And we're back! Again. The holiday binge is over. There's still chocolate all over the house, and I'm still eating it, but once it's gone, it's gone.

2009 Fitness Goals

1. Nutrition

I will eat better. Real food at mealtime. Fewer snacks, especially late night. Smaller portions of better food, with an occasional splurge meal once a week. Avoid fast food and sugar as much as possible. Water to drink.

2. One race per month

Once a month I'll do a sprint triathlon. I have planned real races for April through September. For the other months, I'll do a simulated triathlon in the gym.

3. 250 pounds

Get my weight down to 250 by next New Year's Eve. That's about a pound a week, which is very doable. I'd rather make this a waist size goal, but weight is much easier to track.

4. Keep it up!

Continue steady regular training.

InSimTri 1: Success!

InSimTri? What? That means "indoor simulated triathlon," which is a thing I made up. The Trideltathon in April is a 400 yd swim, a 6.2 mile bike ride, and a 3.1 mile run. So today my brother-in-law Mike and I went to the gym and did all of those distances in those activities. I didn't care about my time at all; I just wanted to see if I could complete all the distances back-to-back. And I did! Here's my "race report."

Race: InSimTri 1 - Knoxville TN - 12/20/08
Sprint triathlon - 400 yd/6.2 mi/3.1 mi

PRE-RACE:
Ate a banana and a dinner roll with peanut butter. Drank some Gatorade, got my bag together, called Mike, drove to the gym listening to awesome music to get pumped.

SWIM:
400 yd - 30:46
Ridiculously slow, but I didn't care about time. I'm still doing Total Immersion drills, so I don't even swim with a full stroke yet. I did the Double Underswitch the whole time with rest breaks after every 25 yards. Very very slow, but I am the FIERCE TORTOISE, and I completed the distance! (Mike did about four lengths and had to quit. He is generally in good shape, but hasn't trained at all at swimming, and I think this was a big wake up for him.)

T1:
9:11
Transition times are usually around two or three minutes, but this one was different than a real race. We went to the locker room and changed out of our swim gear to normal workout clothes. I'll have to find a way to simulate a real T1 before race day. Right now, I can't, because dripping water all over the gym is frowned upon. I also need to do this faster to simulate the heart rate and balance change without a long rest in between.

BIKE:
23:51 - 6.2 miles
On the stationary bike. I kept my rpms around 90 the whole time and my heart rate around 140-150. I usually train my HR around 130-140, but hey, it's race day, so let's pump it up! I used the Hill program to simulate changing terrain. Kept drinking water. I realize I need some wrist sweat bands because I use the towel a lot to wipe my face. No difficulties at all. Next time we'll do this on a spin bike.

T2:
?:?? (2:00?)
I forgot to hit the split button on my watch, so I don't know exactly how long this was. I'm guessing two minutes - I walked around a little and refilled my water bottle.

RUN:
37:35 - 3.1 miles
Again, real slow, and again, I didn't care. I started feeling my legs about 1.5 miles in. I train every day, so I can go 45 minutes no problem, but at this point I had been going for an hour non-stop. It wasn't difficult, but definitely noticeable. I think this will go away with time and more training.

TOTAL TIME: 1:43:23
(For comparison, the DFL (Dead Last) time for the Trideltathon last year was 1:44:35, so at least I won't be last!)

POST-RACE:
Good long time spent stretching, more Gatorade.

TAKEAWAYS:
Hooray, I can do it! The swim was definitely the weakest leg, but only because I haven't learned a full stroke yet. I'm positive that once that comes together I'll be okay. As long as I can swim one length (50m) I don't care if I have to rest between laps.

I plan to do this once a month, increasing the realism/difficulty every time. The final InSimTri in March will be on a real bike outside and real running outside too. I plan to have a full swim stroke by January and we'll use spin bikes. For February, we'll run on treadmills, or outside if we can get a fairly warm day.

Oh yeah baby, I'm a (sim)triathlete! FIERCE TORTOISE

And we're back.

The Thanksgiving splurge weekend is over, and I got back on the horse pretty easily. I hit the elliptical on Tuesday instead of swimming to try and burn off some extra calories. My weight spreadsheet tells the story pretty well - I gained a couple of pounds, but frankly it was worth it. I do not want to restrict myself during the holidays too much.

I'm excited about January - when the holidays are over, there won't be so much deliciousness surrounding me. There's something wonderful within arm's reach of just about every seat in the house, and I love it all. I know I could lose more weight if I cut my calorie intake. I burn about 500-600 calories each day at the gym, then I come home and eat pie and candy and pretty much wipe out that gain.

Do I sound like I'm complaining? I'm not. Like my wife said, last year I wasn't working out at all and I still ate the same, so I'm still better off. Worst case I am still training my cardiopulmonary system for endurance.

Speaking of which, I can definitely tell an improvement in my endurance level. I have started trying to go faster on the elliptical machine rather than just going slow at a high resistance. I set the machine to maintain my heart rate at about 70% of my max (130 bpm). This trains my body to burn fat instead of sugar (glycogen), which is better for endurance. You can burn the sugar out of your muscles pretty quickly, but fat burns slow, so it's a better fuel source.

I do about 45-50 minutes on the machines, and I realized this week that the only reason I don't go longer is that I have to leave the gym to go to work. It's sweaty, and it's work, but I don't collapse afterwards from the exertion. I actually feel pretty good. I'd love to find out how far I can go before I really feel tired. I think soon I'll go on a Saturday and do a little tri rehearsal, with a swim, bike and run all in the same day.

I also plan to accelerate my swim training. The Total Immersion program has sixteen drills before you're really swimming with a full stroke. I've been doing one drill a week, so I'm up to drill six. At this pace I won't be truly swimming until March, and the first race is in April. I'm going to try doing a new drill each time in the pool, and also adding a swim day on Saturday. This will get me up to a full stroke in January, and I can train a full swim stroke for three months before the first race.

Man! This stuff is boring. I can't believe anyone but me would ever read this blog. But thanks I guess. If you're reading this and thinking about doing a triathlon, I say go for it. It's changing me already in ways I never thought of. I'm more disciplined and focused on the future in every aspect of my life. I'm healthier and my clothes fit better. I am doing something difficult that takes a long sustained effort, and every day I succeed at it makes me more sure I can do it and makes me think I can do more in life. I absolutely recommend it. Take a step and change your life!