photo by Steve Penland

Monday, April 28, 2014

Questions and Answers

I had an interesting comment on yesterday's post, and since I think my reply will be a lot of my usual babbling fairly lengthy, I'm going to respond in a post instead of in the comments.

Inlinepaceline wrote:

Kaari, what does crossfit add to your skate training? This is a loaded question, but when considering what qualifies as your hard workout, it is worth considering what crossfit adds to skate training. I started doing a lot of weight training at the start of the inline off-season with the hope of building base strength that will help my power base in my push. This proved to be more accessible than converting to ice since I am far enough away from the Roseville Oval to prevent regular trips, and I am a total newbie to ice (on inexpensive factory direct Bont LT skates that probably have dull blades). A lot of what I do for power and base is similar to the kinds of lifts that are done in crossfit, like rear squats, power cleans with front squats, over head presses, and dead lifts. A lot of my plyo training is similar to, as I recently started doing box jumps. Lately, I am working on base cardio, something I have neglected for the last couple of years. My "hard" day in this build phase include my weights/plyo routine (bigger weight with lower rep and lots of jumping) and my long skates on a route that involves a lot of hills. Every other day is a base cardio day on the stationary bike or light skate. Is it worth considering your overall training goals directed at skating versus getting volume? Can you tailor crossfit to focus on skating? Would a sport specific focus help you reach your goals on skates? I am interested in your planning process. It isn't something I am very good at.

So, starting at the top with the questions: what does CrossFit add to my skate training?

That's an interesting question, because I actually didn't start CrossFit to have an impact on my skating.  I started it because I was approaching 50 and I realized that, despite being in great cardio and leg shape from skating, I was neglecting my core and upper body--and that rather than being the strong person I always thought of myself as, I was now weak in every body part that wasn't involved in skating and, worse, imbalanced (all those counter-clockwise ovals lead to some nice asymmetry) in every muscle that was.  I wanted to find something that would rectify these problems but that wouldn't be detrimental to my skating. It would be a bonus if it would actually have some positive benefits for skating--but the most important factor was that I had to like it. I knew myself well enough to know that if I couldn't find something for a core/upper body workout that I genuinely liked, I simply wouldn't continue doing it.

So I tried CrossFit, and I didn't like it...I fell in love with it.

So now I find myself in the position of trying to juggle two athletic activities that I'm obsessed with.  One of my CrossFit coaches asked me the other day which I liked better, skating or CrossFit.  I had to pause for a bit before I answered "skating"--it's that close.  Which makes the answers to inlinepaceline's questions both more complicated and more simple.  More complicated because I'm not doing CrossFit specifically to aid my skating...but more simple because bottom line, I'm just doing both sports because I love them.

Back to the questions, then. What does CrossFit add to my skate training?  It does have some skating-specific effects; as evidenced by these photos, I can get a lot lower now...

Trust me, this is not my usual position for dryland or short track.

Interestingly enough, I think most of the "lower" is due to hip flexibility improvements rather than strength.  Coach TieGuy told me that the reason most masters skaters are not low enough is not (as I thought) back issues, but is due to inflexibility in their hips.  I tried to work on this a couple years ago, using some techniques I found on Mobility WOD, (a website which is CrossFit based--which I didn't realize at the time).  I didn't get very far, and by the time I started CrossFit my hips were so tight that I couldn't even get to parallel in a CrossFit-style squat.  Now I can not only get below parallel, I can even do some of the mobility stuff that I tried from the website a couple years ago and couldn't do.  So that's one thing CrossFit adds--by doing squats and other lower-body exercises, and focusing on mobilizing the body parts used in those exercises, it helps with mobility that affects skating.

Another thing is core strength. I hate core work and really haven't done any for oh, about 10 years now.  This is probably why TieGuy had to continually yell at me "Tighten your abs!  Engage your core!" I was trying--it's just that nothing was moving.  Now, when I remember to engage my core (which is critical to transferring the power from your push to the ice instead of having it dissipated through your wobbling core)--something actually moves  and I feel a nice stable base to push off.  Cool.

