Tri training: a grab bag of thoughts

- You know how marathon training plans are full of those easy runs in which you are explicitly warned not to go too fast? And how the bread and butter (mm, bread... mm, butter) of a marathoner is zoning out and running for an hour? Tri training is a whole different kettle of fish (mm, fish and chips). There is no such thing as an easy workout in tri training, you guys. NO EASY DAYS. It's either long something or intense something. Long bike ride, long run, tempo run, speed intervals at the track, hill reps on the bike, tempo swim. Every workout *does* something. No more 'zone out and run for an hour, there's chwee kueh at the end' (mm, chwee kueh). It's ALL key workouts.  I know I said one of my training mantras was 'DON'T THINK - JUST GO' but even if I don't overthink so much that I fail to get out the door...my brain is tired. 

This post is brought to you by post-long-runger. Gosh, what gave it away?... 

 

- Top of my to-do list now, training-wise, is figuring out when to do my glute/ hip strength exercises. I do most of my training outdoors - pool, run, bike - so it's not like I can just lie down in the middle of the road for clamshells (mm...clam chowder, but only the New England kind) and leg lifts. This week I've done the exercises whenever I've been at the gym (I sit down and immediately soak a gym towel because I ran there) - so twice now. It'll have to do for the time being. 

-- This list is here in case I happen to forget it. 

- Clam shells

- Leg lifts 

- Bridge (stability ball optional) 

- Marching bridge

- Donkey kicks

- Plank 

- Back raises 

- Pushups

- Hip hikes 

- Standing bird dog 

- Wall sit 

Was there something else I should be doing? 

- Anyway, the theme of this year's tri is apparently 'do something that scares you'. 

Simply doing my very first OD tri - that's scary enough. 

Riding 40km scares me - so I did it last week. 

Doing a 65km group ride with my super fast tri group* scares the shiznit out of me - so I'm doing it next weekend. Yes, I will get dropped. Yes, I have already pre-emptively asked for a map and my tri group friend's cellphone number. 

*How fast is the tri group? I am not an especially SLOW swimmer, compared to the general population. At training on Wednesday, I was dead last in the last lane - the farthest one right at the edge of the pool. I popped up between sets, already an entire pool length behind everyone else, and looked at the coach plaintively. 'Can I drop down a lane?' 

- I've also discovered that looking for a no-one-gets-dropped, longish group bike ride that caters to total n00bs who don't even clip in (i.e. me) is basically like looking for a unicorn in a tropical rainforest. A pink unicorn. That happens to also be invisible. 

---

Can we talk for a second about a few things I've read lately? 

1. I went on holiday and my pretty little Google spreadsheet of all the books I've read this year basically spiralled out of control. But I've just finished...

... Charles Stross's Iron Sunrise (I still think Ted Chiang and Geoff Ryman are the world's most underrated sci-fi/ speculative-fic authors, but I'm quite partial to Charles Stross too.) 

...the Brownlee brothers' Swim Bike Run (I don't usually go in for athlete biographies but this is honest and quite funny and they have an interesting sibling dynamic) 

...Gregory Maguire's Wicked (probably better than the musical? quite drastically different?) and its sequel, Son of a Witch. 

2. 'The Good, Bad and Ugly about Squats for Female Runners' 

It disturbs me that in lists like this the author always feels the need to make it about being attractive to men. Or, alternatively, 'chicking' them (mm...did someone say chicken?). Why do we need to define ourselves in relation to other people and other genders? Can't it just be 'run times get faster, fewer injuries, yay; pants don't fit, boo'? Oh but that would make for such a boring list and then no one would read it. 

3. 'Are you really going to eat that?' 

Everyday Sexism, via the Guardian, on the sort of bizarrely rude, busybody food-policing that appears to go on in less civilised countries. 

