triwithms

Wow, it's been a while since I've looked at this blog!

I guess since I wasn't doing any triathlon training anymore, I had kind of abandoned this blog (but I did renew it).

The last year has been pretty disappointing from an exercise point of view as I haven't been able to do much, and every time I tried to start to get going something would stop me in my tracks whether it be fatigue from MS/Tumor, or injuries, etc.  My weight has gotten out of control, which might be be a problem with my thyroid from the tumor OR most probably it's just all the junk food I've been eating while being velcro-ed to the couch. :D

The good news is that the last couple of years my brain cancer hasn't grown significantly and for that I'm thankful and very lucky.  My neurologist echoed that sentiment saying that I've been lucky that it's been very slow growing.

So after many, many failed starts I've decided not to totally quit on the exercise and give it yet another shot to get going again.  I kind of feel like a fly on sticky tape, where the memory of the freedom to fly still gives me hope for now that I can once again break through from the bondage.

I was just chatting with my friend and old triathlon coach Brett and I ended up reaching out to him for some help on the motivational side to help me get going.  Perhaps some changes to diet, and some light exercise along with the motivational help will be enough to help my body respond positively to exercise again rather than knocking me out on my ass.

After Brett made sure that it was okay with my doctors to exercise he said, "And if you fall over and seizure, I have no idea who you are. ;)".  I almost fell out of my chair laughing. :D

Anyway, as always after chatting with Brett, I had some renewed hope and motivation and hopped on the treadmill in my cool basement to see how bad the damage was.  I had to put new batteries in my Polar watch, HR Strap and footpad to give you some indication how long it's been sind I've used that gear.

My plan was just to do a mix of some very light jogging and walking. I'd see how my HR responded/recovered and get some base line values to give to Brett.  Perhaps I'd keep going with the workouts send the data over to see if I was adapting positively.  As you can see from the graph, the current situation is dire but not without hope as I was able to jog, even though my HR sky-rocketed from the lightest of efforts (aka - Old, Out of shape, fat bastard ;D):

 

I think I bought too many bananas

Placed our first wholesale order for fruits and veggies.

When the order actually showed up it was totally ridiculous. LOL

50lbs of carrots, 11lbs of dates, 40lbs of bananas, 24 bunches of kale, 100 apples, 12 large cucumbers... Wow, time to start eating!

I figured carrots, apples, and dates would last a long time. I'll dehydrate some bananas and kale (chips), freeze some bananas for smoothies and juice a lot of the carrots, apples, kale and cucumber.

On second thought, maybe I should just pull a DurianRider and eat all the bananas in a few days. :D

Till next time.

Juice Fast - Day 11 - Really Feel Like Going to Subway!

Today is day 11 of my juice fast, and I am super hungry today for some reason...Probably because I must not have been getting enough calories.

I had a small beet and veggie juice this morning and then a 24oz Carrot, celery, cucumber, spinach, ginger and parsley juice from Booster juice.

It's now 11am and really craving to go across the street to Subway and get a veggie sub, although I think I want to extend the juice fast to at least 14days because I just really started feeling better a couple of days ago and my body is still probably detoxing.

It's always hard at the office since there are so many fast food places close by that it makes it all to easy to slip into unhealthy eating habits.

I'm not doing the juice fast for weight loss but it is a nice side effect so far, I've lost almost 1 lb/day (~10lbs).  I expect that I'll probably put 5lbs back on as soon as I start eating again as the body fills up again, but that is fine.  The main thing is going to be resetting my portions to eat proper amounts, the detoxification, and resetting the taste buds to appreciate simpler foods.

Anyway, I think I'm going to try to get out for a walk at lunch time.

Hope you are all doing well!

Till next time,

Rob. 

Juice Fast - Day 9 - Green Juice with Angel Juicer

  

Day 9 of my juice fast

This is a video of me making a green juice with my Angel juicer.  The video is a bit long, but I wanted to give people a good sense as to the actual amout of time it take to make a juice with this juicer.

