What does it mean to "be in shape"?

Whenever I write a post on this blog I'm aware that I might be the only one interested in the topic.  That's no more true than what I'm about to write.

Taking all these hard science classes recently has made me think about how so much of what makes a great endurance athlete happens at the microscopic level.  Yes, when we get "in shape" we might lose a few pounds - gain some muscle etc - but what really matters is happening within our cells.  All of our cells are dependent on the following chemical reaction C6H12O6 + 6O2 > 6CO2 + 6H2O + Energy.  Simple aerobic respiration - and we literally couldn't do anything without it. 

As you probably know the 6CO2 + 6H2O are just byproducts - which is helpful since the process that started made aerobic respiration possible, photosynthesis, only needs 6H2O and 6CO2 + light in order to make 6O2 + C6H12O6.  Photosynthesis and aerobic respiration - the real yin and yang of life.

Anyways, aerobic respiration occurs in a specific place in our cells.  It starts out in the cytoplasm (space inbetween organelles) but the rubber really hits the road in the organelles called mitochondria.  You probably remember mitochondria as being called the "power houses" of our cells.

Mitochondria chillin

But, let's back up a second.  We know that aerobic respiration results in energy, but how does the cell actually store and release that energy?  ATP - basically a nitrogen base, a 5 carbon sugar, and 3 phosphate groups.  The phosphate groups are key - when one breaks off you get a little energy and ADP.  Aerobic respiration turns 36 ADP into 36 ATP - so that they are ready to go around the cell and lend energy to whatever reaction/process needs it (e.g. contracting a muscle fiber so that we can move forward as quickly as possible).

2 ATP are generated in the cytoplasm during aerobic respiration - but 34 are generated within the mitochondria.  There's an interesting theory that mitochondria weren't originally organelles, but were actually bacteria.  These bacteria entered into a mutualistic relationship with cells - where each organism got something it needed from the other.  They were having such a groovy time together that the cell said - "hey mitochondria! why don't you just move into my house?"  The mitochondria said "hey, why not?"  What followed is the most sucessful shackup of all time. And if our cells ever throw mitochondria's stuff out onto the street - we're pretty much screwed.

When we're out of shape our cells have a small number of mitochondria - and they're lazy.  They don't produce as much ATP as they do when we're in shape.  So, the most important thing that happens when we exercise regularly is that our cells get more mitochondria and those mitochondria are more efficient.

The other important process that happens when we're getting in shape is that our body produces more red blood cells.  That's why some endurance athletes cheat by blood doping (injecting saved red blood cells before an important race) or take EPO (a hormone that controls the process of producing red blood cells).  The reason why this is important goes back to aerobic respiration - we need to get those 6O2's from somewhere.

Depending on the distance, the third important part of getting in shape is training your body to store a lot of glycogen, which is broken into glucose (C6H12O6) for aerobic respiration.  Yes, your body can use lipids to get the glucose, but it's much less efficient.

What's the main take away?  The most important thing to be in shape is to have cells that can do a large amount of aerobic respiration - by having a lot of the ingredients necessary readily available (glucose and oxygen) and by having cells that include a large number of highly efficient mitochondria.

How to do it?  That's for another post.  Although I will say that looking at getting into shape at the cellular level shows why there aren't any shortcuts to good performances.  Training consistency and volume might seem boring - but our cells need enough regular stress so that they know to produce those high-performing mitochondria.

Reversal

The most important ingredient in any success I've had with running has had to do with executing a good plan.  There are times in any training cycle when you start to doubt your plan - but experience tells you to keep pushing through - that the full benefits won't show themselves fully until the target race.  There is one major exception to the "stick-to-the-plan-at-all-costs" mentality - injuries. 

I've had an on and off battle with my glute/hamstring issue since August of 2010.  Part of my reasoning in focusing on running this winter was to see how much it could handle.  Well - it appears not that much.  I got up near 50 miles the last few weeks and the pain creeped up with each run.  At first it was only on hard workouts or runs more than 90 minutes - but by the middle of last week I was feeling it even just laying in bed.

