Author: Agata

Mom with a 9-5 job who is trying to run a marathon in every state and decided to pick up triathlons as the next challenge.

Improving your biking on hills

by Agata, posted in Workouts

I am horribly slow at biking on hills. Like in: I swear that turtle I passed on the flat just passed me on a hill slow. And yes, I absolutely hate them. Unfortunately, unless you bike only on the indoor trainer, you will encounter some hills sooner or later. I also took a look at the bike course on Ironman Gdynia and here is what I saw:

Clearly, there will be hills out there for me to conquer (although I am grateful for the descent on the last few miles). That initial ascent made me obsessed with thoughts of biking on hills and improving, so I did some research on the subject and here is what I found out.

Technique for climbing

There was lot of articles out there regarding how to attack a hill. One of my favorites was ‘think light’. It sounded a lot like ‘think thin’ 😆. But ok, I can probably do that.

I saw quite a few arguments on whether you should be sitting or standing on the bike and the bottom line appears to be that it’s personal preference. I actually have one thing to add to this argument based on personal experience: when you are peddling very hard on an uphill for long time, it may start hurting your lower back. Standing up for a minute relieves that tension and helps with the pain. Having said that, I hate standing up on a bike, but after a while, I have to stretch my back out.

Another interesting point I saw and decided I will take under advisement: top off fluids and food before you start climbing. I agree that it’s hard to reach for your bottle when you are fighting a hill and sometimes, you may not have extra energy to divert to eating and drinking while climbing. Also: in the event it makes you stop, getting started on an uphill is hard. It’s better to avoid it.

Losing weight

Yes, everybody will tell you that ascents are easier if you are lighter. However, this piece of advice is only sort of helpful in my opinion. First off, not everybody has much weight to lose. Personally, I have been gaining muscle weight as fast as I have been losing fat and I don’t even have that much fat to lose to begin with – at my height, it’s really easy to change percentage significantly without changing number of pounds significantly. Second: it doesn’t really make you stronger. It just makes the ascents easier because you are carrying less weight. Which brings me to the key issue I have with this piece of advice when it comes to my prep for Ironman 70.3 Gdynia: ascent is in the beginning, which means I will be still carrying all the weight associated with carb loading for the race. So yes, I will work on losing some pounds, but I need more ideas on how to actually improve my fitness.

Riding on hills

Practice makes perfect 😆. Not quite what I had in mind, but it’s hard to argue against this: if you want to get better at riding on hills, you need to ride on hills. As you can see from the picture above, I started doing that. However, it’s a bit of a drive from my house and I can only do it once every two weeks. Not all of us have easy access to serious hills. We do what we can and then we look for additional ideas on other training.

Indoor trainer

Not exactly glamorous, but easily accessible to most… There is also a stationary bike at a gym (or home – I know people who have Peloton or other stuff like that). So luckily for me, I got some advice from my trainer, Diana and read online advice on how to use an indoor trainer to get stronger on hills. I guess it’s like with treadmill: it won’t replace the road, but there are uses for it. There was a couple of training drills that got my attention.

Simulating an incline

You can shift into harder gear and tighten the setup (or whatever makes it harder to pedal on your bike) and ride like that. Interesting piece of advice I saw somewhere along the way: if you are pretending you are riding uphill, raise your front wheel. It impacts your positioning on the bike and can change how you use your muscle. I have to admit that I wouldn’t have ever thought about it, but once I saw it, I thought ‘duh!’ So this is another way of practicing riding on hills: just create one at home

Intervals

I can already hear the groans… I doubt there are many fans of intervals out there. We are used to the speed intervals, where you go all out for predetermined amount of time or distance and then you slow down, just to repeat it shortly thereafter. Climb intervals aren’t that different. You repeat alternating high intensity periods with regular riding. Except in this case, the intervals come from shifting into more difficult gears. It’s a good workout, believe me – I took to doing it as part of my interval sessions (the other part is speed intervals). I am not quite sure yet if it has worked for me, but let’s just say that I haven’t given up and walked on any hills yet this season (it has happened in the past).

