Even though I am an 'old dog' I consider myself an endurance athlete. I have climbed 40 plus mountains including Longs Peak in Colorado which was over 14,000 feet. I swim several times a week and love to bicycle and have ridden across several states. Last winter I participated in a 13 mile cross-country ski race in Michigan so, to a degree, I know how to suffer.
I suspect that every endurance athlete, even the 'old dogs' like me look at a triathlon, even the full length ones and wonder if they could do that. Two of our outstanding athletes at our YMCA just did this very thing, Ginny Phillips finished her first Ironman triathlon and Suzie Walsh her fifth in Houston Texas recently. So, in my attempt to 'get real!' I realistically looked at each event in the Ironman to see where I would possibly rank.
The 2.4 mile swim: Now in an Ironman competition the swimming is way tougher than in a pool. You are in open water so you need to look up frequently to keep your bearings and to keep from wandering left or right, after all 2.4 miles is long enough. This is not to mention the fact that you are side by side with other racers and this is similar to being in a washing machine. Ginny's time for this event was 1:26 and Suzie's time was 1:21. Where would I have finished? While I almost swam a mile once but had to get out for a bathroom break, ordinarily I swim 1/3 of a mile in a tad less than 20 minutes and since I mix up my freestyle and breast stroke I feel that I can go quite a while at that pace. Still, my fastest pace for that length of swim would be two and a half hours and I can tell you, "I don't want to swim that long!"
112 mile bicycle ride: Now here is an event that I can relate to. I have ridden 100 miles three times; once in my 40s, once in my 50s and even once last year at age 63. Now this was with lunch, breaks and friends and my average speed all three times was around 12 mph. In a true race I might be able to add one or two miles per hour to that but then without breaks my speed might go down, not up. Now to extrapolate that to 112 miles means that I would be on a bicycle nine hours; ouch! Oh yea, I forgot to mention that this would be without restful night's sleep but following a two and a half hour swim. What did our YMCA triathletes do in this event? Ginny did this in seven hours averaging 15 mph which is a speed that I can sometimes manage . I once did a 60 mile tour averaging 15 but ordinarily at that speed in an hour I'm toast. Suzie, who must have had a motor secretly hidden in her bike, averaged an amazing 18 mph taking a little over six hours. So, these girls are just flying along and if you are keeping track, I am at 11 1/2 hours now.
The 26 mile marathon run: I don't even want to think about this! I finished one of these when I was 22 years old and swore "Never again!" My wife Ann is an excellent runner but I simply am not built for this. I need wheels, skis or skates under my feet to really go fast. My finishing time at age 22 was five and a half hours and realistically I couldn't match that now. I might be able to do one is six hours, and that would be of course with nothing preceding this. Eight would probably be more like it. You total all this up and add in the transition times and I am up to 20 hours. It would be pitch dark, all the finish line signs would be down and the ambulance crew would be out looking for my body. Ginny did the triathlon in my six hours bringing her total time to just under 15 hours. Suzie moved that motor from her bike to her shoes and ran a 4:12 marathon, honestly not a bad time even without the torture preceding in and finished the total marathon under 12 hours, just a few minutes actually behind many of the professional women.
I might be able to do these three events individually, although I truly feel my legs, hips, feet and most everything else would probably give out if I tried to run a 26 mile marathon now. I could probably swim 2.4 miles, but I wouldn't want to. After being that long in the water I would probably develop gills like Kevin Costner in the movie Waterworld. I wouldn't mind riding 100 miles again, but racing that far is a little intense and to do all of these events back-to-back in one day; "Let's get real!"
Monday, May 28, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
ABSolutely not!
Oh the never ending quest for abs! You can't run through the stations on TV without see totally ripped young men and women working on a gadget of some sort that guarantees that you will look like a men or women's model in weeks. Now granted, having your abs visible is pretty cool, and the only six pack that I will ever have is the kind you buy in a liquor store, but this issue does need some clarification.
First of all, everyone has abs; it is just that for most of us they are covered with a layer of fat, and sometimes sadly many layers. Working on your abs specifically with no other goal is often fruitless because although there are advantages to a strong core, the muscles from your chest to your thighs, it takes more that a TV special to get there. The key thing about getting your abs to show is to get your body fat down to a pretty extreme level. For me, that is around 18 percent and is typically something I only experience after I have ridden my bicycle for a week solid across a state or in the midst of cross-country ski season, and even then I never get the kind of definition that bodybuilders often have.
So there are actually two muscle thoughts that you really need to develop abdominal definition. The key one is table muscle, that being the muscles you use to push yourself away from the table. I am not real good at that one at all. While exercise is key, diet is probably even more key in reference to getting your body fat down. Second, don't specifically think about your abs so much as thinking total body exercise. The more of your body that you can engage in exercise, i.e. YMCA classes such as Power Hour, Zumba, Kickboxing, etc, the lower your body fat is going to become. Once you get these two issues licked, then you can do specific gym exercises to accent your abs or if you want, order that fancy machine which might do you some good then.
