Holiday Gluttony

Christmas is over which means the holidays are finally winding down...thank god. As much as I love spending time with family, sleeping in, watching football, the list really is endless, I have no sense of routine or normalcy in my life. I tend to eat anything and everything in sight as well, which, is mostly comprised of different forms of sugars.

I arrived at my parents house late enough on Xmas eve that I missed all family festivities and was tired enough where I wasn't even hungry. Success! I just dodged a full day of gluttony. Christmas day is low-key at the Cagle household, a movie is usually in the cards, but since the Packers were playing prime-time versus the Bears everyone was getting ready for the game. My diet up to the game comprised of a coke, Guinness, 16 chocolate covered peanut butter balls, taco dip. The first nutritional value I had all day was at halftime when I had 3 ham sandwiches washed down with yet another Guinness. I went to bed feeling stuffed, lazy, and this crazy high heartbeat that was signaling the work I had put my body through to get rid of this crazy diet fast. I do not understand how people can eat like this and feel this way every night going to bed.


It almost got to this point walking Webeen and Layla post-xmas

Taking 2 days off from any type of physical activity did not help either. I skipped my planned 6 mile run on xmas to spend more time with family and relax, but maybe I took the term "relax" to a much different level then I expected. The day after xmas was spent traveling north to Wausau for xmas #2, which meant, holiday gluttony day #2. Only problem is that Kate's mother is a very accomplished chef and so the sweets were tastier, the food as even more abundant, and the respect for my body was non-existent.

Now that the holidays are wrapping up, it's time to get back on the pain train!

Happy New Year!

BC

My Swimming Inspiration - Hillary Biscay

When you think about swimmers the first name that comes to mind is probably Michael Phelps, or Jason Lezak right now. If you are a triathlete you are probably thinking of Andy Potts or Sara McLarty, but if you are myself, or know Ironman swimmers well, you think Hillary Biscay.



If you are a subscriber to her blog, then you know Hillary's first love is swimming and she thoroughly enjoys smashing herself daily in the water. If you are not a reader of her blog, then I recommend you become a subscriber as it is a great blog and updated almost daily. Hillary often mentions in her blogs about the 100x100's set, or more aptly named the "Birthday Set". It is workouts such as these where swimming 10k in the pool is her idea of fun, even on a birthday, and really brings about the pure love and enjoyment she has for swimming. I seemed to have guided myself towards Hillary, her blog, and her love for swimming over the past year.

Through the past couple of years as I have evolved myself as much as I can in the sport of triathlon, I have noticed that a lot of my inspiration in the pool comes from Hillary. Many of times when I am dreading the drive to the pool at 5:30am in sub-zero temps I just think about Hillary's love for swimming and try to immerse myself into that love as well, or I think WWHD "What Would Hillary Do".

It is no secret that I found myself into this sport through my cycling, but it was swimming for me that was my first love...err first sport I participated in back when I was at the young tender age of 5. I swam on the local swim team for a handful of years before passing up the sport, one sport I wished that I never did quit back then. I remember watching the olympics every 4 years and thinking to myself, "why did I stop swimming?". Then when I went of to college I made a lot of close friends that were on the swim team, wishing I was part of their inner-swimming circle. Now I feel that I have come full circle back towards my love and appreciation for swimming, but this time in the sport triathlon. Triathlon has reintroduced me into swimming, and exposed me as well to open-water swimming, one of my favorite sessions each week (few weeks of that happening here in Wisconsin). It is the discipline that I am best at and and enjoy the most. My inspiration comes from Hillary and she has been a huge contributor for me to reconnect myself with the pool.

But the real inspiration and motivation she gives me is to push myself as hard as I can in the water. My first handful of swims back in the pool three years ago and I could barely swim a full lap without gasping for air. A year later, and after recovering from a broken arm I once again found myself in the same position barely able to complete a lap. Here I am three years later and now do swims usually of 3-5K, something I never imagined a few years ago. But there is one distance that I am truly hungry for, and without Hillary this distance would never have been thought possible by myself. Yep 10k, 100x100's! I remember reading her blog about this set she deemed the "Birthday set" and instead of questioning "why" I questioned "how" as in, "How am I going to get myself to the point where I can swim 100x100's?"

The seed has been planted and a super set needs a super day. Super Bowl Sunday has a whole new meaning now and two reasons to enjoy the day. Check back with a report on my first 100x100 set after the Packers win again!

The 100x100 set will also be my first episode of my video documentary series of training for Ironman #2: IMWI.

-Ben

BarryP Run Program Update

Well I now have 4 weeks of the BarryP run rogram under my belt and while the mileage per week is still very weak I am running more frequently then I have ever before. After signing up for IMWI 2012 I knew there were some areas that had to be given some attention if I wanted any shot to have a successful race. Knowing that my weakest link in the chain is by far my run, I decided to seek out to this plan to start building some base going into 2012. So far I am very happy with where my run is going, and though I am not faster at all yet, I am by all means running much stronger and paying much more attention to the biomechanics of my run and getting myself prepped for that speed coming.

If you are unfamilar at all the the BarryP program you can check these threads below from slowtwitch.com. This was my intial introduction into the program and after hearing one great review and happy improved runner after the next I thought this would be a great place to start working on my run.

* The Program (part 1)
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...%20part%201;#2548394

* The Program (part 2)
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...%20part%202;#2554186

* The Program (part 3)
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...%20part%203;#2564153

I started this whole program working off the ratio of 2.5,5,7.5, which, in the first week gave me a whopping total of 25 miles! Yup, that is how weak my running is and how little I do infact run. I am slowly adding the distances into my run each week, starting with my short runs and then topping off the miles in my long runs. Now starting week 5 and I will be running 28.5 miles and hitting the 30 mile mark next week, I know big stuff is going on in my world right?

Week 1: 2.5, 5, 2.5, 5, 2.5, 7.5 = 25
Week 2: 3, x, 3, 5.1, 3.1, 7.35 = 21.55
Week 3: 3, 5, 3, 7.55, 3, 7.4 = 28.95
Week 4: 3, 6, 3, x, 3, 7.15 = 19.15

Another challenge with this program is getting in all 6 of those runs each week. Before I started this program I was usually running 3-4x a week, yikes I can't believe I did an Ironman on this training. Now I am running 5-6x a week as I have missed 2 of the 24 runs on the plan so far. Those two runs were middle-distance runs and brought some of my mileage down a bit, but I am still getting in plenty of runs a week to build off from.

Now that December is here and the snow is on the ground it is only a matter of time before the treadmill becomes my friend again. Hopefully I can hit 4 weeks straight of running 6x a week and be close to 35 miles a week by 2012.

Time to pound out some more miles!

-Ben