Single leg peddling

It’s exactly what it sounds like and it’s taking advantage of the fact that you won’t crash on an indoor trainer. You clip only one leg in at a time and peddle for several revolutions and then switch legs. It helps you build up muscle and work on your technique. I will be testing this tomorrow, so wish me luck…

Strength workouts

This is what I was looking for! Actual strength exercises I could do, so I wouldn’t embarrass myself on a bike. Somehow I am less self-conscious about this stuff at the gym than on a bike path. Or it may be my competitive side: I hate when people pass me on the bike path and working out at the gym allows me to improve without seeing people pass me. Either way, here are some exercises for my quads and abductors Diana gave me during our last session when I asked how to get stronger:

May 27 – June 2

by Agata, posted in Calendars

Saturday looks like no challenge, right? Just another 40 mile bike ride (I know, most people don’t ride 40 miles in one try), so how could this be progress? Easily: it was on Skyline Drive and included 4,686 feet of elevation gain. Sunday was challenging to say the least. I am really awful on uphills when it comes to bike riding, so I am currently obsessing about working on it. I am working on a regular blog article about it. I think I should be able to post it on Thursday!

May 20 – 26

by Agata, posted in Calendars

First off: happy birthday to me! (Sunday). I had a weekend full of indulgences, since it was a long weekend and my birthday. I am getting a lot of use out of my research on working out in heat though! Crazy hot weather has arrived. I am trying to keep up the effort, but I have to admit that hiding from the heat is attractive. But work needs to be done and I am back to working hard!

Working out and racing in heat

by Agata, posted in Health

Last Sunday, I left my house early in the morning for a long run and it was already warm and humid. I was planning on running 20 miles, but after 19 miles, I decided it was time to wrap it up and walk home for the last mile. Reason was simple: the sun came out from behind the clouds and I left shaded stretches of the bike path. It suddenly got really hot (for me) and I had a flashback to my Disney Marathon, where I ended up feeling sick for a good long while due to heat on the course. So naturally, me being me, I decided to do some research on working out in the heat. After all, we may have some flexibility when it comes to working out, such as leaving earlier in the morning, driving to the beach with a cool breeze or to a much higher elevation (if we live in an area when that’s an option), or opt for an indoor workout. Sadly, that’s not true for the races – we can’t control the weather on the race day and location is what it is. This leaves us with three choices for the races: don’t register for ones in hot places, don’t show up to the race (yeah, right: you already traveled there and paid for the entrance fees!) or figure out how to deal with it.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, there are four stages of heat-related illness: heat cramps, heat syncope and exercise-associated collapse, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The signs that something is wrong due to heat include muscle cramps, nausea or vomiting, weakness, fatigue, headache, excessive sweating, dizziness or lightheadedness, confusion, irritability, low blood pressure, increased heart rate and visual problems. To be fair, a lot of them are similar to how you feel at the end of a marathon, regardless of the weather 😜. Regardless, you should be paying attention to those symptoms and if you notice them, evaluate the possibility of it being heat-related and treat accordingly.

When it comes to running in the heat, there are three parts to working on avoiding the problems: in the weeks and months before the race, just before the race and during the race itself.

Weeks and months before the race

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In general, if you want to race in hot weather, you need to be ok with hot weather on a regular basis. I find it difficult, as I am ‘northern people’. That’s what I call it: me and all of my ancestors come from Poland and thereabouts, where temperatures don’t really get into 90F. Like ever. 80s are already iffy. AC didn’t exist until relatively recently and even now, unless you custom build your house and specifically get AC, you won’t have it at home. So I am definitely not genetically meant for running in the hot weather and even being outside when it’s how is a challenge for me. I scoured the internet for advice on what to do when I don’t want to run in the heat and the answer was: if you ever plan on racing in the heat, get over it and get used to higher temperatures.

The main takeaway was that one should maintain their acclimatization to heat year-round. One way to do it is to use the sauna regularly. From what I have read, going to he sauna after a workout is particularly beneficial for running on hotter days when the season changes. A Polish runner I follow on Instagram, Dominika Stelmach, recommended also going on vacation to a hot place in the middle of the winter. I have mixed feelings on that, since I don’t have too much PTO (I live in America…) and I love skiing, so in the winter, I want to hit the slopes, not the beach… But: it is an advice from a pro, so I am quoting it. It probably does help.

Start training in warmer weather, preferably up to the weather conditions expected for the race. So if you know that it’s going to be around 80F on the race day, try to do some long runs in the 80F weather. I know: it’s not always possible (see my Disney Marathon in January – it was ski season where I live!). If you can’t go outside to get that kind of conditions, see if you can simulate them indoors. Example: crank up the heat next to your treadmill/stationary bike. If all else fails, you can also wear more clothes than necessary, creating your own warmth ‘situation’. It’s not ideal, but it will do if you have no other options.

