Next Saturday

Postulations of Prefrontal Foreplay

Two hours in zone three=better have something to zone out to.

I recommend:

This is the guy running my prefrontal cortex

I’m pathologically indecisive

and a gregarious introvert.


-> Frequently prone to paralysis by analysis.

For me, classic cases of paralysis by analysis occur frequently, momentarily, hour to hour, unless my attention is corralled to a specific task, or my mind is tickled with entertainment...before said entertainment is subjected to my analytical ticks.

Today, I negotiated between cereal brands, anticipated the tenor of film themes before I watched them (thinking that if I watched this one vs. that one I may need to rinse off my brain after viewing it), and negotiated with my endless list of to-do's and desires that all require a certain degree of to-and-fro-ing.

It's not so much a conflict with the mundane, but a sometimes exhausting way to interact with it. It's seems that my particulars are conspiring against clarity, and whatever the endeavor, my inertia takes a hit, if not stopped dead in its uncertain tracks.

According to Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist, our prefrontal cortex is responsible for decisions of rationality and deliberate style. When we try to navigate through our options, our hierarchy of desire, this feeble part of the brain can only hold, so I hear, about 7 pieces of info at a time before steering itself headlong into bonktown. So even the mechanics of the most banal decisions can exhaust us, and I know we’ve all experienced it. (Think of a time when you are with a group of people, professionally or personally, and you are all trying to agree on one simple thing). We quickly overwhelm our prefrontal cortex. It’s at these red line moments when you get up from your desk and walk out of the office and get some coffee, or a beer if it's Friday.

The Limbic system, the emotional brain, is separate yet not distinct from the prefrontal jury. It’s a collection of brain area, scattered throughout the cortex. Not nearly as focal a point as my prefrontal strip mall. It’s an area that tends to traffic in dopamine and it generates all sorts of subtle feelings that drive our behavior even when we’re not aware of them. At any given moment there is a tremendous argument happening inside the cortex. It’s not simply one brain area that reacts to one thing. I’m engaged in pleasure in one area and at least symbolic pain in another. Like pounding a sleeve of Thin Mints vs the "you're supposed to be training" impulse.

Are you aware of them, these arguments? Is this what Yoga intends to do while stretching muscular systems? What about long rides out past the fire station, does that work? When I was younger I would throw baseballs against the brick wall of my elementary school for an hour/s at a time, certain that I was engaged in some other activity that needed a baseball and an arm to facilitate it. Probably explains the introversion.

So the parts of the frontal cortex are charged with integrating emotions into the decision. One of the crucial things in decision making is not to force a settlement onto the argument. Too often, we shut off different brain areas and impose certainty from the top down. It can be disquieting to have these emotional arguments happening inside our head, to not know how to proceed. To not know the future of post-decision life. Too often we turn off brain areas that are trying to tell us something. Too often we shut them off…they don’t stand a chance against the swami. Yeah, the swami, the guy in the picture running my prefontal. Well, he does not really run it. He walks around it like he's shopping in a strip-mall for something like...conviction, only conviction comes in 24 ounce cans of diet Rockstar.

Oh yeah, then there's dopamine.

It’s one of the crucial ingredients when it comes to decision making. It is the fountain of youth if suffering from Parkinson’s or it is the youth are spending if you’re indulging your senses with sex or heroin. Dopamine is the modulator of feelings, from the pleasure of this year’s run of Girl Scout cookies to having sex on the hood of a car, feelings of fear, or feelings of disgust. It is the key neurotransmitter of emotions in general. But they're smart, or they have a shelf life, depending on your perspective. They adapt to hedonic pleasure and quickly stop firing, but they also look for the causations of pleasure and try to make sense of those rewards.
The dopamine systems are great at finding patterns. It can find the pattern that can predict a certain pleasure, but it’s lousy at dealing with random systems, like the fates.

So, looking back over the last weeks (since the last post really), I'm willing to bet, my prefrontal cortex is currently overwhelmed to the point that I’ve got nothing left for self-control, and swami is up there like a fly swimming in a brandy snifter. The events associated with my condition? You'll never find them posted in a blog. You'll have to hear them second hand or participate in them directly.

Practice

Celebrity Coach: Allen Iverson

"We're talkin about practice man. What are we talkin about? Practice? We're talkin about practice man. We're talkin about practice. We're talkin about practice. We aint talkin about the game."

