afer the run. This, for me, was unheard of until today. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow, but for now I’ll be looking for the receipt for those Sauconies…

Tags: equipment, health, running, shoes

Not much to report on today, just a short run and weight routine at the gym. I can consistently do a mile in 7:13 now, although it results in a heart rate of around 191. According to the chart on the treadmill this is heart-exploding territory and not to be sustained, but when was the last time I let a chart tell me what to do?

A couple of interesting articles for you today! This first article is about how coffee (more precisely, caffeine) lessens the pain associated with working out.

Coffee Lessens the Pain of Exercise

And this one is about how there is an ideal running pace for everyone, at which metabolic efficiency is its highest. For men this pace is, on average, 8.3 miles per hour.

Perfect Running Pace Revealed

These two articles would seem to confirm the validity of my preferred workout method, known as the Drink a Lot of Coffee and Then Run Your Butt Off Method.

I have been listening to a lot of Ratatat as my running music lately. Good, good stuff.

Tags: health, running

Today I did the same run as Sunday, but .06 miles longer and almost three minutes faster. I took 42 seconds off my average mile, and 1:14 off my best mile. Somehow I burned 3 fewer calories. Does this mean I’m in better shape now than I was four days ago? So it would seem.

The new shoes are doing well, but I’m going to have to put my Superfeet in them because today I noticed a definite lack of arch support. I don’t know how I missed that when I tried them on, or on my first run.

Tags: running, shoes

On Tuesday the thunderstorms blew through and the afternoon was pristine – crystal blue spring sky, steady breeze from due west, just a bit of coolness in the air.  Perfect.  I wrapped things at the office and dashed home with visions of a 50+ mile ride on a great route.  I was just about to swing my leg over the bike and roll when it occurred to me that at the end of Sunday’s ride, I hit a large rock with my rear tire. I decided to see if there was  any damage.  What I saw is in the pic!  YIKES!!!  About 300 miles ago, Bill at the bike shop said I had maybe 100 miles left in this tire.  I rode this tire down a 13% grade at 45 mph on Sunday at the end of a hard 36 miler that included another very technical descent that has 2 switch backs!  Not to put too fine a point on it, but I didn’t ride.  Instead, I loaded up and went straight to Chainwheel.  A new set of Continentals, AND a new chain, AND a new cassette.  Oh man!  The chain had about 3500 hard miles on it….and the cassette?  It’s my original from 3 years ago….closing in on 9000 miles.  That bright , shiny new one is an Ultegra 12-28, which is quite a change for me.  We’ll see how it works out.  And, yes I found the chunk that the rock cut into the tire.  :-)

The Ride

Today was my first run on my new running shoes, and MAN does having the right shoes make a difference! I ran (ok, mostly walked) 4.8 miles in 56 minutes. My best mile, I think, was 9:36. I say I think because I used the iPhone app Fitnio to track my run, and I’m not sure exactly what that “9:36 mile” is referring to. Let’s just go with that being my best mile time. The weather is amazing right now, so I’m very glad to have shoes that don’t constrain me to the treadmill.

The shoes are the Saucony Progrid Guide 2. I was pretty set on getting Adidas, since they were my favorites when I sold them, but the Sauconys just fit better. I tried at least one shoe in every brand at Lombardi’s before I made up my mind. Hopefully it was worth the trouble and I’ll be able to run regularly again without fear of injury. Oh, and the best part? My former boss gave me the employee discount. So now I’m sitting on the exercise ball I got with the money I saved!

Tags: equipment, running, shoes, Weather

The weather has been very uncooperative of late, so road work has been tricky.  It two attempts last week to get in one good intervals session and even at that I had computer problems that made me mad.  Today would have been a 50 mile kind of day except for the spitting rain, 40 degree weather and 30 mph wind!  Instead, I ended up at the bike shop where I was able to retrieve my rollers (finally) and check out the Guru Crono and Orbea Ordu Tri bikes.  The Crono is custom-built for the rider and is the choice of one tri world champ.  The Ordu is maybe the sexiest bike anywhere at any price and is the choice of another world champ.

