Over the holiday break I watched two documentaries that I encourage you all to check out.  For me personally, they have caused me to start to rethink how we eat as a family as well as my nutritional habits as an athlete.  For one, we have started to cut back on meat and when we do buy meat, we only purchase grass fed, organic meats.  Watch the movie and you’ll see why.  Or for a perspective on the subject that ignores the underlying socio-economic issues of corn feed, focusing only on the dietary benefits of grass fed animal products, you can check out this article from an ’06 issue of the Washington Post.

The two movies are:

Food, Inc.

King Corn

Click the thumbnails to visit either of the sites.  If you belong to Netflix, both movies are available to be streamed on demand.  What are your thoughts on this subject?

my RoadID bracelet

As my training volume begins to increase this year, I’m going to be spending more and more time by myself on the trail running or biking.  I’m not a paranoid person or pessimistic, but accidents do happen; especially to bikers.  When I’m on my bike, I carry my drivers license with me in the bag under my seat, but if something were to happen, you never know how long it might take for someone to check there to figure out who I am (presuming I’m unconscious).  And even if they did find my ID, they wouldn’t know my blood type, if I have allergies, my Dr., insurance info, etc.

Last year I saw an ad for a RoadID bracelet.  With this particular product (they offer a number of options), I enter all of my medical and insurance data on a secure website and there is a PIN# on the back of my bracelet that a paramedic can use to retrieve all of my info.  I hope this is something I’ll never need, but it makes me feel a bit better that I have it nonetheless.

Fitbit

Tuesday morning, upon my return to the Yahoo! campus, I was in a meeting with Micah Laaker and he was showing off this new device called the fitbit.  He mentioned that you wear it 24 x 7 and it tracks the number of steps you take (like a next generation pedometer using an accelerometer like you find in the Wii ) and the distance you travel during the day.  In addition, it tracks calorie burn and even your sleep pattern.  All of this information is then sent to the internet over a wireless connection via the included base station.

tracking sleep efficiency with the fitbit

Micah showed us a graph of how well he was sleeping throughout his holiday vacation.  Then  a night or two before he had to return to work you could see all of these little red bars throughout the night; stressed about your return to work Micah? 

To an athlete, sleep is every bit as important as training.  The more you train, the more sleep you should get.  Sleep is when we recover from training, repairing our muscles and balancing our minds.

When I’m training, I use my garmin devices and the higher heart rate and effort increases calorie burn.  In the fitbit software, you can add activities and the data from the activity time periods can over-write the data recorded by fitbit.

I can’t wait to start using this device and incorporating it into this blog as a record of literally every moment of my day and night when I’m not actively training.  I placed my order today on their website.  The problem is that the device is already becoming very popular (I think it just started shipping last September) and they ran out of inventory.  So I’m back-ordered with an ETA of February 17th or so

If this interests you, you might want to place your order quickly before they sell out their next production run!  I have a feeling this thing is going to be big!  And thanks again Micah, you found another gem.

Today's running route

I had a productive first week back in California and returned to the winter gloom and rain of Seattle on Thursday.  Friday morning I met up with my personal trainer at Gold’s gym and focused on core strength exercises.

Last night Erin and I had a rare evening out and decided to use a gift certificate from my mom (a Christmas present) for Chez Shea, an amazing french restaurant in Seattle.  Erin and I both chose the tasting menu, so after a seven course meal paired with five different wines, I needed to burn off some excess calories today.

My run today felt good from an aerobic perspective.  I’m feeling like I’m getting stronger and stronger.  I’m going to have to keep an eye on my right hamstring and hip though.  It’s starting to bother me, especially when I finished my run and started my warm down.  You can click on the picture above for the Garmin data.

Weekly Report

So let’s tally up week 1 of 2010.

2010 Week 1 Summary

Biking and swimming are conspicuously absent from my training so far.  I’m still coach-less, but I’m reading several books on training and nutrition right now.  My current training goal is to keep an aerobic base, find a coach and/or build a training schedule by the end of the month.  I’m happy with 25 miles this first week of 2010 though!