I guess this doesn't really answer inline's question, though.  Certainly some of the CrossFit exercises use the same muscles that skating does, and thus these workouts need to be evaluated in terms of their impact on my skating workouts.  It's not really possible to tailor CrossFit workouts--they're pre-planned and posted the night before and you get what you get (although I have been known, after seeing the next day's WOD,  to skip an intense squat WOD when I knew I had a hard skating workout coming up).  In terms of deciding hard/easy workouts, it's not a question of what CrossFit does for skating, but rather a question of what each workout takes out of my body--as my friend Sprinter Boy said, it all comes out of the same physical "bank."  I'm not so much trying to use CrossFit to optimize skating (or vice versa; skating has given me some nice cardio fitness that really helps me out in rowing or running WOD's) as trying to maximize my time spent with each of my obsessions (those of you who grew up in the 70's, as I did, can now enjoy an earworm of Mary MacGregor's "Torn Between Two Lovers."  You're welcome).  I'm increasing CrossFit to three times a week, and trying to keep hard skating workouts at three times a week, not because I think that's necessarily the optimum number--but simply because I want to do both as much as possible.  My attempts at periodization are nothing more than trying to find a way to do everything I want to do without melting into a little puddle of overtrained goo.

Well, actually I do have a reason for the "three hard skating workouts a week."  That's how TieGuy set up my skating weeks--an endurance skate, a tempo skate, and an interval skate, followed by a recovery skate or a race on the weekends.  I'm used to that, I like it, and it's worked...so that's what I'm doing.  Which answers inline's question about how my planning process works.  At the end of a month I simply look back in my workout logs at the next month's workouts from a previous year (I'm currently using 2007; the workouts ramped up a bit each year and I think the volume from 2010, the last year TieGuy wrote my program, might be a bit much for me now).  I adjust the dates, tweak for vacations or other special circumstances, and then that's what I use as my workout template for the next month.

As for my skating goals, I really think that (despite being lower and actually having abs now and all that), my biggest gains will come from my technique improvements rather than from fitness improvements.  Sprinter Boy taught me a fundamental and life-changing aspect of skating last January and it's revolutionizing my skating. I can only execute it at about 80% effort right now, which means that it hasn't yet affected my race times...but I'm hoping that diligent practice on the technique on inlines this summer will enable me to employ it at 100% effort by next long track season.  That, I think, is where I'll get my biggest bang for my buck in next year's PB pursuit.

So that's it.  My desire to fit 7 workouts and one day off into 7 days is not a quest for a pre-determined workout volume, nor a carefully-planned integration of skating and dryland and CrossFit designed to produce maximum results next season.  It's simply the best way my skating-and-CrossFit obsessed brain can come up with to feed my obsessions while hopefully avoiding overtraining.

Inline, I hope you're not sorry you asked!

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Well, It Was Fun While It Lasted

My epic run of "16 workouts in 14 days with no days off" ended Thursday with CrossFit...and a cold.

Now, I'm certainly not blaming my overenthusiastic pursuit of skating and CrossFit the past two weeks for my illness.  I'm an elementary special education teacher and I spend my days with 700 little walking germ disseminators, so I consider getting a cold to be merely succumbing to the inevitable.  And actually the timing couldn't be better; I get to be sick on a weekend and during the start of my "recovery" five days, and thus not have to suffer through work or workouts with the runny nose and sinus headache that are currently plaguing me.

Anyway, it was a good run.  I don't know what my previous "most workouts in a row" stat is, but I'm sure it is nowhere near 16 in 14 days.  And while I certainly don't plan to go that many days in a row without a break from workouts on a regular basis--or, indeed, any time soon--it's fun to know that I have a lot more capability than I thought.

Especially at my age.

Encouraged by how well April has gone so far, I spent a good bit of time yesterday--when I wasn't blowing my nose--mapping out my May workouts.  Oh, and I also went for a horrifically windy nice six-mile recovery skate, during which I confirmed that I am, indeed, hot.

No, not that kind of "hot."

During my half-hour skate I encountered about eight cyclists and five other inliners, all clad--appropriately for the 55 degrees and 30 mile per hour wind--in long pants, long sleeved jerseys, and jackets.

I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

Not only was I completely comfortable during my skate, I was hot enough when I got done skating that I had to put the cold air vent on in the car on the way home.  This just confirms to me that my thyroid levels are a bit higher than they usually are, but so far not too high as long as I time the fast acting med appropriately (that is, not too much too close) for workouts.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah...May workouts.  May is going to get a bit hairy.

OK, not quite that hairy.  But this is likely how I'll feel when May is over.

May is the start of Oval inlining, and the end (more or less--we actually go into the second week of June) of school.  May doesn't have any more workouts than June or July or August, but it has the added stress of finishing up the school year coupled with simple lack of enough hours to accomplish everything I want to do.  September is similar, so expect to hear the same whine come about, oh, Labor Day.