So, oddly, I've never experienced it in Singapore (my Caucasian friend from Australia who posted it on Facebook says 'It's an ang moh thing'...Singapore friends, can you corroborate please?) I don't know why, and I could be wrong and am plucking this theory out of my rungry ass, but honestly, most people in Singapore live to eat and understand what it is to really enjoy your food. Plus traditional foods and the act of enjoying food are deeply embedded in my cultural identity - so criticise my food and you criticise my culture, and you wouldn't want to do that now would you? 

4. Here is an excellent response to food-policing, body-commenting and general backhanded complimenting. Look them in the eye. And say: 'I don't fucking care if you like it.'

Slow? So what?

Huh (she said incredulously). This time last year, 4:10 was a difficult 800.

Last night's track session involved 5 moderate 800s. Which turned out to be 4:10, 4:07, 4:05, 3:58 (?!), 4:02. With room to chat with my friend J. (Followed, of course, by 4x400 'hard' which I promptly floundered around on: 1:47, 1:52, 2:05 - my shoulder suddenly spiked with pain, who knows why - and 1:59. Yes, my body still rebels during short intervals.)

In this -- my hardest week of marathon prep, mentally even if it physically isn't much, involving a nasty bout with self-doubt -- my body springs a lunatic surprise like this. THAT'S IT, BODY. NO MORE SURPRISES. I can't deal.

There are good track sessions, and there are absolutely lousy ones. There are good runs and terrible ones. Two steps forward, one step back.

Although last night's track was probably the effect of the present I bought myself (along with the husband's set of birthday presents - shirts that practically glow in the dark because he has the terrible habit of running home from work, at night, clad in black).

The downside is, luminous purple makes it harder to hide from your coach on the other side of the track.

--

Which brings us to this lovely post from The Wannabe Athlete (don't mind her moniker, she is very much a real athlete).

She wrote it as a follow-up to a hilariously nasty comment someone left on her post, 'On behalf of all the 10+ minute mile runners'. That's 6+ minutes per km.

It has honestly never crossed my mind to feel ashamed of the pace I run. Frustrated that that IS my fast, sure. But shame, no...

If you look at my race times today, you'd think, oh, she doesn't really take these races seriously. But my first marathon three years ago took me just over six hours. My first 10k took me at least an hour and ten minutes. My first 5k --  I don't even remember my first 5k, but if I did it'd probably be 'let's not even go there'. So things HAVE changed. But it has taken me a long, long time to get there. Life. You know. It happens.

So I might be one of the unlucky genetically challenged*; I may be good for nothing at all except fidgeting relentlessly. (I am an incorrigible fidgeter. Hey, I'll take whatever superpowers I can get.)

Still, there's a silver lining. My heart and lungs are almost certainly healthier than before, and I'm probably at less risk now from the chronic liver condition I was born with. My blood pressure is entirely healthy - running probably saves me from the stresses of work life. And exercise seems to help maintain cognitive function - at least, it does in this study of masters athletes. I like to think it makes me younger (totally why people still mistake me for an intern, right?) No reason to stop now just because I'm not getting a whole lot faster.

All that is why I never ever, ever judge anyone for their speed or their finishing time in a race. How do you know for sure whether someone has put in the work and is giving it their all, or is on a run/walk plan, or is undertrained because they don't respect the distance? Everyone's got to start somewhere. And honestly, you never know how far each person has already come.
---

*A note for science nerds. Science nerds who may or may not have read The Sports Gene. I'm looking at you Jeano.

How much difference is there between different ethnic populations? If different populations have longer, thinner legs  or more fast-twitch muscle fibres written into their genetic code, would it be implausible that different ethnic populations have different levels of trainability on average at the population level? Are these things that vary more WITHIN populations than BETWEEN them?
---

In other news, after this marathon, it'll be time to evict the spiders and their cobwebs from my bike and dust off my goggles. I've signed up for the sprint Cold Storage Singapore International Triathlon at the end of September and would rather not be the resident Metasport embarrassment.

Here's a discount code - TRITSIT1309 - in case any of you want to try a thlon. That gets you 20% off race entry (have not done this one yet, cannot attest to quality of organising). Found on the web via Trititude.

And here's a picture from my favourite run last week, more to motivate myself than anything else.