20 and goal!!

Well folks I hit an official milestone this week. Since beginning triathlon in late '05 to today I've dropped a little weight. I started off at a squishy unhealthy 176 pounds. That's big for a guy at 5'4'' or 5'5''. There was a lot of exchange of fat for muscle. Even more drastic was the change in diet. Today marks a week that I've been able to hold at 155, a whole 20 pounds of real body weight. Milestone reached. The goal still lies ahead. Health for life. Mahalo.

Good Gear - Hydration #1 - The Aero bottle

Behold, the Aero bottle, or Aerodrink as deemed by the manufactuer, Profile Design. The bottle itself holds 32 fluid ozs if you fill it up to the top of the bottle. The main advantage to using a system like this is that it was designed to fit between the aero bars of your bike. Which means that the straw is right in front of your face! There is no excuse for forgetting to drink. Without a solution like this one would actually HAVE TO REACH either down to the bottle cages on the frame or behind the seat to wrestle a drink. Personally I've found that I drink as much as I should without even thinking about it using a system like this.


The second advantage is that it allows you to mix your drinks on the fly, put the martini shaker down! If you use Motortabs or other effervescing products you can drop these right in to the bottle and they will dissolve in minutes. You can mix as much or as little as you want. On the other hand if you're using a premix or course supplies, Gatorade Endurance and/or water, you can pour what you need out of any of those bottles straight in to this one. When I discovered that I was in need of something cold to drink but had already mixed up the bottles that I was going to be using for the day, I was able to slightly dilute the mixture, which was already warm after a few hours on the road, with ice cold water.

An aerobottle is a great solution for those looking for an easy way to stay hydrated on the course.

Aerobottle = Good Gear

Review: A film: Without Limits

Citius, Altius, Fortius

"It means 'Faster, higher, stronger.' It's been the motto of the Olympic Games for a hundred years. It doesn't mean faster, higher, or stronger than your competitors... just faster, higher, stronger." These are the first words spoken by Bill Bowerman, running coach of the University of Oregon, in the film Without Limits and they speak to the spirit of the man for whom the film is made. Without Limits is one of three movies made about the iconic Steve Prefontaine, one of America's greatest distance runners. The film stars Billy Crudup as the running star and Donald Sutherland as his University of Oregon running coach the great Bill Bowerman, founder of Nike. I saw this movie five years ago, when I had just picked up running and couldn't make it around the block without needing to stop, breathe, and do everything in my power to keep from dropping to my knees. This isn't an instructional film, it's an inspirational film about one of the most heralded athletes in the history of American running hailing from what was the center of running at the time, the University of Oregon.

At the beginning of the film Bowerman is addressing the team:
"One might say running is an absurd pastime. But if you can find the meaning in the kind of running you must do to stay on my team then you may find meaning in the other absurd pastime. Life."

Beyond this I will not spoil the movie. Suffice it to say that Bowerman was Pre’s coach, and Pre his own man. The challenge of faster, higher, stronger, still lies on our horizon. It exists because we have the desire to strive out to be better than we are, it exists as the motto to the Olympics because athletes need “freedom of excess” said Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the man responsible for applying this motto to the games, it is “a motto for people who dare to try to break records.”

As athletes we can find something deeper in what we're doing that just another workout. There's a sense of symetry that follows through the different pursuits in our lives, our jobs, hobbies, relationships with others, and the thread that holds them all together.

Though I'd heard of Bill Bowerman, I'd only known him as the co-founder of Nike, and had never heard of Steve Prefontaine. Bowerman as a coach took his team to a 114-20 dual meet record during his coaching career (for a winning percentage of 0.843, lifetime). As a runner Pre held 8 American records at once for every distance between 2,000 and 10,000 meters. As of 2001 Pre's collegiate record for the 3 mile was still standing.

Running is a passion,
it is a pursuit,
a life.

Good gear - Running Shoes

Despite the very countable masses that run barefoot through marathons, a great many of us rely on shoes to protect our feet from the ground, and cushion the impact on the *gulp* concrete. No single shoe works for everyone. If you're running now you learned to walk at some point. You followed the examples of those around you and what you heard you should be doing. This in addition to the varying numbers of body styles, leads to a nearly infinite combination of foot shapes, stride patterns, and cushioning needs. Thankfully the shoe industry has our backs.

