Hitting myself in the head with a hammer or Lactate Threshold, here I come

I have often alluded to the human body as an exotic sports car, say, a Lamborghini or a Maserati. The similarities are numerous. There is the complexity, sophistication, uniqueness, beauty, and, most of all, performance of both. I have the opinion that  we all “own” a supercar in the form of our bodies and it seems a shame that so many people never take theirs out “on the road”, open it up, and see what it can do. I can’t imagine that anyone could own a high powered sports car and never, even a little bit, want to take it out on the highway and just hit the gas to see what it feels like.

 

I drive a Mini Cooper S which is to a Maserati what a Piper Cub is to an F-16 Falcon fighter plane. Even so, one time, on a long open stretch of highway, I opened it up just a little to see how it felt to go FAST. It was exhilarating (I don’t recommend this as it is speeding, but I rationalized this brief "fracture" of the law by doing so out of traffic and accepting that I might get a ticket and would just have to suck it up and pay it) and just a little bit scary. 115 mph in what amounts to a glorified, street

 

legal go-kart, feels like a lot more.   A lot more.

One BIG difference between our body and a sports car is that when we stomp on the gas in a car, there is no pain or discomfort. When we do the same with our body, the opposite is true; it is painful. This week, I had to do a lactate threshold run to determine my heart rate zones for running. Lactate, or lactic acid, is a byproduct of muscle activity. As muscle activity becomes more intense, the levels in the blood rise. We can use some lactate for fuel but once its production exceeds our ability to use it, it accumulates in the blood. What we feel is extreme fatigue, inability to catch our breath, and muscle pain. This is why we can only go all out for very short periods.

Lactate threshold is that point where we cross the line from sustainable to unsustainable activity. If we stay below the threshold, we can go for long periods. Distance runners stay well below their lactate threshold and can go non-stop for hours at a time. Sprinters go well above and can only run for short distances.

To determine my lactate threshold, Karl asked me to run a 5K (3.1 miles) as fast as I could go. At this point in my life I am not interested in “racing” or competing against others. I’m just trying to stay reasonably fit and active and accomplish a few personal goals, one of which is this ironman. Racing is hard and it hurts to push so hard.

So, in an effort to appease my thirtysomething trainer, Wednesday morning found me heading out of the house at 6 AM, after obsessing about this run for the preceding several days. After a brief warm up, I “hit the gas”. My initial pace was too fast and, after a ½ mile or so, I settled into what I felt I could sustain for the distance. Even this had me whooping and gasping with every breath. I wondered if the few other runners/walkers I passed along the way thought I was about to have a heart attack. The effort was such that I could not have gone faster and still completed the distance. Several times, my mind said, “you have to stop”, “this is too painful”, or, the difficult to answer “why am I doing this?”. Some part of my mind, however, kept me going by responding, “It’s just a little longer”, “I can do this”, and “I need to make this count for a good lactate threshold.” I didn’t want to do this twice. It hurt, but as I walked back to the house, it felt pretty good too, like the proverbial hitting your head with a hammer; it feels so good when you stop.

No one who has not pushed him or herself to the point of pain can appreciate how good it feels afterwards. I wish I could say I would have done this anyway but, truthfully, I probably wouldn’t have without Karl pushing me.

Florida Ironman training log:

A good week with small but definite gains in flexibility and strength. I am seeing more muscle definition (so is my wife) and my weight has crept up a couple of pounds; I’d like to think that is muscle mass. A few aches and pains but nothing serious. Still struggling to establish a workable schedule that allows enough time for everything. It doesn’t help being on call every other day and every other weekend. One call can derail a day’s schedule, like the fellow whose head cushioned the blow of a large falling branch, which essentially scalped the left side of his head. That one cost me an evening massage and a session on the trainer with my bike. C’est la vie…………

Week’s summary:

Mon, 3/20- Swim, 2550 yards @ 2:35 min/100 yds, total time 1:06:01 hours

                   No trainer session due to emergency call to hospital
Tue, 3/21- No session, no time
Wed, 3/22- Run (lactate threshold), 3.41 mi @ 7:46 min/mi, total time 26:29 minutes
Thu, 3/23- Swim, 1750 yds, 2:37 min/100 yds, total time 1:03:44 hours
Fri, 3/24- Run, 5.36 miles @ 8:24 min/mi, total time 45:01 minutes*
Sat, 3/25- Run, 6.29 miles @ 8:54 min/mi, total time 56:03 minutes*
Sun, 3/26- Rest day in Virginia

