I went to the gym yesterday and started lifting again. And I'm sore today. It has been quite a while since I've lifted. For a number of years, I was very regular with lifting weights, typically twice/week, except after the end of the season for about a month. I figured that lifting weights would help to keep up my muscle mass, since I'm not exactly built like a power lifter, and lose muscle mass quickly. For about 8-9 years, I utilized the same lifting program, which was in Joe Friel's "Triathlete's Training Bible." I certainly got a lot stronger, and my bike strength was very high. Several years ago, I decided to change my lifting to more of a circuit, lifting either 1-2 sets but doing a lot of different exercises, following the Mark Allen plan. While it did give me a more balanced routine, it didn't work an individual group of muscles quite as hard. And then I stopped lifting completely, relying more on the swimming/biking/running to keep me strong. After I broke my clavicle, I restarted the Mark Allen program on and off (but more off than on), and periodically did a workout with pullups, pushups and crunches. To be honest, part of the reason I stopped lifting was also the convenience. When Keeler gym (across the street from the hospital) closed, I lost a very convenient, never crowded place to lift.
Having gradually gotten away from the lifting, I decided to restart. Since the TTB plan made me feel a lot stronger than I did with the MA program, I went back to it. And after much delay, yesterday was the first day. The first thing I noticed was how out of place I felt in the gym. I went to Wilson gym on North Fort, and it was busy. A lot of large individuals lifting a lot of weight. And there were women in there throwing weights around, too. I used to feel at home in the gym, but now, my weak, endurance athlete's body was conspicuous. However, I managed to find the weights I needed and do the lifting that I planned to do. 3 sets of 20 seemed a lot harder than I remembered.
This morning, I awoke to some muscle soreness that I haven't had in awhile. It's a good soreness and tightness, since it reminds me that I did some work yesterday. It will be interesting to see what happens when I try to swim today.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
10,000 hours
It has been said that 10,000 hours are required to become an expert. In anything. I calculated this out: if you practice something 1 hour/day, it would take 27 years to reach 10,000 hours... assuming that's 1 hour/day every single day for 27 years. Of course, if you practice 3 hours/day, that's only 9 years. Still, that's pretty daunting considering that would be 3 hours daily for 365 days/year for 9 years.
Why do I bring this up? When I was growing up, I started playing the piano at age 6. I took lessons until I was 18. At that point, the growth in my piano skills stopped. Most people consider me pretty proficient in piano. And I can sight-read relatively well, which means I can fake my way through a lot of things. But I'm nowhere near 10,000 hours, probably closer to 60-70% of that.
I've been told that I'm a pretty good cyclist. In years past, I was better, but I no longer put the time in that I did previously. Again, nowhere near 10,000 hours. Same with running. At one point in time in my distant past, I was a decent amateur runner. Even at my peak, though, I was nowhere close to 10,000 hours. Now, I'm closer to that number than when I was decent, and I'm a whole lot slower than I was back then.
And now the reason that I mention this: swimming. 10,000 hours is a lot of time to put in to become an expert. I've been swimming relatively consistently for, say 17 years, but the amount of time is not even close to 10,000 hours. I keep reading about how you can get faster by swimming less, but of better quality, but the truth of the matter is, you need to put the time in. I watch my son's age group club swimmers and they don't worry that much about their technique; they just swim. And they all get faster. For most of them, they've got a long ways to go to get to 10,000 hours, and they can't give describe to you how to swim faster, but they just do. So, the idea that less can be more to me is, frankly, ridiculous.
There are sayings that basically describe this: time in the water, time in the saddle, time on your feet. 10,000 hours is a lot of time. But that's what it takes.
Why do I bring this up? When I was growing up, I started playing the piano at age 6. I took lessons until I was 18. At that point, the growth in my piano skills stopped. Most people consider me pretty proficient in piano. And I can sight-read relatively well, which means I can fake my way through a lot of things. But I'm nowhere near 10,000 hours, probably closer to 60-70% of that.
I've been told that I'm a pretty good cyclist. In years past, I was better, but I no longer put the time in that I did previously. Again, nowhere near 10,000 hours. Same with running. At one point in time in my distant past, I was a decent amateur runner. Even at my peak, though, I was nowhere close to 10,000 hours. Now, I'm closer to that number than when I was decent, and I'm a whole lot slower than I was back then.