A good pair of running shoes should feel like coming home, unless you live in a haunted house where evil stalks you at every turn. You should slip in to them and immediately feel like running, they make your feet feel lighter and every foot fall feel less like work and more like a glide. As the purchaser of horrible running shoes (for my feet) I can tell you the difference between a good pair of shoes and an ill-fitting one was like night and day, pain to pleasure.

"So Dean, where do I find such shoes?" I'm glad you asked. Go to a RUNNING store. No, Sportmart is not a running store. Here's why. In high school I could have gotten a job at Sportmart, in the shoe department. What's wrong with that? In high school I wasn't a runner. In fact I hated running more than I hated getting up early in the morning. (By the way now I get up early in the morning to run...) You want to find a person to help you who knows about what each shoe has, does, and is. A good salesperson is a runner themselves, will let you try on as many shoes as you need to in order to find a good fit, and will even let you take 'em out for a quick spin. A great salesperson will take a look at your barefoot, or sock clad, stride and see where you're striking the ground and the amount of pronation (lateral rolling) your foot does. All these things tie in to what shoe you should buy.

If running is going to be a big part of your year, you owe it to your feet, and that part of your mind that is encouraging you to get out there and run, to get not just a pair of shoes that fit your foot but a pair that fit you. They should fit your foot length, width, compensate for where your foot strikes the ground, and feel good. Heck, if you don't like the color, maybe you shouldn't buy the shoe. Seriously, why would you buy something that you need for workouts that is going to make you cringe everything you have to train?

To sum up:
Sportmart is not a running store
Good shoe = Better run
Dean = Gear Geek

Gear of the day - Heart Rate Monitors

First to be reviewed, by virture of what I've used most recently, is the heart rate monitor. I've had three of these things and each one had a different level of complexity and served a different purpose.

The first one is the Polar FS1. This is the most basic monitor that I've used. It has a single button to navigate through all the functions. Think of it as a watch this is also a heart rate monitor. Count on it to deliver data from the moment and keep you within a programmed zone (user specified).

The second one is the Timex Ironman Heart Rate Fitness System
This is a classic timex ironman watch. Everything that you'd expect to see from a company that's been producing watches in this line for as long as I can remember. This model is the base of their heartrate/fitness line. Timex indiglo, synchronized transmission to reduce cross talk, and the chest strap round out this watch.

The third is my current pick, being the gear/data geek that I am. [Warning: Pricy] I wanted a product that would record my workouts for me as I am clearly too lazy to write this stuff down myself. I also wanted to have the ability to compare marker sets against one another. How does my body react over the same course at the same pace in varying weather/wind/and so on and so on. The Polar 625x & Polar 725x just give me the warm fuzzies when it comes to gear. Both are bike and run computers in addition to being heartrate monitors and watches. Both are capable of recording speed and distance from a shoe pod or from a magnetic pickup off the front wheel of your bike. As far as recording the data goes, each will record in varying increments (5/10/15s) depending on how much data you want and plot that data over time and distance, which is all viewable if you download it to your computer and in to the software that polar provides. For me this is perfect. The 725x goes one step further in that it also allows users to add on a power accessory to their bike which allows the tracking of wattage over time. For me wattage is cool, but not necessary at the training level. It has always seemed to me that that metric is a piece of lab data which is a measure of growth or a means of baselining over time but less useful than heartrate, speed, distance, or even altitude gain.

I prefer the polar system to GPS in that the accelerometer used in the footpod to measure speed and distance only takes one AAA battery and needs to be replaced rarely (twice for me last season). Though at a disadvantage to the GPS systems currently on the market by Garmin or Timex in that the footpod and the watch must be calibrated every so often, accelerometer based measurement currently used by Polar and Suunto is less dependant on weather conditions and urban geography, takes a smaller footprint on the athlete, and I've found to be less tempermental. But my voice is just one. Many athletes swear by them. In fact one of the things that I would have loved out of my system is the ability to overlay my routes on a real map, as I tend not to run in straight lines, or reliable courses. It would probably be akin to tracking the roaming patterns of wild animals... as they trek across Los Angeles... in running shoes... dodging traffic.