Given that it is only January and my goal race is in September it seemed like the perfect time to give my leg complete rest for a month - at least from running.  Swimming and biking don't seem to have any real impact on the injury - so, I'll continue to do those along with weights and yoga. 

I'm also going to go see a medical professional to figure out if there's anything else I can do than just rest.    

A plan for the winter

After I realized that Celtic Solstice wasn't in the cards I decided I needed a new goal for the winter.  Obviously my #1 goal for next year is the Wisconsin Ironman - but I've found that it's very easy to focus on one goal for too long.  I need something different to keep my attention until at least March.  After a long search of several online sources I found the Sombrero Beach Run on Marathon Key in Florida the first weekend in March.  The Sombrero Beach Run has a 10k and 5k - most people run both.

Over the next 12 weeks I'll be using a Jack Daniels 5k-15k training plan.  I have two main goals - 1) to get my mileage up and see how my leg holds up.  I haven't run over 50 miles per week in over a year. 2) to increase the intensity.  I'm going to run at least two hard runs per week - either 5k pace repeats, mile pace repeats, or tempo (10 mile - half marathon) pace.

Here is my plan for this week.

Monday: 6 miles easy
Tuesday: 9 miles 4X200 R pace - 2X400 - 1X800 - 2X400 - 4X200 rest the same as interval + weights
Wednesday: 4 miles easy
Thursday morning: 30 min swim
Thursday afternon: 10 miles 3X2 miles tempo 2 min rest
Friday: 4 miles easy
Saturday: 9 miles 6X1200m @ 5k pace with 400m rest
Sunday: 14 miles easy
Total: 56 miles

Across the wide Missouri

Twenty miles south of where I'm typing this lies the grave of Adam Ingram - my great-great-great grandfather.  He immigrated from Scotland in the 1850's - settling in Cass County, Nebraska in 1857 - only three years after the US signed a treaty with the local natives which helped to make Nebraska an official territory and opened the area up for european settlement. 

So, you could say that moving to Nebraska is kind of a homecoming for me.  I've never lived here before, but we used to come out almost every summer to visit relatives.  I'm guessing that most of you picture Omaha as being on flat land in the middle of corn fields.  You're only partially correct.  Eastern Nebraska and western Iowa are actually hilly.  Driving along I-80 you feel like you're on some kind of slow motion roller coaster - you are always going up or down.  Most importantly for me, it's almost exactly the same terrain as just outside Madison, WI.

There are no major bodies of water nearby to moderate the temperature - so, it gets very cold in the winter and relatively hot in the summer.  The rest of the time the wind blows relentlessly.  Sounds like a pretty crummy place to train - doesn't it?

If you go on Letsrun - you can find several posts that claim Omaha is the worst metropolitan area in the country for runners.  It's true that there's not a big competitive running scene here - but, being only an 8 hour drive from Boulder, CO - the running mecca of America - that's not totally unexpected.  And yes, the weather is difficult - but most of my formative running years were spent in Michigan and Chicago - I can deal with bad weather.

This last weekend I was arranging some stuff in our garage when a little girl walked up our driveway.  She introduced herself - followed by her mom.  It turns out that this couple, who live basically across the street, both ran in college and help to organize local track workouts.  Here's the kicker - the husband, Gerald, has completed two ironman's and is part of a local group that swims every Saturday morning starting in May in the open water at a lake seven miles away in Iowa. 

Gerald even volunteered to head out with me on a bike ride to show me the lake where they train.  On our way back he asked, "Do you like to drink beer?"  - I felt like I was in the episode of The Simpsons when Gerald Ford moves across the street and asks Homer if he likes drinking beer and watching football - except watching football was replaced with open water swims and brick workouts.

 I haven't even mentioned yet that I have a run/bike trail literally out my back yard.  It's only about 1.5 miles - but it has markers every tenth of a mile - no need to drive for tempo or track workouts.  There are several other trails (mostly concrete unfortunately) in town - some that go for over 20 miles.

So for those of you worrying about me - I think things are going to be fine.  Yes, it might be a rough winter - and I'll have to put a little more effort into finding challenging races - but it will be almost perfect for my training for next September.  As I ride over the wind swept hills on a contraption that would have boggled Adam's mind - I'll think about how hard he must have worked to scratch out an existence here.  Physical endurance wasn't recreation for him - it was how he survived.

