Baseline Accomplished

So having completed the Toro Loco, and having had a couple days to think about my performance,  I have a good idea where I stand w/ getting ready for my Trifecta and I have a long way to go.


Running - Although I can USE the treadmill for a long time (ie occasionally jog non stop for up to 45 min equating to 3.5 miles) that does not translate well to the real world. For the TLC I only made it about .53 miles before slowing to walk to rest.  Granted the dirt we were on was so loose one left 3/4 inch deep footprints where they walked, in a very sandy consistency for the first 2 miles of the route.  Starting the race with this just exhausted me.  Temperature also worked against me (as did my pants - more later).  So I REALLY needed water before the 1st obstacle.  At home on the treadmill I rarely drink until the workout is finished with no ill effects.  The solution for this will be longer workouts on the treadmill at more of an angle combined with 'real world' runnign, as much as I am not thrilled with that.

Note the footprints, very loose dirt not the easiest to run in.

Attire - In this race, as in the last one I wore pants (BDUs specifically).  My logic being, wit the crawling that tends to happen, either in dirt or 'mud'  my knees get pretty scraped up.  By using pants I have some level of protection.  Clearly they were unnecessary for this event where there were no crawling obstacles at all. The added weight & airflow restriction more than likely worked to make me warmer & more tired. Maybe I need to experiment with more of a knee length version.


Music - Although very useful on the treadmill. But not so much on the race.  If you happen to go with people, its a distraction and something else to carry around. Even with out people around, while making the videos the cord gets in the way camera visually & audibly due to the short cord. I plan on keeping this for the Super & Beast but need to rethink how it is used especially the track order.


Distance/Time - My time was approx  1 hr 38 min. 
BUt distance, that is an issue.  The race billed itself as a 10k aka 6.2 miles.
Looking at Google Earth, however it comes up as ~5.76 miles - Close to  a half mile difference in length. For my calculations I will err on the side of caution and use the shorter distance. Certainly due to the conversion of photos to a curved surface may cause some discrepancy. I saw some between the billed Spartan Race distance & measured route using the Google too. Of course there is a possibility that the race itself was not accurately measured, using what I saw from obstacle completion & general event management this is completely plausible. 

The TLC 10k race route.

Using this lower value for calculating minutes per mile puts my pace at 17.01 minutes per mile.   Almost as bad as the 1st warrior dash I basically walked through. Sure this distance was almost 2x as much, and I have learned from running at the track my mile times increase with every additional mile after the first one, but all in all pretty poor results as I see it.  When you consider that the Spartan Races will have obstacles with penalties, tack on another 3-4 min per obstacle I fail and ~25 obstacles for the BEAST that equates to a possible 100 penalty minutes + ~222 min for the race = FIVE and a half hours to complete at this pace. 

Granted if Google Earth is off and the race was indeed 6.2 miles then my minutes per mile is improved to 15.81 & it will only be 5 hours for BEAST completion.  Wow.  Definitely need to work on better time.


Upper Body - I know I should not have, but I have neglected my upper body during these last couple months.  I wanted to work on running stamina & losing weight.   Bad idea.  With more upper body I may have completed some of these obstacles I failed AND with Spartan will succeed & miss those possible penalty minutes doing burpees.  Not to mention how much more doing burpees will tire me and that it will take longer to complete them as I progress. One plan it to hit a rock gym a couple times before the 3 races, this will help w/ the upper body AND give me a bit more experience when it comes to the horizontal wall obstacle, possibly saving 30 burpees.  


To sum up I have A LOT of work ahead of me.  starting with more/ faster treadmil times planned.  More hiking & some running outdoors to boost that endurance.  And of course adding burpees  & upper body to the workouts.  

145 days will go by pretty fast with work school & misc holidays impeding workouts.  Hopefully I will be in better position come the Sprint.

