New: Google Maps for Cyclists!
Now directions to your friend’s St. Patrick’s Day party will also include the best bike route to get you there. I recommend splurging on a cab for the way home: Green beer tends to make a treacherous balancing act out of skinny bike tires.
Tuesday Morning Workouts
When you boil it down, training for a 5K seems like an incredibly-simple build-up of miles. Pair it with a interval workout or tempo run, ease up the week or two before race day, and you’re pretty much set. Coach Cook has me running only three days a week. And one of those days isn’t running as much as it is bounding, squat jumping and karaoke-ing. “The objective is twofold,” says Coach Cook. “Learn to move your feet very quickly, and learn to use efficient running technique.” What does it feel like to use “efficient running technique?” It feels like your heart rate holds at 180 bpm for an hour straight. I nearly keeled over on my first day, and then spent the following two days hobbling around. I had to walk up the two steps in my apartment (all two!) sideways because my knees figured they’d lifted themselves quite enough, thank you very much.
But the next week it felt better. And now I can make it through a session, like I did this morning, with more control over my body (and I’m able to catch my breath faster—a good sign of getting in shape). Coach Cook created a short video from one of our morning classes a couple of weeks ago. I’m in the blue shirt and gray shorts. Check ‘er out:
(I believe the background music is an unreleased Lady Gaga instrumental)
I asked Coach Cook what every wannabe triathlete should do at home to replicate the most important parts of his speed workout. He gave me five plyometric exercises as a start, and then an extra five drills you should use as a warm up before a workout or race:
THE WARM UP (3 sets of 10 reps for each):
Jump Drill (little jumps, both feet)
Hop Drill (one set = hop on right foot 10 times, switch to left and repeat)
Fast Feet Drill (as fast as you can go for about 10 seconds)
Knee-to-Elbow Drill (raise your right knee to touch your left elbow, then switch sides quickly in a skipping-in-place motion)
High-Knee-and-Clap Drill (this time lift your right leg high enough to clap underneath it, then switch sides quickly in a skipping-in-place motion)
5 PLYOS YOU SHOULDN’T TRAIN WITHOUT (50 meters—for the non-track geeks, a little over 150 feet—each, in order of appearance in the video):
1. Butt Kicks (no further description needed)
2. Skipping (you remember how to do this, right?)
3. Side Shuffle (go for distance, but keep it quick)
4. Karaoke (Side shuffle, but crossing your legs in front, bringing your knees high across your body… er, just watch the video)
5. Ankle Exercises (not shown in the video, but this can be a number of things: ankle skips, walking on the outside & inside of your foot, walking with feet pointed in & pointed out, walking on your toes, walking on your heels, writing the alphabet in the air with your foot, etc.)
Enjoy! And if my sterling descriptions confused you, let me know. I’m better with stick-figure drawings.
Categories: Motivation, Training, Triathlon | Tags: Plyometrics, warm up
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The Runners’ Street Art Exhibition
When I moved to New York City from Michigan, I gave up many things—my car, my mother’s cooking, my sanity—but worst of all, I gave up nature. And trails. And all of those things that make running a pleasant experience. Trading dirt paths for congested city streets was, in a word, disheartening.
No one returned my wave or smile on the running path here. I was forced to leap dog-created puddles and weave through pedestrians when the streets were too clogged with cars. I missed the constant change of the forest, the glimpses of bald eagles and deer leaping out of your way. I ran for those spontaneous moments.
And then I discovered street art. Not graffiti or some 12 year old’s scrawling, spray-painted name, but genuine stop-you-in-your-tracks street art. It was a slow discovery. Every so often, I would turn a corner that I’d turned every day and find a giant mural covering a crumbling brick wall. One time, it was a three-inch stenciled rat in an old concrete water fountain. The more I looked for these pockets of art, the more I found them. I began obsessively reading the Wooster Collective, a blog covering street art around the world, to learn more about the artists.
Finally, my runs had a purpose again. Since the weather finally warmed up this weekend (55 degrees!), I brought a camera on my favorite four-mile run and documented my new form of inspiration.
The first (and favorite) piece of the route:
Parisian artist JR wallpapered this school building a year and a half ago as part of his “Women Are Heroes” project. The rain and weather has clearly taken its toll. I was lucky enough to meet and interview JR last summer, and help him paste gigantic photos like this around Ile Saint-Louis in Paris last fall. See below (I’m wearing the orange headband at the bottom of the photo!):
From there, the art—created by international and local artists—keeps going for four splendid miles…
If you have a favorite scene from a run or bike ride, email a lo-res picture (250KB or below) to rachel.sturtz@meredith.com. Tell me in one or two sentences why it inspires you. If I get enough, I’ll include them in the blog next week.