Anyhow, I got home with the rollers and managed to get in a 35 minute session.  It was nice to have them back; I’ve actually missed those stupid things.  Good training music is important when riding rollers in the garage!  Led Zepplin is great for cranking a fine, fast, high cadence.  However, Keb Mo’ is the challenge.  It’s hard to ride a smooth stroke when you’re wanting to juke along with that foot-tapping, thumping blues he turns out.  Hopefully, tomorrow will see some high-quality road miles.

Tags: Guru Crono, Keb Mo', Led Zeppelin, Orbea Urdu, rollers

Forty-six more or less easy miles today on a very social ride.  It wasn’t all BBQ and beer though.  There were 2 very good climbs;  a tough pursuit of a fast rider that had a 100 meter lead; and, 2 5-mile stretches at 20+ mph.  All-in-all a good day in the saddle.  Happy to report no hot foot, no knee pain, no back ache, no crashes or close calls.

I didn’t report on Friday’s interval training.  That may be because it sucked so bad.  I was tired from a bad week at work.  I wasn’t properly fed or watered from a day of loose nutritional living.  I also love to see old friends and acquaintances on the trail, but not when I’m on a tight schedule with a specific purpose in mind and a bad day under my belt.  Of course, I hit a social trifecta Friday evening with an old law school buddy and a couple of current riding partners who were all beginning some light evening pleasure cruising.  I had to get organized and on the clock for speed work though.  Despite all of the distractions, forgotten gear, bike computer mishaps (almost busted the Garmin!  YIKES!), and physical limitations, I rode a set of 12  1-minute x 2-minute recovery bits.  These are 15 seconds of standing sprint with 45 seconds of heart pounding hammering followed by a 2 minute recovery.  I know this is helping my overall ride conditioning.  I can easily tell when on the road for regular rides.

but the self-inflicted pain is similar.  This post covers both Monday’s and Tuesday’s rides.  The Monday ride was a nice little guy.  Covering a bit over 9 miles, I managed it in 29 minutes.  It may not sound too impressive, but there are 9 90 degree turns, 7 of which require a stop and 5 of them lead directly into a climb.  The route also includes a good deal of climbing.  This definitely counted as my interval workout for this week!

The St. Paddy’s Day trip was 42 miles at an 18 mph pace.   I spent 50 minutes with my heart rate in the 90-95% range so I think it was a good workout.

Congratulations to Jett on finishing the Little Rock Marathon and getting the world’s largest marathon finishing medal!

seems to be a shift of 24 hours or so.  I’m perpetually a day behind on updating this site.  In this case, I had a challenging 2 hours on the bike yesterday.  I spent the first hour convinced that my prior training was yielding a result of superior athletic performance.  I was riding uphill into a steady headwind at 20 mph.  Truly, feeling every bit the elite cyclist!  Since I am sticking to a very strict training schedule, the end of one hour signaled the turnaround point.  I took a quick breather and drink, let some fast-moving traffic pass and headed back for what promised to be a scorching downhill return with a lovely tailwind.  As luck would have it, the tailwind was blowing from the opposite direction!  ouch!  The one hour ride home took about 1:15 and wasn’t nearly as easy as it should have been.

I can easily remember,though, when that same 40-ish mile ride took everything I had and hurt me for days afterwards.  I even remember the first time I did that ride and thought I would die while struggling to get back home.  Ah, sweet progress.

So yesterday I decided that a run would be in order.  The knee seems to be sufficiently healed to set out on the training regimen again.  Also, I was in a situation that I thought best to avoid on a bicycle – extremely rare, I know.  I re-started my Hal Higdon program with a 30 minute walk/run.  I must admit that being out there was invigorating, although i really do hate that activity alot.  Against my better judgement, I hit the road before breakfast.  I figured since it was only 30 minutes, no big deal.  It was a nice, warm day even though the wind was kicking up between 23 and 29 mph!  Man, the rest of the day I was starving!  I ate like crazy all day!  It all worked out fine.

