[Dane]

Dane on October 29, 2020 at 12:31 pm · in reply to: Deadlift alternatives for mountain running #46396

Thanks Scott. Knowing the purpose helps.

[Dane]

Dane on October 28, 2020 at 11:32 am · in reply to: Endurance athletes and kidney stones #46351

After having to have an oxalate stone surgically removed a year ago because it was too big to pass, my urologist had me start drinking some lemon juice in the morning. I just buy those big bottles of it and put a tablespoon or two in a glass of water in the morning (avoid drinking it straight unless you have a vendetta against the enamel on your teeth). As I understand it the citrate in the juice should preferentially bind to calcium, forming calcium citrate which is excreted before the calcium has a chance to bind to oxalate and form a stone. The biggest thing though is just keeping myself from getting dehydrated. I’m one of those people that will go on long runs/hikes and bring half a liter of water so I just try to make sure I drink a lot of water before/after a training session.

[Dane]

Dane on October 16, 2020 at 6:11 pm · in reply to: Rowing vs Cycling for recovery #46028

If you’re looking for something similar to the walks, maybe it’s worth changing swimming from a “no go”. (Put a flutter board under your abdomen, etc.)

To be completely honest it’s not so much a skill thing with swimming that keeps me away from it than the feeling of going back to being the fat kid in gym class. It’s a hard thing to get over for whatever reason but maybe this is the thing I need to use to help me get over that.

[Dane]

Dane on October 15, 2020 at 9:57 am · in reply to: Rowing vs Cycling for recovery #45994

Sorry I meant recovery from strength work. I feel like even adding a walk or two in during the week when I’m training helps my legs feel like they come back to life a little but upper body strength work just progressively wears me down over the months to the point where I want to stop doing it by the end of a training cycle. I’ve been doing what I remember from following Starrett’s stuff but nothing seems to give my upper back and shoulders that feeling of coming back to life like recovery sessions for my legs do. I’m just always on the lookout for something new to try to recover. I never got around to getting Supple Leopard though so maybe it’s time to check it out.

As I’m typing this out it’s occurring to me I might be doing too much too soon with the upper body strength workouts too. I’m about to start a new training cycle next month and I’m trying to figure out things I can do better this time.

[Dane]

Dane on October 14, 2020 at 12:17 pm · in reply to: Rowing vs Cycling for recovery #45973

That makes sense. I haven’t been on a rower in a long time but my memory of it was always my legs/hips being the first thing to feel gassed. That was also back when I was doing crossfit and they loved to pair rowing up with other leg stuff so maybe it was just that my upper body wasn’t as taxed. Or my memory isn’t accurate.

Just out of curiosity, if I do end up going with a bike erg is there any sort of upper body/core recovery work you guys use? I was thinking maybe inclined pushups, pull ups with enough of a band to take a lot of the weight off, that kind of thing. I just know that my shoulders and back always feel like they suffer as I progress with upper body strength work and no amount of rolling seems to help.

[Dane]

Dane on October 13, 2020 at 4:12 pm · in reply to: Rowing vs Cycling for recovery #45957

Thanks for the reply Scott. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t some reason to avoid rowing in favor of something else since I don’t feel like I see it mentioned much.

[Dane]

Dane on February 21, 2020 at 9:08 am · in reply to: Confusing Lactate Meter Results #38549

Just to add to the contamination point, there’s a lot of lactate in sweat (up to 10x the concentration in blood) so you have to really make sure the blood drop isn’t getting contaminated which is difficult by yourself when you’re working hard.

The best practice I’ve found is pretty much what others have said: use a clean paper towel to wipe all the sweat off the finger I’m using, puncture the skin with the lancet, push out a drop, wipe it off again really well with the paper towel, and then push out another good sized drop of blood, find some way to keep my hands steady (resting them on a stable surface helps a bunch), and make sure to only touch the very top of it with the strip and let the capillary action draw it into the measuring chamber on the strip. If you push the drop of blood out and it gets watery and runs out over your skin (ie it’s not a nice, raised, freestanding drop) it’s probably going to give you an error or falsely elevated result. In that case I either wipe off my finger and try again or find a new site.

The cool part of sweat containing lactate is that there are companies working on skin sensors to measure lactate (along with a bunch of other biomarkers) so maybe sometime in the future we can just glue a sensor to our skin that measures the changes in lactate concentration while we exercise instead of dealing with capillary blood.

