Getting Measured, And What It Means

Last week, I decided that I wanted to get my athletic performance measured and headed over to TriFit to meet with Jeff Rothschild. Through TriFit, Jeff offers several different tests, but the one I decided to take was the EMR test to measure both my VO2Max as well as my carb vs. fat burning chart. Let's just say that the results were very insightful!

Let's start with the obvious stuff: body composition. The short answer: you're fat, lose some weight HAHAHAHAHA.

(photo credit: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/37if)

I mean the first measurement was BMI. A simple and arcane measurement that takes into account mass vs. height. Almost anyone who has a decent amount of muscle mass will have a high BMI, which is the main issue with the measurement. I guess I should just be lucky that I didn't fall into the Obesity range. WIN!

The next measurement taken was Fat Mass. This was the real sad one. It's a measure of the amount of fat you're body is carrying. I have one of those "smart" scales at home that tells me I'm around 20%. Shows the value of commercial devices vs. medical grade devices. The medical grade device said I'm at 28.6%. WOW! That's pretty damn fat. Time to lose some weight buddy...

After that huge blow of bad news, I got some decent news. The device measured my Skeletal Muscle Mass or the amount of muscle you're carrying. So the good news is that all my bars are above the average for someone in my comparison group. That means I'm stronger than average and by a good amount. What's particularly hopeful for triathlon is that I'm above average in my torso (aka chest/back) and my legs. So the bigger body parts and the ones used for speed have the potential to impact my performance greatly. Other good news is that my muscle mass is fairly balanced, so I don't have a right or left side dependency. There's still hope yet!

The last big measurement was Energy Expenditure. Based on some of the above measurements, I should be eating about 1800-2000 Calories per day just to maintain normal activity. However, with about 1 hour of exercise, I can ramp up my Calorie consumption to the 2800-3000 range. Good to know if you're gonna be counting those calories.

Next came the really good athletic stuff.

Let's first start with the training zones. A lot of training plans reference the training zones you should be working in for different types of workouts. So whether it's low intensity, long distance mileage or high intensity/sprint work, this measurement laid out the exact Heart Rate ranges I should be working in. It also mapped out what my Calories/Hour looked like in those zones. So if I run for an hour at around 160bpm, then I'm looking at a solid 900 calories burned for that session.

Based on the measurements, I should be under 120bpm for most easy work. I wanna stay in the 150-160bpm range for long easy work. Sprint work needs to exceed 170bpm. And if I'm really trying to push the VO2Max, I need to be pushing 190bpm or even my max measured at 201bpm.

The next big measurement was the VO2Max itself. This one wasn't too great. VO2Max is basically a measurement of your athletic engine. It's how well your body takes in oxygen and maximizes it to become energy. My result of 49 is noted in the Excellent range. So I mean I'm better than the average joe in terms of my engine. However, you really want to be well above the Superior number to be an elite athlete, or even an elite Age Grouper. So there's a lot of work to be done there if that's where I want to get.

The bad news: there are really only 2 ways to increase VO2Max.

1) Do VO2Max work. This means things like hill climbs, hill sprints or sprinting mile repeats. Work where you're pushing yourself at the highest possible amount

2) Lose some weight. VO2Max does have some relation to weight, so every pound lost will have an effect on the measurement

What it all means?

Well it can all be summarized down into the below plots. What you're looking at is a couple different things. On top, we're looking at my VO2Max for each of the discrete Heart Rate measurements on the right. On the bottom you're looking at my pace for those same Heart Rates. Lastly, on the left you're looking at my carb-to-fat usage, again in those rates.

The athletic engine stuff I've already covered. The only new thing would be the bottom chart which also shows my pace for the heart rates. So again, paces for working in the respective heart rate zones.

But the lines to pay attention to are the grey and yellow ones. Grey is the % of calories burned from carbs while Yellow is the same but for fat. This is where some really insightful information came in. So I guess in an elite athlete, the curves would be more dramatic such that you're using more carbs at higher heart rates. This is because carbs are a quick fuel source and your body should be using them. This is actually where my body has adapted. Because I don't have a high engine compared to elite athletes, my body has compensated for being more efficient in burning fat for fuel and keeping that pretty steady throughout my various heart rate zones. What it means is that I won't be great at going fast because I can't use quick source fuel, but I should be good at going slow for long distances.

That leads to the low end being about right. My body burns carbs and fat almost equally at the lower heart rate zones. This is great news for long distance endurance work. Basically, the reason I can run marathons with sub-optimal training and athletic prowess is because my body has adapted. If I run at those lower heart rates, I can use my natural fuel (aka my fat) to keep going without hitting the wall.