The struggle itself

Sisyphus was the King in Greek mythology who was forced to roll a large rock up a hill for perpituity.  Many interpretations have been made about the meaning of this myth.  The interpretation that rings most true to me comes from Albert Camus, who believed that the myth of Sisyphus signified the absurdity of life.  We struggle to find meaning in a world without eternal truths.  Some people might decide that life it not worth living without meaning, but Camus says that it "requires revolt."  He concludes that "the struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart.  One must imagine Sisyphus happy." 

As runners we put a lot of effort into something that may seem meaningless to many.  Most of us don't gain fortune or fame - we just gain the knowledge that we have given our best effort - that we have prepared as best we can and executed our plans as perfectly as possible. 

For me this explains why I enjoy running more than anything - the struggle itself fills my heart. 

Inspired by Anonymous

As a society there seems to be a lot of hand wringing about what the age of facebook, twitter, and blogs have wrought.  Are we falling into some kind of vain and self-conscious age where we are suffocated by self-centered posts and updates?  Arianna Huffington recently said that "self-expression has become the new entertainment."  On the face of it - that sounds messed up.  It's not just self-expression, but the hope of positive feedback through the constant "publishing" of the usually mundane accomplishments of life.

Given that I posted a picture of my ironman age group award last week on facebook - I'm probably not in a place to be too critical.  And although facebook, twitter, and blogs are simply cringe inducing at times - I think that there is some value in these new technologies.  For me, the most valuable thing is that what used to be an expensive endeavor, publishing, is now basically free.  The marketplace of ideas and concepts may be more crowded - but sometimes a person or idea that has a great impact is able to find a voice when they would have been silent in previous era's.

One such person was known as "Hadd" on Letsrun.  He died last week and so I thought it would be appropriate for me to write a post of appreciation.  Hadd's real name was John Walsh - although I didn't know that until I read the recent thread on his death.  For whatever reason he wanted to stay completely anonymous.

Hadd's posts were inspirational to me for a few reasons.  First, he liked to write about and coach guys who weren't pro's, but just wanted to see what they could do.  He saw value in people attempting to find what was possible - even if it didn't mean they were going to run in the olympics.  One of his bests posts (scroll to part IV) was about a 30+ old athlete attempting to run a sub 2:25 marathon.  It was interesting to me that he didn't write about someone trying to run an olympic qualifier - but simply a guy who had gained 20 pounds and wanted to run "one more serious marathon."

Another thing I enjoyed about his writing was that he included a LOT of science written in a way that I could understand.  He made a great argument for why training should be a long process - starting with a sustained period of easy running before including intensity.  He wrote about capillary beds, muscle fiber recruitment, lactate threshold, and energy expenditure in ways in which you could actually see these processes happening - and understand why taking a deliberate long term view towards training is so important.

The truth is that a guy like Hadd would have been lost to the world (other than the 20-30 athletes who he coached) if it weren't for the modern technology.  He helped me to understand that yearning for athletic accomplishment, even after you've become an adult and have other responsibilities, isn't something that's shameful.  He also showed me that as out of shape as I was at the time (I was about 30 lbs over my ideal racing weight in my mid-20's) there was a path to success.

For all of the possible negative effects of our connected world - you can tease out a lot of great content - and I don't just mean ducks chasing dogs.  RIP Hadd - I owe a lot of fun racing and training over the last 10 years to your writing.

Poconos 70.3

Watching Monday night football/playoff baseball it's interesting to think about the differences between endurance sports and our more popular sports.  There was a commercial a few years ago that included the buzzword "boom!".  The point was that most sporting events come down to a moment where an athlete makes a play that goes off like a bomb and changes everything.

Endurance sporting events aren't usually like that.  It's more like a bag of liquid that drains at a particular rate - and if you misjudge how quickly it's draining you're in big trouble.  Once the bag is drained you can tough it out - but you aren't going to stay on pace. 