Today is the first day of Daylight Saving Time!  YAY!  I managed to get in a little 1 hour ride with some hills.  It was not a high-quality ride.  I was short on sleep, hydration, and proper food, but a bad day on a bike is better than a good day in many other places.  Average HR for the hour was 135.  Knocked out about 1200 calories.  82 degrees!

I totally forgot to post this entry yesterday….oops.  I’m not sure if it was because I was so frozen that the effects shut down my brain or what.  

It was a brisk day down by the river – 42 degrees F with an easterly wind ranging from 12 – 13 mph.  I rode a bit over 13 minutes to warm up, including a climb of just over 1 mile at 9 – 10% grade.  I stood up for probably 2/3 of the climb and it felt pretty good.  Then I did 8 sets of 15 second sprints, 45 seconds of hammering it out, and 2 minutes of recovery.  Even into the wind I managed to get up over 25 mph in the sprints.  Heart rate peaked at 152, but jumped to about 150 on each sprint lap.  This interval business is getting easier even if my legs felt dead and rubbery at the end.  I made an executive decision today to take a recovery day.  Tomorrow is a 2 hour mileage and pace day – looking for 36 to 40 miles on the road.

while you’re making other plans.  If memory serves, and sometimes it doesn’t, John Lennon said that.  No, I’m not gonna fact check it; I’ll just thank you for correcting me politely, if I’m wrong.  Who said it isn’t as important at this moment as the idea that a possible corollary is: life is what happens when you’re not training.  We all have stuff that has to come first.  No platitudes, please, about priorities and always having time to train, or find a way to take care of the important things.  One of the habits of the highly successful is putting first things first.  Even if we’d rather do something else.  Today was an opportunity to get in some intervals – 15 seconds of standing sprint with 45 seconds of sitting and hammering away, then 2 minutes of recovery.  This is a slight variation outlined by Selene Yeager.  I plan to stay on this type of thing 1 to 2 days per week for the 8 weeks or so.

Tags: Intervals

Today was a good day for a little lunch hour ride.  Only 15 miles in 50 minutes, but into a 10 mph headwind in the first half…of course, it turned into quite the nice tailwind on the return trip!  The best result from today was keeping my HR up around 150 for 41 minutes.  Bike riding is harder than  it looks, too.  This winter has been spent learning how to pedal in a smooth, high-cadence with light down pressure and good pull on the backside of the stroke.  It seems as though every time I go out, this element improves.

I decided that my training was in need of some serious heart-pounding, lung- burning time on the bike.  Nothing like some intervals to get your blood pumping.  After a good warm up, I started some 1 minute all-out efforts with 2 minute recoveries in between.  The main lesson from today is that a whole bunch more of this kind of day is needed.  The original intention was to use some type of plan from Chris Carmichael, but poor planning resulted in just going out and pushing myself through a few laps.

Never having been a runner, I’m not all that familiar with the attendant injuries. For the past few weeks I’ve been trying to learn to distinguish between all the different sorts of pain that come with this sport. Sure my legs are going to be sore, my calves feel like they’re on fire about 60% of the time now. My upper leg muscles weren’t used to anything more strenuous than walking up a hill or an occasional bike ride. So there’s a certain amount of just shutting up and getting over it that I have to do. But the past few runs have had me worrying. All the info I can find points to shin splints, but fortunately at this point it’s not bad enough to warrant real recovery time.

I’m pretty sure that it’s my shoes’ fault. I’m running on neutral trail shoes when I definitely need at least a stability shoe, more likely a motion control, in the road variety. Maybe this week I’ll hit a few specialty running stores and get gait analyses and shoe advice. Until I can afford new shoes though, I’ll just have to back off on the running and maybe substitute biking. If it would just stop freaking raining all the time I’d put some miles on the ol’ Cannondale, but until that happens I’ll be on the stationary at the gym (ugh). Now’s as good a time as any to start swimming, I suppose, but I want to swim even less than I want to run.

Tags: equipment, injuries, running, Weather