Post Camp Recovery

Okay, I've decided to skip the Spring Fling Camp report as we've all read enough crappy camp and race reports. I've only ever read one that I found entertaining in all my years. For what it's worth, I choose my reading material based on these three premises:

1) That it is enlightening
2) That it is entertaining
3) That it is inspiring

After years of competing in sports at an elite level I've met less than four athletes or coaches who have shown capacity for these three virtues (or even one of them for that matter), much less possess the aptitude to write in such a manner. Not that I claim to! I am the epitome of the dumb jock, only dumber. See?

Anyway, regarding the camp, I could fill you in about the glorious conditions throughout that week and the near record temperatures. I could also tell you about Dr PZ Pearce's phenomenal presentation or even about how our collective group rode every single ride faster than they ever have (three-quarters of our participants return each year). I could tell you about the flowers in full bloom, and where entire mountainsides were ablaze in orange and purple. But I won't bore you with all that, no.

Instead I'll focus on what I do best.

Wait! I have no idea what I do best! I don't even know if I do anything best.

Well, never mind then. I'll just respond to an inquiry I've recently received, as it relates to post-camp (or post-big-training-week) recovery...

Hey Chuckie, A question…One challenge we in the Northwest face is trying to keep the benefits of the camp training volume when we return home to lousy weather and our time consuming daily routines. Is there a general guideline as to how much subsequent training is necessary to maintain the benefits from the volume last week, and what would that look like? So…if I come home from a 31 hour week…Get about 7-10 in on the subsequent rest week, then try to get my usual 12+ in the next 2 months…. Will I keep the fitness? My hypothesis is that I’ll lose some endurance, as I’ll again have to focus on more intensity with the time crunch…. But what if I can still get in a 5-6 hour bike ride once a week? Thanks, Thomas.

Hola Thomas,
Good question...

It's really a personal thing, of course, deciding just how much rest to take. More importantly, what matters is just how much rest is needed. Again, it depends on the individual. There are certain things that apply though...

1) Complete inactivity is a no-no. It's important to keep moving on most days following a big-effort week, just as it is on most days...period. So, if you're going to sit around, be sure to limit it to two days during the follow-up week and spread those two days out with some "go-through-the-motions" type of days. Exercise needn't be hard of course, but it needs, quite honestly, to "be". Get out there and move! I generally advise for athletes to limit impact (running) (even after a big cycling week, as camp was) and focus more on swimming/flopping, aqua-jogging (fun!) and light spins or even, God forbid, the Elliptical machine. Weight-lifting is out since the immune system is way too suppressed to deal with any such stress, not to mention the exponential risk of surrounding yourself with strange people and their strange germs at that time; it's not the time for it.

2) Hydration has to increase, just as the metabolism has. Of course, along with it, so too does sodium intake and caloric intake. An athlete should try harder than normal to eat (and drink) their best (i.e., foods that were recently alive) after big training loads. Beer or wine won't cut it. Track your body weight and don't let it fluctuate all over the place.

3) Don't be afraid to do less than what a "normal" rest week might have had you doing. I always preach that during times of big training (base period, etc) that "more is better" because it's pretty much proven to be true. But to counteract that, I also always tell athletes that during rest periods that "less is best" and I'm seeing that it works too. Real rest, however, still means referring to the points mentioned in Number 1 above, along with anything that can hasten recovery. This, by the way, is the real secret...if any secrets in triathlon training exist. In fact, of all the insider "secrets" speeding recovery is numero uno. This is what I continually harp to the pros I guide. If they want to speed their development or lengthen their career, true recovery is where it will happen, not by training more or harder. Thus the hyperbaric chamber, massage, IVs, aqua-jogging, hot/cold baths, some "Chuckie V seceret methods", etc.

So go get out there and move your legs, albeit lightly. Next weekend you can ramp it up again, if you see that you're getting antsy again and feeling rested. A simple ramp test or two will also tell you whether or not you're rested. Whatever you do, don't miss more than a week to ten days of doing your long runs. This is the one bout you can't get back quite so easily, so don't give it away.

Anyway, the short answer is this: will you keep your fitness? Yes. You will even be able to build on it, which is what big training followed by recovery does. Just find time in the future for another big week of training when it's needed most.

A (Leg) Warm(er) Welcoming

I needed to do laundry straight after my ride, so I'd have something to wear during the following morning's workout. As is typical fashion (no pun intended) I'd left it to the last possible minute. My laundry hamper---a "borrowed" pushcart from Safeway---was overflowing and smelled as though a roadkilled raccoon had sought refuge in it.