I was twelve years old (in 1982, not in 2009) and my idea of a long run was running the ’500 yard dash’ during our elementary school field day (which only happened once a year and I remember being passed by just about everyone that entered that event).  When I was a kid, the thought of being able to complete a marathon seemed like an impossibility.  If you would have asked me the same question this time last year, I would have probably rolled my eyes and said I had no interest OR ability to complete a marathon. So here I am now, setting the goal to complete my first marathon this year with a time good enough to qualify for Boston (less than 3 hours 20 minutes).  My uncle ran his first marathon back in 1982 in 3 hours 13 minutes and back then they didn’t have timing chips,  so after the gun start he had to wait around for 10 minutes until he could cross the starting line, so technically (although he gets upset when I say this…) he ran his race in 3:03.  There’s my inspiration…

Rick finishing the NYC Marathon in 1982...he's the one with his arms out

This past November, I traveled to Arizona to ride in the Tour de Tucson, a 108 mile bike ride, as a member of Team in Training to benefit Leukemia & Lymphoma research. I rode part of the loop with my uncle who has again inspired me.  This was the second time Rick rode the Tour de Tucson.  The event was deeply personal for him given that he is a cancer survivor (4 years this past August). He rides in Tucson to celebrate a restoration of his health and fitness and as a dedication to those who couldn’t ride it themselves. He and my sister Kate introduced me to Team in Training and the wonderful mission that they are on to eradicate blood cancers.

Here’s a shot of the two of us just after we finished (and the race data for geeks like me).

Rick and me at the finish of the Tour de Tucson

Yes, I think that when 2011 arrives, I will look back on this year and see a list of goals achieved in large part due to the inspiration of those around me.  People that came before me and proved that these goals can be met and even exceeded.  People that show me all of the positive changes and rewards that I can incorporate into my own life by dreaming big and then going for it.

During the run the day before, we happened upon a couple of hunters in full camo with rifles ready to shoot presumably duck.  In a total twist of irony during this run (the following day), we happened upon a group of 20+ people from the ‘Audubon Society’ birding.  Would have been so much better if the hunters had chosen Wednesday; the Audubon folks would have had a front row seat to the carnage

Running trails behind the Yahoo! campus

Run stats – click on the picture or on this link

I took the picture found above near the top of Granite Mountain on July 3rd last year.  It was still early in my training program and as I mentioned in a post on my family blog, it was a tough hike (the 25 lbs of camera gear probably didn’t help either), but I’m glad that I was able to capture all of these shots for posterity.  It’s hard to believe that it’s only been 7 months since that hike.  My fitness level is so much better now than even last July.  It inspires me to think what I’ll feel like in another 7 months….given that I’ll be a couple weeks away from competing in my first Ironman 70.3, I imagine that I’ll be in great shape, but a bit nervous.  Okay, REALLY nervous, but confident

Mount Rainier from Granite Mountain

Oh, and on the topic of my race schedule, after talking to Lawrence today, I decided to choose Lake Steven’s over the Beaver Lake Sprint.  Lawrence thinks that I’ll be itching to compete in another 1/2 Ironman once I complete the Vineman and that it would help me to build confidence to enter a full Ironman race in 2011.

I just did a search and found the Sunnyvale swim complex at Fremont High School and it’s less than 5 miles from the Yahoo! campus and less than 2 miles to the hotel I stay at!  Fingers crossed that it’s not too good to be true.

Sunnyvale Swim Complex from Yahoo! campus

Today’s run was enjoyable because:

1) I was with a friend

2) We ran a new course which is always good; I get tired of running the same routes

3) We didn’t run very fast, so my body is feeling great and I can go out again tomorrow without feeling sore

7.57 mile run with Steve

I took a video of Cole learning to ski on my iphone and it turned out pretty well but I’m going to spare you guys from having to watch it.  I started this blog on WordPress and haven’t bothered to host it with my own ISP, so WordPress wants $60 a year to ‘enable’ me to share videos.  No thanks!  But I digress…

The snow was good (a little heavy, but it is the NW) and we had a few adventures; Ian, our 8 year old is still a beginner but demanded that I take him to the top of the mountain to run a few black diamonds.  Erin wasn’t keen on letting him have his way, but I thought it would be a good lesson for him, so he and I set off for the top and damned if he didn’t dive right in.  He told me he was ” …a little bit scared, but not THAT scared ” as we got off the lift, but he jumped right into the first bowl we found and made it down the mountain with only a couple of mild falls.  He’s always been our fearless one; will be interesting to see how that plays out as he grows.

That’s it for today.  I’m slated to run ~7 miles tomorrow with a friend.  Will be sure to post all of the details upon my return.  I know you will all be on pin-cushions until I do.