When the weather in your town gets hot, don’t avoid it in the training if it mirrors your anticipated race conditions. However, if it is too hot and sunny, try running in the morning or evening and find a shaded path. No reason to suffer if you don’t need to! However, putting in the effort on the hot days will give you gains in endurance, even if you think that you were ‘so slow’. It takes a lot more effort to run in the heat and gains come from effort, not necessarily the speed.

Just before the race

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If you can, get there a couple of days early, preferably two weeks ahead of time (who, not being a pro or a retiree, has time for that???), so you can acclimate. There is an advantage to living in those hot conditions on a day-to-day basis, but two weeks of getting used to the weather really helps. Actually, every day you can get helps. And try not to make your first run in the heat be the race. You know: basically, don’t be me in Florida. My research says that I did pretty much everything wrong in preparation for the race. Not that I could have helped all of it: the day was a weather fluke and I did come from a wintry place. But I digress…

Another thing to do to prepare: make sure you get enough electrolytes in you. I happen to sweat a lot and I tend to sweat out a lot of salt (I am sure everybody wanted to know that 🤢), so I need to make sure to drink enough, including plenty of ports drinks. And skip the alcohol – it dehydrates… Since we are talking about planning ahead, make sure to keep that in mind for the couple of days before the race.

Clothes: pick something light and light-colored, so it protects you from the sun. Remember that dark colors keep the heat! Loose clothing is preferable, but I don’t think it’s much of an option during a triathlon, since you have to swim in it. Unless you put the shirt on when you get out of water? Yeah, that would probably work. I tend to run with a bandanna on my head and I know a few people who like hats. Wrong! Choose a visor. It keeps the sun off your face (that’s important!), while not trapping heat on your head. I will keep that in mind. Although I tend to soak my bandannas, so maybe that helps? But it sure explained why I see Ironman visors, but not hats.

Please use sunscreen (something I am notoriously bad at). Long story short: sunburns make it harder for your body to get rid of heat. Obviously, there is more science behind it, but I am not into the details right now… All I care about is how to avoid overheating.

This last piece of advice came as a bit of surprise to me. You know how we are always told to warm up properly? Apparently before a race, you should cool yourself down as much as you can. Your core will keep getting hotter as you run (or bike), but your starting point will be much lower. I saw three ways talked about: ice vest (I am pretty sure that costs money – so only if you think it’s worth it and you race in heat often enough to justify the expense), put wet towel on your neck (I can probably do this… or maybe like a paper towel? 😉) or drink/eat something really cold. So like an ice pop or frozen sports drink. I think I can manage that last one the best. That’s easy.

During the race

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Congrats! You made it to the starting line (and you are probably questioning your sanity if it’s already hot and you are sweating before even starting to run)! Now you need to survive all the miles in the race. First piece of advice: run/ride slower. I even found somewhere conversion program for how much to slow down. For training, it’s the effort that counts, so you are still going to make gains. Focus on the effort, not the pace. During the race, you may not end up with time you hoped, but isn’t it better to finish rather than hurting yourself? I would say so. I was once looking up a marathon in Hawaii and my main takeaway from the website was ‘this is not a place to PR! Make sure you don’t hurt yourself!’

The other important thing is to keep replenishing water and electrolytes you are losing. Different people lose those at different rate (I happen to sweat a lot and lose a lot of salt while doing it, but it may not be the case for you). The more often you can do it, the better. It’s preferable to drink small amounts more frequently than getting larger drinks less often. If your stomach feels full, listen to it, too – it is possible to overhydrate (although that’s a whole another subject and possible future post).

And here is the solution most of us thinks of: squirt some water on yourself. Advice from a friend (learned the hard way by him): before you pour water you grabbed at a water station on the course, make sure it’s not a sport drink 😜. Also, wet towels or sponges work. When they get hot, you can always shake them out and let them cool down a bit. Speaking from personal experience: pouring cold water on your back feels amazing!

So you did overheat. Now what?

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Once you are done with your workout/race in hot weather, you need to make sure that your core temperature gets back down. If you are feeling sick, seek medical attention. At the races, it’s easy to go over to a medic and have them take a look at you. It may be a good idea, just in case. If you are seriously dehydrated, they can give you IV fluids. Not only will that re-hydrate you, it will drop your core temperature. I think that anybody who ever had an IV can recall that you start feeling really cold. That’s because IV fluids have lower temperature than your body.

I hope you are not doing so badly that you need medical attention and can take care of it yourself. But if you are not feeling well, you should have somebody hang out with you. Overheating compromises your cognitive abilities, so you may not be the best judge of your own well-being.

