Lynn's Training Adventure

LavaMan Newsletter4

Before updating you all on my last month of training I wanted to plug to other blogs.  They are extremely rich and diverse in subject matter.  Please check out Michael Dearing's blog at : http://reardenmetal.com  and Shri Mahesh's blog at: http://shripriya.com/blog

Now onto the latest newsletter update:

Hi,

Time for another update.  Exactly 4 weeks to go to event day in

Hawaii

.  Unfortunately, the last month has been marked by injuries and illnesses.

Before I go into the training, I want to thank all my sponsors one more time.  We have raised almost $27,000.  This is awesome and really is going to a wonderful cause.  A HUGE thanks!

Also I want to thank Scott Murray and Thomas Fenrich who both went on bike rides with me.  They are helping me to get into shape and finish the event.  Scott got to ride with me for the first time after my biking accident and it was his job to keep me safe.  That was a tall order given how accident prone I am.   He succeeded and my first trip back on the bike was a success.  I also picked up the 2x4 (really a 4x6) and will have it on display at the celebration party I’m having for my sponsors.

Okay on to the training and my illnesses:

Last year, my Dad who is 82, invited Kevin and I to go to

Acapulco

,

Mexico

with his golf group for eight days of golfing and we accepted.  (On a side note it was fun being the babies at the age of 51).  The dates were February 12^th through the 19^th.  It turned out with our Lava Man Triathlon training schedule that the timing was not good, but we had committed and Kevin and I were positive about running and swimming every day in

Mexico

.  It was going to be great to run in the heat and swim in the ocean.  Well, our best laid plans didn’t happen.  In the orientation meeting at our hotel it was stated quite clearly that we were NOT to go into the water, since the city’s sewage was being dumped directly into the ocean.  That left running.  For the first 3 days we ran about one hour each day and we were doing great!  However on day four I came down with an intestinal bug that was suppose to last only 1 to 2 days.  When I do something I do it big .  It lasted the rest of the trip, on the flight home, and I finally had to go to the doctor to get antibiotics.  In total it lasted around nine to ten days for me to get better.  That took a huge chunk out of my training at a critical time and I also had to come back up a curve for getting my endurance back.

The other bad news is I have had three issues with muscles.  My upper left leg had an issue for around 5 days and I couldn’t train, then my left shoulder and arm ( I could run and bike, but couldn’t swim) and the latest which I’m still nursing are sore calf muscles (both left and right legs) which are interfering with both the bike and the run, but significantly affecting the run.  I only hope that I get past this latest issue and stay healthy for the last three weeks.

My trainer said that all the muscle issues are the fact that for my body I’m over-training and I should take it easier and that I’m not eating enough protein.  Therefore I’m breaking down my muscles with the running and biking and not replenishing them with protein.  So you won’t believe this, but I bought cottage cheese and tuna fish and before and after my workouts I eat both.  I’m only doing this for the remainder of the training!!  I can not change my diet long term to dairy products and tuna fish.  I have to get back to Coke and Cheetos J

This past Sunday, March 4^th, Kevin and I participated in

Stanford

University

’s Treeathlon.  It was a sprint triathlon:  500 meter swim (1/3 of LavaMan), 20K bike (1/2 of LavaMan), and 5K run (1/2 of LavaMan).

First we had to be in the transition area at

Stanford

University

by 6:30am.  I don’t mind going to bed at 5am, but getting up at 5am to be at an event in

Palo Alto

by 6:30 was tough enough and I hadn’t even started the endurance event!

The swim portion was at the Stanford pools. So I had to wait for my heat (heat 10) in the cold weather waiting to get into a cold pool.  I did fairly well on the swim.  They didn’t let anyone stay in the pool more than 10 minutes to finish and if you didn’t then you were assessed a 2 minute penalty.  I didn’t finish so a 2 minute penalty was added to my total time, but I only had about 20 feet to go which was really good!  A lot of the women and men in their 20’s didn’t finish and I almost did.  However it was harder than I thought and I’m not sure how I’m going to do 3X that in

Hawaii

and in the ocean to boot.  We swam the perimeter of the pool around buoys and it is the first time I didn’t swim laps where you touch the wall every 25 yards.  This was MUCH harder!!!!

Okay, after the swim it was back to the transition area to get ready for the bike portion of the event.  I can only tell you when I looked around (while still drying off and putting on my clothes) everyone else from my heat was gone.  I still had about 5 minutes before I was cycling.  So I think I have to practice the transition.  More to come on this.