Meanwhile the next thing on the calendar is volunteering at a race, the zombie buffet 5k in one month, who knows maybe I will be chosen to be a zombie & get to run some of it. 

Book Review

On my vacation I took some time to read the SpartanRace book they published. 

Joe Desena & Andy Weinberg

You'll Know At The Finish Line
A Spartan Guide To The Sport Of Obstacle Racing
Spartan Press 2012
404 pages FREE
ISBN-13:978-0615675183

Yup that looks fun 

I have to say it has its good point and bad points. 

First of all the book is FREE and is available for e-readers or in PDF format from the Spartan Race website so the price is great & the different format options are very nice.  I read the PDF version which I had some issues with. Being a PDF having the page size be 3.54 x 4.72 inches seemed very odd.  By using this format the PDF itself (in times new roman) seems to be oddly formatted when it comes to reading, from sentence & page breaks to the edge to edge text it is very distracting.  I Was reading this while travelling on both a net-book & on a home PC. But this is personal preference from a guy writing a random blog written in veranda for the most part. Still I would have preferred it in Word or similar format where I could adjust it more to what I like. It is possible a kindle version would have been easier on my eyes as well.

This is original size

The book itself has many sections to it with the history of obstacle racing , with a time line, to their philosophy, detailed information on training ideas and specifically for their events.  Each of the 10 chapters ends with stories from & about some of the folks who have helped in the events as well as just participated in them with some amazing stories of personal achievement.  To me these items were the most fascinating part of the book. To read about how much people are able to overcome & endure in their lives & translate it to these events, or to use the events to inspire them to change their lives is very remarkable.

But I do have a couple more criticisms of the work, which it is clearly stated i the first time the authors have done anything like this, and approached it by just diving in & seeing what happens.  Andy & Joe both wrote the book and it is obvious.  Paragraphs may start with "Joe:" or "Andy:" as if the book is the result of an interview.  In many cases a section will be mostly written by only one individual with their name at the start. Having someone edit the book in a way to massage their viewpoints together may have had a better flow.

Of course in reading the book, although I have done one Spartan Race, and intend to do more. I realize the book is not meant for me to be its audience.  Chapter 5 is all about training for the Spartan Sprint a 3+ mile obstacle course . On one hand they mention how the distance is good for everyone beginners on up.  Then go on to say work up to a five mile run at a moderate pace before attempting the Sprint.  Clearly these two items are not the same in my book. I see a  'beginner' as someone just getting off the couch and in to getting in shape/running/obstacle races to not someone who can already run five miles as a precursor to training for a 3.5 mile race. Yet further in the chapter they make it abundantly clear this is not for beginners. An 8 week workout regimen to train for the event starts on day 1 with jogging 3 miles after a 10 minute warmup and also includes: push ups, pull ups, crunches, and an additional 2 miles of running. From there it just gets more intense.  

So although great information on history, proposed rules for making these kinds of events more 'official' and some good workouts are included along with those outstanding personal stories.  I think They should go back to the drawing board for a second release & make the book & some of its contents more user friendly to the new Spartan Race initiate.

ToroLoco minus 1 day

Tomorrow is the ToroLoco Challenge.

Since coming back & planning on getting in shape, I have gotten sick and overworked; consequently I am no where near where I had planned on being physically 3 months ago.

But I signed up & paid my money, so I will do it.

One thing that will make this event different is I will be running it alone.

This is the only race I will have done alone other than my attempt at the Spartan Race over 7 months ago. So what my finishing time is will be all on me.  No "I was waiting on other people." or "There was a line at the obstacle." excuses.

I am happy that someone noticed I was losing weight today, combining with the weigh in on Monday at 183lbs does put me in good spirits.  

IF, and this is a big IF, all goes well Id like to finish around 90 minutes.
But we will see..

In the meantime, here is a look in to my training regimen from this past week.

Yeah I kinda did that. 

And a look at the course as it is listed on their website.

I really just wanted to play on the zip line.