Both options yield significant amounts of information and it rests in the hands of the user to take or leave as much of it as is necessary. I have more to say on this, but for now these are the pieces that I've used and have loved.

For training for longer distances, nothing, and I mean nothing is more important than training in the correct heartrate zones. All right, I exaggerate a little. A heart rate monitor falls a close close second to a good pair of running shoes. But that's it. Run in sweats, a headband, wool socks, but bring the shoes and the heartrate monitor.
-dean

Dean the Gear Geek

I love gear. New gear, old gear, good gear. And in honor of the holiday shopping season I'll be reviewing some of my favorites currently out there for all your loose dollars and euro. Stay tuned. -dean

Origins: My first tri.

Ahh, was a bright day in '05. Though I can't tell you how hot it was, or why I thought this was a good idea. I signed up for the Camp Pendleton International Triathlon. Just over a mile in the water, 25 miles of cycling, and a 10K run. I finished the day 7th from the back of the pack in my age group, cramped up in both calves, and fell asleep in my car in a parking lot not 15 minutes from the race site out of sheer exhaustion. I was so hooked it wasn't funny. I had only owned my bike for three months. I'd just finished a trio of half marathons and my head told me that even though I hadn't really swam a mile in quite some time that it'd be fine and it would remember.

I'm still not sure how many extra meters/miles I swam that day as I weaved all over the course but I do remember wanting to call it quits after the first 800 meters, but I looked behind me as the next wave was about to overtake me and saw that I was almost to the end of the first leg and that it'd be almost as long to swim back and quit as it would have been to keep on swimming and finish the swim leg, so I finished it. I'd never been a cyclist but I can sit and pedal. Then I started getting passed by people while I was riding that made me feel like I was standing still taking in the scenery.

The run put us on a 5K loop where I saw one of my friends, the guy that introduced me to triathlon, and eventually who's stories got me in to ironman, and he was moving through the course with ease and looked like barely winded. That's where I want to be I kept thinking to myself.

If I haven't mentioned it before races at Camp Pendleton are amazing, they are huge gatherings of athletes and enthusiasts and the courses are marshalled by active duty US Marines and San Diego County Lifeguards.

The run for me was agonizing. I'd never considered needing salt or other electrolytes and in retrospect was at a serious deficit for those and water. My legs hadn't run for three and a half hours and were threatening me with the only thing I'd listen to, not finishing. So I slowed down and started walking. A marine was pacing the white line on the center of the road 400 meters from the finish line/turn around point and was chanting. "Pain is temporary. Victory lasts forever. You WILL finish this race. Don NOT let your mind beat you. Pain - IS - TEMPO-RARY, VICTORY - That IS what we want - Victory lasts forever!" I passed by his small part of the course twice and jog/stumbled through it without walking.

I have friends who serve, enlisted in college or after. Today they are deployed all over the world. The training that they have completed and the degree to which what their training and mission matter is something that I can never remove from my mind. I can't quit in front of an active duty serviceman or woman. I can't falter a step in this thing that I'm supposedly doing for fun in front of a Marine sergent.

It was my first finish. Three hours and eleven minutes. The cramps in my calves lasted for a week. I'd had no training on speed, pacing, transition, nutrition, or recovery. I'd finished but hurt so badly I'd felt like I'd lost. And now I'm hooked. I wonder if cocaine made someone feel tired, injured, broken, and then had a hangover, would it still be as addicting? I'm not sure it would. I can't explain my attraction to this. Suffice it to say that I am.
-ds

Rest. 'nuff said? Not quite

"Respect the rest." That's what I heard at my first track workout. I hate track workouts, but respecting rest was something that I could really get behind. We'd run 400 meters, and practice a 1:2 work to rest ratio. Basically if it takes you 2 minutes to run around the track, you rest for 4 minutes. This was a concept that I could definitely get behind.

Triathlon is swimming, riding, and running. Ironman throws in nutrition and a complete loss of sanity (that's what my mom says anyway). Training is a completely different beast. The human body is one of the most adaptive things that we've come across. It responds to the stresses that we put upon it and consumes what we put in to it, hence my caffeine prob.. issue.. enjoyment. Most training programs for shorter distances have a standard build, you see the distances increase steadily over time then decrease just before race day.