Green Juice Recipe:

-2 Green Apples
-4 Stalks of Celery
-10 Purple Kale Leaves
-1/2 Lemon (in the video I used 1 but tasted too strong)
-1 Large Cucumber

 

In terms of an update on how I'm feeing, I'm mostly over my cold or detox reaction and I'm actually starting to feel really good now.  I did have a couple of hiccups along the way on the juice fast so far and actually ate dinner a couple of nights when I thought that I was done and it was going to be my last day.  Instead of beating myself up about it, I just woke up the next day and got back on the juices.  I did have the ocassional piece of fruit or veggies as I was cutting them up to juice, since I was thinking it would be good to get a bit of fibre in my system and again I think that's okay.

I appologise if my previous post sounded very depressing or if it sounded some alarms that I really was suffering emotionally and mentally, I just had decided to post an update to the blog in case anyone was wondering what I've been up to and let people know what happened.  My frustration was mainly about how I was feeling physically and I had just woken up in the middle of the night feeling sick and I didn't think the juice fasting was going to give me the relief I was looking for.

I'm glad I did write the post now since I did hear from my old triathlon coach Brett (@ZenTriathlon http://www.zentriathlon.com/) and Rich Roll (@richroll http://www.richroll.com/) who is a really inspirational ultra-endurance athlete.  I really appreciate their concern and the nice messages they sent.  

In fact, I woke up the next day and my cold wasn't as bad and I was feeling good enough not only to walk, but I went for a light jog for somewhere around 3-4km.  I could hardly believe it!  The juice fast is working and inspiration from those guys does wonders as well.  Check out their websites if you're not familiar with them.

Anyway, I promised some more posts and by the way I did go ahead a renew the Blog for a few more years for my 3 readers! ;D

Thanks and make this an outstanding day!

Rob.

Brain Cancer Diagnosis

Soon after that previous post last year I got injured training for Around the Bay 30km race.  I ran up against the 10% rule and lost, my body fell apart with injuries (sore knees, back and neck).  I stopped training soon after and was only going to start up again after my injuries subsided, but they weren't better by summer.

In fact, in the summer I had my next MRI for monitoring my multiple sclerosis and unfortunately it revealed that I had inoperable brain cancer.  The rest of my year was pretty much consumed with dealing with that and I didn't do any exercise and put on about 25lbs with my waste going from 33 to 38 so it was pretty much all around my midsection (the biggest ever in my life).  The doctors are just monitoring the tumor and when the time comes that treatment is required, then the chemo or radiation will happen.  Until that point there is only living each day as it comes.

Listening and going to see Eckhart Tolle and living in the now pretty much ended the emotional suffering of dealing with diagnosis, but physically I still felt awful.

This week it's a big deal that I got out walking everyday which is what I'll have to keep up until/if I feel well enough to do some light biking or running, we'll see.

Chances are this blog is going to disappear soon since I didn't pay the renewal fees a while back and they are probably going to pull the plug soon, so for the 1 or 2 people (including me) that read this last year and before, thanks.  Maybe I'll do a few additional posts until it's gone, like the Captain talking while going down with his ship.

I actually felt so poor physically that I decided to try something a bit extreme to try to give my body a break from digestion in hopes that I could detox a bit and have some energy return.  So I'm giving a juice fast a try with my new juicers, typically making green juices with combinations of just about every fruit and vegetable you can imagine with mostly devastating results from a taste perspective.  I got a bit motivated by the movie, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" (http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/), which is a documentary similar to Super Size Me except this time it's going the other way following someone getting healthy by doing a 60-day juice fast and starting to exercise.

Since I wasn't feeling good I called my doctor before I started and yesterday I went in for a battery of blood tests, ECGs, etc. etc.

Today I'll be starting day 5 of the juice fast and I must be starting to detox since I have a headache, a bit of a sore throat, and am stuffed up.  Apparently there are 2-3 days where you don't feel so hot before you feel much better, but I'm not sure if I'll make it through this phase.  I'll take it day by day.

Till next time...maybe.  ;D

Vegan - Day 2 - Part 2

 

Here is a quick update video of my second day eating Vegan.

