met with nutrionist, and garmin fun!

I met with Altheus' nutritionist today. Basically I can only consume about 2450 calories a day to promote a 1 pound per week weight loss. My diet so far has been good, I just needed to cut down on portion sizes, and add even more balance to my diet. She also helped me understand why my blood sugar would be so outa wack after eating a piece of food. i.e., I was not eating any protein or fat with that high sugar piece of fruit. 2450 calories is gonna be tough, but I will be using dailyplate.com to track those calories. So in 10 weeks, if all goes as planned, I should weight in the 154-155 area, which would be about a 20 pound weight loss since last February. Not bad i'd say...

I got my Garmin all hooked up to my computer and was able to download the data. Looking at it is very very similar to CycleOps Power Agent, but instead of just showing a graph, it shows off a map of my route via the GPS. It also shows the heart rate graph over horizontal bars of my 5 heart rate zones. So for this run, it turned out to be mostly a tempo run since my heart rate was mostly in zone 3.

Awesome stuff! I will get the route and graph uploaded to a site that is publicly viewable.

And finally, my Garmin HRM is compatible with my PowerTap's computer. This is awesome as I can graph an outdoor route via GPS along with power, heart rate, etc.

difference between GPS and mapmyride.com

My GPS during my run said that I went 4.62 miles. Mapmyride.com said I went 4.82 miles.

Which is more accurate? Well if I map the .25 mile track by my place, it comes out to EXACTLY .25 miles, so I am gonna go with mapmyride.com for now.

So either I ran a 9:11 min/mile pace or I ran an 8:48 min/mile pace. I am gonna go with down the middle, which is my usual 9 min/mile pace.

I am borrowing my friend's foot pod that will work with the watch. It overrides the GPS, which is fine, and I will run the same course again and see out of the 3, which is the most accurate.

ran outside

This time my run outside went a LOT better. I have NO idea why that last 3.5 mile outdoor run last week whipped me so badly. I ran 4.62 miles this morning in about 42:27, or about a 9:11 min/mile. I was tired by the end, but right now I feel only a little sore.

I used my Garmin for the first time, and I was basically figuring out how to use the thing as I walked during my warmup. When I was about to start running I was hitting the "Start" button and nothing was happening. I quickly figured out I had to go into the "Training" mode, then hit "Start." So disaster averted, I went on my run and tried to keep it as easy as possible.

I only sorta slipped once on the ice, and had to navigate out into the middle of the road a few times because the sides of the road were pretty icy in some spots.

I am ready for the 5 miler on Saturday. As of right now its supposed to snow. I am not planning on putting in a personal best anyways....just wanting to finish @ this point!

back in the pool

and tonight was actually not that bad. I actually had some endurance!

I put in 1550 yards in about 43 mins and change, which was about half of what I was supposesd to put in. OOPS! This is the first time back in the pool in about 2 weeks, plus I have to run about 5 miles tomorrow, 2 workouts on Friday, then a 5 mile RACE on saturday followed by a 90 min bike on Sunday. I think tonight is not gonna break the bank!

My form in the pool was good when rested. When I started to get tired, I got sloppy. I am happy with tonight. I think a few more weeks and I will be on a better solid footing, if that makes sense.

I'm tired and I need to learn how to use my watch before bed before I get up @ the crack of stupid tomorrow morning for a run.

Night.

it has begun!

with the first spin class of the year. It wasn't too too bad tonight. I think I could have tightened up the resistance one more turn as during the hardest intervals I ran out of gears, and was only pushing ~250 watts. Yeah, there could have definately been a lot more resistance.


Good to be back on the bike. I still wish I could be outdoors....

My coach has got me on training peaks. He can update my workouts on the fly, I see em, do em, then report with data. Pretty awesome! There is a lot to it and I think its gonna take a bit to get used to all of its features, especially sharing workout data.

Also, I bought the Garmin 405 Forerunner, a GPS enabled watch with HRM. It has every bell and whistle I can imagine on it, except for being able to swim with it, which is not biggie. I look forward to using this new toy as well.

And now that I have every toy I could ever imagine having for this super expensive sport, I must now go out and actually start logging some solid data!!!!

assessment

Tonight was the start of the new season. THE Assessment.

Started off with weight and height measurements, then onto body fat caliper measuremeants. I came in @ 25% body fat. So I have LOTS and LOTS of room to loose some poundage :)p

Then it was onto the treadmill. I remembered from last year's bike test that it was gonna start out easy then get hard, VERY hard. It happened just like that. Towards the end I was running 9 mph (or about a 6:44 min/mile) at an incline. I was moving fast and starting to lose composure and I thought my heart was going to pop out of my chest, so I called it quits. It was enough data anyways. My heart rate peaked at a max of 194, and prolly could have gone higher had I gone longer. I was putting out a max VO2 of 61, which for my age is above average (yay! at least I have one thing that is above average!). If I lose some body fat, that number is going to increase.

So my heart rate zones break down as follows:
Zone 1: 144 -154 BPM or 10:00 - 10:56 min/mile pace
Zone2: 154 - 164 BPM or 9:31- 10:00 min/mile pace
Zone3: 164 - 174 BPM or 8:13 - 9:31 min/mile pace
Zone4: 174 - 184 BPM or 6:40 - 8:13 min/mile pace
Zone5: 184+ BPM or 6:40 or faster min/mile

So this means that my Anaerobic Threshold (AT) is at 174 BPM. That means that if I train at 174 BPM or higher, then I will improve that threshold, meaning I will get faster and be able to hold it for longer. I think, though, that I will train at pace and feel rather than staring at my heart rate. Or, like I did this past summer, if I need to do a recovery run at a slow pace, I will set my alarm to go off I go over a heart rate limit, so force myself not to overdo it.

After the treadmill, I did some raw strength work, starting with benchpresses. I can bench a max of a whopping 107 pounds. WOW! I can however, leg press 447 pounds.

And now for the best part. I can do 20 pushups in 60 seconds and can do 21 situps in 60 seconds. I am a lean, mean, not so great core machine! haha

Sooooo.....doing strength 2X per week is gonna help with that, such as a Kettles and Bells workout and an at home simple strength workout such as pushups, planks, situps, etc. Plus I am going to try to start yoga once per week, starting next week when it starts.

So I am mostly sore right now from doing the freaking pushups and sit ups. ouch!

a new year and time to get things going

The holidays are finally over and they took a bit of a toll on my endurance. Time was one thing, but not getting outdoors on a regular basis definately took more of a toll, I think. From here on I will be on a fixed schedule without very many time wrenches thrown in. Plus, I will have scheduled races thrown in to keep up my motivation!

So this morning I hopped onto the treadmill and ran a 5K in about 28.5 mins, or a 9:30 min/mile pace. Still not the same as going outdoors, but I kept my pace a bit higher than usual to simulate the outdoors.

From here I am taking it easy until Monday night, which will be my treadmill assessment test to determine heart rate zones, VO2 Max, and zone paces. This will set me up for my first race on January 10th, almost a week away. The race is 5 miles around a portion of Central Park, in NYC.