My plan for May is to do three CrossFits (for those keeping track, that's one more CrossFit workout per week than I did throughout the ice season), three Oval skates, one recovery skate, and one day off per week.  Clearly this is a problem, since 3+3+1+1=8...and last time I checked there are only seven days in a week.  I'm not quite sure how I'll handle this.  I read some good stuff on periodizing workout schedules for masters (over 50) athletes in Joe Friel's blog and was thinking about doing his "two, nine day microcycles followed by one five day recovery cycle," and indeed that's how I'm laying out the hard weeks/recovery days--but I don't think the "hard-easy-easy" sequence within the nine day cycles will work.

First of all, I'm not sure which of my workouts are "hard" and which are "easy."  I suspect that the CrossFit will be the "easy" ones; this is not a statement about the relative difficulty of CrossFit versus skating, but merely a statement about my skill at each.  I remember one of the CrossFit coaches saying, during the Intro class, that the better you get at CrossFit the harder it is.  I totallyl understand this.  In skating I can completely wreck myself in a workout--200+ heart rate, wobbly legs, close to throwing up.  In CrossFit, I just can't get to that point in most workouts; I'm just not skilled enough at the lifts or the movements to do most of them to the full limit of my fitness.  So in theory I could try to do "skate-CrossFit-CrossFit," but that won't work logistically with the days of the week nor, most likely, with the weather.  I'm guessing there will be a lot of days when I leave for work with my CrossFit stuff and my skating gear both in the car, and I make the call of which workout to do based on the weather.  This could mean three hard skating workouts in a row, or having to substitute dryland or CrossFit for a rained-out skate.

The other problem, of course, is that "8 things to accomplish in 7 days" issue.  I think I could handle one "two-a-day" per week, and that's what I'll likely do during the summer, but logistically it's tough during the school year.  CrossFit would have to be the morning workout, and they do have super early classes--5:30 am-- but only during the first half of the week.  Starting the school week with a sleep deficit is probably not in my best interest.  I may have to try a 6:30 class at the Excelsior location, which is close to work, although timing will be tight when you throw in a shower before work. Friday seems like a good day for a two-a-day, but of course the skating wouldn't happen any day it rains.

At any rate, it's shaping up to be a good spring, and these are all good problems to have.  I'm so thankful, after so many rough years of battling thyroid issues and poor performance and fading enthusiasm, to finally be starting off a season full of optimism and energy.  Whatever May brings, I'm just incredibly happy to be heading into it feeling like this.

Minus the runny nose and sinus headache, of course.



Saturday, April 19, 2014

Recovery

No, I'm not in a "recovery week" in my skating training; that won't happen for another six days.  And in fact, I really don't care if it's six weeks until "recovery week."  I'm currently in the midst of the highest volume early-season training I've ever experienced--and I feel fantastic.  I have never, ever recovered from workouts the way I have the past two weeks.

I've never recovered well from workouts.  Even when I was young I seemed to have more difficulty recovering than other people.  In high school, I was always the one trying to convince the coach to give us the day off before a track or cross country meet; I just felt like my legs couldn't recover from the week's training without an actual day off.  And of course this has only gotten worse as I've aged.  When TieGuy started coaching me in 2006 he mentioned that I--like most speedskaters--would be doing two-a-day workouts when summer rolled around.  By June, though, he'd realized that I couldn't handle more than three hard workouts and one or two easy workouts a week.  Even during the long track season it was a struggle for me to complete the three hard workouts and one or two race days a week that he planned.  One year he put a "recovery" workout into the schedule every weekend, and I never did any of them.  To me there was no such thing as a "recovery workout" that actually made my legs feel better; a workout was a workout, no matter how easy, and the only way for me to recover was to take a day--or, more accurately, three to four days a week--completely off.

Recently, though, this difficulty recovering without time off has changed--and changed so drastically that I simply can't believe it.

It started during March, the long track skaters' "rest break."  Rather than doing my usual casual Dome or trail skates, I was forced (by the worst winter in history and an imploding Metrodome) to come up with another workout strategy for March.  I decided to go with two CrossFit workouts a week, although I was worried that this might be too much and that I'd start the new season in April with fatigue already setting in.  So I was pleasantly surprised that not only did the workouts go well, but that I felt really fresh and well-recovered throughout the week--even when I threw in a 5K race, and upped my CrossFit to three workouts a week during the last two weeks of March.