First of all, everyone has abs; it is just that for most of us they are covered with a layer of fat, and sometimes sadly many layers. Working on your abs specifically with no other goal is often fruitless because although there are advantages to a strong core, the muscles from your chest to your thighs, it takes more that a TV special to get there. The key thing about getting your abs to show is to get your body fat down to a pretty extreme level. For me, that is around 18 percent and is typically something I only experience after I have ridden my bicycle for a week solid across a state or in the midst of cross-country ski season, and even then I never get the kind of definition that bodybuilders often have.
So there are actually two muscle thoughts that you really need to develop abdominal definition. The key one is table muscle, that being the muscles you use to push yourself away from the table. I am not real good at that one at all. While exercise is key, diet is probably even more key in reference to getting your body fat down. Second, don't specifically think about your abs so much as thinking total body exercise. The more of your body that you can engage in exercise, i.e. YMCA classes such as Power Hour, Zumba, Kickboxing, etc, the lower your body fat is going to become. Once you get these two issues licked, then you can do specific gym exercises to accent your abs or if you want, order that fancy machine which might do you some good then.
"Surfer Dude"
"You should ask John (the lifeguard) to show you how to breathe out underwater," I mentioned to the young man just coming out of the pool. The young guy with a tattoo that ran down his shoulder was a strong swimmer but swam with his head out of the water. That's not the easiest thing to do with a freestyle swimming stroke, something I knew because I used to swim the same way.
"Oh, I surf," he answered, and obviously you can't see the bottom of the ocean the way you can see the bottom of the pool and you need to see where you are going. Naturally I felt about 100 years old after his answer, and I am closing in on that age, and about two inches tall, and I am closing in on that as well. Jesse however was very cool about the whole thing and told me that he had lived for five years in Hawaii and had loved surfing there. My wife and I spent our 30th anniversary in Hawaii and of course had watched the surfers and I was 'big-time' jealous of them. In athletics, I have never heard of anything that is actually more fun and I could see why Jesse couldn't wait to return, something he noted he had been along time saving for.
You never know who you are going to meet at the YMCA or what their story might be. I knew that we had tri-athletes here, including two Ironman finishers, but I hadn't expected a surfer this far inland.
"Oh, I surf," he answered, and obviously you can't see the bottom of the ocean the way you can see the bottom of the pool and you need to see where you are going. Naturally I felt about 100 years old after his answer, and I am closing in on that age, and about two inches tall, and I am closing in on that as well. Jesse however was very cool about the whole thing and told me that he had lived for five years in Hawaii and had loved surfing there. My wife and I spent our 30th anniversary in Hawaii and of course had watched the surfers and I was 'big-time' jealous of them. In athletics, I have never heard of anything that is actually more fun and I could see why Jesse couldn't wait to return, something he noted he had been along time saving for.
You never know who you are going to meet at the YMCA or what their story might be. I knew that we had tri-athletes here, including two Ironman finishers, but I hadn't expected a surfer this far inland.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
I'm a Life Guard now.
"I'm a Life Guard now," I said to myself after finishing both the written and pool section of the tests. Unlike my high school compatriots who took the class with me and still have to deal with the demands of a school day, I had all day to study and for several days I did. There is a lot to learn about this field, not only in terms of dealing with pool emergencies, but also with all the health issues that you might come into contact with. One of my friends who had done this in his youth described Life Guarding as "hours of boredom, punctuated by seconds of terror!" And, "seconds of terror" is a good explanation of what you experience when your skills are needed in a life saving situation. That is why the training is intensive and why even after you receive your certificate you continue to train so that things can come automatic in those situations.
I have been joking with my friends, especially the bigger guys, that if I see them in the bottom of the pool I will carefully access the situation, and laughingly note that I would let the next shift take care of it. For my part, I hope that I never have to use a single emergency procedure that I have learned because that would mean someone would be in trouble or hurt and I don't want that. It is a nice feeling however to have gained the knowledge that I have from the wonderful instruction we received. In many ways it is like a life insurance policy. You don't really want to have it to cash in, but it provides security for others and I'm good with that.
I have been joking with my friends, especially the bigger guys, that if I see them in the bottom of the pool I will carefully access the situation, and laughingly note that I would let the next shift take care of it. For my part, I hope that I never have to use a single emergency procedure that I have learned because that would mean someone would be in trouble or hurt and I don't want that. It is a nice feeling however to have gained the knowledge that I have from the wonderful instruction we received. In many ways it is like a life insurance policy. You don't really want to have it to cash in, but it provides security for others and I'm good with that.
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