First of all: beer is not a good idea! Alcohol dehydrates! However, water and sport drinks are great. Especially if they are cold. Eating ice cream, slushies or just pieces of ice will help you cool down as well.

And leaving best for last: cold shower or bath! Let’s face it, if you were just doing some heavy physical activity in the heat, you need to wash off anyway 😉

Stay cool and take care of your body this summer!

May 13 – 19

by Agata, posted in Calendars

This week was an interesting mix of highs and lows. I was so happy to run 12 miles on Tuesday! It was all thanks to some scheduling adjustments at work… It was awesome 😊! Thursday swim was all about focusing on my kicking and it helped improve my pace 💪. Friday was a bit disappointing in terms of speed. It was really crowded courtesy of ‘bike to work day’, so I decided to just take it easy. Also: my legs didn’t want me to go fast 😉. Saturday was a mixed bag: it turns out that the end of the bike path was closer to my house than I hoped, but then the 3 mile run without paying attention to my pace was a lot faster than expected 🔥. I was impressed by my Sunday performance, too: I kept a pretty decently even pace through 19 miles and it included a number of hills. I will be working on the last one! Maybe over time, I can get that even pace to be more like 9 minute/mile? 😉

Live your dream, no matter what others say!

by Agata, posted in General advice

I was planning on writing about something else, but I got very upset over a post I saw on a friend’s feed today. It was making fun of ‘Karen’ in this picture:

I don’t know who posted this picture first online, so I can’t give proper credit. But I want to thank the lady in the picture for being brave and showing up for herself!

This picture came with laughing emojis and all. And most of us probably have noticed that ‘Karen’ is a generic name used for a person who is stupid or eye roll-worthy. So not cool! 😡 She is living her dream! Why would you feel a need to knock her down? My experience suggests that people who do that stuff are just miserable in their own life and we should ignore them. It’s not like they are trying to do something worthwhile with their time. I posted about it on social media and made comments. And you know what? People who liked (and loved) my posts/comments and wrote other encouraging notes were mostly the athletic types. We know what it takes to get to that finish line. We want to encourage others to be healthier and make good choices. And, most of all, we want others to appreciates sports we love!

So I say, whether you are lady on the right or one of the ladies on the left or anybody in between, you do you. I applaud you and I will do my best to lift you up and, if you’d like, help you in your journey! 🙌

These pictures came from Runner’s World Instagram feed. Great magazine!

May 6-12

by Agata, posted in Calendars

Welcome to the monsoon season! There will be plenty of miserable runs and rides in the next few weeks! The worst part, though, is that if there is thunder, they close the swimming pools (both indoor and outdoor). On the positive note: I tried my wetsuit on last week. I could definitely use a little bit more of breathing room in my chest, but I think I can live with it. And in 2 weeks, when they open the pools, I can try using it on a chilly day and see how it feels in the water.

I have more months until the Ironman 70.3 left! I am definitely having some low motivation days, but I can see that my endurance is improving. Now I need to work on speed. I am very self-conscious about that…

Increasing mileage

by Agata, posted in General advice

Let me start with this: do as I say, not as I do…

Increasing your mileage is important for all endurance athletes and I have been working on it for my cycling. I am not exactly a good person to mimic these days though. I have been running long distance for ages now and what I consider a ’rounding error’ may be more exercise than you get on a given day.

The above picture is of me right after my 56 mile bike ride. My previous longest ride was 38 miles two weeks earlier. I look good, don’t I? But here is ‘the thing’: that was less than 3:30 hours of exercise and biking is less strenuous than running. I keep myself in marathon running shape at this point basically non-stop, with semi-weekly 20 mile runs. Ok, maybe I haven’t been making it regularly through all 20 miles, since I have been focusing on biking and I don’t have any marathons coming up soon, but here is what I look like towards the end of those runs:

This doesn’t mean that I never feel tired or done with my mileage. I do. Although these days, it’s usually lack of good planning. Last week, I accidentally ran 11 miles and it didn’t look good:

Here is how you ‘accidentally’ run 11 miles: it was supposed to be 8 miles according to a map, but clearly that meant as a crow flies, not as the bike path goes. I was totally not prepared for that distance! Since I have run 5 marathons and have been putting large mileage on a regular basis, I can get away with quite a bit of extension to my long runs and rides – my body is used to exercise of 3+ hours on a regular basis. It’s not true for the vast majority of people and they should use some more thought-out training plans. So here comes some wisdom on increasing mileage in your endurance training.