I expected that "fresh, well-recovered" feeling to change in April; to have my legs resume their usual April-through-February "I'm riding the ragged edge of overtraining and my legs are always faintly sore and tired" feeling that they've had for the past ten years, ever since I got really serious about my skating.  Hobbling around like an 80-year-old just went with the territory, I thought...and even more so as I approached 50 last year.  True, it did improve slightly when I added foam rolling to my life--but as delighted as I was with that improvement, it was minor compared to what I'm experiencing now.

Take, for example, the past nine days.  Last Friday I did a CrossFit workout, then Saturday was dryland and a six mile skate.  Sunday was a ten mile skate, then Monday and Tuesday were CrossFit.  Wednesday was dryland, and Thursday--which was supposed to be an off day--I ended up playing in the Hubster's "Beginner Friendly Hockey" game.  Friday I had off work, so I planned another 10 mile skate and CrossFit.  By Thursday night my legs were still a bit sore from cleans and deadlifts and dryland (if your hamstrings are sore from cleans, does that mean you did them right or you did them wrong?), so I was worried about how Friday would go.  But both the skate and the CrossFit went fine, and so I went ahead and scheduled dryland for this morning, with Mel and Inliner Boy.

When I woke up I expected to be a bit sore and stiff from the week-plus of workouts culminating in a two-a-day yesterday.  Instead...I felt fantastic.  No soreness, lots of energy, and more than ready to hit the dryland.  In fact, I felt so good that I'm afraid I was a bit obnoxious at the workout this morning, bouncing around and babbling like a sugared-up five-year-old at a birthday party (fortunately Mel and Inliner Boy are tolerant individuals).  No one is supposed to have that much fun doing dryland.

So what's made the difference?  Well...it has to be the diet changes that I made during the nutrition challenge that CrossFit SISU put on.

True, I've changed a lot of stuff in the past nine months.  I've added CrossFit and foam rolling; I've started making sure I have a post-workout protein shake; I'm doing more mobility stuff than I was before (in other words, I'm doing some versus none).  But all of these factors have been in place since the fall, and I only experienced a modest improvement in my ability to recover (which I attributed to the foam rolling) during the skating season.  And I know there's a mental component at work--I have a new obsession (CrossFit, for those of you who haven't been paying attention), and I'm always happiest when obsessed...but I've loved CrossFit almost from when I started it (I just love it more now that I don't suck quite so abysmally at it) so that's not a recent change.

So really, that just leaves the diet change.

Maybe it's the "crap-ectomy"--the removal of poptarts and diet Dew and donuts and...you get the picture.  Maybe it's the removal of inflammatory foods like grains.  Maybe it's the proper post-workout nutrition and the adequate protein and the actually eating vegetables more than once a week.  Actually, it's probably all of the above.  All I know is that I can't remember feeling this good, this energetic, this well-recovered and ready for the next workout, in...well, ever.  And to be able to say that at 50 feels pretty good.

Of course, the season has a long way to go, and I have to be careful not to get carried away this early in the spring--I can still get injured or overtrained if I overdo it (as evidenced by my current bicep tendon issue--note to self: if it hurts when you do something for a couple workouts in a row...stop doing it.)  But honestly, I can't remember feeling this good at the start of the skating season in the past 10 years.

Damn, I'm glad I decided to do that nutrition challenge!

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Joy. And Stupidity. But Mostly Joy.

Today was my third inline skate of the new season, and it was a fantastic, even joyful event.  OK, sure, there was some epic stupidity on my part imbedded in the day...but mostly it was just really, really fun.

I had done my second dryland of the season yesterday--it went well--and followed it up with a 6-mile "recovery skate" around the trail closest to my house. Between the "recovery"--that is, "slow"--nature of the skate, and the multiple streams flowing across the notoriously poorly-drained trail, it was a decent day but nothing to write home about.  But today's skate promised to be better.  It was a real workout, not just a recovery cruise, and my sister Energizer Bunny would be joining me--and we were going to a trail that is typically the cleanest and fastest-drying of the ones we frequent.  Everything was in place for a good skate.

First, though, I needed a new Camelbak.  The pocket in my old one was too small for my new cell phone, and I always like to carry my phone with me when I'm skating alone (I hate skating alone but it's necessary sometimes). So on my way to meet EB and her hubby Sherpa Boy at the park--my Hubster had airport duty for a friend and wouldn't be joining us--I stopped at Dick's Sporting Goods to check out the Camelbak options. Since the critical feature was the ability to stash my cell phone in it, I of course did a trial fit of the phone in every model I was considering.

You know where this is going, don't you?