I took a look through some of the ingredients I bought yesterday and decided I wanted to do something with black beans.  I search my RSS feeds first and up popped a post by Brett (my triathlon coach from Zen and the Art of Triathlon) who made a black bean chili from Rich's cookbook.  I then went and bought the book myself.

Tonight I made a variation of black bean chili from Rich Roll's "Jai Seed eCookbook" http://www.jai-lifestyle.com/cookbook/

I may not have had all the of the ingredients, but it was still fantastic. One of my favourite new meals in fact. I highly recommend picking up that ebook just for that recipe alone, I'm looking forward to discovering the other recipes.

The Kale chips are in the eCookbook as well, but the particular simple recipe my wife used today came from her sister.
1. Make sure to wash and dry the kale completely
2. Spread the kale over a baking sheet
3. Drizzle the kale with olive oil
4. Hand toss the kale and dressing to ensure nice even coverage.
5. Sprinkle with Mrs. Dash seasoning
6. Squeeze fresh lemon on to taste
7. Bake kale at 350°F for ~7-10min

With Dinner I also made a salad and tried out an avocado dressing again from my sister-in-law Sheryl.  Check it out all mixed in the vita-mix below.  Here are the ingredients:

 

Peppery Avocado Salad Dressing

1 cup avocado
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup water (add more if needed)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of cayenne pepper

 

Getting ready for the black beans and the rest of the ingredients:

 

My modified version of the black bean chili ready for the plate:

Ready to eat...Awesome!

Finally, here is the salad, avocado dressing and some gluten free organic pad thai that I made.

I don't have anything planned for tomorrow yet, so hopefully I can make it 3 in a row.

Till next time.

Day 2 - Eating Vegan

So far today I've had the following food.

Breakfast:
Quinoa cereal with almond milk
Quinoa bread toast with organic peanut butter.

I hopped on the trainer for a 2 hour base training workout (longest since starting back to working out last week).

Post workout;
Green smoothie left over from last night.

Lunch:
2 quinoa bread sandwiches (avocado, tomato, red pepper, lettuce, mustard and veganaise) - Very good!

Snack:
Kale chips!!!
My wife made them for us, really good!

Thanks to my sister in law Sheryl for the recipe!

Dinner tonight is going to be black bean chili from Rich Roll's cookbook I just bought. I'll add pics later to this post.

Cheers!

Try Eating Vegan (First Shop, Dinner, Green Smoothie)

 

I didn't really give much thought to going vegan, I just woke up today and thought I wanted to give it a shot.  My triathlon coach Brett from Zen and Art of Triathlon pod, and Rich Roll (Vegan Ultraman) both inspired to give this a try so I can start feeling better.

The video shows how I went out and grabbed some of the items Rich recommends, then my day 1 vegan dinner, and my post workout green smoothie.

Excuse the video quality, I know it wasn't very good.

Here are a few pics from day 1:

Nice healthy groceries (as per Rich Roll)

 

Day 1: Dinner (Quinoa, Veggies, Hummus, Quinoa Bread, Almond Butter)

Day 1: Post Workout Green Smoothie

 

New Coach, Triathlon Coming Up & Medical Issues

So I just realized that I haven't updated the blog in a while, and I haven't mentioned anything about something I'm pretty excited about.

I've got a triathlon coach now to help me reach my goal of completing an Ironman 70.3 next year.

I guess before I did that it was kind of a dream, but taking this step definitely brings the dream into the realm of reality. I know many, many people train and finish the race without a coach but I'm sure I'm increasing my chances of doing it successfully by having someone with a lot of experience guide me along the way. I figure a coach will make sure I'm doing things the right way and ensuring I learn from their experience to help prevent injuries and get from where I am now to the ultimate goal the most direct method.

One thing I really like about my coach (Brett) is that it's not just a program, but great advice and he shares a philosophy that is similar to mine...Kind of Zen-like I guess. In fact, he hosts a podcast called 'Zen and the Art of Triathlon' which you can check out on iTunes or you can follow him on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/ZenTriathlon

I'm taking the approach that I wanted to start building a base for next year now and Brett agreed with that so I'm mostly doing very slow workouts for a while. The exception was the first weekend that I was getting coached when he asked that I do 30min all out run on the Saturday and a similar all out effort on the Bike on the Sunday (in addition to another 1hr run & 2 hr ride) in order to estimate my lactic thresholds on the run and on the bike.

