More diet thoughts

 Your body does not multitask well.   Neither do you.

A lot of the processes around nutrition (if not all) are driven by hormones.  Leptin is a hormone that tells you that you are not hungry, or satisfied.  Ghrelin  tells your body that you are hungry.   Insulin is a hormone that tells your liver and body to get busy storing glucose.  Glucagon tells your liver to pull stored glucose and release it in the bloodstream.  Since the same organ is responsible for release the paired hormones, you will never get insulin and glucagon at the same time.   You are either telling your body to store glucose, or release glucose, never at the same time.  You are either hungry or satisfied, but not both.

There was a diet trend, that said you should eat small amounts, every few hours, and avoid being hungry and over-eating.  The actual effect is that you constantly release insulin, and rarely release glucagon, and your body is always in the mode of storing glucose.   Also, the 100 calorie snacks sold for this purpose tended to be ultra-processed carbs, which just fuels the carb craving cycle.

You can burn carbs, with any exercise, but I think if your body is busy storing carbs, your exercise will burn the carbs in your bloodstream, but will not burn any stored fat.  To actually get at the stored fat, you need to fast.

Diet thoughts

There is so much discussion of diet, and how it affects your health.  I have been thinking about my own diet rules, and figuring out how to distill them and make them simple, easy to follow, harder not to follow.

My first diet rule, no processed food.  Nothing that comes out of a box. No coerced oils.

One of the bits of evidence coming out now, regarding the obesity epidemic in North America, is that the sharp increase in obesity matches the increases in processed foods, and seed oils in our diet.  If we want to control our weight, and control our health, we have to remove these processed foods from our diets.  The evidence is starting to show us that they do bad things to our long-term health, and it is not justified by the low cost.

We were kinda forced to follow this rule after my wife first started having symptoms of celiacs disease.  Once you eliminate gluten from your diet, that almost removes all processed foods, as they all seem to use wheat or barley as a binding agent or coating in the foods.  After spending hours googling in the supermarket aisles, we just decided to stop buying all processed foods.   There are exceptions, of course, rules are made to be broken.  We still buy gluten-free pasta, its good every one and a while.  I guess the message here is to be aware of why you have the rule, and why it might be occasionally ok to bend it.

No coerced oils.  This means no seed oils mainly.  By coerced, i mean that they had to torture that seed to get the oil it out if.  They didn't just squeezed it, they used heat and chemicals to make the oil come out, and maybe that oil was just not meant to be eaten that way.  We don't exactly know how the chemicals and heat may have changed that oil, but we do know that these oils cause inflammation.  Think of a sunburn as inflammation, but that it's inside your blood vessels.   THat can't be be good for you.  Instead, oils that can be just pressed out are best, and olive oil is the king.here.  We also use avocado oil, and camelina oil (because it says its pressed).

I don't have any advice yet on the process to get rid of processed food from your diet, just go at it a step at a time, like almost all other health and fitness goals.

The formula for optimum progress

the formula is "optimum stress + optimum recovery = optimum progress"

Optimum stress means putting the right amount of "stress" on your body, be it through high heart rate, high intensity interval training, strength training, speedwork, or zone 2 long slow distance.  the right stress at the right time.  Apply too much stress, and you risk needing many days for recovery, with visits to physio and chiro.

Optimum recovery means not only allowing time to heal, but not doing too many hard workouts too many days in succession, aiding healing through yoga, stretch and roll, massage, and getting lots of sleep.

The workout is what tears you down, wears you down, it actually makes you weaker.  The recovery is where you adapt and become stronger.  Therefore the recovery is as important as the workout.

How long has it been since you've played around?

A Rich man shipwrecked his yacht on a small desert isle,  He spent many years waiting for rescue, but to no avail.

One day, a beautiful woman, dressed in a wetsuit, googles, snorkel and fins, comes out of the surf, and approaches the man.

He exclaims that it has been many years since he has seen anyone, and is so happy to have a human conversation.  She asks "How long has it been since you have had a drink of scotch?", he answers "many", and she proceeds to pull out a flask of scotch from somewhere in her wetsuit and offers it to him.

"This is absolutely amazing" he says, and she asks "How long since you have had a cigar?", and after a slight pause, pulls out a cigar case, cuts and lights the cigar and hands it over to him.