I ended up not finding a Camelbak I liked, so I headed out for the 40 minute drive to the trail.  When I arrived, I figured I better check my phone; I'm new to the whole "carry your phone everywhere and check it all the time" thing, so it's actually surprising that I thought to check it at this time.  But I did...and, of course, when I looked in the purse pocket where my phone lives--it wasn't there.

I had left it in a Dick's Camelbak.

Oh, no problem, I thought, I'll just call them...oh.  Right.  So I waited for EB and Sherpa Boy to arrive, pounced on them and demanded to borrow a phone, and was soon verbally guiding a very baffled Dick's employee up the stairs to the Camelbak department, where she found my phone.

Crisis averted, and time to skate.

True, it wasn't the finest conditions for an inline skate--41 degrees, cloudy, and ultra-windy.  In fact, I think I've skated a long track workout or two in warmer conditions.  But EB and I bundled up--Sherpa would be biking--and prepared to tackle the 3.5 mile loop.

Why, yes, we HAVE managed to find the dorkiest glasses on the planet.

We set off on the first of three loops, and I led.  This used to be just the natural order of things; after all, I'm the skating-obsessed one--EB majors in weight lifting and just skates once a week or so unless she's training for a marathon.  The last couple years, though, I've found myself drafting off the (tiny) EB more and more often...and indeed, there have been many times where I haven't been able to keep up.

This was a state of affairs that I badly wanted to change.

Still, honestly, I promise I didn't set off with the intent of putting the hammer down or trying to "drop" EB...I just sort of got carried away.  It was the first "real" skate of the year; I was feeling fantastic; and I had a fun new playlist to skate to on my iPod.  This playlist ranges from Simon and Garfunkel's classic "Cecelia," which I remember dancing around the living room to with EB at the age of about six; to Snoop Dogg's "Sweat," which contains lyrics that are difficult to make out but that I'm pretty sure if I could hear them I'd need to check them out in Urban Dictionary to understand them--and then I'd probably wish I hadn't.  But I digress.

So I set off, and I skated hard and just kept skating harder.  EB was right behind me--in fact, at one point my newly-learned proper "recovery stroke" led to me kicking her in the kneepad, and many other times she had to put her hand on me to avoid running me over on downhills.  So I figured she was just cruising easily along behind me, tucked into my generous draft and enjoying life.  I figured, if she's struggling she'll let me know.  

So I cruised.  And it was joyful, exhilarating, fantastic.  My fingers were numb and the wind was howling and it was freezing--and it was the most fun I've had since the long track season ended.

Pure joy.

And then we got back to the trailhead--after clocking the fastest early-season 3.5 mile lap I've ever done--and EB let me have it.

She reminded me--rightfully--that it was her first skate of the season; she hates cold weather; and even in warm weather she takes a long time to warm up.  What the hell was I doing blasting off like that?

Oops.

So I apologized, and we went on and completed the final two laps at a more reasonable pace.  Still, I was savoring all the little joys of inlining--the ice cold water from the Camelbak (thanks for the refrigeration, Mother Nature!); the smooth, straight, slightly-downhill section of trail where I could practice my long track technique and feel like I was flying; the song whose beat perfectly matched my stride rate.  Man, have I missed skating!

After the final laps--and a couple more protestations that "no, I really didn't set out to drop you"--I headed for home (and, of course, a stop at Dick's to retrieve the errant phone). I spent most of the drive pondering the reasons for this unprecedented good start to the season.  CrossFit during the off season?  My new improved technique?  Being 20 pounds lighter than I was at this time last year?  My new improved diet?  Probably a combination of all of the above, but whatever the reason, the new season is off to the best start in about seven years, and I couldn't be happier.

Pure joy.


Friday, April 11, 2014

Epic Wednesday

Wednesday was the first official day of the 2014-15 skating season.  It is now Friday evening, and I think I've recovered enough to write about it.

The week started with a CrossFit workout, "Nancy," on Monday.   I have a bit of left bicep tendon irritation (according to my doc, who I asked about it when I went in for a thyroid check on Tuesday--thyroid levels are fine, thankfully) so I had to do the workout with front squats instead of overhead squats...but it was still challenging.  I kept getting lightheaded when I stood up from the squats, which limited me to doing five in a row and then kneeling down until I didn't feel like passing out anymore, then doing another five.  Fun times.  I asked the doc about this, too, and he said that lifting often leads to unintentionally doing what's called a vagal maneuver (specifically, the Valsalva maneuver), which I am very familiar with because I used to have to do this to stop my heart arrhythmia (the one I had ablated in 2005) whenever it started.  At any rate, vagal maneuvers can cause dizziness, since they make your heart rate and blood pressure drop suddenly (or something like that--all I know is that doing the Valsalva maneuver used to stop my arrhythmia in its tracks).  It's the same mechanism that's at work when people faint at the sight of blood; some people react more to vagal maneuvers than others and apparently I'm one of them (although not to the point of fainting for any reason).  So anyway, nothing to worry about there, and I may try different breathing styles with squats to see if I can lessen the dizziness.