On Sunday I was dealing with a brand new bag.  I was competing in a half ironman triathlon minus the swim - so really a duathlon.  Regardless of how much better I was feeling because I wasn't going to have to face my nemesis of an open water swim it was still a new event for me.

The bike start and the run start were in two different locations - so I made my way in the pre-dawn hours with all of the other participants in school buses.  Without the swim the plan was to allow the pro's to head out every 30 seconds, followed by a 2 minute gap, and then the age groupers to march out one by one.

My number was 548 - out of 2000 which wasn't so bad.  Still it took about an hour before I felt I was free of traffic.  The first 3 miles was an out and back in the English style system - which was used because we were taking a left out of the start.  Which makes sense because otherwise you would have to wait for a gap to turn left.  What people didn't seem to understand was that in the English left system you are supposed to ride on the far left unless you are passing - in which case you should pass on the right (close the middle).

Those first 3-4 miles were a cluster@#%.  There are several rules while cycling - one of the most important are that you have to stay 4 bike lengths behind the person in front of you unless you're passing them otherwise you are "drafting".  Since there was no swim we were all much closer than normal.  The judges are on motorcycles -  I saw one of them in the first few miles - and they were giving out penalties a plenty.  If you're given a penalty you have to sit out in a penalty tent for a specified amount of time before you start going again.  I felt lucky not to get a penalty - not that I wasn't passing people - but with how congested it was it was very difficult to be following the rules.

I felt really strong through the first 25-30 miles - but by 35 miles the hills started.  Even on the long steady downhills it felt like the headwind was strong enough that you couldn't get much momentum.  There was one guy who I was going back and forth with on the bike - I was in front when the judge passed me.  We were on another part of the course where we were doing an English left and people were still riding on the right side of the left lane.  I saw her sidle up along one guy who was off to the right - then there was a cluster of bikes.  Apparently she was giving a penalty to someone in that cluster who was arguing with her - so she staying along side this person who was soft pedaling.  The effect was that two of us came up on them with no way of getting around without passing the motorcycle on the left which we were sure would get us a penalty.  So we slowed down until she finally moved on - which was of course exactly the same time that the guy whom I had been trading places blew by me.

Eventually I passed him again - but around 40 miles three strong cyclists passed me.  I decided not to try to keep up - which I think was the right decision because they obviously were stronger than I was and I would have had little left for the run if I tried to stay on them.

I had only one mechanical when I dropped my chain on a hill.  Luckily it wasn't too hard to get it back on - although it's odd to have grease on your hand during a run.

The run started out a little oddly - I wasn't quite sure where the run started (which I always seem to have problems with in triathlons) so I didn't get my watch on a mile mark until after I had run a mile.  The first mile I had a watch on was 5:57 - which was pretty good since I wanted to average 6 minute miles and the first half of the 13.1 miles was mostly uphill.

I actually surprised myself for the first 6 miles - I thought I would have a harder time staying at 6 minute pace.  But, by the 8 mile mark I wasn't feeling so good.  At 8.5 there was one of the few uphills coming back down towards town - it hurt bad.  From then on I never really felt the same.  I managed to stay under 6:40 pace for the last 4 miles - but even that was a struggle.

I ended up placing much better than I anticipated.  At first they said I was 3rd in my age group - and then at the awards ceremony they said I was 2nd.  I'm not sure if there was an error in the initial results or if someone was disqualified - but I'll take it either way.

I did qualify for the 70.3 world championships as an age grouper, but I had already registered for Ironman Wisconsin which is in the same month as the 70.3 WC Las Vegas in September 2012.  Plus, I knew that the only reason I placed so high was that the swim had been canceled.  Realistically if I had participated in the 70.3 championship I would have been smoked - I might have even finished last in my age group.  Either way - I feel good about my choice.

I enjoyed the experienced.  It made me more excited that I had signed up for a full Ironman next September in Wisconsin.  However - I had been a little excited that I wasn't going to turn 35 next year and thus going to be in an older age category.  But then I looked at the results and realized that I would have finished worse in the 35-39 age category than the 30-34 age category.  What sport gets more competitive after you turn 35?!  I don't get it.