Rest.

Today is a rest day. I did my taxes. I'd rather train. duh.
Seriously it was a beautiful day. went for a walk this morning with my baby and enjoyed the view of the ocean along with rest of the stay at home....moms.

Rest days are a good chance to focus on really clean nutrition, hydration and flexibility.


Nutrion is a really important aspect of my life. superior nutrition helped my body survive chemotherapy some five years ago. i am sold. my strategy is sticking to whole foods packed with nutrients. has stayed relatively the same, but more animal protein. almost always organic if possible. I plan on describing what I'm eating in good detail in the next couple months as I am very proud of how it looks, tastes and makes me feel. I really enjoy hearing and reading about what other athletes are making as there is a lot to learn. Last night I made lime and salt chicken. I put it on a bed of spinach salad that had sliced apple, raw sunflower seeds, avocado and a lemon olive oil dressing. Baked yam fries on the side. thanks James. Dessert was a small bowl of organic mueslix with nonfat raspberry kefir and rice milk.
solid.

Today, black coffee, bora bora bar. Interphase shake with greensplus, liquid minerals and probiotics. Probiotics are a much forgotten element for a strong immune system. Lunch was spinach salad, homemade chicken minestrone. Bora Bora snack. For dinner homemade spinach chicken lasagne.

I have also had a chance to look into the future training blocks, leading up to Wildflower. Jim has got it worked out to 2 ten day cycles with 4 easier days in between. I am fired up. I am feeling really healthy and strong. One of the reasons why I feel so mentally fresh is that I was sick for almost three weeks in February, almost one whole training cycle. I may have missed out on some fitness gains but it has made me hungry for hard work. This is easy to say now but we'll see next Sunday afternoon.

Tomorrow I have a two hour ride/easy and race number pick-up for Carlsbad 5000. I'll probably combine this with watching a little of California 70.3 just up the road in Oceanside.
Those guys really..really...lucked out with the weather. Santa Ana in March? very rare.

On another note, I am planning some upgrades to the Kalibur. Mostly bearings. Bottom bracket, wheel bearings, and derailleur pulleys, going all ceramic. I'll get this work done at Hi-Tech bikes with my pre-race tune up next week.

Ocean swim

Just got back from the Shores (La Jolla), for another epic ocean swim. There are very few times that I'm unhappy with these swims. It's not that I always feel great about my swimming, but there is just something intangible about the ocean. Maybe it's a primal rush like the Masai might get when returning from a hunt and not getting eaten by a lion. Maybe not.

Today was a little bumpy. It took extra concentration to keep my head down and feet up while driving some oncoming chop. I also worked on spending more time on my right side and not pulling to soon and quick with the left arm. We swam to the quarter mile buoy from the kayak launch. 38 minutes total we figured about 1.5 miles round trip. On the way up, I was just trying to get warmed up and relax, while working on distance per stroke. On the way back I tried to heat up the cadence a little swimming mostly front quadrant, finishing the stroke well in front of the hips. I was trying to really work on feeling the pressure on my forearms and heel of my palm rather than fingertips. I think I normally spend a lot of energy trying to hold every ounce of water in my hand. I still need to find that magic balance of cadence to DPS, but at least I'm gaining more skill and awareness.

I'm stoked to have a small group of guys, Ramon and James who are always up for these workouts. Good swimmers, good attitude and on time. what's better than that?

Trail run

This week has been relatively light training. Jim usually has me training 2x a day, swimming in the morning 4x per week. I notice that training once a day really allows me to focus on each workout and plan some solid recovery. I'm feeling very good right now despite a little soreness in my left foot. Yesterday I had a 60 minute hilly run in zones 1-4. I chose to check out a new training spot in Florida canyon with really varied terrain including a lot of somewhat technical trails. This type of varied terrain is great for strength and forces me to absorb brief anaerobic efforts. I also want to get some race specific training in for Wildflower and XTERRA west. I practiced finding clean lines and relaxing through short downhills to avoid braking. I tried to stay as efficient as possible, focusing on cadence, on long hills while powering through short ones, just to test and build strength. I ran a two x loop course with short and long climbs, running the second loop a little harder. HR was mostly zone 3-4 162 bpm avg. 178 max. One thing I need to work on is running hard through the top of hills, absorbing the intensity of the climb.

I will be tracking my weight through these next 5-6 weeks to get down to a solid race weight.

weight is not a problem for me, but I want to take advantage of any weight savings I can to get through some hilly race courses coming up. The most I weighed this year was 171.

Right now I'm 164 and 6.4% fat. My goal is to race around 157, or lower. Focusing on good solid protein/ healthy carbs and Spinach salad and homemade soups for dinner should do the trick.

Off to swim at the shores with James and Ramon. Beautiful day with a SOSA (sort of santa ana)

brewing. Water conditions should be good.

Off the dime.

This has been something I've been trying to do for about 3 months now. I work in AutoCAD for work and all that time on the computer makes it a bit daunting to actually do something more than cruise the www, after staring at lines on a screen all day. Finally i'll scribble something about what's going on in the final 5 weeks leading up Wildflower Oly the first A race this season. after that it's XTERRA west and San Diego International. I've been spending the past six months really trying to work on technique. I try to make up for lack of experience with concentration on technique. kinisthetic awareness is a daily focus. This has really helped me in all three sports, most dramatically in swimming. Also in running. I'm a relatively slow runner, but I'm going a lot faster and harder than previous years. 2007 1:36:38 half marathon a 12 minute better of my previous PR at Carlsbad Half Marathon. But recently, thanks to my coach, I've learned that mental focus is also an important part of technique. This is my challenge especially later in a race or hard workout. Cycling comes relatively easy for me, at least I see bigger gains for relatively less training, but here again focus on pedal stroke and technique have been the keys for my limited success.

As I sharpen my fitness for the next month or so I want to continue with strengthening the run. I'm running okay off the bike but just not fast or hard enough. I have been getting in a lot of (cold) open water swims this winter training with my boys who are doing California 70.3 in Oceanside. Open water is where it's at as far as I'm concerned. I think it builds strength pulling through salt water and staying balanced in choppy conditions. It's also great for endurance. I'll be doing at least half my swims in the ocean. I've also got a nice weekend training camp coming up in the mountains April 20. I plan on doing a lot of climbing on the bikes as well as some technical trail running. I will hopefully do a few more training races as well. Calsbad 5000 is sunday. I want to run sub 20:00. sometime this year. I ran this in 21:17 last year we'll see.