Back in the groove

Several thousand years ago, the Roman poet Juvenal wrote "orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano" from which we derive that now famous quote about a healthy mind in a healthy body.

For a variety of reasons, recently, I confess I have kinda let my body and fitness slide. This has become unacceptable. Not from reasons of vanity: it's not just about the physical, there is a mental cost component as well. Mentally, I've noticed I've slid a bit too.

Of course, we all know there is a strictly limited number of hours available in a week. So, one of these reasons is purely a resource limitation. It's easy to crowd out time for physical recovery. I should know as a cyclist who used to train systematically with a powermeter, getting stronger is a feature of recovery, not the actual workout. Spacing the workouts out appropriately is crucial.

Trying to recapture my halcyon New Jersey ping pong days of a decade or more ago, I've concluded I've gone a bit overboard. This has crowded out basic fitness. I find ping pong somewhat frantic and mentally challenging. I love a good challenge but it doesn't have that mind clearing, mental relaxation aspect that accompanies a good long run (or a steady bike climb up Mt Lemmon), where endorphins enhance and subtly flavor the rhythms of one's own body: for example, the flow of breathing while teasing up again and again against the anaerobic threshold, the sheer pleasure of the mechanics of footfall blending with a moving center of gravity. It all accelerates and relaxes at the same time, footfall eventually becoming so brief and light it almost blurs into the desert landscape. And before you know it, it's 10 kilometers or 10 miles. And you smile and you smile...

Rather than attempting to wax obscurely about that state of body and mind, it is time to get real, and review and renew my basic fitness vows, to ensure that baseline I have promised myself in the past I would make time for and maintain. Simply stated:

1. To be ready to run a marathon at any time.
   When I first started running about 4 years ago, I achieved this standard in 3 months. I'm not talking about running a Boston qualifying time. I'm simply talking about the ability to smoothly run a marathon without injury in under 4 hours.

2. To be able to swim a mile.
   When I spent a semester at the MIT Stata Center (see my off-blog entry here) back in 2007, I swam nearly every day there. With the friendly encouragement of the lifeguard, (I don't even remember his name except he was a bit on the large side with a somewhat unforgettable Boston Irish accent and demeanor), I achieved the mile mark briefly despite horrible swim mechanics, and the real fear of having to be fished out before being able to count up to 37 laps or whatever it took to surpass the so-called "swimmer's mile".

3. A third secret benchmark.
   Maybe I'll expand on this in a later post, but for now allow me to leave it unclarified.

These are a set of actually rather modest minimal standards. Once achieved, they take little effort to maintain. Once let slip, they are hard to achieve, especially as life passes by. I have achieved the run and swim baselines before (but not at the same time). And if I don't get back to them, one day they'll be unachievable from scratch.

To be ready to run a marathon at any time

I've promised myself before that I'd run one marathon a year as a reality check and spur to not let myself slide.

However, it has been more than one year since I've run a marathon, see post here. I achieved the fitness to do 3:44:42 despite cramped and difficult training conditions. Basically, I ran a bunch of 10Ks in the gym and around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. So 10Ks, (crucially) doable in under an hour of spare time, can be the cornerstone of such a training program.

Yesterday, I ran a 7 miler with the running club at the university. See my Nike+ data below. Suffered some (as the heart rate stats indicate), some mild stirrings of rhythm latent, but by the end it felt good to be back on my feet again. I need to do this twice a week.

I've also done an hour occasionally on the treadmill when I am not able to run outside. It's not as nice as the outdoors, but not as bad as it sounds, especially with music playing over my iPod. And there's the opportunity to work on core muscles and upper body on the machines in the gym afterwards as part of the cooldown.

[I haven't said anything about weight yet. Obviously, weight is critical for running (it can be shown there is a direct effect) but not at the expenses of needed muscle mass. Before restarting my runs, I had been steadily losing muscle yet gaining weight despite trying to eat less. A kind of strange spiral and the wrong approach. With the metabolism rejuvenated through workouts, as of April 16th I'm down to a 18 month low of 68.7 kg (from 73 kg) with significantly better muscle tone. I hope my weight will eventually stabilize just under the 70kg mark.]

And occasionally, I need to substitute in a half-marathon weekend morning for one of these runs. Maybe once a month. A total of just 2 to 3 hours a week. I should be able to do make this happen.

To be able to swim a mile

To be honest, and probably to the casual reader's surprise, this one is a much more daunting prospect to me. Although my freestyle technique has improved since MIT 2007 (not difficult since it was so impoverished), I still get winded after swimming 50 or 100m, and I have to stop and catch my breath. It's strange that I can run a marathon without stopping but not swim more than 100m. I need to swim almost daily. And put in the laps (volume) to develop those swim muscles. Initially, perhaps just limited to 30 mins at a time. Again, the time commitment is small and I should be able to make it happen.

Since the university pool here has re-opened after refurbishment, I have lost my last excuse for not visiting the pool. Hmm, maybe I need a gadget (toy) incentive here. I have my eye on a lap counting swim watch. After all, my iPod Nano with Nike+ was reward to myself for getting out to run...