So tomorrow 6.2 miles of being stupid.

Stay tuned..

So....

First of all , the back pain has been subsiding, albeit slowly.  Hopefully I will be back at 100% for my trip to Canada next weekend. Just in time to make other bad decisions.

But I woke up today w/ pain in my left shin.  Now I had noticed some tenderness there a couple days ago after a work out, and attributed it to just over use. I have been on the treadmill in some capacity for 13 days in a row starting July 27. Yesterday due to my mom being in town & staying in the room it is kept I did not workout. It was kind of strange, maybe I am getting used to it being part of my routine, as much as I hate doing it. Thus I find it odd that today I have the pain,it makes more sense to me if I had been exerting myself, however I had not.  Guess it is something else to keep an eye on.

In other news the Arizona Republic had an article today about 'mud runs'  It was mostly an ad for a particular event, and to help tout an article they plan on doing on their 'team'  and looking for people to join it.  Still it is nice to see them taking notice and having the list of upcoming events. I am also amused that being a newspaper & having access to researchers, they do not list 4 events that I do on my Arizona races page that are occurring later this year. This includes the November event Erika is participating in that already has over 1000 people signed up for it and the October event I am volunteering with.

Finally, for any people interested, the founders of Spartan Race have published an ebook (FREE), it deals with history, training, rules and articles on some amazing people, I hope I have the time to read it this weekend.  Being self published it is not the most refined in look, but may have some useful info. Stay tuned.

Several Items

OK a few things of note for this post.


1) So last night I decided to try & see how far I could go on the treadmill in 70 minutes.  I was hoping for 5 miles, as it seems my previous uses of it had me at a 4.3 avg mph.  It was at 4.4 when something went wrong.  I had upped the speed at times faster than i hd it before & had been on it longer than ever. Judging by the sound/feel, I have think the belt has slipped, probably part of a break in period. Normally I would pull it apart & diagnose the issues.  But as it is under warranty we will see what happens when I get the call back on it tomorrow from the service dept.


2) Today the email came about the Spartan Beast I have been waiting on.  The wonderful world of the Discount Code. 30% off on the Utah Beast.  Of course the first heats are already sold out.  Clearly they picked a good place for the race as only a few days after posting the date and a year away heats are selling out.  I have now signed up officially & updated the image at the top of this blog to represent that. 


3) In reading about this past Utah Beast, from Dirt in Your Skirt, it seems the folks at Spartan Race HQ are changing things up.  Target shooting was included in this past race, along with the traditional spear throw. I am a little apprehensive about this but mostly because it is something I have not done in a race before. 


4) Current work out status.  Today was day 4 of the Burpee Challenge, and to make up for the lack of treadmill I did go for walk. Just as well, several days in a row on it has put me in a bit of pain in the shin/ankle area & last thing I want is a repeat of the issues that plagued me when i originally signed up fr my first event.

Current treadmill only totals since July 1
8.75 miles
1070 calories
4.3 mph average


Not a bad start, but would like to get back on it tomorrow.

Time

I dont plan on posting daily. I just do not believe I have the time or enough witticisms to keep anyone interested if I did that. The plan is to post periodically over the next year, generally when I hit a milestone, do something interesting or have a comment I want to make.


A quick note. In a previous life I worked at seasonal events dealing with volunteers, marketing & promotion.  It mean working pretty much everyday for 2-3 months. Sure there were 'days off' like the time I had to be up & on site for a TV appearance at 4am (until 9am), on the first day off in weeks.  In consideration of this my boss said he handled some of the leg work. But mistakes were made & I had a black eye for a passport photo later that day due to an irate person who was unaware of the noise that would be produced.