The bike ride was fairly hilly so I didn’t make my average of 12.5 miles per hour, but instead did 11.5 miles per hour.  With the transition, the bike portion took me around 1 hour and 7 minutes which was really NOT good.  I only passed one women who couldn’t make it up a hill and had to get off her bike and walk it.  However, later on the bike course on a large downhill she passed me.  So I was the slowest in the entire event.  After my big bike fall I just couldn’t go racing down the hills.  I was fairly cautious and that cost me a lot of time.

After the bike ride it was back to the transition area to get ready for the run portion of the event.  This was the worst transition for me.  I got a speck of dust/dirt in my eye and I wear contacts.  So I had to take my contact out, clean it and when I put it back in I couldn’t get it positioned on my eye correctly.  I had to go to several competitors looking for a mirror so I could find the contact in my eye and fix it.  I finally got past all that, put on my running shoes and set off, for the run portion.  I did slightly better at the run portion.  I passed ONE person and completed the run including transition in around 33 minutes (which was okay) especially given the calf problems I’m having.

So my total time including my 2 minute penalty, all the transition time, and the swim, bike, and run times was 1 hour 55 minutes.  There were around 190 competitors and only three had a worse time than me.  [On a side note there were only four females older than me.]

The good news is I finished!  The highlights were the swim and that I ran the 3 miles even with my injury.  The bad news was the bike ride (I was too slow on all the downhills) and my transitions were horrible.  So I’m going to practice over the next few weeks transitioning!!!

We have a practice tri on March 17^th, so I hope to do better.  If I extrapolate my time today with the LavaMan event I would do the event in around 4 ½ hours and I was hoping for under 4 hours.

This continues to be a wonderful experience and I have learned a lot about endurance athletes, nutrition and training.  Also the true heroes continue to be our honorees who battle cancer every day.  It was sad that we lost one of our honorees a week ago.  The cancer finally won, but she had a wonderful attitude up to the very end.

Two other training notes:

• A week ago Sunday, February 25^th, we had an Urban Adventure Race in downtown

  Los Gatos

  .  It was suppose to have both a bike and run portion. However, it was pouring (we really didn’t want to go, but we have got to get training so we went).  When we got there we said that we would only do the run portion, because we didn’t want to fall off our bikes.  (We are now being problems).  So they all decided that it wasn’t a good idea to do the bike portion and they modified the event and we went running for the next 2 hours, finding clues and answering questions about downtown

  Los Gatos

  .  When we got done and Kevin and I were driving home we both commented on what “nuts” we are.  Pouring rain and running for two hours.  What has happened to our common sense?  Put a competition in front of us and we lose our minds!
• This past Tuesday evening was swim practice at Burgess Pool in

  Menlo Park

  .  About ¾ of the way through the practice there was thunder and lightening.  Yes, we were swimming in the rain!  But once we saw the lightening, we got to go home.  That was the end of practice.

As I stated, getting ones’ body in shape to do an endurance event is far harder than working at a desk.  My job at eBay was EASY compared to this.

More to come in the next couple weeks, stayed tuned.

Thanks for all the support.  I really couldn’t do it without all of your encouragement and helpful advice.

Yours truly,

Lynn

(a project in the works)

Update on training - good and bad news

Hi,

Well another week has gone bye.  Less than two months to go.  I was recovering nicely from my bike accident and this weekend had two great practices with the team.

On Saturday we rode 22 miles around Canada and Edgewood (Redwood City) and then ran 4 miles immediately afterwards.  I did it in around 2 hours and 20 minutes.  The only bad part was it started at 8 am and it was extremely foggy.  I was freezing for the first hour of the bike ride.  Both my hands were frozen and my feet.  I almost asked Kevin to give me the car keys and I would be waiting for him in the warm car.  But I stuck it out, my hands were thawed by the end of the bike ride.  My feet didn't thaw out until the last 5 minutes of the 4 mile run.

We are suppose to do the same thing this Saturday.