Swim: endless pool

I don't talk much about swimming. (Last blog entry on the topic here.)

But I believe I've mentioned before that I'm an extremely poor swimmer.

Despite fit enough to ride a bike at a fitness level, e.g. be RAAM qualified (twice) or place in an unsanctioned race. And despite possessing enough endurance and stamina to complete a marathon any day of the week, I've never attempted a triathlon.

It's not because I don't want to. It's because I've never been good enough to complete the swim leg of a triathlon (never mind ironnman distance).

Basically, the puzzle is I get out of breath quickly, and I'm so slow, they'll be taking down the bike course before I get to transition 1, i.e. before I'm done with the swim leg. Obviously, I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Recently, I got the unique opportunity to record my swim stroke.

I was fortunate enough recently to stay at a hotel that had two endless pools: these are short pools with an adjustable current. Since an endless pool permits swimming without actually moving, I set up my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 (discussed here earlier) next to the pool to record my stroke.

Comments? And suggestions for improvement greatly appreciated.

Swim milestone for real

I keep trying but I truly suck as a swimmer. (Previous entry: swim: freestyle.)

Finally, I feel I've achieved something tangible in the pool: I mile continuous. To help you understand why I'm so enormously proud of this tiny achievement, here is an underwater picture taken with my Olympus 720SW:

(Link to the video clip at the end of this entry.)

I am as horizontal as I can get. But my entire body is under water! I'm a sinker. As a sinker, I have to overcome a lot of extra water resistance. (Compare with a normal swimmer - who, when lying flat, has their butt and head poking up above water. Obviously, water resistance trumps air resistance.)

Another efficiency disadvantage of having to swim underwater (instead of normally) is that to be able to breathe I need to over-rotate and tilt my head a bit to get my mouth above water to suck in air. Basically looking at the ceiling instead of horizontally at the divider.

I only learned to swim a few years and have had trouble banging out the laps ever since.

Technique-wise, I've benefited enormously from advice since my first adult-learn-to-swim class. But progress has been painful slow. Definitely my worst "sport".

Some chronology of my sorry battle with the pool:

1. Needing to breathe every half stroke. Basically thrashing.
2. Swim noseclip era.
   Embarassed to say it took a while until I could swim without it.
3. Wearing neoprene long shorts to aid buoyancy.
   Hey, I was desperate!
   Managed my first 20 laps this way. Only years later, could I manage 20 laps unaided.
4. Bilateral breathing. Every 1.5 strokes.
   A breakthrough. No more thrashing but limited me to 100 meters max at a time before I ran out of breath.
   Managed my first sorta "swimmer's mile" this way with breathing breaks every 100 meters. (See previous post swim milestone.)
   Doesn't really count...
5. Breathing on the right side only.
   Another breathrough. 20 laps unaided finally.

That brings me to this past weekend. I finally achieved my milestone, i.e. 1 mile continuously. I swam 38 laps (76 lengths) or 1900 yds sans breaks. A mile is 1760 yds but I did extra to make sure I didn't miscount.

It was done in a 25 yard pool though. (Theoretically, I should be able to repeat the feat in the main 50 meter pool as well.)

Here is the previously mentioned clip from which the stlll was taken. (Warning: 640x480, 27.5MB.)

My next goal? To swim 1 mile without having the lifeguard come around and ask me if I'm okay :-)

A swim milestone

The word milestone is quite apt here.
Yesterday, I swam a mile. First time I've managed this distance.

Let's do the math. 36 laps of the 25 yd pool. 72 lengths. 1800 yds. That's the closest whole number of laps to 1760 yds = 1 mile.

However, I didn't swim the mile continously. I swam it in chunks of 100 yds (2 laps, 4 lengths). Not so impressive if you can swim properly.

However, you have to bear in mind that I am a truly terrible swimmer despite being a reasonably fit person in other aerobic activities. So despite stopping every 100 yds, this is an crowning personal achievement.

Normally, I last about 500 yds or barely 1000 yds if pushed (i.e. swim with someone). So when Harold, the lifeguard on duty at the MIT Alumni pool asked me how many laps I'd done, and I said 33, he said if you swim 3 more, you have a mile. And he helped me count down the last three laps.

A few tidbits:

• Truth be told, I was inspired to complete the mile by the story of Morris Halle swimming 1 mile each day. And he's 83.
• Curiously, a "swimmer's mile" is typically defined as 33 laps. Now, if you do the math, that comes out at 1650 yds. A wee bit short. So why is that? Turns out, 1650m is 1804 yds. It must have been based on a pool length of 25m/50m.
• Previous blog entry on swimming freestyle: here

Truth be told, I have a ways to go before declaring myself truly able to swim a mile.
MIT has a beautiful and huge 50m pool (at the Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center) as well. Uncrowded:

Depth is 7ft to 14ft. I am not yet capable of doing 100m without stopping in this pool. So I recover after each 50m length.