When I quit that job I though about all the free time I would have to do other things.  But I had not realized that working on an event had advantages.  Like with all the walking I did daily I did not gain weight from all the fast food I ate (only thing I usually had time for). So I went to an office job, supposed to be 8-5 M-F. And it was, at first. As time passed I gained more responsibility and the small company I worked for became smaller & I did more.  Fast forward to today. The office that had 5 people in it has 2.  The 11 people working from home is now 6.  My day starts at 5am, generally I am done by 5pm depending on daylight savings time & deadlines.  But I am also customer support, web development & more, so not necessarily true.


I have had desires to work out more in the past but 'life' gets in the way. More often than not that life is one spent sitting at a desk doing items for work.I envy people like Chris Davis, who have coworkers & a boss that will allow him the time off to accomplish his goals. 


I know in time I will get better, stronger, faster & can do more with the time I have. But I read the Spartan Race Workouts of the Day and wonder how people have time for it all.  I recall seeing a video once w/ the Spartan Race founders Joe & Andy (and you can correct me on this) where they felt people were getting soft and that was part of the reason for the races. I dont disagree.  But I also can see where that being soft has come from multiple reasons, when one works 2 jobs to make ends meet, or has to work & go to school, and cant afford to buy healthy foods it takes its toll on a person.  When the get home exhausted going for a run or doing squats or burpees is not usually high on a priority list especially when one has kids to care for, meals to prep, bills to pay, etc.


Yes you have to make the decision & set goals & work towards them. This is my plan. But it would also be nice to have more time to put towards those goals.  

Day 1

Training day 1.


So last week in preparation of this we purchased a treadmill.  between Erika & I wanting to get in better shape, needing to work on speed & endurance and of course i being about 2 degrees cooler than the sun outside it seemed like the best possible purchase for the endeavor. Over the last week I have used ti a lot more than I thought I would.  but of course today is the Day 1.


I was surprised to see I am weighing just under191 lbs. Recently I weighed just under 200.  That was about the time I had gotten the news from my doctor about the high cholesterol, vitamin deficiencies and other ailments that made me really consider doing this to get in to a better shape.


In addition to trying to use the treadmill most days of the week at least to walk a bit, I have also instituted a version of the 100 day burpee challenge.  So far so good.  1 down.


Treadmill today was 30 min @ about a 4 mpg average. not too bad.


I have also signed up for my 'other race'  called the ToroLocoChallenge, it will be in September and I think a good gauge to see where I am after a few months of getting ready for my Spartan Races.


AS for the Spartan race next June 29, it looms in the back of my head.  A 12.1 mile race was run there yesterday & I looked at the results.  Sure my goal is to complete it, but I WOULD like a decent time too. The average completion time for this race was 3 hours & 5 min, this is just better than the time it took me to complete the shorter Spartan Race I was in back in February.  I have a ways to go.

Preface

So a long time ago I saw a video on the web about an event in the UK called the ToughGuy. In spite of it being an outdoor/active sort of thing I was drawn to it & wanted to participate. I know That may never happen so I have decided to do the next best thing and participate in local obstacle races in the U.S.  Dear reader please note I am an out of shape computer geek who is more versed in Halo than in real any kind of physical activity. (I actually failed basic PE in high school)


in 2011 I signed up for an event called the Warrior Dash in Florence, AZ.  Summarily I injured myself & hobbled through it against doctor's orders.  Later I walked an event called the Mad Mud Run w/ my girlfriend.  Early in 2012 I signed up for an event called the Spartan Race, thinking it was similar. it was not.  instead of 3.5 miles it was over 8 miles. Obstacles were harder & failure meant calisthenics.  Still, once again injured, I completed the course in about the longest time posted.


Well I have decided 2013 WILL be different. Not only will I be in better shape in my 40th year, I intend to complete 3 spartan races, a 3.5 mile, a 8 mile & a 12.1 mile - called the Trifecta if one can complete this in 12 months. Due to the locations of the races & money constraints I will be doing them all in 6 months.


This blog will follow my training & thought processes as I try to get in shape & complete these 3 events (and one additional) in the next 364 days.