As I always do, I stripped down to the bare minimum and threw just about everything I had been wearing into the magical machine, then turned it to the hottest water setting it would allow for ("boil") and tossed in some non-scented, biodegradable, hypoallergenic detergent and went about the rest of my post-ride duties: cleaning my bike before hanging it up for the day. I didn't think much of it, to walk around the garage in nothing but leg warmers and my bike helmet, as I've always done it this way. But then I didn't expect the neighbors to swing by and say hi for only the second time ever.

My garage faces just one residence and even then just barely. I barely know the neighbors whose house it faces, and I would certainly "barely" know them now. Their jaws dropped wide open as they rounded the corner and saw me bent over my bike, cleaning my chain with my bushy backside exposed to the world at large.

Let it be known that mine is an extremely uptight neighborhood---a retirement community really---inhabited by denizens approaching their seventh or eighth decade, few with all their original parts remaining. They all have their respective routines (e.g., newspaper, tea, golf, tea, TV, tea) and they each seem to have one foot firmly planted in the grave---spontaneity is no longer needed (and one would imagine, never existed). So for a guy like me to move into the neighborhood and shake things up on my bicycle while dressed in, as one neighbor put it, "clothing that makes ya look kinda queer", well, it's damn good entertainment, for them and for me. Too much of a good thing though, is not necessarily a good thing and I fear a heart attack could be in order if I don't tone down my dress code a little. Next time I'll go with the knee warmers, or perhaps even a little Red Hot Chili Pepper attire.

Chef Chuck

I hope to have a follow-up report on our Spring Fling Triathlon Camp in the near future and then get back into some more seriously-minded training-related topics soon after. It's been a while since I've talked about training and that was my original intent with this blog. For now though, I leave you with my ramblings from this morning...

After a year and a half of blogging, I came to the realization that I have yet to post single a cooking-related entry. There's one primary reason for this, of course, in that I do not cook. Periodically though I do heat things. To make up for this lack of culinary skill I occasionally meander over to Ryan's Primal Fusion site every few days to imagine what cooking would be like. Thanks to his tasty-looking site, I recently found myself in the mood to conjure up a little something in the kitchen.

The first problem---and to be sure, there were plenty more to come---was that I didn't have a single thing in the refrigerator, save maybe for some limp celery and a jar of who-knows-what (presumably moldy mayonnaise, though it might've been mustard). The cupboards were also desolate, though I did unearth an elderly Vega Whole Food Bar with an expiration date of 09/01 in the back corner of one. I might've been holding the bar upside down however, making its sell-by date 10/60, though I'm not certain Brendan, the founder of Vega, was even around back in 1960. At any rate, the bar tasted surprisingly delicious.

But I digress. Back to my chef-ly exploits.

I've always found the kitchen an intimidating place, full of microbes and utensils and disposal units and whatnot. When I lived on the Pacific Crest Trail for nearly eight months (a couple of times) I had none such stuff and fared fine. So here now I was already looking at strike one, with nothing to cook. From my understanding that's the first step in preparing a meal, along with the understanding of how to, um, actually cook.

Past forays into the kitchen involved boiling water, toasting sprouted grain bread and blending my usual Vega smoothies, all tasks that required few brain cells and even fewer calories on my part. You see, I do not head into the kitchen to burn calories, so I figure, why cook? Cooking takes energy (i.e., calories) and I eat because I am in need of calories. I think you see my problem.

Again, though, I'm getting ahead of myself. Or behind. In any case it matters not.

With a gentle but increasing appetite that would no doubt soon border on full-bore hunger, I push-started the old jalopy and headed to the nearest grocery store. As I sauntered up and down its spacious, sterile aisles I looked for something to reach out and grab me---not like the moldy mayonnaise in my fridge might do, but something that looked appealing, something other than my usual dietary options: apples and other fruits, salad, nuts, seeds, canned sardines, tuna packets, nut butters, vegetables, jerky and the like. I was lost.

I sashayed past a scrumptious-looking, albeit nearly frozen, chunk of chicken meat but wondered how long it would take to cook it, and what one might cook it with (besides the oven or stove, I mean). At $6.99 a pound, it seemed a reasonable deal but then I wasn't sure how much of the bird's weight was bone. Chickens, after all, cannot fly. I get the feeling there's a reason for this and a body full of bones seems a logical explanation. I did not want to eat bones, contrary to all the body-builder hype about them being chock-full of good things like chondroitin and marrow and splinters. I wanted meat. Preferably meat with a nice sauce and the right amount of spices and some adjoining veggies. The kind shown on Ryan's site.