Once we got those numbers by averaging the HR when breathing starts to become laborious and the average HR for the last 20minutes we're good to go.

From there we use those numbers to calculate my training zones (1-5). Then the program can be set up in a way that workout are prescribed by time in a particular zone for the running and biking. Pretty cool, although sometimes it's hard to keep yourself going so slow to stay in the base building zone. The idea is that you train your body to burn fat more efficiently and you end up getting faster at the low heart rates, then when it's time to so strength or speed work there will be a good foundation upon which to build.

Now on to the last couple of weeks. I've had some issues with organization and getting all my workouts in. It's taught me that from now on I'm going to have to be more organized to get them done in addition to all of my obligations at work and with my family (my wife and 2 young boys).

I also had some issues with my health, had a bit of a cold then last weekend I was getting PVC's (or skipped heart beats) at night after my long workouts. In fact, I've had those the last 3-4 weeks as my longer workouts have increased but this time I also got a pain in my heart area. That lasted all night and into the next day which was enough to worry me into taking a break until I got cleared by my doctor. I saw him this week and he told me there was nothing to worry about, although I got and ECG and am going for an echocardiogram next week just to be on the safe side. So, he gave me the all clear to train and said I didn't have to worry about not getting my HR too high...Good news.

Finally, my triathlon is coming up next weekend. I'm definitely not as prepared as last year as I only swam a few weeks before this one and last year I was in the pool every week since February. I'm pretty sure I can get through the swim even if it might not be the fastest I've done. I'm going to do the race and just have fun with it.

The best part is that my son, who just turned 3yrs old is going to do his first triathlon as well. I think I'm most excited about that. It's kind of funny that his aunt (my sister) and both sets of grand parents are going to drive 2-1/2 hours to see his 5 minute race. Going to be too cute.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Till next time...

Unplanned 1st Barefoot Run

I'm writing this post a few weeks later, so I'll just mention some of the highlights and post a couple of pics.

So I had to do my long (14km) run up at the cottage.  The hills are insane and I planned on keeping my HR under 143 which meant having to walk up many hills.  This is hard for me to do because I like attacking hills, but when you've put on an extra 30 lbs and let yourself get out of shape from September to May this is the punishment.

About 2-3km's into the run my lower calf started to hurt, and by 5km or so in it was almost unbearable.  I looked down and noticed that my right foot was rolling over towards the inside so I suspected it could be a problem with my shoes.  I've always heard barefoot running was good to prevent injuries, so I was curious how it would feel when I was in pain. 

I kicked off my shoes and tried 100m or so on the crushed/packed gravel road in my socks (not quite nice ash-fault pavement).  To my amazement my calved didn't hurt at all, but the little stones didn't feel the greatest.  I then thought of something, in my desperation not to turn around and have to walk home.  I would take out the insoles of my shoes and put them in my socks.

It actually worked! No pain!  Crazy, stupid - Yes, but pain - No.  That's all I needed at that point a way to keep going.  It was totally comfortable and a very enjoyable experience.  Yes, I knew the socks could end up being thrown away but I was determined to get this long run completed since I was already behind in the 1/2 marathon clinic since I started 5 weeks into it.

There was one issue though, my speed & distance sensor was on my shoes that I was no longer wearing so I ended up doing 16km instead of 14km.

Here are a couple of pics of me strolling in my socks back up to the cottage and the newest creation in minimalist foot-ware, the Sock-Shoe

My son pointing at daddy's new 'Sock-shoe'

 

Before any of you go out and try this (not that any rational person would, I was a crazed lunatic at the time), know this... The next 2 days I could barely walk, not from the original injury but from all the stabilizer muscles that got a rude awakening. 

I learned after the fact when I actually looked up barefoot running, that you have to ease into it SLOWLY! :D LOL

Oh well, till next time.