January 3rd-January 9th

Resting HR 54 BPM

1/3/09 Bike + Strength Training No data

1/4/09 Run 7 miles: MAX HR 189 AVG HR 167 Easy Pace

1/5/09 Bike + Run 3 miles MAX HR 181 AVG HR 157 Bike RPMs around 80, Run: Easy Pace

1/6/09 Rest day

1/7/09 Swim 1.5 miles 54 laps. Swim took about 64 min

1/8/09 Bike + Run 3 miles MAX HR 186 AVG HR 159 Bike RPMs around 80, Run: Easy Pace

This week danced between aerobic and anaerobic zones, depending on the excersize. The race to race weight has begun between Rob Hanel and I. Rob is at 185 looking to get to 160 and I'm tipping the scales at 196 with a target of 170. There's 100 bucks on the line and I think I can take him. Last years race to race weight took about 10 weeks and I was able to get down to 171 for the MCM in Washington D.C. It improved my race time by 40 minutes from the previous year. Right now, heart rates are way too high for my current run pace. Still Clydesdaling and sweating butter during the runs.

I've been using the Garmin Forefront to track all my HR beta and it works like a charm. I sync it to a beta stick and load it into the Training Center in my laptop. It automatically uploads and graphs the HR info.

Bike shopping with Grant Baron, our Chainlove programmer in the morning. Looking at steel and carbon builds.

The Present Continuous Tense for Recovering Loiterers

Celebrity Coach

Ben Saunders

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ben_saunders_skis_to_the_north_pole.html

Simple Present: I train for IronMan

Simple Past: I trained for IronMan

Past Continuous: I was training for IronMan

Present Perfect: I have trained for IronMan

Present Continuous: I am training for IronMan

Present Perfect Continuous: I have been training for IronMan

Past perfect: I had trained for IronMan

Past Perfect Continuous: I had been training for IronMan

Simple Future: I will train for Ironman

Future Continuous: I will be training for IronMan

Future Perfect: I will have trained for IronMan

Future Perfect Continuous: I will have been training for IronMan

Simple Present: I eat McRibs

Simple Past: I ate McRibs

Past Continuous: I was eating McRibs

Present Perfect: I have eaten McRibs

Present Continuous: I am eating McRibs

Present Perfect Continuous: I have been eating McRibs

Past Perfect: I had eaten McRibs

Past Perfect Continuous: I had been eating McRibs

Simple Future: I will eat McRibs

Future Continuous: I will be eating McRibs

Future Perfect: I will have eaten McRibs

Future Perfect Continuous: I will have been eating McRibs

Blog Update Narrative:

I was training for IronMan

I trained for IronMan

I am training for IronMan

I ate McRibs

I was eating McRibs

I had eaten McRibs

I had been training for IronMan

I have been eating McRibs

I am training for IronMan

I will train for IronMan

I will be training for Ironman

I will have trained for IronMan

I will have been training for IronMan

I will have eaten McRibs

Recent Training: 12/5 Warm up: 200m free, 200m pull, 200m kick, 200m free

1800m free

12/8 Warm up: 1.5 hours trainer,

Strength training routeen

12/18 Warm up: 200m free, 200m pull, 200m kick, 200m free

1800m free

You'll notice the 10 days without any activity. It's the 10 busiest days of work this year and there is a French exam final in there. I've been a little fatigued and not wanting to spread myself thin. However, the premise of the blog was to write when not training or to write about training. I've been slacking. I had much more planned for this entry, but I think I'll save it for the next one.

December 3rd 2008, Day 2.

Celebrity Coach

Onion Columnist: Jim Anchower

"Remember the Malkmus show at Urban Lounge? I think I left my ninja slippers under your sink."

Today's schedule:

A.M. sw:1800m

P.M. Strength Training:

30 reps 3 sets

1. Squat

2. Lat pull

3. Leg press

4. Push-ups

5. Seated Row

6. Hamstring curls

Menu:

2 GU gels after swim

Tofu scramble (tofu, egg whites, garlic, onion, spinach, mushrooms, pesto)

2 EMS protein shakes

Brown rice and the last of the Thanksgiving green beans

Dunski Taco Bonanza

(Smart Ground, garlic, onion, red bell pepper, corn, black beans, diced tomatoes w/habaneros)

2 Gallons of water

Well, I was nervous about the swim. Just did not have a clue about my endurance or my stroke. The first 300m were hilarious. I swam in a lane next to the East High swim team, and I must have looked like fly in a brandy snifter during the warm up: goggles fogging up and panting down to the opposite wall with chlorinated pool water getting swallowed ounce by ounce every time my blowhole would open. I was loitering on the wall for about 20 seconds every 50 yards just to get my heart rate down. Then something happened. My body, lungs, and stroke, tuned and calibrated themselves into agreement and I was able to have a continuous swim for the next 1500m. I didn't hydrate enough this morning so I had occasional foot and calf cramps, lasting only an instant, toward the end of the swim. I imagine the stroke curve will continue to be steep for the next few weeks.

The strength training was strenuous, even with light weight after a long day at work and this morning's swim. 90 seconds between each activity. Tomorrow, I'm sleeping in till 7. Bike/run in the evening.

