'Tis a beautiful Friday

For whatever reason I decided to walk to work today. I got an early start, bought a cup of coffee and a bagel from a local coffee shop and made my walk down by the beach and up an urban river trail to work, which is pretty much right off the trail.

It reminded me of something that gets left out more often than we should let it. The world moves pretty fast and this is mostly out of our own design, not so much that of the world. We cut up our days in to work, sustain (eat, sleet), recreat(ion). Recreation time is time that we use to re-create who we are, waking rest and recharging. This is usually the first thing to go when we get busy and overwhelmed. Commuting edges it's way in to this time as well. To that end we drive as fast as we can to cut down on the perceived time lost between the activities that we participate in. This becomes the norm and our lives are hurried merely as a matter of course. We hurry from one place to another, from one appointment to another, from one person to another, a hurried attempt to get it all in before we miss the next thing on the calendar.

I'm guilty of this too. I freely admit to being an over-scheduled volunteer-itis afflicted adult. Which makes what I did this morning all the more valuable.

I got to slow down. I got to slow down to the ambulatory pace of a human being. I was able to allow my body, mind, and all of my senses to experience life and the world around me as they were designed to, as opposed to how they were conditioned.

I thought about how much more I was able to see, much like riding my bike over, around, and the same streets that I drive on, how much more I noticed of my surroundings.

Long story short, it was a three and a half mile urban hike. Good coffee, ocean breeze, and I got in to work awake, calm, and somehow a little more prepared for the hell that Friday would be. I'm taking a break now to write this post, hoping somehow that the same peace of the morning will enter my afternoon.

Just how far do we train here anyway?

One of the most significant collective stats that my friend Doron shared with me my after our first ironman was just how much distance we had covered in training. He used a number that I can barely fathom at this point, and wondered if we had been on the same training plan.

This year I want to see how far I end up traveling on my "trip" to ironman. To that end I've been logging my workouts in a personal workout log as well as the one that we are given access to through the teamintraining ironteam.

There's even a nifty map that shows how far I would have gone across the country.

Swimming - Study through Youtube

If you're going to study swimming from videos you really can't get better than youtube for good free stuff. And if you're going to look for technique I say watch some professionals.
The first few here are of Ian Thorpe.



What I like here in this video of Ian Thorpe is the clear shot of the catch (the hand entering the water), and how much of his arm you can see pulling his body through the water. Note the bend in the elbow and the shape of the arm motion through the pull. (Above & Below)



2006 Commonweath games trial (200m)(Below)
Time 830 - Action Starts at 3:10
Check it out, the arms aren't moving especially fast, it's all pull power, form in each catch, pull, and overall body positioning. Smooth.



Kicking too (Below):


Freestyle swim video from the 2004 Olympic games


Just for fun: Men's World Record 4x200 Freestyle


Link to this Blog Post Swimming - Study through Youtube

Tri Saturdays - Just a ride in the park

I love Saturdays. Friends of mine sleep in or do brunch or even go skydiving. Me? Well me and mine go out for bike rides. Yup, you heard me bike rides. For the two races that the Los Angeles Chapter of Team in Training "IronteaminTraining" participants will have either seven or almost ten full months of training to tackle the Wildflower Long Course (a half iron distance triathlon) and/or Vineman (a full iron distance triathlon). Today's mission was simple, ride as a team for the first time. So with a little parking lot assessment of equipment, and bike handling ability the team set out on a short hour/hour-and-a-half~ish ride around Griffith Park from the Los Angeles Zoo.

After an easy five mile warm up the lead pack upped the ante and the group spread out over the 17-mile course.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1430246

If you were there this weekend it was great to see you. No worries about anything at all we have months (and I mean MONTHS) of training to go. If you weren't there you missed yet another opportunity to join us at Portos Bakery and my favorite part of almost any training day, lunch.

In the words of one of my coaches, it was a good practice; Nobody drowned. Next week it's off to Santa Monica for some Westside riding. See you then -dean

(link to this blog post - tri-saturdays-just-ride-in-park)