This Is Interesting

For frequent readers, you know that I tend to trend away from the tri part of this blog every once in awhile. Generally, it's like the last post that is something kind of health related. Or at least food related. I have been a little bit of an experiment of '1' you might say. Or at least, sometimes Amy and I have been a little bit of an experiment of '2'. So, I'm going to link a post from another experiment of '1' that I've known for quite a few years. This post is interesting.

Deconstructing an Injury - My 10 Years with Achilles Tendonitis

A related note. Amy's been running without plantar pain since about February. She was doing all the right things, got some extra therapy for it, and it went away. There's more an more interest these days about anti-inflammatory eating. There is a fairly good article written about it here. I very much agree with the overlying message presented. I will say that in general protein (beef, eggs, pork) has gotten a bad rap these days. I've blogged it before...spend a little more on grass fed meats and eat a little less...and you get the Omega-3s if it's grass fed. About the same time that Amy's foot got better we were on a different path of eating than when it started...ironically enough following a very grain based, very low fat, no animal products way of eating. We started eating more natural fats...mostly mono- but some saturated. Mono-Saturated from Avocados and almonds and almond butter. Saturated from coconut oil. We eat wild caught...bought from Costco...Salmon 1x a week and take a couple of grams of fish oil daily. We get some animal fats from the beef, venison, pork we eat. We also use Olive oil on salads. Oh yeah, and we cut way back on our grain consumption...crazy for a couple of triathletes to have no bread in their house or pasta for that matter!!

Anyway, after reading Tri-Training Frenzy's blog it was an interesting tie in. We really try (or tri-) to look beyond the training. Recovery, diet, strength, training...it's all related. So, if you've got something nagging you...maybe look a little beyond the training. Consider lifestyle factors...diet, stress, hydration, etc. Consider equipment changes...pedals, shoes, saddle, aerobars. Look at more than just the training.

I Knew My Pants Were "Looser"

A good friend of mine posted this link...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/10/attitudes.overweight/index.html

I don't really 'shop'. I still have some of the same clothes that I bought when I first moved to Austin 11 years ago for a job. I don't wear 939 Wrangler Slim Fit anymore...too tight and even Levi's 501s are a bit tight in the legs if they fit my waist... Casual stuff, but still, I've had it forever. I commented the last time that I went to buy shorts and pants...some cargo shorts and Levi's loose fit...that I didn't feel like a small was that small or that a 30 waist was probably closer to a 32 at least.

Anyway, here's a line from the article above...

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That's why, in recent years, as the American population has become generally more overweight, brands from the luxury names to the mass retail chains have scaled down the size labels on their clothing.

"You may actually be a size 14 and, according to whatever particular store you're in, you come out a size 10," said Natalie Nixon, associate professor of fashion industry management at Philadelphia University. "It's definitely to make the consumer feel good."

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This comes out a few days or maybe a week after the 'Fattest US Cities' list was published.

Seems it's easier to just change the sizing convention of clothes than it is to get people to just change what they pick up on a day to day basis with their fork...or spoon. I'll wager that it's got 80% to do with what goes into your mouth than what you do (ie exercise). Sure, it all helps, buy you can stand on the starting line of just about any athletic event and see that the general size distribution there probably isn't a great deal different than it would be if you took a random sample from the street.

Check a few of the links to the right...and check some of their links for a non-mainstream perspective on diet and health.

In keeping with the 'Theme' of my blog, there were some very impressive performances this weekend in Triathlons....

- Chrissie Wellington went 7/7 at the IM distance with an unbelievable 8:31 in Roth. Bek Keat was second under the previous record as well with a 8:39.

- Matty Reed continued his winning streak by winning the 1st Lifetime Fitness race this season. Andy Potts was 2nd in a sprint finish.

- Alistar Brownlee of GBR won his 3rd ITU World Championship Series event...at the age of like 21

12:34:56 7/8/9

I really don't have a good blog topic today...or yesterday or the days before that either. But, as you see from the title, yesterday was a once in a century occurence I think. Next year I thought we'd have 23:45:67 8/9/10, but then I realized that 23:45:67 would really be 23:46:07, so that won't work.

Nothing doing right now. I think last week was a whopping 9-10 hours of 'training'. This week sort of starts the focus for IM Wisconsin. We might squeeze in another race sometime in August, but we aren't sure yet.