On Sunday, we ran at a park in Palo Alto (or around there) for six miles.  There were some very steep parts that we had to walk, but for the most part I was very happy with my progress.  Then that afternoon Scott Murray came to Pleasanton and we did a 22 mile bike ride.  A huge thanks to Scott for coming and helping Kevin and I train.  It was his first bike ride in over a year!  We did the same route as the one where my bike accident happened.  So we stopped at the exact spot. We found the 2x4.  It is more like a 4x6 or even bigger.  We proped it up on the nearby fence post.  I told Kevin and Scott we should take it home and keep it.  So maybe we will get our car and retrieve it at some point.  I was sweating and my heart was racing just looking at it.  Memories that I would prefer to forget.  Another great day of training.  I'm almost getting cocky, that I'm going to make it in Hawaii :)

Monday is our day off, however I was going to be out of town on Tuesday, so I decided to do our standard 6 mile run in Pleasanton on Monday (so Tuesday would be the actual day off).  BIG MISTAKE!!!!!  I start off and my left leg is sore.  I think no big deal.  It is sore from all the exercise over the weekend.  As I proceed it gets more sore.  I have to slow down it is getting so painful, but I do make it all the way, just 10 minutes slower than my best time.  I decide to take a hot bath and it is feeling better.  I go to lunch with Jim Ambach and we get to catch up.  I get up to leave the resturant and my left leg is extremely stiff.  I can not apply much weight to it.  It continued to get much worse.

I don't know what is wrong.  But the area from above my left knee to the top of my leg is extremely painful.  There are two large tendons there that seem inflamed.  I'm going to my trainer on Thursday to see what he says, but at this time I'm hobbling around, favoring my right leg.  So I can not run at this time.  I don't know about cycling, but I think I can still swim.

This training is harder than I thought.  Just when I thought I was turning the corner, and going to acheive my goal and times, I get this major setback.  I don't have the time for any more setbacks.

More on this after my meeting with my trainer this Thursday.

Lynn

Open Water Swim

Okay last week was the long awaited (dreaded) swim in the Bay at Coyote Point.  I put on my polar perfect fitting wet suit, my swim cap, booties, and googles.  It was around 8:30am last Saturday.  We were to swim out to a kayak, swim around it and back to shore.  It would take around 10 to 15 minutes and then we were to stay in the water to await our next drill.

Well I dove into the water and started swimming freestyle (Australian Crawl) with my face in the water.  I could not breathe (I thought I was going to die), my hands were so cold that every time they hit the water there was a feeling that a 1000 needles were entering my skin.  I made it to the kayak.  I could not put my face into the water any longer, I just could not breathe.  I swam breast stroke back to the shore (which the coaches didn't want us to do).  I assumed  I was the last to make it back, however I didn't know because I was in a daze.  I got out of the water and headed immediately to the car to get warm.  I said to myself, "I'm not going back in the water, no more Bay Area open water swims for me".  In fact this was one of the top five stupid things I have ever done in my entire life.

Kevin eventually came back to our car.  I told him that I was done. no more open water swims in the Bay Area for me.  He stated that the coaches called off the rest of the practice.  What I experienced, everyone was experiencing.  In fact, I finished in the middle of the pack, and some didn't make it to the kayak before returning to shore.  Also the coaches cancelled all the open water swims in the Bay.  The exceptionally cold weather caused the Bay water to be colder than in prior years.  Our coaches said the swim was not safe!!!!

Okay, so I wasn't the biggest wimp (that I thought I was).  I actually survived 10 to 15 minutes in the freezing Bay Area water.  It was still stupid and something I won't be attempting again.

I guess when I swim in Hawaii, it will be my first practice (and actual event) in open water swimming.  At least I'm doing the distance in the pool in around 40 minutes.

Early Sunday morning Kevin and I got on a plane to Deer Valley, Utah for 5 days of skiing.  I had to take a break from freezing water, bike accidents, and an aching body. Yes, somehow I thought it would be good for my body to ski 6 hours every day for five straight days :)

We got back from a wonderful 5 days (sunny every day and great ski conditions) yesterday.  Kevin and I went out for a run (my first since my bike accident).  I was able to run (slower than before the accident) and my butt was hurting with every step, but at least I could run, so my body is healing.  Now I have got to get back on the bike.  I haven't done that yet, I think I'm a bit scared, but I have to quickly get over that and get cycling.

That is the latest update on open water swim, and recovery from the bike accident.  More to come....

Lynn

Biking Accident

Kevin and I went out for a 25 mile bike ride this past Sunday, 1/14/07.  Kevin had laid out the route.  I was hopeful that we could do it in 2 hours.  It was cold out, high 30's/low 40's so we were well bundled up.  We were about at the 17 mile mark on our way back.  I was looking at my bike computer:distance, average speed, and current speed (which was around 15 mph) when all of a sudden I'm lying on my back with Kevin standing over me, two folks from cars that stopped and one other bicyclist.  I hadn't seen it, but there was a 2x4 lying in the middle of the bike path, I hit it, and then fell off the bike.  I fell to the left side, so I'm quite bruised, scrapped, and battered from below my left knee to my left shoulder.  I tweeked my left knee, my left butt and tail bone are quite sore (I can not bend down or lift my leg to put on my socks), and my left shoulder is very sore.  My bike's seat was twisted and the right gear levers were twisted.  Kevin tried to straighten them and tomorrow we will take the bike in to the shop to be looked over and fixed appropriately.