See this 5K training plan:
Five little weeks then race day.

At longer distances, and for the day that we're training for we enter periodized training, where we ask nicely, rather force, our body and mind to take on a series of build weeks, where distance and intensity rise over the period, and then we recover. The body doesn't get stronger during the higher intensity training. That's where we're tearing small pieces of muscle, taxing our cardio systems, and getting in the mindset of being at this for the distance. It is in the recovery or rest week where our bodies do the repair work, fixing the pieces that we've broken, torn, taxed, and abused, and in doing so makes an effort to make it harder for us to do the same damage with the same amount of work. Adaptation. Without these periods of rest and recovery we'd be running on muscles desperately in need of repair, and just asking for injury.

There is no growth without challenge. Sometimes the biggest challenge for someone training is to stop or slow down for a little while. Rest. Recover. Grow. A marathon is no easy feat, nor is 100 miles of anything, much less bike riding. Build phases are relative to each other. They're timed to give you the greatest benefit over the time that we have. From week to week the results are hard to see but by completing marker sets, where you do a prescribed distance or other time trial you will see how far you've come.

Recovery is built in to most of what we do. We drink a recovery mix after workouts to prepare for the next workout even if the next workout is the fight I have with myself getting out of bed and going to work. I'd feel so much worse had I not had the drink or the sleep. After each period we rest and recover. After all the build phases we rest and recover, it's called tapering just before the race. After the race we recover, it's called a night out at the bar, and a few weeks of getting back to life. Get your sleep in. Respect the rest in the schedule it's worthwhile and necessary.

An Open Letter: Apologies in Advance

Dear friends, family, and other assorted loved ones,

In advance I apologize for the following:
for missing parties, birthdays, anniversaries, pony rides, & road trips.

For showing up to the things that I can make it to famished and unabashedly loading up my plate with any/all food in sight.

For seeming to have fallen off the face of the planet.

These are the advance apologies of your, son, brother, grandson, cousin, nephew, friend, co-worker, whom you already know to be a psycho triathlon guy. I love you all and will invariably miss out on some of the richness of your life over the next months on my way to Ironman this year. For that I am truly sorry.

Keep sending the email, leaving voicemail and the like. Peace to you and the people in your lives wherever you find yourself this holiday season.

signed,
dean sakihama - Previously sane
tnt mentor
LA Ironteam '06~'07

LA, Base Training, and the Beach

One of the most under rated pieces in the life of a new triathlete is the base period. It is a time for building, rebuilding, and extening the base level of fitness and probably more importantly for training the mind for the long days to come. resisting the urge to go out hard during this period is one of the hardest things to do because it feells counter intuitive. But keeping the intensity low allows the body time to adjust and prepare.

This weekend our team is spending our time training and camping at Leo Carillo, a local beach just north of Malibu. That's right, during a time of the year when most of the country is getting snow and other wintery gifts, we're going camping!

Our gift this weekend was a few hours of on again off again rain, followed by an hour of really heavy rain. On the bright side the rain will clear out the LA smog for a day or making our run better, and the cold will make my coffee taste better.

peace -dean

On the road again!

Hello World! Cheesy I know, but what else do you start with? I've started this blog to write about triathlon and the road to the ironman, and maybe with hope, help, and a miracle or four, to Kona for the big show.

Less than six months ago I ran my first ironman distance race in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It was the hottest, longest day I can remember wanting to exercise in, and it was glorious.

The new season for the Team in Training IRONTEAM has begun and we’re on the road again. I came back this year to be a mentor to the team, to see if I can’t make this year as good or better for everyone who has come out to support the cause and to challenge themselves with this distance.

These sixteen ironmen & ironwomen will work over then next seven months to train their bodies and minds to conquer 140.6 miles of water and road to cross the finish line in less than seventeen hours. They have also taken on the challenge of raising $8,500~$10,000 dollars for the Leukemia & Lymphoma society. Neither of which is anything to be taken lightly.

In the next weeks I hope to introduce you to my team. Stay tuned.
-dean