And now the reason that I mention this: swimming. 10,000 hours is a lot of time to put in to become an expert. I've been swimming relatively consistently for, say 17 years, but the amount of time is not even close to 10,000 hours. I keep reading about how you can get faster by swimming less, but of better quality, but the truth of the matter is, you need to put the time in. I watch my son's age group club swimmers and they don't worry that much about their technique; they just swim. And they all get faster. For most of them, they've got a long ways to go to get to 10,000 hours, and they can't give describe to you how to swim faster, but they just do. So, the idea that less can be more to me is, frankly, ridiculous.
There are sayings that basically describe this: time in the water, time in the saddle, time on your feet. 10,000 hours is a lot of time. But that's what it takes.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
If you could cheat... would you?
Here's the thing: there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. It's black and white, and there are no shades of gray. If you cheat and you get away with it, are you as satisfied as if you hadn't cheated? Why am I mentioning this? Well, besides the obvious discussions that have been ongoing with the amount of doping (= cheating) in sports, there was recently a local development that was of interest to me.
There was a fellow triathlete that I was casually acquainted with who is now headed to prison for defrauding one of his clients. It was an amount that was pretty substantial, and allowed this triathlete to live pretty well for a few years. But he got caught. And now there has been some speculation that, if his morals allowed him to do this, how much of a stretch would it have been to his morals to use PED's to improve his athletic performance? Certainly, he was able to afford it. Obviously, in the big picture, this is a minor issue, but it does cause me to ask the bigger question: how many people cross the line? And is it worth it?
From minor offenses such as drafting, which may be accidental, to major, blatant cheating, there is a continuum of cheating. Certainly, in a drafting call where the person in front of you slows down and you are unable to get through the box in 15 seconds, I am less judgmental. Or, if you are on an open road, and a car (or semi) blows by you, there is an unavoidable draft that you are catching (the press truck in the early Ironman Hawaii races was legendary for providing a big draft to the race leader). Those, to me, are not major issues, and are often unintentional. I guess that's the tipping point for me: intention. If the attempt is to intentionally get an edge by skirting the rules, I don't have a lot of tolerance. Does that mean that I don't try to get every edge that I can? Absolutely not. Certainly, I'll try to do what I can to get the most out of myself and my equipment. But, I tend to base my decisions on intent, rather than the "letter of the law." For instance, blood doping wasn't illegal in 1984, but does anybody really think this was okay to do for the Olympics? And I've always found it somewhat amusing that Lance Armstrong has always said that he has have never tested positive for a banned substance, rather than that he has not taken any PED's. I guess I don't subscribe to the old adage, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."
The funny thing is that even though a lot of endurance athletes make fun of a sport like golf, it is actually one of the sporting (IMO) of all sports. Golfers call penalties on themselves, even if nobody else has seen the violation. What other sport does that?
There was a fellow triathlete that I was casually acquainted with who is now headed to prison for defrauding one of his clients. It was an amount that was pretty substantial, and allowed this triathlete to live pretty well for a few years. But he got caught. And now there has been some speculation that, if his morals allowed him to do this, how much of a stretch would it have been to his morals to use PED's to improve his athletic performance? Certainly, he was able to afford it. Obviously, in the big picture, this is a minor issue, but it does cause me to ask the bigger question: how many people cross the line? And is it worth it?
From minor offenses such as drafting, which may be accidental, to major, blatant cheating, there is a continuum of cheating. Certainly, in a drafting call where the person in front of you slows down and you are unable to get through the box in 15 seconds, I am less judgmental. Or, if you are on an open road, and a car (or semi) blows by you, there is an unavoidable draft that you are catching (the press truck in the early Ironman Hawaii races was legendary for providing a big draft to the race leader). Those, to me, are not major issues, and are often unintentional. I guess that's the tipping point for me: intention. If the attempt is to intentionally get an edge by skirting the rules, I don't have a lot of tolerance. Does that mean that I don't try to get every edge that I can? Absolutely not. Certainly, I'll try to do what I can to get the most out of myself and my equipment. But, I tend to base my decisions on intent, rather than the "letter of the law." For instance, blood doping wasn't illegal in 1984, but does anybody really think this was okay to do for the Olympics? And I've always found it somewhat amusing that Lance Armstrong has always said that he has have never tested positive for a banned substance, rather than that he has not taken any PED's. I guess I don't subscribe to the old adage, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."
The funny thing is that even though a lot of endurance athletes make fun of a sport like golf, it is actually one of the sporting (IMO) of all sports. Golfers call penalties on themselves, even if nobody else has seen the violation. What other sport does that?
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