Active Things to Do With Friends Who Don’t Tri

If you’re feeling down because you forgo social activity because it doesn’t mesh with your training—and your friends and family are feeling neglected—consider these activities that will keep you in tip top tri shape AND satisfy everyone’s need to be around your awesomeness:

1. Go for a long hike. After a hilly long hike, your butt and thighs will hurt more than any long hilly run you’ve ever done.

2. “Play” in the ocean (if you have one). You can then practice your ins and outs under the guise of “bodysurfing”, and challenge your friends to swim out to something and back (thereby getting in your yardage…but keeping up the appearance that you are just “playing”.)

3. Have a pushup or crunch contest.

4. Go out for Italian food. They’ll enjoy it and never know you have the ulterior motive of carbo-loading.

5. Go shopping. Watching your girlfriends (or the new upcrop of metrosexual dudes) drop tons of cash on clothes will make you feel less guilty about spending all of yours on spandex. I have yet to find a skinsuit that costs as much as a pair of D&G jeans.

Enjoy Your Friends! (And whip them into shape in the process!)

Happy Friday!

The Pros and Cons of Riding Your Bike to Work

You are a triathlete. You love riding your bike. So why not get in some extra mileage and work on making your legs even sexier by riding to work? Here are some considerations to make when thinking about ditching the car for the Kuota.

Pros

1. If you live in a big city, it may very well take you less time to ride than it does to drive.

2. By riding your bike, you are doing your part to save our environment, so you can feel good about yourself for that contribution all day.

3. Effortless extra mileage can be added to your training plan.

4. No more listening to Ryan Seacrest’s psychobabble in the morning.

5. You can eat even more than you already do to make up for your work-ride caloric expenditure.

Cons

1. If you have an impressionable forehead, like TriDiva, you may be left with unsightly helmet marks that make you look like you’re a character from Star Trek that will last all day long and through every meeting you have. (Or, you might just get stuck with helmet hair.)

2. If your office has no gym nearby / shower facilities, you may stink big time upon your arrival. (However, this may also be a good thing if you do not enjoy contact with your co-workers anyway.)

3. Drivers are a**holes, a lot of the time. You may arrive at work frazzled, and with a sore middle finger you can no longer lift to secretly use vs. your boss or anyone else at work. (But you shouldn’t be flicking people off anyway…because they might try to kill you…especially people in Camry’s…there’s something about people in Camry’s and cyclist stalkers…)

4. You no longer get to listen to Ryan Seacrest’s morning psychobabble—and you actually enjoyed it!

5. If you’re the forgetful type, you may arrive at work having found you’ve forgotten work essentials—like underwear, a shirt that isn’t made out of spandex, or shoes that don’t have cleats attached. If you’re forgetful and still want to ride to work, make a checklist and get everything ready the night before.

Happy Commuting!

Bike Crash Photo du Jour

At least it wasn't rocky...

Happy Summer Training!

Injury + Stress + Hormones = TriathleteDemon

If you are currently experiencing any of the following, please cease all social contact immediately, as you are probably unintentionally being an ass.

1. Stress at work

2. Confusion about your calling in life

3. Flat feet

4. Uteran wrath

5. Loss of a loved one

6. Split ends

7. Crappy gas mileage

8. Ingrown toenails

9. Enlarged chocolate intake

10. Sweat-induced acne

When you have calmed down enough and taken some sort of action to make yourself presentable, it would probably be beneficial to talk to someone. Until then, hiding somewhere with your chocolate stash may be the best option…or a long ride.

Happy Friday!

Exclusive! Squirrel Caught in Bike Spokes!

From a friend of a friend...and you thought that if you ever ran over a squirrel, it would just squish squirrel guts all over you...

Happy Suicide Animal Avoidance!

Flexible Flat Feet? You MUST Read This!

Can you touch your thumb to your arm? You have flexible joints. Got no arch? You have flat feet. And while there are several athletes that stand as living proof that you can still pull off some awesome run times—and even win some races in the run—your fun flexible body might just have a few things hiding under its skin for you.

Flexible Fact #1: You’re probably a great swimmer, with feet that flippity flop like giant paddles.

Flexible Fact #2: You’re probably pretty fun between the sheets.

Flexible Fact #3: You might just have an extra bone in your foot.

That’s right, an “auxiliary bone”, if you will. This little sucker has up and taken your tibial tendon’s connection away from the strong navicular bone, and made this important tendon attach to it’s little bony self.

What does this mean? If you twist your ankle—or even just run a lot—you can tear / aggravate the ligaments that are holding your “bonus bone” to your navicular. What does THAT mean? Your arch will feel like it’s on fire and determine for you that you must stop running. You may even have to get a cast put on to take the pressure off of this area and allow it to heal.

What does that mean? Pool running. But how can you pool run with a cast that can’t get wet stuck to your foot? You must buy a big ugly blue boot with a pump that will literally vacuum seal your foot inside of it, and also make you the nerdiest, strangest looking Smurf-person at your aquatic center.

On the positive side, should this become a chronic problem and a little bit of time off just doesn’t do the trick, you can get your evil little “accessory bone” removed, and have your tendon reattached to the navicular bone like a normal person.