So "Nancy" was fun (side note: only in CrossFit is it acceptable to bump into someone you know in the grocery store and begin the conversation with "so, did you do Nancy yesterday?").  And then I took Tuesday off to prepare for Wednesday.

Wednesday would have three workouts.

I had an all-day workshop to attend on Wednesday, held not too far from the short track rink that has "early bird" skating on Wednesdays. So of course I told Sprinter Boy I'd be happy to go to short track again at 5:40 am.  So we did, and I got some good technique work in.  Then I went to my workshop all day, and then met Sprinter Boy at a park with good skating trails--which, again, was very close to where my workshop was held.  Unfortunately my insistence on skating the trail rather than a road near Sprinter's house was a bit premature and not well-thought-out...
Yes, that's snow.  In fact, that's about the fifth drift we had to skate through in the two miles 
we made it down the trail.

So then after four snow-infested miles, we packed up and drove 25 miles to Sprinter's house to skate the road.  I felt I owed it to him after dragging him and his (previously good) bearings through the snow.  The road skating was actually more fun and less intimidating than I'd feared...and I think I did some of the (technically speaking) best inlining I've ever done.  I actually felt the "carve" and the pressure that skaters talk about...well, I felt it maybe 10 strides total of the 6 miles we skated on the road.  But hey, it's a start.

So then we went back to Sprinter Boy's house and picked up Mrs. Sprinter, Sprinter Dog, and Sprinter Sister and we all walked to a park about half a mile away and did dryland--the first dryland of the season.  We did 15 of the prescribed 25 minutes and decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and we quit at that point.  Still, those 15 minutes felt remarkably good...I don't think I've ever done "baby steps" that low.  Thanks, CrossFit, for making me do all those squats this past 6 weeks!

So that was Epic Wednesday.  It was followed by Epically Tired, I'm Going To Bed At 8:45 pm Thursday, but it was a fun way to start the season.  And I'm happy to report that I'm not nearly as sore as I usually am from the first dryland of the season, even though I did about twice as much as I've done for the first workout of the season the past couple years.  Again, thanks CrossFit!

I'm sure that, like my decision to skate the trails on Wednesday, this statement is a bit premature--but I'm happy to say that the 2014-15 season is off to a great start.


Sunday, April 6, 2014

And So It Begins...

The 2014-15 season, I mean.  Or, it will begin on Wednesday.  Unless you count CrossFit, then it will begin tomorrow.

Whatever...I'm very excited!

I'd be more excited it we hadn't just gotten another eight or so inches of snow last week...I'm dying to get out on the inlines.  But still, the start of the season is the start of the season and you can't beat that.

I just got back from four days at my parents' place up on Lake Superior.  As promised, here are the dog and lake pictures:
Three of my parents' four dogs, doing what they usually do.

And the fourth, doing what she usually does--sitting on a chair atop a stuffed moose, staring at the deer (you can just see one to the right of her head).

And here's the lake--sunrise on our East beach

OK, now that we've got that out of the way, here's how the season looks.

I'm thinking the season should get off to a good start.  Thanks to the SISU challenge I'm 10 pounds lighter than I've been in almost 10 years.  I'm eating better, and I've done more workouts in March than I ever have before (14 "real" workouts versus last year's 3), but since they were all varied CrossFit workouts (and a couple of runs), my legs had plenty of recovery time and I'm feeling ready for dryland. True, I have a left arm/shoulder pain right now (probably from trying too long and too hard--and unsuccessfully--to master the Toes to Bar maneuver), but since you don't use your left arm much in skating I'm not too concerned.

So tomorrow I have CrossFit, Tuesday no workout because I'm going to the doctor to get my thyroid levels checked, then the real workouts start Wednesday.  I get to do short track again Wednesday morning because I happen to be going to a workshop fairly close to the short track rink.  Then in the evening, we have the first real dryland of the season for me:  Mel Mania.  My friend Melissa has been running a dryland group on Wednesday nights (the chick does not have the word "rest" in her vocabulary!), and Sprinter Boy went a couple weeks ago and said he was so sore he could hardly type afterwards. I may need to play the "old lady" card and cut back on some of the dryland that they'll be doing.  Then another CrossFit on Thursday or Friday, then another dryland on Saturday. I also need to do a recovery workout (skating, biking or rowing) once a week, and I'd like to do at least one brisk trail skate a week, when the snow melts.