The folks that stopped helped me to gain my composure and then slowly get up. I did ride the bike home, however it was quite painful.  I probably should have taken the folks offer to have them drive me home.  The good news is that taking the 15-20 minutes I was on the ground out, I did make the 25 miles in 2 hours. 

I was suppose to go on another bike ride today, but I'm too sore to move, so I'm sitting at my computer writing this note.

The lesson learned:  DON'T take your eyes off the road, even for a second!!!!!!!!!

I hope that I heal quickly.  I have got to get back to training :)

Lynn

LavaMan Newsletter2

Hi Sponsors,

Okay, my second newsletter.  December was a blur with family events.  Needless to say I didn’t do much training.  Our coaches at Team in Training this week stated that the usual training for an Olympic Triathlon is only three months so not to worry if we haven’t trained much to date, however now is the time to get serious.

If you want an executive summary:  I’m still alive and haven’t landed in the hospital with any broken bones or pulled muscles, however I’m not going to break any triathlon records for my age group either. 

Many of you have asked me what is my goal.  Well being me, it wouldn’t be right not to have an aggressive (BHAG) goal.  That goal is 3 ½ hours.  If you add up my times for the individual sports I’m currently at 4 ½ hours.  That is not counting the fact that I’m going to be more tired doing all three events together and the transition time between the events.  In reality I would be thrilled with anything around 4 hours, but our coaches are doing the event in around 3 hours and it didn’t seem right to me to say 4 to 4 ½ hours (even though they have done it before and are in their late 20’s/ early 30’s). J  As I get closer to the event and have actually done more practices that simulate the tri I will give you a better goal, but I have put the stake in the ground:  3 ½ to 4 hours.  Boy do I have to get training!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need to thank a few folks:

• First I want to thank you all.  With your tremendous support we have raised $23,400 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  A huge thanks to all of you!

• Many thanks to Michael Dearing who setup a blog site for me.  I will post my newsletters there and will start sending some more timely updates to it as well. I will continue with my newsletters, but please feel free to read my blog and update it as well: http://lynnreedy.typepad.com.

• I want to thank Elizabeth Tse who told me about a Barracuda polar swim cap and gave me a web site to purchase one.  It has got me through my first few swim practices.  More on this in the swimming update section!

Now for the details:

Swimming:  I have now participated in three swim practices at an outdoor pool in Menlo Park.  The water is 85 degrees.  The normal temperature for competitive swim meets is around 78 degrees.  Everyone else is complaining about how hot the water is.  My first practice I get in and I’m immediately cold.  I complain to my coaches (I’m their worst nightmare!) how cold I am.  They don’t believe me and tell me to just swim.  Well about 30 minutes into our 45 minute practice one of the coaches tells me my lips are purple and I should get out of the water immediately.  However we had only one more drill to go (another 16 laps) so I ignored him and finished the practice and then went in to the locker room and stood under HOT water for about 15 minutes trying to stop shivering.  The good news is I completed practice, and now the coaches believe me.  The bad news is they are quite concerned that I may actually get hyperthermia in Hawaii.  For my husband Kevin, this only further confirms that I’m not human but a cold blooded reptile.

On the serious side, I did successfully complete two more coached swims without getting purple and I have swam at Club Sport (our fitness club) twice this week.  I swam 66 laps (25 yards each) which totals the 1.5K distance of the triathlon in around 40 minutes without any stops and all freestyle.  This is much better than I was doing before I started training.  Back then I could do the laps, but had to alternate freestyle with breaststroke to catch my breath.  So I know I can do the distance and in reasonable time, my only concern continues to be the water temperature. 

The big water test is coming up, on January 20^th, 27^th and February 10^th we are having three open water swims in the Bay.  I will be wearing a wet suit, but my coaches are sure I can not handle the cold water, so they are going to have me swim parallel to shore and get out when I’m cold.  They want me to experience open water swimming, but know I will not be able to sustain the Bay water temperature for long.  So the question is how long do I last?  Any predictions?