But no meat wanted this meathead, apparently. Not a single package had cooking instructions, other than the usual warnings telling consumers what to do "to avoid bacterial contamination" (e.g., "cook meat"). These I already knew, despite my lack of meaty experience. Then it dawned on me! I could scramble some eggs. After all, the eggs they sell in stores come from chickens (and even then nobody really knows which of the two came first) which are, of course, filled with cook-able meat. But the problem is I've downed enough eggs in life that by now I should be laying my own; I'm growing sick of them. Furthermore, it's a well-known fact that scrambling eggs does not technically count as cooking. I mean really, what fancy five-star restaurant serves up scrambled eggs? (Besides I.H.O.P, of course.)

In the end I would grow too ravenous to be bothered about technicalities and so eggs were it. Again. To make my life easier (the overriding theme of it, incidentally) I decided not to scramble them but rather simply boil them. Hard boil, just like the one on my crotch. Talk about microbes!

Solvang Triathlon Camp

Here are a few pictures from the Spring Fling Triathlon Camp thus far...it is a great camp with 30 athletes possessing a combined IQ about a hundred times that, give or take. I'll try to post more pictures in coming days. Fatigue will decide just how much I get done.

More Spring Fling Pictures

My Best Interest

Life is grand when your days are yours to spend as you wish; to be the master of your own destiny, your own boss, and able to disappear on a whim. The truth is I'm not sure what a whim is so I usually just disappear with the help of my shoes or my bicycle.

This morning while getting lost I found myself momentarily in heaven. I was afoot and on cloud nine on the dream-like trails just behind my house, and while I don't normally fall for the whole God facade (it is, after all, a scientific fact He doesn't exist), today I'd have no choice/voice in the matter. Scenes like this assure me someone is up there or out there (maybe even down there), the master of my own destiny, looking out after my best interest. My best interest has always told me that you've got to put up with some rain to find your rainbow and today I was living proof of it.

God/Dog...

PS: One of the things you don't see up here in the Burton Mesa Ecological Preserve, besides people, are those annoying little plastic bags of dog poop lining so many of today's "nature" paths. In Boulder one gets very used to seeing these little knotted landmines and they always made me wonder what the animal owners were thinking: Gee, I'll do my good deed for the day and put Rover's poo in a bag so that everyone knows that it's a bag o' poo when they run or walk by. Some of these people even take the time to hang the baggie on a fence, only to leave it there for weeks on end, for prosperity purposes. There is no poo fairy!

I'm inclined to think that the plastic bag is far worse than the poo, but what do I know? Well, I know that it would likely take months or even years for that bag to degrade, when the poo alone would harden (HTFU) and be gone in a matter of weeks.

To all you imbecile Boulderites: just leave the poo on the trail if you're not going to finish the job.

Alan Parson's Rudy Project

I cannot even begin to share with you how damn cool I look in my new Rudy Project schwag, as evidenced by the picture. And get this...their helmets actually fit my oblonged anvil-shaped head, the same skull that once stopped Eddie McMaster's fist in one fell swoop. Man, I'll bet he didn't see that coming, I thought to myself as the ground rapidly approached. Too bad, I recall thinking, that I'm not wearing a helmet.

Well, now I get my helmets for free!!! Take that McMaster, you pud!!! I hope you enjoy your career, mopping those same high school halls that you used to push me around in.

Daylight & DayNight Savings

Daylight Savings embarks on its half-year traipse again tomorrow. It is one of my favorite days that stakes claim on our messed-up Gregorian calendar. The whole premise was instigated by one Benjamin Franklin with the basic gist being to make the best use of daylight hours by shifting the clock forward in the spring and backward in the fall. Hmmm. Franklin was a smart man but failed to understand the requirements of the triathlete.

Triathletes, you see, need more daylight hours not just in spring but during winter too, as this is when the foundation for later success is really laid down. Why not a year-round Daylight Savings, Ben? Now that would have been really smart!

Of course, in all earnestness, the hours of daylight are the precisely the same, regardless of what the clock shows. It’s the manmade clock and our absurd obedience to it that screws us up the most---not nature's rhythms.

