Who needs race chips and official timers when you have GPS

Last Sunday's Koga 10k was my Winter 2016 "A race"   --- the test of whether my additional run training volume over the past 3 months would enable me to get my 10k time back down by a minute to where I feel I should be running when I am in proper condition.

The race was going pretty well - I tucked in behind a pack of college runners who were hitting a consistent pace, and at 6k my teammate Hoel caught up with our pack, further inspiring me to maintain my goal pace. 

Unfortunately the pack took a wrong turn at 8k. I had been very focused on staying with my pack and had no recollection of seeing a turnoff.  Even as we approached 10 kilometers on my GPS watch, I continued to cling to the delusion that I was on course, and I  searched desperately for the turn that would take us into the stadium and the finish line.  It was only at this point that it begun to dawn on me that we were doing a 3rd loop of the 2-loop course.  

I slowed down after covering 10k and jogged through the 3rd loop as a cool down.  I felt livid - in my mind I cursed the race officials (even though our pack were the only runners who seemed to have missed the turn).  My one best chance for fast a 10k was lost!  All the training wasted!  All my dreams turned to dust (okay, okay I am exaggerating a bit -- at this point in life I have a little more perspective, but still I was distressed). 

Distressed until I uploaded my splits onto Strava and saw that the GPS technology had credited me with a 35:54, my fastest 10k in several years and faster than I had dared hope for.  Granted, during the race I had noticed that my Garmin watch was buzzing with a split about 2-3 seconds before we reached each official kilometer split sign.  But I tell myself that even if I add 30 seconds then subtract a bunch of time for the furious kick I no doubt would have unleashed in the stadium finish, I still would be close enough to round down to 36 minutes. And so I declare victory.    

Who cares that in the official race results I finish near last place.  I decide to focus on the more favorable GPS time.  Which you can see in this lovely screen capture of the Strava splits: 

Embracing Strength Training 2 - Paradox of choice

Which strength drills should I actually do?  

I have been paralyzed by way too many choices.  I have viewed countless You-Tube videos of different drills - along with practically every week receiving some email article of Top-5  exercises for runners, for cyclists, for swimmers, for people with weak hips, for people with weak hamstrings, for people with weak achilles, for the aged, for the busy executive, for the lame. 

I have exercises that a pilates instructor highly recommended to me, drills a physical trainer implored me to do, and poses my yoga teacher said were absolutely, absolutely essential. It seems I could do different exercises all day and all night and not repeat a single one of them.  

Moreover, I occasionally watch someone else in the gym do some new exercise and I think to myself - "oh, wow, that's what I should be doing" then I surreptitiously try to imitate them.

So most evenings I would sit and ponder all these possible different exercises that I am supposed to be doing until I grew exhausted just thinking about it and then just crack open a beer.  
For the purposes of my 3-month quantified test, I resolve that that I need to narrow down my strength session to a reasonable number of basic exercises that fit into the time I have after my swim and that I will stick with for 3 months.  I take advantage of the abundance of equipment at the fitness center to do some drills I normally would otherwise never bother with. 

- I select 4 of the simplest, most traditional, tried and true lifts (and I can quantify)
- I choose basic core body drills
- I pick some exercises that are addressing specific run/triathlon weakness issues:

• Bench press
• Dumb-bell military press
• Concentration curls
• Lat Pulldowns 
• Calf Raises

• Pushups (with plank drills)*
• Superman
• Dips
• Exercise ball pass 

• Single-leg deadlift
• Bridge with leg lift
• Crab walk with elastic band
• Lunges (in swimming pool)
• Burpees 

I would also do squats.  But I simply can't.  Not correctly.   I fall over backwards. 


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*My core exercise (core in several senses of the word) is still the push-up.  

I posted before about the reputed merits of the humble push-up -- how it is the ultimate barometer of whole body fitness, and about my effort to be able to exceed the benchmark for my age group (27 push-ups at the time).  

So now as part of my 2016 resolution to embrace strength training and enjoy seeing actual improvement, I revisit my push-up performance metric.

In the years since the earlier post I had settled at around a maximum of 50 push-ups (on a really good day).   But I am not even sure if I can really credit myself with 50 push-ups.  You see I have developed my own system of "resting" (or "cheating" essentially) in plank and downward dog (the inverted V yoga pose).  I like my system because it incorporates these other basic, valuable core muscle exercises as the "easy" part of my goal-driven push-up effort.

I google "push-up rules"  and while I cannot find a definitive ruling it seems clear that I must keep my body straight at all times, meaning no resting in downward dog.  

So for purposes of my Spring 2016 program I keep my back straight and work my way back up, adding 1 more push-up each day - a few weeks ago I collapsed after 39.  Yesterday I completed 58.