The Problem with Zone Two is...

Everybody else.

Zone Two is the pace where you build "all-day" aerobic fitness.  To do this, you need to go really slowly.  This is fine, except everybody else around you is going faster.  The comparing mind gets upset and develops a nasty case of "keeping up with the Jones's", and you start going faster.

You see this all the time.  Just think of your last bike workout when a guy passed you and you pushed it just a little to try to catch him.  Or when you run just a little faster to match your last run's pace.  Yes, yourself at a different time, past or future, still counts as somebody else.  

This is why most age groupers plateau in performance and never get as fast as a pro.  They go too hard and this wears them out so they can't build the fitness they need.  Solid training means a lot of going easy with tiny doses of going harder, like medicine.  If you don't go hard too often, you can keep training day after day instead of having to stop because you're burned up.

Podcast - Questions and Answers with Angela Naeth

Click HERE to listen to the show!

Join us as pro triathlete Angela Naeth answers your questions from Twitter about how to train and race like a pro!

After that, we have The Training Log, full of Ironman Texas prep and other advice.

Make sure you check out the Broken and Beautiful blog http://brokenandbeautiful2011.blogspot.com/ 

to help support the team's fundraiser drive for St. Jude's Children's Hospital!

Want more?  Hop over to the Zen Masters Area for the full training log, the solo interview with Nate Pearson, and much more!

Enjoy!

Click here to listen or download.

Swim Faster by Pointing Your Toes

I'm about to tell you a tip that could make a huge difference in your swimming speed immediately, with nearly zero adaptation time.  

Get a kickboard, lay prone in the water, and start kicking your way across the pool.  While kicking, point your toes as far away from your head as possible, making your feet like flippers.  You cruise across the pool nicely, right?  

Now, keep kicking and turn your feet and ankles so that your toes are pointing directly at the bottom of the pool.  See how you come to a dead stop?  And in some cases, you even start going backwards.  

With most people, the could be swimming much faster if they just pointed their toes away from their head.  An easy way to adapt to this is to put on flippers and feel how they create pressure on the top of your foot with each kick.  Take off the flippers, point your toes and kick, and look for that same feeling of pressure on the top of your foot.  Good job - now you're doing it right!

Enjoy!

Lance Armstrong Suspended From WTC

Just as Lance was starting to blow apart the field in triathlon, the USADA opens another investigation.  I strongly agree with Dan Empfield's assesment - we must respect the process, but there should be a little more proof than heresay.  If you have proof he did it in the way of test results, then ban the Hell out of him.  If not, then, well, you really can't.

I was a little surprised to see WTC (Owner of the Ironman brand) ban him from competing for the time being.  Lance tends to remember things, and if he escapes from this investigation unscathed, he won't be too kind back to the WTC about it.

I also strongly agree with Dan's opinion, and that of many Zen practitioners, that people aren't entirely good or bad - we're a mixed bag.  All of us have done stupid, mean, criminal, rude, and hurtful things, no matter how great we are on the whole.  To think somebody is a terrible person because of one aspect of what they've done in life is common, but not a very useful way to function in the world.  Embrace the good, work on changing the bad, and move on.

I greatly enjoyed the time when Lance retweeted our Ironbaby triathlon - helping a lot of people get help at the hospital.  He didn't have to do that.  That was nice!  And if he doped, then we need to help him realize that was wrong, take his punishment for it, and move on.

As an aside, I found it pretty funny that the person I first heard the new from was Macca on Twitter. Take from that what you will.  :)

Quick Tip - Fast Distance Conversions

As triathletes, we are always trying to convert yards to miles, miles to kilometers, and solve other various conversions.  Many people don't know there is a fast way to do it right at your finger tips!

Go to Google.com and start typing in your conversion problem.  You have to word it correctly, and what works best for me to remember is like so - "1760 yards in miles".  Before you finish typing, Google converts it for you without you having to even hit enter.

As a bonus, you can do the same thing in the URL bar of the Chrome browser.  You don't even have to go to Google's home page.  Nice!