*In Carrolton, VA

On billionth of a meter

http://vimeo.com/44807536      In a wildly popular viral video (330,000 views in the first 12 hours) people are shown exiting a subway station in New York City. Unknown to them, one of the steps is one half inch higher than the others. In the video, person after person trips as they reach this step; the difference is enough to throw off the individual’ progress up the steps. It is a great example of the fact that small things can have effects out of proportion to their size.

For those who aren’t metric savvy and can't visualize length in terms of meters, think of a yardstick, which is about equivalent. One billionth the length of a yardstick isn’t very long. It is, however, roughly the length of a rhinovirus (no relation to the big mammal) which is the cause of the common cold. It enters our body, not unlike the little creature in the movie Alien, through the nose or eyes (not through the mouth so you can kiss someone with a cold with little fear of catching it). Once on board, it enters cells in upper airway and the reaction to this invasion results in the symptoms of a cold: runny nose, sneezing, hoarseness, etc. At least it doesn't come bursting out of our chests, which would not only be messy, but make us take colds a little more seriously.

It is amazing that something so small can so affect something so large, especially when that something large has a host of defenses against the small invader. This week I returned home from a great weekend in the frigid north (Virginia) to visit daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, Emerson. It was cold and rainy. Even though wet, cold weather does not cause colds, the enforced proximity of staying indoors allows cold viruses to be passed along more efficiently and I got one. Within 24 hours, my throat was scratchy, my voice hoarse, and my nose was sniffling.

One of the ironies about the symptoms of a cold is that they are not caused by the virus, per se but, rather, by the body’s defense mechanisms. Symptoms do not reflect a weaker immune system. Instead, they are a sign of a strong, working immune system.

In our present culture, we are so driven and bent on being productive that we don’t let a simple cold stop us. We go to work sniffling, sneezing, and coughing. Of course this increases the odds of passing this on and this explains the cold epidemics that periodically sweep through our workplaces and schools.

Small things can derail our plans in any area of life. In training for a marathon or ironman triathlon, small things become huge. A minor muscle strain or cold at the wrong time can derail a training plan. That can happen with anything aspect of life where we make plans which are always subject to the vagaries of our existence on this planet. Weather, other people, events outside of our control, and other circumstances seem to conspire to thwart our best efforts to stay on track. Sometimes, it is our own internal, self-created obstacles that impede us: lack of discipline, lack of motivation, disorganization, and even negative “self talk” (you know what I mean- it is that conversation we have with ourselves that does something like this: “Oh, why bother today, I don’t feel like doing this”, or, “who am I kidding, I’m not going to be able to do this”.)

So, how do we avoid these obstacles to our progress? Well, I don’t think we can always avoid them. I think the trick is to roll with them, admit that there are times we won’t necessarily feel like doing, or be able to do, what we would like, and move on. Perfection isn’t the goal. Progress, even if slow and halting, is.

Florida Ironman Training Log:

The pesky cold virus derailed plans for a productive training week. The trip to VA last week was an interruption, albeit a joyous one, but I worked around that. I just did not feel up to the rigors of working out through the midweek as it was an effort just to get through the work day and drag myself home. I canceled my plans for joining the Masters Swim at the NTC and my session with Karl. Fortunately, the cold was mild and resolved surprisingly quickly, making me feel that I am on the right track with my diet, rest, and training thus far. There will be better weeks ahead.

Week’s training summary:

Mon. 2/25- Swim at Y, 1425 yds, Total time 45.20 min
Tue. 2/26- Sick, no workout
Wed. 2/27- Sick, no workout
Thu. 2/28- Sick, no workout
Fri. 3/1- Run, 6 miles at 8:42 min/mi, total time 52.12
Sat. 3/2- Bike, 24.36 miles at ave. 14.9 mph, total time 1:38:10

Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans

For those few stalwart individuals who have followed my efforts to “blog”, you will have noticed that my posts have been conspicuously absent for several weeks. Possible causes would be that my computer crashed, I quit my ironman quest and turned my energies to more productive and realistic pursuits, I have been ill this whole time and could not muster the energy to type, or that I was abducted by aliens and am on my way at warp speed to some sort of intergalactic zoo. All plausible, certainly. All wrong, of course.