And that's how April looks--two CrossFits, two drylands, and a couple skates a week.  Should be interesting to see how it goes!

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

It's Like Meatloaf Says...

...two out of three ain't bad.

Except when the "one" really, truly sucks.

 (And yes, I realize I'm dating myself with the title.  If you don't understand it, you clearly need a refresher on '70's pop music.)

Today got off to a very ambitious start: three workouts completed by 10:30 am. Well, actually only one of them was a true workout.  Workout #1 was short track with Sprinter Boy; short track is not a true workout for me because my fitness far exceeds my skill and guts in the small rink. This is much more a testament to my lack of skill and guts than it is to my fitness level, but whatever.  Workout #1 went great (despite starting at 5:40 am)-Sprinter Boy always has great suggestions and technique tips, and it was fun to be back on the ice, even if it was only short track.

Practicing one-foot glides...I actually don't look too bad.  Except for the goofy arm swing I'm using to keep my balance.

Likewise, Workout #2 was barely a workout.  I had time to kill between short track and Workout #3, CrossFit, so I decided to pop down to the oval and jog on the indoor track for a bit.  First I took the obligatory "doesn't the oval look sad without snow" picture, and then I jogged a 9-something-minute mile.
Again, no problem.

Sigh.

It was at the real workout of the day, CrossFit, that the wheels came off.  The warmup row was fine, and the strength part of the workout--back squats at 75-80% of our ORM (One Rep Max) EMOM (Every Minute on the Minute--CrossFit has as many abbreviations as special ed does) for 10 minutes--was OK. I thought the squats felt heavy, but CoachBoy 2 said they were supposed to be hard so I didn't question it.

Then we got to the WOD.

12 minutes AMRAP (As Many Reps as Possible) of 30 double unders, 20 wall balls, and 15 Toes to Bar.  Since my left shoulder has been hurting ever since I got a little aggressive about Toe to Bar attempts last week (I was so close to getting one!), CoachBoy 2 told me to do Hollow Rocks--an on-your-back core exercise--instead.

So I started with the double unders--or tried to.  After a couple sets of two consecutive dubs, I settled into a nice rhythm of miss--miss--one--miss again.  The trouble was, every time I stopped I got so lightheaded that I had to bend down with my hands on my knees in that fetching "is she just resting or is she gonna hurl?" position.  I had been a bit lightheaded during the squats (and indeed, also at the other workouts I've done this week), but nowhere near this bad.  I finally had to start taking a knee instead of just bending over.  CoachBoy 2 came by and asked how things were going (we were almost halfway into the 12 minutes, everyone else was on their, oh, third set or so, and I had yet to complete half my dubs.)  When I told him about the lightheadedness, he responded exactly the way CoachBoy 3 had when we had the same conversation earlier in the week--by asking if I'd eaten that day.

Clearly they do not know me very well.  At that point in the day, at 10:15 am, I had already eaten twice.

So I struggled along and finished the 12 minutes.  The wall balls didn't go any better than the dubs--I tried to do sets of 5 but kept no-repping and having to take a knee.  The hollow rocks were fine because by that time I was more than happy to lie down.  I ended up with 77 reps--one complete round and 12 more dubs.  Everyone else got in the 200 range.  And I spent an inordinate amount of time flat on my back recovering, considering that the folks who had done three times what I had were strolling casually about the box, chatting and barely breathing hard.

So, an epic fail CrossFit workout.  What gives?  Well, I think my thyroid levels may be high.  I have a lot of suspicious symptoms: I'm always hot, I can't sleep well, I feel jittery sometimes (especially in the mornings), and then there is that fatigue and lightheadedness in  workouts.  I've also had more of the chest pain that my doctor isn't worried about but that I'm not happy with when it turns up (as it did in today's workout). It's taken me a while to put two and two together and start wondering about my thyroid levels, but I've made an appointment for next Tuesday so we shall see.  If I am high, it will be the first time since I was diagnosed that my levels have spontaneously gone up and, while I wouldn't be happy about having to tinker with med dosages again because it tends to be a long and frustrating process, I'd be happy that my thyroid seems to be functioning better.  

And now, I need to go pack because my sister Energizer Bunny and I are heading up north soon to visit my parents (why yes, my next post will feature lake and dog pictures--why do you ask?).  That should be a pleasant way to distract myself from my possible thyroid issues for a couple days...