On a more positive side, maybe a week in a cast with an ugly blue bootie will calm your little bone down. It got the attention it was asking for. Maybe now it’ll shut up.

So if you’re having arch pain, and have flat feet, and can put your feet behind your head, perhaps a little extra bone is to blame for your pain. Have it checked out before you do any more damage!

Happy Pool Running!

How To Win A Triathlon

1. Ride 90+ miles with 6,000+ feet of elevation gain the day before.

2. Decide that wasn’t enough and run in the pool for 30 minutes.

3. Run in the pool because you severely injured yourself 3 weeks ago and haven’t been able to run since.

4. Decide you will be so hyped up on endorphins (and Advil) for your goal race that the pain won’t matter.

5. Drink a Red Bull while walking to the swim to counteract the fact that you only got 6 hours of sleep. Laugh off the burpy side effects.

6. Borrow goggles from your local triathlon shop who happens to have a tent at the event because you couldn’t find yours anywhere.

7. Sight well in the swim.

8. Drop fancy Rudy Project glasses out of helmet in transition. Decide you don’t need them anyway. Keep going. Pray the girl next to you doesn’t step on them.

9. Play mind games with a roadie doing the bike leg for a relay team. Decide the burning in your quads is awesome. Push harder.

10. Step on fancy Rudy Project glasses in transition and crack off the arm.

11. Run like hell. There is no pain. The Endorphin/Advil theory is legitimized.

12. Bask in the glory of being the first female finisher…until you find out your coachancé won the whole thing.

13. Bask in mutual glory. Pretend you’re just like Lori Bowden and Peter Reid like 7 years ago at IM Canada…on a much much smaller scale.

14. Pass out.

The Cursed Ankle

I want to run

But you are no fun

You don’t even want to swim

I thought we were one

And that you were done

If only I could cut off my limb

But oh ankle how much fun we’ve had

Think of the times when you weren’t bad

And we took off on explorative runs

I just know

That you want to go

Outside to play in the sun

So I’ll work with you

If you work with me

So we may once again live

In harmony

I will ice and you will feel great

And we shall once again dominate

My awesome ankle, are you with me!?

The Pros and Cons of Living With Your Training Partner

Perhaps you have recently acquired a coachance. Or a boach or a goach (boyfriend/girlfriend + coach). After reading every Cosmo quiz to determine if now would be a good time to move in together, you realize Cosmo doesn’t know everything—and they certainly haven’t addressed the question of moving in with a training partner. Read this before you take that big step!

3 Reasons To Live With Your Training Partner (TP)

1. You don’t have to get up earlier to meet them.


2. They will KNOW if that last giant piece of chocolate cake is missing from the fridge, possibly deterring you (or not) from downing it after a stressful day at work.


3. A 3am text message will not get you out of a workout. Instead of receiving a “You lazy butt, fine. See you on Thursday” message back, you could potentially get a bucket of cold water dumped on your head by a TP who doesn’t want to get a late start. You’ll feel better about yourself if you don’t miss your workout. Just keep repeating that statement all morning until your hair dries.

3 Reasons Why NOT To Live With Your Training Partner

1. You thought your work out clothes stunk up your place. Sweaty spandex x 2 = deadly b.o. stink bomb…especially if you live somewhere humid.


2. They will KNOW if that last giant piece of chocolate cake is missing. Blaming it on your fat cat only works once.


3. If neither of you is a bike rack building genius, you’d better get some very comfortable saddles, because you’ll be sitting on your bikes to watch TV in the living room…and to eat breakfast…and to read the newspaper. 3 bikes was doable. Now you’ve got 6+. Might as well open a shop!

Now that you’ve analyzed the pros and cons of moving in with your TP, you’ll be able to make a more responsible and informed decision if it is right for you. Like if you’re moving in together and buying a nice big house at the same time, and in a dry area, 2 of the 3 cons will become irrelevant.

Happy Training!

5 Things to Get You Excited About Pool Running

So you’ve twited an ankle, have tendonitis or your body has otherwise decided to make you stop running for a while. Instead of overdoing your cycling and swimming workouts to make up for missed runs—RUN! In the pool. That’s right, it’s not just for old ladies in exercise classes any more. Instead of dreading extra time spent with pruny fingers, think about these 5 reasons why pool running kicks butt.

1. You get to use the “aquajogger”—that purple floaty things you laugh at grandmas when they use it to aquacize. Only you look cool in it. And you’re doing a real workout.

2. Because you’re upright, you can carry on a conversation with the cute lifeguard (he’ll talk, even if he’s not supposed to.)

3. You can analyze and critique the strokes of all of the lap swimmers and possibly gain insight as to why people (like TriDiva) don’t go anywhere when they use their arms.

4. You can tack the workout on to your swim, giving you less transition time, less time to think about going out, and more time to read Cozmo…I mean Triathlete Magazine…with your breakfast.

5. Should you choose to tack your pool run onto your swim, you’ll have that much more time to get rid of your googlie-eyes before you are seen in public. (And in TriDiva’s case, this is much needed and appreciated!)

Happy recovering!

The BEST Bike Handling Skills

Betcha wish you could be like this guy! (I do!)

Click here to watch the video!

Happy riding! Try jumping off of a curb on your way to work this morning, then work up to the bouncy wheelie.