What it all means is that after losing some weight, I do really need to work on speed work but also speed + fueling with more calories. The speed work will help push the VO2Max and help build a bigger engine. Then in addition to that, I need to do that speed work with more calories for fuel. This way my body will get used to having more calories and trying to burn them. So as my VO2Max potentially goes up, my body can also become more efficient at burning calories.

So very educational session, lots of things to work on and hope for my athletic future. Now on to the eternal struggle of trying to lose weight! HA!

Just some pics of me looking like Bane and running on the treadmill, trying not to die

Race Report: NYC Marathon

Well, at least I officially have a World Marathon Major race under my belt. Besides that and fundraising for a great cause, I think that's the only bright spots to this race. Sadly, I set my Personal Worst aka the Reverse PR, eclipsing my 2016 Honolulu Marathon by about 45sec. Safe to say, it wasn't a great day out on the course for me.

I'm glad it's the last race of my season (I've since decided to axe the HITS Palm Springs 70.3 idea) and I can take some stress/pressure of not training off. It'll be good to relax the body a bit, focus on strength, flexibility and maybe trying to lose some body fat. Who knows. It'll be thoughts to ponder for another post...

Race Details:
New York City, New York
Run: 26.2mi, point to point

Race Summary:
Before I breakdown my race, I wanna touch on something that kind of frustrated me. The logistics for getting to the start line of this race are pretty ridiculous. I joked that I had to take a car, a plane then a train, boat and bus just to walk to the starting line. Obviously, coming from across the country, it's a no brainer that I'd be flying here. But since the bus transportation option from Manhattan was sold out, I had to choose the Staten Island Ferry. And that was ferry terminal was such a mess race morning. So many people packed into that terminal and everyone cramming and pushing to get on the boat. Luckily I got a seat. But you get off the boat and then have to walk thru the food court and stand in another long line just to get on a bus to Fort Wadsworth. All in all, I left the hotel at 7am and didn't even get into the race waiting area until 10:35am. I joked with my bus buddy that it takes a marathon to get to the marathon start line. At least I had enough time to hit the potty and get to my corral before my wave start. Some other folks on the bus were not so lucky...

Those first 3 miles are really as advertised. I mean, we rode the Verrazano Bridge for the Bike Tour in May, but running up that bad boy was a rough way to start. Similar to the SF 2nd Half start, I focused on telling myself to go slow, don't kill your race right here, all the people passing you will get owned by you later. And as the story always goes, I definitely passed a lot of those people later in the race. So success there.

The next stretch of miles through Brooklyn and Queens were comfortable. I made sure not to push it too hard remembering that I wanted to run this race and not hit the wall. I was trying to negative split it to see if that would hurt less (spoiler alert, I'm not sure it did, but I felt better throughout the race). But coming off that first bridge and running through Brooklyn was really awesome because of the crowds. And this would be a theme throughout. The people of NY really lined the streets and cheered on thousands of random strangers. It's pretty amazing and uplighting to feel all that energy!

The next major stretch of note came at mile 15 on the Queensboro Bridge. That was the 2nd stretch of elevation via a bridge. That one actually felt painful. Again, I didn't walk and I'm proud of that, but it was definitely a slow trudge. After you get off that bridge though, it's nice to again have a giant crowd cheering and kinda giving you that mental pick me up to keep going and keep the momentum.

I kept it together for a couple more miles, but mile 19 was where I started walking thru aid stations. I hadn't hit the wall per se, but I knew that the real race was going to start and I felt like I needed a chance to get some energy. The last 10K is always where the battle is going to be both mentally, physically and in terms of finishing time. And it def was a battle. Particularly because the last hill into Central Park was killer. I was so hopeful that I could use my training, my negative splitting and all my will power to push thru the last 10-8K to a sub 4:30 time. That didn't happen. The hill was real and the pain and fatigue was even more real. I was trudging up it at a pace faster than many (likely those who passed me in the first miles), but I couldn't achieve the much faster splits that I wanted.

In what seemed like an eternity, I kept pushing up the hill, along the park and finally thru Central Park to the finish line! It was about 1.5 miles but it felt longer than the entire marathon. It literally felt like an eternity. Fatigue was setting in hard, I wanted to walk, the pains in my feet and knees just kept getting worse and worse. But finally I did it! I crossed the line, I grabbed my medal and tried to shove some pretzels, water and banana into my body as I waddled thru the finisher area. And despite knowing I set a personal worst, I still felt accomplished that I did this bucket list race!

