Don't Swim During Lightning Storms

And stay away from guys in full deep-diving getup in a creek.

The Bike Commute as Your Recovery Ride

You should have hard days and easy days. The easy days act as recovery
so you can attack your hard days even better. There is nothing
better to help flush the crud out of your legs from a hard bike or run
like a nice, gentle bike ride.

Bike commuting to work or to run errands does a great job of this. The
average commuter only rides about 12 mph because of all the traffic.
You also slow your pace down so you don't arrive drenched in sweat.

If you go easy and enjoy yourself, you'll find that much of the
soreness you previously had is gone. Coach Mike Ricci (and myself)
recommended an easy bike ride for an hour at the end of hard training
weeks to aid recovery. I did it and it works.

Most of us are hard-pressed for time and should always look for ways
to improve time management. A great idea is to treat your commute as
recovery, bike harder on your other rides, and spend your saved gas
money on the stuff that matters - more tri gear!

The benefit of the weekly HARD bike ride and using HR.

We have a weekly time trial here in my hometown during the summers.

The course is 20k, which equates to 12.4 miles. These
races are fast, all-out efforts for half an hour or more. Riders are
fired off one at a time at one minute intervals. You want to catch the
guy in front of you and you don't want to be caught be the guy behind
you. A proper effort has you nearly collapsing after the finish line.

I've noticed that doing the race weekly leads to dramatic improvements
in performance. Speed can vary due to wind and sometimes I'm pulling
my 4 year-old on a trail-a-bike, so speed isn't a good indicator;
Heartrate is.

Week after week, the max heart rate you can acheive keeps climbing.
The muscle memory for fast and powerful turnover improves and allows
you acheive a higher RPM. Miss the race for just a few weeks and the
highest HR you can get is a good 5 to 10 BPM less than before.

The results also show up in your other workouts. Because you have a
higher max HR, everything else seems easier. MUCH easier. Because it
is.

If you're looking to increase your performance, give the weekly sprint
a try, just for about 30 to 35 minutes. As the saying goes, "Start of
going as fast as you can. Gradually increase speed."

SwiMP3 First Impressions

I should write a book on how much listening to music you like improves
your workout effort. Ever since I started listening to Pandora on my
iPhone while biking and running, my whole world has changed for the
better. I go harder and faster and enjoy the heck out of it.

Time to take it to the pool!

The SwiMP3 couldn't be easier to set up. I just plugged it into the
USB port on my PC and it started charging and also shows up as an
external drive. I made a playlist in iTunes and then just dragged and
dropped the files onto the device. Done.

At the pool, I told my coach I was swimming on the other side without
the swim team so I could try out this new device. The earphones clip
to the goggles and they went on easily. Raised buttons on the side do
all of the typical player functions, including shuffling.

Above the water, they sound pretty bad. But that's not the point. Go
under and the transformation begins. They sound pretty good! Swim
slow and deep and the sound is excellent. Go fast on the surface and
the quality diminishes just a little with the water splashing in and
out of your ears. But that's one of the cool things... You can still
hear what's going on around you, which is vital in a pool. I'm a
former lifeguard and you need swimmers to be able to hear you for
their own safety.

I asked another swimmer that was in the lane next to me if my music
was bothering him and he said he never heard it.

Now for the good stuff. Listening to music I liked made the workout
fly by! I swam hard for over an hour and never looked at the time
until I was almost done. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR YEARS! I've
been swimming competively since I was nine years old. I do math, plan
out my day, sing to myself, whatever it takes to make lap time go by.
Honestly, it's almost maddening. Music? Music makes it fun!

I finished my swim and told the head coach I was leaving.  He asked how much I had done.  I said, "500 warmup, 20x100s on a 1:30 interval, 500 cooldown."  He looked at me and smiled.  "20x100s on a 1:30, huh?  Good job!"  Heck yeah, it was!

So, first impression is a big thumbs up. The device works, is SIMPLE,
and makes swimming hard so much more enjoyable than before. More
details later as I keep using it.

It's on!

I've noticed how JohnHirsch.org (badass pro) posts on his blog from his blackberry, so I'm doing the same. This fixes two problems - 1. I can blog more often, which I want to do because a stale blog is an unread blog and 2. I can get my thoughts down as I wind down for bed.

I'm excited because tomorrow I get to try out the SwiMP3 player sponsored to me through TriNowFitness.com and Finis. I've loaded it up with The Sword, Static-X, and Lamb of God. I've noticed I work out a lot better when listening to heavy metal, so this should be fun.

I also recorded a podcast while riding the Ride Of Truth last Sunday. It should be out soon. I had some new bike short lotion from Skin Sake on and it did great purposefully wore the most brutal shorts I own and sacrificed my own undercarriage to see how well it worked, that is how dedicated (stupid) I am.

Adding the pull ups to my daily routine has sent my metabolism into overdrive. I'm now at 183 lbs. and that's getting lean for 6'3". Push ups definitely give you muscle, but pull ups seem to literally burn the fat off of you like a blow torch. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.

Ok, my wet dog needs to be kicked out of my bed and I have to get up early. Out!

Sent from my iPhone