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Fedofsky Friday: Traveling and the curse of being a good swimmer

Elizabeth Fedofsky, our resident tri-training guru and newly minted pro, is back to answer your questions. This week, she tackles the hassles of traveling with your race gear and how to approach your training if your race goes down the toilet once you exit the water.

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Nutrition tip of the week: The Sunday Ritual

Every two weeks I feature a high performance nutrition tip by Dr. John Berardi. As anyone who's tried to switch from the "food is comfort" to "food is fuel" mentality, you know that changing your habits does not happen over night. This week, John talks about an important tactic to get you started: The Sunday Ritual

Tidbits

• I'm quickly becoming a fan of Scott Abel's monthly blog, Scott Able Blogs. If you want to learn how to ride a bike fast, seek advice from a cycling coach. If you want to learn how to lose fat and gain muscle, talk to a body builder. This month, Scott wrote a great, if somewhat dogmatic, piece about our relationship with food and diet. Science has a knack for breaking everything down into component parts (reductionism) to see what makes everything tick. Scott believes this same approach, when applied to our studies of nutrition, have caused more harm than good. As he writes, "Is it not ironic that modern man, the so called smartest creature on earth, is the only species on earth that needs professional guidance in deciding what he should eat, and how he should eat it?" You can read the rest by clicking here. #
• Lyle McDonald has been one of my favorite "smart" people I've enjoyed reading over the years...ever since I first discovered him on a weightlifting news group (remember those anyone?). His brain needs to be put in a jar when he croaks to see if the soft grey matter was actually a series of computer chips from the future. While I've been catching up on my reading the past few days, I came across this gem from Lyle's blog (Lyle McDonald Speaks) which perfectly explains how I used to train before I got serious about monitoring my HR: "Then there’s intensity. Proper ‘easy’ training should feel utterly easy, like there’s no effort at all. And the obsessive don’t like that, not at all. It doesn’t feel like it’s accomplishing anything (No pain, no gain, right) so the intensity starts to climb. Where it should be an easy 130 heart rate or lower, it’ll start climbing to the aerobic range or higher. Suddenly, what should have been easy days start becoming medium days.¶ But it’s even more insidious than that: these medium days end up being too easy to really stimulate fitness, but too hard to allow complete recovery. It’s this weird no-man’s land that doesn’t accomplish anything good. ¶ Which has another major consequence, without the ability to recover sufficiently, the hard days can’t be as hard. Because you can’t do a quality session when you’re tired. So the hard days start becoming medium days as well. And it all goes wrong. ¶ The hard days can’t be hard enough, the easy days are too hard and the whole week ends up being this weird sort of medium intensity across the board. #
• Allrighty...spring semester is over and I have a short window of opportunity before the summer session starts to get caught up. The first order of business is the status of the "Wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior" contest. The book has gone from Nevada to  New Jersey to Texas and has stalled out in California. The May winner from Italy has not come forth to claim his stake so the autographed copy of Dan Millman's book is still up for grabs. Go to 21st Century Mom's blog and put your name in the comments section to register...also give her a big shout out for taking first in her age group! #
• I finally got hold of some race pics and official times for the 2007 Rage in the Sage and have made the updates to the race report. Also, a big congrats to Eric "Sully" Sullivan for making the trip from Colorado to Vegas and taking 2nd on the half distance course. I missed seeing him because the half racers were just starting the swim by the time I showed up to get my gear set. Another big congrats to Lisa Goldsmith for taking 14th in Boston! Way to go! #
• Alwyn Cosgrove poses a great question on cardiovascular conditioning and the traditional approach as to how we train our CV system...and just how "ass backwards" it is. "The muscles don’t move because of cardiovascular demand. It’s the reverse. The cardio system is elevated because of muscular demand. We need to program the body based on the movements it’s going to perform – not based on the cardiovascular system." Definitely worth a couple minutes of your time to read this one. #