It's been about a million degrees in Texas lately. Kind of glad that all but one or two of my weekly rides have been indoors. I might start running 1-2 runs a week indoors as well. Swimming, well it'll be mostly outdoors starting next week since UT closes the doors on the swim center for the annual clean up and rehab it...this year it's a month earlier than usual.

Stay tuned. I'm trying to think of a free stuff friday, but I'm coming up a bit short right now. Oh yeah, we've got a placeholder up for our Team-Marsh.com site. We had some creative sayings to put on it, but right now we settled on 'Top American Triathletes', but we don't really like that. As usual, it'll be a work in progress!

July 4th

Or as Amy might say in poking fun at the sometimes heavy Texas accent that tends to run in my family....JooLie 4th.

We headed towards the coast on Friday to spend some time with family for the 4th. Friday night we went to Kemah, which is on Galveston Bay between the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Island. They've had a 'boardwalk' there for years, and it took a bit of a beating during Hurricane Ike. But, it's pretty well reconstructed now, and it's home to the only rollercoaster in Houston. Growing up there was Six Flags Astroworld, but several years ago they tore it all down and all that's left is a big patch of grass.

So, we did some people watching. Watched a guy balance a flaming chair on his chin while he spun small hula hoops around his arms. We watched him juggle flaming sticks. We watched 'strongman' after 'strongman' pay $2 for 3 tries to ring the bell by hitting a plunger with a big hammer...only to be shown up by a small 110 or so pound female. We ate at a highly over rated restaurant, and then we went on the Kemah Boardwalk Bullet Roller coaster before we headed to my Aunt's. I was surprised that the max speed was 51mph...I suspected that it was closer to 20-30mph. But, that's probably about the average speed. It was a wooden roller coaster, so it jerked you around quite a bit. Amy had a scream showing on the photos and I had a big grin...opposites attract!

Here are a few pictures....

A "toothy" grin...



I'm not sure if Amy is the teacher or the other one...can you tell?



I guess I've been bad...



What the park might look like after several roller coaster rides...

A Proud Moment

I don't make it a practice to brag...I try to let my feet do the talking. Every once in awhile I do mention one of my athletes here. We do group tri training through Rogue Running. We work with a small group of dedicated athletes. I posted about one of them a couple of weeks ago as he was one of the top age groupers at the Xterra Regional race. Another one a year ago who had a big time IM PR after a 45 minute flat tire stop. I don't think that I posted about a third who set an IM PR and broke 11 hours last November b/c I had just left SE and took a few athletes with me. Several in our Rogue group had 15-20 minute PRs at CapTex as well. And yeah, there are no real PRs in triathlon, but we'll go with it. There are others, but those are the ones that really stick out right now.

Anyway, another athlete of mine just won Lubbock. It's a bit strange b/c we really started out as coach/athlete and even when she asked me out under the guise of it being a 'thank you dinner' I was still operating as 'all business.' Two weeks later we went out on a date...the rest is history.

After 5 years of coaching, turning pro in June 2006, finishing 7th at ITU Long Course Worlds in 2007, and then battling almost 2 years of Plantar Fasciitis and a stress fracture, Amy got all healed up and racing this year. She was 2nd in New Orleans when she had a flat, took a while to change it, and soldiered on to finish 3rd to last female pro. 2 local wins later, a 4th at 70.3 Florida and 70.3 Kansas...it was off to Lubbock. She won...I already blogged it.

Anyway, you can read an interview on slowtwitch.com here.

It's easy to coach a good athlete...she did go to swimming trials. But, it is still a good feeling to have an athlete with loads of talent who puts in loads of hard work finally see the results. I blogged about it before. There are no real secrets to having a successful race or season or lifetime of racing. Every athlete that we've worked with, whether olympic trials swimmer or weekend warrior, generally has one thing in common...they get the workouts done and the results show it. We're working on our Team-Marsh website to highlight some of our racing, training, and coaching options...if you are interested!!

Congrats to Amy on a the start of the season that we knew she had in her.

Oh yeah...this weekend the Hy-Vee triathlon is on TV. It's Sunday and it follows Wimbledon (?) on NBC at 2pm. Tune in for one of the most exciting triathlon finishes I've ever seen...we were watching it last weekend in the hotel at Lubbock.