200

December 1st, 2008 Day 1

Today's Celebrity Coach

Rerun

"Hey bitch, get in the water. Everyone knows yous a chubby bunny anyway. Just start strokin and kickin. When the water starts to turn brown, you'll know that your sweatin butter along with all the Scotch Ales you poured down your pie hole last week."

Scheduled

S: Long day

wu: 200swim, 200kick, 200pull, 200swim

main: 1x1500

cd: 4x50, each slower than last

R: 45min, easy pace

Today's Menu

Bowl of Ezekiel

1 Banana

1 Handful of Almonds

1 fistfull of Beef Jerky

Lunch: Bowl of brown rice with sauteed green beans and garlic

Dinner: Bowl of brown rice with sauteed green beans and garlic

2 cups of Rice Milk

1.5 Gallons of water

In anticipation for the early wake up and the inaugural workout for this endeavor, my sleep was restless last night and I wasn't feel fresh on the way to Steiner. Also, there was a thin wire of anxiety about the swim. Probably a little much to start with, but the swim was immediately forfeited to the trainer when I looked into the pool area. At 5:30 this morning, the place was a zoo. The East High swim team had occupied most of the lanes and what remained was filled with swimmers of various age and aptitude, probably all superior to mine. Well, that's not clear, but it's no place for a self conscious swimmer who doesn't even know if he'll be able to swim in a straight line, or do those somersaults at the end of the pool wall with some intimation of grace. So I'm looking at Wednesday for the first swim, the schedule appears to clear, and depending on how it goes, I'll be able to see if my abilities qualify for at least the Clydesdale lane in the Masters class three days a week.

I traded the flip-flops for some shoes and hopped on the trainer for about an hour and a half, no learning curve here. 90 min at 155 avg heart rate. A decent sweat, but not too strenuous.

This evening I ran be-headlamped for 3 miles at decent pace, out and back, along the City Creek road.

Tomorrow will look similar, but reverted. A run in the morning. Small chain ring work in the evening.

You may see Greer Hitch's name frequently throughout this blog. She'll be training with her husband and a few friends for Ironman AZ, and this will be her third Ironman event. This was what she bestowed for me today:

"A word to the wise about other training:

Start lifting. I’ve attached the weight workout that I used it my first year of training and it worked well. To start, just do it twice a week, and I’d suggest doing it on your swim days. DO NOT do it on your run days. Lifting helped me develop my run and bike significantly.

Make sure you have a plan for training that makes sense for the week. You should have a nice mix of swim, bike, run, lift, functional strength (attached). I use Saturday and Sunday as my large volume or “brick” days and Monday and Friday as my easy/off days. Saturday is usually my bike volume day and Sunday is my run volume day. This is how most triathletes train because you’re trying to show your body what it will be like to bike and then run. Take at least one day off per week (unless you’re really not feeling good and then take more off). Right now, one of the most important things to remember is to enjoy it. If you don’t feel like running, and you’d rather bike instead…then bike. Right now, you’re just building a nice solid base so you can hit it hard in May/June. And along those lines…remember, you have a while until May/June so don’t burn yourself out now because you need to be able to really start to pack it in around May/June, which means being fresh in mind and body.

Nutrition:

Cut out as much processed stuff you can right now. Every time you go to eat something think: how much processing did this have to go through before it’s entering my mouth? Of course you should still eat things that you like but give yourself a new awareness for what you’re putting in your body. This will really help you develop a nutrition plan for the race.

Speaking of which, make sure to start experimenting with nutrition right now. When you’re on the trainer for an hour and a half you should be downing at least 2 bottles of water and about a gel and a half (if you can tolerate gels) or you can supplement your water with Gatorade. Now, I’m not positive but I think Arizona will have Gatorade products out on the course. It should say somewhere on the website—they will tell you exactly what drink product they will have and what gels/bars they will have. START TRAINING WITH THOSE PRODUCTS NOW. I know that’s dramatic but so many people’s races go terribly because they have stomach issues. If you get nauseated out on the course, you might throw up and you’ll likely be unable to recover from that and the med folks will pull you…which would suck. Therefore, figure out what you can and can’t eat right now. For example, I know that I can tolerate a few gels during the course of the race (but not a lot). I know that if I mix those gels with solid food (like peanut butter and jelly on the bike and pretzels and cookies on the run) I’m good. I know that hydration wise, I need to go through about a water bottle an hour on the bike and ½ a bottle of Gatorade. I know that at each run station I will get one cup of water and one cup of Gatorade, and I will sip them but not finish off each cup. I know that I cannot have Coke on the run course until mile 13. I know all of this because I trained and trained and trained testing all of these products. Let me tell you, you will find out quite quickly what you can and cannot tolerate…your body let’s you know asap. As you gather this information over the next year, when you get to race day…you will know just what to have with you on the bike and just what you can and cannot eat on the run. This makes race day A LOT less stressful.

I know you didn’t ask for any advice, but I just get excited about this stuff!!

I'm in good company.