Biking:  I have progressed to riding my new road bike.  I went out with Kevin and a good friend riding around the foothills in Palo Alto.  Our friend, Mike, stated that there was a very gradual hill coming, long but not too steep.  Well it was too steep for me.  I was quite out of breathe and wanted to walk my bike, but they both convinced me I would make it, when it was obvious that I would make it they rode ahead and waited for me at the top of the hill.  I was soooooooo excited when I got to the top of the hill that when I stopped to be with them I forgot to unclip my feet from the pedals and immediately fell.  I fell in their direction!  Once they realized I was fine, they told me in the future to fall away from them J

I have done a few more bike rides, but have only done one ride that was the required 25 miles and that took us 2 ½ hours.  That is NOT a good time.  A competitive time would be more like 1 hour+, so I’m hoping by event day that I’m down to 1 ½ hours, but that depends on how hilly the course is.  I would like to average around 15 miles per hour, but on hills I only average around 6 to 8 miles per hour.  So I need a lot of progress on this.  At least I’m now training on my road bike!

Running:  Well both good news and bad.  When going out only for a run (not combining it with a bike or swim) I now can run 6 miles.  (The event is 6.3 miles).  Considering when I started I could only run for 5 minutes this is great.  However I run about a 12 minute mile (or 5 miles an hour) and even then I’m totally exhausted when I’m done.  A really good time is about an 8 minute mile.  Well, I’m not going to get there but it would be great to get to a 10 minute mile.  I’m just not sure I can do that.  I’m really out of breath running.  Also it is very hard on my left knee and it is starting to hurt all the time!  So we will see on the running front.

Nutrition and Strength Training: Kevin and I continue to see our trainer, Erik, every Tuesday and Thursday.  I have to say that I continue to get an F-.  I have to track what I eat on a daily basis.  In the last 30 days I have done that about 4 times.  I’m not getting enough protein or carbs and way too much fat.  (Good thing I’m an efficient fat burner J).  Everyday I wake up saying okay today is the day I’m going to follow what Erik has laid out and by 3pm I can not help myself.  Everyday it is something different, but none the less not what I’m suppose to be eating.  One day chocolate, another day chips, another day cookies, then peanuts (at least they have some protein J).  I am progressing on the weight training.  I now at least know how to use the machines and I’m doing the exercises correctly.  Erik seems pleased with that progress, just not my nutrition.

Fun Event:  About 3 weeks ago we had a fun event.  Team in Training had us pair up with another partner (so I picked Kevin) and we ran/biked for three loops (each loop took 2.4 miles) as a competition for a total of 7.2 miles.  The rules were that one of us ran while the other rode the bike then we could switch whenever we wanted per lap and as many times as we wanted, but at the end of each lap we needed to meet, run up a hill together and then do some sort of silly challenge (where depending on how we did on the challenge it would knock off time).  Our strategy was I would run .8 mile, while Kevin rode the bike.  Then I would find the bike and Kevin would already be running his .8 mile.  Then I would drop the bike at 1.6 mile and then we would estimate where Kevin would drop the bike so we would end up at the hill at around the same time.  I did the first challenge (Blindfolded I had to get 3 bags of food from between my knees into a basket with Kevin directing me) and Kevin did the second challenge which was to knock down 6 milk bottles with an orange in pantyhose tied around his waist.  Well I hopped with both legs so as to not move the bags of food and Kevin hit the milk bottles from the side not front.  With our innovations we got the maximum reductions in time and our strategy on how to ride/bike got us 3^rd place right behind two teams of coaches.  Needless to say we were quite cocky about our performance since most of the teams are in their twenties and thirties and as you know we are well past that J.  Of course none of this matters in the actual triathlon, but at least we felt good for that one Saturday!  Another thing about the event we had to come in costume and had to have a team name.  As some of you can guess we were Team Enterprise and Kevin was Captain Kirk.  I have attached two photos of the event.

Now that we are past the holidays you will be getting more updates and I will be updating my blog site more regularly.  Please add comments.  I really enjoy hearing from you all and need the ribbing or encouragement.  Either works for me J

Happy 2007 and April 1^st is approaching too quickly.

All the best,

Lynn

LavaMan Newsletter1

Hi,

This is my first training update to all my sponsors.  As I stated in my original letter, I have a long way to go! J 

First I want to thank all my sponsors.  Your support and generosity are very much appreciated by me and also the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  The other news is that I convinced Kevin (my husband) to do it with me.  So now I have a training “buddy”.