Running

Before you start increasing your mileage, take good look at where you are at right now and what your target is. Some people talk about increasing mileage from basically nothing to a 5km or 10km runs, or even just so they start moving around. I am really happy for all of you in this category and I am rooting for you! For others, increasing mileage is going to be about getting through a marathon or a century bike ride. In order to get to long runs and rides, you have to first build a solid base.

First, figure out what your comfort level is. It will differ based on your general health and fitness. Once you know where this is, you can start working on increasing your mileage. You should do it gradually – this is where the 10% rule keeps reappearing. According to this age-old wisdom, you should be increasing your weekly mileage by 10% every week. So if you are currently doing 3 runs of 3 miles each (total of 9 miles), the next week you would increase to 9.9 miles by adding an extra .9 mile to one of your runs or splitting it between the runs. I know it may seem like a slow progress, but you are out there giving your best, stick to it! Adding too much mileage too fast may lead to an injury or cause you to feel tired all the time. In the long run (no pun intended), it will be counterproductive. Some sources even recommend that after adding 10% to your weekly mileage, you stay at that level for a couple of weeks until your body adapts and then do another 10% increase.

Once you have a solid higher mileage base, you can start working on your long runs or rides. I looked at many marathon plans and advice on mileage before starting a specific training plan range from 15 to 35 miles per week for several weeks. You should probably be able to do a six mile run at least once per week as part of your base before you start your marathon training plan or adding serious mileage to your long runs. Marathon training plans tend to range in length from 12 to 20 weeks and you should keep in mind that at some point, you will be expected to do at least one 20 mile run. You need to make sure your body will be able to do it. And yes, you will be increasing your mileage gradually, but the more solid your base, the easier it will be.

For the long runs, common rule is adding 1 mile per week or 10 minutes per week. Since I tend to do 10 minute per mile (maybe a bit slower) for my long runs, it tends to be the same…

Biking

Advice for extending your mileage on a bike appears to be a derivative of what was developed for marathon training, with the magical 10% weekly increase. Since this cap was created to help stave off injury and biking is lower impact than running, you may be able to get away with faster increases. Nonetheless, pace yourself.

Triathlon

You have no idea how few articles are out there on this subject… Believe me, I checked! The closest I got to a relevant information was an article in Men’s Health. Although, at the end of the day, they said the same thing as the marathon advice already did: 10% mileage increase per week. There was one difference though, which was to have a low mileage week every few weeks to allow your body to recover. As I kept pushing the question, I learned from various materials that you should cap training amount, but that’s a whole another article (which now I feel like pursuing immediately because it got my interest). I asked Diana (my personal trainer and total goddess of all things fitness) about extending my long runs and rides. She said that the 10% rule holds true for all types of exercise. No wonder going from 5lbs to 10lbs is such an awful experience in weight training 😉. So I guess the advice is: if you are riding 50 miles, next step would be 55 miles. Same thing for running: going from 10 miles to 11 miles (for nice, round math).

Final thoughts

Whatever you are doing to your mileage, whether a long run/ride or weekly mileage, remember to listen to your body if it starts aching or you are experiencing general fatigue. On the other hand, don’t listen to it when it tells you that you can do more! You may be able to add more mileage over the next week or two, but you are increasing your chances of injury and setting yourself up for a lot of exhaustion. Pace yourself! Patience is paramount in endurance sports!

April 29 – May 5

by Agata, posted in Calendars

What an interesting week it was… I wasn’t able to get out for a swim on Thursday, but I think I got plenty of work done! So let’s focus on the main accomplishment: I did a 56 mile ride on Saturday 🤩. That’s the distance for my race this summer, so I am happy I got there and it took me less than 3:30, too. I am beyond excited about that. I will be practicing this over and over and over and maybe at some point, I won’t feel like I’m about to collapse afterwards. And I am thrilled about the time, since I have been using 4 hours for planning purposes. My run on Sunday was a rather sad thing on a treadmill (the weather sucked and I was feeling a bit under the weather), but I still did it. Sometimes, you just need to suck it up and get it over with. Hopefully, I will do my intervals training and weights with Diana without any problems tonight!

April 22-28

by Agata, posted in Calendars

Now that I’m looking at it all on one page, it looks like I didn’t do very well with running this past week… In my defense: Friday went a bit sideways and I wasn’t able to follow the plan. And on Monday, I was still quite banged up after the bike issues before. I know – it all sounds like excuses. I will do better in the future! I also can promise to do better with the biking – I got my new bike on Friday! 🤩