No, what happened was something a lot less dramatic but easier to understand. Life happened. Between work, activities outside of work, keeping to a rigorous training schedule, eating, sleeping, and the myriad other necessary and discretionary activities that make up the average day, there has been literally no time to sit down and write up a post to put on the blog. 

 

24 hours in a day seem like a good number. At least it seems so until you get to the end of the day and you still have items on your list that have not been moved to the “done” column. What’s more, you know that tomorrow more will be added to the growing “to do” pile, even though you have not yet crossed off all the existing items.

 If you are reading, hoping that sometime in this post I will offer up a solution to this perpetual dilemma, you can stop right here. I won’t. Cliches become clichés in large part because they reflect truths that we know, either experientially or intuitively.

I thought the problem was purely mine. If only I were more disciplined, more organized, more……something, I would be able to get everything done each day. I have come to realize that, even though I am undisciplined, disorganized, etc. there is more to it than that. There really is too much coming at us each day to ever truly complete the day’s assignments, both those we give ourselves and those that others put before us. The frenetic pace of life and its attendant technology require that we read and respond to emails, text messages, telephone calls (both land lines, for those who have them, and cellular phones), update everything or fall hopelessly behind, read the instructions to the never ending “new” additions to our gadgets, stay current on the events around us, connect with our friends and families (both face to face and via social media), etc. etc.

 Sometimes, I find myself wanting to shout, “ENOUGH!” or, like the character played by Peter Finch, in the movie Network, shouting “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” But, I don’t. I just suck it up and continue to try to make the best of it. In a classic episode, Lucille Ball, as Lucy Ricardo, went to work in a chocolate factory with her best friend, Ethel. The two were supposed to simply take each chocolate as it came down the assembly line and wrap it up. This was fine until the chocolates began to come out faster and faster. Soon Lucy was piling them out of the way, stuffing some in her mouth, and falling further and further behind. It was pretty funny. Who knew it would someday swerve as a perfect metaphor for life in the 21^st Century.

So, all I can do; all anyone can do, is to try my best to keep the days from getting too out of hand, try to cross off as many items as possible on the “to do” list each day, keeping my priorities in mind, and try not to worry too much about the ones that get missed or put off to some time in the future. In 100 years, most of what we have done, or not done, won’t really matter all that much anyway. It helps to keep things in perspective.

 

Florida Ironman training log:

            This week was a good week in terms of completing all the required sessions. I could have done a few more rounds of my mobility exercises but, all in all, I feel pretty good at what I accomplished. No unusual aches or pains, with the exception of what feels like a slightly strained  left groin muscle- gracilis for those who are anatomy savvy. I will just have to be careful stretching that area for a while. At least it doesn’t bother me swimming, biking, or running. The neuropathy continues to be a challenge but it is more and more like background static in my life. I can largely ignore it except when it flares up particularly strongly. Then, it is a pain, literally. Congratulations to my niece, Melissa Greenlee, who completed her first Olympic distance triathlon. Despite being the only swimmer without a wetsuit, riding in the rain, and on a hybrid bike, no less, she posted a very respectable time and is ready for the next step up, to a half ironman. I have doubt she will do it.

Week’s training summary:

Mon- 5/13- Swim, 2286 yds, 2:49 min/100 yds, 1:04:16 total time

                   Bike (on trainer), one legged pedaling drills, 35:02 min total time

Tue- 5/14- Run, 3.51 mi @ 8:03/mile, total time 28:44 min

Wed- 5/15- strength training at NTC

Thu- 5/16- Swim, 2350 yds, 2:43 min/100 yds, 1:03:44 total time

Fri- 5/17- Run, 4.96 miles @ 9:04 min/mi, 45:01 total time

Sat- 5/18- Bike, 40 miles @ 14.5 mph, 2:46:04 total time.