Categories: Motivation, Training, Triathlon | Tags: favorite runs, inspiration, street art
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Bikes and the City
After my swim lesson last night, I came home to this email:
Hey Rach,
Just sitting here with my mom and your mom having a little happy hour in LA!
We were talking about your Fitness blog, and I noticed that you guys have ‘triathlon’ spelled ‘triathalon’ in a few places. Your mom thought I should let you know, and I thought it would be best to let you know about this misspelling on a Friday night. Hopefully you get this right around 10-11pm east coast time so you can drop everything and get right on it.
Hope all is going well with you (aside from the impending ‘Triathalon’ misspelling disaster…), and I can’t wait to read more posts!!
Talk to you soon,
The Grammar and Spelling Defender (Cousin Chris)
This error was in the “Categories” label (now fixed). So thanks, Chris.
I should also let you know one more thing about my cousin (besides his uncanny timing for “concerned” emails and ability to spell “triathlon”). This is him:
He’s a triath(a?)lete with that whole “professional” thing thrown in. Needless to say, you’ll hear more from Chris once I begin seeking advice beyond the “So these are called handlebars?”-caliber questions.
And speaking of handlebars and bikes, yesterday, I went here:
To pick up this!!!
I could not have been more excited. My first bike since my first bike! I half-rode and half-walked it home because I was so nervous with my new baby. I stared down anyone who eyed it for more than a couple of seconds. I moved it onto the road after being stared down by angry pedestrians, then moved it back up to the sidewalk any time a car came within 10 feet of it. Owning a bike in NYC is going to take some getting used to.
But the whole “bike adaptation” is going to be a lot more difficult for my two roommates. It’s hard enough for us to need roommates as 28 year olds (thank you, New York real estate prices), but we’ve all reached the point where we’re ready to have our own space. We live in a converted three-room apartment (two real bedrooms, and I live in what used to be a dining room). So when I’m about to take up some of our living space with a bike; living space that I share with two women who feel strongly about interior design aesthetic and whose sports equipment in the city stops at spin shoes and yoga mats, I can expect a fair amount of drama.
Just now, one called the bike ugly, said it will “make it look like we live in a college apartment” and predicted (obviously, I should add) that our third roommate is NOT going to be happy when she comes home.
* Sigh *
Categories: Clothes & Gear, Triathlon | Tags:
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Things I’m looking forward to…
1. Swim starts
To be continued…
Training FAIL
Last week, I went home to Traverse City, MI, to volunteer for our first ever Comedy Arts Festival hosted by Michael Moore and Jeff Garlin. I was lucky enough to be in charge of these guys (to show a few):
From left: TJ & Dave; Mike Toomey; Greg and Lou Present Lou and Greg
My job as guest liaison was to maintain minimal drama from the moment the comedians entered the Old Town Playhouse to the second they left. The goals: Satisfy basic human needs (hydration, food), make sure the lights and sound worked (the better to hear and see them with, my dears), and keep pushy journalists and photographers at bay (oh, the irony!). To sum it up: I got to hang out with a legendary improv duo, a brilliant impersonator and a couple of Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre-darlings. Not a bad weekend gig.
But when that gig requires 17-hour days and results in even lousier nights of sleep, something has to give. That something would be my training. After six days, I got in one four-mile run. Forget swimming, biking, lifting or abs. I actually wanted to get up and work out (which goes against my natural inclination toward vacation laziness)—I just couldn’t find the time. I guess this sort of thing happens to all of us, right?
But not all of us have to report the disparaging news* to their coach. I wrote a long email detailing my abysmal training and got this response from Coach Cook:
“At this stage there is minimal loss for a short break. My philosophy is that your priority needs to be: (1) Health, (2) Family, (3) Job, (4) Training. So, you made the correct choice in opting for sleep. The first phase of training is focused on building consistency in training – regular workouts, and building fitness – increasing volume and effort. In the beginning of training and after a base is reached, the loss from a few missed days is minimal and not worth going back to make-up. ”
Whew. And good to know.
*Not all is lost: A 2005 study found that 10 to 15 minutes of laughing can burn 10 to 40 calories. I laughed an average of five hours a day while at the Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival. Of the 40 slices of cherry pie I ate in the green room every day, one “didn’t count.”