"Outstanding" he smiles, she sways her hips and bats her eyelashes, and asks "How long since you've played around?" and smiles seductively...

"Good Lord" he exclaims, "Don't tell me you have a set of golf clubs in there!'

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The joke of the long run.  Comedy requires that you throw a lot out there, and sometimes something works.   And if I am still telling jokes, I am still having fun.  I often seriously collect a joke list for races, just so I can remember them when it comes time to tell one at the 32k mark.

Had a friend catch up to me around 25k mark of the race, I was very happy to see him, and told a few jokes :-)  My friend casually mentions to his pacing partner "If we hang with him, he will keep telling jokes", and they smiled and dropped me.  Good times....

90% of the long run is physical.  The other half is mental.  And one thing that we spent a lot of time talking about was mental strategies to get through the long run, get through the race.  Standard form checklists, like pull your belly button to your spine, squeeze that quarter, maintain your cadence, shoulders back, head high, proud to be a runner.

We also finding your way, your way to keep pushing.  Pain is inevitable, but the suffering is optional.  Identifying what is pain of effort, and what is pain of injury. This makes it sounds like our run was a sufferfest, but it was not that, just the pain of effort, and the longest run of the year so far.

Ironman Arizona Transition 1

To help prepare for Ironman Arizona in November 2017, I have put together some notes and diagrams to explain how the transition area in Tempe Beach Park works.

First, a picture of the transition areas in Tempe Beach Park

Overhead view of Tempe Beach Park, from Google Maps

Layout of the area

The Bleachers, Upper left corner, is where the swim starts and exits Tempe Town Lake.   It will be a rolling start, and we will line up in the area noted as "Swim Lineup Area".    More on that in another post.

In the upper right, you see "Special Needs Dropoff", this is where you will drop off your bags for Bike Special Needs and Run Special Needs before the race begins.

In the middle is the Bike Racks.  There is a central Pathway through the bike area, noted by the thin lines.

At the middle right, you will see The Women's Tent, and the Mens Tent, Change tents for both transitions.  In the open area to the right of the tents, there will be chairs set up outside.

In the bottom right corner is where the T1 and T2 bags will be setup, in several long rows running in the direction indicated.

How I did it in 2016

Now for a picture of how the transition actually worked during IMAZ 2016, green arrow to start, red box to finish.

I note that the satelite view is different, ignore all the tents in both pictures.

Swim Exit

After exiting from the Swim via the bleachers, there will be Wetsuit strippers.  You get to them quickly, so get started on getting upzipped, and getting your arms out of the wetsuit as soon as you get off the bleachers,   The green arrow is approximately at the end of the strippers.  From there, you proceed around back through the Swim Start area, going behind the change tents, and heading to the T1 bags.

T1 Bags

The T1 Bags will be laid out in rows, with signs at the end and through the row with the range of bags in that row.   You will get stickers to place on your bags.  It is also a good idea to write your bib number on the bag with a Sharpie, in order to catch it better.  You will need to memorize the row and approximate location of your bag, so that you don't spend too much time looking for it.  You will likely also be a bit punchy after coming out of the water, so the less thinking, the better.  In the picture above, you might note that I go back and forth in the T1 bag area.  In my rush, I grabbed the wrong bag, and had to go back and exchange.

Change Tent (or not)

After collecting your bag, you head to the change area.   Remember that there is no public nudity allowed, so if you are going to do a full outfit change, you must do that inside the change tent.  If you wear Tri-shorts, and top under your wetsuit, you can stay outside the tents, which gives some advantage.

First, you will be coming out of the water in the middle of the pack, and with the majority of the competitors.  Seats inside the tent are at a premium, and you may have to wait.  Always ask a volunteer for help in finding a seat.  The ground will be muddy by this time, as everyone will be putting away their wetsuit and getting water everywhere.   And it never smells good in the tent.

So if you can avoid it,  do your transition outside the tents in the open area.

Dump the contents of your T1 bag on the ground, and put your wetsuit, cap, goggle, earplugs in the bag.  If you get lucky, you can get a volunteer to do this for you, and they will take care of your bag after you have filled it.  Note that you are going to want to have a towel to clean your feet before putting socks on, and perhaps to dry off a bit.

You have to go through the tent to get to your bike.