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

The Body that Paleo Built

I finished the final component of CrossFit SISU's Challenge today, the Bod Pod body composition testing.  It's time to set down my final thoughts on the challenge, and to compare today's "body that Paleo built" with last month's "body that PopTarts built."

I will (of course) provide many more details, but the short answer is:

I.  Am.  Ecstatic.

Really and truly, I could not be happier with my results from the challenge, and they have exceeded even my most far-out hopes for making positive changes for myself.  Here are the high points:

1.  Diet.  I have pretty much done a complete 180 on my eating--and it was easy.  Just for a refresher, remember that I'm the one who thought two poptarts and a Diet Dew were good pre-workout fuel, and who routinely hit McDonald's for my pre-race meals.  My diet resembled what you'd get if you handed a 10-year-old a $20 bill and turned her loose in a 7-11.  I never ate vegetables and rarely ate fresh fruit, and dinner (when I wasn't skating in the evening and I bothered to cook) was something to be gotten through to get to desserts.  Yes, there is an "s" on that.  I was a carb addict and a binge eater and, at age 50 after trying for 35 years to change that, I had given up.  I ate what I wanted and hoped I could exercise enough so I wouldn't have to keep going out and buying bigger pants.  I still wanted to change but really didn't think it was possible--and I almost didn't do the challenge because I didn't think I could give up grains, dairy, legumes, and (most) sugar.

Strangely enough, I never really missed them.  When I did have a brief urge for something, it's was a behavioral trigger rather than a true food craving--like walking through the Cub bakery on my weekly Saturday shopping trip, because I would always go through the bakery last and pick out a donut to go with my Diet Dew for the trip home.  These urges were easily dismissed, and the huge thing for me is that I can eat small amounts of Paleo treats (even with honey or real chocolate chips in them) and stop at one small piece.  "Stopping at one" has never been a part of my eating; as my grandma used to say, "one bite is too much and the whole pie is not enough."  I finally understand how people can crave something, eat it, and then be satisfied.  In the past, one always led to more.

I'm very glad that the SISU coaches chose a more relaxed nutrition challenge than something very rigid like the Whole30.  I was able to come up with a version of Paleo that worked for me right away at the start of the challenge, and thus there's no "wow I can't wait until these unreasonable restrictions end," and no trying to figure out how I'll eat from here on.  In fact, I didn't even have the urge to have a "cheat meal" when the challenge was done.  True, I'll have to figure out how I'll handle situations that include non-Paleo meals--I know for a fact that my parents are planning takeout pizza for Thursday dinner when my sister and I are visiting them later this week--but I'm hoping to be able to eat the occasional "off plan" meal without messing myself up.  I think making the challenge more flexible from the start was a good step towards this.

I'm also delighted to see how good real food tastes once you get rid of the crap.  I did not expect to actually like meat and vegetables and fruit--but I do.  I've figured out easy ways to "cook ahead" and I've got lots of tasty lunch and breakfast options that are actually good for me and that I truly, really think taste good, which will go a long way towards helping this diet change become a permanent thing.

2.  You've already heard about the fitness part of the challenge at length, so let's skip to...

3.  Body composition.  Here, too, I got a huge and wonderful surprise.  My home scale said I was down 9 pounds this morning from pre-challenge weight; the Bod Pod tech got me at 7 pounds down later this afternoon.  Either way, I'm thrilled.  I wasn't expecting to lose much if any weight, and certainly not this much.  I am now at the weight I was back in 2007, before hypothyriodism and perimenopause entered my life.  I truly thought I would never get back to that weight, and certainly not this easily.  I really wasn't consciously restricting my food intake, just eating when I was hungry (that in itself is a novel idea for me).  Anyway, my body fat is down .9%, from 18.6 to 17.7% (lower than it was when I had it measured almost 10 years ago).  True, some of the weight loss was lean body mass, but I expected that since the challenge was during skating off season and I had dropped from 4-5 hard skating workouts and 1-2 CrossFit workouts a week to just 2 CrossFit workouts a week.  I'll get the muscle back when skating season starts (with dryland, next week), and in the meantime I'm thrilled to be wearing pants that I haven't fit into in 10 years.  (This would be a problem if I had any concept of fashion, but since I don't...hello, 10-year-old jeans!)

So there you have it.  I am profoundly grateful to the CrossFit coaches for running this challenge, I'm glad I managed to get myself to give it a try, and I'm happier with the way I look and feel than I have been in almost 10 years.

So I'd say it was a success.