[Dane]

Dane on February 17, 2020 at 11:07 am · in reply to: Not feeling anything from hill sprints #38318

OK it sounds like I might have been expecting a different feeling from them. Regardless I can feel an improvement when I have to go uphill on my long runs so they seem to be having a positive impact. Stuff like this is why I’m looking forward to getting some coaching this summer.

Thanks

[Dane]

Dane on February 14, 2020 at 3:12 pm · in reply to: When in the week to do intervals #38201

Thanks for the info Scott, that helps me put this all together. This is the stuff that’s making me really look forward to getting a coach for the summer.

[Dane]

Dane on February 14, 2020 at 3:07 pm · in reply to: Not feeling anything from hill sprints #38200

Kind of both. By the end of the 8 seconds I can feel my power drop off but I never feel like I can’t do more reps. For instance last night I did 2 sets of 7, resting 2 mins between reps and 5 between sets, and I felt like I could have kept that going for another hour. Then today at work I ran up a flight of stairs just to test my legs and they felt pretty good.

I’m comparing the feeling on the hill sprints to the one 30/30 workout I did last week on a track where I had to cut it short because I just couldn’t get my HR up the even my AnT by the end and had to make my run the next day a recovery effort because I was feeling it still.

[Dane]

Dane on February 13, 2020 at 2:44 pm · in reply to: When in the week to do intervals #38134

Thanks Scott. That’s kind of what I was thinking but it’s nice to get some confirmation.

[Dane]

Dane on February 13, 2020 at 2:34 pm · in reply to: Self massage balls – Lacrosse or YTU balls? #38133

I’ve used both and prefer them to lacrosse balls. They’re a softer rubber which makes it easier to roll out areas where you’re right on the bone or in joints without getting too painful. Basically it’s like the difference between using a foam roller vs a PVC/metal pipe. Also the surface is a little stickier (think pencil eraser) which helps them stay in place on bare skin. I’m sure you could find a suitable substitute that’s cheaper if you dug around though because I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about the rubber they’re made out of.

Dane

[Dane]

Dane on January 23, 2020 at 12:04 pm · in reply to: Type of terrain for Z3/4 while training for 50k #36773

Thanks for the reply Alison!

That’s kind of what I was thinking but it’s nice to have some confirmation that it’s a reasonable approach. Since I’ve never ran any sort of race I’m trying to approach this as a big learning experience but I still want to perform as well as I can.

[Dane]

Dane on January 8, 2020 at 10:16 am · in reply to: Knee/hip pain #35724

I think I was a little too aggressive in my attempts at fixing it just with rolling because when I woke up yesterday I couldn’t walk without a limp. I took the day off work and forced myself to just rest and leave it alone and it’s feeling better today. It seems to be worst right where everything attaches at the greater trochanter (if I’m remembering my physiology correctly). I’m going to rest up another day and see if it feels OK after a day at work tomorrow and then try incorporating your suggestions.

Thanks,
Dane

[Dane]

Dane on November 20, 2019 at 1:05 pm · in reply to: AeT Test Results I Just Can’t Believe #32357

To me it sounds like you were at your AnT. I’ve seen it explained in a different post that since there isn’t much room for your HR to increase above your AnT (the spread from top of Z3 to Max HR is pretty small), you won’t see it budge much if you’re doing an hour at max effort so the % drift will be low. Regardless of where your AeT is, working at that threshold should still feel relatively easy compared to being at your AnT. I’ll let someone with more knowledge weight in but if it were me I’d redo the test at a lower intensity (conversational effort/still able to speak in sentences) and see what it looks like. If you’re at ~5% drift at an easier intensity that’s probably closer to where your AeT is.

For what it’s worth, I started with the TftNA plan in Jan of this year for Rainier with zero endurance background besides hiking/backpacking and I initially over estimated my AeT because where it actually was felt frustratingly easy/slow (I didn’t use drift, just nose breathing pace). For my current training cycle I’m using a lactate monitor to find AeT since my neighborhood is hilly enough to make Pa:HR difficult to rely on. I’m getting better at feeling it out now and almost without exception the minute my breathing starts getting a little labored in a run my HR will hit my AeT.