Thankfully, man's clock has little to do with my life anymore. I came to the conclusion years ago that I would respect nature and my body, mind and spirit and rouse when they all assured me that the timing was right. I would sleep when I wanted and spend my days the way I chose to, free from the shackles of materialism, consumerism, capitalism and conformity, eschewing the facade that is the American Dream---my worst nightmare. It's this very incubus, I believe, that forces most of us to live within the (sub)standards that contemporary society expects of us, and part of it all means being to work "on time". Thoreau alleged that most men lead lives of quiet desperation and my guess is that the quest for material wealth forces such behavior upon them, and they are thus forced to be "on time"…someone else's time.

Now, I'll confess that the clock affects me. When I competed, for example, I desperately strived to reduce or impede its inevitable march, for when the clock ran slow, I ran high. Now though, just as I'm sure it shall be as my life draws to a close, I endeavor to maximize it. Sometimes it's dark when I do so, while other times it remains light out…truly it matters not. What matters is that every year we pass an anniversary unaware: that of our passing. We'll ALL be "on time" for that engagement, alas, so it's imperative to make the most of Daylight or Day-Night Savings. We must ask ourselves: when life winds down and you look back on it, will you find solace in it? Circle YES or NO.


PS: Not that this has anything to do with anything but impotence is on the rise. Watch out.

Training Arguments and Excuses, Etc

Throughout my entire life (this one), or at least from the time I realized I could think, there have been innumerable arguments going on inside my head, internal discussions that rarely rise to resolution. Most these aren't fit for print so they'll likely stay inside my turbulent think tank right up until the day I die or am stricken with Alzheimer's. I'm one of the rare few who actually looks forward to losing his mind. Seriously.

Anyway, the other day, I thought about how easy it is to pettifog about training methodology and why it is so many of us love to do so. We triathletes seem so attracted to these impossible-to-win arguments, like tornadoes to a trailer park. Hell, I even do so, and without anyone's help...

Jose: "I train far, then fast, and I am better than you."

Hose B: "I train fast, then far, and I am better than you."

Coach V: "Okay, idiots. Save the argument for race day, then see who's better. The bottom line is the finish line."

My alter egos, Jose and Hose B, seldom find accord on anything; the two go fist to cuff on all kinds of stuff. Only the coach in me seems to make any sense of it all and it is he I endeavor to listen to most. Coaches have (or should have) an ability to see what the arguing athletes cannot: that there are plenty of ways to get the job done and that a heated battle often leads to tunnel vision, in a tunnel that knows no end. This is especially the case when debating training. Why do we do it? Why do we feel inclined to do it? Do we really want others to know what works for us when what we're doing is called 'COMPETITION'?

My thoughts as a coach and competitor, whether I'm being influenced by Jose or Hose B, are to share nothing. Kick the other guys ass and let him guess where he went wrong; it will eat him alive and either fuel his fire and bring out the best in him, or it will bring forth his worst. Interestingly, this worst is often littered with excuses and you'll know it when you see it (as you often do, and not just on public Internet forums, but in person). If he goes this route and begins to make excuses, you should have the ability to see right through him, and to see right through them, and let him fuel your fire. Let's face it: excuses don't change the facts and nobody ever excused his way to being his best. So rather than make them, make good.

The athlete in me, however, loves a good battle, whether it's on the race course or in a heated discussion or via the written word, where I can textually harass unsuspecting newbies and nubiles alike. (Rest assured, I do not sexually harass anyone, except maybe the undeserving.) From the time I was captain of my debate team in eighth grade (read: nerd), I have always loved a good argument. Eighth grade, for what it's worth, was the toughest three years of my life, but never mind that. Anyway, in one particularly heated debate, my finely-tuned team knew we were in trouble and on the defensive so we told the other one to go, and I quote, "F#@k yourselves." We thought we had won because our opposition was rendered speechless and it's generally accepted as fact that if you aim to be victorious when on a debate team, your squad needs to refrain from silence. It's hard to win a war of words when you're mute.

Also speechless, however, were the judges. And when they came to their senses, we were disqualified and subsequently suspended from school for the week, which I didn't really mind all that much except that it did bring my debate team days to an end.

Years later, when I was in ninth grade, I realized what a nerd I was for debating in the first place; it's better to be first place and let the dunces behind you do the debating. Because, let's face it: the guy who wins knows best, even if he has done so "incorrectly." (There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.) Today, this little lesson still holds true. We're athletes: don't try to outsmart your competitors, just out-perform them when it matters most---on the race course. There you can lay it all on the line, not online. Kick their ass at the finish line (i.e., the bottom line) and watch the arguments in their heads begin. The excuses will likely follow.

The Triathlon Song