Categories: Triathlon | Tags:
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The Difference a Week Makes
Forgive my absence. Last week was my first full week of training. While I realize this would have been the perfect opportunity to log the pain, exhaustion and soreness that accompanies the first fitful days of a new training regimen, I decided my first goal was survival. And sleep.
Here’s a visual of what I was up against:
You see that speed workout on Tuesday? That began at 5:45 a.m. Asphalt Green is just over four miles from my apartment, which is a piece of cake if you have a car. I don’t have a car (who does here?). It’s approximately a 15 minute train ride to the 86th street train stop and another 15-minute walk to the center. Wake up time: 4:50 a.m.
Tuesday: The speed workout is like an elementary gym class on steroids: an hour of drills, suicide sprints, planks and more. I spend half of the class with my hands on my knees and gasping like a fish out of water. I ate a bowl of cereal beforehand. Bad idea. Make mental note to eat only granola bars or bananas before jumping exercises. Go to bed at 9:30 p.m.
Wednesday: Really, really sore. But I get up at 6 a.m., to make sure my body begins to adapt to this new schedule. I bike for 35 minutes while forced to watch 35 minutes of inch-by-inch winter storm coverage on local news. Jump in the pool and try to focus on looking down, rotating, reaching and staying afloat. My right shoulder begins to hurt. Uh-oh. Go to bed at 9 p.m.
Thursday: Alarm goes off at 6 a.m. Can a person be in this much physical pain without experiencing a traumatic car accident? I scrap the running workout and go for an easy run. The roads are covered in ice and snow from the storm, so I dig out a pair of YakTrax that I’d bought three years ago and never used. Strap them onto the bottom of my shoes and it’s a miracle: I run across sheer ice without slipping once. The downfall: My muscles are so achy that they don’t want to work. I run almost two-minutes slower PER MILE, completing my slowest 4-mile run in probably 12 years. Go to bed at 8:30 p.m.
Friday: Less sore! Sleep in until 7 a.m. Bike for 45 minutes after work and my right knee starts to hurt. Make mental note to have someone teach me proper alignment on the bike because I have NO idea what I’m doing. At swim practice, Mike tells me the reason my shoulder is sore is because I’m using my shoulders to swim not my lats. Practice lets out at 9:30 p.m., eat at 10:30 p.m., fall asleep on couch at 10:45 p.m.
I promise not to give you a play-by-play of my weekly workouts from here on out, but my extreme sleep makeover and new schedule had to be noted at least once.
I coached a high school cross country and track team for a few years after college and during the first week of practice, I made a point of drilling one golden rule into their heads: You’ll hurt like hell for the first two weeks. Everything will be sore. You’ll question why you ever signed up, why you don’t just quit and sometimes, during the really long workouts, why you were ever born. But after two weeks, you start to feel great. Your body starts to get the hang of the sport. After the second week of cross country practice, I watched girls who hated running begin to smile.
One more week and this will all start to feel better. The catch? I’m traveling to my hometown tomorrow night for a week, which means I’ll face my most formidable psychological challenge: Motivating myself off of my mom’s couch. Any tips are appreciated…
Categories: Triathlon | Tags:
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POLL #2 WINNER: Specialized Amira!
Hi everyone — it’s Wendy, your FitnessMagazine.com editor here. Rachel can’t get to a computer now, but she wanted me to thank everyone who voted for the bike. It was a close one…She’ll be riding the Specialized Amira!
Form vs. Function
Thanks again to everyone who’s voting on the bike! The poll is live until 5 p.m. on Thursday, so there are a few days left to make your opinion heard.
. . .
I spent 45 minutes in the pool yesterday doing nothing but drills. I focus solely on breathing for the first six lengths. I breathe far too late in the stroke, which means that as I’m taking a breath, my front half is sinking towards the bottom of the pool. Not the optimal Michael Phelps form.
During the next six lengths, I think of nothing but Keep Your Head Down, Keep Your Head Down, Keep Your Head Down… Which is really damn hard. I grew up on a lake in Michigan where keeping your head down means you’ll get scalped by a speedboat. So I’m working against some serious Pavlovian training. I tried several tricks and, finally, one stuck. My Great Uncle Bill used to keep me and my cousins busy at family reunions by tossing silver dollars into a pool. His token of generosity was quickly met with Lord of the Flies-like aggression from the eight young, money-hungry children. Even those of us who couldn’t swim dove in. To keep my head down, I pretend to look for Bill’s silver dollars.