There will be porta potties close to the exit of the change tents, so this is your last change to pit stop before starting the bike leg.

Bike Storage

Now you will head into the bike storage area.  It is important to memorize the row and location of your bike.  You are not allowed to hang flags, fly balloons, or any other such trick.  We typically count the rows (from the right hand side of the picture).  Once you have your bike, you can then head out the far side of the bike storage area, enter the mount zone, and get started on the bike leg.

Challenge Penticton ITU LD Canadian Championship 2016

Finish line, the time in the clock is for
the Pro mens start, 25 minutes ahead.

So I did Challenge Penticton ITU LD Canadian Championships a few weeks ago, with interesting results.  Let me say going into this race, I was sufficiently tapered, and felt fairly fit, although I was experimenting with a trimmed down training schedule.  For example, I only did one long ride of 120k before this race.  I did do sufficient long swims in open water, with training partner Bruce, so that felt fine.


Swim 1:07:55

T1          6:06

Bike    4:06:39

T2           5:20

Run     3:20:40

Finish  8:46:40

Med Tent 2:00:00 ish

Comments on Swim:  Even splits, I was 33 minutes at the turn.  Swells made it a bit fun.  Don't breath while sighting.

Comments on Bike:  Scraped pedal on first turn onto highway.  Chill buddy, its a long race.  Averaged over 30kmh until second MacLean Creek climb.  Saying 'It Doesn't hurt' worked for as long I needed it to.

Comments on Run.  Was not uncomfortable with heat, needed to focus on the ground ahead, otherwise I spent too much time looking for friends going the other way.

The biggest part of the discussion will be about the Med Tent aftermath.

It was a warm day, temp peaked at about 30 degrees.  Fueling and hydration went well, but I took no where near enough electrolytes (only about 8 salt caps, the rest got wet and broke).  For the last few K, I had this weird feeling like I was running on someone elses legs.

After the race, my arms, shoulder to fingertips started tingling, and my tongue tingled and felt like it was swelling, and I was talking with a distinct lisp.  Ally Johnson got me over to the med tent, and first measure had my heart rate at 35, and BP something like 96/56 ( a wee bit low).  So I spent 2 hours wrapped in blankets, drinking as much chicken broth as I could stomach.   Eventually the tingling went away, I started talking somewhat normal.  The lisp kept coming back and going away, and it took until midnight before I was anywhere close to being properly hydrated.

From what I understand now, this is signs of hyponatremia.  The exact definition is as follows:  Normal serum sodium levels are 135 - 145 mEq/liter (135 - 145 mmol/L), mine was 146 the last time my doctor checked it. Hyponatremia is generally defined as a serum sodium level of less than 135 mEq/L and is considered severe when the level is below 120 mEq/L.

Most interesting is that I found paresthesia of the arms and tongue to be symptoms of low electrolytes or low sodium, but paresthesia is not listed as a sign of hyponatremia.  This could be because they really only list the severe symptoms, coma and death being among them.  I have had this happen before, but not combined.  After the Berlin Marathon, in which I ran the last 10k for the first time, only my arms tingled for around 30 minutes after the race.  After all my marathons in the past few years, I have had the tongue tingle/lisp thing going on.   I had always assumed that this was simply dehydration.

It makes sense in this race, in that I trained for heat, and did heat acclimatization in the steam room, building up to 15 minutes at a time, twice a week.  I sweat more quickly and with more volume, which I wanted to stay cool in the heat.   I have always lost a lot of salt in my sweat.  So not taking any salt or electrolytes for the majority of the run would get me low on electrolytes.  I also continued with the same hydration plan after my salt caps broke.  The proper thing to do would have been to drink much less, use the Ph.D drink they were serving, and allow myself to get dehydrated.

Haddon Hustle KOM, or The Last ride of Jake The Snake

https://www.strava.com/activities/645705501

I finally grabbed the KOM for Haddon Hustle, on my trusty steed, Jake the Snake.  I hurt a lot to do this, but really only for the last minute.   It was awesome!

After this ride, Jake the Snake got stolen, reported to the police and insurance, appraised and paid out by adjuster, found and recovered by police 2 days later, and cheque returned in the week.

Need to replace Garmin Sensor, and the front brakes, for some odd reason.

Glad its back, I love riding this bike.