Swimming:  I had surgery on my right eyelid to remove a sty three weeks ago and my eye surgeon gave me the okay to go in the pool just today.  So my first swimming practice will be tomorrow night.  I have missed two coached sessions and numerous workouts that I was to have had on my own.  So I’m already stressing about thisJ  Team in Training (TNT) said they are not concerned, but I like to worry about everything.

You all know how cold I get, so besides working up to a 1.5K swim I’m concerned about hyperthermia.  I already bought a wet suit to practice in, however the LavaMan Event will not allow us to wear wet suits.  So I have 5 months to “toughen up” my skin.  If any of you know of swim suits, swimming caps etc that will help keep me warm please send suggestions my way.

Biking:  I have done two coached bike rides each 2 hours and we went approximately 20 miles (which is about 80% of the distance of the event).  Kevin and I did this on our 15 year old mountain bikes.  Our coaches suggested we get road bikes.  So Kevin and I went to Chain Reaction bike store in Los Altos (outstanding store, in which the owner took over 3 hours sizing me for the right bike based on my size and proportions) and bought new Trek Madone  SL 5.9 ‘s which have carbon bike frames.  They are extremely light!  We also got the bike pedals that you have to clip into.  We got our mountain bikes retrofitted with the same bike pedals.  Yesterday I went out on my mountain bike with the new bike pedals, stepped into them and immediately fell to the ground.  I have a huge bruise on my left hip.  So the next hour I spent getting on and off the bike.  And then went for a one hour bike ride.  Hopefully in the next few weeks I will feel comfortable enough with the “clip in” bike pedals that I will take out the new road bike.  With the new bike I have to get use to a different sitting position, new position of the gears, and brakes and the fact that the bike is so light with such skinny tires.  It really scares me!

Kevin and I have an exercise bike in our house, so 2 to 3 times a week I try to do what is called spinning for an hour.  It is where the resistance is fairly light, but you try and keep the RPM’s in the high 90’s and low 100’s.  Well I have my first funny story.  The first time I did this I of course wanted to excel.  So I’m peddling extremely hard getting my entire body into the exercise.  When I got done, both my left foot and back were hurting.  Well it turned out that my back was bleeding from what would amount to a “rug burn”. I had been moving my back so vigorously back and forth across the back of the bike that I scrapped off the skin.  Then on my foot, I hadn’t worn socks or shoes and the black plastic strap, dug into my skin and split the top of my foot.  Since then I wear shoes and socks J

Running:  On our first day of training, we went to Foothill College and ran on their track.  We were to run for 20 minutes.  I had never run for 20 minutes straight in my life. So I took the outside lane (lane 8) and started running at a pace I thought I could sustain for 20 minutes.  The good part is I did it!!!!!!!!!!!!  The bad part is that everyone lapped me once (however they were for the most part in lanes 1-4) and one women lapped me 4 times.  Yes, 4 times in 20 minutes.  So I have a ways to go on the running front.

Kevin and I try to run 3 times a week on our own.  We run for 20 minutes, walk for 5, run for another 20 minutes, walk for 5, run for a final 10 minutes and then cool down for 10 minutes.  The total distance in the 1 hour and 10 minutes is 6 miles.  The event is around 6.3 miles so I have a little more to go distance wise and well as how do I run more of it and run faster.

Now how am I ever going to be able to do all three???????????

Nutrition and Strength Training:  Kevin and I joined Club Sport in Pleasanton and we are suppose to be doing about an hour of strength training 3 times a week.  Well I haven’t been doing that at all.  So we hired a personal trainer.  The good news is he is in the process of assessing us and then will put together a program for each of us.  So far I have learned that I’m an efficient fat burner.  In all 4 stages, I burn over 50% fat, which he has never seen except in top athletes.  So one thing that I’m good at.  However, he doesn’t have a clue why I would be so good at this, given my poor nutrition and lack of exercise.  I guess good genes. 

Now on to nutrition.  I would get an F- on this.  He wants Kevin and I to cook at home and track what we eat every day.  He has given us, how many calories, fat, carbs, and protein that we have to have each day.  The only number I’m even remotely close on is fat and there I’m way above what he wants. Needless to say Kevin and I haven’t started this part of our program yet.  But our trainer, Erik seems fairly adamant about this.  So stay tuned to what do I do on the nutrition front? J

Well that is about it for now.  As you can tell I have my work cut out for me.

Once again thanks for your support. I won’t let you down.

Take Care,

Lynn