I use the rest of my warm up to work on my body rotation (poor at best) and extending my arms in front of me (which ends after the third time I’ve awkwardly caressed the ankles of the swimmer in front of me—I was looking down!). But I have to share my first breakthrough with you, thanks to a drill Mike gave us during our second class. It took me from kicking like an underwater Moulin Rouge dancer, to someone with a little more class. My heels actually broke the surface of the water and for the first time ever, I felt that gliding torpedo feeling.
Start with a vertical kick (push away from the wall, keep your hands palms down on the front of your thighs and kick like crazy to keep your head above water). For the vertical kick to be successful, your body has to be ram-rod straight and you need to kick from the hips—not from the knees as us runners are prone to do. Cement those good habits in your muscle memory by kicking like that for 20 seconds or until your quads start to burn, then slowly tilt forward until horizontal with your face in the water, still kicking and palms still glued to the front of your thighs. If you’ve kept perfect posture and made it to the other side, congrats! You’ve mastered one element of swimming. Repeat 10,000 times.
When I reached the far wall, I let out an “Oh!” I’d felt the difference.
Speaking of feeling the difference, I just set my alarm clock for 4:50 a.m., approximately three hours earlier than when I normally wake up. My very first workout with my triathlon coach, Neil Cook, begins tomorrow at 5:45 a.m. He told me it’s going to hurt. I believe him.
Categories: Training, Triathlon | Tags: drills, Swim, tips, vertical kick
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POLL #2: THE BIKE
A good bike should have many uses. When I was 12, my friends and I would find slugs and meticulously line them up on our bike tires. When each girl had approximately four to five gripping the black tread, we’d nod, take a seat and roll down my friend Kelly’s driveway. This was all done in the good name of ridding our neighborhood’s “slug problem.”
This new bike will not only help with pest control (NYC cockroaches, dear readers), but also carry me through hundreds of training miles. I’m nowhere near hardcore enough to require a tri bike and the perks of a high-end racing bike would be lost on a beginner like me, so I asked three bike companies to recommend a one that would go the distance. It needed to be beginner- and advanced-friendly, so I’d never grow out of it. One bike for life.
Each of these bikes uses an advanced women-specific, race-inspired geometry and is engineered for speed, efficiency and lightness. In short: They all kick a**. If you’re a bike nerd, you’ll know what I mean by looking at the stats below.
Vote away!
Specialized Amira
Why the Amira:
-Shimano 105 compact crankset for efficient gearing and smooth, durable shifting performance
-stiff, oversized head tube with a taper to deliver race-ready performance
-Specialized Pro ergonomic handlebar with women’s-specific drop for a proportional and comfortable ride -All-new Amira FACT 8r carbon FACT IS-constructed frame uses women’s-specific, race-inspired geometry and carbon lay-up to create a light, stiff and fast ride
-Mavic Aksium wheelset with flat aero spokes dropped 140g this year for lightweight road performance and efficiency
-Body Geometry Jett women’s saddle with hollow Cr-Mo rails and moderate padding for lightweight and pressure-free road performance
-FACT full carbon monocoque fork with a tapered 1 1-8″ – 1 3/8″ headset for strength and precision steering
Cannondale Synapse Carbon Feminine 5
Why the Synpase Carbon Feminine 5:
-Bars, saddles and thoughtful geometry choices that give women a more comfortable riding position.
-predictable handling and generous stand-over
-S.A.V.E. technology (Synapse Active Vibration Elimination), which triathletes Miranda Carfrae and Chrissie Wellington swear by to keep their legs fresh for the run
-Full carbon frame
-Excellent shifting Shimano 105 derailleurs
-Durable Shimano RS 10 wheels
-Slightly longer wheelbase and a lower tube top
-Compact or triple crankset
-Lifetime warranty
Giant Avail 1
Why the Giant Avail 1:
-ALUXX SL aluminum frame, stiff enough for efficient power transfer, agile enough for climbing
-10-speed Shimano 105 shifting with triple FSA Gossamer crankset for smooth shifting
-Giant Connect SL seatpost
-Formula sealed cartridge hubs/SAPIM Race spokes/Mavic CXP22 rim, Wheelset
-Women-specific handlebars
-Advanced-Grade Composite, Alloy OverDrive Steerer fork
Categories: Clothes & Gear, Training, Triathlon | Tags:
192 Comments
