Does making snowmen count as cross training?

We finally got a signifigant snowfall! And the snow was wet enough to be some perfect snowman snow.

(I was just the muscle, Kelly did the sculpting)

After rolling 4 huge snow boulders, I was exhausted and HUNGRY! I don't usually do this kind of exercise :)

(makes me wish I was in Central Park right now!)

(Looks like I will be on the dreamill for 45 mins tomorrow AM)

Since work was called off, I had tons of time to get my trainer session in followed by some good stretching and foam rolling. Over the past week I have seen an improvement in my biking by being able to push about 10 more watts with ease. I guess the past 4-5 weeks of consistent biking is starting to finally pay off.

burrr-E-TO!!!

Yep, its cold outside still (burrr), but! I thought I would share with you a favorite convenient post workout food: my rice, black bean, corn, tomato and cheese burrito. I call it convenient because they FREEZE really well! And you can make 6 at a time. That's 6 lunches right there! And they are loaded with carbs, so they are great to replace what you just lost during your workout.

Ingredients:
Can black beans
Can diced tomatoes
Can whole kernal corn
1 cup of basmati rice
cheddar cheese
large tortilla shells

Start by cooking the rice. I like basmati because it tastes soooooooo much better than standard white rice.

(Do you like the blown out photo?!?!?)

Combine in a pot the cans of black beans, diced tomatoes and corn. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to simmer until there is little liquid left.


Combine the rice and bean/tomatoe/corn mixture:


Take 1 cup of the mixture and place in middle of a tortilla, add about 1 oz of shredded cheddar.


Wrap and foil and freeze! (or eat immediately...)



So, the mixture should yield 6 total burritos. If you freeze them, thaw one out by putting it in the fridge overnight, then pull out in the morning, and it should be ready to nuke for 90 seconds in the microsmasher by lunch time. Usually I will eat these after a hard swim.

Enjoy!

Snapping outa the funk: Thoughts on a "rest" week

I am not going through a "bad" funk, just the funk of finishing an easier week. First you have to get used to going from 11+ hours of workouts down to less than 7 (and going easy(er) ), then re-adjust to ramping it back up to 10 hours.

Now here are my thoughts on a "rest" week. It was by no means a stop everything week and sit on the couch doing nothing, I was still active. I just had to force myself to go shorter and easier. Well, I have been going easy all along, so mostly it was just working out shorter and less frequent.

First the mental head games started. "You slacker! You are losing all that you have built up over the last 3 weeks!" or "Come on! Your legs don't hurt, you can go hard!"

So it was a lot of telling the brain to SHUT UP! and keep reminding yourself that you have just pummeled yourself (including a huge half marathon PR) over the last 3 weeks and that you really need to take it easy for a few days, even if it feels like you don't need it.

One thing that I realized was that I felt like I could have put in another half marathon PR yesterday. I had NO idea that I was sorta kinda tapering over the last week and feeling fuller and fuller with energy by week's end, not including fresh legs. Sooooooo, I might use this past week again for New Orleans in April and see if I eat my words. I always have trouble with tapers and I never go into a race feeling 100%.

And another thing that I am GLAD that I did was the video taping and drill work in the pool. It paid off BIG time today. I set a new 300 PR for a 4:51 or a 1:37 pace after I did a 5:00, 4:55, 4:56. Not sure if its the improved form or from being rested. The next few workouts will determine that once I get some more times put up.

Moving forward, these next 3 weeks are gonna be punishing, including 3 10+ mile runs including a 15.5 mile race at the end of February.

Think of good slogans to go onto my gravestone for me, because if I am still alive after this, it will be a miracle! ;)

Me, swimming, VIDEO!

I first want to say that my swim technique, well, needs a LOT of work. But! You should have seen me a year ago! I defined "bad" technique.

This past week my super swimmer coworker, Bob, noticed that my right arm was crossing over really bad. It was a bad habit that I was developing and fortifying pretty well this winter. So, this week, since it was a rest week, we did a lot of drill work to put a STOP (or rather to mitigate) to the arm cross over and address it. Already I am starting to see some improvements, especially with a 4 x 200 yard set where I came in 1 second off my current PR during the last 200.

I will tell you this, having my right arm enter in a more "correct" spot feels so foreign!

Here is a before:


And after (my left arm is still crossing over pretty bad).


Before:


After:


Here is a list of some of the things that need correcting:
My body position still sucks. Notice how much I am scissor kicking at the end of a stroke to "rebalance" myself? I am lifting my left hand up when I go to breath, essential throwing on the brakes. I lift my head when I breath. My body position looks like a wet noodle instead of me as a straight arrow. So many small things that add up to a lot of time and energy lost.

But at least I am recognizing these things NOW and not the week before my first race in 10 weeks.

For you swimmers out there, if you can, shoot video of yourself! This video feedback is priceless!

Sculpture and a flat week

I heard some great news this morning. One of my favorite late sculptors, Alberto Giacometti, had one of his sculpts, "Walking Man 1," sold for a record $104M at auction. Wow! If only he was alive to see this. Read about it HERE.


When I started art school in late 2001, I had NO idea who this guy was and had never seen any of this work. In the summer of 2003, when I was in Provence and in Nice (which btw, is very nice) I was able to see a lot of his stuff in person at the Fondation Maeght. It made an impression on me, or should I say more appropriately, a "modern" effect on me? (sorry, lame art joke)

So what does this have to do with triathlon? Well, indirectly that summer (and seeing all of this work and other modern and post modern work) basically paved my way through my last 2 years of school and catapulted me into my current job, which pays for my triathlon addiciton :)

And speaking of triathlon, this rest week of mine has had little tenebrism and chiaroscuro and has been very flat. Short runs (3 miler and a 4 miler), little biking, and lots of drill work in the pool. I wish had some more interesting tales to tell, but this week is just a resting dud......whiiiiiiiiich I don't mind. I need the mental break!

Pecan Crusted Chicken....YUM!

For some reason I was craving Pecan Crusted Chicken. I have never had Pecan Crusted Chicken before, only Pecan Crusted Fish. The hankering was literally killing me!

Fortunately I had A)Chicken B)Pecans C)Panko Breadcrumbs and D) Eggs. DING DING DING! Winner winner CHICKEN dinner!

I followed one of Emeril's recipes found HERE. (I didn't do the mustard dipping sauce)

I was literally drooling as I was saute`ing the chicken.


And then got ready to clean this plate


Aaaaahhhhhhh, now that was GOOD!

cold and rest and crossing over

The cold has returned! I guess I got lucky to have a balmy 37 degrees for the half marathon the other weekend because now 19 degrees is setting the new standard for warm. Needless to say that with a rest week this week, this morning's "easy" 3 mile run was more of a mental workout than a physical one.

Since I am taking it easy this week, that means in the pool my super swimmer coworker and I are focusing on drills. Unfortunately I have developed a nasty bad habit this winter of crossing my right arm over upon entry and extension. Doh! So now its time to correct that. Its amazing how where you think your arm is entering is really not where it is entering. By then end of the swim, I was "thinking" that my arms were entering perpendicular to my body, when in fact they were entering in straight. We might be breaking out the video camera on friday for some above water filming.