A note about finishing a marathon and the moments after. You feel terrible. You're horribly sore. And then they make you walk forever to get all your post race things and get out to some place where you can get transportation home. It's terrible. They should definitely make it easier so athletes can choose to just get out and go rest somewhere. Or maybe that's why they offer a VIP area... Exit early... for a fee $$$

Oh a quick note about my fueling plan: I had a strategy and it worked! My plan was to eat a Honey Stinger gel about every 35-45 minutes and take the Salt Stick pills every 30 minutes. That plus keeping a heart rate in the 160s helped me avoid the wall! So I was definitely happy about that!

Map and Stats Plot:

Heart Rate Zones:

The chart tells the story that I lived this marathon in Zone 4. In fact, I was pretty much only in Zone 5 for the very end where I tried my hardest to make a push to get under 4:30. That didn't happen... It's interesting that I was probably in Zone 3 for the uphill/downhill part of the Verrazano Bridge which is mile 0-3 of the race. I'd have to guess that was either a mistake or that my HR actually went down as I was going downhill. Very interesting...

Race Charts:
Course Reported Finish:

Welp... There goes a personal worst aka the Reverse PR... I'm so awesome right? :(

Run:

Well the Garmin was all kinds of off and haywire, likely due to all the runners trying to ping satellites as well as various trouble areas for signals like the bridges and running between tons of high buildings. Alas, it shows the summary that my HR was high on average and my pace was slow on average. But the one thing it shows is that my actual moving time was 2 minutes faster than my finish. That's because there was a fire in some apartment building at Mile 18. So the race was literally stopped for 2+ minutes so that a fire truck could get to that building. Definitely lost some time and momentum there, but overall didn't change much... I guess it could've helped me avoid setting a new Reverse PR... LOL

Pics:

Obligatory Times Square photo

Zombie Times Square photo after the red eye flight

Various expo photos

Did a little bit of sight seeing on Saturday

Carb loading dinner!

Shots from the morning ferry ride

Therapy dogs right outside the race corrals

This race was packed! 51,000 runners!

Me telling the volunteer how to take a photo with my iPhone turned into hilarious candid

A good, normal photo at the finish line

Totally happy with pizza and beer post race :D

Eating all the donuts the next morning

Hanging with Angela and recapping our races and pain points the next day!

Views from the floor level at the CTF NY office! They're even better higher up!

Like this :D

A Medal Monday shot with the Brooklyn Bridge!

The Race That Never Was

Well, the biggest race of the 2017 calendar turned out to be the biggest NON-race of the last decade. Everything was setup to be epic:
-No Kim in the race to overshadow this showdown with a podium
-The first time that Dave and I have ever been in the same age group and (relatively) healthy
-Flat bike (good for Josh) and flat run (good for Dave's recently healed achilles)
-McGregor-Mayweather inspired, self-designed gear by Amanda
-The biggest little city known for partying, good food and good jazz

Alas, thanks to (literally) an act of God (aka massive thunderstorm) plus (supposed) future storms (the day was really nice in the French Quarter), the race never happened. It was sadly called after just an hour into the storm. Many racers were disappointed, particularly as things seemingly cleared up by 9am, but none were more disappointed than Dave and I as well as our wonderful spectators Kim and Amanda.

The Battle In The Bayou, as it was dubbed, was going to be an entertaining, hilarious and epic showdown of 2 triathlon lovers who don't usually taste podium success. Oh well... maybe sometime in 5 years we will find an epic venue to have a rematch!

Writers Note: to add insult to disappointment, the big bad Ironman corporation decided that adequate compensation to racers was $100 towards a future race. That's about 1/3 the price of the race itself and doesn't take into account any compensation for racers getting to the venue and getting gear (specifically bikes) to the start line. A lot of folks were out a lot of money and it's a shame that this big corporation that makes tons off these races they put on all over the country couldn't compensate us a little bit better for canceling the race. Might make you think a little harder about doing races across the country in potentially dangerous times of year for the region of the race... or maybe even make you think twice about racing with Ironman in general...

The race was cancelled, biggest bummer ever!!! It was going to be an entertaining showdown for sure! And our spectators had some sweet shirts! Alas... The race that never was...

The thunderstorm was loud and ferocious, but seemed to settle within minutes of the race director calling off the race

I mean since the podium was there and we all tied for 1st, it was kind of a win LOL

No race, might as well get to eating...

Race cancelled, time to eat and drink!

And drink...

And of course... BEIGNETS!!!

Blue Nile, one of several Jazz spots we stumbled into